[nfb-talk] FW: {Disarmed} FW: A personal report from ChairmanGordon Gund

John Heim john at johnheim.net
Sun Apr 24 22:01:10 UTC 2011


For the record, I never said any of the following things:

1. you  all want blind people to beg for help from sighted people
2. If you oppose a particular modification to the US currency, you want 
blind people to be helpless and dependent, .
3. John's blanket statement is that we oppose doing this ]accessible money] 
on every level,
4. If you oppose chirping signals, you want blind people to die crossing 
streets
5. John's blanket assertion is that we oppose them [audible walk signals] 
universally

I could probably keep going but I think that's enough.  I notice, Joseph, 
that you never quote me directly. You never respond to what I actually say. 
This current tirade is the result of a statement I made that the NFB has 
said that instead of adding tactile markings to our money, blind people 
should get sighted assistance to identify their money. That's a fact. Dr. 
Maurer said exactly that in his testimony before Congress.  From that 
*factual* statement on my part, you accuse me of saying that the NFB wants 
all blind people to be dependent. Well, I simply didn't say anything of the 
sort.

I can only hope that more rational, fairer memvers of this list will see how 
unfair you are being. You keep accusing me of being unwilling to acknowledge 
that the NFB is in favor of walk signals under some circumstances. Yet I 
have indeed acknowledged that many times.  So continuing to accuse me of 
that is simply dishonest.

Likewise, I never said the NFB is totally opposed to accessible money. 
You're accusing me of being too bullheaded to retract a statement I never 
even made. Its insane.

For the record, I don't think the NFB is totally against audible walk 
signals under all circumstances. And I know the NFB has expressed support 
for accessible money at times. I'd really appreciate if you'd stop accusing 
me of saying otherwise.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "T. Joseph Carter" <carter.tjoseph at gmail.com>
To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2011 7:06 AM
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] FW: {Disarmed} FW: A personal report from 
ChairmanGordon Gund


>I just get so tired of the same damned unrelenting straw men brought up 
>time and again, anywhere he can wedge these things in, whether they make 
>sense or not.  He's not been back two weeks and already we're all 
>illogical, unethical, and he's back to the straw man about how we all want 
>blind people to beg for help from sighted people.
>
> If I have learned one thing from politics, it's that certain parties 
> always want to re-frame the argument so that either you agree with them, 
> or you are against something that nobody ever would be.  Either I am 
> right, or you support cruelty to kittens!  What do kittens have to do with 
> anything?
>
> So if you listen to John, if you oppose a particular modification to the 
> US currency, you want blind people to be helpless and dependent, despite 
> the fact that very few are helpless or dependent in this matter today, 
> unless it be by choice.  Money identifiers are now $100, and my cell phone 
> can do it for the huge investment of TWO BUCKS.  John and I basically 
> agree that electronic identifiers are not a suitable solution to the 
> problem, and yet I cannot support his baseless attacks (and incessant) 
> incendiary claims against the NFB on even this issue.  Despite the NFB's 
> involvement in making the currency accessible, John's blanket statement is 
> that we oppose doing this on every level, and in THREE YEARS (or longer, I 
> think) he has yet to accept a single person's claim to the contrary.
>
> If you oppose chirping signals, you want blind people to die crossing 
> streets.  An outright lie.  The NFB opposed these things because the data 
> showed that they drowned out cars resulting in more blind people at risk, 
> not less.  Moreover, as of eight or nine years ago, the NFB has been 
> actively developing a safe replacement for these squawking monsters, and 
> the documented position of the organization is that we support their 
> installation when they will benefit people.  John's blanket assertion is 
> that we oppose them universally.  Our own resolutions to the contrary are 
> not evidence, and nobody can prove otherwise to his satisfaction.
>
> If you oppose blanket mandates for descriptive video without any 
> consideration of what kind of descriptive video would be useful or in what 
> context, then you are a monster who wants blind people to be deprived, 
> uninformed, and miserable.  The fact that descriptive video doesn't 
> actually exist as any kind of standard like closed captioning does and 
> that it's just shoehorned haphazardly into SAP channels, that nobody has 
> actually determined what to describe or how, or that any effort to mandate 
> this now can only serve to prevent a universal and standardized solution 
> from emerging is irrelevant.  Again we have the blanket assertion that the 
> NFB opposes what is good and right, is evil for doing so, and not one 
> single argument to the contrary is ever afforded even a first thought, let 
> alone a second.
>
> I could go on, at length, but the fact remains that nobody has ever swayed 
> John Heim on a single issue, ever, in the history of his presence on this 
> list.  We are all just illogical, unethical, and he is brutalized and 
> attacked from all sides, asking Dave Andrews to sanction anyone who 
> bruises his poor, fragile ego.  He can dish it out, in spades, in the most 
> incendiary language possible, but he can't take his own medicine.
>
> And more importantly, he won't shut the hell up about any of it.  He just 
> continues to trash the NFB, and the good people of this list.  We have not 
> forgotten this, and it should be clear that John is immovable on pretty 
> much anything, and that includes a fundamental belief that the NFB is 
> harmful to the blind.  So then, what is he doing here?  And why is he 
> permitted to remain, spewing this crap day after day?
>
> Joseph
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 08:16:28PM -0700, Gloria Whipple wrote:
>>Too bad that troll doesn't fall off the face of the earth!
>>
>>
>>Gloria Whipple
>>Corresponding Secretary
>>Inland Empire chapter
>>nfb of WA
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>>Behalf Of T. Joseph Carter
>>Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2011 17:10
>>To: NFB Talk Mailing List
>>Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] FW: {Disarmed} FW: A personal report from
>>ChairmanGordon Gund
>>
>>The troll returns to one of his favorite ACB-inspired arguments about
>>how evil the NFB is.  I say again, go away.
>>
>>Joseph
>>
>>
>>On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 04:24:42PM -0500, John Heim wrote:
>>>Yet, the NFB would have us ask for help to identify our money.
>>>
>>>
>>>On Apr 22, 2011, at 9:21 PM, Gloria Whipple wrote:
>>>
>>>>Hi Joseph,
>>>>
>>>>Well done! I like what you had to say.
>>>>
>>>>My prayers go out to you and I hope you get better and I hope you
>>>>are free
>>>>from cancer soon.
>>>>
>>>>All my best,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Gloria Whipple
>>>>Corresponding Secretary
>>>>Inland Empire chapter
>>>>nfb of WA
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>>From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-talk-
>>>>bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>>>>Behalf Of T. Joseph Carter
>>>>Sent: Friday, April 22, 2011 19:01
>>>>To: NFB Talk Mailing List
>>>>Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] FW: {Disarmed} FW: A personal report from
>>>>ChairmanGordon Gund
>>>>
>>>>Gloria,
>>>>
>>>>I think what it boils down to is that language is a powerful thing.
>>>>The words a person uses are less important than the intent behind
>>>>them, but from a choice of certain words over others we can infer an
>>>>intent.  I have been battling cancer.  This implies something about
>>>>me and my relationship to cancer.  I have been living with it, and I
>>>>don't want to be.  In fact, I am fighting to make it gone, because
>>>>cancer is a horrible thing.
>>>>
>>>>Am I fighting blindness?  Do I suffer from blindness?  Am I forced to
>>>>use alternative techniques?  Well yes, I do suffer as a result of
>>>>blindness.  Not because of blindness itself per se, but because of
>>>>the reaction of others to it who are not blind (and a few who are,
>>>>sadly).
>>>>
>>>>The refusal to be pigeon-holed into this "sad existence" of
>>>>"suffering because of blindness" is precisely the kind of supposed
>>>>"unethical" behavior the NFB engages in by spreading our philosophy.
>>>>It is akin to those during the 60s arguing against the notion that
>>>>they were afflicted somehow with being black.  Blindness is a bad
>>>>thing only if you make it be so, and we refuse to make it so for
>>>>ourselves.  Moreover, we refuse to allow others to force us into that
>>>>role.
>>>>
>>>>Those who would disparage our efforts to do so are not our friends,
>>>>just as those who would have you look down upon a man of color
>>>>because his skin was darker than, say, mine is.  Is he somehow worse
>>>>of because of that?  Is he lessened as a man or as a person?  Does he
>>>>deserve something less, or for that matter anything more, than any
>>>>other person simply because of the color of his skin?  Most today
>>>>would say out of hand that he should have the same opportunities
>>>>anyone would have.  No more, but certainly no less!
>>>>
>>>>The blind deserve the same equality that our more sunburn-resistant
>>>>brothers demanded more than forty years ago.  In just one generation
>>>>we have gone from a person of color being denied the use of a
>>>>drinking fountain to electing him to the United States presidency.
>>>>If there remains racial inequality, it cannot be because of the color
>>>>of a person's skin anymore.  Some individuals may yet harbor such
>>>>attitudes (and I recently observed some of those people in a public
>>>>display, sadly), but society rejects such people as undesirable when
>>>>they are exposed.  (And believe me, we are exposing them all over
>>>>YouTube, since the local media won't even report it.)
>>>>
>>>>But what about the blind?  The same society who refuses to allow a
>>>>black man to be treated as a second class citizen openly condones it
>>>>when a blind man is treated likewise.  Disability is one of only two
>>>>acceptable areas of discrimination that remain in this country.  (The
>>>>other is so far removed from topical for this list that I won't
>>>>discuss it here, much to Dave's relief.)
>>>>
>>>>We cannot continue to meekly request that we be treated as first
>>>>class citizens.  It didn't work in the 1940s, and it hasn't worked
>>>>yet.  Only by refusing to be anything less will we finally achieve
>>>>that.  Unfortunately, that means getting a bit uppity over language
>>>>that paints us into a corner, as it were.  I'm not here to be pitied
>>>>or someone's inspiration.  I'm here because I've got a job to do, and
>>>>within the National Federation of the Blind, that job is to achieve
>>>>for myself and for all of us the basic rights of first class
>>>>citizenship afforded to anyone else in this country today, regardless
>>>>of their skin color, sexual orientation, and a whole host of other
>>>>things.
>>>>
>>>>I don't expect any more, but I also won't accept any less.
>>>>
>>>>Joseph
>>>>
>>>>On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 09:33:15AM -0700, Gloria Whipple wrote:
>>>>>James,
>>>>>
>>>>>Thanks for explaining what I wanted to say about this subject.
>>>>>
>>>>>I am glad someone is on my side!
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Gloria Whipple
>>>>>Corresponding Secretary
>>>>>Inland Empire chapter
>>>>>nfb of WA
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
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