# Internet bullying, surveillance, and harassment: the new norm



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

With the recent mass-shootings, the new American obsession will now be 'people with mental disorders.' I'm sure that law enforcement, social reform groups, gun-owners, people with power and money, will all support a new 'American witch-hunt' to flush-out such mental defectives, in order to place blame and shift the focus from guns to 'mental disorders.'

This is a new political reality. We are seeing it as it develops, right here on this forum.

This new mindset seems to be targeting people who are presumed to have 'mental disorders,' which is really a nebulous, identity-based assessment which nobody can prove. It's metaphysics, like religion, because it concerns the human soul; nobody can experience anyone else's experience, or prove anything objectively about it. This person is presumed to have a soul, I would hopefully assume. So, the 'new psychiatry' bases their assumptions solely on behavior, nothing else.

What about other types of people who have different 'realities' and mindsets, and exhibit different behaviors and roles than your typical white male (which has been implied to be the 'true' reality)?

What about the history of other "scapegoats" who have been targeted for the 'realities' they experience, or the roles and behaviors they had to adopt to survive in our culture, such as African-Americans, women, and gays?

In fact, gay people were once the target of the psychiatric profession. For example, Lou Reed, the famous poet and founder of the Velvet Underground, was subjected to shock-treatment because he told his parents he was gay and exhibited behaviors and adopted a persona which indicated that he was attracted to men.

I hope that such 'different' people, including people who are artistic, creative, or have been abused, or who simply do not wish to conform to the emerging corporate conservatism mindset, will not be scapegoated, or continue to be castigated in public internet forums, and I urge internet discussion forums and their moderators to refuse to work with, or collude with groups which 'target' or bully such people.


----------



## Guest (Feb 4, 2013)

I was a high-school teacher and kids were "medicated" because they had ADD, ADHD or any other 'disorder' outside the 'range of normal behaviours'. Blame the pharmaceuticals!!


----------

