Carl,
It depends on what year you're talking about, and also, which agency, but it's
very possible that the agency wasn't aware that that baby girl had multiple
disabilities. If a blind baby is in an orphanage in a poor country, she will
not have had the same kind of stimulation that a sighted baby might have. Well
actually, a sighted baby might also not have had any stimulation in an
orphanage either. So if you were working in international adoptions, you would
be accustomed to seeing babies and small children who were not functioning at
all at the normal level for their ages. This is especially true for a blind
baby. If you were looking at children in Russian orphanages, where the
practice, for historical reasons, was to label every child with a neurological
condition and where, again, many of the children were isolated and
unstimulated, you could not tell which ones actually had disabilities and which
ones would develop normally once they were permanently living with loving
families. Of course, I don't know where in Vietnam that child came from nor do
I know the expertise of the adoption personnel who were involved. But it is
very possible that you're describing a terrible tragedy rather than a
purposeful act. So for example, there was a blind couple living in Missouri who
adopted a half black Vietnamese toddler aged girl from the same orphanage where
my daughter lived and they were starting the process shortly before we did. But
because they started a bit before us, their process was not halted by the
change in procedure that required all the adoptions to be processed through
agencies. Their adoption was an independent adoption, completed within a few
months, not taking 15 months like our's did. So their daughter was much younger
than Melanie was when she arrived. She was in the orphanage for much less time
than Melanie was. I haven't kept in touch with them, but from what I knew about
the first year or two after Kim's arrival, she was in much better emotional
shape than Melanie was. I saw her on and off for a few years. She was not a
damaged child. Melanie was a damaged child, and she is a damaged adult. Many
years later when I was professionally involved in adoptions, I was working
cooperatively with an excellent little agency in Maryland and I did a home
study for a single woman who was adopting a baby girl from Russia. Both I and
the Maryland agency talked with her at length about the risks of adopting
babies from Russian orphanages. By that time, there were pediatricians here who
specialized in reviewing those Russian medicals and looking at videos of the
children to try to ascertain whether the children were or were not, disabled.
Russia was requiring 2 trips for the adoption. My client returned from her
first trip, extremely upset, because the child whom she planned to adopt
appeared to have many medical issues. She was angry and frustrated. When I said
to her, "But do you remember that we talked about this possibility before you
went and that the Creative Adoptions staff also discussed this with you in
detail?", she said, "Oh yes, but I thought you were all just covering
yourselves. I didn't think what you were telling me was actdually a
possibility". So, who knows what was said to that Vancouver couple before they
adopted? And my last story. One of the couples with whom I worked had adopted
several children internationally. They were then offered a baby girl from Korea
who had partial vision. They were open to the possibility of adopting her,
probably partly because they knew me so well. They had a medical report
describing her eye condition. It sounded very much like what my eye condition
was like when I was born. I've probably mentioned on this list that when I was
born, the doctors told my parents that from what they could see, I would
probably be mentally retarded because that kind of problem was usually
associated with my eye condition. They recommended institutionalization. So
when this couple took the Korean baby's eye report to a doctor associated with
a pretigeous hospital here, he told them precisely the same thing that my
parents had been told so many years previously. I pointed out to them that he
might be wrong, that because my parents were unhappy with the diagnosis, they
went to other doctors and here I was, the proof that the first doctors were
incorrect. But the couple was too frightened to go ahead with the adoption.
So, it can really be a toss of the dice.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, May 13, 2017 11:55 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Free Lunch for Everyone
And that, Miriam, is one very good explanation of your statement regarding your
"religious values".
About the same time you were going through your battles with the adoption
system, a fellow in Vancouver, Washington, a blind man, well educated and
employed in a better than average federal job, and his equally educated sighted
wife, decided to adopt a blind child. And as luck would have it, a Vietnamese
agency had just such a baby. As it turned out blindness was the baby's least
problem. Despite the many health issues, this couple decided to keep their new
baby at home and raise her themselves. This went on for several years,
draining both their bank account and their energy. Finally, following the
breakup of their marriage, the young blind and profoundly retarded daughter was
placed in an institution. Today she is alone, since both her adopted parents
have died. I suppose that the "trick or treat" of the adoption agency did give
this baby a better life than the one she would have had otherwise.
But somehow it seemed disingenuous on the part of the adoption agency.
The ripples caused by their failure to disclose all of the health
complications, certainly added to the stresses and ultimate divorce of the
parents.
Carl Jarvis
On 5/12/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
So, I'll tell you how that categorization of Ethical Culture in New
York as a religion was a positive. We were trying to adopt Melanie, at
the time, Dang-Thi-My-Lan, a toddler in an orphanage in DaNang
Vietnam. It had begun as an independent adoption, a baby in an orphanage, a
family on Long Island.
But then the adoption industry convinced the government of Vietnam
that all adoptions by American families should be processed through
licensed adoption agencies. The adoption agency which had connections
with the orphanage where Melanie was living, was represented by an
Australian nurse named Rosemary Taylor. Rosemary did not believe that
a child should be adopted by a blind couple if a sighted couple was
available. In fact, sighted couples were not standing on line to adopt
half black Vietnamese toddlers, but undoubtedly, one might have been
found. As far as I was concerned, this child whose picture I had, was
my child, and I spent hours of effort and hundreds of dollars that we
didn't have back then, in phone calls, trying to find a way to get
that child from DaNang to Wantagh, Long Island, where we lived. It's a
long, complex story, but eventually I found the Holt Adoption program
which had begun functioning in Vietnam and which, in fact, was
probably the agency that was responsible for ending the independent
adoptions there, to take our case. Now Holt had a long history, having
begun as an Evangelical Christian agency processing adoptions from
Korea during the Korean war. But at the time that we were trying to
adopt Melanie, Holt had a brief period during which its religious
orientation had become more liberal. Its director was actually a very
impressive, intelligent minister, very rational sounding. But the
adoptive parents with whom they were willing to work, had to be a
member of a religion. It didn't matter what religion, but no non
believers were allowed. What to do? That was when I discovered that
the Ethical Humanist Society to which we belonged was classified by
New York State as a Protestant religious organization. In order to be
acceptable to the agency, I had to write something about our beliefs
plus identify our religion. I wrote an honest little essay about my
values, never mentioning a deity, and quoted the State's definition of
the religious organization to which we belonged. Holt did process the
adoption and they did protect our right to adopt when the Vietnamese
government questioned a blind couple's right to adopt.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2017 10:24 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Free Lunch for Everyone
Agreed. Since I certainly take broad liberties with our "Perfect
English Language" myself, I find that the best way to clarify what a
person means is to ask them. And I am not adverse to offering,
unrequested, my reasons for why I have the reactions I do have to
certain words. I'm more interested in having a conversation, rather
than fussing over whether I use too many commas...of which I've been
accused. Not on this list, thank Heaven, but by my "Creative Writing"
instructor at Hadley.
In my earlier years, when raging Testosterone ran my life, I held
great admiration for the ability of Kenneth Jernigan to cut down his
opponents through the use of language. But one fine day, during a
general session of our State Association of the Blind, while Jernigan
was busy cutting me to ribbons, I realized an important fact.
President Jernigan was certainly demonstrating his great ability as a
Master in the use of Smoke and Mirrors, but he was not winning the
approval of the hundred or so people sitting before him. These were
my family. I could have burped and they would have cheered. Well,
maybe that's stretching it a bit, but in my bumbling attempts to
explain my position, our members understood that I was speaking for
them, while Jernigan was merely demonstrating his power. He could
have won the day if he'd come off his high horse and "talked" with me,
asserting his reasons while "understanding"
mine. But his nature was to win. And winning was done by cutting the
opponent to little pieces. And Jernigan won that "debate", but lost
the support of our organization.
And now I see that I'm way off whatever set me off in the first place,
so, with more cammas than I need, I'll go put some eggs and toast to good use.
...Oh yes, I meant to say thanks for explaining your use of "religious".
Carl Jarvis
On 5/12/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I used the word, "religious" because it's more than an intellectual
position. I'm emotionally commited to the values I hold and also, I
was a member of the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island or, (the
movement is traditionally called), Ethical Culture which is, in New
York State, classified as a religion. It is, in fact, inaccurately
classified as a Protestant religion which is truly dumb because it
evolved from the Reformed branch of Judaism. But at any rate, it
takes no position on the existence of God and its emphasis is on the
practice of Judeo/Christian values. The difference between it and the
Ssecular Humanist movement is that it has congregations, religious
leaders, Sunday school for children, and Sunday morning meetings
while Secular Humanists do not. I know that Marxist have an aversion
to the word, "religion", given the history of religion and how
traditional religion functions. But one can use the word differently
from its traditional meaning.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger ;
Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2017 10:56 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Free Lunch for Everyone
I would not call it religious. That is capitulating to the religious
claim that it is they and only they who have a monopoly on morality.
Secular morality has a long tradition and religion is not the least
bit necessary for a well worked out morality.
On 5/11/2017 6:19 PM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
Well Miriam, if you call it your "religious nature", I won't argue.
But all of my talk about dreams of future life, was done tongue in
cheek. For sure I would not force those released inmates to build
walls around the Billionaires if they really wanted to build bridges
or weed flower beds.
Now as for the Flint water...that's another situation. Here these
folks are, still unable to drink the stuff that comes out of their
faucets, and the city is planning to slap leans on them if they
don't pay back water bills, even though the product being delivered
is damaged goods...I wonder if that might be a possible way of
cancelling the bills?...but while these fine citizens could well be
shortening their lives through the use of contaminated water, the
Billionaires go about drinking clear, fresh water. They bathe in
pure water. They go for a dip in clean, clear water. They even put
clean, clear water on their lawns and gardens and flush their
toilets with it. No, my Jarvis Values say that these people deserve
to be forced to use the Flint water for the same length of time that
the Flint citizens use it.
The Jarvis Values would also enable Slum Lords to live for years in
the same rotten buildings they currently own and rent out to the poor.
Oppressors need to be held responsible for their deeds. I believe
this because, despite my wildest wishes, there are people who will
never learn to respect other humans. Catch them conning folks out
of their possessions and they will simply look for a better scam.
And as far as my being vindictive, remember, on email lists we can
be whatever our little hearts desire. But if I get wound up from
time to time, and start yelling, "Off with their 'eds!" the real
flesh and blood Carl has never put vindictive action to his vindictive
words.
I've never hit anyone...well, I have given each of my two oldest
children a single spanking, but even falling down drunk, I have
never spent much time plotting and planning on how I'd "get even"
with those who've "hurt my feelings". So what I most likely am is
the old, toothless Tiger.
Carl Jarvis
On 5/11/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
You're more vengeful than I. I don't want to imprison anyone, nor
do I want to give them tainted water to drink. I just want them to
live like everyone else and no one should be imprisoned or drink
tainted water. I decided today that I am probably a religious
person which is why I don't fit anywhere. But I'm not a member of
any recognized religion. It's just that I have these values about
which I feel very strongly. You know that problem your having at
the Hanford Nuclear site? Well, back in the 70's, this investment
guy came to the house and he was talking about various tax free
municipal bonds in which I could invest. I had money that I'd been
earning from my adoption work. Fred and I sat and talked with this
guy who had been recommended by one of the rehab teachers whom Fred
supervised. The guy talked about these bonds for two nuclear
projects in Washington State, which paid very high interest, part
of which was federal, but somehow, it was tax free. Fred, who
always felt that as blind people, we were left out of the real
financial opportunities because we earned so little in relation to
everyone else, wanted me to invest in those nuclear projects. I
thought about it for, perhaps, 2 seconds, and said, "no". I didn't
want to have anything to do with developing nuclear energy. The guy
never told us that it was actually nuclear weapons which I hear now
that it was. Fred was furious. Many elderly people invested money
and then the projects, or one of them, failed financially. People
lost a ton of money. Now, I hear there was some kind of nuclear
accident. The only thing that prevented me from losing money was my
religious nature.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl ;
Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2017 11:54 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Free Lunch for Everyone
I can certainly go with your dream, Miriam. Still, I do like the
idea of former detainees happily building walls around the palatial
estates. We can also take away their money, for sure. We would
send out Meals on Wheels with standard K Rations, and Flint,
Michigan water. But I really do like the idea of the Billionaires
being forced to live out their lives isolated in their own ill
gotten homes.
Carl Jarvis
On 5/11/17, M Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'd just take away all of that money from the very wealthy,
immediately and their multiple dwellings. All of that money would
go into the pot from which everyone would have a decent income,
and it would certainly be more than $15 an hour.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl ;
Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2017 10:52 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Free Lunch for Everyone
Now here's an idea I can go for. A three hour work day and free
money.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Still, there's good food for thought in this article. And whether
I've ever said it or not, I do dream dreams of a Peaceful, Clean,
Healthy, Happy Future. My dream world is one without national
borders. A Land of sharing and Caring for all Life.
What keeps my dream a dream, is the interference by the
Billionaires who profit so much from violence and destruction. A
first step in turning my dream into reality is to open the prison
doors and put these folks into decent housing, and give them good
paying jobs, cleaning up the Land and rebuilding the inner cities.
One of their tasks would be to build walls, a favorite topic of
Donald Trump's.
These walls would be built around the estates of the Billionaires.
The gates would be guarded in order to ensure that the occupants
could never move about the Land that they had been destroying for
so many years. They would be cut off from any communication with
one another.
They could live in their ill gotten luxury until they died, at
which time their estates would become public parks...except for a
very few that would stand as examples of how a few people
exploited the multitude. We would all wander about the lush
surroundings, shaking our heads. Then it would be off to the
beaches, riding our Antigrav Riders, that use no fossil fuel, and
float in the air so we no longer need roads.
And there's so much more to imagine in that wonderful dreamland.
Carl Jarvis
On 5/11/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
'Utopia for Realists' author Rutger Bregman argues that if you
give people a basic income with no strings attached, they will
make better decisions, work more, cost the state less in the
areas of things like health care and incarceration, and be happier.
(photo:
Ulrich
Baumgarten/Getty)
Free Lunch for Everyone
By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
10 May 17
Can Americans handle the new book 'Utopia for Realists'?
The first thing you notice about Utopia for Realists, the new
book that argues that money should be free and a 15-hour work
week sounds about right, is its tone. Writer Rutger Bregman is
cheerful, optimistic, imaginative, welcoming, funny and
economical – the opposite of most of our political books, which
tend to be fulminating, accusatory, combative and narrow-minded,
and all of these things across far too many pages.
Bregman is Dutch, which will be a strike against him on these
shores, and then there is the matter of his politics, which seem
designed to infuriate the entire spectrum of current American
thought. He is for open borders, which will make him an
Antichrist to the Trump right, and he speaks warmly of
neoliberalism, which will make Sanders liberals cringe.
At the same time, the entire thesis of his book seems aimed at
the tepid incrementalism of mainstream Democrats, who reflexively
dismiss all big ideas as "politically unrealistic" and the work
of "purity testers." He will have few natural allies on this side
of the Atlantic, which may be one of the reasons his
international bestseller hasn't been reviewed in very many of our
major newspapers yet.
But Bregman's book is both a fun read and a breath of fresh air
to anyone who lived through the ghastly experience of last year's
presidential election season, which turned into an angry
referendum on the relentless narrowness of American politics.
Utopia for Realists is a book that argues, with humor and
sympathy, that we've all suffered from forgetting how to dream of
a better world. "We inhabit a world of managers and technocrats,"
he writes.
"Political decisions are presented as a matter of exigency – as
neutral and objective events, as though there were no other choice."
American writers continually made the mistake of trying to
understand the upheavals of last year in terms of the usual
left-right explanations of the world, instead of looking at more
basic criteria.
People everywhere were depressed and bored out of their minds.
They craved something new. Polls consistently showed that people
in both parties were unhappy with their choices and wanted a new
direction, almost irrespective of what that direction was.
People wanted big ideas and big dreams, but Democrats and
Republicans both have been trained to imagine the future not as a
better place, but one filled with horror and destruction. On the
right, the fantasy future is overrun by benefit-devouring
immigrants with scabies, while for the left the next decades are
a hellscape filled with toxic greenhouse gases and overfished oceans.
What I saw on the campaign trail last year was an electorate so
desperate for big dreams that they turned to lost paradises of
the past.
Donald Trump promised to build walls to reverse the onslaught of
multiculturalism and send us back to a Fifties nirvana that never
existed – he literally promised Happy Days and even had Scott
Baio as an opening-day convention speaker.
For Democrats, meanwhile, the most exciting future was presented
by a septuagenarian socialist reintroducing the New Deal to young
voters.
Even a mildly radical idea like free college aroused not just
derision but anger among "responsible" thinkers in both of the
major parties and in the punditocracy, ostensibly the place where
we play with ideas in this country.
Bregman argues that we are where we are because a century of
bummerific experiences with utopian ideas – fascism, communism,
Nazism, to name a few – have left us imagining that "dreams have
a way of turning into nightmares"
and that "utopia is a dystopia." This has left us with a world
where "politics has been watered down to problem management" and
"radical ideas about a different world have become literally
unthinkable."
Even liberalism, Bregman argues, has become pessimistic, an
ideology that is "all but hollowed out," with young people
trained to "just be yourself" and "do your thing." That's
probably an overstatement and a cliché. But there's probably also
some truth to the idea that a lot of the controversies about safe
spaces are the end result of a new emphasis on trying to make the
individual feel maximally safe and accepted within the larger
context of a world we've unconsciously come to accept as essentially
unchangeable.
Government, too, Bregman argues, has mostly given up trying to
make a better world, and has instead focused on policing it
better. "If you're not following the blueprint of a docile,
content citizen,"
he writes, "the powers that be are happy to whip you into shape"
– with control, surveillance, repression.
The welfare state is where Bregman sees the ultimate perversion
of the utopian instinct. It's become "a grotesque pact between
left and right," in which conservatives have spent a generation
making sure people getting aid are punished and villainized as
lazy and work-averse, while progressives have used public
assistance as a way to lever more control over the lives of poor
people who aren't trusted to make the right life choices. Anyone
who has covered the way the remains of the welfare bureaucracy
works knows this is true, that we have made receiving any kind of
aid to keep yourself or your children alive a humiliating,
intrusive experience, one that invites an army of inspectors into
your home, who examine everything from how many toothbrushes you
have in your bathroom to whether your Facebook page shows you're
spending your time wisely.
Bregman thinks we should just give people money, no questions
asked, and let them sort it out. His prescriptions are humorously
simple. He quotes economist Charles Kenny, who notes "the reason
poor people are poor is because they don't have enough money."
And he tells the fascinating true story of that time that Richard
Nixon – Richard Nixon! – tried to implement a law guaranteeing a
basic family income for all Americans.
The story is one of those classic absurdist tales of history.
Nixon's brain led him to this idea by means of some bizarre
accident – he apparently thought "Tory men and liberal policies"
are what "changed the world," and saw the plan as the ultimate
marriage of conservative and progressive politics, something that
would make his name ring out
forever: Richard Nixon, guarantor of universal dignity.
But of course aides who hated the idea (including one who was an
Ayn Rand
fan) pushed him away from the plan, and it morphed into yet
another plan to castigate the lazy poor by forcing them to work.
Later in the Seventies, the idea vanished altogether thanks to
another classic political reason – a typo, which mistakenly
showed that experiments in this area revealed a 50 percent higher
divorce rate, which naturally led men to worry that guaranteeing
women a basic income would leave them with no reason to stay
home. Years later it turned out that basic income experiments had
shown no impact on the divorce rate.
One of the reasons the welfare state is so unpopular in America
is because every aid program ends up being income-dependent. You
can't qualify for aid here until you're poor enough, but we treat
the poor as work-averse parasites with bad judgment who have to
be monitored round-the-clock. But studies abroad show that the
countries with the most universal programs are the most
successful and engender the least hostility. "Basically," Bregman
writes, "people are more open to solidarity if it benefits them
personally."
Bregman's basic ideas are pretty simple. He thinks (and many
scientists agree with him) that if you give people a basic income
with no strings attached, they will make better decisions, work
more, cost the state less in the areas of things like health care
and incarceration, and be happier and feel less humiliated,
scared, and insecure. He quotes Woody Allen, who pointed out that
"money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons."
He also argues pretty forcefully that working longer hours makes
us less productive and also more unhappy. At some point in the
arc of industrialized countries, we end up working more and more
hours just so we can acquire more and more stuff we don't need.
More relaxing, less working and consuming – that's where we
should be looking. So he proposes a 15-hour work week. I'm sure
people here will hate the idea.
And who knows, maybe none of it works in practice. But what's so
interesting about modern America is our hostility to the mere
idea of trying to create an easier and happier life. We're a
country that was once rich with social experimentation, from the
Shaker colonies to Brook Farm to Oneida to New Harmony to the
Fourierist experiments to the Octagon community of vegetarians to
a long list of others, many of them amusingly crazy, who tried to
use the accident of plenty as an excuse to build a better way to live.
Now we don't really even try, and mostly just scream at each
other on the Internet. That doesn't seem like it will get us there.
Maybe free money and a three-hour work day won't, either, but it
sure seems like it would be more fun to try.
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