Re: Wierd

[Doyle Saylor <djsaylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings Economists,

Michael Perelman writes,
I have a sense that with the sinking W
poll numbers, many people might be thinking more about Iraq and the
economy than Terry Schiavo?  Remember her?

Doyle,
Well that's exactly right in terms of the controversy about Schiavo quickly
disappearing.  However, I'd like to make a few points in any case.

In the Bay Area we just had a conference at SF State University, SDS
(Society for Disability Studies, http://www.uic.edu/orgs/sds/) in which
Schiavo was a major topic.  So the academic Disability Rights community has
not forgotten Schiavo.  We continue to build our intellectual apparatus.
Along many lines including the long term attitude we will have toward people
like Schiavo and what ways we understand supporting their rights.  At the
conference, I participated in the conference topic of Language Disabilities,
and I got quite a bit out of that.  I think that's where we can really make
headway in terms of Disability Rights.

Secondly, the majority of the left came down against the Disability Rights
Movement position on Schiavo.  I would guess counting liberals as left it
was a solid ten to one against us.  But it's not an organizing direction in
the left.  Just an example how most people, not just the left, have an
opinion about disabled people that is roughly speaking a conventional
wisdom.  The no there there trump card I believe aptly summarizes this view
of Disabled People.  But people don't waste their time trying to make
political movements out of that attitude.  They will act politically if they
fear the Disabled Rights Movement as a movement that threatens their wisdom,
their rights, and since for the most part we are invisible we don't have to
worry too much about the public getting worked up about our views.

One can see that invisibility in Joan Didion's Essay on Schiavo in last
months NY Review of Books (here: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18050 ).
In the rationalist manner Didion writes as if the whole clash violated
reasoned debate about the Schiavo case.  Didion's over all conclusion was a
pox on all sides because reason didn't triumph.  But if you read what she
wrote, you don't see Didion mention the substance of the Disabled Rights
Movements attempts to address Schiavo's merits.  So the reason that Didion
employs (that one-sidedly purports dispassionately to cover the whole field)
actually proofs the invisibility that disabled people have to over come in
our fight for our rights.  On the other hand this invisibility suits me
because for the time being it s amongst our own we organize.  Until we have
the political strength we can bide our time.  Invisible, falling off the
calendar, disappearing from site, over the horizon, suits our movement for
the time being.  One does not beat 10 to one odds until we ve done this ten
to one times.

thanks,
Doyle Saylor