Punch Your Way to Mental Health!

Of course, it is very well known that the internet generates all sorts of freaks. And sometimes, I wonder whether some people on the internet can possibly be real. It appears that Neil Harding is an actual person, despite being a shameless Labourite cheerleader. And Councillor Terry Kelly proves the limitations of democracy by being not only a total moron, but also an elected official. By rights he should be a cliche of a Militant Tendency style Labour party member of the 1980's. Instead, he's an elected Labour politician in the 21st Century who seems impossible to unseat. As for Dirty European Socialist, well, I'm still pretty sure that he/she/it is a piece of obscure performance art rather than a real person.

Via Speak Your Branes, here's another person who, like the three people listed above, I'm not sure can be real. Red Rose Andy isn't just a socialist, he is also an environmentalist and a self-proclaimed psychotherapist. And that's where the fun starts. See, Red Rose Andy has invented the Kadir-Buxton Method, that he feels sure will revolutionise mental health. Let's take a look at what this method involves:

The cure, which I term the Kadir-Buxton Method, has been used on a wide variety of mental health problems. The procedure stuns and resets the brain of the patient, so that the patient returns to a normal condition. The Kadir-Buxton Method is done by making a fist of both hands, and striking both ears of the patient at exactly the same time and pressure with the soft part of the inner hand which is where the thumb joins the hand.

Right. Riiiigggghhht. So the miracle cure for mental illness is slapping someone in the head. Boxing their ears. That's going to overcome decades of psychiatry and psychotherapy, now, isn't it? Fuck me, this is real innovation. A procedure that makes ECT look sophisticated and lobotomy look like the future. Can't think why Red Rose Andy is struggling to get his innovative method accepted by the medical authorities in this country. Just as well he is on hand to explain why:

I am having a hard time getting the Kadir-Buxton Method used in the UK because it would cut down the number of professionals that are needed at present, and of course, cut the amount of expensive drugs that drug companies sell at present.

Ah, that would be the reason. The fears of pharmaceutical industry and health professionals are strangling this innovation. Nothing to do with it being one of the most ridiculous ideas in the history of crank medicine, then. Still, if you truly believe in this groundbreaking innovation, then you can sign up here to support it at the Number 10 petition site. Along side such luminaries as C. Nile, hardon spazjacket and the bassplayer from The Levellers.

But it gets even better. See, Kadir-Buxton has a blog. Well, a sort of blog. It seems to be a list of faintly right-on pronouncements that vary from the deeply dull through to the outrageous. A particular favourite of mine is the demand that fascism be treated as a mental illness. Mainly because the author doesn't agree with fascists. Now, as regular readers of this blog will know, I'm not a big fan of fascists myself, but do think that those who would suppress the free speech of fascists run the risk of being of being classed as a fascist themselves. Besides, those who would declaim their political opponents by classifying them as mentally ill remind me a lot of the leaders of the former Soviet Union, who created the condition of sluggishly progressing schizophrenia to act as a tool to imprison political dissidents.

Perhaps that's another reason why the medical elite in this country don't want to back Kadir-Buxton. He wants to classify those who don't agree with him as mentally ill. And then wants to punch them in the side of the head to "cure" them.

So is Andy Kadir-Buxton real or not? That's up to the individual reader to decide. However, I'm not sure which would be worse - the idea that someone can make up a person as ridiculous as Kadir-Buxton, or whether such a delusional person could actually exist.