The Personal Is Political
“The Personal Is Political” started out as a feminist slogan. But when I heard of it recently, I was reminded of my early days as a disability blogger.
In the early days of Same Difference, I was asked what inspired me to go into politics. I responded that I wasn’t in politics, that politics was far too serious for me. I was just a person living with a lifelong disability and trying to show the outside world, through my writing, that disabled people can do amazing things and have positive lives, too.
To me, my wish to focus my writing on disability, on the positive things disabled people can do, was simply a personal one. It was inspired by a lifetime of personal struggles. A lifetime of being told that I couldn’t do what I wanted to do because I am disabled. A lifetime of watching my wonderful, intelligent, inspirational, personal friends struggle to prove their intelligence and go to school- because they are disabled.
It took me quite some time to realise that Disability Rights is politics. That I was in politics. That I am in politics. That I have been in politics, without knowing it, all my life. Since birth, in fact.
Because since birth, I’ve been part of the disability community. A community that has faced many struggles, as have feminists. A community that still has many struggles to face, and probably always will. A community that works hard to reduce struggles and improve situations for ourselves, and for those yet to join us.
I strongly believe that those who care for us- our parents, siblings and later, partners or spouses or even children, are also members of our community. Their support can be very valuable, because they, the non-disabled, are always taken seriously by wider society, while we disabled people, most of the time, sadly, are not.
Of course, I didn’t know all this at birth, and neither did my parents. In the early years of my life, we all faced very personal struggles to come to terms with the specific problems I would face, which were personal to me. My parents must have faced very natural and understandable feelings of sadness, maybe even grief, as we all realised exactly what my challenges and my limits would be.
What can be more personal to a person, to a family, than coming to terms with disability? With a difference, a very significant, visible difference, that was so unexpected to parents?
My parents had never heard of my disability before I came into their lives. Their friends had never heard of it. Many parents of disabled children describe facing difficulties when their friends don’t understand what their lives become. What can be more personal than that?
Studies have shown that couples who have disabled children are more likely to separate or divorce as a result. What can be more personal than that?
Yet the wide, welcoming, and in my eyes at least, wonderful, disability community that we have formed is far from personal. It has members of all races and religions. Members of all ages and nationalities. Members I meet every day and members I have never met.
And the political disability community has grown over my personal lifetime. In Western countries in the late 20th century, disabled people used to get together in small groups and protest on streets, chaining themselves to buses, buildings and similar. Now, the birth of the Internet has allowed the disability community to grow larger than ever before. It has made valuable information available to frightened parents, fast and free of charge, at the click of a mouse. It has allowed severely disabled people to make friends on social media, from the comfort, safety and accessibility of our own homes. Friends who offer valuable support and complete understanding- because they face the same situations in their daily lives, even though they may not live in the same town or even the same country. Most importantly, the birth of the Internet has made the politics of disability safely accessible to many people who can’t attend street protests because they, or the person they care for, are often too ill to participate.
The disability community has always been there, waiting to support and welcome those who were ready to look for advice and meet others who shared their challenges. Whenever a group of people who face similar challenges and struggles come together to fight their situation, a political movement is created.
So the personal has always been political for disabled people, too. Now, with the Internet, our personal is more political than ever before. So, feminists, I borrow your slogan, with thanks.
Same Difference 
You life experiences & your journey intrigued me. I hope that you are able to write & share much more with those whom you really wish to reach.
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I personally would like to know more about your school years if possible .
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I had mainstream education, mostly. In my day no one in special schools took exams, even if they had the intelligence. So I had few friends in school and those I had, sadly, didn’t really last.
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DISABILITY POLICIES OF SMALL PARTIES SOLE WAY
TO FORM A MAJORITY UK GOVERNMENT
Labour cannot rule in 2015. YOUGOV POLL 9 APRIL
277 LABOUR
264 TORY
28 LIB DEMS
1 Green
3 or 4 UKIP
326 MP minimum needed to rule UK parliament.
So need to vote different in Tory and Lib Dem MP areas, especially in England.
See how poor have all the power they need on Thursday 7 May.
http://www.anastasia-england.me.uk
SMALL PARTIES SOLE WAY TO GET OVER 100 MPs
GUARANTEED ANTI AUSTERITY
TUSC
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition
Running over 135 MP candidates nationally
and 1000 councillor candidates
1 in 5 parliamentary seats set to have a TUSC choice on 7 May , but getting nil national media coverage at all, just all real anti austerity parties.
TUSC is fielding the biggest working class challenge in generations on 7 May
TUSC PARTY POLITICAL BROADCAST FRIDAY APRIL 17TH
Watch out for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition party political broadcast on
Friday April 17th….. BBC2: 5.55pm… ITV: 6.25pm… BBC1: 6.55pm… Channel4: 7.55pm
TUSC POLICIES – STOP THE ATTACKS ON DISABLED PEOPLE
Promote inclusive policies to enable disabled people to participate in, and have equal access to, education, employment, housing, transport and welfare provision.
Support measures to ensure disabled people receive a level of income according to needs.
Equal pay for equal work.
Example:
Noreen explains why she’s standing as an MP for TUSC in the general election in Salford and Eccles on Thursday 7 May.
…”I feel the need to fight the most vulnerable people in Salford because they are getting a rough deal from both the government and council.
I’m standing for TUSC because all through our fight for transport for disabled adults, TUSC supporters were there too. They are genuine. We are genuine.
We need an MP who will fight for the most vulnerable – for the homeless, for the elderly, for those unable to voice their opinions. I don’t want to see the city that has been so good to me dragged to its knees. I want to stand up for the people of Salford”.
Read more:
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/campaign/Disability/Disabled/20371
TUSC want to bring in the TUC suggested minimum wage of £10 per hour.
TUSC POLICY – DECENT PENSIONS AND BENEFITS
Abolish the bedroom tax.
Reverse cuts to benefits; for living benefits; end child poverty.
Scrap benefit sanctions.
Restore the pre-Thatcher real value of pensions.
Reverse the increases imposed on the state retirement age, creating jobs for younger people.
CLASS WAR 2015
DOUBLE DOLE AND PENSIONS
DOUBLE ALL OTHER BENEFITS
Fighting alongside protesters for social housing
SOCIALIST GB 2015
Promotes TUSC most of the time, so same policies.
THE LEFT UNITY PARTY 2015
Abolish workfare, sanctions, benefit cuts.
THE LEFT UNITY PARTY MANIFESTO 2015 – DISABLED
The Work Capability Assessment (WCA) has been misused to force disabled people off benefits and has caused distress and poverty.
It is unfit for purpose and must be scrapped.
Disabled people should be supported to work but never penalised by the benefits system.
Other benefit cuts, justified using unfair media attacks on benefit claimants, are having a disproportionate effect on disabled people.
The Independent Living Fund and Disability Living Allowance should be reinstated – these are vital benefits for basic day-to-day life.
As a party Left Unity supports disabled people’s campaigns and aims to be accessible to all.
SNP in SCOTLAND
SNP is paying the poor’s council tax support and Bedroom Tax.
· A Single Tier Pension rate of at least £160 to lift pensioners out of means tested benefits.
· A guarantee that there should be no further increase in the state pension age in Scotland while life expectancy still lags behind the rest of the UK and Europe.
· A pledge that the SNP will oppose any attempts to end the Winter Fuel Allowance which so many pensioners rely on.
What SNP Leader Nicola Sturgeon said on the Leaders’ Debate re SNP disability manifesto
http://www.snp.org/media-centre/news/2015/apr/snp-challenge-westminster-disability-benefit-cuts
…”Rolling out Personal Independence Payments (PIPs) to replace Disability Living Allowance will see over 100,000 working age disabled people in Scotland lose some or all of their benefit by 2018 – representing a cut of £300 million a year, with a loss of at least £1,120 a year per person who loses out. Some 47,000 disabled people in Scotland are expected to lose up to £2,964 a year as a consequence of changes in eligibility to the mobility component.
At UK level, the cut in disability benefit represents nearly £3 billion a year by 2017/18, with over a million people losing out.
The SNP propose a modest increase in public spending in real terms in order to stop proposed cuts – and support halting the roll out of Personal Independence Payments to stop the “savage cuts” to disability benefits.” …”Labour’s track record in Scotland is voting with the Tories and Lib Dems against halting the roll-out of PIPs.” …
PLAID CYMRU
“battle the Westminster parties’ obsession with austerity”.
the big issues facing his constituents are. Housing, disability benefits, and healthcare are the first …
“Generally in Wales, people think Plaid can’t form a government, but it’s different this time,” says Larsen. “We’ll almost certainly hold the balance of power…New polls matter because this election comes down to Tory-Labour marginals
http://may2015.com/featured/arfon-where-plaid-cymru-are-trying-to-keep-welsh-nationalism-alive-and-labour-out/
Train 1000 more doctors and get more District Nurses for care in the community.
Against implementing Universal Credit.
Abolish Bedroom Tax.
Oppose rise in retirement age.
Further devolution of welfare by developing Welsh employment and benefits sytem, involving disabled people and groups that represent the interests of disabled people in designing and developing such systems.
Remove penalties for using pre-payment meters for energy bills for lowest fixed income poor.
Promote adapted housing, allowing residents to stay in own homes or specially built accommodation, rather than move into care.
Promote Extra-care housing and work with councils to ensure Disabled Facilities Grants and Care and Repair adaptions implemented.
More Rural GPs.
Support war veterans with after care for military personnel after leaving forces, including legal advice, healthcare and counselling support by reinforcing the Military Covenant by a Military Well-Being Act.
MEBYON KERNOW in Cornwall 2015
Reduces 6 Tory and Lib Dem MPs to UK government, if you vote Mebyon Kernow.
Mebyon Kernow is committed to a just and fair society. We believe effective public intervention is needed to combat poverty, tackle social deprivation and fight for
the disadvantaged, and to tackle ills in Cornish society, such as social deprivation, unemployment, low wages and poor housing.
MK will fight to protect funding for programmes and initiatives which seek to protect and enhance the living standards for those in need and the less-well-off.
HOW 75 PER CENT POOR VOTE CAN WIN BIG IN 2015 /
HOW ENSURE REGISTERED TO VOTE see
http://www.anastasia-england.me.uk
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