I have been repremanded on this list for making political and economic
commentary. Fine. But the below posting is 90% political and extremely
provoking.

It is so full of fuzzy concepts and invalidated assertions that I don't
know where to begin, so I won't. Itsounds like an angry, socialistic
diatribe, whose main effect will be to incense a population who already
have enough reasons to feel angry, and need encouragement, instead.

And what does this have to do with computers?

Doesn't this material belong on the Handicapped Grumblers List?

Peter Seymour

On Wed, 19 Aug 1998, Kelly Pierce wrote:

> >From the web page
> http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/laurahershey
>
> Crip Commentary:
>
> Laura Hershey's Weekly Web Column
> Updated on August 11, 1998
>
> Who Profits from Disabled People's Poverty?
>
> Copyright 1998 by Laura Hershey [[log in to unmask]]
>
> Within the disability-rights movement -- at least among some
> grassroots, outside-of-Washington activists -- more and more
> attention is beginning to focus on issues of economic justice.
> Many of us are becoming convinced that the key to our liberation
> lies not merely in "changing attitudes," but in critiquing and
> ultimately restructuring the economic system which keeps us
> financially poor, politically disenfranchised, and socially
> marginalized.
>
> Despite the passage and sporadic implementation of the ADA, our
> unemployment rate has soared to an all-time high.
> Subsistence-level benefits are threatened with cuts, as
> right-wing zealots seek to transfer more resources from the poor
> to the rich. We often have to fight for basic health care.
>
> As a community, people with disabilities are becoming poorer and
> poorer. This is bad news for those of us who are part of that
> community. But it's good news for those who grow rich by
> providing "services" designed to compensate for, and maintain,
> our poverty.
>
> These people and organizations, these profiteers of dependency,
> are part of a massive Disability Industrial Complex -- a
> haphazard but potent network of both for-profit businesses and
> non-profit agencies which cash in on the "special needs" of
> people with disabilities. It includes our nation's systems of
> segregation and exploitation -- nursing homes, sheltered
> workshops, state institutions, segregated schools, and
> psychiatric hospitals. It also includes home health agencies,
> medical supply companies, transportation systems, large-scale
> supported employment providers, case management agencies, and so
> on. It includes the medical charities, such as the Multiple
> Sclerosis Society, and the Muscular Dystrophy Association
> (sponsor of the upcoming Jerry Lewis Telethon). These charities
> raise money "to help disabled people" -- money which most often
> enriches organizations controlled by non-disabled people,
> including pharmaceutical companies, research hospitals,
> corporate fundraising partners, and the charities themselves.
>
> The Disability Industrial Complex also includes many of the
> well-funded advocacy organizations which have established
> themselves as representatives of the disability community. Too
> often, these organizations' high profiles result more from large
> budgets, clever advertising, and backroom political clout than
> from their commitment to, or their knowledge and experience of,
> real people and real disability issues.
>
> Many of the so-called "special needs" targeted by disability
> service and advocacy providers are caused by our poverty, not by
> our disabilities. We could meet most of our real needs
> ourselves, without the intervention of professional do-gooders,
> bureaucrats, and gatekeepers, if we had adequate income and
> resources. Instead, we are held captive to the Disability
> Industrial Complex, which decides what's best for us, and how
> best to provide it. Nationally, these providers generate
> billions of dollars in revenues, as their reward for "helping"
> people with disabilities. Our "needs" fuel a huge sector of the
> U.S. economy. But, through a variety of mechanisms, policies,
> and rules, all -- or most -- of that revenue is kept carefully
> out of our hands.
>
> Money makes the disability-service world go round. All that
> money swirls over, under, and around people with disabilities,
> but rarely can we get hold of much of it for very long. It
> enriches primarily people who are nondisabled, and already rich.
> It maintains a middle level of middle-class (also mostly
> nondisabled) service providers. But it scarcely touches people
> with disabilities themselves. If anything, it makes us poorer,
> by perpetuating our status as unemployed, welfare-dependent,
> service-dependent clients. The dollars flow through us, but not
> to us.
>
> Martin Luther King, Jr., said, "Philanthropy is commendable, but
> it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the
> circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy
> necessary." That's what has happened to people with
> disabilities: Charity has replaced economic justice.
>
> So, how can we turn the tables, and reclaim the wealth that's
> meant to "serve" us -- the wealth that, instead, enriches
> providers who do not have our best interests at heart? Below are
> a few revolutionary proposals designed to do just that. Can the
> disability-rights movement get behind these ideas? We'll see...
>
> Proposal #1: Demand that a portion of every disability agency's
> budget go directly to people with disabilities, through a system
> of contract set-asides. All agencies, public and private, should
> adopt policies mandating that for any large purchase or
> contract, the person responsible must make every effort to do
> business with a company owned by a disabled person. Does the
> agency need to buy stationary? hire a web designer? make travel
> arrangements for a large conference? contract with a script
> writer for a training video? For all of these services, and
> more, there are business owners with disabilities who are
> struggling to make a living. Rather than automatically doing
> business with nondisabled professionals, disability-service
> agencies should give preferred status to disabled-owned
> businesses.
>
> Proposal #2: Every disability agency, public and private, should
> have an affirmative action program to maximize their hiring of
> employees with disabilities. Far too many disability
> organizations are staffed and controlled almost entirely by
> nondisabled people. Can you imagine going into the office of the
> National Organization for Women, and finding that men are in
> control? Or finding that the administration and staff of the
> NAACP are all white people? Both scenarios are inconceivable;
> yet the equivalent situation is commonplace in the disability
> field. This must end.
>
> Some people might oppose these last two proposals, calling them
> "reverse discrimination." That misses the point entirely.
> Throughout history, people with disabilities have been
> systematically excluded from business and employment -- both in
> the general economy, and in the disability-service sector.
> Radical measures are needed to remedy that pattern of blatant
> exclusion and discrimination, which continues to this day.
>
> Proposal #3: The United States should adopt a universal health
> care system which includes coverage both for medical care, and
> for the kinds of para-medical and non-medical supports that
> people with disabilities need in order to function independently
> and equally in society. Such a health care system should not be
> linked to employment. It should be available to all, regardless
> of employment or economic status.
>
> Proposal #4: In order to help fund Proposal #3, stop using
> government funds to subsidize the charity sector of the
> Disability Industrial Complex. This is suggested by
> writer/activist Marta Russell in her new book, Beyond Ramps:
> Disability at the End of the Social Contract. Russell writes,
> "The nation needs to eliminate tax-free charity status, return
> the lost revenues to a democratic government to redistribute
> wealth in a democratic manner. That after all is what
> Constitutional 'promoting the general welfare' is all about."
>
> I suspect that all of the above proposals will be controversial.
> But unless we confront the many ways that people with
> disabilities are impoverished, while others grow rich at our
> expense, we will never attain the equality that the
> disability-rights movement claims to be about.
>
> ----------
> End of Document
>
>
>
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