Occupy Chicago promoting Scientology video

Occupy Chicago promoting Scientology video? It’s more likely than you think.

Occupy Chicago posted an interesting tweet:

Making a Killing: The Untold Story of Psychotropic Drugging – Full Movie (Documentary) 99getsmart.com/?p=2930

—
Occupy Chicago (@OccupyChicago) August 12, 2012

While many may perhaps legitimately question whether psychiatric drugs are always appropriately used or prescribed, and note that there are often side effects, that is not all that this video is saying. This video buys into the “secret cabal” theory that all psychiatrists are evil and seeking to drug and control the world, that psychiatry is an imagined science.   Indeed,  truther material at its most rabid.

Sounds a bit like Tom Cruise on an anti-psychiatry rant, doesn’t it? Remember his Matt Lauer rant about Brooke Shields?

There’s a reason that this sounds Tom Cruise-ish.

The video is from the “Citizen’s Commission on Human Rights” or “CCHR”, a Scientology front group.  In CCHR -land, 9/11 was a plot by psychiatrists. According to them, Ayman Al Zawahiri, one of the 9/11 masterminds, was  a psychiatrist. Of course, he wasn’t, but why quibble over facts? They also blame the Holocaust on psychiatrists.

Here’s Tom Cruise at a CCHR event:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are reasons that this thought process might have a resonance with some in Occupy.

There has always been a truther element within Occupy, hence the belief that the evil 1% control the world and oppress them all.

Also, in addition to the “professional activist”, another population within Occupy is often the mentally ill/homeless.  A population poorly served in general society, some might find the anti-drug, anti psychiatrist rhetoric appealing.

Occupy Chicago is not the only Occupy with an apparent issue with psychiatry. Occupy Toronto apparently also has an issue, with Occupy Psychiatry events, and having a relationship with CAPA, the Coalition Against Psychiatric Abuse.  It is not clear if Occupy Toronto’s views are as extreme as those represented in the video posted by Occupy Chicago. Certainly, there is a difference between fighting abuses and demonizing a groups of people or a profession.

What makes this all rather ironic is that it was Anonymous that since January 2008 has been calling out Scientology on its abuses.  It is also Anonymous who is one of the founding parts of Occupy; many of the intial boots on the ground were Anonymous.

Of course, what is Anonymous is fluid and undefinable. But someone should tell Occupy Chicago -psst “Scientology”.