In addition, there are problems with disability services being deemed "medical" services. When this happens the "professionals" move in with the power, "we know best and disabled people (patients) don't know squat" thing. Disabled people want to keep in home support services under the social model of disability, not the medical model because we know best what we need and when.
Marta Russell
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Yeah, Marta.
This medical versus social versus civil right versus economic modeling of disability is a tough one.
For people who don't know, you can't get a wheelchair paid for, unless it is 'a medical necessity', certified as such by a doctor. The concept that access itself to the public realm is a baseline human right, is therefore transformed into a set of medically defined permissions. This takes a minute to figure out. If you can not get to the public realm, then none of the other rights you may have, unalienable or not, can be made manifest in a public space, in a public life. This concept hasn't been embedded in most legislative language until the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) But, the rest of the federal and state legislative background hasn't made it that far yet.
Essentially this means you have to be defined as sick and under a doctor's care, in order to get out of bed in the morning and go to work
or get to school--unless of course you are rich and can buy your way out of this absurdity.
BTW, Marta, do know Mary Lou Breslin, Pat Wright, and the DREDF crowd?
The California Assembly was hit with lobby efforts from the nursing home/home health organizations to 'professionalize' home care under a 'medical' certification process. Naturally these companies would be in charge of that 'medical' certification process so, dot, dot, dot, guess what? They would only certify as 'professionally licensed' those people who worked for their businesses! This idea has been languishing around in the background. At the moment I think it is dead--thanks to a fairly tough local disabled group, lobbying against it.
But there is good local news. A group of yet other disabled politicos put together a measure for the City of Berkeley to add a property tax increase to pay for a City funded emergency van transportation service (can you hear the faint tinkle of Federal matching money?). The idea is if you break down in your chair or get stuck somewhere, you call up and get a ride home and your chair gets fixed or dropped off at a shop around town. I am fairly sure it passed, although I haven't seen the local papers. (The outfit that runs this service is more like a coop, run by at least one or two other disabled people--cool, huh?)
There is a point here I'd like to make about voting.
Carrol Cox I think, and Christopher Niles, for various reasons said they don't vote. I won't claim it makes a big difference. But voting is just one part of a spectrum of political action. For example, this obviously needed city measure is another part of that spectrum, which is also a small part of building up a sense of community. Since I know most of the people who put together this city measure, and of course one of places that transportation service will drop off chairs is in my lap, of course I took every opportunity to encourage people to vote. It wasn't much of a job, since nobody in the shop with a broken chair put up much resistance! (This shop is in a big warehouse and shares space with other companies)
But the point is to engage all the forms available, from pointless boycotts to meaningless voting, to getting self-serving, last minute, mid-night measures on the local ballot. All that pointlessness, meaninglessness and those self-serving measures add up, after awhile. Like they say, a billion here and billion there and pretty soon we are talking real money. Everything helps a little bit. Sure, I am ready to become Citoyen Grimes, and sit on the Committee for Public Security with Saint Just, David and Robbespierre, but in the meantime, there is this other business to get done.
Locally, everybody was dancing in the street this morning. That damned big money from LA better start flowing around here like water pretty soon.
We should have a direct funnel straight to the State coffers with Willie Brown in SF, Jerry Brown in Oakland, and Gray Davis as Governor. For those who don't know--these guys represent the former democratic power elite in California and they are all right here running the local city governments. With Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, in the Senate and Barbara Lee, Tuscher(?), Lantos in the House, I want to see some of that Federal money start coming back in here too.
Fuck the South and their stupid blow-job impeachment, freeways to nowhere, and school vouchers up the Christian Right. I want that money here, paying off big city union bosses, bribing sleazy liberals, progressives, and eco-terrorists, throwing kick-backs to the over ripe community groups, and corrupting my kind of people--and soon! We've been starving to death around here, for some of that evil tax and spend big government, and we are eager to get back to it--get back to spending it!
One of the other guys in the warehouse said to me this morning, 'Hey, Chuck where are them big holes in the ground?" "Joe, what fucking holes?" I didn't get it at first. He was talking about construction holes--big State funded city construction projects to rebuild this miserable beat down town. Yeah, man, I want to see that money, here, making big, big old holes in the ground!
So, speaking of pork-barrel public construction of low cost housing, Jeff Levin are you out there? What's the view from City Hall? Do we get our own cash wire straight through or what? I took a tour of the provinces this morning hitting Fruitvale then over to 35th and then back down to E.14th, and over to San Pablo and 22an (This forms a ring of poverty around downtown Oakland). So when is Oakland gonna start handing out that State cash? I must have seen a dozen schools in dyer need of earthquake upgrades :) Yeah, and we're gonna get a train on the Bay Bridge too--Willie said so, last night. Ah, its gonna be sweet. And Jerry gets to be the real Mayor with a real city council too. (A local measure to fortify Oakland city government)
Oh, I almost forgot. Hopefully, somebody told Ward Connelly this morning, to start looking for a new gig (UC Regent, spear headed end of AA). Don't give up whatever you do for day work, Ward!
And there is more. Since the demos control both state senate and assembly, guess who gets to re-district California? I wanna see those gerrymandering plans to make sure we never hear from another rightwing jerk in public office around here again--not ever. Even Ball lost as far as I know. And the Indians get to set-up their own casinos. (Larry G, called in sick today--I'll bet he was out too late celebrating)
Hey, guys, let those good times roll. I wanna hear that old time choir of local public corruption singing, "We're in the money, We're in the money,...La, da,..ta..da, da." Cus I hope we are.
Chuck Grimes