OPERATION: MINDCRIME
Documentary exposes the dark side of the psychiatry industry
BY JARRET KEENE
Sure, they can Swift Boat a hapless Massachusetts liberal like John Kerry with a commercial or two. But even conservatives must admit they�re seriously lacking when it comes to producing good, interesting or just plain watch-able documentaries. The exception to the rule of miserable anti-Michael Moore screeds seems to be Libertarian filmmaker Aaron Russo. (Every so-called patriot should be required to view his latest movie, America: From Freedom to Fascism, during tax season.) Russo aside, the only doc you�ll find with an appearance by Texas Congressman (and Republican presidential candidate) Ron Paul is a movie produced by people who believe in space aliens.
That�s right: we said space aliens.
See, the Church of Scientology is behind an organization called the Citizens Commission on Human Rights. Last year, the CCHR opened a museum in Hollywood, Calif., called Psychiatry: An Industry of Death, and simultaneously released a DVD of the same name. The media smarmily panned both. Problem is, if anybody had bothered to sit through the DVD, they might�ve learned something. We sure did.
Well, in all honesty, we had already encountered bits and pieces of the film�s content in everything from Ken Kesey�s brilliant novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo�s Nest (and in Milo Forman�s equally brilliant movie adaptation starring Jack Nicholson), as well as in the writings of French philosopher Michel Foucault. Indeed, one would expect the Left to love Psychiatry: An Industry of Death because it reinforces the notion that people diagnosed with mental illness are being increasingly controlled by (in this case, pharmaceutical) corporations aligned with world governments. What this Scientology-backed project seeks to prove is that psychiatrists are foot soldiers in the eradication of human liberty.
If this sounds like a sci-fi narrative worthy of L. Ron Hubbard himself, think again. The facts presented are staggering. Take, for instance, the number of school children prescribed stimulants and anti-depressants: 17 million. When you consider that there�s absolutely no diagnostic, chemical or scientific test to prove someone has a mental illness, it�s amazing how quickly parents turn their brood into little pill-poppers.
But the fact that really wallops: �In the past four decades, nearly twice as many Americans have died in government psychiatric hospitals than in all U.S. wars since 1776.� Even though insurance companies pay out $69 billion every year for psychiatric services, thereby doubling insurance premiums, no one who suffers from mental illness is ever cured. How does this industry rake in $2 trillion annually?
Not only that, but psychiatrists dream up new illnesses. As Dr. Thomas Szasz (author of The Myth of Mental Illness) points out: �If you smoke too much, it�s a disease. If you�re too unhappy, it�s a disease. If you�re too thin, it�s a disease. If you�re too fat, it�s a disease.� Naturally, since governments protect us (cough!), they work in tandem with the psychiatric industry to identify these traits as symptoms of mental illness. Then they go to work, stripping us of our rights �drugging, electro-shocking, institutionalizing and (most importantly) taxing us to death. The scientific and medical establishments have their own share of cruel incompetence, but at least they actually cure people from time to time.
An Industry of Death covers psychiatry�s beginnings in the 1700s, when headshrinkers figured out how to trick taxpayers into financing the construction of mental institutions in England. From there, we learn about behavioral scientists� efforts to redefine man as nothing more than a glorified animal. Eugenics and its theoretical justification of Nazism are also illuminated. The documentary goes so far as to blame psychiatry for racism, the Holocaust and Communist Russia�s evil treatment of political prisoners.
We all have friends and family who swear they�ve benefited from psychiatric treatment and pharmaceuticals. We believe them. Still, An Industry of Death, despite its Scientology backing, is a must-see. Maybe if the doc had actually cast Tom Cruise and some space aliens we�d all be watching it at the corner multiplex!
For more info, go to www.cchr.org/documentary
