On A Roll To The Oval Office
the below article just came out in the major u.k. magazine, disabilty now.
DISABILITY NOW article
Frank Moore
1/25/2008
On A Roll To The Oval Office
I’m running for the U.S. president. I have been running…or rolling in my wheelchair…on the campaign trail now for over a year. I started because no candidate was talking about the issues that the average person cares about in a direct, clear way. So I started to. And people have responded overwhelmingly. My having cerebral palsy does not seem to matter to most people. In fact they seem to see it as an asset. I am a member of a suppressed group. But obviously I have successfully fought the discrimination all of my life and have had fun doing it! Most people get that and feel hope. And then they read my platform…and they are hooked!
There has been one exception to this. There was an Obama operative who thought that anybody who took me seriously as a candidate must be nuts…even though she couldn’t find any fault in my platform. It is an understandable opinion. After all I have no money, no “political experience,” etc. But we pushed her to tell us what her problem was with me. This is what she said:
“You are disabled! You talk with a head pointer and a letter board! You can’t be President! Be realistic! I’m a disability advocate…but this crosses the line! You people can have advisory roles in the background. But you need to be verbal to be President!”
Poor Obama! She is a severe handicap to his campaign. I’m sure he doesn’t share her opinion. But she represents him! The good news is she is in the minority.
I have always been dumb to what is impossible. So I just figure out how to do the “impossible.” I have been doing this all my life! When I was born, doctors told my parents that I had no intelligence, that I had no future, that I would be best put into an institution and be forgotten. So I learned from an early age to ignore supposed limits. The struggle for freedom, and against the powers-that-be has been my life. And it has been a continuous struggle, struggling with schools to let me in, etc. I have always been a radical. I was in the first special class placed on a regular high school campus so that the disabled students could be in regular classes and be a part of campus life. I was involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements. This was 1965…before it was popular to be against the Vietnam War. In the school paper I got into a debate with a GI in Vietnam. I was sat down and told that, because of my political philosophy and activities, I was hurting the chances of the disabled students who would come after me. I replied that the goal was to get the rights for the disabled [and for all people] to be complete and equal…and that included the right to be political. I would not surrender that, or any other, right.
I’m not a disabled candidate, but a candidate who is “disabled.” I believe disability just makes everything more obvious and hence makes things much easier to handle. In my art I use the “disability” as a tool to address larger issues of humanity, not just “disability issues”. We “disabled” are really the adapters that Society desperately needs because we operate outside the boxes of “normalcy,” coming up with solutions from left field. I’m the candidate of all who do not fit into “normalcy”…which is almost everyone. The heart of my platform is equal and full access for everyone to realizing their potential. This full access will be created by a guaranteed minimum income, a free prenatal-to-the-grave health care system, and a free lifetime education system. What I’m advocating is a society of caring.
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
DISABILITY NOW article
Frank Moore
1/25/2008
On A Roll To The Oval Office
I’m running for the U.S. president. I have been running…or rolling in my wheelchair…on the campaign trail now for over a year. I started because no candidate was talking about the issues that the average person cares about in a direct, clear way. So I started to. And people have responded overwhelmingly. My having cerebral palsy does not seem to matter to most people. In fact they seem to see it as an asset. I am a member of a suppressed group. But obviously I have successfully fought the discrimination all of my life and have had fun doing it! Most people get that and feel hope. And then they read my platform…and they are hooked!
There has been one exception to this. There was an Obama operative who thought that anybody who took me seriously as a candidate must be nuts…even though she couldn’t find any fault in my platform. It is an understandable opinion. After all I have no money, no “political experience,” etc. But we pushed her to tell us what her problem was with me. This is what she said:
“You are disabled! You talk with a head pointer and a letter board! You can’t be President! Be realistic! I’m a disability advocate…but this crosses the line! You people can have advisory roles in the background. But you need to be verbal to be President!”
Poor Obama! She is a severe handicap to his campaign. I’m sure he doesn’t share her opinion. But she represents him! The good news is she is in the minority.
I have always been dumb to what is impossible. So I just figure out how to do the “impossible.” I have been doing this all my life! When I was born, doctors told my parents that I had no intelligence, that I had no future, that I would be best put into an institution and be forgotten. So I learned from an early age to ignore supposed limits. The struggle for freedom, and against the powers-that-be has been my life. And it has been a continuous struggle, struggling with schools to let me in, etc. I have always been a radical. I was in the first special class placed on a regular high school campus so that the disabled students could be in regular classes and be a part of campus life. I was involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements. This was 1965…before it was popular to be against the Vietnam War. In the school paper I got into a debate with a GI in Vietnam. I was sat down and told that, because of my political philosophy and activities, I was hurting the chances of the disabled students who would come after me. I replied that the goal was to get the rights for the disabled [and for all people] to be complete and equal…and that included the right to be political. I would not surrender that, or any other, right.
I’m not a disabled candidate, but a candidate who is “disabled.” I believe disability just makes everything more obvious and hence makes things much easier to handle. In my art I use the “disability” as a tool to address larger issues of humanity, not just “disability issues”. We “disabled” are really the adapters that Society desperately needs because we operate outside the boxes of “normalcy,” coming up with solutions from left field. I’m the candidate of all who do not fit into “normalcy”…which is almost everyone. The heart of my platform is equal and full access for everyone to realizing their potential. This full access will be created by a guaranteed minimum income, a free prenatal-to-the-grave health care system, and a free lifetime education system. What I’m advocating is a society of caring.
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
posted by Lavapen | 10:51 PM
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