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- 2:34am — August 12, 2022
a smarter Tucson is a better Tucson
Upon her recent return from the National Governors Association meeting, Gov. Jan Brewer touted Arizona's economic recovery. Unfortunately, Arizonans with disabilities continue to be left out of the state's economic success and blueprint.... Read more»
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1 comment on this story
I’m disabled and I find this article very insulting. I don’t receive any charity. I paid income taxes for many years and the rich who pay more taxes, (as they should) used the profits they made off of my labor to do so. I’m only getting back a small percentage of what was stolen from me by the rich. It’s nothing to do with charity.
Also, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how capitalism works. Any business owner who hires disabled people will risk not being able to profit as much as those who refuse to do so and not be able to be the ones who can expand/set prices and thus be pushed aside. If you try to force business owners to hire disabled people, or if you try to raise the minimum wage, or any other thing that angers them, they’ll simple take “their” money and jobs elsewhere (most likely to other countries).
Also, many disabled people, including myself, are able to do some amount of work during any given day, but bosses don’t deal well with you telling them that “I’ll be in to work when my body allows for it”. In my case (Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome) trying to show up to work after dealing with a dislocated joint or after a night that my arthritis (at 35 I have it in nearly every joint), degenerative disc disease, nerve damage, and/or autonomic dysfunction won’t allow me to get any rest is nothing short of torture. I worked for paychecks for many years, starting at age 12. As my condition got worse over the years I was only able to manage working in 2-3 week stints before my body would just completely wear down from lack of sleep caused by having to maintain a set schedule and I just physically couldn’t make it to work anymore. No boss will put up with “I’ll be in at half past a dislocation, or EDS:30” they need to fully control you and don’t understand that a disabled person must submit to the will of their disability before submitting to the will of a capitalist.
Instead of trying to find ways to squeeze the blood out of us, why don’t you work on getting all of the able-bodied people jobs and talk to the capitalist class about using some of the profits they milk from us to set up programs that allow us to help one another and to produce goods on our own terms? Of course that’ll never happen while we live under the dictatorship of the capitalist class, but it sure beats this blame the victim/blame the poor tour that you’re on here. The reason why most of us aren’t employed has nothing to do with us, and everything to do with the system/culture we live under. Centuries ago before the rise of capitalism you could find many disabled people working on a farm, making things to help the group, etc.. Now we’re not allowed to do so because of capitalism.