In fact, Adapt has taught me that protesting is not the first step, it is the last step. For every direct action that the group has organized, there is months, if not years, of groundwork that has lead up to it. We meet with legislators, we write policy, we try to work with administrations, and when we are ignored we demonstrate.
“I was pulled out of my wheelchair by police. It could be worse. Trumpcare could pass.”
Medicaid cuts are so scary that an office of The Arc (the old, moderate U.S. disability rights group) is calling for the kind of social media raiding we used to do against Autism Speaks. Let’s oblige them. Facebook and/or Twitter. Your senators. 10:30 PM your time. If you can make phone calls, make the phones ring tomorrow. Suggested talking points: family values, how Medicaid keeps people employed.
Cuts mean less healthcare, less personal care, more and worse institutions, early deaths, and families impoverished. I don’t know if there’s hope, but I know there are lots of us. We’ve done this before. Maybe our actions matter. Maybe you can save our disabled siblings’ lives and liberty, shape our grandchildren’s history books. If you’re willing to pick up the wonderful, terrible possibility that what you do might mean something and see where it takes you, let’s try.
Look we can email them! Those of you who don’t do phone calls, let’s do this!
If you can, please do. If not, please signal boost. if not either of those but you wish you could, just send us your strength as best you can and we’ll do this together.
Yes! Also, you can participate in ASAN’s phone bank on June 27. If you can’t call, get someone else to call on your behalf. If you can call, you can volunteer to call on behalf of someone who can’t.
This is also a prime time to use tools like Resistbot, and Stance!
Yes! Please do all of these things. Medicaid policy is painfully dense and complex, but the TLDR of it is that less Medicaid = more institutions. Higher-support Autistics with intellectual disabilities would be terribly affected by cuts, as would lots of other people with physical or intellectual disabilities. Don’t let the loss of personal care aides put people in nursing homes and other awful places!!!
The @autisticadvocacy phone bank is TODAY, June 27, 2017. You can get help making a phone call if you need it. If you can make phone calls, please take a minute to help someone who can’t.
Disabled and chronically ill Americans protesting the repeal of the affordable care act today outside senate majority leader Mitch McConnell’s office, June 22nd. The response? Capitol police violently moving and arresting them as always. Fuck McConnell the police the state and our president for their vicious ableism
[Image descripton:
Image one: twitter post by kristenwilsonkeppler (TheOtherKeppler) saying “protest outside @senateMajLdr office, chanting “dont touch medicaid, save our liberty!” with an image of a crouded hall, most people in wheelchairs or seated holding signs.
Image two: twitter post by Jordan (JordanUhl) saying “sickening. Protesters dragged from @SenateMajLdr’s office
They rely on Medicaid. Many are disabled #NoCuteNoCaps
The image under it shows 5 police officers all carrying a manImage two: twitter post from jordan as well saying “Protester ripped from her wheelchair and carried off. #NoCutsNoCaps #StopTrumpcare” the picture under it shows a girl being pulled off by four police officers.
Image three: twitter post from Jordan again saying “Capitol police escorting a protester away. #NoCuteNoCaps” there is a police escorting a woman in an electric scooter and reporters surrounding the area behind them.
Image four: twitter post by John ARavosis (Aravosis) saying “this is the seminal image of our battle. She’s being arrested for protesting ACA repeal outside McConnell’s office.” image of a police escorting a girl with a mask over her face out of the area.
Image five: a screenshot to show the full image that was in image four. It shoes a girl with a breathing mask in her electric wheelchair holding a sign that says “Medicaid life + Liberty 4 disabled Americans”
Image six: twitter post by Jordan again saying “Capitol police Arresting Protesters Who rely on rely on wheelchairs. They dropped one. #noCuteNoCaps” there shows four images of the crowed room. There are four officers and a lot of people with electric scooters, one which has noone sitting in it, but the image isn’t focusing on any particular thing .
Image seven: twitter by Collen Flanagan (CollenFlanagan) saying “billinaires wotn protect disability rights #ADAPTandRESIST laid down in protest. Instead of listening, they arrested us.” the image shows three people lying down. One person beside their scooter and two others above them. One person is standing off to the side. Description end.]]
hey if you reblogged the other version of this post please reblog this one instead, disability news should be accessible
“I keep expecting more from the plotline than what’s currently here,” one publisher wrote. “What if it was about sisters who were twins, and one had Charcot-Marie-Tooth and one didn’t? That would create a more important conflict.” Another said that Mia Lee’s character didn’t seem suited for a lighthearted story. Finally, my agent told me, “I just don’t think people are ready for this type of story for this type of character.”
What she meant is that Mia Lee, my sassy, YouTube-loving heroine, differed too much from the convention of what a disabled kid is supposed to be like. There are very few stories about kids in wheelchairs, and there are even fewer with a disabled person who is cheerful and happy. Disability is always seen as a misfortune, and disabled characters are simply opportunities to demonstrate the kindness of the able-bodied protagonists.
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, YOU GUYS
Another day in Trump’s Amerikkka, another moment while I excuse myself to go vomit.
DC Metro ADAPT has also been posting updates on this
People who perform manual labor should be not only given high and liveable wages, but unlimited access to healthcare and physical therapy to help manage the myriad conditions that come from doing back-breaking work.
Like this is not an absurd concept. It bothers me that people think that it is.
I have literally been yelling about this all day. The Washington Post published a misleading and Ill informed article called Disabled or Just Desperate. The author followed a man living in poverty, reluctant to file for disability after watching his family barely survive on it for various aquaired disabilities. The article implies 1/3 of working age Americans live off of disability checks, and explicitly says signing up to receive disability checks pretty much garuntees you will never work again.
What if fails to point out is if this man had access to healthcare or the money to afford health Care in his line of manual labor, he would likely never had needed disability checks to survive.
The reason so many working age adults receive these checks are because when they are hurt, they work through the injury instead of getting the help they need because they can’t afford the medical bills, or afford to take time off of work to heal.
This is a cycle, and passing the AHCA will only increase these expenses. People who work manual labor need access to health Care and they money to get the extra care they need so they aren’t forced to retire at 40 and collect checks from the government simply to survive.
Burns’ experience is not a rare case but rather reflective of Britain’s widespread crisis in disability unemployment. While discrimination of disabled people within the workplace continues for many, even getting hired in the first place is an uphill battle – something that’s particularly acute for people with learning disabilities or autism. Just 16% (pdf) of people with autism are in full-time paid work, according to the National Autistic Society, while less than 6% of learning disabled people are in full-time employment.
That’s compared to 47% of disabled people generally. More worryingly, things aren’t getting better: the employment rate for autism has seen negligible improvement(pdf) in a decade and the number of learning disabled people in work has actually fallen in the past five years.
I would add that in 2009, before all the further austerity cuts to disability benefits and services, the NAS found that among autistic adults:
· One third are currently without a job or access to benefits
· Over half have spent time with neither a job nor access to benefits, some for over ten years
· Just 15% have a full-time job
· 79% of those on Incapacity Benefit want to work
· 82% who have applied for benefits say that they needed support to apply.
You really do have to wonder how people are supposed to live, though I don’t need to go further down that road right now. The situation is just not good.
Looking for work with a learning disability: ‘You feel like a failure’
“The drastic cuts to Medicaid in the AHCA would be a disaster for anyone receiving services under the program”
Physical illnesses are not worse than mental illnesses.
Mental illnesses are not worse than physical illnesses.
This is not a competition of who suffers more. We can do so much more together than we can apart.
Personally, I love each and every one of you. I will defend you to the fucking last, my friends.
“Radical Immobility” – 2016. Since I’m making peace with my disability, I decided to make the walker I’ve accepted into a tacky neon mess that’s still usable. If people are going to see my mobility aid instead of me, I don’t think they could tell the difference 💋
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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