RFK Jr. Wants To Be Rid of the Undesirables
Mentally ill people and addicts get to go work on farms!
There are many ways to treat and overcome addiction. Most of us are familiar with the 12-step program used by Alcoholics Anonymous, which is easily the most famous program even if it isn’t the most successful.
That’s how it is in reality.
If you ask the new head of health and human services in the U.S., the most effective treatment is apparently to throw people onto a farm and force them to reconnect with their spirituality.
That’s right; RFK Jr. wants to take the addicts and put them on farms to grow food out in the countryside, far away from view.
And if you’re wondering if this idea describes a voluntary program, no. It does not.
According to Kennedy's plan, outlined in interviews and social media posts, Americans experiencing addiction would go to San Patrignano-style camps voluntarily, or they could be pressured or coerced into accepting care, with a threat of incarceration for those who refuse care. —Brian Mann, in an article for NPR
More alarming still, RFK Jr. has a problem with the medical pathways for treating addiction, blaming methadone and other replacement opiates for a supposed rise in addiction levels across the United States.
This is patently false. Improving access to these drugs, among others, for addiction treatment is one of the handful of amazing things the Biden administration did; there was a significant drop in the rate of overdose deaths thanks to the efforts by Biden and Harris to address the opioid epidemic.
They made a dent in the issue and saved a lot of American lives. Not that they got any fucking credit for it, of course.
Removing that policy and adopting a national policy of treating addiction like a moral failing rather than a medical disorder would not improve the situation. Far from it.
And if you’ve been paying attention to RFK Jr.’s other thoughts and ideas since he started running for office, your alarm bells might be ringing—mine certainly are.
Another of his bonkers theories, easily debunked, is that SSRI medications—antidepressants—are addictive and cause violent behaviour. He has suggested that they might be the cause of school shootings.
So, if he thinks people taking SSRIs are potentially dangerous addicts, how long before he’s suggesting that they should also be forced into detoxing on one of those farms?
Sending addicts, mentally ill and disabled people out to a farm where they can grow food and be out of the public eye doesn’t sound particularly wholesome to me.
We know that this style of treatment doesn’t have a good success rate, and stripping mentally ill people of their medication is not going to help them feel better.
People living with severe depression and anxiety find that SSRI drugs can be literal life savers. I’ve witnessed the change brought by such medications in my personal life; several of my family members depend on them, and the difference between who they were before the medication and who they are now is immense.
The treatment gave them their lives back.
Coming off of the medication, on the other hand, carries risks. It can certainly be done under medical supervision, and there are side effects that give people a reason to stop—again, I’ve seen this firsthand; the person was experiencing some uncomfortable side effects and needed to switch treatment plans— but forcing someone to stop taking a needed, effective medication is not a good idea.
It’s important to note that these are just policy proposals, and nobody has been shipped off to a farm so far. But keep it in mind, because if it does happen, it’ll be an incredibly serious turning point for the United States.
When a country starts forcing the ‘undesirables’ into manual labour under the guise of helping them, especially when the ‘help’ is proven to be ineffective, it isn’t a good sign. I don’t know if RFK Jr. genuinely thinks these policies would help save lives, or if he’s just providing a smokescreen for one of Trump’s bullshit ideas, but either way.
Making addiction and mental illness into moral and spiritual failings doesn’t speak well of him to me.
Solidarity wins.
The part not being said is that all of these farms are in desperate need of workers since their migrant workers are now being deported or in hiding to avoid deportation. What better way to replace them than to offer up drug addicts, alcoholics in trouble with the law, mental health patients, and any other peoples who are considered undesirables in the eyes of the white, Christian nationalists slowly taking over the U.S., and maybe Canada someday soon afterwards. Add into this mix, young children who can no longer attend schools when they shut down the public-school systems in the poorest of the red states. They will also be forced onto farms and other agricultural industries in order to keep them of the streets. This is the eventual future of the U.S. according to tenets of Project 2025. We are starting to see this get started.
I’ve been on SSRIs for anxiety and depression for 30 years, and without them, I wouldn’t be alive today. Depriving us of SSRIs is as dangerous as withholding treatment for non-mental health-related chronic illnesses like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. If anything, these meds DECREASE our chances of committing violence, even if it’s just against ourselves. I will die before I let that mental midget RFK Jr. send me to a farm.
Besides, I quite like it here on the Island of Misfit Toys. ;)