(Author note: I'm back in the archives and will be in there for a while as the 20th anniversary of Turtle's Voice grows nearer. This article was published in The American Chronicle on 1/16/08 under the title of The War on Thought and Individualism. I've removed the links because there are all dead now, lots of things have disappeared off the Internet in the last couple decades. This article is a little dated as hardly anyone relies on newspapers for information these days, but it's definitely worth sharing again.)
What is truth? Is it only what appears on the cable news networks, the national evening news or in the mainstream newspapers? Does truth only become truth when it is checked and approved and then put before the masses? What if that approved truth doesn’t answer all the questions or perhaps even raises new ones, is it still the truth? And what about those people with the lingering doubts over the official story, are they insane or just troublemakers?
President Bush, in a speech before the United Nations on November 11th, 2001, said, “Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th; malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty.” I didn’t hear this speech when it was made and at the time I fully believed what the television had shown me, but had I heard his words I would have sought out information on the conspiracy theories he mentioned because I’m a curious person. Perhaps being curious isn’t very popular today, perhaps curiosity is a threat. People tend to label and categorize, I suppose it makes us feel secure and a lot of people believe that conspiracy theorists are crazy, ill informed or even potentially dangerous, but what if they just like things to make sense?
I think one of my greatest downfalls in this life is that I expect things to make sense, I like to understand the rhyme and reason of things and to do that, I have to look at all possible explanations, not just one. And I figure, mixed up in all those ideas and propaganda, the truth can be found. But I fear that a day will come when curiosity is no longer tolerated, and thinking outside of the approved box will no longer be permitted.
In 2004 issue of Psychology Today, Kathleen McGowan has written an article entitled “Conspiracy Theories Explained” and the subtitle states, “Random events are deeply meaningful to paranoid schizophrenics. Is something happening in their brains?” The article begins, “Paranoid schizophrenics are prone to delusions, tales in which random events become deeply meaningful. Some believe in complex conspiracies; others think they are Jesus Christ.” And then it continues to explain the research of Shitij Kapur, professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto and vice president of research at the Canadian Center for Addiction and Mental Health, in relation to the role of dopamine in addiction and schizophrenia. The body of the article does not mention conspiracy theories again, but the implication is pretty clear, people who question the official line are paranoid schizophrenics.
The definition of conspiracy is an agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act and conspiracies are as old as mankind. On the lighter side of conspiracy we have practical jokes and high school pranks, on the darker side we have events like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. And in it’s most accepted form we see it in business as one corporation plots to overtake another, but we don’t call that conspiracy, that is considered ‘just business’.
It’s interesting to me how we often hear of the little guy being arrested for suspicion of committing conspiracy, but somehow we believe that when large groups of powerful people unite there can be no conspiracy. Even presidential candidate and former first lady, Hillary Clinton, claimed the idea of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” to defend her husband Bill during the Whitewater scandal, so am I to assume that she is a paranoid schizophrenic?
Am I to assume that anyone who believes that conspiracies exist may be insane? Would that include Woodrow Wilson, who stated, “A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.” Or James Madison, who said, "History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and it's issuance". Or Winston Churchill, who stated his believe that, “Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but usually manages to pick himself up, walk over or around it, and carry on.” Even the Bible points out that those in power will conspire in Eph. 6:12, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high [places].”
Conspiracies do exist, but not all conspiracy theories are truth, although many make for quite an entertaining read, true or not. So what are we left to think when our leaders, both past and present, have spoken of conspiracy as an actual issue in society and government, but the psychiatric community sees it as delusional thinking? Could it be that the psychiatric community is far more concerned about social control, easily counted bean drawers, and power than it is about mental health and truth? Could the hand holding between the pharmaceutical companies and the psychiatric communities be a conspiracy to keep Americans compliant, consuming, and easily controlled? Is the drugging of over 8 million American children with minimally tested psychotropic drugs considered ‘just business’?
Many speak of the war against terrorism and the war on drugs, but perhaps the only real battlefield exists here at home, the war waged against thought and individualism and the weapons of choice are psychiatry, propaganda, and pharmaceuticals. The American Psychiatric Association is busily adding new entries into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR), these additions aren’t developed through research or discovery of known pathology, but simply by member vote and some of the newest mental disorders include Social Phobia, Mathematics Disorder, Disorder of Written Expression and Reading Disorder. At the rate the APA is going, soon no one in America will be considered sane and I am beginning to wonder if one day mental illness treatment will be mandatory, much like the vaccines for childhood illnesses are mandatory today.
The simple fact of the matter is that people think and perceive things differently due to a myriad of reasons, including upbringing, culture, and experience, and that used to be the beauty of being an American, but now it seems that the APA, in hand with other organizations, want to weed out those who are different and medicate them. Is it because those differences imply mental illness? Or could it be that those differences create money in the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies, a solid customer base for the psychiatric communities, and a compliant citizenship for the rulers of the American government?
As always, keep seeking.
