[Nfb-seniors] Special Accommodations. Was: Re: (no subject)

[David Andrews]

While my better judgment tells me I shouldn't respond I am going to anyway.

First, if we are so crazy, why are you on one of our lists.

Secondly, you have simplified and distorted many of our positions, 
presumably to further your own political agenda.  It is a falsehood 
to say that we ask for no accommodations and don't want anyone to 
accept any.  On the whole we do believe in only asking for those 
accommodations that are truly necessary, and different people and 
different groups will disagree about what is necessary.  However, 
this is not a basis for your ridiculous statements.

Dave

At 05:55 PM 2/14/2008, you wrote:

>Dr. Heinz-Guenther Pink, Advocate and program evaluator for the blind, deaf
>and handicapped, Member: NFB Communication Council, and ATRC Advisory
>Council of the State, Member of Senator Chun Oakland's Deaf-Blind Task
>Force, Founder: Computer College of Hawaii since 1963, said, "If we really
>are the voice of the blind then let's all lobby for free high speed internet
>access and not say that it is not our job.  Without free high speed access
>to the internet the free cameras from Sorensen are useless.  So let's all
>lobby."
>
>
>I really can't believe I'm hearing such a thing from an NFB member on an NFB
>list.  Ask the government to subsidize us?  Rediculous!  Absurd!  Not to
>mention that such a thing goes entirely against everything the NFB stands
>for.
>
>Being blind, we need to continue to perpetuate the myth that we are just
>like any sighted person, without requiring any special accomodations.  After
>all, that's why the NFB insisted that we, the blind, stop being able to ride
>city busses for free, in spite of the fact that we are experiencing an 80%
>unemployment / underemployment rate.  To continue to keep doing so would
>make the blind appear to be somehow different from those who can see,
>perhaps requiring some kind of special treatment.  And nothing could be
>further from the truth, could it?
>
>Just as good as any sighted person?  No way!  We're better than sighted
>people, able to do everything they can do, and we can do it better than
>them, too!
>
>That's why our NFB is constantly doing everything it can to ensure that no
>blind person should ever have any kind of special priviliges or advantages,
>like being able to rely on audible crossing signals to tell us when the
>light is in our favor.  Of course we can figure that out on our own.  And
>those who can't, will, of course, be run over and killed, never having to
>ever worry about such things again.  And without such stupid, blind  people
>running around any longer, the rest of us will seem a lot smarter, won't we?
>
>I suggest that the NFB begin a new campaign, once again trying to prove that
>being blind is better than being sighted.
>
>In the meantime, shouldn't we b blinding sighted people, using our canes to
>poke them all in their eyes, similar to what Louis Braille did to himself,
>with an awl in his father's workshop?  Blinding himself.  Great idea!  What
>a role model for all of us!
>
>The only problem is that he stopped with blinding only himself, and not
>everybody else around him as well.  But back then, I guess there wasn't an
>NFB to suggest such things to them yet, was there?
>
>If nothing else, we should at least be consistant.
>
>
>
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David Andrews and white cane Harry.