Tuesday, September 26, 2017

You don't need a weatherman to see which way the wind blows




10.  Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.
Timothy Snyder, Professor of History at Yale University, from On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century 


Disabled activists put their bodies into the fight and were literally dragged from the arena and told to shut up by those who work for them. Others who work for them did nothing, and I imagine that is because they were disruptive, shrill, out of control. 

The activists were called a sideshow.

What have you done to help disabled persons and the families of medically complex children fight for proper healthcare for everyone?

We are doing this for you, too.

Yes, it's a drag to have to beg, to applaud even those who waffle around about doing the right thing, but we're the sort of people that know fatigue and disappointment in ways that you might not imagine. We're stronger for it.

Help.

Make calls.

Put your body -- your healthy body -- into it.

Be shrill.

Be disruptive.

See the way the wind blows.







6 comments:

  1. I cannot lie. I can do what I can, despite war trauma-related disability. Thank you for asking for help, for showing where help is needed.

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  2. "And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it.
    And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it"
    Thank you for doing this every day. It's time for another round of cards and calls. I don't know how McConnell and company sleep at night.
    Xoxo
    Barbara

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  3. Sadly, I don't do anything but give money to my local Child Development Centre that gives free services such as occupational and physiotherapy, speech and hearing, preschool etc. I know. Throwing money at it is not a solution.

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  4. Advocating for my Disabled Husband and Special Needs Grandchildren... as well as Disabled Children I raised... has made me very shrill and disruptive for a very, very long time now. I would like to say that vast changes for the better have transpired in the 30+ years I've been doing it... alas, I cannot say that. However, tenacity and relentlessness means we will not just 'go away' and be silenced, so perhaps one day the voices will be heard and Change will be more profound.

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  5. What happened with the disabled activists in congress was appalling. On a lighter note, nice to know my new walking routine can count as political action!

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  6. Indeed. If they call you a nuisance, guess what? Make yourself a nuisance.

    Greetings from London.

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