Posts by giovanni tiso
-
Up Front: Another Brick in the Wall, in reply to George Darroch,
Email Web
Quite. We don't get gay marriage advocates arguing that their marriages will be good for the economy. (They almost certainly will be). They argue rights and love.
On the flip side, let's all be reminded of the difference between equality and equity. Marriage equality has taken so long to conquer *and it doesn't cost anyone a penny*. Imagine if there had been a bill attached somehow.
-
Up Front: Another Brick in the Wall,
Email Web
I realised I made it sound like a (relatively) simple matter of reasoned persuasion. Protest will have to play a role as well.
-
Up Front: Another Brick in the Wall,
Email Web
You've just described how inclusion works in primary schools.
-
Up Front: Another Brick in the Wall, in reply to Hilary Stace,
Email Web
Let's be positive and hope that every school will eventually follow the 1989 legal requirement that they (willingly) enrol all local children between the ages of 5 and 19.
I'd rather be realistic and observe that given the current stick and carrot approach - where inclusive schools are beaten with a stick, and non-inclusive schools are given extra carrots - this is unlikely to happen in the short to medium term.
-
Up Front: Another Brick in the Wall, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Email Web
Blame my ugly economic argument on having spent the last 3 months writing grants, where I'm asked to justify doing (pretty damn exciting) science in purely immediate economic gains. It leaves one with a jaded view of those in power.
A friend of mine has made the argument that what Clark and Cullen tried to do through working for families and kiwisaver was to make the middle class buy into the idea of social welfare by making it materially relevant to their situation. If those were their intentions, I think we can say that it didn't work. The poorest beneficiaries are as discriminated against and demonised as they've ever been. I don't know to what actual extent the tearing apart of the body politic was a direct consequence of neoliberal reform (and to what extent the preceding egalitarianism is in fact a myth) but I would say that we are a long way away from piecing together (or back together, as the case may be) a sense of society that is more than a sum of individual competing interests. While we may see promoting a radically alternative view as a long-term political goal, our campaigning on issues such as disability should take into account that there is a very serious deficit at the present time.
-
Up Front: Another Brick in the Wall, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Email Web
If you want you can reason it this way. I'm being selfish because I want NZ to have a better economy and social structure - I will benefit from that as much as every one else will benefit
I'm highly sceptical. Even if many people could be persuaded that this is the right way of thinking, it would still amount to a pretty crude economism. These campaigns work - as the one on marriage equality did, as the Basaglia reform in Italy did, as the battles for civil rights did - when they create a moral imperative. It starts with bringing together a few people who care a lot about the issue and you make your case until you've convinced enough people inside and outside of politics proper that there is an injustice that needs to be urgently remedied.
-
Up Front: Another Brick in the Wall, in reply to Hilary Stace,
Email Web
Things are slowly getting better nationwide and there are more and more welcoming schools with inclusive practices.
Oh, boy...
-
Up Front: Another Brick in the Wall, in reply to Hilary Stace,
Email Web
This might offend those activist fathers and friends on this thread and those who I know personally
None taken whatsoever. I'm with you on this one, advocacy in my (limited) experience is still expected more of mothers than of fathers, and has more power (for instance in the media) because it is supposed to be coming from the quasi-mystical place of motherly love, which still has a firm grip on the collective imaginary.
-
Up Front: Another Brick in the Wall, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Email Web
I'm happy to pay more tax to educate Gio's children!
My kids are fine, though, that's the thing - to echo what others have said. If we write on this board chances are we're the lucky ones.
-
Up Front: Another Brick in the Wall, in reply to George Darroch,
Email Web
What does that template look like? And who would have the social and political resources to make that happen?
To put it as simply as I can, it involves a very robust framework for establishing and protecting the rights of mentally ill individuals, alongside very stringent duty-of-care requirements for the organizations that provide them with treatment and social services. Underlying these is a philosophy of care from the psychiatric profession that stresses autonomy over intervention and psychotherapy over the use of drugs (which is not to say that drugs aren't used, of course). Whether we have the social and political resources to make that happen here, it's harder to say. The mental health reforms in this country were vastly less successful, this has to be said.
What I would say we urgently need is for people in the profession - and not just disabled (or mentally ill) people and their families - to come on board. Advocacy has to include them and in this respect the gagging of public servants is a real obstacle to progress.