I'm just saying. Maybe I'm just sensitive, because living with a disability often means having your voice taken away, in favor of being lectured by experts, however well-meaning they are. I feel that even my beloved MSNBC has let me down a bit this time.Although I don't have anything against Bob Dole, except some minor college-aged trauma regarding him and those Viagra ads...he's a fine ally and "earned' his disability in ways Middle America finds very reward-worthy. He's also rich, and very famous...hardly the face of disability in America, any more than any woman with MS could join Ann Romney on the dressage track. More thoughts below the fold...
I just feel that PWD(People with disabilities) are continually deprived of a place in political debates that could drastically affect our lives. The Paul Ryan budget conversation ended up being more about whether Ryan was as smart as he looked, or whether his numbers worked out, rather than whether legions of American crips would be reduced to selling chicle(or ourselves) on freeway off-ramps if it passed.
I was really excited that ADAPT was covered on the Rachel Maddow Show yesterday, despite the use of really old footage that made everyone present look like Cousin Geri from The Facts of Life. I was more disappointed when she acted as though the struggle for our rights was ended with the passage of the ADA in 1990. I was sixteen that summer, and believe me, my struggle continues. Is the ADA a worthy ideal, worth building on and expanding to other nations? Certainly. Is the fight over? hell no.
So how did a conversation about our rights end up a conversation about how harshly Orrin Hatch burned Bob Dole(shocked voice) in his wheelchair by voting no.(Hint for Mr. O'Donnell: The second they went along with that Ryan "makers, not takers" nonsense, they did that to their disabled constituents every day But I guess that isn't interesting because they didn't used to sit in the Senate dining room together.