CSJ launches Disability Commission

[bgmnts]

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/thinktank-responsible-for-universal-credit-launches-disability-commission/

So, basically, the worst thinktank ever headed by one of the worst people in history is going to:

secure a step change in the opportunities available to disabled people, especially in employment, to live their lives fully and as they want to

I know a lot of people here are familiar with universal credit and know how abysmal it is.

Oh hang on they want to:

prove that only a market economy delivers sustainable social justice in a way that enables everyone to realise their potential

Can someone much more knowledgeable than me tell me why this isn't fucking shit and IDS shouldn't be rocketed into the nearest star whilst being flayed?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

'More disabled suicides are fantastic, freeing up vital public money'

[bgmnts]

I know, its obviously like "kill all disabled people" but can anyone even make sense of the free market helping disabled people?

[Wonderful Butternut]

I know, its obviously like "kill all disabled people" but can anyone even make sense of the free market helping disabled people?

Free market helping people:



Stock photo branding cos Image searching people begging brought up a lot of links to websites that appear to be run by eugenicists.

[Zetetic]

People's dignity and material wellbeing shouldn't depend on their ability to sell their labour, particularly in a market where potential purchasers are liable to be prejudiced and ignorant.

But, given that it does here and now, there's something to be said for trying to make potential purchasers less ignorant, support disabled people to have the same opportunities as the rest of us (such as they are) and force reasonable adjustments and the like.

To be valued as labour is not a great achievement, but it's important to many people who aren't - for reasons both in and outside their heads.

Maybe a possible rough analogy is that public transportation is frequently shit across much of the UK, but it's a still a good thing that what there is has been forced to be minimally accessible.

[Zetetic]

I recently watched Crip Camp and there was something that I thought was interesting there about the nature of "disability" as a concept in social movements and social change.

The film touches on Willowbrook briefly as a scandal that helped push for the de-institutionalisation of care for people with disabilities. Willowbrook was for those with learning disabilities (broadly) not physical ones, although the film doesn't emphasise or discuss this.[nb]Ely was perhaps our equivalent, although that scandal was more clearly directed at "psychiatric" care rather than "disability". And Ely doesn't seem to have been half-as-nightmarish as Willowbrook.[/nb]

At a later point, the film showed protesting physically disabled Americans emphasising that their impairments did not speak to their intelligence or inner life - emphasising that their intellectual abilities validated them as humans and as valuable.

I don't begrudge anyone wanting not to be mistaken as cognitively impaired when they're not, but I thought there was something interesting there.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

I know, its obviously like "kill all disabled people" but can anyone even make sense of the free market helping disabled people?

Well you see, if you cut people's disability payments they'll have to stop sitting around feeling sorry for themselves and get jobs. Only then will they realise how easy it is to answer a phone with their non-stroke arm, and discover that they have the power inside them to make corporations more money just like normal people.

[greenman]

'More disabled suicides are fantastic, freeing up vital public money'

Lived there lives as long as they wanted to and realised their potential.

[Jockice]

Sounds incredibly dodgy to me. But this sort of thing happens even if you're a very small voice as a disability campaigner. "Hey, why don't you join in this group designed to make people's lives better?" and you feel bad if you don't because it might actually do something even if it's run by (usually non-disabled) people you wouldn't trust even if you could throw them.

Quite a prominent activist got offered and took a highly-paid job with the DWP a couple of years ago, swearing that she wouldn't be told to shut up, but of course almost immediately shutting up. She's started posting on social media again recently, so I don't know if the job's ended or she's just had enough.

People will be watching this very closely though. I can guarantee that.