Aug 31, 2023·edited Aug 31, 2023Liked by Rebecca Culshaw Smith
It's funny because I heard about these alternative view on AIDS and HIV from a gay couple at a party full of gay men LOL. But I wonder, wouldn't his thesis therefore also work in the reverse? Couldn't he analyze people who are unwilling to question something that's 'authorized' as the truth? Perhaps he would wonder about his inability to question something just because he was told it was the truth, because well 'it's science'.. There must be some uncomfortable aspect of human pyschology that creates people who just fall in line.
This has honestly been a big baffle to me, why so many gay men don't want to open their eyes. I actually credit my being raised in a staunch religious environment where I was told I coudn't question, that I would sin against god if I questioned, and THE TRUTH (as it was ascribed to god) was drummed into me as a kid and it was unquestionable. Of course, I did question it and the church's many truth claims, starting in my early 20s after I had been put through a so-called 'reparative therapy' program (sometimes called a pray-the-gay-away program) the church ran. I think all these things helped me to see when something was religion-like, or dogmatic in nature, and HIV/AIDS rang that bell.
People don't like having their reality questioned, it can bring a person to their knees emotionally speaking, especially when their livelyhood and income depends on a lie being true. I had to deal with a lot of that in my early 20s. It all prepared me to be open to the dogmatism of HIV. Covid has shaken a lot of people up enough to begin questioning a lot of the dogma out there in the medical world. I've never seen so much talk about virus isolation on Twitter until the past couple years.
I really appreciate this perspective! Thank you! I was also involved as a child in some religious organizations that were cult like, and I definitely agree — if you get out of it, it’s easy to recognize when you come across cult like phenomena in the wild.
i too was raised in and escaped a fundamentalist xtian cult. Was taught in my grade school church basement classrooms that Jesus would return and Rapture away all beLIEvers “in the twinkling of an eye” and that based on end-times prophecy that was going to happen before i graduated high school. Graduated public school in 1983. One year later we were all told that a newly discovered retrovirus called “hiv” was going to “explode into the general population”, some said “infecting one in five heterosexuals by 1990”. Neither prophecy has come true. If you only beLIEve something because it is all you have been unquestioningly taught since childhood is the truth and you are unable to demonstrate comprehension of your beLIEf while you reject but can not refute real science, extensively researched fact and verifiable data that challenges and refutes your beLIEf how is your beLIEf anything other than a religion?
Henry Bauer blogged at the time about his interactions with Mr. K., which were pretty funny. Rebecca, you were not at the 2009 Oakland conference, right? I'm sure I would have bumped into you there if you were. Anyway, there was another gentleman there who had read K's book and was telling me that it "almost advocated violence" against denialists. Was that your impression?
I'm sure the book is a hoot, but can't really bring myself to read it.
Turns out an 'anti-HIV' drug, Ritonavir, is being used to 'treat' covid and is also being used as a placebo arm in a study on long covid. They're using it as a PLACEBO! Here's a video by a physician who goes over the study, which he calls a 'scam long-covid study'. Fascinating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4NqsU-Dk9A
Thomas S. Szasz, M.D.: Born in Budapest in 1920 and came to the USA when he was eighteen. He took his B.A. and M.D. degrees at the University of Cincinnati, his psychiatric training at the University of Chicago, and his psychoanalytic training at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis.
Thomas Szasz: The Myth of Psychotherapy- Mental Healing as Religion, Rhetoric, and Repression. copyright 1978, 1988.
Also, The Myth of Mental Illness. The Manufacture of Madness. The Theraputic State. Psychiatric Slavery. The Theology of Medicine. Sex by Prescription. Ideology and Insanity.
It's funny because I heard about these alternative view on AIDS and HIV from a gay couple at a party full of gay men LOL. But I wonder, wouldn't his thesis therefore also work in the reverse? Couldn't he analyze people who are unwilling to question something that's 'authorized' as the truth? Perhaps he would wonder about his inability to question something just because he was told it was the truth, because well 'it's science'.. There must be some uncomfortable aspect of human pyschology that creates people who just fall in line.
This has honestly been a big baffle to me, why so many gay men don't want to open their eyes. I actually credit my being raised in a staunch religious environment where I was told I coudn't question, that I would sin against god if I questioned, and THE TRUTH (as it was ascribed to god) was drummed into me as a kid and it was unquestionable. Of course, I did question it and the church's many truth claims, starting in my early 20s after I had been put through a so-called 'reparative therapy' program (sometimes called a pray-the-gay-away program) the church ran. I think all these things helped me to see when something was religion-like, or dogmatic in nature, and HIV/AIDS rang that bell.
People don't like having their reality questioned, it can bring a person to their knees emotionally speaking, especially when their livelyhood and income depends on a lie being true. I had to deal with a lot of that in my early 20s. It all prepared me to be open to the dogmatism of HIV. Covid has shaken a lot of people up enough to begin questioning a lot of the dogma out there in the medical world. I've never seen so much talk about virus isolation on Twitter until the past couple years.
I really appreciate this perspective! Thank you! I was also involved as a child in some religious organizations that were cult like, and I definitely agree — if you get out of it, it’s easy to recognize when you come across cult like phenomena in the wild.
i too was raised in and escaped a fundamentalist xtian cult. Was taught in my grade school church basement classrooms that Jesus would return and Rapture away all beLIEvers “in the twinkling of an eye” and that based on end-times prophecy that was going to happen before i graduated high school. Graduated public school in 1983. One year later we were all told that a newly discovered retrovirus called “hiv” was going to “explode into the general population”, some said “infecting one in five heterosexuals by 1990”. Neither prophecy has come true. If you only beLIEve something because it is all you have been unquestioningly taught since childhood is the truth and you are unable to demonstrate comprehension of your beLIEf while you reject but can not refute real science, extensively researched fact and verifiable data that challenges and refutes your beLIEf how is your beLIEf anything other than a religion?
Aloha Rebecca,
Thanks for the mini book review.
The greater the denial, the greater the truth. The greater truth, the greater the Denial.
The greater the truth, the greater the denial. The greater the denial, the greater the Truth.
From above, chose one, or both… Lantern Cove...
Henry Bauer blogged at the time about his interactions with Mr. K., which were pretty funny. Rebecca, you were not at the 2009 Oakland conference, right? I'm sure I would have bumped into you there if you were. Anyway, there was another gentleman there who had read K's book and was telling me that it "almost advocated violence" against denialists. Was that your impression?
I'm sure the book is a hoot, but can't really bring myself to read it.
Turns out an 'anti-HIV' drug, Ritonavir, is being used to 'treat' covid and is also being used as a placebo arm in a study on long covid. They're using it as a PLACEBO! Here's a video by a physician who goes over the study, which he calls a 'scam long-covid study'. Fascinating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4NqsU-Dk9A
Thomas S. Szasz, M.D.: Born in Budapest in 1920 and came to the USA when he was eighteen. He took his B.A. and M.D. degrees at the University of Cincinnati, his psychiatric training at the University of Chicago, and his psychoanalytic training at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis.
Thomas Szasz: The Myth of Psychotherapy- Mental Healing as Religion, Rhetoric, and Repression. copyright 1978, 1988.
Also, The Myth of Mental Illness. The Manufacture of Madness. The Theraputic State. Psychiatric Slavery. The Theology of Medicine. Sex by Prescription. Ideology and Insanity.