I was happy that Kennedy shone a light on the psychotropic pharmaceutical grift, but his motivations? The MAHA crowd are hardly animated by a higher ethical domain, they are driven by the same shit most politicians are: power, expedience, agenda, self-interest. Kennedy wasn't always a Republican after all -- another shapeshifting, predatory narcissist who knows which way the wind is blowing.
Harold Bourne was sent to NZ? In 1953? I guess that would be right up there with sending convicts to Australia in the good old days. He's part of a long tradition, of course, going back to Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis. Independence and dissent, so crucial to progress, always gets slammed. I'd rather engage with an obnoxious contrarian than an obedient and compliant automaton.
Looking at what you disparage: power, expedience, agenda, self-interest.
Power: I can see how power-for-the-sake-of-power is a bad thing since the underlying motivation is simply to feel noticed and important. Power by itself doesn't seem too bad: maybe the motivation is just to be able to get things done.
Expedience: Seems to suggest doing things without due regard to the rules. I agree rules are good and should be adhered to, but sometimes situations call for getting the job done in a timely way. I think we might be clearer about what is good expedience and not-good expedience.
Agenda: Hmm. People are allowed to have an agenda, surely? Perhaps the problem is that it is not stated publicly.
Self-interest: Obviously putting self-interest as top priority in all situations is a problem, but let's face it: none of us would survive if we did not consider self-interest from time to time.
It seems to me like we need more nuanced concepts to describe the behaviour we want to see.
The issue is that the 'leaders' with that power have vastly more opportunity to enact these drives than Joe Shmoe. For a society to thrive, succeed and become more egalitarian, we need those leaders to express the BEST of us all - not our worst.
We all know this innately, as children we saw the social behaviour around us, and judged.
Of course, the built-in exploitation in all our systems prefers and rewards those who express the worst side of those drives. Corporates promote power-hungry individuals who will lay-off thousands of employees just before Christmas, for a small bonus, and not blink in the lies. Party organisation prefer loyal yes-people to the existing structure than rabble-rousing genuine populists with policies that voters actually want.
Of course to some extent those drives are valuable, and even necessary. But in complex societies, where the leaderships have VASTLY more power than normal people, we need to have in place systems that select for reduced worship of those drives, and more collective thinking.
But, as stated earlier, we currently have the opposite.
Depends on what needs to be changed. If it's to change the inequitable system we live under, then the Murdoch mob will make sure that voice isn't heard. If it's to question psychiatry, then most people feel they don't know enough to argue with the "experts." It's important to spread the message that the experts are living in a castle in the sky.
I wonder whether there should be some clarity around the message so that that when the masses learn that the experts are living in the sky, they are ready and able to answer the inevitable questions:
- All experts?
- If just some experts, which ones?
- From which professions?
- What causes theses hard-working and intelligent people to become so wayward?
I appreciate that you've provided plenty of examples showing how and why psychiatry has veered off track, but Joe Schmoe will surely be asked why he fingers psychiatry as the only profession that needs reform.
This section covers critical psychiatry; the other section, Narcisso-Fascism, covers politics and international relations. I've also put my views on neoliberalism on that file, it fails for the same reason: everything they say depends on human psychology, yet they have no formal theory of psychology themselves. Their models of humans are a travesty, no wonder their theories don't work, or should I say, they work remarkably well for the wealthy, so that's why they're still in force. Imagine if neoliberalism took from the rich and distributed it, it would have been strangled at birth.
To some extent because the mind thinks thoughts it has imbibed. If Joe Shmoe's media suddenly and repeated mentioned the potential for collective action and thinking, Joe would also quickly start thinking of those things as reasonable.
ENORMOUS effort is put into controlling the information space so those ideas are never mentioned.
And when they are mentioned they are cunningly mocked with emotional appeals.
Trump's scritchy-scratchy, egomaniacal approach to everything in life is truly infectious, in the most disease-contexted way.
I'm surprised that 90% of US people have health insurance. I thought that it was optional and I've never had it in Australia, though I can probably afford it.
Your words about the clarity of diagnoses in mainstream medicine are interesting. I dont have enough experienced to make a judgement here.
Around this point in your article, I was a little lost as to where it was going.
Next, I agree with the plant diets recommendation. A good reference is nutritionfacts.org .
I dont think you explained in good detail the difference between "mainstream medicine" diagnoses and psychiatric diagnoses, especially the origins of the disparity.
Finally, I'm glad that you cited Jane Goodall's book of 1971. It's very relevant to what I refer to as the "social model of disability" which psychiatrists have ignored for far too long. She was a committed animal-kind vegan and encouraged everyone to be kind to animals.
To put it another way: How much value is there in continually flogging Donald Trump? When US residents voted last year, was their alternative choice for President an unambiguously good one?
The author is an Australian, as am I - we have our own elected leaders. Are these leaders doing the job we need them to do? If not, what can we do to help?
Trump is a godsend for commentators, he is everything we learned early in training and then some. Their system put him in place and allows him to run riot, and no, our leaders are not doing what the electorate wants but we can get rid of them much easier than in US. In UK, Starmer won a massive majority just a year ago; already there is talk of pushing him out.
Hmmm. So stepping on an aeroplane is trusting the very same positivist science that hands out dangerous drugs like candy to trial them on unsuspecting victi... patients?
Well, I suppose considerable numbers of Boeing passengers have discovered that recently.
Of course, we SHOULD be able to trust the applied scientific method - unless it has become corrupted by love of money.
It's curious the alliances that are formed when systems become corrupted, and opposition unites. I mean, the only thing that China, Russia, Iran and DPRK have in common is that their leaderships are not captured by the USA and they have to ally to oppose the US "pressure" of containment, sanctions, and threat of military attack.
I for one will NOT be accepting any mRNA drugs, whether they are called "Vaccines" or not (And thinking that a new drug just because it is called a "vaccine" it must be safe is another recent example of popular Magical Thinking), before several more decades of actual 'evidence based' research through genuinely independent facilities is done on them.
It may not be such a remarkable coincidence that all of the 'potential' ills brought up by whistleblowers in the ''GM crops' debate 30+ years ago, are now endemic in the country that most embraced GM crops.
Lobbies vs Govt - what a surprise to discover that in the "democratic" West, oligarchic wealth trumps results of mere votes.
Thanks for posting that video. I hadn't seen it before, was very interesting.
Regarding the ideological polarizations mentioned by others above: it's inevitable that those drawn to activism and being a talking head in the public square are going to magnetise strongly to the left or right. Moderate, heterodox thinkers don't seem to have the same bug up their arse and crusading sense of mission -- they're more likely to read an online Atlantic article than man the barricades.
Obviously I would prefer it if a professional deprescriber wasn't an Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden fanboy, but there you are. They're still doing valuable work. Marxists and libertarians make strange bedfellows, but I've seen that combination and collaboration a number of times in the critical psychiatry space. I find it very surreal, but perhaps inevitable. Sensible, reasonable, educated people are still sending their kids to get medicated, its like a polite, airbrushed, pharmaceutical abattoir.
It's a similar bedspace that Marxists and Anarchists share, ie very uncomfortable and on a hair trigger, lol.
(Which isn't that surprising as post-Rand 'libertarians' can be seen as half-anarchists who Rand trained to suck Corporate C**k, while being similarly suspicious of Govt.)
"it's inevitable that those drawn to activism and being a talking head in the public square are going to magnetise strongly to the left or right."
It's always been the case that most youth are drawn to more extremes; the simpler answers are appealing, the contradictions come much later with experience. Very, very few are actual Liberals, with the focus on discussion, non-demonisation of your current opponents, non-Manichaeanism, and appreciation for balance.
Tho tbh 'the Atlantic' like all mainstream Imperial "literature", can be seen as pretty extreme - especially to the victims. I doubt Iranians or Venezuelans consider ANY mainstream Western corporate outlet to be 'moderate'. And Gazans would rightly be utterly disgusted.
Perhaps that's also why both 'left and right' tired of the lamestream narratives are finding common ground. The narrational 'centre-ground' is way, wayyy off centre.
I was happy that Kennedy shone a light on the psychotropic pharmaceutical grift, but his motivations? The MAHA crowd are hardly animated by a higher ethical domain, they are driven by the same shit most politicians are: power, expedience, agenda, self-interest. Kennedy wasn't always a Republican after all -- another shapeshifting, predatory narcissist who knows which way the wind is blowing.
Harold Bourne was sent to NZ? In 1953? I guess that would be right up there with sending convicts to Australia in the good old days. He's part of a long tradition, of course, going back to Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis. Independence and dissent, so crucial to progress, always gets slammed. I'd rather engage with an obnoxious contrarian than an obedient and compliant automaton.
Looking at what you disparage: power, expedience, agenda, self-interest.
Power: I can see how power-for-the-sake-of-power is a bad thing since the underlying motivation is simply to feel noticed and important. Power by itself doesn't seem too bad: maybe the motivation is just to be able to get things done.
Expedience: Seems to suggest doing things without due regard to the rules. I agree rules are good and should be adhered to, but sometimes situations call for getting the job done in a timely way. I think we might be clearer about what is good expedience and not-good expedience.
Agenda: Hmm. People are allowed to have an agenda, surely? Perhaps the problem is that it is not stated publicly.
Self-interest: Obviously putting self-interest as top priority in all situations is a problem, but let's face it: none of us would survive if we did not consider self-interest from time to time.
It seems to me like we need more nuanced concepts to describe the behaviour we want to see.
The issue is that the 'leaders' with that power have vastly more opportunity to enact these drives than Joe Shmoe. For a society to thrive, succeed and become more egalitarian, we need those leaders to express the BEST of us all - not our worst.
We all know this innately, as children we saw the social behaviour around us, and judged.
Of course, the built-in exploitation in all our systems prefers and rewards those who express the worst side of those drives. Corporates promote power-hungry individuals who will lay-off thousands of employees just before Christmas, for a small bonus, and not blink in the lies. Party organisation prefer loyal yes-people to the existing structure than rabble-rousing genuine populists with policies that voters actually want.
Of course to some extent those drives are valuable, and even necessary. But in complex societies, where the leaderships have VASTLY more power than normal people, we need to have in place systems that select for reduced worship of those drives, and more collective thinking.
But, as stated earlier, we currently have the opposite.
Re: We need to have in place systems that select for reduced worship of those drives, and more collective thinking.
I agree completely, but I don't hear Joe Shmoes asking for leaders to change systems in this way. Why not?
Depends on what needs to be changed. If it's to change the inequitable system we live under, then the Murdoch mob will make sure that voice isn't heard. If it's to question psychiatry, then most people feel they don't know enough to argue with the "experts." It's important to spread the message that the experts are living in a castle in the sky.
I wonder whether there should be some clarity around the message so that that when the masses learn that the experts are living in the sky, they are ready and able to answer the inevitable questions:
- All experts?
- If just some experts, which ones?
- From which professions?
- What causes theses hard-working and intelligent people to become so wayward?
I appreciate that you've provided plenty of examples showing how and why psychiatry has veered off track, but Joe Schmoe will surely be asked why he fingers psychiatry as the only profession that needs reform.
This section covers critical psychiatry; the other section, Narcisso-Fascism, covers politics and international relations. I've also put my views on neoliberalism on that file, it fails for the same reason: everything they say depends on human psychology, yet they have no formal theory of psychology themselves. Their models of humans are a travesty, no wonder their theories don't work, or should I say, they work remarkably well for the wealthy, so that's why they're still in force. Imagine if neoliberalism took from the rich and distributed it, it would have been strangled at birth.
To some extent because the mind thinks thoughts it has imbibed. If Joe Shmoe's media suddenly and repeated mentioned the potential for collective action and thinking, Joe would also quickly start thinking of those things as reasonable.
ENORMOUS effort is put into controlling the information space so those ideas are never mentioned.
And when they are mentioned they are cunningly mocked with emotional appeals.
And of course, if this seems too conspiratorial, it is literally happening in real time over Gaza: https://thegrayzone.com/2025/10/06/cbs-owner-israeli-general-spy-americans/
I agree that our institutions do not encourage Joe Schmoe to think for himself.
Trump's scritchy-scratchy, egomaniacal approach to everything in life is truly infectious, in the most disease-contexted way.
I'm surprised that 90% of US people have health insurance. I thought that it was optional and I've never had it in Australia, though I can probably afford it.
Your words about the clarity of diagnoses in mainstream medicine are interesting. I dont have enough experienced to make a judgement here.
Around this point in your article, I was a little lost as to where it was going.
Next, I agree with the plant diets recommendation. A good reference is nutritionfacts.org .
I dont think you explained in good detail the difference between "mainstream medicine" diagnoses and psychiatric diagnoses, especially the origins of the disparity.
Finally, I'm glad that you cited Jane Goodall's book of 1971. It's very relevant to what I refer to as the "social model of disability" which psychiatrists have ignored for far too long. She was a committed animal-kind vegan and encouraged everyone to be kind to animals.
The voice of reason as always. I appreciate your work very much.
I agree particularly with the last two sentences:
- Change will not come from within psychiatry, it will only come from external pressure.
- This is no time to give up.
So time to collaborate on effective action, surely?
To put it another way: How much value is there in continually flogging Donald Trump? When US residents voted last year, was their alternative choice for President an unambiguously good one?
The author is an Australian, as am I - we have our own elected leaders. Are these leaders doing the job we need them to do? If not, what can we do to help?
Trump is a godsend for commentators, he is everything we learned early in training and then some. Their system put him in place and allows him to run riot, and no, our leaders are not doing what the electorate wants but we can get rid of them much easier than in US. In UK, Starmer won a massive majority just a year ago; already there is talk of pushing him out.
Hmmm. So stepping on an aeroplane is trusting the very same positivist science that hands out dangerous drugs like candy to trial them on unsuspecting victi... patients?
Well, I suppose considerable numbers of Boeing passengers have discovered that recently.
Of course, we SHOULD be able to trust the applied scientific method - unless it has become corrupted by love of money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZlZIXHT0yA
It's curious the alliances that are formed when systems become corrupted, and opposition unites. I mean, the only thing that China, Russia, Iran and DPRK have in common is that their leaderships are not captured by the USA and they have to ally to oppose the US "pressure" of containment, sanctions, and threat of military attack.
I for one will NOT be accepting any mRNA drugs, whether they are called "Vaccines" or not (And thinking that a new drug just because it is called a "vaccine" it must be safe is another recent example of popular Magical Thinking), before several more decades of actual 'evidence based' research through genuinely independent facilities is done on them.
It may not be such a remarkable coincidence that all of the 'potential' ills brought up by whistleblowers in the ''GM crops' debate 30+ years ago, are now endemic in the country that most embraced GM crops.
Lobbies vs Govt - what a surprise to discover that in the "democratic" West, oligarchic wealth trumps results of mere votes.
Thanks for posting that video. I hadn't seen it before, was very interesting.
Regarding the ideological polarizations mentioned by others above: it's inevitable that those drawn to activism and being a talking head in the public square are going to magnetise strongly to the left or right. Moderate, heterodox thinkers don't seem to have the same bug up their arse and crusading sense of mission -- they're more likely to read an online Atlantic article than man the barricades.
Obviously I would prefer it if a professional deprescriber wasn't an Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden fanboy, but there you are. They're still doing valuable work. Marxists and libertarians make strange bedfellows, but I've seen that combination and collaboration a number of times in the critical psychiatry space. I find it very surreal, but perhaps inevitable. Sensible, reasonable, educated people are still sending their kids to get medicated, its like a polite, airbrushed, pharmaceutical abattoir.
It's a similar bedspace that Marxists and Anarchists share, ie very uncomfortable and on a hair trigger, lol.
(Which isn't that surprising as post-Rand 'libertarians' can be seen as half-anarchists who Rand trained to suck Corporate C**k, while being similarly suspicious of Govt.)
"it's inevitable that those drawn to activism and being a talking head in the public square are going to magnetise strongly to the left or right."
It's always been the case that most youth are drawn to more extremes; the simpler answers are appealing, the contradictions come much later with experience. Very, very few are actual Liberals, with the focus on discussion, non-demonisation of your current opponents, non-Manichaeanism, and appreciation for balance.
Tho tbh 'the Atlantic' like all mainstream Imperial "literature", can be seen as pretty extreme - especially to the victims. I doubt Iranians or Venezuelans consider ANY mainstream Western corporate outlet to be 'moderate'. And Gazans would rightly be utterly disgusted.
Perhaps that's also why both 'left and right' tired of the lamestream narratives are finding common ground. The narrational 'centre-ground' is way, wayyy off centre.
Yeah, you're probably right about that, re: Atlantic etc.
Nice combination of psychiatry, politics, and humour.