An article appeared today in the huffington post which I have major problems with, yet which I’m having difficulty finding a way of arguing against, at least in a concise way. It was an attack on the disability community from within, as it were. I’m not going to give it the dignity of quoting it or linking to it, but it basically accused us all of being left wing extremists intolerant of opposition or dissent. Truth be told, it is a poorly thought through, ineloquent and illogical piece of writing, but the danger of it lies in the fact that, given it was placed in such a well known online journal, people will think it’s author speaks with authority.
Rather disgustingly and nonsensically, it claims that the disabled people’s movement has been taken over be socialists who merely claim to be disabled, and that ‘true’ disabled people are losing their voice. One presumes he means those with unseen or not-so-obvious disabilities. How dare he make such an accusation? How dare he be so arrogant? Moreover, I find how he accuses those in the disability activism world – a world I try to be a part of – of being socialists because we believe the state should help in our support, just as nonsensical. To him it is somehow because of such activists, whom he se as full of blind hatred for ATOS, that he is denied personhood as they, for some reason, reduce him down to a label when in fact the opposite is the case. The whole thing sounds as if it is written by someone who does not understand as much as he thinks he does; who craves attention; a Thatcherite who has done okay for himself but would deny others the support they need; who thinks he is more important than he actually is, or less important than he should be; in short a spoiled attention seeker trying to punch far above his weight. Such people are fit only to be ignored – I just hope others realise that.