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The Other California: The Disabled, the Elderly and the Invisible Poor
Nearly 45 years ago, Michael Harrington wrote "The Other America" a book that lifted the heavy veil that made invisible to the rest of the country, the poorest Americans, millions trapped in poverty - outside of public policy, outside of political power and outside of the American dream. Among those millions were hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities - infants, children and adults, seniors and their families. Harrington wrote about the poor in the Appalachians, the shocking hunger of children in the Mississippi Delta, the thousands who toiled the fields as migrant farmworkers in unimaginable conditions, and the isolation of poverty in the inner cities, while discrimination prevailed against people of color, and agains
The book was read by President John F Kennedy and then Attorney General Robert Kennedy and profoundly influenced them - and millions of other Americans since then. The ideas of many critical programs - Medicaid, Medicare, expanded social security benefits, food stamps and more can be traced back to his explosive study on poverty, which, with the civil rights movement, galvanized the nation in the early 1960's into declaring "unconditional war on poverty".
Much progress for sure has been made since the book was published in 1962. Major civil rights and voting rights acts, creation of Medicare and Medicaid, the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Rehabilitation Act, California's Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Services Act, Unruh Civil Rights Act, the Mental Health Services Act and more were enacted - the work of both Republicans and Democrats.
And yet, now almost a half century later the heavy veil that separates the people who have opportunities from the people who do not, remains, sometimes lifting ever so briefly when indifference is overcome by accountability. There is still in this country, the "Other America", and, in this state, the "Other California".
Hard Choices Not Made For Others
In the "Other California", in bad budget times for people with disabilities, seniors, for low income families, it seems that rights are rationed, and in good budget times, somehow minimized among other worthy priorities. In the "Other California" the State fails to fully enforce the rights that it has an obligation to fulfill, whether it is the right to special education, the right to public accommodations or the right to live independently in the community.
More
http://counterpunch.org/omoto03242006.html
Much progress for sure has been made since the book was published in 1962. Major civil rights and voting rights acts, creation of Medicare and Medicaid, the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Rehabilitation Act, California's Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Services Act, Unruh Civil Rights Act, the Mental Health Services Act and more were enacted - the work of both Republicans and Democrats.
And yet, now almost a half century later the heavy veil that separates the people who have opportunities from the people who do not, remains, sometimes lifting ever so briefly when indifference is overcome by accountability. There is still in this country, the "Other America", and, in this state, the "Other California".
Hard Choices Not Made For Others
In the "Other California", in bad budget times for people with disabilities, seniors, for low income families, it seems that rights are rationed, and in good budget times, somehow minimized among other worthy priorities. In the "Other California" the State fails to fully enforce the rights that it has an obligation to fulfill, whether it is the right to special education, the right to public accommodations or the right to live independently in the community.
More
http://counterpunch.org/omoto03242006.html
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