I was going to say something along the same lines, and I'm sure a lot of people have the same thoughts. We might consider that Malone is a good but flawed human being, and his attack on Breggin has done much damage.
What the MFM seems to miss is: Breggin is/was 100% correct about Desmet, who is a key figure in the Breggin/Malone rift. And…
I was going to say something along the same lines, and I'm sure a lot of people have the same thoughts. We might consider that Malone is a good but flawed human being, and his attack on Breggin has done much damage.
What the MFM seems to miss is: Breggin is/was 100% correct about Desmet, who is a key figure in the Breggin/Malone rift. And Breggin had been in this fight when many of us were in diapers.
We can disagree, we can debate, we can hopefully be civil and respectful to each other while working toward a larger goal that has many components we might have different takes on. But that lawsuit was just plain nasty. And trust me on this: as a matter of logic and historical experience, Breggin is right about Desmet's theory.
Totalitarianism begins in censorship and propaganda. Burn that sentence into your minds. It NEVER begins with the "mechanistic thinking" of society, which is largely a fiction Desmet invented to make his theory of the mechanism of ideology work. I've written extensively on this.
If we want to compare what happened during Covid to what Arendt wrote about then we'd be better off understanding the one single idea whose logic was promoted by the censors and propagandists, to the exclusion of everything else: "stay safe." Then what happened fits in nicely with Arendt's analysis of the origin of totalitarianism, and with what we know about the attempt to install what Kheriaty called the "biomedical security state."
Mass formation was induced during Covid. It didn't arise from within the masses themselves. 24/7 propaganda promoted the fear porn and the stay safe ideology.
When Alex Berenson "attacked" Malone by saying his role as prime creator/inventor of the mRNA technology was "greatly exaggerated", Malone totally wigged out on his Substack. He literally compared himself to Socrates.
He himself was injured by one of his jabs, but was oddly silent about that. Something about that guy is pretty shifty. And the lawsuit against Breggin was so out of bounds!
He wasn’t silent about his shot injury. He spoke about having an immediate reaction to the shot. About the lawsuit, if someone comes at you spewing hatred and trying to silence you, why wouldn’t you turn it on them ?
Breggin wasn't spewing hatred. As a psychiatrist with years of experience and having fought against pharma well before Malone was in the game, Breggin was criticizing Desmet's theory of mass formation caused by the mechanistic thinking of the people themselves. This theory is frankly nonsense, and Breggin called BS. Malone, closely allied with Desmet and promoting his theory, didn't like that. Hence the lawsuit, which he lost because it was frivolous.
Mass formation can be, and was, induced during Covid, deliberately by conspirators who wanted to do so to usher in a "new normal." Desmet denies this, but he can't really deny it because it happened, so he uses the expression that there was "manipulation" but no conspiracy. In other words, he waffled to save his theory. Desmet's ideas are confused. His theory literally makes no sense. Breggin was correct.
I basically understand what you are saying Jim, but hey it is just a damn theory. A theory! Regardless of your opinion that "Oh, believe me Breggin was right"; correctness is irrelevant. The problem is not who is right / wrong but who attacked publicly with NO provocation?! and attacked someone in the SAME positive movement to help humanity instead of tear it down. . .
It was totally unnecessary that Breggin attack Malone publicly when he could have done so privately.
No, correctness isn't irrelevant. Should we be living under the political theory of collectivism? Or of individual self-determination?
Should we believe the theory that the world is flat?
Should we believe, and act upon, the theory that children who question their identity are "gender dysphoric" and should be treated with hormones against their parents' wishes or consent? I know for a fact that this actually happens in at least one state, unbelievable as it is, and it happens because of a theory.
Does it matter that so many believe in the pseudoscience of CO2 catastrophe? That theory has enormous consequences in our world.
Desmet's theory is in fact tailor-made for a soft totalitarian world in which we own nothing but are happy. Why? Because it focuses our attention on our own psychology and away from the political reality of conspirators wishing to monitor and manage all of humanity. Yet totalitarianism isn't a psychological problem; it's decidedly a political problem, one of who has power and how much.
Breggin had a duty, I'd argue, to warn the rest of us about Desmet's pseudo-psychology and was therefore justified in writing publicly. If Malone had any logic to counter Breggin, he could've presented it. But since Desmet's theory is full of contradictions, no logic could be found; hence the lawsuit to try to silence Breggin.
but, yep, I get it. I am not so idealistic at the fine points of totalitarianism.
I just thought that way too big a deal was made over a theory. . . 98% of the population have no clue about the theory OR, moreso, the nuance you describe; so, even if Desmet's theory was taken to heart it would have virtually NO effect on events or history. I agree Breggin's is "correct" in principal; but surely not in diplomacy.
Regardless, apparently Breggin's DID "shut up", even if they had no consequences.
I still come down onto this platform:
-- this could have been settled with an email / phone discussion between two highly visible professionals instead of embarassing one.
-- once the point was broached there was no way Malone could back down without losing face; public afront . . . what to do? sue and claim being wronged; apparently is what his attorney suggested.
-- Malone must have felt not only his integrity but also his business was in jeopardy to go this far, even if false. He perceived it.
-- Both these guys are on the same damn side. United we MUST stand.
I agree that we must be united on the overall goals of medical freedom and turning back the massive bureaucratic state. The Desmet/Malone dispute is a minor point in all this.
But as I said in another comment, if we were to fall into a soft totalitarianism wherein we were happy and owned nothing and were constantly surveilled, Desmet's theory would be perfect for the authorities to claim that conspiracy thinking was dangerous to our democracy. I know that Desmet doesn't believe that, but his thinking is so confused that the theory can be used to justify psychological handling of dissenters from the system. Desmet explicitly says that conspiracy thinking itself can lead to mass formation.
Breggin acted appropriately and did what any professional should have done when confronted with a theory that was an affront to historical experience. Malone, on the other hand, instead of admitting Breggin's points or agreeing to disagree, bore down on defending Desmet and instigated a lawsuit against someone whose integrity and commitment to medical freedom stand as beacons.
The only "wrong" done here was Malone's vicious attack on Breggin et al, and a refusal to accept that maybe he was a bit mistaken about Desmet.
All of this has spurred me on to compare and contrast Desmet and Arendt, whose work Desmet uses to confirm his theory. But what Arendt says and what Desmet says are two different things.
He didn't speak out about the dangers of the jabs. He wanted credit as the inventor, and even that was something of a distortion in that he was one of the inventors named on the patent, not THE inventor. He wanted it both ways: full credit for the invention but not blame for the destruction.
Breggin didn't come “spewing hatred”. Part of life is being willing to take consequences of your public claims and Malone's suit is just as much trying to “silence” Breggin. My impression of Malone is that he has a massive ego and isn't to be fully trusted.
Breggin had no reason to provoke a highly qualified scientist with claim to this technology. Malone did not attack Breggin originally, he just agreed with another guy on the other side of the pond. Malone never did anything to Breggin, why the public animus? How could it affect Malone's reputation and livelihood? It is absolutely normal in scientific groups to allow all associated with the technology be ON the patent.
Breggin probably never paid a damn dime to Malone; simply agreed to shut the hell up.
Breggin was simply pointing out that the mass formation hypothesis of Desmet, endorsed by Malone, made no sense. The point of the lawsuit was, as you say, to make Breggin "shut the hell up," that is, to censor Breggin's criticism of the Malone/Desmet mass formation thesis. That the lawsuit was an attempt at censoring criticism was what made it so sickening for many of us (not to mention that it was for $25 million and against someone long critical of psychiatric abuses.)
Sorry, if you did not figure out in a short time that the whole thing was a scam with the only purpose to harm you, then you are an idiot hiding behind other idiots, instead of thinking with your own head. So you are not a shinning beacon of intelligence like the people who figured it out from the start.
I have looked into Desmet and I agree that there are issues with the way he wrote in his book. Lots of good points, but also carrying water for the elites. When I challenged him, politely and just a little, on his stack, he never responded. He challenged Ginger Breggin to discuss with him, and when she answered somewhere else, he did not "seem to notice." I am careful around that one. Still hoping he may have something useful to say about sincere speech but so far I have not seen it.
Desmet says a lot of things I agree with. Not torturing animals for medical research, for example. His ideas of loneliness are good although maybe exaggerated. But his theory of the origin of totalitarianism is confused and doesn't reflect what really happened during Covid.
Totalitarianism begins in censorship and propaganda, not in Desmet's "mechanistic thinking." Censorship and propaganda are done to induce "mass formation," deliberately. Desmet says that totalitarianism arises organically from the masses themselves. No, it doesn't.
What I disliked about Desmet's "mass formation psychosis" theory is it reduces other people to "masses". "Masses" is possibly the ugliest most dehumanizing term you can use to describe people, who are individuals. It seems to me that to guys like Desmet, you're a "mass" if you're doing something he doesn't like. Guys like Marx and Lenin and their true believers thought of people in terms of "masses".
Co-author of "Just a little Prick" and "From One Prick to another". Thank you for the complement. Fortunately, history doesn't change, so while the book is nearly 20 years old, the contents are still valid.
Stay safe... It made me feel like puking when I'd hear that. Oh yeah, I'll spend my life huddled in my underground bunker and be so very safe. And conveniently, an NPC, as far as the authorities are concerned.
I was going to say something along the same lines, and I'm sure a lot of people have the same thoughts. We might consider that Malone is a good but flawed human being, and his attack on Breggin has done much damage.
What the MFM seems to miss is: Breggin is/was 100% correct about Desmet, who is a key figure in the Breggin/Malone rift. And Breggin had been in this fight when many of us were in diapers.
We can disagree, we can debate, we can hopefully be civil and respectful to each other while working toward a larger goal that has many components we might have different takes on. But that lawsuit was just plain nasty. And trust me on this: as a matter of logic and historical experience, Breggin is right about Desmet's theory.
Totalitarianism begins in censorship and propaganda. Burn that sentence into your minds. It NEVER begins with the "mechanistic thinking" of society, which is largely a fiction Desmet invented to make his theory of the mechanism of ideology work. I've written extensively on this.
If we want to compare what happened during Covid to what Arendt wrote about then we'd be better off understanding the one single idea whose logic was promoted by the censors and propagandists, to the exclusion of everything else: "stay safe." Then what happened fits in nicely with Arendt's analysis of the origin of totalitarianism, and with what we know about the attempt to install what Kheriaty called the "biomedical security state."
Mass formation was induced during Covid. It didn't arise from within the masses themselves. 24/7 propaganda promoted the fear porn and the stay safe ideology.
Because of the lawsuit against Breggin, I would NEVER fully trust Malone. And, since it is so egregious I can't understand why anyone else trusts him.
I go by "by their fruits ye shall know them." And many of Malone's fruits are positive.
Either/or thinking has its limitations.
When Alex Berenson "attacked" Malone by saying his role as prime creator/inventor of the mRNA technology was "greatly exaggerated", Malone totally wigged out on his Substack. He literally compared himself to Socrates.
He himself was injured by one of his jabs, but was oddly silent about that. Something about that guy is pretty shifty. And the lawsuit against Breggin was so out of bounds!
He wasn’t silent about his shot injury. He spoke about having an immediate reaction to the shot. About the lawsuit, if someone comes at you spewing hatred and trying to silence you, why wouldn’t you turn it on them ?
Breggin wasn't spewing hatred. As a psychiatrist with years of experience and having fought against pharma well before Malone was in the game, Breggin was criticizing Desmet's theory of mass formation caused by the mechanistic thinking of the people themselves. This theory is frankly nonsense, and Breggin called BS. Malone, closely allied with Desmet and promoting his theory, didn't like that. Hence the lawsuit, which he lost because it was frivolous.
Mass formation can be, and was, induced during Covid, deliberately by conspirators who wanted to do so to usher in a "new normal." Desmet denies this, but he can't really deny it because it happened, so he uses the expression that there was "manipulation" but no conspiracy. In other words, he waffled to save his theory. Desmet's ideas are confused. His theory literally makes no sense. Breggin was correct.
I basically understand what you are saying Jim, but hey it is just a damn theory. A theory! Regardless of your opinion that "Oh, believe me Breggin was right"; correctness is irrelevant. The problem is not who is right / wrong but who attacked publicly with NO provocation?! and attacked someone in the SAME positive movement to help humanity instead of tear it down. . .
It was totally unnecessary that Breggin attack Malone publicly when he could have done so privately.
No, correctness isn't irrelevant. Should we be living under the political theory of collectivism? Or of individual self-determination?
Should we believe the theory that the world is flat?
Should we believe, and act upon, the theory that children who question their identity are "gender dysphoric" and should be treated with hormones against their parents' wishes or consent? I know for a fact that this actually happens in at least one state, unbelievable as it is, and it happens because of a theory.
Does it matter that so many believe in the pseudoscience of CO2 catastrophe? That theory has enormous consequences in our world.
Desmet's theory is in fact tailor-made for a soft totalitarian world in which we own nothing but are happy. Why? Because it focuses our attention on our own psychology and away from the political reality of conspirators wishing to monitor and manage all of humanity. Yet totalitarianism isn't a psychological problem; it's decidedly a political problem, one of who has power and how much.
Breggin had a duty, I'd argue, to warn the rest of us about Desmet's pseudo-psychology and was therefore justified in writing publicly. If Malone had any logic to counter Breggin, he could've presented it. But since Desmet's theory is full of contradictions, no logic could be found; hence the lawsuit to try to silence Breggin.
Thanks, did not know the end result.
but, yep, I get it. I am not so idealistic at the fine points of totalitarianism.
I just thought that way too big a deal was made over a theory. . . 98% of the population have no clue about the theory OR, moreso, the nuance you describe; so, even if Desmet's theory was taken to heart it would have virtually NO effect on events or history. I agree Breggin's is "correct" in principal; but surely not in diplomacy.
Regardless, apparently Breggin's DID "shut up", even if they had no consequences.
I still come down onto this platform:
-- this could have been settled with an email / phone discussion between two highly visible professionals instead of embarassing one.
-- once the point was broached there was no way Malone could back down without losing face; public afront . . . what to do? sue and claim being wronged; apparently is what his attorney suggested.
-- Malone must have felt not only his integrity but also his business was in jeopardy to go this far, even if false. He perceived it.
-- Both these guys are on the same damn side. United we MUST stand.
I agree that we must be united on the overall goals of medical freedom and turning back the massive bureaucratic state. The Desmet/Malone dispute is a minor point in all this.
But as I said in another comment, if we were to fall into a soft totalitarianism wherein we were happy and owned nothing and were constantly surveilled, Desmet's theory would be perfect for the authorities to claim that conspiracy thinking was dangerous to our democracy. I know that Desmet doesn't believe that, but his thinking is so confused that the theory can be used to justify psychological handling of dissenters from the system. Desmet explicitly says that conspiracy thinking itself can lead to mass formation.
Breggin acted appropriately and did what any professional should have done when confronted with a theory that was an affront to historical experience. Malone, on the other hand, instead of admitting Breggin's points or agreeing to disagree, bore down on defending Desmet and instigated a lawsuit against someone whose integrity and commitment to medical freedom stand as beacons.
The only "wrong" done here was Malone's vicious attack on Breggin et al, and a refusal to accept that maybe he was a bit mistaken about Desmet.
All of this has spurred me on to compare and contrast Desmet and Arendt, whose work Desmet uses to confirm his theory. But what Arendt says and what Desmet says are two different things.
He didn't speak out about the dangers of the jabs. He wanted credit as the inventor, and even that was something of a distortion in that he was one of the inventors named on the patent, not THE inventor. He wanted it both ways: full credit for the invention but not blame for the destruction.
Breggin didn't come “spewing hatred”. Part of life is being willing to take consequences of your public claims and Malone's suit is just as much trying to “silence” Breggin. My impression of Malone is that he has a massive ego and isn't to be fully trusted.
Breggin had no reason to provoke a highly qualified scientist with claim to this technology. Malone did not attack Breggin originally, he just agreed with another guy on the other side of the pond. Malone never did anything to Breggin, why the public animus? How could it affect Malone's reputation and livelihood? It is absolutely normal in scientific groups to allow all associated with the technology be ON the patent.
Breggin probably never paid a damn dime to Malone; simply agreed to shut the hell up.
In case you missed it, Malone lost the lawsuit, and the judge warned him off pursuing other frivolous lawsuits. https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/congratulations-peter-and-ginger
The actual court decision, reiterated later in a request that Malone pay Breggin's attorney's fee (denied) is here: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/virginia/vawdce/3:2022cv00063/126794/77/ To wit, on March 27, 2024, the judge dismissed the case against the Breggins for lack of jurisdiction.
Breggin was simply pointing out that the mass formation hypothesis of Desmet, endorsed by Malone, made no sense. The point of the lawsuit was, as you say, to make Breggin "shut the hell up," that is, to censor Breggin's criticism of the Malone/Desmet mass formation thesis. That the lawsuit was an attempt at censoring criticism was what made it so sickening for many of us (not to mention that it was for $25 million and against someone long critical of psychiatric abuses.)
LOL, so he is an idiot too allowing himself to be jabbed ..
Why anybody even listens to what this guy is saying..
Others took the jab and then had regrets. That does not make them idiots. An idiot would not come forward to expose the government for what it did.
Sorry, if you did not figure out in a short time that the whole thing was a scam with the only purpose to harm you, then you are an idiot hiding behind other idiots, instead of thinking with your own head. So you are not a shinning beacon of intelligence like the people who figured it out from the start.
And he was silent about that injury until the jab damage was already widespread and it was less unacceptable to point out the dangers.
I have looked into Desmet and I agree that there are issues with the way he wrote in his book. Lots of good points, but also carrying water for the elites. When I challenged him, politely and just a little, on his stack, he never responded. He challenged Ginger Breggin to discuss with him, and when she answered somewhere else, he did not "seem to notice." I am careful around that one. Still hoping he may have something useful to say about sincere speech but so far I have not seen it.
Desmet says a lot of things I agree with. Not torturing animals for medical research, for example. His ideas of loneliness are good although maybe exaggerated. But his theory of the origin of totalitarianism is confused and doesn't reflect what really happened during Covid.
Totalitarianism begins in censorship and propaganda, not in Desmet's "mechanistic thinking." Censorship and propaganda are done to induce "mass formation," deliberately. Desmet says that totalitarianism arises organically from the masses themselves. No, it doesn't.
What I disliked about Desmet's "mass formation psychosis" theory is it reduces other people to "masses". "Masses" is possibly the ugliest most dehumanizing term you can use to describe people, who are individuals. It seems to me that to guys like Desmet, you're a "mass" if you're doing something he doesn't like. Guys like Marx and Lenin and their true believers thought of people in terms of "masses".
I agree.
This is not the only Malone's transgression.
At best his is just a narcissist unable to take any ctitique (while being wrong).
At worst he is controlled opposition with the goal to fool and splinter the community.
"Stay safe" and "be kind". I agree with your assessment above ....
My God are you Hilary Butler the author? Your book is so great!
Co-author of "Just a little Prick" and "From One Prick to another". Thank you for the complement. Fortunately, history doesn't change, so while the book is nearly 20 years old, the contents are still valid.
never read the book but what a great title!
Maybe I will some day.
Stay safe... It made me feel like puking when I'd hear that. Oh yeah, I'll spend my life huddled in my underground bunker and be so very safe. And conveniently, an NPC, as far as the authorities are concerned.
I have resolved to respond to "stay safe" by saying "stay adventurous." :-)