On  1 Dec 97 at 11:42, Liz Rykert wrote:

> I think there is one fundamental and perhaps concrete barrier
> which stops many health promotion practitioners from organizing and speaking
> out - namely - biting the hand that feeds you.

That's perfectly correct, Liz. Health promotion is most of the time a
governmentally sponsored activity (nationally and internationally) and as such
it is monitored in terms of its consensus with those policies. Health
promotors, subsequently, are more or less sponsored by governments rather than
by the people. David Seedhouse's book from 1997 comes to mind again.

> If so how to we dismantle this wall of silence?

Pretty difficult like in any other times of history when conformity or
*political correctness* were highly valued. If health promotors are not trained
to understand the political implications of public health and its programs,
they will hardly be enabled to form *alliances* amongst themselves (join trade
unions?). It seems to be ironic that health-promotion-newspeak applies first
and foremost to health promotors themselves but is hardly applied here as those
initiating and controlling the discourse seem to believe they're in control
while they are controlled. As a friend from Eastern Europe once told me in the
1980s: We do not live, we are lived.


Eberhard Wenzel MA PhD
Griffith University
Australian School of Environmental Studies
Nathan, Qld. 4111
Australia
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WWW Virtual Library Public Health at:
    http://www.ens.gu.edu.au/eberhard/vl/index.htm

You can't help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY,
even if he doesn't spell it right; but spelling isn't everything.
There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn't count.
Winnie The Pooh