Same thing here: it didn't help that no one bothered to acknowledgement the sad fact that disability rights issues are important. When you belong to a marginalized group that even the left doesn't give a rat's ass about and if it's a group that people have historically shunned because disabled people are "yucky" or it's too bothersome to think about, it's difficult to shake the feeling that the left, like everyone else in this country is hopeless and maybe even an enemy at times.
It just makes the person representing the marginalized group feel certain that it's all pretty hopeless, if you can't even get the most progressive folks on the left to fucking acknowledge your issues, talk about them, etc.
The analogy is, of course, the fact that, as Carrol once noted long ago, raising feminist issues in a male-dominated space like LBO is a total joke. I'd find the quote, but I'm too lazy. :)
Feminists feel alienated by the male left, people working on disability issues feel alienated by the left in general. The first step, to have a decent conversation, is really to have listened to what Marta was saying and acknowledge (and give her) what she and the disability rights movement needs. The things you can do might be small, but they will, hopefully, add up in a form of consciousness raising and, for those following the blog, we've been discussing how we can use blogs to be our new consciousness raising groups -- not so we can turn the 'personal is political' into the bullshit phrase it's become, but soe we can return to the original meaning of the phrase: the are no personal solutions at this time. (only political). IOW, just changing your personal behavior in your personal relationships means jackshit. There are no personal solutions at this time.
At 05:43 AM 4/20/2006, Jim Farmelant wrote:
>On Thu, 20 Apr 2006 02:55:57 -0400 info at pulpculture.org writes:
> > While I agree with Carl, I think the problem is that no one's
> > listening to
> > what really undergirds Marta's ire: the fact the Left doesn't give a
> > rat's
> > ass about disability issues but will get up in arms about
> > immigration.
>
>Well, if the truth be told, the Left's record on immigration issues
>is not a whole lot better than its record on disability records.
>The only reason the Left has been getting up in arms about
>immigration lately is because of the emergence of the recent
>emergence of the immigrants' movement, a movement which
>seems to have gotten underway, largely without the help of
>the Left.
>
>I suppose the take home lesson of this is to get your own
>constitutents organized and taking militant action, then the
>Left will begin to take you and your issues seriously.
>
> >
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