[nfbwatlk] *HAVE* the blind lost their way or their will? Never!

[Gloria Whipple]

Thank you Mike! 

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Mike Freeman
Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2007 8:01 PM
To: NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List
Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] *HAVE* the blind lost their way or their will?
Never!

Carl:

With respect, we've debated the currency issue to a fault on your
organization's list without much change in anyone's position. The same will
be the case on our list. So as List Moderator, I hereby strongly urge you to
let that one go. That goes for you also, Lisa, although I realize that you
brought up the subject with no malice aforthought and were merely
proclaiming your zeal for the NFB cause. But the matter is in the Federal
courts where it will likely be for the next five years.

Before leaving the currency discussion, however, I will say that you're
doing the usual sophistic trick of setting up a straw man and then knocking
him down. I doubt there are many folks -- blind or sighted -- clamoring for
cashier's jobs. So making so-called accessible currency would have a
negligible effect at best on the unemployment rate (whatever it is) for the
blind. Moreover, there has been many an occasion when *I* have caught retail
personnel -- sighted ones -- making mistakes in handling currency they
presumably could distinguish by sight.

Whatever myths "accessible" currency proponents would like to propound, the
truth is that people in general can't make change worht a damn anymore
unless they have a machine to do it for them, they're too busy playing with
their Wiis.

Mike

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Carl Jarvis
  To: NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List
  Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2007 4:43 PM
  Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] *HAVE* the blind lost their way or their will? 
Never!


  Thanks for your thoughts, Lisa.  I hope you folks are looking ahead to 
a
  very successful New Year.

  Can you imagine what would happen if some nation announced that it had 
an
  unemployment rate of 70 percent?  Our government probably would very 
quickly
  send relief funds, and the World Bank would float them huge loans to 
get
  their economy jump started.
  Maybe we should stake out some land, like the Olympic Peninsula, and 
declare
  it a separate nation, move all blind folks here and demand financial 
aid.

  But since that's a silly idea which would never work, we need jobs.
  Naturally there are many jobs that we simply can't do.  Jobs like bus
  driver, truck driver, airline pilot, commercial photographer and Sea 
Hawk
  running back.
  But there are some jobs that we cut ourselves off from.
  Cashiers, bank tellers, store clerk, and any other job that entails 
our
  being able to quickly identify money.
  Like you, I fold my money.  That means that at some point I must have 
a
  method of identifying the paper currency.  Usually this is through the 
eyes
  of another person.
  When I worked in the Business Enterprises Program, I had to trust the 
public
  to hand me the correct bill.  If they said it was a five dollar bill I 
could
  only hope that they had not passed a one off on me.
  I did have a few tricks up my sleeve, but if I worked for someone 
else, say
  for example the local banker, he would probably not be eager to gamble 
on my
  tricks or on the public's honesty.  So he would hire a sighted person.
  So now we have thousands of jobs that we could do with ease, if only 
we
  could identify one bill from the next.  But we want to save our US 
Treasury
  the cost of making our money identifyable, thus cutting ourselves out 
of
  employment.
  This means that thousands of blind men and women who want to work, are
  forced to live on SSI.  And what is SSI?  Well, SSI is the price our 
Federal
  government is willing to pay us rather than make our money usable to 
the
  blind.  It's costing the tax payers either way you slice it.  Wouldn't 
it be
  better to see blind men and women walking with their heads up, to hold 
down
  a job that is now out of their reach?
  Seventy percent unemployment is Class discrimination of the top order.
  But as long as we don't make waves, and so long as we are satisfied 
with the
  crumbs from Master's table, and as long as we kiss up to an 
administration
  that is stealing not only our money but our dignity, then we will 
continue
  to sit in our hovels and eat worms.

  Carl Jarvis

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