We disabled Dems take great interest in all progressive issues

[DemBones DemBones]

but the non-disabled Dems/progressives don't take much interest in our issues. Since we have limitations that they don't, we could really use their help with our issues. How do we win their support?

My hypothesis is that the non-disabled are made nervous by us because we're a reminder of the fragility of health. They don't want to believe that they could find themselves suffering from something that doesn't just go away (like a cold), something that can't be fixed right up by trying the right doctor/ diet/ herb/ medication. I think that's why they feel compelled to tell us about what they are sure will be the right doctor/ diet/ herb/ medication to cure us. However much we may appreciate their concern, their attempt to help, we suspect that it also belies their suspicion that we just aren't trying hard enough to get well, and an underlying message to shut up and go off somewhere and heal.

The disabled know that disability ends a lot of marriages and friendships as well as careers. Sometimes the disabled person wants an end to a marriage, friendship, or career but all too often the spouse, friend, or employer wants to be rid of the now disabled, imperfect person. We are very often seen as a burden. We must be careful not to complain too much, try not to show it if we are in pain, just go on with our lives as if nothing had happened (impossible, of course, but we're supposed to pretend to do it.)

In online communities, we soon learn our issues are not given as much importance as anyone else's issues. Post a thread about a disability issue and it will sink. It's stylish to be GLBT, dark-skinned or ethnic, but there is no cripple chic.

We don't want to talk about disability all the time because it isn't all we are. But it is a big part of who we are and people don't want to acknowledge it. We need other people to understand what it's like for us, and how they could help us, but we don't want to be pigeonholed as "disabled" as if that excluded all other categories. Perhaps it's a bit like being black. People of color want others to realize what they're up against and to support them in their struggles, but they don't always want to be referred to as "my black friend."

How do we get the non-disabled to understand us? How do we get them to support our causes? Can they ever regard one of us as just a friend, not "my disabled friend"?

[KamaAina]

1. Ragged Edge has some thoughts on this very subject

for those of you playing along at home :-) , Ragged Edge (formerly the Disability Rag) is the Time or Newsweek of the disability rights movement (except that it doesn't suck like those other two :-) )

From earlier this year:

http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/focus/liberals0104.html

During the debate over Terri Schiavo last fall, disability activists and scholars groused about both right-to-life and right-to-die advocates not understanding disability rights issues. It was just the latest round of a recurring tune: activists say progressives and conservatives are equally dense when it comes to understanding, much less embracing, disability rights.

Liberals, in particular, came in for a drubbing. Whether called progressives, leftists, or liberals, these are folks who should understand and support disability rights issues and make them part of the liberal rights agenda, said almost everyone we talked to. But they don't.

It's "downright weird," says Michael Bérubé, whose 1996 book, Life As We Know it,about raising disabled son Jamie, became a bestseller.Bérubé calls liberals "oddly reluctant to see disability rights as part of a program of egalitarian civil rights."

"What happened to the liberal clergy that supported the civil rights movement in the 60s?" asks Mainstream magazine website editor Bill Stothers. "You don't see them on ADAPT marches."

And this blast from the past (1997):

http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/nov97/prog.htm

When disability activist Mark Johnson moved to Atlanta in 1986, he wanted to do organizing work for ADAPT. He first approached traditional disability groups like UCP and Easter Seals. "They weren't interested."

He then approached the Fund for Southern Communities, a community-based progressive fund that often makes grants to social action and direct change groups.

"I called them and they said a funding cycle was about to begin and to get a proposal in to them," he recalls. "Of course, when I got there, their office was inaccessible."

Johnson recalls getting to the Fund's office -- a small house -- and, finding steps to the door, driving his van across the grass to the side of the house and banging on the outside wall until somebody came out to take his grant.

I worry that the right is co-opting our movement. The National Organization on Disability released a poll showing voters with disabilities split right down the middle, with nearly half supporting the repuke party which is hostile to our civil rights, and constantly cutting funding for the programs that allow us to participate in society.

[DemBones DemBones]

9. Aloha, Kama Aina, long time no see!

:hi:

Glad to see you are still at DU.

[DemBones DemBones]

10. I see a possible correlation between the disabled voting Republican (ugh!)

and the Terri Schiavo case, the latter suggesting to all of us imperfect beings that there is not a lot of support out there for our right to live. Most of the people who want Terri to be kept alive with continuation of her feeding tube, and given treatment, which she has never gotten, are also opposed to abortion. Sadly, that means that most vote Republican, as the Democratic Party is far too wedded to "abortion rights." People on the left have gone from thinking that perhaps women shouldn't have to complete a pregnancy if they are carrying a defective child to supporting abortion for any reason and believing that the best answer for anyone on "life support" is to "pull the plug."

The GOP won't do shit for us, and probably would like to see us all out on the street corners selling pencils, but they wouldn't yank out our feeding tubes to hasten our demise.

What a country! :shrug:

[Banazir]

16. Dehumanization from the left and the right

Of course they'll gladly hasten our demise in other ways, like cutting Medicaid. But I indeed know disabled people who have voted Republican because of Schiavo.

I also know that when I have tried to discuss life-and-death issues with so-called progressives, I have heard many supporting infanticide, telling me that the trouble is that "you people live longer these days than you used to," telling me that opposing eugenic abortion is the same as opposing all abortion and that therefore I'm a traitor to feminism (tell that to someone with Down's syndrome and see what reaction you get -- there's a difference between deciding it's okay to do something in some circumstances, and deciding it's okay to use that thing as a tool for the willful elimination of a class of people, i.e. genocide), telling me that if I want people I know to be alive then I'm not seeing the big picture because people like us would be dead in other times and that would be more "natural," and telling me most of all over and over again that I'm too close to the issues to be objective. Damn straight I'm close to the issues.

What always gets to me is that they start talking in terms of economics. "There isn't enough money to keep all of us alive." :argh: That's when they show their most revolting beliefs: Namely, that there are expendable human beings, and moreover, it is automatically disabled people who are the expendable ones, the lives not worth living, the useless eaters, and the ones who should sacrifice ourselves so that everyone else (the real people, I suppose) can live. If I ever engage in heroic self-sacrifice, it'll be because I died saving some kids from a burning building or something, not because someone else decided I needed to die to make room for the "real" (non-disabled) people. It amazes me how glibly and easily some "progressives" will pronounce who is worthy of life (or even a chance at life) and who is not.

And how many of their sentences start with a patronizing "You just have to understand...". Understand what? That my status as a second-class citizen is natural? That entirely because of who I am, I shouldn't have been born, or even should have been killed in infancy, so that my parents could have had a chance at a non-disabled child? That when people tell me I'm what they call a non-contributing member of society, then they're not just talking out their prejudiced ass? That I should just accept it if posters go up all over the place about how much of a drain I supposedly am on the economy (I have seen such posters, I am not making this up)? That I am a dollar amount, not a human being? That even if I'm granted some temporary "special" exemption from the status of subhuman parasite who shouldn't have been allowed to take up space in the first place, that all my friends will still be regarded as parasites? That all of these things are just the natural, inevitable, and ethical response to my existence and that if I have a problem with it, it's my problem? I don't think so.

Dehumanization and the devaluation of the lives of a group of people is one of the initial steps in genocide. Our devaluation is so complete in this society that both progressives and conservatives participate in it without second thought. It is becoming more common to speak of us openly as expendable. These prejudices have not been addressed head-on in a way that has been listened to in any widespread manner. This has long kept me awake at night: We need some way of making them see the value of every person, every last one of us, not based on what abilities we bring (since those vary), but based on the fact that we are people.

Unfortunately the idea that value equals ability seems to run deeply ingrained in our society, even deeply ingrained in the disability community itself:

http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/extra/schiavodr2essays.html

That link covers a debate on whether Schiavo is a "disability issue" or not. I'm on the side of the person in the right-hand sidebar (and the page it links to): "I do not believe that Toy's idea of the movement, which excludes disabled people on the grounds that they are disabled has any right to the name disability rights. It sure doesn't deserve the word equality because it insists on a hierarchy that regards some people's parking privileges as more important than other people's lives. And I do not believe that it has any right to the word justice. Crip chauvinism isn't the one true faith of disability rights no matter what anybody says; it is an attempt to hijack and distort the movement. To pile inequity on injustice on oppression and paint it up nice. I believe that, at root, the disability rights movement asserts -- if it has any claim on our labor and our love -- our right to benefits of society that nondisabled people already have (or should have, were it not for other injustices that coexist with ableism). In a just world we wouldn't need these movements only because in a just world the work would already be done. If nondisabled people cannot imagine a society in which crips are full members, that's no excuse. If some crips cannot imagine a society in which Terri Schindler Schiavo -- Terri Schindler Schiavo right now, not only before brain damage or after successful therapy -- is a full member, that's no excuse either."

Nonetheless, the attitude that some of us are deeply less than others is what we are up against from both progressives and conservatives and even from some people who claim the title of disability rights activist. How to get progressives to notice this? I don't know. I often use the comparative shock value of my appearance (which people usually create certain prejudices about) versus what I believe about my life, to shake people out of their imaginary worlds where I am subhuman and out of their pretence that I don't and in fact can't notice that they think this. I insist on it being personal, I insist on the recognition of me and my friends as equals, and I insist that we need to be treated as equals. Not pseudo-equals who get patted on the head and ignored, not pseudo-equals who get denied access on the grounds that inaccessibility is equal treatment, but equals on the ground of human value. And I do not accept others being devalued in my presence: I insist on affirming everyone's personhood, not being given a token personhood while others remain non-persons in some people's eyes. Because of my comparative isolation, though, there aren't a lot of people affected directly by these tactics.

The fact that this is even considered an acceptable topic of debate, this persons versus non-persons thing, enough that Peter Singer is considered innovative and daring rather than a producer of hate speech, worries me. There have been other times in history when "debates" were created which forced some people to justify their own existence. If only there were some way to convince people, whether they call themselves progressives or not, that it is a horror to believe that someone's existence requires justification. Maybe there is. I'd like to know it.

[DemBones DemBones]

25. Welcome to DU! It's great to have a new poster

here who really gets it about disability, and writes about it so eloquently. (Do people have to be disabled to get it? I'm not sure. I think I got it before I was disabled. At least I tried. And I knew Peter Singer was a freak immediately; there's a man who is morally disabled.)

Reality is that many people alive today, in the so-called civilized world,at least, would have died in infancy or childhood in an earlier time. That's not only true of disabled people but of many others.

But no one, absolutely no one, should have to justify his or her existence.

[KamaAina]

21. Come to think of it, Schiavo should be a feminist issue

the whole case turns on the law basically stating that she is the property of her estranged husband (who, if I get to cast the Lifetime Original Movie, will be played by Christopher Walken :evilgrin: ).

Trouble is, that would put feminists on the same side as their archenemies in the "pro-life" movement. So, don't hold your breath.

The GOP won't do shit for us, and probably would like to see us all out on the street corners selling pencils

<sarcasm>

Oh, come on. You misunderestimate our Great Republican Party.

They only want to see people who are blind on the street corners selling pencils, silly. People who use wheelchairs can just rattle a tin cup with some change in it. And as for people with autism... ever hear of Vegas? Atlantic City? Boundless riches await!

</sarcasm>

[DemBones DemBones]

24. Definitely a Christopher Walken part for the Lifetime movie!

And I agree that it SHOULD be a feminist issue -- my God, the man wants her to die so he and his "fiancee" (who has given birth to two children by him) can have a Catholic wedding! I'm sorry, but as a Catholic, I think it's a bit much to hold out for a big Catholic wedding while engaging in adultery and urging your "fiance" to starve his wife to death. (Has she ever thought about what he'll do if *she* winds up in a coma?)

But you're right, it can't be a feminist issue because it would indeed put feminists on the same side as pro-lifers. That sort of narrow view is the cause of my disgust with many feminists, though certainly not with feminism itself.

*

I suppose you're right, only the blind can sell pencils.

[wildflower]

2. I agree with everything you've said

And I'm not sure what the answer is.

Regarding one of your points, certain issues do seem to be more 'stylish' than others. By the same token, so are certain people. Meaning certain people with disabilities will get attention when others would not.

So this may be one answer. Public figures who have these illnesses or disabilities, supporting the cause.

Other than that, it is indeed difficult to get non-disabled people to understand or take up the cause.

There are a lot of us out there, so banding together helps the cause too.

Banding together also helps us have a community. But sometimes we want to be able to talk to others too; we shouldn't have to segregate ourselves.

It's a tough situation. Thanks for posting this.

-wildflower

[DemBones DemBones]

11. It's *weird* about public figures. I don't think there

is any doubt that a public figure having a disability helps increase awareness of a medical condition and funding to research treatment. It seems to be limited, though, to one condition, not to spill over into concern for other people with equally difficult/ painful/ lethal conditions. It's also dependent on celebs who become disabled but retain enough energy -- and remain photogenic enough --to make public appearances. I do think that people "get it" when it's a celeb when they don't get it about a neighbor. I just don't know why that is. . . media validation???

[Banazir]

17. It's also limited in general to medical/charity models.

A lot of people thus seem to see disability issues as primarily about charity, medicine, and maybe healthcare, not about political, economic, and social inequality and injustice. So far I haven't seen celebrities embracing disability rights in the political sense, at least not where I've been able to see it. Maybe they're rich enough they don't notice the conditions a lot of us are forced to live in, or just sit around thanking their lucky stars that they can buy their way out of those conditions? I don't know. But we could use a celebrity who got the issues beyond research funding for their particular condition.

[luaneryder]

3. I'm so glad you brought this up

There's certainly no cripple or disease chic. I PM with another DU'er who, once this members medical condition was known, was put on ignore or just plain ignored by other DU'ers. I think you've hit on a major part of the reluctance-sense of mortality. It's like the people who would go out of their way to avoid me after my son died; in some way they are afraid it will happen to them by association. I don't know the answers to your questions, but they are very good ones and having had some experience I know this problem exists. I'd like to know how I can help.

[fugue]

4. Gee, I wonder if that is why I get so few responses . . .

I am very upfront about being an Aspie, after all.

I wish I knew what the solution is, too. Someone above suggested celebrities with the condition; that gets dollars into the organizations, but it doesn't make the conditions something that the nondisabled world is comfortable with. Christopher Reeve brought lots of money into his paralysis foundation, but are people any more comfortable with the paraplegics and quadriplegics in their midst? They don't seem to be.

The nondisabled world also doesn't get that being disabled teaches people things; we have knowledge that could be very useful precisely because we come at life from such a different point of view.

[wildflower]

7. When I wrote above about public figures,

for some reason Michael J. Fox was in my mind. I've sensed a real change in the attitude of people toward Parkinson's because of him and his work. Maybe it's just me.

There are some illnesses that are deligitimized until someone famous develops it; then it is in the news and believed real, and worthy.

-wildflower

[fugue]

8. But I don't see Parkinson's patients being embraced either

The cause has been, but the people suffering it are generally kept out of view.

[DemBones DemBones]

13. In these forums, the structure makes it so that no one

has to reply. That makes it easier for people to just ignore things they're uncomfortable with. Some DUers do give good responses when someone talks about their troubles but it's too bad we can't talk about our conditions without eliciting any pity or tips for cures. I think we'd like people to just know something about how it is with us.

[wildflower]

6. I've noticed this with death too; I'm glad I'm not the only one.

[DemBones DemBones]

12. Some of it is not knowing what to say.

Losing an unborn child years ago taught me a lot about death and grief and the inappropriateness of many people's responses in such situations. When my parents died, people did much better at expressing sympathy. I think they did better because the death of older people conforms to their concept of normalcy. Disability is obviously outside normalcy, as was the death of your son, so they don't know what to say and avoidance seems an easy out.

IMHO, the main idea to express, in all cases, is "I'm sorry this has happened to you."
Followed, ideally, by some genuine offer of help, or at least a lunch or dinner.

[Banazir]

19. Fear is probably a big part of a lot of this.

People fear becoming disabled. Disability is something that, after all, will happen to the vast majority of people in the world, in one form or another. People fear it. Even some disabled people fear some forms of disability. People think "I'd rather be dead...". They don't want to think about it in part because it could be them. It's not something like ethnicity where they're pretty sure to remain of the same ethnic group their entire life. It's also something that's built into many people's value systems as making some people lesser. The idea that they could one day be that kind of person they consider lesser... I think that fills them with nothing short of terror if they have to think about it too long. So, many will keep us and our political issues at arm's length for as long as possible.

I think of the things I hear from others: That if they were like me they'd rather be dead, that it must be horrifying and awful to be like me, that my life is some abysmal pit and that this is because of the way my body and mind function. They've never been like me. They don't know. But they think they do. And that misinformation causes them fear.

My own fears center not around what abilities I will keep or lose, but around what people will do to me. I am at heightened risk for progressive cognitive disability later in life for a number of reasons. I don't fear it. I do fear devaluation. I do fear nursing homes and other institutions and abandonment to the will of people who think a life like mine is not worth living. I do fear people like the man I met, the "loving" husband who starved his wife to death once she became, to him, no longer a person because of her dementia, the man who walks free despite all this. I fear people who think they love me and think they are acting in my best interests when I become, to them, "someone else", or no person at all, and then to them it might become "merciful" in their eyes to kill the "new person" or the non-person they see when they look at me. I fear people who act on their own fear of being disabled in ways which put my life and the lives of my loved ones in jeopardy. I fear greedy politicians who see us as an easy target. But the changing of my body and mind itself? No, that in itself I have very little fear of.

It is the fear of disability, though, that I think drives a lot of people away from the issue. It is a close issue because it is close to everyone, yet something many people don't want to admit could become close to them. Disabled people pay the price for that fear.

[DemBones DemBones]

26. Any ideas on how we make them realize that

our lives are worth living? Or that they, too, could become disabled? It's as if this is one area in which adults retain an adolescent way of thinking: "It won't happen to me."

[Banazir]

30. I don't know.

I wish I did know. The trouble is that they have niches for us carved out in their heads. It can be very frustrating to run up against those niches. For instance if we get angry we get accused of being bitter as a character trait. If we show that our lives have some worth, we become exceptions and "special" inspirational stories about how saintly and angelic and wonderful and pure and absolutely good we are and get told we're "wonderfully well-adjusted in accepting our tragic and pitiable fate" (as opposed to those who become "bitter" -- activists generally get called bitter). If I do manage to break out of their stereotype of being below them, they suddenly decide I'm exactly like them (and ignore the fact that I function quite differently from they do, thus causing problems), or elevate me to an undeserved pedestal (which I then fall off of as soon as I look only human again). It's hard to break out of their whole gaggle of stereotypes when they have a stereotype for everything. It can be done, but I'm not sure how.

[DemBones DemBones]

31. You're right about the bitter/ exemplary dichotomy they

want to force on all of us. How about this: some days we're exemplary, some days we're bitter -- and just exactly who is the same day to day? I have the love and support of my husband all the time, which helps me to be cheerful most of the time, but I'm not fool enough not to realize what I've lost nor to ignore the social attitudes of those who think I'd be better off dead. (Or, if not me, perhaps a friend with CP has no quality of life, or someone who's "a vegetable.") I'd be stupid not to be bitter. Could I be worse off? Of course. I doubt there's anyone who can't think of someone whose situation is worse than their own. That doesn't mean my situation couldn't be better.

[McKenzie]

5. legislation in the UK to support your needs

you probably have something similar in the US. I hope so anyway.

Here's the UK legislation to let you see how it works>>>

http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1995/1995050.htm

[DemBones DemBones]

14. Hi, McKenzie! Without looking at

the link yet, I can't say for sure but we do have the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was signed by Bush pere and meant to give us insurance against being fired (sacked, you'd say) due to our handicaps, plus mandating wheelchair accessible businesses and public buildings (with accessible toilet facilities), and so on. Unfortunately, the law has not been upheld in many court cases and there are people who'd like to do away with it entirely. Not too sure about Bush fils at this point, he's had other priorities as you may have noticed. I doubt he's terribly supportive of disability rights, though.

[Banazir]

18. Not supportive at all.

He's among those who have been attempting to dismantle the ADA bit by bit.

[fugue]

23. The ADA was 1994, wasn't it?

I could swear that when I was getting my disability assistance last year everything said, "The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1994."

So it couldn't have been Bush I. It had to be Clinton.

[crimson333]

32. ADA started in 1990 under Bush

maybe it was renewed in 1994? I am not sure on that

[Sugarbleus]

47. Bush 1 was pressured into signing the bill ....

I suspect that in his mind he was thinking more about getting everyone off of disability checks and back to work: sections in the bill making it mandatory that a qualified person have accomdations made for them so they can perform their duties at that particular job.

I wouldn't mind going back to work if I found something I could do without having to hide my problems and where I WOULD be FULLY covered by health insurance. Today's employment environment (as you well know) has changed significantly from that when the ADA was signed into being.

Actually, I am thinking again about going back to college...we shall see what comes of that.... In the meantime, my SSDI checks come with a "little reminder" that "they" will help (would like to force) me to GET A JOB........whether or not I'm able to, dontcha ya know..:eyes:

[DemBones DemBones]

15. I want to highlight something fugue said because it's important:

"The nondisabled world also doesn't get that being disabled teaches people things; we have knowledge that could be very useful precisely because we come at life from such a different point of view."

[luaneryder]

20. There is so much that can be learned

from those living with disabilty if one just takes the time to do so. The kindest, warmest, most loving person I ever knew suffered from a neuromuscular disease from birth.

She had some good days when she could get around a bit with a walker, but mostly confined to her w/c. She volunteered with Hospice, took in strays, was thoughtful and giving, made people smile and laugh, an angel on earth. After the first glance her "disability" faded into the background of what defined her.

She married one of my best friends and they were exceedingly happy together until cancer took her life at 36. Everyone touched by her was changed in some way, made a better person by knowing her. The quiet strength and hopeful outlook that emanated from her was infectious and the world still holds the bright spot she once occupied.

[fugue]

22. That's actually where my user name comes from

The notion that our society's goal should be a fugue: many voices, singing different variations on a theme. The differences in the voices, their different takes on the theme, are what give the work as a whole its beauty.

[DemBones DemBones]

27. Nice -- the thought behind your user name.

Thanks for telling us.

[undergroundpanther]

29. Proving ones worth

One thing disability leads to in the proving ones worth scenario is this flipside...

Once we start putting people in hierarchies of who's worth more or not (as in right to exist)There is also the fact underneath all this nobody stuck in "normaland" wants to acknowledge.Which is NOBODY chooses where they are born,to which parents,which income bracket,what race,gender or even eye color.

WE all are born to be where we are at and that's that.Nobody chooses income status at birth.Status has NO basis in reality,there is no reality in any sort of social better than less than assessment of human worth.We got the body we are stuck with.And there is nothing you can do to change it except maybe surgery, tattoos or maybe genetic tinkering if you want to risk it.

Life for all is not voluntary ,a person comes here and is born if sperm meets egg and there is nothing you can do to stop it from happening to you when you are the one being born. Allot of shit in this world is not voluntary either and some of it hurts and some of it's imposed by other people.Some of which who do not want to think they are as weak and fragile because survival of the fittest and might makes right,cultural domination games demands a radical denial of our inherent horrible involuntary human condition. It's crazy. But society is in deep deep denial when they play profit games with each other.
Morality dies when money walks in the room.


We all have to survive because of our human condition .It's eat or die, we all have to pee and poop somewhere, we all get sick,we all fail ,we all get hurt,we all are perishable,fragile co dependent creatures ...That have if you think about it in a body sense very little freedom. We die when we die and we have very little say on when or how. So when a "normal person" sees a disabled person they fear failure,fear losing their worth because they know what kind of abuse of the unprofitable and lesser peoples that our culture is built upon..and right now we are destroying our only planetary home to"win" and be "owner" of the world.And it's killing everything.Talk about trying to own the world,and losing it.


Somehow we are taught to assume ownership gives you the right to be like a god to the possessions you have. The ownership model gives people an illusion they have a right to create and destroy lives based on utilitarian lies they tell themselves as owners like might makes right.The whole "ownership" culture is a HUGE lie made up and forced into people's hearts as a distraction to evade the human condition,and the reality when we die,we do it by ourselves,we lose the world, everything we hoarded,everything we fight for,own and loved and we can't take any of it with us..

Denial of the human condition,we ALL face, is dangerous denial..The fact is we all are born and have no say on how,where or in what kind of body,the fact we all need food, shelter,love,attention,help,and because certain people think they are entitled to own it,others are deprived by default and wonder why,and when they get they hold onto it,to make sure they never go without and this turns sharing into competing.This leads to the kind of selfishness..A game like some popular asshole with the most toys deciding for everyone else what certain people are worth to himself and apl;lying that to an entire culture this is what eugenics is.
Culturally our social glue is not "faith" it's coercion ,trauma and it's effects,fear,scarcity,ownership, might makes right, profit and conformity and that big old lie"normalcy" itself and a cultural imperative of denial coving it all up.

It comes down to certain people making up lies about who deserves more love,food,attention,health care,respect,autonomy,resources,shelter,comfort, and freedom and who does not,and other people BELIEVING That elitist,ownership claptrap is true.Those people who have easy ready access to the necessities of life in this world do not want to share it with anyone else,especially people that may not be a good "investment".By investment I mean someone who will increase the "givers" wealth.So money making is not altruism in any sense of the word that's why health insurance companies if left to their own devices are cruel and greedy as fuck..Because that is the sort of person who OWNS these resources in a society modeled on his kind of utilitarian "values".
So rather than share something with someone that won't give a return investment .Owners call themselves entitled and start rationalizing to anyone within earshot why some people don't deserve to have what they hoard too..Owners limit what resources you can get so they will get more than they can hope to use, not because they need it but because they have plenty and want more for other reasons than need(like a deep insecurity problem).

At a certain point a need downgrades into want and want becomes greed and hoarding. The "elitists""winners" and "owners" hoard resources and give very little back to society unless it profits them.
And nobody looks to the "elites" at the real social parasites because the'elites' are people ruthless,and arrogant enough to dare determine human worth.These 'elites" have the empty image of authority,success ,popularity,and power covering up their naked ambitious desire they never will suffer,fail and toil like others are forced to do,because they think they are entitled to own what they take the world is their oyster and they are going to drink every last drop and seize it.and win.

Because a certain classes of people with certain beliefs have declared themselves elites over all,they are ruthless bullies and consummate liars using other people who are scared of being the out-group and the victims of these elitist bullies,who believe those might makers right'eugenics' lies

They are taught these lies by their own parents,their peers who enforce the values of might makes right,conformity,thrift success and worth ,competition and profit and they believe this same lie can be applied to living things too.

Humans in the profit mind game can be categorized like a purebred cat vs a domestic short hair.Is a purebred cat worth more than a domestic short hair really?..to some business minded people purebreds mean $$ and the cats are a product to sell.I say never mind the money,both cats are wonderful sacred unique beings and so both deserve,warmth food and a loving caretaker.
My attitude twords life is not profitable however. ..The Bean counter says what's it Worth...how much money can *I* get for myself by making a cat into a product to be sold,owned and used by anyone willing to fork over cash? When you buy it you own it,By this assumption an owner can kill the cat he bought without guilt and stuff it and put it on the mantelpiece because the living being is his object to do with it as he pleases simply because he owns it It is assumed it's none of my business what he does with it..

People can become unwittingly, utilitarian objects to be used and ranked by value when profit is made the main reason to live,and the sole arbiter of rights.Profit turns EVERYTHING into a product,and nobody wants damaged goods.When profit is the reason for existence we all are objects to be used..As long as you are mighty enough to fight and compete against your fellow man to take what is no longer shared but is,bought and sold that the earth has and always has given for free,just like people..there will be less than more than games.

We come into the world without price tags it's our cultural lie of profit,ownership and might makes right that gives society the assumption is must put one upon us..



Nobody asks why the fuck are people suffering so much for playing this massive cultural game of make believe?What is this massive lie,the game of winner takes all,losers must suffer and die really existing for? What is the price tag of worth ,worth if 'sucess'and 'value' is based on exploiting the human condition, our suffering,fears and needs? This winner take all game and the denial of it's deadliness and inherent falsity brings most of us is more work,more stress,strife, death, suffering,insecurity, abuse and hate,while granting outrageous comfort and wealth for a few who never will face what kind of society their games create on the deprived side of culture themselves,while make the stacked rules we all are forced to play by to get by or else..die.

[fugue]

33. Wow . . .

You say so much that is right here.

I have often wanted to say to people that they have no right to make my life more difficult because they don't want to face the fear that they might have been in my position. I am in my position, after all; all they have to face is the reality that it could've been them instead.

[Megahurtz]

54. What a wonderful post!

Sad but so true. I feel the same way.

This is the epitome of America today. Didn't this "ownership" attitude basically kick in with "Reaganomics" and continue today, only to be taken up where Reagan left off (in full force) by the Bush Administration? Actually, I think it's much worse now.

I hate to say it, but the "ownership attitude" is even true with some DUer's in other forums.:(

No wonder the disabled are ignored, shunned, or disregarded altogether.

Sometimes I think it would be better to move to another country, but immigration rules make it difficult for the disabled.

I wish I knew how to make people listen, but with the present state of the Union, I only fear things will get worse. The"'elites" and people with the most toys are not going to budge out of their "safe cocoon" for anyone.

Thanks for your post. It's comforting to know that someone else sees this.:)

[grilled onions]

28. It's the Leper Syndrome

But this time we no longer have an island we can call our own. Many of the healthy feel they may "catch something". Others feels we are too restrictive to be around(canes,wheelchairs etc) can be real depressing for those with pin head mentality if we are seen at a social function. I swear some would like to see all handicapped,disfigured,or otherwise different then mainstream,locked away where they don't have to look,talk or otherwise deal with us. Dealing with any disease or condition is stressful enough but when you have to deal with the idiots on the street,fighting constantly to get a doctor,or if you are lucky enough to have insurance you get to be challenged by them on almost a daily basis for any drug or device you require to maintain some sort of reasonable existence. WHile part of the population is worrying about white teeth or wrinkles many of us our trying to figure out how to pay medical bills and just plain survive as the D.C. crowd try to see how best they can cut us off at the pass!:mad:

[fugue]

34. This reminds me of a great comedy routine I once saw!

A stand-up comic with CP. He stood there, with his crutches and braces, and did a hysterical routine.

I saw him in the late 70s or early 80s. He said he had once written an airline (one of many companies he had written) to ask why disabled people never appeared in their TV ads. They responded that they felt that disabled people in their ads would "represent an intrusion that could not be explained." "I can hear it now," the comic said. "'Honey, there's a person in a wheelchair in that ad.' 'It's an intrusion!' 'And . . . it cannot be EXPLAINED!'"

After that, "an intrusion that could not be explained" became code in my family for people being intolerant of others' differences.

[fugue]

35. Disability issues are *everyone's* issues

The reality of this was brought home to me yesterday. I learned that a friend of mine who is now in her late seventies had two strokes in the past month.

Disability issues are everyone's issues because with the exception of those who die young in a sudden accident, everyone will become disabled. If illness and accidents don't do it, age will. Aging is the process of becoming progressively (although, granted, at different rates and to different degrees) disabled. You're not as strong as you used to be. You don't hear as well or see as well. And it's not going away until you do.

So how do we convince the mainstream progressives of that our issues are theirs, too?

[Banazir]

36. This is coming up yet again...

...with all the coverage of the Schiavo case. It's frustrating. People are seeing it as a right-to-die vs. right-to-life, left-wing versus right-wing, sort of issue. They're not seeing the disability rights component at all (one person has even said she's not disabled, but rather the living dead).

In addition to caring about the issues, every time one of us dies because of these ideas, it hurts. Almost physically. And the pain never gets any better. But other people trivialize it and say that this pain is due to "not letting go" or not understanding that a shell of a body is not a person or anything else they say. Since I belong to an impairment category in which we are described routinely in public service announcements as being empty shells with stolen souls, particularly those of us who have not developed a communication system that others understand, this doesn't help or inspire any confidence in progressives.

[pop goes the weasel]

37. it is frustrating

More than one post regarding Schiavo berated her parents for showing video of her to the world, saying that showing someone with such a disability debased that individual. As if a disability is shameful! What would these same people say about Bush's policy to not allow photos of the military coffins? After all, W excuses that policy by saying he is preserving the privacy and honor of those fallen.

But what can we expect in a culture that is currently heaping praise on Clint Eastwood's snuff film, Million Dollar Baby? Disability activists have a lot of work to do. Too many nondisabled still consider the disabled to be lives unworthy of life.

[Banazir]

38. I can't decide what to do about that film.

I can't decide whether to go out and leaflet that film locally or not. Protesting a film always gains it more notoriety and publicity, yet I don't know how many people even know there is a disability rights perspective on this. There seem to have been a lot of films like that lately, though.

[pop goes the weasel]

40. Did you see the reaction on DU?

Someone posted that Limbaugh and Medved denounced the film, and the post they linked to "spoiled" the film. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1186968

From how our fellow DUers reacted, they obviously don't care if there is a disability perspective. All they are concerned about is their own ablism. But I want as many people as possible to know in advance about the film so that they know in advance what sort of horrible attack is going to be made.

[Banazir]

42. Oh geez.

Why is it that so many non-disabled progressives seem to think euthanasia of disabled people is an oh-so-progressive issue? (And why do they think a quad couldn't kill herself if she tried, for that matter?)

[KamaAina]

39. Scathing reviews of the Eastwood snuff film at Ragged Edge

the Time or Newsweek of the disability rights movement, except that it doesn't suck.

Snuff film! That's one I hadn't heard before! :bounce:

http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/mediacircus/weneedtotalk.html

Are these movies dangerous? Yes they are, as long as no national conversation about disability exists to counter the images and ideas they carry. It is not the presence of the films so much as the lack of a credible counter understanding that creates the danger.

We do not have, have never had, and seem incapable of having, a realistic national public conversation about life as a severely disabled person. Thus we have no understanding -- and no real way to achieve an understanding, much less a social consensus -- about what life with a severe disability should be like. And so we have no way to really understand -- no way to believe, as a society -- that it is alright to be disabled. We have no social consensus that it's alright to live with a disability.

More than that, though: we don't seem to have a clue how to get to such a social consensus.

These movies, more than anything, emerge out of that lack of understanding. Movies like these will continue to be made until people are given a way to understand that it is alright to live as a disabled person. Not heroic, not tragic -- simply alright.

More:

http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/reviews/drakemillionbaby.html

This movie is a corny, melodramatic assault on people with disabilities. It plays out killing as a romantic fantasy and gives emotional life to the "better dead than disabled" mindset lurking in the heart of the typical (read: nondisabled) audience member.

That's the truth and we need to deal with it. It explains why movies such as Whose Life is it, Anyway? become immensely popular. It explains why The Sea Inside was such a hit with critics. These are the stories about disability that society wants to believe are true. And critics are part of society.

These films don't reflect the typical disability experience, which, for most of us, is just the experience of living our lives. Books and movies about our simple struggle to live life in an oppressive society receive little notice from the public, press or critics. It's only when a disabled person, real or fictional, says they want to die that the movie becomes a hit, the book a bestseller.

[pop goes the weasel]

41. one at Dissident Voices also

See http://dissidentvoice.org/Jan05/MickeyZ0124.htm

[Sugarbleus]

46. Damn FINE ARTICLE!!! Wow...

I am soooooooo glad I dropped into this forum this eve.

I did not know a thing about Eastwoods film. I got started posting about disabilities in another thread. But this thread has me pumped.

Most if not all of you posting here are speaking to my very heart on the issues regarding certain groups in this society that are not getting their voices heard by any party!

The article at DV says it ALL. I can't begin to tell you how CLOSE the sentiments in that piece are to our family's thoughts on these issues of the "right to die", disabled rights, disabled persons being Warehoused in filthy "nursing facilities", being robbed by same of their meager allowance from the state, and the whole nine yards..!!

I was starting to get just thoroughly burned out with DU on most topics...its the same thing over and over every night.

This particular issue; the issues of the disabled are real to me and my family and friends. I hope some of you and I can keep this up. I'm really really interested in this and other things like "poverty" and "housing" and Social security/safty net programs...

I too am deeply disturbed and disgusted with some of our own party's inattention to such matters.........like ignoring it will make these issues just go away. Pfffft

In terms of Eastwood, I live just up the highway from him. He is a jackass!! It might be true that the person who was suing him was a gold digger, but it is also true that Eastwood is a libertarian and doesn't believe in giving any quarter to anyone but himself. His action in Washington proves he doesn't care about doing the right thing EVER... even if the suer DID have a good case!! Eastwood and Bill Wattenburg of KGO San Francisco are fast friends...if thats of any interest to any one.

[KamaAina]

43. Backlash against the snuff film now extends as far as Slate

hell, the Washington Post Co. just bought Slate. It's practically the mainstream media!

http://slate.msn.com/id/2112695/

Disabled organizations around the country—among them Chicago's Not Dead Yet—have begun a campaign against Million Dollar Baby. In the film, the quadriplegic Maggie compares herself to an old, sick dog that needs to be taken out to the woods and shot, and the movie endorses that view. The weirdly belligerent, foul-mouthed priest argues (unconvincingly) that euthanasia is a sin, but the film's true priest—its spiritual conscience, Eddie (Morgan Freeman)—gives Eastwood's Frankie his blessing to finish her off.

You could argue that Million Dollar Baby is not offering Maggie's fate as a prescription: It's one particular young woman in one particular place in one particular story—which some critics have maintained is an allegory with boxing as its frame. I'm a literal-minded guy, though, and have a hard time getting past the wrong and crudely manipulative notes on the surface. Isn't it odd that this million-dollar baby (a boxing cover girl, a celebrity, a near-world champion) is in a hospital room with no flowers or cards, no hovering fans, no doctors or counselors committed to helping her with her transition? Her trailer-trash family is cartoonishly venal: They don't even pretend to offer sympathy. (Couldn't just one of her relatives have been genuinely distraught?) Last year, Christopher Reeve went out like a champ, but Eastwood's movie is so threadbare, underpopulated, and shameless that there really is nothing for the saintly martyred Maggie (also, supposedly, a celebrity) to live for. She took on the world with shining eyes and was broken without mercy.

I don't buy the view of the disabled community that the notoriously vindictive Eastwood is getting revenge for having been sued under the Americans With Disabilities Act over access to a hotel he owns in Carmel, Calif.—although Michael Miner in the Chicago Reader notes that Eastwood later testified before Congress for a change in the law that many activists felt would gut it. Eastwood didn't write the screenplay (Paul Haggis did) or the stories it was based on. This isn't about revenge; it's about insensitivity and opportunism, as well as an aesthetic that lends itself to fatalism—a man is what he is, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, etc.

I loved The Sea Inside for Javier Bardem's performance, but I'm also troubled by its view that euthanasia should be sanctioned by the government. It's possible that an individual has a moral right to take his or her own life, but the legal hurdles should be left in place. The last thing we should want is for a disabled or terminally ill person to feel pressure to ease the emotional or financial burden on family members—or for family members to apply that pressure. And as Not Dead Yet wants you to know … well, the name says it all.

Yes! A shout-out for Not Dead Yet! Can I get a witness?

http://www.notdeadyet.org

[DemBones DemBones]

44. Somehow I missed the DU discussion of this, though

I could certainly have predicted it. After years of study, I've concluded that most people here have no respect for anything or anyone.

Or, put it another way, you have to have a hell of a good organization to get any respect around here. As Mary Johnson wrote:

"The movies would pose little danger were there enough of a public understanding of life with disability to disarm them. They likely would never get made. But because we do not talk about disability, there remains a void into which people can and do fall when they become disabled. And it is inside this void that the "right to die" sings its siren song."

"If we want to understand the trajectory which we need to follow in order to change things, we can look to the gay rights movement."

<snip> paragraphs about development of "gay community"

"The idea of a "disability community" is alien to most people -- including most disabled people, including most paralyzed people like Ramon Sampedro -- and most certainly to people like the fictional Maggie, because of course, it is alien to her creators. But it exists, and it is from the disability community -- and ultimately, only from the disability community -- that a disabled person can learn that it is alright to be disabled. Without a way to see and talk about the disability community, though, we have no way to really understand -- no way to believe, as a society -- that it is alright to be disabled."

Maybe in 20 years, it'll be chic to be disabled, as it is now chic to be gay or black.

[fugue]

50. I don't have a problem with _Whose Life Is It Anyway?_

That's a disabled man deciding on the value of his own life. That's his right. No life fits everyone. Some people would prefer to be dead than quadriplegic. I think suicide should be a right for everyone. If you've honestly looked at all your options and prefer to be dead, well, that's your business and not mine.

No one has the right to decide that your life is not worth living for you, however.

[Banazir]

51. Yeah, although...

...most of these things aren't even about suicide. They're about people wanting suicide to be easy and taken out of their own hands. Quads already have the right, though, to "refuse medical treatment" (in the form of refusing a respirator), and there are plenty of other ways to kill yourself if you're determined.

I think it's anyone's right to thoroughly screw up their life and even kill themselves. But I also think attributing the desire to disability and making it more valid if the person's disabled has consequences for the rest of us.

There are people who feel the same about discovering they're gay as some people do about becoming quadriplegic, and both viewpoints fundamentally have to do with systemic disadvantage in society. If people with quadriplegia were integrated fully into our society and valued, I doubt quads would be lining up to kill themselves, and the idea that being a quad would be a more valid reason to die than any other would seem bizarre to the majority of people. The gay rights movement has made it so people are more likely to fight for gay people's inclusion in society and to help gay people learn their lives are of value, than to say "Oh well, if a person wants to die, they want to die, and if it's because they're gay, so be it."

A lot of people don't think that's a fair comparison, but that stems from a lack of understanding of how many of the negative parts of being disabled stem from surrounding society. Most of the reasons people cite for wanting to die have to do with expectations of themselves as needing to be physically able or cognitively able in a specific way in order to be fully human. Or else to do with economic and social factors - fearing being a "burden" or an "embarrassment". What needs to be turned around are those expectations of people (it needs to be as normal to be disabled as it is to be non-disabled, most people will be disabled at some point in their lives), and those social and economic factors that make people fear the whole "burden" thing. (As well as the idea that certain things are embarrassing. Many people want to die because they think it's undignified to be incontinent. It's not, and to believe it is is a form of ableism.)

So basically yes, certainly people have a right to throw their own lives away, but that's all people, and I don't think it's more valid for disabled people, despite the fact that disabled people seem to be the only ones whose reasons are considered rational. When it becomes an issue of disability making it sound more rational to kill yourself, then it becomes a social issue and no longer a personal private issue. Because it gets into ableist assumptions that undermine a lot of our ability to live -- every person who says better dead than disabled (with any form of disability) is helping transmit an opinion that contributes to the death of disabled people. It may be a personal opinion, but it's a personal opinion that wouldn't arise in a non-ableist society, and it's a personal opinion that perpetuates the most lethal kind of ableist assumptions.

[Sugarbleus]

45. Wow DbDb, really really great piece..!

I've only been suffering with a disabling condition for the last 3.5 years. It gets worse all the time. My hubby incurred a serious head injury causing stroke-like symptoms in 1979: he has left-side hemiplegia and uses an electric wheelchair.

He gets along with others very well because of his personality and bravado........yet, in some settings it's easy to see how he is condecended to. Likewise, I'm finding the same thing happening to me in certain situations. It's very humiliating and frustrating. I AM THE SAME ME as I've always been....I just walk differently now.

My frustration doesn't end with my "condition"; I take it further to include the poverty issues that sometimes go along with the loss of employment/employability (as in my case). All of a sudden I can't buy the type of clothing I used to and it shows...that brings the "attitudes" out.
I can't eat in the restaurants I used to or buy the products I used to...I'm made to feel "pitiable". It's embarrassing. I AM THE SAME PERSON. I have the same style, same needs, same dreams, same feelings etc. But now I am looked at and treated differently. I am "dismissed". I am no longer "interesting" to the general public.

Oh yes, I too get the platitudes regarding "what I can do for myself" to help my "condition".................then they stop talking and say goodbye. I'm left wondering if I and the individual even had a conversation at all--did they "see" a person when they said that to me? :shrug:

[senexa]

48. Disabled, but not invalid

It is very difficult to get used to having a disability and to the enforced changes, yes.

But, it is entirely up to you whether you chose to view yourself as disabled or an in-valid person.

This is often the one thing you can control about your health and circumstances.

I've been disabled, more or less, since I was a child. I've had whole years in bed, in a wheelchair, on crutches and using a cane. I've also had entire years being adequately mobile while in remission.

Currently, I am rather housebound, but I work full time and make a fairly decent income telecommuting, which enables me to remain valid in the eyes of the world.

My husband has broken his back twice and suffers from collapse of his bronchii due to white lung, but he is a master jeweler and works from home as well.

He is 71 so he does not have to worry about medications, breathing equipment or doctor bills. He is involved with allopathic medical care and finds both solace and assistance through it.

I am 59 with no insurance and refuse to be on the dole. I live with the constant threat of sudden death and the pain that can become incredibly intense, without health care assistance.

I do so because I refuse to participate in their concept of medicine, with its heartlessness, for-profit attitude and its reliance on chemicals and machinery. I will not begger my family by selfishly clinging beyond my time, but that is a very personal choice.

So ... here's the rub. You have to decide whether or not you are willing to accept the help from being declared disabled and the loss of control over your life that goes along with it, or whether you will find other ways to establish your own sense of self and pride.

No one can make you feel small unless you provide receptive ground for that plant to grow.

So my advice is to retrain into work you can do from home, reassess why your self-image requires clothing and high-life to be healthy, and absolutely refuse to allow anyone to make you feel less.

Because, while you are still you, you have also been given a great gift ... the opportunity to completely define your own life on your own terms.

Disability can be a huge blessing because it frees you in many ways from the constraints of abled society, and allows you the time and the freedom to grow intellectually and spiritually in ways not available to most people.

Hang in there.

[Sugarbleus]

49. Excellent and beautiful reply!

Thank you so much for that. It is a shot in the arm.

I absolutely despise being on "the dole". Not because I don't believe in charity but because the system is too intrusive and inhumane.

If I had it to do over, NONE of my financial circumstances would be happening as they are.

I don't feel less than, other's think I am "less than". I'm a bossy old broad. If I feel slighted, I ususally give 'em hell right back. What I wrote wasn't just "for me", it was a composite of what I understand life to be for untold numbers of others like me.

Unlike your wonderful husband (wow so creative, creativity is right up my alley too), my hubby is so very physically challenged that he cannot perform any meaningful work--since 1979. His health is actually failing (hep C is elevated now). He is visually impaired, hearing impaired, memory challenged, has a left-side hemiplegia (stroke like), covered in psoriasis scabs, asthmatic/COPD--breathless all the time, has stenois in his spine, pin in his hip, gneneralized arthritis all over...constant pain, recurring meningitis with hideous migrain headaches, and chronic depression with manic episodes. He can't even tie his shoes or open a can of peaches. I am here to attend to him...that is one of my jobs.

The other job I have is raising my teenage grandson.. (ugh) My oldest daughter was just released from state prison for drug offenses. She is motivated this time, so we've just enrolled her into College. Wish us luck. She too is staying here with us in this TINY TINY little substandard dwelling on that goes for $1800+ per month..we use section 8 but our share of the rent just went up 250%

I was in college in the mid 90's. Boy that was so invigorating, I loved it! I had to drop out to take care of my grandson, along with hubby. I couldn't manage the two and a full class load. My hobbies and talents do happen to be "creative" ones. When we had a smooth spell for a while, I started making my "wares" and entered some Craft Faires. That was so fun. I had dreams then--thought about opening a craft supplies store in town. THEN, our rental was sold and we had to move. We ended up in this TINY dwelling with no place to do my crafting. ZERO space.

While I had my daughter up at the campus last week, I got the tingles. I thought, gee I'd really like to go back to college. So that's where I'm at. Perhaps that is exactly what I will do. I'm kinda thinking about architecture/drafting...something along the lines of creativity...

My particular ailments are not as severe as hubby's. I have Osteo Arthritis in both hips--they won't do surgery because my bones have rotted to far, up my spine, a mild stenois forming, severe sleep apnea, a plantar fascitis in my left foot, and depression. BUT, these can be controlled with pain killers; of course that means I do need a doctor and that means I do need healthcare coverage. Soooo, there it is.

I'd rather someone else were here to take care of hubby. I'd rather my grandson and his mother were on their own and I'd rather be working WITH healthcare coverage. I'd also like to own my own home.

Thanks again...SB

[DemBones DemBones]

52. Kicking this up for the benefit of the many

tourists we're getting this spring, here on educational missions, for the most part. They might as well learn from the experts on disability.

:evilgrin:

[NMMNG]

53. At one of my jobs

We've been having a series of trainings on TBI, Tramatic Brain Injury, which some of our clients suffer from. What has been really hitting home is realizing how easily this could happen to any one of us, at any time. Any day one of us could be in a car accident, take a bad fall, have a stroke or otherwise suffer a brain injury that results in a TBI and need for lifetime assistance.

Perhaps that is the sort of thing our less-helpful counterparts need to see--people who have led normal lives and suddenly, via unexpected but perfectly possible circumstances that could happen to anybody, become physically or mentally disabled in some way. The important thing to do is implant in the individuals mind "This could happen to me or someone I care about, so I need to take steps to reduce the possibility of it happening to anyone, as well as help those already afflicted".