Entitled Rich People

CHRIS KEYSER WGA NEGOTIATING COMMITTEE CO-CHAIR

The WGA is on strike as streaming companies try to take advantage of writers, here’s their website.

This was a brutal murder of a man who had not made threats or put his hands on anyone leading up to this, but instead cried out that he was hungry, thirsty, and desperate.  And then a white man, Danny Penny, a trained US warpig used deadly force (all chokeholds are deadly force, a lot of more physically disabled people die even quicker but they’re never safe) on Neely for the crime of existing while being Black, poor, and unusual in public.

Homeless people, disabled people, and Black people are treated by society as disposable and not deserving of basic public space or human needs, and those who are all three face the most brutality and violence.

Good article, but fails to mention that a mass disabling pandemic that has killed millions and disabled far more people (many permanently, though some temporarily) is part of what is causing the “worker shortage” panics, as well as bosses that exploit immigrant labor using anti-immigrant laws having overshot recently and lowered immigration of readily exploitable workers too much (undocumented employees are essentially denied all workplace protections and employers will call ICE on their own employees to break attempts at getting basic workplace protections).

The elderly poor will have their food taken away while still dying by the thousands every week from the pandemic that isn’t actually over.

These cuts are horrifying in general, but they’re particularly cruel to households with members who are newly disabled from covid/have worsened disabilities from covid or who are trying to reduce exposure to save their lives from a society that doesn’t care if disabled people die as long as they can go to bars and eat out.

The East Palestine Ohio train derailment affects a broad area and will affect an even wider area as poisons spread down the Ohio River.

Not only is East Palestine not safe, with reports of continuing animal death & streams full of dead fish, with wind spread there’’s probably a solid 50 mile range that’s in danger from things like toxic fumes and highly acidic rain.  Previous cases of exposure have included not only lung damage but also cancers and nerve damage.

Evacuate and do not return if you can if you live even remotely close (which a lot of poor and particularly poor disabled people may not be able to do), do not drink or bathe in the water, do not consume crops or let your animals consume grass/water/etc. that has been exposed. The ground, water, and air are all dangerously contaminated.  HEPA filters and N95s block some dangerous particles but not the main ones in this case (still, use them if you have them, they’re better than nothing but not truly effective in this case, they are extremely effective against covid 19 too so that’s a bonus).  

Things that will not help keep you from being poisoned but you should also do: Document all medical problems or symptoms that appear, and get doctors to explain in writing in their reports if possible.  Keep receipts/documentation of money owed/paid for any medical care you get or any vet care.  Take photographs and records of livestock deaths or now unusable crops.  Document if you had visitors.  Again, none of this will make you any less endangered, but they will make it way easier to sue later.  A lawsuit won’t cure your cancer but it can pay for your treatments.

The railroad corporations blocked safety laws, the union fought for safer conditions, the federal government intervened against the union.  This is the results.

[cw: description/discussion of death, mass illness]

In general a good piece, but I found the focus on disabled people moving into work or being able to work part time uncomfortable, given the topic.  Some of us on SSI will never be able to work, or would require some either massive social or medical advances.

I slept 20 hours the day before yesterday, basic function is a struggle, and there’s no reason to think I’ll get better.  The only thing particularly likely to increase my functioning is heavy duty painkillers (literally everything I do has to be calculated around how much pain it will cause) which the war on drugs nonsense makes impossible for many of us to actually access.

Part of what causes the discrepancy between SSDI and SSI is the notion that disabled people who can or could work for a significant period of time are more valuable and deserving.

To be clear, I don’t think the writer of this piece intended to suggest this, but people need to take more care about how they frame “deserving” disabled people.