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An open letter to Dr. Peter Breggin

Dear Dr. Breggin

It was above all from your writings that my wife and I learned the truth about the harms inflicted in the name of psychiatry or medicine. In our long – and, so far at least, successful – struggle to keep our autistic and severely developmentally disabled daughter off dangerous psychotropic drugs -- we often bolstered our argument by appealing to the authority of your work. (For an account of this struggle see here.) And in the recent COVID-19 pandemic, once again, your expose of the pseudo-vaccines made us determined not to get 'vaccinated,' despite all the propaganda maligning ‘anti-vaxxers.’ So you have been a great help for us, as for many others.

So I am puzzled and dismayed by the political ideas you now disseminate – not by your stand on specific issues, where I still often find myself in agreement with you, but rather by the general ideological prism through which you view them. 

Global predators? 

Let me start with the concept of ‘global predators’ – the evil people against whom you urge us to fight. At first I suspected that the expression ‘we are the prey’ should be taken literally, to mean that predators are out to eat or otherwise consume us. Perhaps you have in mind the forcible removal of organs for transplant operations. Perhaps – who knows? – you share the belief that the ultimate rulers of our world are not human but extraterrestrial lizards merely pretending to be human. However, I concluded that these expressions are best taken metaphorically: ‘prey’ just means ‘victims,’ while ‘predator’ means ‘victimizer.’

But to what sort of victimization do you refer? The ‘global’ sort – i.e., victimization that occurs in the context of a drive to weaken national sovereignty and establish a world government. I grant that such a drive exists, it goes by the name of ‘globalization,’ and no doubt victimization does occur in this context. 

But consider some of the specific abuses that concern you – for instance, the massive use on adults and children of untested and perilous pseudo-vaccines. Is there any inherent link between the commercial and political interests driving this abuse and the (now declining) level of globalization? Would fully recovered national sovereignty be a guarantee against continued abuse? More pertinent factors, it seems to me, are the provisions of patent law and the undue influence that Big Pharma has acquired over the government agency tasked with its regulation in the public interest.

Here I would also like to ask you: is Big Pharma really any more or less unethical -- ‘predatory’ -- than the arms manufacturers and other businesspeople who fund Trump? Than Trump himself? 

Or take the ‘gain of function’ research that you have helped expose – the irresponsible genetic engineering of new pathogens in biological warfare laboratories. COVID-19 evidently came out of a Chinese lab, but similar labs exist elsewhere, including Russia and the United States. None is adequately secured against accidental or deliberate release. 

What has this to do with any movement for world government? On the contrary, it is only in a disunited world – a world fragmented into rival nations -- that such labs will continue to exist. They reflect unconstrained national rivalry, not tendencies toward globalism.

I can understand why so many people are hostile to global governance, which in its existing forms may indeed often be corrupt. It is certainly undemocratic and largely opaque to the world public. But does this justify opposition to global governance in principle and for all time? I really cannot see how humanity will ever banish the existential threat of nuclear, biological, and other weapons of mass destruction in the absence of global governance to dampen and eventually overcome interstate military competition. 

Who are they?

Where are the ‘global predators’ to be found? Who exactly are they?

For you the main global predators are officials in the World Health Organization and (presumably) other United Nations agencies, especially those under Chinese influence. That makes sense.

However, other anti-globalists whom you have promoted on the internet have other ideas. Let me take as an example the former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano. Invited on December 19, 2021 by Mary Fanning of The American Report to ‘speak directly to the American people’ – an appeal that you then circulated on January 9, 2022 -- he warned:

For two years now, a global coup has been carried out all over the world, planned for some time by an elite group of conspirators enslaved to the interests of international high finance.

What do you suppose that means? Can you really not know? For anyone with even a perfunctory knowledge of the history of anti-Semitism, the phrase ‘international high finance’ sets an alarm bell ringing, especially when it comes from a Catholic traditionalist. It is code for ‘world Jewish conspiracy.’

It's sad that this should be the company you now keep. A far cry from the days when you championed humanistic psychology.

I may have misunderstood your position, but if so that is because you have not made yourself clear enough. As an authoritative expert devoted to the public interest and as an American and world citizen, it is your duty to clarify where you stand in the complex crisis facing our country and our world.        

With respect

Stephen D. Shenfield

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