This week in the UK we have been watching the Paralympics. Many wonderful and heartwarming tales of courage and endurance from young disabled people. This event has been well supported by the public, but there is a much darker side to disability and how disabled people are treated. The very meaning of words such as 'illness', 'sickness', 'disability', and 'fitness for work' have been redefined.
A part of the Paralympic opening ceremony focused on Prospero and Miranda from Shakespeares 'The Tempest', and the words "Brave new world, that has such people in it" was quite a highlight of the show.
Please read the link below to understand what is really happening to disabled people here, as they are harried onto work programmes, on which one can be found fit for work when wheelchair bound and sick, or have COPD, or terminal cancer, or any of the multitudes of things that can happen to people because medical science just does not have the answers.
It is happening to PwP too, because we need to keep moving to survive, and if we can move, no matter what other issues we have, we are fit for work. We are the trial, the white rats of this particular social experiment.
Where ever you are don't let this happen in your country. It started here with a media campaign against the disabled, hate crime has risen tremendously, and by press releases from government. This latest news is terrifying for disabled people of working age, especially the ones with degenerative conditions, we aren't all the elite athletes at the Paralympics, and our needs are complex.
Read and see what happens when a country can be lulled into thinking it is ok to blame the worst off in society for the global economic crisis.