Public Comment

Tree Sit, Tree Sit, Tree Sit

By Dan McMullan, Disabled People Outside
Wednesday February 16, 2011 - 08:57:00 AM

Someone sent me a crazy letter that was sent in to the Planet about People's Park. I could go on point by point ad nauseum, about its crazy assertions So I will. As a disabled person who was thrown on the streets after over a year in the hospital.In one fine day I lost my leg, use of an arm, my pelvis broken in 7 places, back, head and clavicle fractures and 5 broken ribs. These kind of injuries can make work a challenge so excuse me if I take offense at the "get a job" B.S. 

For ten years Social Security answered my petitions with. "Your disability will not last longer than a year." The leg never did grow back, the elbow is still gone too.Hmmmm. The slender UC paycheck you speak of is about 10 times what we survive on here at my house!!! The beatings I have endured from the UC police department have done very little to endear them or the elitist a-holes they represent to me. The last time they assaulted me was 5 years ago when they put me in the hospital in front of my two young sons because my 4 year old at the time knocked over a saw horse that was blocking Park access. 

Why should UC admin. employees be swimming in gravy while the disabled and elderly are made to bear the burden of the mistakes and greed of the rich? We live in terror of being homeless again. While others fear they might have to give up one of their vacations. 

Medi-cal has been gutted to the point that doctors no longer accept it. The very few that do see it as pro bono work. 

Anyone...ANYONE who is out there bringing attention to what is going on in the Park and this country deserves our support and appreciation. I spent a month sleeping on a traffic island last June to bring attention to proposed cuts to In Home Supportive Services and Medi-cal with a dozen other disabled people and it was not easy (I am no spring chicken, and those years on cold cement did not help my healing process much.) There was violence. Our vulnerability attracted predators. and we were 12 old people in wheelchairs. What we really need is for elitist snobs to be educated about what is really going on in the world. 

Let's get a few things straight. All land in the western hemispere from the North Pole to Tierra del Fuego is Indian land. The vast majority of homeless people are 1) disabled 2)orphans/foster care kids, all with no support system or medical coverage. And people wonder why they self-medicate? I had the bad luck of being both. Shit happens. 

In my work I have had the opportunity to see a lot of people that were once pretty well off become homeless. At first they think they are a special case. They not like the "others" But after a while they come to see (if they have any sense) that we are all brothers and sisters and that bad luck and disaster does not care who you think you are. If you are out there trying to make things better for all people I applaud you. Keep up the good work!!! Who knows maybe Democracy will spread to the U.S. too!