Politics of Care

Shipwrecked by the Cure, © 2012 Billiam James

Shipwreck of the Singular charts our journey over two centuries to Here.  How so much that was good in terms of increased life expectancy and quality that came with a development of medicine since 1800 now risks turning to ashes.

The parallels with global climate change are striking. How so much that was good in terms of increased affluence and freedom that came with a development of new productive capacities since 1800 now risks turning to ashes.

Both our health and the earth’s health need Care.  The Invisible Care that includes low or unpaid work done mostly by women to look after children, older folk in care-homes who need feeding or bathing, and to generally bind society together making everything else possible.  The politics of Invisible Care will need us to grapple with our values.

There is also a Tough Care that includes making judgment calls, of the kind needed when a medical treatment causes problems. Calls like this involve courage, and a standing up to experts. They invariably involve relationships, in which others help make us the people we might be.

Central to the Care needed to get our health and the health of our environments back on track is restoring value to our judgments. Unless we value our judgements we cannot take the risks we need to take in order to make our techniques work for us, instead of having them in the hands of others progressively replace our ability as individuals and communities to call things as we see them.

Government

As with the Round Table in Camelot, the seats below have names that will come to life when occupied.  This Round Table may have more heroines than heroes.

Camelot offered an Archetype of the Wise Ruler?

Three Archetypes underpin Shipwreck of the Singular:

• Pandora

Pandora’s Eyes, ©2021 Billiam James

In Greek mythology, Pandora was the original woman. Full of curiosity, despite being told not to, she supposedly opened a container out of which flew all the evils destined to plague humanity. Where the Green movement has had the Gaia hypothesis, the Politics of Care hinges on a Pandora hypothesis – it is the people on earth, particularly the women, who will get the upper hand on the sprites that plague us – the technologies we re addicted to – and will re-establish the value of care.

• Oedipus

Thebes was under threat from a Sphinx who blocked all entrance to the city. Half woman, half dragon, it strangled, smothered (as in sphincter) anyone who could not answer a riddle. ‘How can a hundred people be identical, when each is radically different?’ When she heard Oedipus’s answer, the Sphinx dropped dead. But we still need saving from the Oedipus Effect.

• Oz

An ill-wind turned Dorothy’s life upside-down and dropped her in Oz. There decent normal people felt they could do little to shape the world in which they lived.  Oz is Camelot gone wrong. Everyone believed they were dependent on a guy with powers to hold back the plagues that threatened peace and harmony on all sides, but Oz, unlike Camelot, doesn’t feel benign – more like a surveillance state.  Some nobodies who felt they had no brains, feelings, or courage were transformed by meeting Dorothy into people able to take on the job of running the place.

The Round Table

When a Knight destined to occupy a seat at the Table arrived, his name mysteriously appeared on one of the vacant seats. In the same way, the links below will become live over time and will take you to places where there are missions to undertake, challenges to meet, and documents or other materials that can be used to tackle the hazards of the journey.

Many resources are also available on the Shipwreck of the Singular References site, which contains multiple downloadable books and articles (including 6 Healy books out of print or hard to get).  The references for the final chapter of Shipwreck – Crusoe, we say, was Rescued – contains details of many recent books on Care and its politics.  The Crusoe chapter outlines the Pandora Hypothesis and the need for links to Sustainable politics.

Armoury

1. The Controlled Healthcare Opposition
2. MedicoChemical and PetroChemical Twins
3. From Gaia to Pandora
4. Future Sustainable Healthcare
5. Are Markets and Health Incompatible?
6. The Privileges of Wealth – the Guelph Affair
7. The Cost of Drugs and Healthcare
8. Pharmaceutical Calvinism – Cultural Genocide
9. Unsettling Truths

Care Politics

1. ‘Care’ Homes
2. The Deep Neoliberal State
3. Nearly Invisible
4. Discounting Counting
5. Predator
6. Socially Sustainable

Political Actions to Save HealthCare and the World

• What You can Do 
• What Doctors can Do
• How Politicians Can Save Us
• How Politicians Can Save the World
• Damsel and Politician
• Politician and Damsel
• Morgan vs Morgan: The Future of the NHS
• Escaping the Prescription Drug Maze
• How the Media Can Screw Things Up
• Ten Things … Can Try

One Ring to Rule them All

People who engage with issues of poor pay in residential or care homes or who work in these settings or politicians concerned about saving the environment do not ordinarily view Clinical Trials as their problem and glaze over at any mention of trial data.  What everyone needs to realise is that their judgment calls about what is going on is more likely to be correct than Clinical Trials or a lot of views based on quantification.  We need to regain our voice.

1. Clinical Trials are not Safe
2. People Count even in Trials
3. They Used to Call it Medicine

Vaccines

1. Shifting Vaccine Confidence
2. Mandates and Vaccines
3. Love in a time of Covid

 

1. Study 329
2. From Stephen O’Neill to the Crack of Doom
3. From The Little Mermaid to Buffy the Vampire Slayer
4. Wizard of Oz
5. I Can’t Breathe
6. Professional Suicide
7. Drugs and Women
8. Clinical Trials
9. Sense about Science
10. Hospital Insurance

Seats at the Table

The 3 musketeers here are from the right Guy Tweedy, Mikey Argy and Nick Dobrik, the Thalidomiders I’ve been closest to and who feature in the dedication section of Shipwreck of the Singular.  Extraordinary people.

Anne-Marie Kelly is one of the heroines of Shipwreck of the Singular – you need to read the book to see this.  See Out of Mind. She exemplifies one of its core messages – that motivation is worth more than expertise.

Annemarie Mol defies categorization. The Logic of Care is one of the greatest books about Health and Care and her latest Eating in Theory illuminates the localism central to us as bodies and to Caring for us and the Planet, in contrast to the operationalism at the heart of techniques.

Ariane Denoyel is the author of Génération Zombie, a book about the hazards of Antidepressants from suicide to sexual dysfunction, in addition to ghostwriting and lack of access to trial data.  GZ has come to the attention of Eric Piolle, the mayor of Grenoble, and a possible Green candidate in the next French presidential election.

Colleen Bell has been the key mover behind From Stephen O’Neill to the Crack of Doom.  Her efforts brought admissions from Government, regulators, guideline makers and others that they know about ghost-writing and lack of access to trial data but feel unable to do anything about it.

Jim Gottstein, an Alaskan attorney, has for decades fought for people caught in mental health systems with disabling treatments forced on them.  He set up PsychRights to help with this.  Then The Zyprexa Papers thrust him to the center of a story that pits you and me at our most vulnerable against corporate behemoths.

Julie and Peter Wood became founder members of RxISK.org in 2011 following the death of their son John David caused by inappropriate psychotropic medication.  Julie runs SSRIStories and helped create Study329.org.  Peter created RxISK.org and with Dee Mangin is helping engineer a prescribed medication revolution with TaperMD.

Katinka Newman lost a year of her life to prescribed meds – out of which she brought an extraordinary book The Pill that Steals Lives.  In response to the continuing blight on and loss of lives from treatment she has now set up AntidepressantRisks.org.

Peter Doshi came on everyone’s radar when he campaigned with Tom Jefferson to get at the truth about Tamiflu. This led to his Restoring Invisible and Abandoned Trials (RIAT) initiative, which supported the restoration of Study329. In the midst of the Covid pandemic, as vaccines became hot-button issues, Peter has managed to be a voice of sanity trusted by all sides.