Chauncey DeVega: Trump is mentally ill but our real sickness runs much deeper
NB: What was true about the capitalist system for a long time, has now been shoved under our noses: science is good as long as it promotes profit-making, it becomes 'fake', 'anti-national' etc. when it undermines corporate profit and the military-industrial complex. DS
Sick societies normalize the aberrant and abhorrent behavior of their leaders and other elites. This behavior in turn becomes a type of pathology the infects the general public
Sick societies normalize the aberrant and abhorrent behavior of their leaders and other elites. This behavior in turn becomes a type of pathology the infects the general public
The “disimagination
machine” is both a set of cultural apparatuses extending from schools and
mainstream media to the new sites of screen culture, and a public pedagogy that
functions primarily to undermine the ability of individuals to think
critically, imagine the unimaginable, and engage in thoughtful and critical
dialogue: put simply, to become critically informed citizens of the world…. The rise of the Tea
Party and the renewal of the culture wars have resulted in a Republican Party
which is now considered the party of anti-science
Last week, Dr. Bandy Lee, a professor of psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine and editor of the bestselling book”The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” told Salon that Nancy Pelosi could have Donald Trump involuntarily evaluated, because he may be a threat to public safety: As a coworker, she has the right to have him submit to an involuntary evaluation, but she has not…. Anyone can call 911 to report someone who seems dangerous, and family members are the most typical ones to do so. But so can coworkers, and even passersby on the street. The law dictates who can determine right to treatment, or civil commitment, and in all 50 U.S. states this includes a psychiatrist. The advantage of a coworker starting this process is that a court can mandate a mental capacity evaluation before the dangerous person returns to work. The committing physician is preferably the patient’s treater, but does not have to be.
Predictably, Lee’s
suggestion became the outrage of the day across the right-wing disinformation
echo chamber. But she is clearly not alone in her concerns about Donald Trump. Lee is one of many
hundreds of prominent mental health experts, historians, attorneys, and other
professionals who since 2016 have tried to sound the alarm about the dire
threat that Donald Trump and his regime represent to America and the world....read more:
https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/trump-is-mentally-ill-but-our-real-sickness-runs-much-deeper/Is Donald Trump the Second 9/11? Or Is He the Third? By Tom Engelhardt
A whiff of evil