Betsy DevineDec 2, 2022
Steven Beschloss
Plenty of people have mental disorders and don’t praise Hitler or spread hate.
Dec 2, 2022 at 2:45amWeb
Show threadPatty Bluebird 🦩Dec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss Thank you.
I have bipolar disorder and hate Nazis. I've also never shot up a movie theatre or a restaurant or a church.
I wish people would stop blaming mental illnesses for the wrongs of this country.
Show threadSteven BeschlossDec 2, 2022
@pburke46 I hear you.
Show thread(((JaneinNJ)))Dec 2, 2022
@pburke46 @StevenBeschloss Amen. My mother had bipolar disorder and she was an effing artist!
Show threadLīgaDec 2, 2022
@pburke46 @StevenBeschloss well said.
When they blame it's re-stigmatizing.
Show threadTrishyDec 2, 2022
@Liga @pburke46 @StevenBeschloss Exactly
Show threadPatty Bluebird 🦩Dec 2, 2022
@Liga @StevenBeschloss Yes.
Show threadCarol NelsonDec 2, 2022
@pburke46 @StevenBeschloss Blaming mental illness is what creates stigma against seeking mental health. I’ve worked with many bi-polar individuals and have only seen bizarre behavior in a manic phase but never hate & bigotry. We need to stop calling them signs of mental illness. They’re not! They’re signs of teaching children to hate by bigots.
Show threadPatty Bluebird 🦩Dec 2, 2022
@CarolNelson523 @StevenBeschloss Thank you.
Show threadAnnaleigh WattsDec 2, 2022
@pburke46 @StevenBeschloss Me as well. Whatever the hell is wrong with Kanye goes beyond bipolar disorder. The only difference the disorder makes here is where others are more careful with how they express their antisemitism, mania probably removes Kanye’s filter. But bipolar didn’t make him an antisemite.
Show threadSilversaltyDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss
We're all on the 'spectrum' of sanity. Some are in the 'ultra' range. NYC mayor Adams may lock up that wave length.
Show threadPeter PrincipleDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss Ye, in the other hand, has and does.
Show threadSAPhillipsDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss Exactly!!!
Show threadComputeforloot Dec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss those people are at the least, misguided or at the worst, evil
Show threadRobin from Colorado 🇺🇸🇺🇦Dec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss Kanye isn’t mentally ill or “having an episode”he is just an a-hole. I watched his interview and he is just a Nazi loving entitled fascist just like every other fake Christian fascist I’ve ever seen.
Show threadAnita Larkens Dec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss
It keeps getting worse
https://mstdn.social/@MeidasTouch/109441852752874726
MeidasTouch :verified: (@[email protected])

Kanye West just posted a photo of a swastika inside of the Star of David on Twitter. This is abhorrent and dangerous. Shame on anyone who has enabled and supported him on his crusade against the Jewish people. We refuse to be silent in the face of this deplorable anti-Semitism. Never again.

Mastodon 🐘
Show threadOregon Animal LoverDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss My feeling about this Kanye situation is that the only appropriate response to his comments is that of concern that he get the therapy/treatment he needs. I feel the same about the garbage spewing from the mouths of other magas.
Show threadsalDec 2, 2022
@dswidow @StevenBeschloss therapy doesn't make people into anarchists devoted to collective liberation, in fact therapists have all sorts of pathologizing labels for people like us
Show threadOregon Animal LoverDec 3, 2022
@sal @StevenBeschloss Yeah, I have a strong distrust of much psychotherapy, not that I'm any expert. I just meant that Kanye appears to have a condition that could be treatable. His embrace of Nazism seems to come from a place of illness rather than analytical thought. I get a similar impression from many magas.
Show threadsalDec 3, 2022
@dswidow @StevenBeschloss Well, your "impression of many magas" is mistaken, the point of this entire thread was that psych disabilities don't cause naziism and saying they do harms other people with psych labels, and white supremacy is not an illness. [There's a good article by that name already written.] I don't think there's anything else for me to say. At a certain point people either get that or they don't.
Show threadOregon Animal LoverDec 3, 2022
@sal @StevenBeschloss I guess I shouldn't have commented in the first place. I have no expertise in these things. Didn't mean to disparage mentally ill people. I consider murderers and rapists to be mentally ill. To me, Trump is mentally ill. Fascism seems insane to me. Though a mentally ill person may be the most compasionate, etc. of us all. Ted Bundy was mentally ill, but that doesn't mean other mentally ill people are murderers.
Show threadsalDec 3, 2022
@dswidow @StevenBeschloss I am not trying to insult anyone I just get tired of the scapegoating. I guess really this becomes a question of what it even means to call a state-of-mind an illness. It doesn't mean "brain disease" (that's neurology's wheelhouse, not psychiatry) so is it being used as a metaphor for distress? For believing anything false or unscientific? For dissent? For being the person in a conflict with the least power to define the terms? At some point it becomes an umbrella term that obscures more than it reveals.
Show threadOregon Animal LoverDec 3, 2022
@sal @StevenBeschloss Yes, well said. You obviously know/have thought about this stuff a lot. I haven't. But I do believe (on faith, I guess) that we have a basic sanity at our core, and most of socialization, propaganda, religion, etc. f*ks with that sanity. It's simplistic, I know, but works for me. Advocating for hate, in my world, is a loss of sanity. I agree that what I said initially was kind of dumb.
Show threadsalDec 3, 2022
@dswidow @StevenBeschloss I think a lot of us are probably more on-edge right now bc of the awful news out of both NYC and California about more sweeps to pick up and detain people without charge or trial based on psych status (as judged by one person w no oversight) and new kangaroo court to bypass due process and expand longer-term confinement. I get what you're saying, I dig Erich Fromm and stuff.
Show threadOregon Animal LoverDec 4, 2022
@sal @StevenBeschloss I couldn't believe it when I heard about that in NY. Didn't know CA was doing the same. These people should be helped, but not in that way, for sure.
Show threadSteve WilliamsDec 3, 2022
@dswidow @StevenBeschloss Could not agree more. I’ve lost #bipolar friend, and to chose to judge based on their pronouncements in their darkest hours is plain wrong. Imagine if it was your sibling.
Show threadOregon Animal LoverDec 4, 2022
@blabberlicious @StevenBeschloss I agree. I try to always think of these things in terms of how I would feel if it were my sibling or child. My brother is a maga, and I have made huge efforts to maintain a loving relationship with him. I feel that the Q stuff he espouses is delusional, and I feel bad about it.
Show threadjennifer marie brissettDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss sometimes one needs a friend and/or loved one to make sure one stays on one's meds. Without that, one with a mental disorder, may act as though one has a mental disorder. #JustSayin
Show threadsalDec 2, 2022
@jennbrissett nope
Show threadjennifer marie brissettDec 2, 2022
@sal you know, here's the thing about compassion, it's not useful to those who don't need it. For those that do, it's everything.
Show threadsalDec 2, 2022
@jennbrissett "I have yet to meet an abuser who has made any meaningful and lasting changes in his behavior toward female partners through therapy, regardless of how much “insight” — most of it false — that he may have gained. The fact is that if an abuser finds a particularly skilled therapist and if the therapy is especially successful, when he is finished he will be a happy, well-adjusted abuser.” - Why Does He Do That?
Show threadsalDec 2, 2022
@jennbrissett "[While] bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) ... are serious mental health conditions, they do not cause abuse. ... An abuser's “value system is unhealthy, not their psychology."" https://www.thehotline.org/resources/abuse-and-mental-illness-is-there-a-connection/
Abuse and Mental Illness: Is There a Connection?

People often contact us to talk about their partner's behavior. They ask if abuse and mental illness are connected and may be the cause.

The Hotline
Show threadsalDec 2, 2022
@jennbrissett There is no compassion in using force to stop psychiatrically-marginalized people from making their own decisions about health treatment. Nor in falsely claiming that acting in violent, bigoted, and oppressive ways = acting "like" one of us.
Show threadjennifer marie brissettDec 2, 2022
@sal wow. I thought I left behind this stuff on Twitter. No one said anything about forcing anyone to do anything. All I'm saying is that there is something obviously very wrong with Kanye that certain politically-minded individuals are using to their benefit. I have no idea if the man or the disease is talking right now and neither does anyone else, TBH. But I do recognize suffering and have compassion for it.
Show threadAlistair BuxtonDec 2, 2022

@jennbrissett

FWIW I think you are absolutely correct. He did not come up with these ideas by himself. Someone validated his paranoia and directed it towards their own goals, and it isn't difficult to figure out who that was.

Show threadsalDec 2, 2022
@jennbrissett Thought you left *what* behind, exactly? People pointing out that being psych-labeled DOESN'T cause someone to be abusive or oppressive? People sharing resources from domestic violence services that clarify this?

Or people pointing out that calling awful people "mentally ill" hurts people with psych diagnoses who are *victims* of abuse and oppression?

Or hearing that many of us have been in controlling dynamics where family wanted to "make sure we stayed on" meds whether they helped us or hurt us, and are sensitive and alert to rhetoric that sounds similar?

We're Mad. We're everywhere. Get used to it.
Show threadP.MichaelDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss That's absolutely true.People need to stop blaming mental illness for the awful things he's spewing.
Show threadBrianDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss or shoot people.
Show threadMrAmaimonDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss they don't track down Open Nazis to pal around with either
Show threadSunny Willow 🌞Dec 2, 2022

@StevenBeschloss

I'm so sick of people trying to give monsters a pass claiming they have mental illness. Millions of people live with mental illness and they aren't saying they love Hitler or that they are a Nazi.

Show threadLynda Dec 2, 2022

@sunnywillow @StevenBeschloss
.. or drunk, or on drugs, or having a bad day.

On my very worst day, I still won't be a flaming racist or spew antisemitism  

TRASH

Show threadShelby WynneDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss Exactly!!
Show threadMangey OctopusDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss Very good point.
Show threadMike LeechDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss hmm. Good point.
Show threadPacket LossDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss I have a hard time deciphering what is going on in his head. What changed and when did it start that he's full of this garbage?
Show threadRileyDec 2, 2022

@StevenBeschloss But who even cares what he thinks? Like he has money but. Does ANYONE think hes relevant anymore? His corny ass cant rap for shit anymore, youtubers make beats not just as good, but better. There are people on Etsy making cooler clothing. So who cares what he thinks?

Kanye West is old and wack

Show threadlobsterDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss Sum haz to have extreme hobby coz of fightin, du pain and #AuntyUppers 🤓
Show threadAlex RDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss 👏
Show threadSir LoinstakeDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss I, for one, am one of those who has mental health issues. I have never felt the need to praise Hitler, Stalin or, indeed, any other despot
Show threadgreasy_pancakesDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss True!
Show threadCardiacSmartsDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss Untreated Bi-polar disorder can lead to crisis. Curse his "Dr Feelgood" entourage for their destructive actions, feeding his mania. Have a heart, please. Unspecified "mental illness" obscures those who don't have one. Please don't excuse this malevolence, this negligence. Somewhat akin to Michael Jackson's medic-executioners ... but actively seeking to ruin The King. See also: Elvis Presley's many Doctors Feelgood.
Show threadMiiGuyDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss wait do people actually believe that?
Show threadBen, Writin’ MoviesDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss Hate it when people forgive abhorrent behaviour by citing apparent mental illness. No, he’s a dick - call it as it is. 😠
Show threadNancy WachtmanDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss ohh...you mean people that the maga right isn't manipulating/using.
Show threadArin OliverDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss I got BPD out the ass and have somehow managed to never praise Hitler
Show threadPJ DolandDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss To be fair, mentally ill people don’t get to choose their delusions.
Show threadKevin RedmanDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss thank you
Show threadLissi & Co.Dec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss I have General Anxiety Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder. I'm nonviolent and disavow the hateful views of others who identify as #Christian. #antisemitism #stophate #antiracism
Show threadQueen of AnxietyDec 2, 2022
@StevenBeschloss This!!! I’m depressed, not a bigot!