(no subject)
Today was the ThoughtBubble comics convention. TG is here. We went. I got some X-Men. She is currently researching a particular aspect of comics, so she got something relevant to that. Was all good, 'cept my battery ran out (it was a forty-five minute walk up and down hills to the venue) and we had to get a taxi home with a rather horrific driver who, when I asked whether he shouldn't be parked by a curb before getting out the wheelchair ramp, suggested that we'd have to try and it see and how it went (ever so surprisingly, it was too steep and I could have ended up in a pile on the ground under 20kg of wheelchair). And then he objected when I insisted that TG helped me down the ramp. Well, he wasn't exactly showing off his up-to-date safety training.
I have too much work. It's ridiculous. Still on the campaigns trail, though. I want the government to pay Winter Fuel Payments to disabled people. Some perfectly comfortably-off and non-disabled older people get them for no more achievement than reaching 65. Whereas I know young disabled people who end up in hospital every winter because they stop being able to turn on the heating because all their DLA is being paid to their councils to cover their care needs. And when we sign petitions about this? The government kindly reminds us how much DLA we receive. Great. Thanks. Have you ever tried being a disabled person and seeing if DLA covers all your costs? Have you ever tried being one of the thousands of disabled people who can't even get DLA because the system is so screwed up? In fact, have you ever experienced the abject poverty that, for a huge number of disabled people, is par for the course when you're a crip? No, you haven't, because you only ever talk to the 'charity model' organizations, like the non-disabled-run RNIB, so that you never have to talk to real disabled people. Wonderful.
Older people have some massive public support - they have a 'czar' for goodness sake (not that I think we'd particularly benefit from having one of those). Where do they get this ability to mobilize, while disabled people can't agree on anything because we're such a fragmented and disunited group? It's doing us no favours. I don't know what the solution to that is. I do know that we can't sit back and argue about our individual viewpoints on the social model when our brothers and sisters are dying from the cold. In an rich, post-industrialized Western nation. And no one knows or cares that it's happening...
I'm lucky. I'm in a minority among disabled people - I have enough money to live on. Even so, every year when I'm reminded of what it's like when the weather gets colder and the pain levels go up correspondingly, I get pissed off about this whole issue. Reading this government response to one of the petitions I signed was sort of the last straw. All I ever hear about this, on the Ouch messageboards and from other disabled people generally, is complaints. I don't know where our 'charities' and organizations are, and why they aren't campaigning harder - if at all - on this issue. So. If they won't do anything about it - what are WE going to do about it?
This has been an off-the-cuff disorganized rant. I will get my thoughts together into a blog post soon. In the meantime, I need ideas for mobilizing disabled people around this issue. Anyone who can offer any is welcome.
I have too much work. It's ridiculous. Still on the campaigns trail, though. I want the government to pay Winter Fuel Payments to disabled people. Some perfectly comfortably-off and non-disabled older people get them for no more achievement than reaching 65. Whereas I know young disabled people who end up in hospital every winter because they stop being able to turn on the heating because all their DLA is being paid to their councils to cover their care needs. And when we sign petitions about this? The government kindly reminds us how much DLA we receive. Great. Thanks. Have you ever tried being a disabled person and seeing if DLA covers all your costs? Have you ever tried being one of the thousands of disabled people who can't even get DLA because the system is so screwed up? In fact, have you ever experienced the abject poverty that, for a huge number of disabled people, is par for the course when you're a crip? No, you haven't, because you only ever talk to the 'charity model' organizations, like the non-disabled-run RNIB, so that you never have to talk to real disabled people. Wonderful.
Older people have some massive public support - they have a 'czar' for goodness sake (not that I think we'd particularly benefit from having one of those). Where do they get this ability to mobilize, while disabled people can't agree on anything because we're such a fragmented and disunited group? It's doing us no favours. I don't know what the solution to that is. I do know that we can't sit back and argue about our individual viewpoints on the social model when our brothers and sisters are dying from the cold. In an rich, post-industrialized Western nation. And no one knows or cares that it's happening...
I'm lucky. I'm in a minority among disabled people - I have enough money to live on. Even so, every year when I'm reminded of what it's like when the weather gets colder and the pain levels go up correspondingly, I get pissed off about this whole issue. Reading this government response to one of the petitions I signed was sort of the last straw. All I ever hear about this, on the Ouch messageboards and from other disabled people generally, is complaints. I don't know where our 'charities' and organizations are, and why they aren't campaigning harder - if at all - on this issue. So. If they won't do anything about it - what are WE going to do about it?
This has been an off-the-cuff disorganized rant. I will get my thoughts together into a blog post soon. In the meantime, I need ideas for mobilizing disabled people around this issue. Anyone who can offer any is welcome.