Tuesday, December 1, 2009

The Blame Game: Mark David Chapman

Paul Joseph Watson, you're busted.

As you probably know, it is the contention of Alex Jones and many of his guests (as well as a vast array of conspiranoids) that most mass shootings are committed by mind-controlled Manchurian Candidates and/or people who are on SSRI antidepressants. Jones conveniently ignores the many mass shootings that occurred before SSRIs even existed, like this one.

So it's really no surprise that in this 2007 Infowars article about the Virginia Tech massacre, Paul Joseph Watson tries to pin the brunt of the blame on videogames and SSRIs. He points out that most spree killers are on SSRIs, and states that Mark David Chapman was on an SSRI medication at the time of his crime.

That's interesting. The very first SSRI on the market was zimelidine, and it was introduced in 1982. Chapman shot John Lennon in 1980.

Nice try.

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

SSRI's may have been put on the market in 1982, but they cetainly existed before that. Other (sub)classes of drugs similar to SSRI's were used by 1980, especially in unofficial capacities. I do not mean to imply that these were needed, or used by, Chapman, though.

The Joseph Paul Watson article referenced goes over a lot of interesting info...providing us with copious amounts of 'food for thought' on this issue.
The fact that you zeroed in on a mistaken qoute, one name, actually, that ought to have been ommited, to prove your point or show up Watson/Jones...this does not help the case of defeating Jones. The article has better material to attack, other than a almost seemingly off hand comment, or name inclusion, by Watson.

Your attack was upon a very minor aspect of the article, while the whole article is now referenced and can be read here, and altogether, it does contain disturbing information which might create some doubt as to the safety of using SSRI's.

Nice try.

TK said...

Even if we take the date 1980, there are still instances like the Pasadena school shooting long before, and video games don't go that far back either.

Perhaps it's more comforting to swaddle in grand conspiracies than to understand that one individual acting off his own initiative can destroy so many lives. Randomly. With no warning.

From the article:
"Either way you cut it, Seung-Hui Cho was a victim of brainwashing and mind control. "
No. He was the one that created victims.

Anonymous said...

You dont know.

Anonymous said...

"I can hypnotize a man-without his knowledge or consent-into committing treason against the United States"

"The key to creating an effective spy or assassin rests in splitting a mans's personality, or creating multipersonality, with the aid of hypnosis...this is not science fiction...I have done it"

-George Estabrooks (1885-1973) Canadian-American psychologist, Harvard grad, Rhodes scholar, Chairman of the psych dept. at Colgate University. He assisted the US during the Cold War on various projects.

An acceleration in mass shootings and serial killings occurred around 1966. Before that, we discovered or experienced one about once every decade or so. With Charles Whitman shooting from that Texas tower, and Richard Speck wiping out those nurses- both in 1966- the era of these types of killer became lodged in the American psyche. The common perception was different after 1966, due mainly to wall -to -wall mass media coverage- We subsequently saw one uncovered or one emerged about every other year afterwards. Serial killers and maniac shooters/slashers existed before 1966, but not at the same level of frequency (Boston strangler,Jack the Ripper, Ed Gein etc.) The 1966 -onwards wave predates SSRI's and video games. (changing the commitment laws in 1968 cannot fully explain the surge)
We have two waves, then- the current one which is suspiciously linked to videos, pills, social anomie,broken homes, bad diet (when Wardens alter the menu in prisons to make the food much more nutritious, prison violence plunges), etc....the first wave has possible links to MK-ULTRA related programs, which may linger still.

Anonymous said...

If one accepts that someone else influenced another to kill, then the ball bounces back into the court of an "individual acting off his own initiative" to destroy lives, TK.

S.M. Elliott said...

Watson is basically telling us that if Chapman hadn't been on SSRIs (which he was not), John Lennon could be alive today. Now maybe that doesn't matter to any of you, but to a Beatles fan like me it's a big deal. There are real what-ifs involved: What if Salinger only wrote the Glass stories and never wrote Catcher in the Rye? What if Lennon had stayed in England? What if the Dakota actually had competent security guards who didn't let stalkers hang around the building 24/7?

As for the roots of violence, we could go round and round about that until the moon crumbles to dust and never reach any definite conclusions. But I do know this: videogames, TV programs, and antidepressants do not (in and of themselves) cause violence.

P.S. Estabrooks was full of sh**. Did he ever provide a scrap of evidence that he really possessed these Svengali-like powers? Nope.

Anonymous said...

Oh Really?

S.M. Elliott said...

I'll assume that's a rhetorical question.

Anonymous said...

Hey, SME. Alex Jones, among other, seems to be screaming about the hacked e-mails that allegedly show that global warming is a conspiracy. Veteran journalist potholer54, fortunately, has offered his much more eloquent take on it, again showing that Jones is a sensationalist prick who misrepresented the content of the e-mails.

The video's called "Climate -- Those hacked e-mails" by potholer54. I can't copy and paste the URL for some reason...

Anonymous said...

Al Gores movie showed a chart showing rising carbon dioxide rates and rising temperatures, over time. The correlation Gore made was backwards- In reality, temperatures rise, and then about 600-800 years later carbon dioxide levels increase, not the other way around.

Carbon dioxide is necessary for life, we have had much larger amounts in our atmosphere in the past than we have now.

All auto emmissions on the planet contribute just about 1.7% of annual global carbon dioxide released into the air, while volcanoes contribute much more.

"Global warming" is occuring in much of the solar system- Mars, the moons of Saturn and Jupiter...how are our factories causing this rise?
The Sun is the prime driver of the weather.

The Earth has cooled overall this decade, compared to the prior one, while fossil fuel emmisions have increased.

Anonymous said...

potholer54 put the most infamous hacked emails in a limited context; this lessened the degree of (reader) perceived deception on the part of the researchers. If the hacked emails are put in a wider context- about two pages of continuous emails- the degree of perceived deception increases away from potholer54 viewpoint back closer to the view of those talk radio guys, but not as far as they think.

"decline"...is said to really be referring to tree rings, but this is practically interchangeable with temperature and other climatic changes. One reflects the other- change it, and you change the other.... poholer54 should know this...

I dont think we have much of a scandal here. The scandal resides somewhere else within the man- made global warming hypothesis.

Anonymous said...

(Concerning Dr. Estabrooks) Dont assume. Legally, testimony, whether suspect or not, is considered evidence. He provided evidence. There's more.

tshsmom said...

Charles Manson, and many other lunatics, gave testimony too. That doesn't make Manson a seer.

Anonymous said...

Whether or not Charles Manson is a visionaire, or not- each one of us has to decide that...

Invoking Manson wasn't germaine to the issue.

S.M. Elliott said...

Germane or not, I don't think Estabrooks' silly boast has any more evidence to back it up than Manson's testimony at a parole hearing: "I'm shrinkin'! I was five three when ya put me in here, now I'm five one! If you don't let me out, I'm gonna shrink down to 'bout nothin'!"

But at least you can prove/disprove Manson's testimony with a tape measure.

Anonymous said...

Its not a silly boast. And the analogy isn't appropiate- you do that all the time.

Anonymous said...

Are you claiming that Estabrooks book doesn't exist, or that its full of lies?

Are you claiming that there is no such thing as psychic driving, or MK-Ultra or related programs dont exist?

Are you claiming that Congressional testimony concerning these things is false or non existent? Or that certain laws allowing/disallowing these things dont exist?

Are you claiming that the patents of control dont exist?

Do you mean that we simply do not have the ability, that the task is too hard, that we cannot do these things? Or that the research into this area never happened, or never bore fruit? or that the motivation to make this happen was lacking, or that Cold Warriors possessed the ethics to not do these things?

I dont even think its very hard to make a man lose his patiotism and act against the interests of his country, against his knowledge. Its happening all around me all the time.

The two quotes offered about Estabrooks dont really sound far -fetched, unless one is reading into them more than is really there.

Also- I dont think manson was really 5' 3" in 1969, that might be a myth created to make him look even more strange or sinister than he would if he was normal height. Which parole hearing did he make that statement? (the police line-up photo in Bugliosi's book might not be accurate- he is short, though)

The Manson quote is obviously meant to be some sort of joke, and can never be compared to Estabrooks testimony found in the record on the subject of hypnosis and spycraft. Estabrooks and Manson had very different career trajectories and histories, the attempt to discredit one with the other was odd.

S.M. Elliott said...

Remember, please, that psychic driving and the majority of the MK-Ultra programs were spectacularly unsuccessful. And that Estabrooks made his claim years before these other programs even began. If he was so successful in programming subjects to commit treason without their knowledge, why was Ewen Cameron such a failure? All he managed to do was fill psych wards with addled housewives. If the government already possessed the ultimate weapon - Dr. Estabrooks and his superpowers - why in the hell did they even bother with MK-Ultra?

The obvious answer: Estabrooks couldn't deliver the goods.

Anonymous said...

Estabrooks operated beyond the start of MK-ULTRA, SME.

S.M. Elliott said...

Yes, but he made his claim long before it started. And was unable to replicate his supposed results.

Anonymous said...

Whether Estabrooks or Gottlieb or Fry or the Nazis had limited success from about the 1930's up to the mid 1970's, this does not take away from the fact that mind control... very successfully caried out today, whether against the individual or the masses.

Would Estabroks be hired to help in the mid 1950's if he had miserably failed or falsified the record in the 1940's?

why should we assume that the few bits of information concerning limited success should be the absolute final word?

The electronic, hypnotic, drug, control- manipulation potential is here, and probably has been here for at least 25 years or even more. news of this even hits the mainstream press /tv once in awhile. this control can be almost total, or more

Anonymous said...

Charles Manson may have been maligned here....if he hypnotized those kids into killing, then why are they still in prison, after 40 years? Wouldnt they be able to claim diminished capacity?

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBO77hS010k

cool Lennon song.

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0wDnz3Fjrk

who killed john lennon?

Anonymous said...

So Dr. Estrabrooks failed, or lied, and still got government projects, (then) these failed too...then in 1968-1969 Charles Manson succeeds beyond any spooks wildest imagination, when he sent his programmed zombie killers to do his bidding?

S.M. Elliott said...

Precisely. Your tax dollars at work. Never send a doctor to do a lunatic's job.

BTW, it is my understanding that Stephen King killed John Lennon.

Anonymous said...

Lennons son is convinced his dad was killed by a CIA/FBI combine. I dont know if this is so....

...the characterization of Manson as being a "lunatic" might be unfair. He was never judged to be insane, he never pleaded insanity.

Manson does seem to have a near-schizophrenic way about him, and may have some sadistic and sociopathic tendencies, but no, I would not consider him to be insane. listening to his interviews and researching his background... he seems to be holding up fairly well considering the stress he has had to deal with over the course of his life. He has a logic and rationale that can be understood. Vincent Bugliosi made up tons of stuff about Charlie.

S.M. Elliott said...

I agree that Manson is probably not clinically insane, but if you find more than a tiny amount of his babble logical, you have a serious problem on your hands. He makes far less sense than the average schizophrenic.

Anonymous said...

Yes, he babbles a lot, speaking symbolically, but when he does, he obliquely refers to events in his past that few know about. When you decode his speech with certain knowledge, you can understand him. When you get to know him intimately, he will drop the front; he drops the coded speech and speaks much more clearly. He cannot be judged just be whats publically available. Remember R.D. Laing

Anonymous said...

I think the initial examiners of Sirhan Sirhan all agreed, without any dissent, that he was a previosuly programmed and/or hypnotised individual.

S.M. Elliott said...

The defense psychiatrists, including Bernard Diamond, determined that Sirhan was schizophrenic and that his account of being amnesiac during the assassination was fabricated. Though other psychiatrists have disputed the schizophrenia diagnosis, no doctor suggested that Sirhan had been programmed to assassinate RFK. The first person to suggest that, I believe, was Truman Capote. The following year, he gave the opinion that one crazed man committed all the Tate-Labianca murders alone - proving that writing one true crime novel does not necessarily turn you into a criminologist.

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