[nfbmi-talk] who am i fighting for

[David Robinson]

Dear Joe, 

   I echo you words of concern and frustration, and I know that our efforts
today will not benefit us who are on the front line, but is that what we are
fighting for?  Its more for those who come after us.  Sometimes, we, as our
brave American soldiers, have to stay focused on what and who we are
fighting and who we are fighting for.  
   It is refreshing to hear someone in the management of MCB and a
recognized leader of the blind in Michigan, publicly admit a mistake on her
part.  We all fall short in what we try to do at times,and we are all
willing to look passed the missteps if they are open and true and the
mistake was not deliberate or damaging to others.  The MCB director should
take a page from this book.  I have never once heard most of the EMT of MCB
admit to any mistakes or apologize for any missteps they have made.  All I
have heard are lies upon lies and  followed up by actions that deliberately
destroy the lives of blind people and the programs they depend on to live in
this world.  

   Thank you and all of those who toil on behalf of all of us.  

Dave Robinson

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbmi-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbmi-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org]
On Behalf Of joe harcz Comcast
Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2012 8:46 AM
To: NFB of Michigan Internet Mailing List
Subject: Re: [nfbmi-talk] who am i fighting for

Actually we technically have a school for the deaf and blind in legislation.

We have the remnants of it with the good folks in the LIO program and under 
the blind trust fund that know one really knows how much is in it. We even 
technically had a physical location for those folks in law and fact at the 
Flint School for the Deaf and Blind.

Oh, but some crooks in both parties subsidized a private developer to the 
tune of $7 plus million literally in the last days of the Grandholm 
Administration to basically that that over and to rebuild it, subdivide it 
and sell of or lease half to a private school and then nominally say they'd 
lease back the School for the Deaf at $2 million per year. Meanwhile in the 
dead of night LIO was moved back to Lansing.

Oh and we've got Cannon talking about absorbing the resources of LIO in some

sort of weird arrangement now to produce Braille, etc., for other state 
departments like DHS when he can't even supply simple e-mail in a timely 
manner in his own organization.

All of us who are parents and most Americans and indeed, the American Dream,

is to leave this country a little bit better off for the next generation 
than it was for ours.

OH, and we all know that blind kids can receive quality education in the 
mainstream environment too. But, in too many cases they are not.

Add to that the fact that literally thousands of newly blinded adults have 
turned away from vital IL and VR services from MCB during the last deathly 
decade of decline in utter frustration and we have to note that we are 
progressing, but rather, as a whole again precipitously declining.

Man, if I walk in to one more state building or one more public school 
without required raised character and Braille signage I think I'll explode.

If I hear of one more blind kid who doesn't get basics or one more blind 
parent who doesn't even know about transition programs I(not blaming the 
victim here of course) welll....


Moreover, aside from basic literacy including Braille, of course, our kids 
like all kids and our adults like all adults need to be technologically 
literate in order to compete in this information age.

But, again the master's of disaster wish for the general public to be 
ignorant, and they wish for we the blind to be ignorant,. It is so much 
easier to control masses who are uninformed after all. The convenient tool 
at their disposal in our regards starts at first instance in denying us 
accessible information at every front, including Braille.

I just re-read Hamlet the other night. Man, it puts things in to 
perspective.

But, that's another issue for another day.

By the way we the blind are not the only ones being increasingly screwed by 
a paternalistic, and vampire state apparatchek. This state is riddled 
withroughout with corrupted hacks that misappropriate funds for their own 
benefit those meant for people with disabilities.

But, that's another story for another day as well.

By the way Chris, you might wish to purchase some of that protective 
chemical warfare apparel from Peckham to insulate you from the noxious fumes

emanating from other members of the EMT....I'm smiling when I say that and 
it's not a dagger thrown in your direction in the least...Grins...

I'm as the musical group denotes, raging at the machine here. Not you or 
anyone on this list in particular.

Peace,

Joe
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Christine Boone" <christine_boone at comcast.net>
To: "NFB of Michigan Internet Mailing List" <nfbmi-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 9:13 PM
Subject: Re: [nfbmi-talk] who am i fighting for


Righteous indignation and completely understandable here.  Well stated too.
Oh if only we could turn back time about ...50 years, 60? And then fight 
with all of the brains we have today, for that which we lost yesterday.  Our

present sophistication would probably enable us to prevail, where we could 
not do so before, being then only an emerging minority.  How we need that 
once great Michigan School for the Blind today.  My kingdom for a child who 
can read Braille at the top of his class, and I mean grade appropriate 
class!
My kingdom for a TCVI who does not give a child too many kudo's for being 
able to read 100 words a minute so he never tries to get any faster and is 
still reading 110 WPM when he is a senior in high school and his class mates

are reading between 200 and 300 WPM.

Joe, I appreciate what you do.  You keep me honest as director of the 
Michigan Commission for the Blind Training Center.

Warmly,
Christine

On Jan 23, 2012, at 5:17 PM, joe harcz Comcast wrote:

> Who am I fighting for?
>
> Some people don't understand my passion for people with disabilities and 
> particularly for people who are blind. Some people don't understand why 
> access to information upon demand is so important. Some people don't like 
> this or that expose or this or that method.
>
>
>
> But, colleagues I fight for all of us and I do not expect some sort of job

> or pay off either.
>
>
>
> I fight for progress of those who are blind.
>
>
>
> I see in spite of technological advances that basics in travel, Braille, 
> and even basic education of our beloved youngsters are not adhered to or 
> even known or mentioned.
>
>
>
> Man, I had a young man we all know call me this weakened and he layed out 
> his pitiable education at Durant Toure Mont (sic) and the fact there were 
> four legally blind students in that program and that they didn't even have

> required raised character and Braille signs on any room let alone the 
> bloody bathroom. Oh, yes they call it least restrictive environment but 
> then no one is in a conventional class. Segregation upon segregation here 
> whilst they closed the Michigan School for the Blind which at least knew a

> bit about blindness because it was residential and segregated? And I'm not

> a big advocate for segregated schools for the blind being an old argument 
> lost, but the answer isn't in islands of further segregation without the 
> free and "appropriate" public education. Can people see the problems here 
> with these issues? Can people see or hear my angst?
>
>
>
> Then he goes to a publicly funded High School with a big sinking fund for 
> ADA and basic compliance and he finds a restroom sign in Braille mounted 
> at six feet, six bloody feet, not sixty inches as required by the ADA/504.
>
>
>
> And this young man is forced into being a lawyer, teacher, advocate, etc. 
> He is fourteen for crying out loud and he is forced to take on the beast 
> single handed.To assert himself in arenas where adults get puked upon and 
> retaliated against!!
>
>
>
> And the bloody Jaws doesn't work nd the bloody supercilious "Information 
> Technology Teacher" doesn't know how to make the thing work so we pass him

> along whilst he just wants to learn a little bit about something, about 
> anything and he is told, "Be grateful for what you get." And he knows by 
> instinct and raw instinct at that that this system keeps him in the dark, 
> not because of his blindness, but rather, because of the blindness of the 
> system that chokes the likes of him and by our brothers and sisters at 
> sometimes who say, "Well back in the day we had to chip flint without any 
> Braille and round and round that stuff goes."
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> He is fourteen and just wishes to do all those silly fourteen year old 
> things that everyone at fourteen does. Not to be some sort of super man, 
> or any sort of less than, but simply being a human.
>
>
>
> And I'm expected to say, "hey brother, lift yourself up from your 
> bootstraps at fourteen years of age and take on the entire corrupt system 
> that you know is unfair and that you know is stupid and that you know is 
> corrupt at its very core and that you see folks like myself, 59 years of 
> age slammed and denied and then cannibalized over and over again for 
> fighting for basic civil rights by a paternalistic and robber system. I 
> mean come on folks we expect our blind kids to exceed all human 
> conventions when we don't even hold the peddle to the metal for making a 
> bloody restroom accessible?
>
>
>
> And we expect adult advocates like myself to repeat the same abuses over 
> and over again and then to get the opinion of the same scofflaws who 
> violate our civil rights over and over again?
>
>
>
> This is nothing short of madness.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Are sighted folks required to manufacture their environment let alone 
> classroom materials?
>
>
>
> Man, this is what I fight for. I fight for our future for our present is 
> pretty screwed up and we, the blind in particular are ignorant and the 
> system likes us that way.
>
>
>
> They don't want us to have access to information because they, the system 
> can spin monies over and over again in to places it isn't meant to be in 
> the first place and we cannot account for it because they cannot account 
> for it and it all goes around and around the merry-go-round whilst a 
> handful of vultures including the likes of Pat Cannon can pick around the 
> edges while our society and our role in it devolves. And Pat Cannon is 
> only a symptom and and only the ultimate "Uncle Tom" put into his place to

> perpetuate a corrupted system and to pay his sorry ass off for his 
> constant sins against our brothers and sisters just like the "Judenrats" 
> or literally "jewish Rats" in the Jewish Ghettoes of Warsaw and the Kapos 
> who were Jewish traitors to the Jewish victims of persecution in 
> concentration camps who were employed to betray their brothers and sisters

> in times of ultimate desperation and abuse.
>
>
>
> Oh, yes it is a crime to cite these infamous dogs, but their infamy is 
> understandable as it is. The real perversions are not the Pat Cannon's as 
> sick and sad and pathetic as they are but, rather the others who over and 
> over again suck at our bones and employ the likes of Cannon to do just 
> that. And enforced ignorance is the means to the method of abuse and 
> infamy and all evil too.
>
>
>
> And folks don't like folks like myself who isn't Jewish touching the "tar 
> baby" of that experience. But, it is apt for during that same period right

> here in the United States of America eugenics was alive and well and the 
> same ultimate solution model was used against those of us who were blind 
> and otherwise disabled and we were institutionalized, and we were 
> euthanized and we were sterilized and that is a part of the public record 
> and it is our "ultimate solution" under the new Third Reich of hideous 
> abuse so long as there isn't anything left to suck off from within 
> corrupted institutional systems. History is prelude to our present if this

> stuff is allowed to be perpetuated.
>
>
>
> Ignorance is the means to our ultimate end. And ignorance is perpetuated 
> daily in the venal lack of information in accessible formats. Why is it 
> that it was illegal in the Ante-Bellum South to teach slaves to read? The 
> answer is: "Educated folks revolt and know how to revolt and will throw of

> the shackles of slavery!"
>
>
>
> Why did the French system of complacency and so-called charity, but really

> a bureaucratic convention fight Louis Braille? Because he through his 
> method brought information to the blind and through that we could have 
> been liberated for knowledge is King and not the so-called sovereign. But,

> keep us ignorant and what have we? Dependent, and truly "crippled in the 
> mind individuals" .All along though the slave masters and the system 
> benefits from the Vocational Rehab, and other federal funds meant for our 
> individual and collective advancement.
>
>
>
> And there is all this cloke and dagger and "Woodward and Bernstein" bull 
> hockey debate over public information versus so-called confidential 
> sources and indeed, confidential information, man oh man what a sorry sop 
> all this confidentiality is. The only information held confidential is our

> own information from ourselves and the trully public information that 
> would hang some in some countries for most perverse and most obvious 
> frauds committed upon a massive scale.
>
>
>
> Oh people don't get IPEs, and the public doesn't get PDQs, yet some 
> burecrat can log some stupid file into some stupid computer program 
> inaccessible computer including MAIN and "Voila! Bingo! Eureka! You hit 
> the lottery Jaye! You hit the lotery Pat!....Shhh it's our little secret 
> ok?"
>
>
>
> Meanwhile back at the ranch and in the arena of smoke and mirrors s 
> emporors befit themselves in fine silk clothes or so they think whilst 
> some of us without sight but insight say, "Say that bloke is buck naked 
> and I don't care if he is there emporrer.He's buck assed nekked!"
>
>
>
> Regardless, as to some claims on and off list I fight out in the open and 
> for all blind folks. I have asked for not one thing for myself. Screw it I

> don't even expect much for my generation with this corrupted system.
>
>
>
> But, as stated in the public record II have RP in my family. My young 
> nephew has been diagnosed with RP.
>
>
>
> I'll be damned if II, as a progressive with a small "p" will let this next

> generation of blind folks be worse off than my own..No not without the 
> fight of my life!
>
>
>
> The selfish inside dealing and the accusations of selfish or 
> counter-productive inside dealings must end! And they must end yesterday 
> ladies and gentlemen!
>
> And for anyone to besmirch on or off list me for what I've done is simply 
> appalling, a personal attack upon myself, and most importantly, 
> counterproductive to the common good and the commonweal.
>
>
>
> Now, we all must submit and put forward all documents we have to every 
> investigative body to root out the corruption that is defiling each and 
> every one of us.
>
>
>
> And some had better stop for the greater good in pissing on the heads of 
> some whilst telling them it is rain.
>
>
>
> I'm danged tired of that one thing.
>
>
>
> I'm very tired of it all.
>
>
>
>
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