Hey Chuck,
Well at least we you are one other body that won't make it there either. That is some consolation. But let me rant.
During the Gulf War protests, a disability activist here collected $300 to have a ramp built to the stage being used for meetings to rally the troups so that a wheelchair user might have the option of making some points about how to organize the events. It got used once or twice then promptly disappeared.
Well I suppose I should have gone to the preliminary meetings this time to insist on accessible transport earlier on. So the excuse is that the private company who is renting the buses for tonight cannot get an accessible bus because the only one he knows of is in use on some other job. When I have time I will look into the law about that. Meanwhile Scot at the IAC office assures me that this will be placed on the agenda for the next organizing meeting. I believe that he is sincere.
I know that the deaf community is being well organized to participate in San Francisco. My good friend there let me know that. It is heartening to know that the wheelchairs will be in fine form.
It is a learning curve to teach the pwogwessives that even if I was willing which I am not they cannot lift a 260 pound power chair onto a bus. That was their solution. Ha! Well they learned that shit from Ron Kovic. He lets them lift him all over the place like a sack of potatoes. It is so undignified. Instead of getting a power chair Kovic lets people push him around. I can never understand this. When you give control of your chair over to someone else, they determine where you go. Well this time it was Martin Sheen. That is appropriate since Hollywood created Kovic and they use him like they want to.
Anti war protesters are good hearted and want to do the right thing but Kovic reinforces the negative stereotypes they learned in their sociology classes about impairment (illness=impairment = deviance).
Kovic wrote in 1976: "I am the living death the memorial day on wheels I am your Yankee Doodle Dandy your John Wayne come home your fourth of July firecracker exploding in the grave"
Too bad he must use his wheelchair as the reason to be against war. It dehumanizes all wheelchair users including vets. A body bag is a much better symbol. Kovic leave vets in the trap that they must hate a part of themselves. I think it is dreadfully wrong to do this.
BTW, I was told that the scene in Stone's movie where Ron went to the parents of the boy he had killed in a "friendly fire" incident never happened. According to my source it was made up for the film version of Ron Kovic's life.
Well we all make mistakes and we all wished we had done something different but Hollywood and the Hollywood peace movement have put Ron on a pedestal to use him as a symbol for all that is wrong with war. Either they haven't the intelligence to see that they are wrong or just don't give a damn and do it anyway. They keep doing it over and over and over.
So given this precedent down here where wheelchairs get lifted by people instead of access being a part of the physical environment, the ANSWER people think it is OK to ask me if they can pick me up out of my wheelchair and put me on the bus. HELL NO it ain't OK.
Marta --