[nfbmi-talk] who am i fighting for

[joe harcz Comcast]

Yes, it certainly is refreshing for someone in the upper management of MCB 
to admit to a mistake. I am known as a sort of harsh task master, but really 
I'm a pussycat.

People do make mistakes including myself.

But we admit to them, correct our ways and go on if we have an ounce of 
humility.

But, the upper echelons for the most part in MCB and indeed in the entire 
state apparatchek here point the blame, over and over at the victims of 
their perfidy.

You know it is all the fault of customers, those dratted advocates, those 
darned NFB rabble rousers, etc.

In other words it's the fault of all of us in their eyes who wouldn't even 
have a reason to exist in the first place with their cushy salaries if it 
weren't for blind folks whom they so openly disparage, and despise.

unless of course one happens to be of the small minority that sells out like 
say Leemon Jones, or Pat Cannon himself.

BTW for the record I was not busting the chops of Chris or anyone in 
particular, but you're point here Dave is most well taken and I certainly 
agree.

You know many years ago a great leader in NFB, Fred Shroeder, while he ran 
the RSA made some public mistakes. He didn't supply Braille and large print 
materials to members who were blind and VI of NICL. They protested. Fred to 
his credit didn't blame them or someone else. He publicly stated his 
omissions, thanked the protesters ffor doing what they did, and bottom line 
he made sure that never happened again.


Back in the 90's when Judy Heumann received protests from the blind comunity 
for using at the time inaccessible Lotus notes in the OSERS system didn't 
bblame the victims of this. She went to the sources and the community and 
not only rectified that situation, but also again working with the community 
including NFB, of course, helped to bring about and enhance Section 508.

Thus great leaders, and I certainly will openly call Chris a great leader, 
are not known for their personal or institutional mistakes, but rather, how 
they adress them and make them right.

Peace,

Joe
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Robinson" <drob1946 at gmail.com>
To: "'NFB of Michigan Internet Mailing List'" <nfbmi-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2012 9:32 AM
Subject: Re: [nfbmi-talk] who am i fighting for


> 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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