Wikipedia Hates Homeopathy -- probably OT

[Rosemary Hyde]

Dale, you're right about the need for action.
Is there any precedent that you know of where grassroots people have defeated big money, and how have they done it? Perhaps we could learn from the history -- it doesn't matter if it's homeopathy, or even health related. I can think of farmers needing to defeat Monsanto, for instance, as another situation where ordinary people are up against a financial giant that's promoting an unethical and ultimately destructive monopoly solely for its own profit.
The loss of genetic diversity in the bee population and its subsequent decimation is an example of what can happen when a range of sustainable possibilities is destroyed by "big X" -- you name it.
We're looking at a new paradigm of necessary revolution, on a much larger scale than within a single nation. I suspect the "alternative health" community needs to band together with all kinds of other "alternative" communities -- family farmers, renewable power sources, neighborhood collaboratives, home schoolers.... Major corporations are economies that outstrip the capacity and reach of most countries.
Rosemary

[Dr. Joe Rozencwajg, NMD]

Not "exactly" that, but we had the famous "fart tax" in New Zealand a few years ago......are you laughing already?
The government wanted to impose a tax on farmers proportional to the amount of cattle they had to cover for the amount of CO2 they belch and fart so that we could respect our Kyoto treaty commitments.............pick yourself up from the floor, please!
You imagine the roar of laughter and anger than went through the whole public, even non-farmers! Grassroot movement indeed, all the papers inundated with letters, letters and emails to all MP, one of the MPs in my province, who is a farmer, even drove his old tractor to Wellington and drove up the stairs to get into Parliament.......he was stopped and charged with disorderly conduct, which was dismissed later on.
Needless to say that tax was cancelled...........until recently when it was reintroduced in a disguised manner and labelled differently.
Shows that it can be done but you need a real motivator that will unite all factions of the public. Certainly not easy.
Dr. J. Rozencwajg, MD, PhD, NMD.
"The greatest enemy of any science is a closed mind".
Visit http://drjoesnaturalmedicine.blogspot.com for some articles and comments.

[Tanya Marquette]

rosemary,
we have long history of people defeating power.
look at viet nam--the public outcry was intense even
if it did take a few yrs. the civil rights movement
is another example of major social change from grassroots
movement.
on more local levels, i live in an area that has seen several
major fights. one was agains Wal-mart invading the community.
another was against Mariott hotel that wanted to take over
a major mountain top that is part of the environmental keynote
of the area. both fights were grassroots, took about 3 yrs
and were won by the people. the mountain top was taken over
by the parks commission and although not freely accessible to
the skinny dippers any longer, is being maintained as the
natural environmental area that the people supported.
another battle in my area concerned keeping high priced gated
communities from taking over a mountain side in the area. and
related to this one, was the issue of keeping cell towers off
the mountain.
a small group of people, including me, have been waging a battle
against racism in the school district locally. while more
nebulous an issue, we have got the issue on the table, outlasted
a superintendent who attempted to squash the issue, and are
still moving forward on the issue.
in previous posts, i made several suggestions of types of actions
that people can take. organizing a core group of activists is
always the best since it is very difficult to wage a 1-person
campaign. organizing letter writing to local officials and to the
newspapers is always powerful. visiting with government officials, armed
with material is another action. tackling things in the courts
can be part of the effort, as this need comes up. attending town
and other public meetings where the issue can be discussed. get
the issue on the agenda as it pertains.
trying to network with other holistic practitioners has been difficult
i think due to complacency and disbelief that their entitlements can
be lost in a heart beat.
organizing patients to write letters, make phone calls, sign petitions.
doing public discussions via network groups. for example, joining a
local chamber of commerce where you can sponsor events which gives you
standing and opportunity to present some information.
doing public discussions where a film, for example, could be shown.
i organized a panel discussion of holisitic practitioners at a women's
networking group a few yrs ago. despite the reservation of the head of
this group, it was one of the most successful presentations they ever
had.
there are lots of venues that can be created to get the word out to work
on creating changes.
and working in coalitions is important as a means of building a larger
base.
all these type of actions and venues have worked for many issues. the fcc
was stopped in its quest for mass media deregulation on 2003 by mass letter
writing/e-mail/fax/phone calls to legislators. but once again the fcc is
attempting to circumvent the publics interest. today, the same tactics and
strategies are being used to fight the codex alimentarius in the usa.
freedom requires constant vigilance and nothing is ever fixed in stone.
tanya

[Rosemary Hyde]

Thanks, Tanya for those reminders. The fight in all those cases was a political one, with the people in power as the adversary. In the cases I had mentioned as requiring a new form of revolution, the adversaries are corporations, which have no political accountability, and work outside established political boundaries.
Codex was the first example I've looked at seriously -- the adversary is transnational pharmaceutical corporations. They have limitless money -- therefore, basically limitless political power. Not being human, they have no moral sensibility. They're a bit like the Bush administration vis a vis the Middle East, unfortunately (and corporate money runs the Bush administration). Historically, the only way to topple such foes is through guerilla actions.
As homeopaths concerned about our ability to continue to help ourselves and other people through homeopathy, how do we prepare for guerilla warfare against "Big Pharma?" Tanya brought up Viet Nam -- which I see as an example of the success that guerilla tactics often have against a "Big" adversary. If the US had felt "victorious" in Viet Nam, there would have been no strong opposition nationally to that war. The Viet Cong guerilla tactics actually prevailed.
Dr. Roz's wonderful and sad example of the "fart tax" is all too often what happens with political actions -- they may delay something, but generally it then just gets presented and passed in another form, using different words. Perhaps homeopaths need also to explore using different words...??
Rosemary

[Tanya Marquette]

i agree that big pharma is technically a corporation.
but lets remember that they gain much of their clout by
manipulation the polity. without the fda or dept of agric
much of what they do would not be allowed. and this is
where the people need to create pressure. it was public
outcry in my local area that fought the goliaths walmart and
marriott. as i recall marriott spent over $3 million trying
to control our mountain top. people raised $ for court costs
and public ads, but everything else was done pro-bono, including
the legal work. walmart went down the same way.
and lets not forget the environmental movement which often goes
up in the face of corporations with their pollution of water and air.
we need to remember that codex gains control ONLY with the
approval/support of each country's polity. so our effort has
to counter the money of the corporation. i see fighting on
several levels. one level is guerilla actions. other levels
include working 'within the system' as they say. but in all cases
public education is paramount. the more organized people can get,
the bigger the message that can get out. look at what half dozen
young people when they began moveon.org online. they have, what,
4 million subscribers now? why else would the powers that be want
to squash access to the internet--it is clearly for the ability
to freely communicate ideas and rev up action in the face of the
black outs and propaganda spin in the mass media.
another arena to study is the vaccine-mercury issue and the
epidemic of autism and add (adhd) in this country. comparisons
with other countries shows different numbers depending on whether
they mandate vaccines or not. we, of course, know that it isn't
only mercury that is a culprit, but that is what is hitting the
public's consciousness. i am always a bit amused when i speak with
people who are just 'getting'it' with the mercury connection and here
i come telling them that mercury is only the tip of the iceberg with
vaccines. then i try to inform them of the different components of
vaccines; ie, foreign protein and the fillers and adjuvents.
but this has to happen in larger venues. i also feel that we need to
take deep breaths and monitor the sense of being overwhelmed which can
burn us out all too fast. every movement, every revolution began small,
often sitting around a kitchen table or a campfire. it is the fire in
the belly energy that pushes change forward. that is what we need to do--
build that fire in the belly around issues of health care. and we need to
network heavily. that is where we will find the nurturing to replenish our
tired souls when things feel hopeless. this list is one place for that
support, but our members need to react with activism.
in peace and struggle
tanya

[Dale Moss]

Rosemary,
What to do depends a lot on the issue and where one lives. The trick is always to look for ways of having maximum impact with minimal effort and cost. Corporations can be embarrassed into action (or out of it). Some years ago a handful of us took on a major utility company that was spraying herbicide along the canal that ran next to our homes. A little girl died right after the spraying; cause of death was never determined, but her family thought it was linked to the spraying, and with their permission we made maximum use of that poor child's death. One public demonstration and a public meeting later, the company backed away from its five-year plan of continued spraying. Tempers ran high enough that I'm sure they feared their equipment would be sabotaged if they persisted.
Right now we're lobbying in Massachusetts against this infernal National Animal Identification System. Sympathetic legislators have introduced a bill withdrawing MA from the system, so we write angry (but persuasive!) letters to our state representatives and senators -- but also to the respective chairs of the subcommittee that will review the bill. If an issue is not a legislative one, but the government is involved, then you can have a lot of fun finding the poor low-level bureaucrat with power of decision -- and deluge that guy with mail. Legislators are used to getting angry letters; most bureaucrats are not -- they fold pretty quickly.
As far as defending homeopathy is concerned, I think we have to be vocal in our support for it and for diversity in health-care options. There certainly is a strong economic argument to be made for supporting and encouraging homeopathy as a treatment of first choice -- it costs less, is not invasive, doesn't promote antibiotic resistant bacteria, etc. IMHO professional organizations like NASH and the NCH should be compiling persuasive lists of points in favor of homeopathy -- and developing e-mail lists of their membership so they could instantly notify them to write letters, make phone calls, visit offices on behalf of homeopathy.
What form might this take? Well, for one, how about a comparison where you'd take a homeopathic case with lots of diverse symptoms and compare it to a similar conventional case. Then calculate the treatment costs for both -- including the costs of medicine, visits, lab tests, and any extras needed for iatrogenic problems encountered by the conventional case. On the one side would be the homeopathic case, powerful in its spareness and low cost (not to mention speed of improvement), and on the other would be the conventional with who knows how many complications.
Enough from me! What "hooks" do you see in the present situation that offer an opportunity for us?
Peace,
Dale