"Disability"

[unrepentant progress]

Last edited Sun Apr 7, 2013, 09:24 PM - Edit history (2)

Had dinner the Thursday night before last with a group of disability scholars, educators, advocates, and writer and poet-activists with disabilities. Talk around the table touched on many things, but kept coming back around to this story on NPR's This American Life, Unfit for Work: The Startling Rise in Disability in America, by Chana Joffe-Walt. What's “startling” to Joffe-Walt isn't that there's been a rise in the number of disabled Americans, but that there's been a rise in the number of people with "disabilities" collecting disability benefits instead of going out and earning a paycheck.

It's an exasperating piece, exemplifying much of what's wrong with elite journalism and for that reason will probably earn Joffe-Walt all kinds of awards, rewards, and plaudits from her peers. The consensus among my dinner companions was that it ought to earn her a place in hell or at least some remedial time in their classrooms.

Naturally, considering their conditions, situations, experiences, and interests, they were furious at the many ways they felt Joffe-Walt had failed to address real and serious issues regarding disabilities and had implicitly maligned all people with disabilities as cheats and layabouts.

They were in agreement that Joffe-Walt is a complete ignoramus on the subject of disability and they had lots of recommendations for books and articles she should have read and scholars and activists she should have spoken with. But most of them were academics and academics live on the belief that a little reading and a little education can do wonders.

http://lancemannion.typepad.com/lance_mannion/2013/04/disability.html

After reading Lance's post, read this open letter from former commissioners of the Social Security Administration:

As former Commissioners of the Social Security Administration (SSA), we write to express our significant concerns regarding a series recently aired on This American Life, All Things Considered, and National Public Radio stations across the U.S. ("Unfit for Work: The Startling Rise of Disability in America&quot . Our nation’s Social Security system serves as a vital lifeline for millions of individuals with severe disabilities. We feel compelled to share our unique insight into the Social Security system because we know firsthand the dangers of mischaracterizing the disability programs via sensational,anecdote-based media accounts, leaving vulnerable beneficiaries to pick up the pieces....
http://socsecnews.blogspot.com/search/label/Campaign%20Against%20Social%20Security%20Disability

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. This moronic premise:

there's been a rise in the number of people with "disabilities" collecting disability benefits
instead of going out and earning a paycheck.

How the hell can that yahoo determine that ANYONE is on disability "to avoid work"?
seeing as how the very definition of disability is that one cannot work.

" had implicitly maligned all people with disabilities as cheats and layabouts."

Exactly.....

Damn..there is a LOT of tar brushing going on nowadays.

[unrepentant progress]

2. I was so infuriated at that week long shitfest that I just wanted to scream

Joffe-Walt claims she spent years investigating "disability" when it's very clear she hasn't, nor did she avail herself of any of the myriad experts on the topic -- like those at Lance's dinner party.

Also, I'm glad Lance pointed out the demographic argument, because I was going nuts that no one else had -- that one of the reasons there are more people receiving disability benefits today is because the Boomers are getting older.

[bananas]

3. I just posted that open letter to the Good Reads forum

Thanks for posting it here, or I wouldn't have seen it.
It makes a lot of very important points.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101660179

[elleng]

4. Thanks for posting,

and Welcome, progress!

[lumberjack_jeff]

5. + 10^6

Exactly.

I picked the wrong week to tune into NPR. Fuckers had the guts to do a fundraising drive the very next week.

[pacalo]

6. Thank you for posting this.

I'm glad you found DU -- welcome!

[NightWatcher]

7. Thx for posting that. We've got to squash that meme

It's not us disabled people living large on the government dime. It's the peeps hiding trillions in Cayman banks getting tax credit for dancing horses and car elevators.

[freshwest]

8. Thank you

[LeftishBrit]

9. Please put a stop to this vileness before it takes over in America as in the UK

The right-wing media and some of our politicians - especially the utterly revolting Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan-Smith - have been on a crusade against disabled people.

From a moderate Conservative journalist with a disabled child:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/04/ian-birrell-prejudice-against-disabled

From a left-wing disability activist blogger:

http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/iain-duncan-smith-launches-shocking-attack-on-disabled-workers/

From the International Disablity and Human Rights Network, on the lies of the Daily Mail:

http://www.daa.org.uk/index.php?mact=Blogs,cntnt01,showentry,0&cntnt01entryid=385&cntnt01returnid=98

[HiPointDem]

10. they all work from the same playbook.

[unrepentant progress]

11. I wish we could.

Alas, it took over here long before it took over in the UK. It's practically endemic to the American mindset. The aberration is the short few decades when things were actually progressing. And when you read of things like pharma companies spending $15 in lobbying costs for every $25,000 in excess revenues protected, it feels pretty hopeless. We live in a mean, petty nation where the rich can outspend everybody else combined and not make a dent in their bank accounts.