👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽Thank you, Russell. For contextualizing and taking no bullshit and speaking out about it. And, always, for being you. ❤️
Yes yes yes! I agree with everything you've said. Thank you for this! Ive had variations of this same convo with patients and colleagues here in Australia who vote conservative and are racist, sexist, homophobic, classist. Im always in shock (shaken and sickened tbh) and I wonder if they realise what their degree was about? Or what it says on the door of the clinic when they arrive as a patient? It's Chinese Medicine, and it comes from Daoism. Not facism. Not denialism and exclusion. I recently had to ask a patient / practitioner to stop talking during a treatment, and suggested he find another person to treat him - he was talking about Jordan Peterson and Trump and RFK and how "stupid uneducated" (working class?) people cause problems because they don't get what's really happening in the world, and they behave like sheep. 🫠🫠🫠 I felt sick after he left. And fresh hell to use your term was when 2 Chinese medicine practitioners I know recently said to me over coffee that they don't "concern themselves" with politics and stuff happening in the world (genocide, sexism, trans rights, Aboriginal rights, Indigenous rights, racism, any-ism) they just focus on what's happening in their own backyard (!!???), and stay in their lane. Wild that they think their backyard is some white washed hermetically sealed fantasy land where Chinese medicine exists in isolation from the actual living breathing spinning world. So, thanks for sharing this post. It's such an important convo that doesn't get had enough!
Russell, thank you for using your eloquence to call bullshit on the nationalism/racism/misogyny/fascism of this moment in time, particularly as it relates to all of us out here trying to practice acupuncture with due respect and integrity. My fingers will be prying the door open and they will be crossed.
YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!! I could write many more. 100 times YES. With love and gratitude for these words (I relate). In solidarity, a neurodivergent acupuncturist, from England x
I live in Oklahoma, so I feel like I’m taking crazy pills everyday of my life with all the Trump & RFK rhetoric. Just left the space I was renting because of this as well.
If RFK is confirmed I think it’s smart for the profession to make more advances towards aligning with MAHA. It is one of the biggest grass root movements towards holistic health becoming mainstream we have ever seen. If this spells out death for the profession it’s because of giving up even before trying based on preconceived political notions, however things aren’t always so red or blue. The left used to be the home for alternative medicine and holistic living, maybe 15 years ago, but there has certainly been a shift and the left is now all about big pharma. Big pharma does not want our profession no matter how much we try to align with it. They often aim to annihilate alternative medicine and acupuncture at any opportunity. The left has not embraced Acupuncture with open arms at all recently, they lobby against us. These changing tides are actually a great opportunity for acupuncture to be reintroduced to Americans while lots of people are moving away from big pharma. I know a lot of people have issues with RFK’s views on vaccines and other things, a big issue with him being under Trump, but it’s clear people want more natural medical approaches. Integrating Chinese Medicine has always been a challenge because of cultural differences. Not necessarily because of racism but because of differing paradigms. To insist that this same challenge we have always had will be impossible now because of racism is a little dishonest. I think we still need to work just as hard at bridging these paradigms while preserving the cultural influences, but acting like there is no hope isn’t going to help. I hope you come to see it’s actually a wondering thing that people want more control and say in their health instead of blindly following, and that this is great for our profession.
The fantasy that RFK is going to dismantle Big Pharma is so laughable I can’t tell if you’re joking or not. You are talking about an administration who at this very moment is dismantling the Dept of Education to privatize and commodify every kid’s education in the nation. This is the most pro-big business president the country has ever had, so much so that he’s basically letting huge divisions of the government be run by unelected, incel tech chuckleheads like Elon Musk. Trump has personally vetoed every bill to reduce prescription medication he can. You really think he’s kicking Big Pharma out and putting…acupuncturists in? The whole point of this administration is MORE MONEY FOR BILLIONAIRES. That’s the only goal.
Thank you for being so forthright and bold in your statements. This is one of the best essays I’ve read on the subject of our current administration. In my opinion you also cannot be anti-science and be an acupuncturist (although many seem to exist). We must not only protect our profession, but our communities, our loved ones, and our country from the beliefs that fuel our current government and half of the people in our country.
👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽Thank you, Russell. For contextualizing and taking no bullshit and speaking out about it. And, always, for being you. ❤️
Yes yes yes! I agree with everything you've said. Thank you for this! Ive had variations of this same convo with patients and colleagues here in Australia who vote conservative and are racist, sexist, homophobic, classist. Im always in shock (shaken and sickened tbh) and I wonder if they realise what their degree was about? Or what it says on the door of the clinic when they arrive as a patient? It's Chinese Medicine, and it comes from Daoism. Not facism. Not denialism and exclusion. I recently had to ask a patient / practitioner to stop talking during a treatment, and suggested he find another person to treat him - he was talking about Jordan Peterson and Trump and RFK and how "stupid uneducated" (working class?) people cause problems because they don't get what's really happening in the world, and they behave like sheep. 🫠🫠🫠 I felt sick after he left. And fresh hell to use your term was when 2 Chinese medicine practitioners I know recently said to me over coffee that they don't "concern themselves" with politics and stuff happening in the world (genocide, sexism, trans rights, Aboriginal rights, Indigenous rights, racism, any-ism) they just focus on what's happening in their own backyard (!!???), and stay in their lane. Wild that they think their backyard is some white washed hermetically sealed fantasy land where Chinese medicine exists in isolation from the actual living breathing spinning world. So, thanks for sharing this post. It's such an important convo that doesn't get had enough!
Hallelujah, hallelujah!! May an inkling of this truth seep into hearts dancing in dissonance.
thank you as always, Russell (and the footnotes … 🙃!)
Russell, thank you for using your eloquence to call bullshit on the nationalism/racism/misogyny/fascism of this moment in time, particularly as it relates to all of us out here trying to practice acupuncture with due respect and integrity. My fingers will be prying the door open and they will be crossed.
YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!! I could write many more. 100 times YES. With love and gratitude for these words (I relate). In solidarity, a neurodivergent acupuncturist, from England x
I live in Oklahoma, so I feel like I’m taking crazy pills everyday of my life with all the Trump & RFK rhetoric. Just left the space I was renting because of this as well.
This made me feel hopeful, thank you! 💖
If RFK is confirmed I think it’s smart for the profession to make more advances towards aligning with MAHA. It is one of the biggest grass root movements towards holistic health becoming mainstream we have ever seen. If this spells out death for the profession it’s because of giving up even before trying based on preconceived political notions, however things aren’t always so red or blue. The left used to be the home for alternative medicine and holistic living, maybe 15 years ago, but there has certainly been a shift and the left is now all about big pharma. Big pharma does not want our profession no matter how much we try to align with it. They often aim to annihilate alternative medicine and acupuncture at any opportunity. The left has not embraced Acupuncture with open arms at all recently, they lobby against us. These changing tides are actually a great opportunity for acupuncture to be reintroduced to Americans while lots of people are moving away from big pharma. I know a lot of people have issues with RFK’s views on vaccines and other things, a big issue with him being under Trump, but it’s clear people want more natural medical approaches. Integrating Chinese Medicine has always been a challenge because of cultural differences. Not necessarily because of racism but because of differing paradigms. To insist that this same challenge we have always had will be impossible now because of racism is a little dishonest. I think we still need to work just as hard at bridging these paradigms while preserving the cultural influences, but acting like there is no hope isn’t going to help. I hope you come to see it’s actually a wondering thing that people want more control and say in their health instead of blindly following, and that this is great for our profession.
The fantasy that RFK is going to dismantle Big Pharma is so laughable I can’t tell if you’re joking or not. You are talking about an administration who at this very moment is dismantling the Dept of Education to privatize and commodify every kid’s education in the nation. This is the most pro-big business president the country has ever had, so much so that he’s basically letting huge divisions of the government be run by unelected, incel tech chuckleheads like Elon Musk. Trump has personally vetoed every bill to reduce prescription medication he can. You really think he’s kicking Big Pharma out and putting…acupuncturists in? The whole point of this administration is MORE MONEY FOR BILLIONAIRES. That’s the only goal.
Brilliant. THANK YOU for writing this!
Thank you for calling this out. It's maddening.
Amen.
Thank you for being so forthright and bold in your statements. This is one of the best essays I’ve read on the subject of our current administration. In my opinion you also cannot be anti-science and be an acupuncturist (although many seem to exist). We must not only protect our profession, but our communities, our loved ones, and our country from the beliefs that fuel our current government and half of the people in our country.
bravo
THANK YOU. I continue to be baffled by the number of colleagues in our field who support RFK Jr & Trump. The cognitive dissonance is WILD.
Thank you so much for voicing every point. Taking nourishment and comfort in knowing there is community here; it is everything right now.
Thank you Russell.