Who’s David Cameron and Why Should We Care?
In the past, I posted about Australia’s efforts to reform its long-term care system for people with disabilities via a proposal called the NDIS. It got me to thinking: What about Australia’s former colonial master in the United Kingdom?
It turns out that Britain has been making headlines in the area of disability rights as well. First of all, David Cameron, and the Conservative Party that he leads, is ahead of incumbent Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his Labour Party going into a parliamentary election due to happen by June.
All right. So…who cares?
Well, Cameron recently lost his six-year old son to multiple disabilities, in the forms of epilepsy and cerebral palsy. (Remember Bruce Bonyhady of Australia and his sons with cerebral palsy)? Does this mean that disability rights advocates could have a strong ally in a new British prime minister next year?
Cameron would not only be inheriting a country with major economic problems that are similar to the U.S., but will also be taking the helm at a time when his political opponents in the Labour Party , in another British parallel to Australia, have been discussing long-term care reform in Britain. Britain’s universal health care system, the NHS (National Health Service), does not include provisions for home care for the elderly and people with disabilities. Would Cameron advocate for such reforms as well, with present budgetary constraints in Britain? This remains to be seen, although Cameron has already gone against members of his own party to oppose cuts to the NHS in memory of his son.
We also shouldn’t forget that Britain will be hosting the Summer Paralympics in 2012. What might a Prime Minister Cameron do to prepare and celebrate this event in the run-up to it? This also remains to be seen. Stay tuned…
Tags: 2012, Australia, Britain, Brown, Cameron, Cerebral, Conservative, David, Gordon, Health, Kingdom, Labour, Minister, National, NDIS, NHS, Palsy, Paralympics, Party, Prime, Service, Summer, United
Community Inclusion, Creative Ideas, Disability, Disability Advocacy, Health, Independent Living, Legal, Living with a Disability | Andrew Levinson | 
February 6, 2010 8:04 pm | 
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Part I
By Javier Robles
Am I invisible? Is the group of people that I belong too a mere mirage? Are we as people with disabilities only good for photo ops and feel-good stories? How can it be that we do not seem to count when counting votes. We as a group become non-existent. So much so that when Barack Obama won the Presidency and mentioned people with disabilities in his speech; it caused a stir with people with disabilities. Amazing! Yet, not surprising. Why?
Here is what I think. There are two simultaneous issues going on between politicians and people with disabilities. The first issue, concerns a historical struggle for survival by individuals who to this day are second class citizens. The second issue, surrounds political strategist and their clients (politicians) who are unable or unwilling to realize the potential of this group. Let me explain.
Historically, the “struggle” has been about housing, institutionalization, discrimination, access and more recently jobs. While this list is not exhaustive it offers a glimpse of some major struggles. The point is that we as a group are in a constant battle with society to maintain our independence. We push for laws to de-institutionalize (Olmstead) and laws for greater Access (Americans with Disabilities Act) and we fight for every dollar. We are in an eternal state of chaos. Fighting so hard to be free that we forgot all about the politicians we put in office. Not that politicians have done nothing. There has been progress in the last 100 years for people with disabilities. However, as a group we progressed with small victories, and many times specific to our particular disability. Like the Randolph-Sheppard Act of 1936 which was passed to allow blind vendors access to Federal buildings. There have been numerous registry laws state to state on Autism, spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, etc. But at the end of the day we continue to be ignored on a global scale. Our power is reduced to statistics which point to one thing; people with disabilities do not vote. Therefore, their overall needs are unimportant during election time. Or are they?
Part II Next Week
Tags: discrimination, obama, Olmstead, politicians, Politics, struggle, vote
Blogroll, Community Inclusion, Disability, Disability Advocacy, Employment, Health, Independent Living, Legal, Politics | admin | January 10, 2010 12:55 am | Comments (0)
I was born in the 60’s in the South Bronx, NY. There was no home computer, cell phones, Internet or any wide screen televisions. Pretty much they way we lived then, we still managed to survive. Back then until 1987 when I was paralyzed, I never knew what paralysismeant or how it effects our ability. Even after being paralyzed until 2005, I wasn’t involved with spinal cord injury issues. Since 2005 until now, December 2009, about 5 years, I have experienced more greed, discrimination, nonsupport and holly-wooding, a term that means someone says something you want to hear when they’re just trying to brush you off. This experience in our ownSCI community. Am I shocked, even though I know your own brother can turn on you like Cain and Able. Yes I was. Sometime I feel in order to gain support I had tothimble myself and kiss butt. WOW, among my own SCI community, the people I suffer this pain with. Make no mistake I hold an grudges, in fact as I follow Jesus and the path He lived, sometime mankind can do things and not know what they’re doing. I’m no angel, I’m not perfect, I don’t think what ever I been told I do for othersSCI like myself deserves an award, all I’m expressing is something I feel is going on we can change.
I met Leroy Moore a few years ago. Leroy is to disability as Kool Herc and Africa Bambatta is to Hip Hop. He’s a soldier, a general and leader of creating a nation of supporting each other. He seeks out artist who are disable and ask them to send him their audio to be put on acompilation CD. Leroy reminds me of what Hip Hop was all about and how it was treated like I stated earlier about the experiences of greed, discrimination, nonsupport and holly-wooding that I took part in. Every thing Hip Hop was, was designed to save young lives, not to make a dollar. Contrary to what some may think, gangs, crime and wars existed before Hip Hop. Hip Hop didn’t create what already existed in mankind. Hip Hop was made to change the gangs, crime and wars and turn it into an art where talents went to battle without putting others into coffins. Therefore although you may see violence, greed and sex in Hip Hop videos, it’s no different then seeing the same thing in a block buster famous actor movie. What is the difference is unlikethose block buster movies, many of the artist lives are genuinely real. They don’t have laser beam vision or can shoot web out they’re wrist but their expression of art can sometimes only afford to create fantasy from their own reality, not a 100 million dollarCGI description of their art. Everything needs money event our dreams as aspirations. You can find ways through literature and book writing but most artist want to see their art on film not just on paper and if it means just picking up a camera and recording it the best way they can, an artist will do that.
I felt to write this blog because I had my last straw to hearing the statement Shameless Promotion. Most disable people can’t or may not be working. If durning their days at home they find a talent in them and begin working on it, if they decide their art can also help them pay for medications,supplies, hospital bills and rent because they’re not as finacially lucky like someone rich, is it wrong for them to try to use their art in their survival. From what I experienced, many have proved it to be. I think what’s shameless is when, you yourself living with a disability or you are anorganization who’s mission is to help disable people, to call their only means of self promoting shameless it’s very like friendly fire.
When man vs SCI becomes man vs man vs SCI, the war may never end. Everything man needs to live, like food and warter, God provides but some how mankind made a way to monopolize things we need to live and make us pay for it. So when many of us aren’t lucky enough to have major deals , we may chose to sell our art instead of robbing you. When you don’t provide options, sometimes others will chose negative options when the good ones aren’t helping them survives. Sure their naturally are bad individuals who no mater what will do wrong but there are many out there that genuinely want to do right. When wealthy companiescommercialize their products we accept that because they’re paying to promote their product, but if a unwealthy person who doesn’t have the money to promote their product we call their means of self promotions shameless. Spamming and Scams has also assisted in the obstacles for a true inventor. That’s about why things stay the same.
The classes can’t change if the masses wont change.
Tags: art, Disability, hip, hop, krip hop, moore, music, rap, sci, support, survival, work
Blogroll, Community Inclusion, Creative Ideas, Disability, Disability Advocacy, Living with a Disability, art | professirX | January 3, 2010 8:02 pm | Comments (0)
When Is the Economic Boom for People with Disabilities Going to Arrive?
14.1%? Come on, you’ve got to be joking.
Yes, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced not too long ago that in “November 2009, the unemployment rate of persons with a disability was 14.1 percent, compared with 9.2 percent for persons with no disability, not seasonally adjusted.” Even during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the unemployment rate for people without disabilities is still only in the single digits, while people with disabilities suffer from double-digit unemployment. Yeah, people can talk about the economic expansion of the 90s and say that the good days are long behind us. However, just ask the contributors to a project that ended in 2004 called The Center for an Accessible Society. It doesn’t seem that there ever were “good days” for people with disabilities.
2010 will bring the ADA’s 20th birthday, with the ADA, of course, being the principal example of federal disability rights legislation. It’s time to celebrate that birthday with true health care reform. It’s time to end a dependence, for a lot of us, on Social Security. (If you have a “preexisting condition,” you are left with Medicaid, by way of SSI, as your only option. Also, Medicaid is far from a universal health care program with its restrictive eligibility standards). Here’s to Josie Byzek of New Mobility for talking about this dependence and the fear of leaving one’s job over health care coverage. I think it’s only fair that we allow entrepreneurs with disabilities to buy affordable health care coverage and allow workers with disabilities to find the job that provides them with the highest standard of living and not the best health care insurance.
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