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Notes on "Everyday Exposure"

-denial of environmental heath issues, blaming the sick
-box ticking ans cover up, red tape bureaucracy
-"sensing policy": embodied, place-based,relational, responsible

Safe Side Off the Fence

EfeCengiz

The documentary is missing because the documentary is as safe as the fence it mocks in its title.
In the beginning we are asked to bear witness to the construction and use of the most devastation weapon of indiscriminate death the world has ever seen, and all the harm the construction of such a tool, yet its construction and its use is justified near instantaneously by repeating the same old propaganda.
In continuation, we are asked to bear witness to the continuous production of similar weapons and the devastation caused by the mishandling of the waste that accumulated in their production, yet why such a production took place is not only left unquestioned, but simple hints of cold war propaganda is left in their places for safekeeping.
In the end, we are asked to bear witness to a sombre victory, same spectres of patriotism and nation-of-God watching over our shoulder, yet how the pitiful situation of being forced to celebrate even such a small victory is never explored.
To sum up, we are shown people, good people, who struggle against the symptoms of a disease, yet this disease itself never named, nor challenged. It could not have been challenged, as it would force a complete change in their discourse.

If we sincerely would like to critique how the bodies of these workers were made disposable; used, harmed, dislocated and discharged as deemed necessary; if we wish to explore this topic as the necropolitical issue it is, we cannot stop halfway through. This inability to stop chasing connections, relationalities wherever it fits our ideology, is not a call for “objectivism”, it’s a call to respect the term of Anthropocene with all its rhizomatic connections.

An investigation of nuclear waste, that does not factor the use of its product, the socio-political effects of said product, and the historical conditions that even led to the possibility of producing it in such ways and such quantities, are of no use for us.  It cannot penetrate the barrier of capitalist realism. If it could, at least a single mention of workers unions would have existed. Instead, it has confessionals by atomic weapons lawyers whose heart goes out to these workers.
An America that refuse to face up to the fact that it is what it is by the great necropolitical project it led for hundreds of years, I struggle to accumulate sympathy for, what I can easily accumulate is rage however, which this documentary is missing..
Wish the documentary would have at least attempted to say something radical, instead of praising these disposable bodies for being patriotic about it. There are lives who never had false fences built as idols for safety, the collective idols of old America, the patriotic nation under God were built upon their broken bodies, what would you ask of them?

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joerene.aviles

The stakeholders are Dr. Atul Gawande, other healthcare professionals, and the patients with terminal illnesses. They have to decide what the patient's priorities are, treatment options, and basically how much time and quality of life patients are willing to trade for extended years to live. Is the treatment making the patient worse or better? Doctors have to put themselves in a position of vulnerability by personally getting to know their patients, and deal with the guilt and blame if their treatments aren't successful or what they had said to the patient's family.

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joerene.aviles

1. Under private equity ownership, some ambulance response times worsened, heart monitors failed and companies slid into bankruptcy, according to a Times examination of thousands of pages of internal documents and government records, as well as interviews with dozens of former employees. In at least two cases, lawsuits contend, poor service led to patient deaths.

2. “Private equity has, in this case, threatened public safety,” said Richard Thomas, the mayor of Mount Vernon, N.Y, which relied on TransCare. “It’s not the way to treat the public.”

3.  Do the Write Thing “didn’t sit well with the firefighters,” said Nico Latini, who has worked at Rural/Metro for a decade. “We operate under a high level of integrity and we do the right thing every day — with an R, not a W.”