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

Sun Apr 24 13:12:29 UTC 2011

If John doesn't want to believe in the organization, why does he suffer by
being on the mailing list! I am not saying that he doesn't have the right to
be here, but it seems like he wants to say negative things about the nfb.

No one is forcing him to be here.

If I am out of line, so be it!

If it wasn't for our organization teaching me that it is respectful to be
blind and being independent, I wouldn't be where I am at now.

Thank you,

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 Ray Foret Jr
Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2011 05:36
To: NFB Talk Mailing List
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] FW: {Disarmed} FW: A personal report from
ChairmanGordon Gund

A mighty tough act to follow Joseph.  I must speak frankly, but, then again,
have I ever done otherwise?  

I fail to see the logic of David allowing such tripe as John to remain among
us.  I believe he's come at each and every one of us personally.  Even the
olive branch I sought to extend to his sorry tail a few months ago went
rejected, as I believe all here are aware.

The man is a plague on decency itself.

Sincerely,
The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!!

Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!!
Skype name:
barefootedray

Facebook:
facebook.com/ray.foretjr.1

On Apr 24, 2011, at 7:06 AM, T. Joseph Carter wrote:

> 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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>> ba
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>>>> 
>>>> 
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