Hi, I have a few short reflections to share in written form after reading "CARE" and "CURE" from Health Communism by Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant before our video chat tomorrow at 12p ET.

You can join here at 12pm ET.

CARE / CURE

To resist repair, to be incurable, was to be engaged in revolutionary struggle against these social-reproductive forces of extractive abandonment, whether you wanted to be or not.

SPK was a waste of money unless the project itself could become the object of "legitimate" scientific study.

Did patients have the right to rebellion? Was it ethical for patients and doctors to collaborate toward a revolution? Was the promise of struggle toward liberation itself a harm?

It is not even so much as imagined that groups like SPK may have understood the reality of their situation—fighting to bring a future into being.

Reflections

Reading these chapters turned into a bit of mining for quotes and theoretical frameworks for something that I've been thinking about - namely, the moral case for rejecting computational and algorithmic systems of violence, and the legitimacy of people on the ground to make those decisions without waiting for "experts" to give permission. And the insinuation that this work is not legitimate, not meritorious, if it's not studied as a peculiarity, or as an artifact in its own right, struck me.

I also think it's hilarious that Tellenbach offered these provocations about whether patients have a right to rebel, whether it's ethical for patients and doctors to collaborate toward their mutual liberation... and I felt satisfyingly determined that yes absolutely I believe patients have a right to rebel; yes absolutely doctors have a responsibility to be collaborators in liberation from oppression and coercive violence such as capitalism. I wish I could laugh at these questions, but in the 50 years since these events the medical community by and large has affirmed Tellenbach and condemned SPK.

As the chapter says, this is our cause now.

Buy the book

I'm still figuring out what book to read next; if you have any extra money at this time of year, you could do a lot of help by buying eSIMs for Palestinians. The Crips for eSIMs for Gaza project has raised more than a million dollars to keep Palestinians connected to the internet during this ongoing genocide.

If you'd rather continue to donate to The Sameer Project, that would also help Palestinians in Gaza survive as it gets colder and conditions worsen.

However you do help (however you can help), thank you.

That's all for now; talk soon.