ENCOURAGEMENT FOR INDIANAS RAMONA HARVEY

Ramona,
 
Good luck with the whole trying to be intelligent and rational with
members of the Indiana Council on Independent Living thing. They are
shamelessly ignorant. And, as Pat Stewart, director of ATTIC and ICOIL
member, once famously said, they just grow more stupid and compliant
people in the pods they keep in the bowels of the government center. Of
course, that was before she sold her soul and became one of the pod
people.

Maybe she was talking about the mushroom people Roland Sykes warns about
- the ones they keep in the dark and feed bullshit to.
 
During a recent deposition conducted by lawyers representing Al Tolbert,
the director of the Southern Indiana Center for Independent Living and
member of ICOIL, I was asked to define how I measured the success of a
Center for Independent Living. I suspect my answer differed greatly from
what you would hear from the others in this state, as well as council
members - not that there's any real difference. 

My answer was that we measure our success in terms of the extent to
which we have enabled the disability community to become educated and
empowered not only toward achieving their own individual goals and
objectives, but to work together to achieve systemic changes necessary
to ensure that everyone lives in freedom and dignity throughout this
backwards state.
 
Rather than throwing stones at you, I will encourage you to stay strong
in the aftershock of the most recent onslaught of hateful e-mails you
have received from ICOIL members. Remember that you, and others like you
throughout the state, are the reason people like me and the council
members have the jobs we do. Your voices are supposed to be the ones
that direct us. I know it doesn't seem like that's happening, but I
encourage you not to give up. I know that Everybody Counts doesn't
intend to do that, no matter how many lies they tell or how much money
they steal. We will continue to support you, and the real advocates in
this state, both current and those to come, for as long as we can.

David Nelson, the director of the Allen County League for the Blind and
Disabled and member of ICOIL, once told me that the hallmark of a good
CIL is how well they get along with the state. Seemingly, the other CIL
directors in this state agree. They also seem to believe it also to be
how much money they can acquire, even if the cost is looking the other
way while the state continues to incarcerate out people without access
to the supports and services they need.

One is known as well by one's enemies as one's friends. We're real
comfortable with both lists. You should be as well. 

Hang in there. Keep speaking truth to power. We'll keep posting the
evidence of your truth at www.everybodycounts.org 

Let me know how we can help as you struggle with the reality that
continues to be the state of this state. 

Teresa Torres