SICK THREADS – ILLNESS AS AN AESTHETIC

Posted on October 25, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged #plaguecore, Abi Palmer, ableism, aesthetics, beauty standards, capitalism, Covid-19, disease, Doctor Who, ehlers danlos syndrome, face masks, featured, health, illness, illness as metaphor, medical discrimination, misogyny, productivity, psychoanalysis, Sanatorium, susan sontag, vintage.

By Vyvyan René

In Sanatorium, Abi Palmer likens illness to a ‘lack of access’ to the world. But could we view this feeling of being ostensibly unmoored from reality as merely a different manifestation of it? Ableism is a prerequisite for the doctrine of optimum productivity and consumption endorsed by capitalist ethos, rendering healthcare essentially meritocratic. For women, BAME people, marginalised genders, queer people and anyone lacking cultural capital, who consequently struggle to be taken seriously by medical professionals (an experience that Palmer vividly evokes), performative illness becomes a grim necessity.

QUEER LONELINESS & THE IMPENDING MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS

Posted on May 30, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged #StayAlert, #StayHome, coronavirus, Covid-19, crisis, featured, health, healthcare, LGBTQIA+, lockdown, london, loneliness, medical, mental health, mental illness, network, NHS, public information, queer, race, racism, support, together, uea pride, uk.

by Kasper Hassett

CW: mental health

Long predating the lockdown, members of the LGBTQIA+ community have reported feelings of isolation and loneliness at alarmingly high levels. This reached a point where ‘queer loneliness’ was dubbed an epidemic, and the mental health of the community overall was recognised as dire. With many now separated from their support networks during lockdown, queer people are experiencing new lows in their mental health. Additionally, much of the previously mentally healthy population is also struggling, and NHS services are suffocating from cuts, meaning that many queer people will miss out on vital mental health services as a complacent wider world focuses on going ‘back to normal’. Continue Reading

CAPITALISING ON CRISIS: BILLIONAIRES, PATENT WARS AND SURVEILLANCE IN THE WAKE OF COVID-19

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged amazon, antivax, austerity, Big Pharma, billionaires, capitalism, coronavirus, Covid-19, crisis, cuts, David Harevy, disaster, economy, featured, health, Naomi Klein, neoliberalism, patents, privatisation, revolving door, speculation, surveillance, tax the rich, tech, vaccines.

by Tesni Clare

It’s not an original idea: opportunistic, peripatetic capitalism works by capitalising on its own crises. The idea rings even truer for neoliberal capitalism.

It’s what Naomi Klein has dubbed ‘disaster capitalism’. Amidst public disorientation following a crisis, control is achieved by the imposition of economic shock therapy, or in other words, economic liberalisation – public spending is withdrawn, large scale privatisation occurs, and disaster is transformed into a shiny new investment. Private contractors move in, gobble up funding for their efforts to ‘clean up’, and billions get cut from government budgets.

ARE WE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER? COVID AND RACISM

Posted on May 25, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged #StayAlert, #StayHome, anti black, anti-asian, BAME, Bangladeshi, Belly Mujnga, black, Chinese, coronavirus, Covid-19, crisis, David Williams, doctors, england, featured, government, gynaecology, health, healthcare, James Marion Sims, lockdown, london, medical, minorities, NHS, poverty, public information, race, racism, system, together, uk.

by Lisa Insansa Woods

CW: racism

At the moment, we are led to believe that Covid-19 is a marauder snatching away our media, our minds and our vulnerable population and that the only way to defeat such a pernicious beast is to sing hollow cries of “we are all in this together.” Yes, this should be a time for us to unify in communal admonishment of the situation; a time where we should realise our shared will to thrive alongside our neighbours; a time to join mutual aid groups to help those more vulnerable in a true display of fraternité; but, in doing this, we should not be blind to the fact that we do not share an equal burden.Continue Reading

WELL-BEING FIRST: THINKING HEALTHY IN THE TIME OF COVID-19

Posted on May 7, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged abuse, action, apathy, Boris Johnson, Brexit, conservative, coronavirus, covid, covid19, crisis, featured, health, Infection Control Today, jeremy corbyn, Joseph Stiglitz, left, liberal, media, mental health, MSM, NHS, NPD, PPE, psychology, Tory, Trump, uk, well-being, wellbeing.

by Sunetra Senior

A couple of weeks ago we were told of the extent of the Tory government’s negligence during a time of intense international crisis. They disregarded important information provided by advisory committees at critical moments as well as the crucial COBRA Meetings themselves, which are specifically held to ensure strong leadership at times of national emergency. According to the article in The Times, Boris’ earlier inaction has resulted in the number of deaths reaching six figures with the estimated mortality predicted to be 400,000. Of course, in addition to patently disregarding hundreds of thousands of lives, Johnson’s administration has also put the physical health of millions at risk with the virus running uncontrolled throughout the population for a whole month between 24th Feb when the recorded number of deaths skyrocketed, and the announcement of effective lockdown measures in mid-March.Continue Reading

COVID-19, POSTCAPITALISM AND EXTERMINISM; IT’S TIME TO BUILD A BETTER FUTURE

Posted on March 21, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Community, Inter|national and tagged acid communism, austerity, capitalism, coronavirus, covid, Covid-19, disease, E P Thompson, ecofascism, epidemic, exterminism, fatalism, featured, health, Mark Fisher, NHS, pandemic, peter frase, politics, social care, uk.

by Yali Banton-Heath

As the UK’s response to the Covid-19 outbreak exposes capitalism for all its evils, now is the time to start laying the foundations for a better future.

We’ve been in the final throes of capitalism for some time now. Since the financial crash of 2008 long-term economic stagnation has persisted in the west, yet 1% of the world’s population have managed to hoard almost half of global wealth. As the world faces a global pandemic of the life-threatening novel coronavirus aka Covid-19, now more than ever the faults in our capitalist system are screaming out for scrutiny, and it is fast becoming obvious that inequality kills, and capitalism is to blame.

KEEP CALM & WORK YOURSELF TO DEATH

Posted on August 23, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged benefits, benefits culture, Boris Johnson, conservatives, CSJ, cuts, deportation, dwp, featured, gender gap, george osborne, health, Iain Duncan Smith, NHS, pension, pension scheme, retirement, statistics, Tories, unions, vulnerable, welfare, welfare cuts, women, work, workers.

by Jonathan Lee

“New pension plans to work till you die are no cause for alarm” says arch-Tory overlord Ian Duncan Smith. A recent report from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), the Tory think-tank which brought us Universal Credit, has recommended the government raise the retirement age from 65 to 70 by 2028, and to 75 by 2035.

The Tories are not content to simply make workers’ lives as miserable as possible through underfunding schools, unaffordable housing, food poverty, and the greatest devaluation of wages in modern history. They now seek to steal the last golden years of life from the majority of working class people who cannot afford a private pension in order to retire early.Continue Reading

BANANA LINK – THE NORWICH ORGANISATION DEFENDING BANANA WORKERS’ RIGHTS

Posted on February 8, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Community, Inter|national and tagged activism, advocacy, Africa, agriculture, agrochemicals, Banana Link, bananas, Cameroon, Compagnie Fruitière, costa rica, education, environment, featured, Freedom and fairness for Fyffes workers, fruit, gender equity, ghana, health, Honduras, International Union of Foodworkers, Latin America, living wage, maternity rights, norwich, trade unions, worker solidarity, workers rights, World Banana Forum.

By Paul Lievens, Banana Link Communications Officer

Bananas have been part of our diet for thousands of years, and are the most popular fruit in the world, with over 100 billion bananas eaten around the world every year. In the UK, each of us eats on average around 10 kg, or 100 bananas, per year. Grown across the tropical regions of the world, banana export production provides an essential source of income for hundreds of thousands of rural households in developing countries. However, many of the plantation workers who produce our bananas fail to earn a living wage and do not have their labour rights respected, while the intensive use of agrochemicals harms the health of workers and the surrounding environment.

BEYOND BURNOUT: TOWARDS COMPASSIONATE ACTIVISM

Posted on August 14, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged activism, burnout, campaigning, compassion, competition, cooperation, featured, grassroots, health, identity, mental health, movement, neoliberalism, politics, postgraduate, protest, social comparison.

By Anonymous

Being an ‘activist’ is a crucial part of my identity. It can be a difficult thing to be, in a society where ‘politics’ is a dirty word and its practice is often at best frowned upon, but I’m glad I’ve made it to this place. To be part of wider movements, making friends with incredibly talented, dedicated and inspiring people and, in my own flawed, stumbling way, trying to make the world a little bit better, is an enormous joy and privilege that not everyone gets to enjoy.

SOCIAL PRESCRIBING – CURING LONELINESS IN OUR DISTANCING SOCIETY

Posted on May 21, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Community and tagged alcohol, bowthorpe, Brexit, Britain, capitalism, Community, domestic violence, drug use, economics, elderly people, environment, featured, food, Frome, globalisation, GPs, health, healthcare, horticultural therapy, illness, independence, internet, loneliness, mental health, nature, NHS, norfolk, nutrition, peer mentoring, personal debt, PTSD, recreation, relationships, social prescribing, society, Somerset, teamwork, The Grow Organisation, uk, voluntary sector.

By Nicholl Hardwick, for The Grow Organisation

In contemporary Britain, our lives are pervaded with unique health and economic pressures. Capitalism, globalisation, Brexit and the internet have all contributed to a new era of loneliness, community isolation and disconnectedness. We may go days at a time without speaking or having sentimental engagement with another person. In particular, elderly members of the community frequently fall to the wayside as our distancing society ceases to encourage them to function as active participants.

health

SICK THREADS – ILLNESS AS AN AESTHETIC

By Vyvyan René

QUEER LONELINESS & THE IMPENDING MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS

CAPITALISING ON CRISIS: BILLIONAIRES, PATENT WARS AND SURVEILLANCE IN THE WAKE OF COVID-19

ARE WE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER? COVID AND RACISM

WELL-BEING FIRST: THINKING HEALTHY IN THE TIME OF COVID-19

KEEP CALM & WORK YOURSELF TO DEATH

BANANA LINK – THE NORWICH ORGANISATION DEFENDING BANANA WORKERS’ RIGHTS

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