(And are Paralympians planning a mass protest at the Games opening against Cameron ?), we can but hope. Taking medias to court for hate messages, and publishing lies and disinformation about deaf and disabled people, do we have any other choice ? Many say charity is about support, not politics, but the deaf and disabled in the UK are under severe attack from medias and the state daily in the UK, at what point do we just draw a line ? When it is to late to act ? With most charities run by able-bodied, it is just job protection and not much else.
Newspapers and media project UK deaf and disabled people as all as benefit and welfare scroungers, scum, sponging off the state, a sector that has 'no disability' and no discriminations, because the law says we are equal. The public perception of us at present and pushed daily as 'fact' by tabloids unworthy to be used as toilet paper, is both derogatory and hateful. So I doubt public opinion is going to be on the side of fair play,
The British public is pretty uniformed, petty and quite willing to be force-fed lies so long as plenty of trivia and petty sensationalism is available to them, a lot have their backs against the wall and struggling with cuts across the board, cuts that are less for those already well off, so the media blames us for it, and not criminal frauds like Bankers in the City of London or hooray Henry's in their £5m homes, or people at Westminster who wouldn't know reality if it bit them. Joe public is also quite willing to blame those who are too vulnerable to defend themselves, a race of cynics ever-ready to blame 'someone else'. Some newspaper rhetoric in the UK today is identical to fascist Germany in the 1930s. Sheltered employment to deaf and disabled closed because deaf and disabled are 'not profitable', and 'not productive'. Nazis used exactly the same words.
I don't think any disability or deaf group worth its salt can afford not to take the defensive and offensive stance over this issue. The UK is not a democracy. One e.g. deaf/HI charity has £50m a year income, I doubt people would see it as a waste, to use £3m to fight this scourge of hate and bile, and let's face it open discrimination, against us by forcing a court case against a newspaper that attacked their charges unfairly. We need to criminalise hate messages, the law isn't working.
I wonder how long charities can play at Canute before the tide drowns them too ? Disability support areas are reputed to be allotted £6B a year in the UK, more than enough I would think to bring down bad government and put a few newspaper editors in jail where they deserve.
The paralympic games starts today, personally I feel they should display an open protest against London 2012 and highlight what is going on. If they do nothing, then they simply endorse what is happening surely, in some cases disabled ticket holders can't get ACCESS to the games it is ludicrous Deaf are already frozen out except as cute kids in a choir doing a bit of sign. An irony as they are excluded from participation.
Anyone who says sport and politics don't mix obviously is living in a cave somewhere. London 2012 is a corporate exhibition of sheer greed, overseen by a state that practices institutionalist discrimination as a way of life.
