request to PIMC eds.? add 'handicapped' newswire topic page? whatever you want to call it

I suggested the same a month or so ago. There are issues unique to the differently abled. Mainstream and yes, even activists still put a cloak of invisibility upon us in many situations.

Also in agreement about injured workers who are often left to fend for themselves even by fellow coworkers. The amount of bureacracy and red tape one has to endure to receive what is due can be overwhelming, especially when one is a new state of physical or mental impairment.

I hope someone is listening.

I'm on disability & I'm not so sure it's a great idea.

For one thing, the prior posters on this topic are so insecure about it they can't even commit to a particular description. Come on, is it "handicapped" or not? "Differently abled"? That's absurd. PLEASE do not call me "differently abled."

For people with profound physical challenges, it can be a pain in the ass finding a bathroom you can use, etc., and that's a whole set of unique problems, but for the rest of us we're really just part of the continuum of poor people who don't win much in the competitive marketplace. Begging for better benefits because some of us have a better sob story ultimately can be degrading and potentially plays into the bad guys' hands by dividing poor people into separate groups entitled to different treatment. Everybody, "disabled" or "healthy," "clean" or "addicted," housed or homeless or whatever, should be able to work some amount, at something, if we want to, without fucking up our lives if we fail. If that's not a human right then it ought to be.

doesn't matter what you term it
for myself, I will use the word disabled because the abilities I once had are not all there now
you can call yourself whatever you like

who is talking about begging for "better benefits"
sometimes its as common as even knowing what is available
and as the first author pointed out, one could lump a handicapped section into other categories, but they do have a much broader focus

i can't tell from ur post if ur mentally or physically handicapped, but let's just presume you are in a wheelchair paralyzed from the waist down. Could you kick a soccer ball and if you couldn't, what would you call urself - same abled, physically challenged or the old standby, handicapped?

I'm not sure where ur thread on ability to work was weaving towards and handicapped people cross all socio and economic lines. It's preposterous to think that sharing information "plays into the bad guys hands" or that it is degrading to receive what is due you.

Does being disabled mean trying to pretend we're not so that we are not afforded any "special treatment"? Does it mean networking is a no-win tool for us? I'm curious about your answers.

and the name of the topic is not "call it whatever you want"

it's your topic, pick a name and take it seriously

"call it whatever you want" meant I'm not overly satisfied with any of these as a singular term for what I meant. I didn't know what word would take a newswire topic label for something more inclusive for all of these issues, that's all.

I tiptoed out of diplomacy. I felt if I would start a flame war if I picked a single term. (The last thing I thought it would do, would be to start a flame war for not picking a term! Catch 22. Sheesh.)

I wanted it to be posed openly to debate. Though I am not disabled, both my aunts are now horribly mentally and physically disabled from strokes. One of them perhaps due to more medical malpractice than the stroke itself. My grandfather was unable to speak and childish due to being incapacitated by a stroke for the remaining 5 years of his life, until he fell down the stairs and died after a hip operation. He had a living will, though they pretended it didn't exist to make more money off him at the hospital. It took threats to sue the hospital to get his wishes respected. When he woke up from his hip operation, and found himself on a food tube (against his living will), he ripped it out of his throat in anger because he knew his wishes were not being respected and he was being abused and taken advantage of for being handicapped. That of course didn't help his throat either. He died several days later because even though the hip opeation was a success, he never stopped bleeding and died.

U.S. medical care is mostly appalling as we found out repeately. U.S. Hospitals are evil, just human versions of factory farms. And according to Mercola.com, so called "correct medical care" is now the #1 cause of mortality in the U.S.

And let's talk about my DU-filled cousin from Iraq. Or his missing finger. So don't give a smart mouth. It's misdirected anger.

I was thinking of many different types of mental, physicial, occupational, military, and genetic disablements--as well as general rights of the handicapped in the still sick wake of Euro-American euugenics that still goes on--like the "murder on TV" spun as humanitarian--to kill off the handicapped despite their lack of willingness to die like Terry Schiavo. I found it pretty sick how my lefty friends were willing smile at starving and dehydrating someone to death (a torture in the Geneva Convention?), in their fog of disinformation about her condition. As if starving someone was some sort of humane thing to do, someone who was not on life support. It's ok to torture someone to death who is unable to speak or move coherently, though its torture if you can speak about it? How fu**ed up is that?

I think about the all the stoppage of research on stem cells as well, particularly when so many have experienced improvements in the few who made themselves guinea pigs for testing stem cells in UK recently... It can now can be cloned from the person themselves, instead of scientifically cannabalized from aborted fetuses by the way.

what about "disability", "disabilities"; "Disability rights" etc.

i don't see very many articles on this topic. I'd like to see more articles written, which i am not in a position to do, having very little insight into the matter, but, for a whole category, it would seem that there would need to be more articles to go in it.

I don't know the technical work that is required to make a category. Maybe it's alot of work - maybe it isn't..I don't know.

You're right - there haven't been many articles and that makes me wonder why and that maybe it's time. I randomly selected one of the current categories "genetic engineering"

since the beginning of 2006 there were the following newswire items:
jan - 5, feb - 3, march - 11, april - 3, may - 0, june - 2
during those six months, there was one feature story in that category

these numbers are not "alot" by any means but i think some people find the category useful. With busy lives it is often difficult to wade thru the main newswire

bottom line - I still support the creation of a new category if the system is capable of handling another one. Give it a try! What harm could come from it?

"i don't see very many articles on this topic. I'd like to see more articles written, which i am not in a position to do, having very little insight into the matter, but, for a whole category, it would seem that there would need to be more articles to go in it."

I see the point of the topic lists on the left column to call attention to topics of systemic discrimination as much as provide an organization of articles. Besides, just browsing around, if total number of articles was the only criteria for something, then "homeless and "genetic engineering" would probably be voided by you, since there is almost a full year of articles sitting in their newswire on their pages. And that would be a silly idea, beause these things are highly important and affect us all (genetic engineering) or they are a shame to us all (homelessness.). And I don't see that that criteria would be a useful activist gesture, do you? One of the points of the IMC phenomena is to call attention to what is left out of corporate media very limited advertizing driven posts--particularly on ongoing injusticies in society, consumer rights, racist policies, police criminality, etc. Disability rights is certainly one of these as much as homelessness.

I'd say go with "Disability rights", it's relatively inoffensive, is used frequently and is clear. I know when I have posted about disability issues or mental health/psychiatric survivor issues I am always having to pick social aservices or human rights as a topic which is not exactly accurate.

It amazes me that there are so few postings in this area, there are lots of issues out there and they are rarely covered in corporate media.