Steven P. BarrettJUST WHAT DISABLED PEOPLE NEED, TO BECOME A PARTY'S NEW SPECIAL INTEREST
August 18th 2008 00:23
By Steven Barrett
Wow, just what disabled voters need, to become yet another special interest group for a particular party. It's as if we're too incapable of advocating for ourselves that one party in particular, thinks it should wrap its arms around us, promise lots of government aid and call it a deal.
Oh, but wait, who's looking out for how much this is going to cost? Why, it's no less than the party whose leader just happens to be disabled. And to top this irony, he goes to a convention of disabled people and doesn't draw attention himself in his speech. Imagine that, a pol who pays more attention to the issues his hosts are interested in than in himself.
Then, there's that ever-so tricky political manuever of push-polling or whatever you call it, my ADD or ADHD or DHAD or some other alpha-bet soup condition that's keeping me from getting it down pat. If you're disabled or have a disabled person in your family or household, you'll probably be getting an ever solicitous call from a very courteous (most likely young or middle age and motherly) person inquiring about the nature of the disability so they can pull together enough info to wrap up some kind of "goodie" to put in their fearless leader's camPAIN platform or brochures.
It's all very distressing, confusing and potentially depressing to think we are now going to be treated as a special interest even though we'd much prefer to be treated as part of the so-called "mainstream" population. Not that we don't need, or appreciate necessary programs and assistance, but we'd like our government to be more discrete, less patronizing and certainly more solicitous of our concerns during the odd-numbered years as well. Then we'd have even less reasons to be distressed, confused and or depressed.
Wouldn't that make our day!
Politico spells it out:
Really Long Link
A.D.A.
Wow, just what disabled voters need, to become yet another special interest group for a particular party. It's as if we're too incapable of advocating for ourselves that one party in particular, thinks it should wrap its arms around us, promise lots of government aid and call it a deal.
Oh, but wait, who's looking out for how much this is going to cost? Why, it's no less than the party whose leader just happens to be disabled. And to top this irony, he goes to a convention of disabled people and doesn't draw attention himself in his speech. Imagine that, a pol who pays more attention to the issues his hosts are interested in than in himself.
Then, there's that ever-so tricky political manuever of push-polling or whatever you call it, my ADD or ADHD or DHAD or some other alpha-bet soup condition that's keeping me from getting it down pat. If you're disabled or have a disabled person in your family or household, you'll probably be getting an ever solicitous call from a very courteous (most likely young or middle age and motherly) person inquiring about the nature of the disability so they can pull together enough info to wrap up some kind of "goodie" to put in their fearless leader's camPAIN platform or brochures.
It's all very distressing, confusing and potentially depressing to think we are now going to be treated as a special interest even though we'd much prefer to be treated as part of the so-called "mainstream" population. Not that we don't need, or appreciate necessary programs and assistance, but we'd like our government to be more discrete, less patronizing and certainly more solicitous of our concerns during the odd-numbered years as well. Then we'd have even less reasons to be distressed, confused and or depressed.
Wouldn't that make our day!
Politico spells it out:
Really Long Link
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Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
Why is it that where the Constitution refers to the "general welfare" some politicians assume it means a lifestyle "choice?"
Comment by Steven Barrett's OpEd Blog
I don't Harkins' head and heart are in the wrong place, but I'm just getting tired of seeing people getting strung along by pols who know deep inside that what they're working for and promising probably won't get passed very soon. But, do they ever keep those (immediate) hopes alive, and this is cruel, plain and simple.
When I used to operate a paratransit (00-03) I'd hear some older ladies and personal care attendants all bubbly about some new program coming down the pipe and they'd be speaking as if the president (or governor) had their respective pens out. When I'd ask them how far along the bill was, a lot of them didn't know, except to say Sen/Rep filed this with so and so and promised us at a meet the legislator saturday a.m. session at the senior center that something soon was going to occur that'd bring them relief.
First off, I knew the local pols and by and large, I immediately suspected that they didn't hear all the details that I'm sure they were told.
But we can't be too sure about this in other districts and states. What surprised me was to learn from a few seniors that FL was lousy when it came to providing funding to establish a good paratransit system. (So much for Rep. Wexler's political prowess. But of course, if you're spending more time living with mommy and daddy, it's hard to see how the white hairs are doing in your rotten borough district in the Sunbelt.)
This we can be sure of, there will be more demagoguery this year around disability issues than in past election seasons. They'll paint McCain as a tightwad, etc., even though he's genuinely disabled for reasons no damn Democrat would dare snipe at. But there's a hell of a major difference between getting funds for people to use an affordable paratransit system and pouring money into a "senior center" that's also being used for a lot of other things than just senior related activities.
Hopefully this, too, isn't too far above somebody's "pay grade." (There's Obama's Dukakis "snoopy hat.")