[PrestonSturges]

People from families with a butt load of alcoholism and mental illness will be drawn to Glenn Beck because he reminds them of when dear old dad would mix lithium and Jack Daniels. When someone is blind to crazy-evil people, it is because they spent their lives in denial about having an abusive addicted parent who never loved them.

This Twilight Zone episode of Dennis Hopper should ring a few bells. Start about 3 minutes into this segment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQqKQwz2 ... re=related

[Cid_Yama]

Mos, welcome back.

Yes, Beck defended McCarthy, and Ann Coulter defended McCarthy in a book. They are harking back to the early 1950's and trying to complete what Joe McCarthy started.

Beck Video

I take it they figure that it's been long enough for people to forget the book burnings.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')resident Eisenhower urged Americans: "Don't join the book burners. […] Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book. And even if they think ideas that are contrary to ours, their right to say them, their right to record them, and their right to have them at places where they're accessible to others is unquestioned, or it's not America."

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cid_Yama', '
')They just recently showed A Face in the Crowd on TCM. It's almost like a parody on Glenn Beck.

[Shar_Lamagne]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')n page 2 of his book "The Real America" Glenn Beck admits to being a borderline schizophrenic. Allegedly, many of his former co-workers say he admitted to taking medication for mental illness which he then stopped taking because he said he couldn't function.

[DomusAlbion]

Are you highlighting this as a problem?

A lot of brilliant people (I'm not necessarily including Beck.) have suffered from mental illness. Does that make their observations invalid?

[Shar_Lamagne]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DomusAlbion', 'A') lot of ... people have suffered from mental illness. Does that make their observations invalid?

[SeaGypsy]

Just because he's paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after him.
Most people with substantially above average IQ can be diagnosed with some form of mental illness.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') don't understand. On page 2 of his book "The Real America" Glenn Beck admits to being a borderline schizophrenic. Allegedly, many of his former co-workers say he admitted to taking medication for mental illness which he then stopped taking because he said he couldn't function. (The last part few words are paraphrased...I can't remember the exact words he's supposed to have said according to the 3-part Salon article on him.)

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, some symptoms of schizophrenia include "...paranoid delusions and believe that others are trying to harm them, such as by cheating, harassing, poisoning, spying on, or plotting against them or the people they care about... trouble organizing his or her thoughts or connecting them logically...agitated body movements."

I assume at least some of his followers have read his books since they're such big sellers. Did they think he was joking when he said that? Why do people think it's OK to trust the views of someone so mentally ill?

I know it's not PC to disparage the mentally ill, but I don't recall anyone in the media pointing this out. Why not? There ought to be some way to phrase it so that you can't get sued and/or have the NIMH or NAMI come after you.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'J')ust because he's paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after him.

[SeaGypsy]

Mos, I don't give a s*** about Beck or really know anything about him; so you can refrain from putting words in my mouth thanks. He means precisely NOTHING outside the USA. I wrote what I wrote because I don't like the whole take of attacking anybody based on an admission of any kind of mental illness.
There are none so ill as those who are sure they are sane.

[Cid_Yama]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')nstead of talking about mental illness, which is often so ill defined as to be ultimately almost meaningless

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', '
')I wrote what I wrote because I don't like the whole take of attacking anybody based on an admission of any kind of mental illness.

[SeaGypsy]

OK TRUCE, I will stay out of this one.

[Lore]

Beck has lost about a third of his audience recently as former supporters have finally come to realize that he's crazier then a shit-house rat. Out of desperation he is moving into a zone of ridiculous incomprehension.

[vision-master]

go insane

Schizophrenia is a tough one.

Tom Harrell


John Nash - Mathematician/Nobel Prize Winner


Syd Barrett

People with Mental Illness Enrich Our Lives

Abraham Lincoln
The revered sixteenth President of the United States suffered from severe and incapacitating depressions that occasionally led to thoughts of suicide, as documented in numerous biographies by Carl Sandburg.

Virginia Woolf
The British novelist who wrote To the Lighthouse and Orlando experienced the mood swings of bipolar disorder characterized by feverish periods of writing and weeks immersed in gloom. Her story is discussed in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr.

Lionel Aldridge
A defensive end for Vince Lombardi's legendary Green Bay Packers of the 1960's, Aldridge played in two Super Bowls. In the 1970's, he suffered from schizophrenia and was homeless for two and a half years. Until his death in 1998, he gave inspirational talks on his battle against paranoid schizophrenia. His story is the story of numerous newspaper articles.

Eugene O'Neill
The famous playwright, author of Long Day's Journey Into Night and Ah, Wilderness!, suffered from clinical depression, as documented in Eugene O'Neill by Olivia E. Coolidge.

Ludwig van Beethoven
The brilliant composer experienced bipolar disorder, as documented in The Key to Genius: Manic Depression and the Creative Life by D. Jablow Hershman and Julian Lieb.

Gaetano Donizetti
The famous opera singer suffered from bipolar disorder, as documented in Donizetti and the World Opera in Italy, Paris and Vienna in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century by Herbert Weinstock.

Robert Schumann
The "inspired poet of human suffering" experienced bipolar disorder, as discussed in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr.

Leo Tolstoy
Author of War and Peace, Tolstoy revealed the extent of his own mental illness in the memoir Confession. His experiences is also discussed in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr and The Inner World of Mental Illness: A Series of First Person Accounts of What It Was Like by Bert Kaplan.

Vaslov Nijinsky
The dancer's battle with schizophrenia is documented in his autobiography, The Diary of Vaslov Nijinksy.

John Keats
The renowned poet's mental illness is documented in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr and The Broken Brain: The biological Revolution in Psychiatry by Nancy Andreasen, M.D.

Tennessee Williams
The playwright gave a personal account of his struggle with clinical depression in his own Memoirs. His experience is also documented in Five O'Clock Angel: Letters of Tennessee Williams to Maria St. Just, 1948-1982; The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams by Donald Spoto, and Tennessee: Cry of the Heart by Dotson.

Vincent Van Gogh
The celebrated artist's bipolar disorder is discussed in The Key to Genius: Manic Depression and the Creative Life by D. Jablow Hershman and Julian Lieb and Dear Theo, The Autobiography of Van Gogh.

Isaac Newton
The scientist's mental illness is discussed in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr and The Key to Genius: Manic Depression and the Creative Life by D. Jablow Hershman and Julian Lieb.

Ernest Hemingway
The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist's suicidal depression is examined in the True Gen: An Intimate Portrait of Ernest Hemingway by Those Who Knew Him by Denis Brian.

Sylvia Plath
The poet and novelist ended her lifelong struggle with clinical depresion by taking own life, as reported in A Closer Look at Ariel: A Memory of Sylvia Plath by nancy Hunter-Steiner.

Michelangelo
The mental illness of one of the world's greatest artistic geniuses is discussed in The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr.

Winston Churchill
"Had he been a stable and equable man, he could never have inspired the nation. In 1940, when all the odds were against Britain, a leader of sober judgment might well have concluded that we were finished," wrote Anthony Storr about Churchill's bipolar disorder in Churchill's Black Dog, Kafka's Mice, and Other Phenomena of the Human Mind.

Vivien Leigh
The Gone with the Wind star suffered from mental illness, as documented in Vivien Leigh: A Biography by Ann Edwards.

Jimmy Piersall
The baseball player for the Boston Red Sox who suffered from bipolar disorder detailed his experience in The Truth Hurts.

Patty Duke
The Academy Award-winning actress told of her bipolar disorder in her autobiography and made-for-TV move Call Me Anna and A Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic-Depressive Illness, co-authored by Gloria Hochman.

Charles Dickens
One of the greatest authors in the English language suffered from clinical depression, as documented in The Key to Genius: Manic Depression and the Creative Life by D. Jablow Hershman and Julian Lieb, and Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph by Edgar Johnson.

http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Sectio ... entID=4858

[Carlhole]

Beck shows a uniquely American-style emotionalism - which is probably responsible for his huge popularity.

I grew up in an English family; my parents immigrated from England and I grew up here. As a kid, I was used to hearing my Mom frequently compare American culture to British. She and my Dad were often put-off by the sickly sweet emotionalism they found in American life. It inhabited everything from entertainment, to politics, to business, to the PTA, to the Little League. Films never sold well at the box office unless there were plenty of Disney-esque tears and anger filling them up - even over silly things. I learned from them that Europeans frequently criticized Americans as stupidly dramatic and emotional in just about everything. It was a culture clash.

The few times I've watched Beck's show, I've seen him tear-up with love for his supposed dying country and go over-the-top with prescriptions for its rescue. He regularly emotes his clean, God-fearing and patriotic fervor in an over-the-top way that is designed to appeal to his well-understood, well-conditioned American TV audience.

Television in American seems to promote the idea that urgently-felt emotions trump rationalism every time. I think you'd have to step out of American society for a while, imbibe the values of a more continent culture, to see what I mean.

[Sixstrings]

Glenn Beck reminds me of that priest on the radio back in the Great Depression -- not that I remember him, but there's a character in the HBO series Carnival based on him and I got curious and googled the real guy.

Basically, whacky people rise to prominence in troubled times. I used to listen to Beck back when he did a mostly comedy show on local AM radio. He never discussed politics. He sounded completely sane, and it was a good show -- he had a great radio voice and was talented with the skits he did; overall it was a really polished program for local radio, though I was surprised he jumped on the national scene as quick as he did first on CNN then Fox.

From having listened to his old show, I have to wonder whether this is all schtick. I think he may just be a savvy entertainer -- the Fox News perosna could be a niche he found. Probably Rush Limbaugh started out that way too, just another radio guy who figured out a more profitable niche to fill.

So don't take them so seriously, it's just showbiz.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')So don't take them so seriously, it's just showbiz.

[PrestonSturges]

Beck is probably a Cluster A paranoid/schizoid personality disorder.

Palin, Bachmann, Christine O'Donnell are Cluster B histrionic/narcissistic personality disorders.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')luster A Personality Disorders are those considered to be marked by odd, eccentric behavior. Paranoid, Schizoid and Schizotypal Personality Disorders are in this category.

Cluster B Personality Disorders are evidenced by dramatic, erratic behaviors and include Histrionic, Narcissistic, Antisocial and Borderline Personality Disorders.

[vision-master]

What is 'normal'?

moss?

[Serial_Worrier]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')So don't take them so seriously, it's just showbiz.