MANIFESTO NUMBER 14

INSTITUTE ON DISABILITY CULTURE MANIFESTO 

April 2000                                  Number 14

MANIFESTO  
(a written statement publicly declaring issues, views or motives of
its issuer--Webster).  

I.   EDITORIAL NOTE AND REQUEST
II.  SAYING NO TO POWER
III.  RESPONSES TO MANIFESTO NUMBER THIRTEEN
IV.  NO ONE IS FREE WHEN OTHERS ARE OPPRESSED
V.   REPRODUCING THE MANIFESTO
VI.  GETTING ON AND OFF THIS LIST

To get off this list, follow the instructions in PART VI.

MANIFESTOS archives:  http://www.dimenet.com/disculture/

I. EDITORIAL NOTE AND REQUEST

Some of you may have noticed the MANIFESTOs getting longer.  That's 
largely because of the numerous announcements that I've been including.  I
don't know about you, but I get lots of announcements and you may not need
them repeated in the MANIFESTO.  Or, if you, do perhaps you'd like them at
a different time, perhaps in the middle of the month.   For this month I'm
going to exclude announcements from this issue (with one exception right 
after these comments) and send them out in about two weeks.  I will be 
soliciting comments about the format throughout this month and then I'll 
make a preliminary decision.  
--Steven E. Brown

GREAT AMERICAN GAS OUT!

Anytime we can stick it to them it's a good day.  Last year on April 
30,1999, a gas out was staged across Canada and the U.S. to bring the 
price of gas down, and it worked. It's time to do something about it 
again.
This time, lets make it for three days instead of just one. The oil cartel
decided to slow production to drive up gasoline prices.
Lets see how many Canadian\American people we can get to ban together for 
a three day period in April, NOT TO BUY ANY GASOLINE, during those three 
days. LETS HAVE A GAS OUT.
Do not buy any gasoline from APRIL 7, 2000, THROUGH APRIL 9, 2000. Buy 
what you need before the dates listed above, or after, but try not to buy 
any during the GAS OUT. If you want to help, just send this to everyone 
you know and ask them to do
the same.
We brought the prices down once before, and we can do it again!  Come on 
North America lets stand together.
WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

II.  SAYING NO TO POWER

        Those of you who have been following MANIFESTO editorials and 
conversations and some of you who have been following my writing even 
longer than that (don't laugh-this week I learned I had a self-described 
internet "stalker") realize that language has been at the crux of many 
discussions.  The standard argument today is do we describe ourselves as 
"people with disabilities," "disabled people," "Disabled People" or 
something else.  One person likes "dislabeled people," another favors 
"people who are labeled disabled."
        There are also those who claim that everyone has a disability of 
some kind.  They argue that we all have limitations.  There's even a 
website now called halftheplanet.  I've always resisted that argument 
because not everyone is discriminated against because of their 
limitations.  But in thinking about this editorial my problem has become 
that I believe as another column in this newsletter states, that "no one 
is free when others are oppressed."  Discrimination crosses boundaries 
just like disabilities do.  We have said for a very long time that anyone 
can join this club.  It doesn't matter your age, your economic status, 
your color, your ethnicity, your religion or anything else.  Disability is
an equal opportunity experience.
        So taking all that into consideration I've decided to see if I can
change my language a bit.  In this column I will no longer talk about 
people with disabilities.  I will talk instead about people with 
unrestricted abilities (those who are not discriminated against) and 
people with oppressed abilities.  I think this is a more accurate 
statement of who we are.  There are (in the old language)  people with 
disabilities who become, at least on the surface, people with unrestricted
abilities.  Some like Stephen Hawking and Christopher Reeve come to mind 
as today's most notorious examples.  Even though both have what the U. S. 
government now calls "significant disabilities" they are by virtue of 
their fame, their wealth, and their power, people of unrestricted 
abilities.  They do not seem to consider themselves oppressed, except in 
Reeve's case, by his body.  This is very different than those of us who 
believe we are oppressed by the society that we live in.  Reeve might 
consider himself a person of unrestricted ability, while he might consider
someone else in his same situation without his wealth, fame, and power as 
one with oppressed abilities.
        There's another reason to transform this language.  It hit me 
while reading a powerful new book called SAYING NO TO POWER, by lifelong 
radical William Mandel.  
        Mandel was born in the early part of the twentieth century to a 
communist family.  He spent much of his early life as a communist and even
lived in the Soviet Union for a year as a youngster.  He was kicked out of
college as a teenager because he questioned authority.  He fought, and 
according to many bested, Joe McCarthy in that maniacal Senator's witch 
hunt hearings.   Later, Mandel testified before the House UnAmerican 
Activities Committee.  I read his entire book-a picaresque, fascinating 
romp that takes one from the streets of New York City to scores of places 
in the Soviet Union to the hills of Berkeley and the Free Speech Movement 
and beyond-before I took a look at his website.  There I had the privilege
of listening to Mandel's testimony before the House UnAmerican Activities 
Committee.   It made me want to get up and dance.  It's that powerful.  In
fact, Mandel later wrote me that one line from that testimony has been 
used at least once on some TV show or movie every year since-and that's 40
years folks!
        When I first thought about what I wanted to write about SAYING NO 
TO POWER I believed I'd start with some catchy phrase like, "do you know 
who claims to have started the talk radio format AND was the target of the
'don't trust anyone over 30" statement?  Well, by now you know it was Bill
Mandel.  You also might understand that although he is not a person with a
disability he is a person with oppressed abilities because he was harassed
all his life and unable to make a living in his chosen field.  He turned 
from study of the Soviet Union to translating technical documents because 
no one would hire him.  And that was after being solicited and working at 
Stanford's prestigious Hoover Institute to produce an encyclopedia on the 
Soviet Union and publishing books and articles.  Mandel's analysis of the 
Cold War is one that makes sense.  He doesn't retreat from sharing when he
was absolutely right in his analyses and he doesn't shy away from 
admitting his mistakes either.  
        During almost all of his adult life he was a radio fixture on a 
local San Francisco Bay Area station.  But he was let go in the mid-1990s 
because he broke that station's gag rule.  To say he is a lifelong radical
is not to exaggerate.  To say he has been oppressed is not to exaggerate. 
But, we can all help change that.  You can enhance Mandel's opportunities 
to move from a person of oppressed abilities to one of unrestricted 
abilities by ordering SAYING NO TO POWER.  You can get it from Bill 
personally, autographed, at $20, 4500 Gilbert St., Apt. 426, Oakland, CA. 
9466.  Or you can get it from Creative Acts Book Co. is 1-800-848-7789, 
FAX 1-510-848-4844. Or you can ask your local bookstore to order it which 
would help Bill get it out the public.  Or you can order it online from 
Amazon at http://www.amazon.com  
        And check out his website and listen to the HUAC hearings at:  
http://www.billmandel.net/
--Steven E. Brown

III. RESPONSES TO MANIFESTO NUMBER THIRTEEN

You touched a nerve about the travel.  I myself have Chronic Fatigue as 
well as being hard of hearing.  I decided a long time ago, that if I 
couldn't sandwich the trip  ( a travel day, a work day, followed by a 
travel day )  then, I refuse to go.  This can be a real problem at 
conferences when I try to go earlier and leave later only to find out that
the hotel can't give me a room and that there are no rooms available 
anywhere in the city.
I even went to an interview cross-country, and the organization expected 
me to do a trip as you have described it.  Like an idiot,  I allowed 
myself to pay for the extra days only to find out that they were never 
serious about the interview, they were just going thru the motions.  
hence, they wouldn't have paid the extra anyway because they had already 
made up their mind to hire someone else.  You would think that they would 
pay the price for satisfying their own curiosity and not expect  the 
candidate to incur a cost to entertain them !
Anyway, don't do it anymore !  Of course I realize that it is not easy for
you because living in New Mexico means having to travel a long distance to
almost anywhere.  But trust me, it is not much easier living on the 
Eastern seaboard.
--Marc A. Gallucci : Center for Disability Rights, Connecticut


IV.   NO ONE IS FREE WHEN OTHERS ARE OPPRESSED

NOT DEAD YET REACTS TO TWO DEAD IN HONOLULU

          Contact:    Diane Coleman  (708) 209-1500
                           Stephen Drake (708) 209-1500
                           Cal Montgomery (708) 209-1500

The Euthanasia Research and Guidance Organization (ERGO) reported this 
week that, within 24 hours of the televising of Derek Humphry's "how-to" 
suicide video on Hawaii's Olelo TV, two people in Honolulu have taken 
Humphry's advice and killed themselves using plastic bags.
Both were reported to be depressed; neither was reported
to be terminally ill.  "Terminally ill" traditionally means "expected to 
die from a particular disease within six months," although ERGO's website 
provides a definition, taken from Humphry's book LAWFUL EXIT, which would 
include all people with illnesses, disabilities, and health conditions 
which are expected to be life-long.  Using the ERGO definition, tens of 
millions of Americans are "terminally ill" at any one time.
Members of Not Dead Yet, a national disability-rights group which opposes 
legalization of assisted suicide, are deeply saddened by the deaths.
Humphry's and Hemlock's track record belies their claim that they are only
advocating certain death for people who are already dying anyway.  Humphry
told the world in his book FINAL EXIT that legalizing assisted suicide for
people with terminal illnesses is but the first step toward a "more 
tolerant attitude" toward death for people with disabilities.  In 1997, 
Hemlock Society president Faye Girsh issued a press release in which she 
argued that "A judicial determination should be made when it is necessary 
to hasten the death of an individual whether it be a demented parent, a 
suffering, severely disable (sic) spouse or a child."  In the recent book 
FREEDOM TO DIE, Humphry and co-author Mary Clement noted that many people 
would rather die than live in a nursing home and, rather than 
acknowledging the need for in-home support services, suggested that 
offering those people a choice between a nursing home or death might be a 
way to cut costs.  And all along, Humphry and Hemlock have worked to 
educate the public on how to commit suicide.
"We regret the death of anyone before their time," Humphry, a co-founder 
of the Hemlock Society, said, according to the ERGO press release, "but 
life is personal responsibility and people who find their mental torment 
unbearable have the right to leave."

Surgeon General David Satcher, calling suicide a "serious public health 
problem," last year issued a call to action. Suicide is the ninth most 
frequent cause of death in the United States, and the third most frequent 
for persons aged 15 to 24.  More people die each year from suicide than 
from homicide.  Nonetheless, many more people attempt suicide than 
complete it; for every suicide, there are 16 failed attempts.
Satcher's call to action focuses on preventing suicide by addressing the 
factors that give rise to suicidality, while Humphry's focuses on 
preventing failed attempts by ignoring those factors and countering the 
factors that lead to survival.  In FREEDOM TO DIE, Humphry argues that 
societal unwillingness to pay for the supports disabled and elderly people
need to live lives that are meaningful to them will lead to legalization 
of assisted suicide.  Given how many people do not wish to live in nursing
homes, he suggests that offering a choice between a nursing home and death
will save money.
Suicide is not illegal.  Nonetheless, it has long been discouraged by 
society.  Health care providers, in fact, are generally expected to work 
to prevent patients' suicide.  While we note that many abuses have 
occurred in the name of suicide prevention and that doctors have stripped 
people of their rights, Humphry's program - which would give people the 
"right to die" and ignore what they needed to live - is no solution.
 
NOT DEAD YET 
SAMPLE RESOLUTION AGAINST ASSISTED SUICIDE

RESOLUTION Opposing the legalization of Physician-Assisted Suicide
WHEREAS the U.S. Supreme Court has determined that assisted suicide is not
a constitutional right, but is an issue to be decided by the states; and 
WHEREAS bills to legalize physician-assisted suicide are currently pending
before state legislatures; and
WHEREAS no bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide applies to all 
citizens equally, but singles out individuals based on their health status
in violation of the American with Disabilities Act; and
WHEREAS the legalization of physician-assisted suicide gives physicians 
the power to decide who will be given suicide prevention and who will 
receive suicide assistance and is, therefore, not based on individual 
choice and autonomy; and
WHEREAS current trends in managed care and health care rationing threaten 
to diminish the availability of heath care and related services needed by 
people with disabilities; and 

WHEREAS people with disabilities and chronic illnesses may be driven to 
despair as a result of fear of being forced into a nursing home or 
institution, fear of being a physical or financial burden on their 
families, lack of information about independent living options, and 
weariness from the daily struggle to get their legal needs met; and 
WHEREAS any proposed legal "safeguard" requiring that physician-assisted 
suicide only be available to terminally ill individuals who voluntarily 
request it will not protect people with disabilities from abuse; and
WHEREAS numerous courts have ruled that people with non-terminal 
disabilities are the same as terminally ill patients in that the usual 
state interest in preserving life does not apply to them; and 
WHEREAS many people with non-terminal disabilities are currently and 
repeatedly pressured to sign "do-no-resuscitate" orders and other advance 
directives calling for the withholding and withdrawal of medical 
treatment;  and
WHEREAS there is significant empirical data indicating that routine 
medical treatments are often withheld from disabled infants for the 
purpose of causing their deaths; and
WHEREAS there is no empirical data indicating that current laws concerning
advance directives are applied on a non-discriminatory basis; and 
WHEREAS over a decade of experience with these "safeguards" in the 
Netherlands demonstrates that significant numbers of non-terminal people 
with disabilities have been involuntarily euthanized; and 
WHEREAS enforcement of laws and regulations is unlikely in a social 
context which devalues people with disabilities as a drain on limited 
health care resources; 
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT:
______________________________________________________ opposes the 
legalization of active physician-assisted suicide at the state or national
level; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT:
______________________________________________________ calls for a study 
to evaluate whether current medical practices concerning the withholding 
and withdrawal of medical treatment discriminate against individuals based
on ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation, religion or 
socioeconomic status; and
______________________________________________________ will communicate 
this position to the membership and to all appropriate policy-making 
bodies. 

The Resistance
April 2000

News and Information from Not Dead Yet a national disability rights 
organization opposing legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia

7521 Madison Street
Forest Park, IL  60130
Voice: 708-209-1500
TTY: 708-209-1826
Fax: 708-209-1735
Email: NDYet@aol.com

SAVE THE DATE: LABOR DAY WEEKEND

The Hemlock Foundation is picking up the tab for the joint meeting of the 
World Federation of Right to Die Societies and National Hemlock.  The 
meeting, titled "Assisted Dying in the New Millennium - An International 
Perspective", will be held in Boston on September 1-3.  Leaders and 
activists in the pro-euthanasia movement from all over the world will be 
on the program and in attendance. 
        Not Dead Yet will be holding nonviolent demonstrations in Boston 
on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday (that's September 1-4) in response 
to the this major "better dead than disabled" event. (To be added to the 
list to receive information about participating in these demonstrations, 
please see the request for information on the back page of the 
newsletter.) 
        We want to convey that:
1. Every human being is of equal value.  Laws that treat some lives as 
worth protecting, and other lives as worth ending, are discriminatory. 
        2. Dignity isn't a handout, and our doctors can't give it to us in
the form of a lethal prescription.  We already have dignity. 
        3. Human diversity is a fact of life.  There is no one perfect 
kind of humanity to which we should all aspire. 
        4. Human diversity is worth celebrating.
Please join us if you can, and please urge others to do the same.  If you 
cannot come, but would like to organize an event in conjunction with the 
national action, we would welcome the chance to work with you.  If you are
able to offer other activists financial support so that they can join us, 
we would welcome your contribution. 

COMMITMENT TO NON-VIOLENCE

Not Dead Yet is committed to working within the tradition of non-violence.
  That's harder than it looks; and we'd like to urge members to look 
around for training, particularly as they prepare to attend Not Dead Yet 
actions.   If we can help you locate opportunities for non-violence 
training in your area, we'd like to.  Please contact us. 

T4 - THE DISABILITY HOLOCAUST

In the fall of 1939, Adolph Hitler signed an order - backdated to 
September 1 - that authorized Karl Brandt and Philip Bouhler to expand the
right of physicians to actively end the lives of people with disabilities 
considered to be "incurable".  This was the simple beginning to a program 
that would eventually result in the deaths of up to 300,000 people with 
disabilities. 
        The medical leaders who coordinated the killing program were 
headquartered at Tiergartenstrasse 4, and the program itself was referred 
to as "T4".   Most of the killing was done in institutions.  These 
institutions saw the first use of gas chambers as a way to end the lives 
of many individuals at once.  The chambers were eventually dismantled and 
installed in the concentration camps. 
        As physicians in T4 became ever more zealous, they started killing
individuals scheduled for short stays in institutions and were caught 
sending obviously bogus death certificates to families.  As the patient 
population selected for killing became more broad-based, the public 
resistance to the program grew.  As a result of that resistance, the T4 
program - in which selected disabled people were sent to killing centers 
-was halted.  The killing, however, continued in countless hospitals, 
nursing homes and institutions after that.  The killing continued for as 
long as three months after the end of the war in some locations. 
        At Nuremberg, very few of the medical professionals who directed 
or participated in T4 were tried.  Of those who were found guilty of 
"crimes", it is important to note that the only killing that they were 
held accountable for was the killing of non-German nationals with 
disabilities.  So while Nuremberg rendered a judgment condemning the 
extermination of Jews and Gypsies, no such judgment was made in regard to 
the extermination of people with disabilities. 
        It is important that we as a community - of, by and allied with 
disabled people - reclaim our history and make our own judgment.  So we 
can say what others refuse to:  NEVER AGAIN 

"BUT WHAT IF I WANT TO LIVE?"
If you've been hospitalized recently, you're probably familiar with "Do 
Not Resuscitate" orders - you've probably been offered one.  In the 
current climate, however, some people are reporting being pressured into 
agreeing to DNRs, and not signing a DNR form doesn't guarantee that you 
will be resuscitated.  NDY member and "Crip Commentary" author Laura 
Hershey's column about a friend's experiences with a DNR is online at 
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/LauraHershey/cc110299.htm
        Well-done advance directives can offer protection, by providing 
clear evidence about what you do and don't want done, and by naming 
specific people to make decisions for you, if you are judged to be unable 
to make them yourself. 
        The International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force is a single-issue 
group dealing with euthanasia and assisted suicide and a long-time ally of
Not Dead Yet (some of you may remember Rita Marker, the Executive 
Director, from the Supreme Court vigil in 1997).  The IAETF provides an 
informative general article on advance directives on their website at 
http://www.iaetf.org/advdir.htm
        For those people who want to sign an advance directive that 
reflects their opposition to either treatment or withdrawal of  treatment 
aimed at ending their lives, the IAETF offers the Protective Medical 
Decisions Document (PMDD).  For more information, see 
http://www.iaetf.org/iua18.htm#46 or
call the IAETF at (740) 282-3810. 
        MedicAlert, a company which enables emergency medical personnel to
quickly obtain medical information that consumers have provided, does 
convey information about DNR orders people have in place.  But it does not
have a standard system for people who want all efforts made to keep them 
alive.  If you'd like to request that they offer such a service, you can 
write a
friendly letter to Mary Teague, MedicAlert, 2323 Colorado Avenue, Turlock,
CA 95382. 


V. REPRODUCING THE MANIFESTO

     The material in the MANIFESTO is written and produced by
the Institute on Disability Culture.  No one else takes the credit or
the blame unless their name is attached to something within the
MANIFESTO.  We produce it online because that's where its most
cost-effective and can reach the greatest number of people.  If you
should happen to want a print copy, please send $5.00 for Shipping
and Handling costs and we'll send you paper.
     All material in the MANIFESTO is open to reproduction.
None of it is copyrighted.  We only ask that you give credit where

credit is due (and send us a copy to the address below or give us it's 
internet address).  If something you reproduce is the product of the 
Institute on Disability Culture, please credit as follows:

Author's name
Institute on Disability Culture
2260 Sunrise Point Rd.
Las Cruces, NM 88011
SBrown8912@aol.com
http://www.dimenet.com/disculture/

VI.  GETTING ON AND OFF THIS LIST

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unsubscribe disculture

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END OF MANIFESTO NUMBER  14