Article by Paul Smith – Founder of Atos Victims Group

I haven’t watched any of the Paralympic Games, not because I don’t applaud the personal endeavours and struggles of the athletes involved, I don’t watch the games because I know what a sham the Paralympic Games are this year.

I’m sure there have been many wonderful moments so far, closeups of tear filled eyes as world records are broken, personal bests achieved, incredible feats of courage, great individual and team achievements, the problem with the Paralympic Games is the slanted view of disabled people both in a positive and negative way, the positive aspect of the games should be that it shows society what a disabled person can achieve when they have support, unfortunately the wider public will see the Paralympic athletes as “SuperHuman“, double amputee’s running, athletes with no limbs swimming, archers using their feet and toe’s to fire their bows, fantastic achievements, ability beyond the majority of us, sadly that’s the problem?

The wider public will see us out in our wheelchairs, see us using crutches, mobility scooters, they will watch us getting out of our mobility vehicles and shout abuse at us, shouts of “Come on you scrounger” “How come you can’t walk but people in the games can bloody run without legs”, this sort of abuse and more is on its way I can guarantee you of that.

The right-wing media will have a field day and this morning it’s already started, the “Daily Mails” Melanie Philips has written a piece that shows her usual talent for failing to use facts, she uses “Ellie Simmonds“ achievements at this years games as a vehicle for attacking those who are supposedly pretending to be disabled to get benefits, she fails to report the fact that benefit fraud for DLA is tiny?

Philips tells us that

Most of us never realised that disabled people could be capable of such  astounding physical achievements

Well Ms Philips let me put you straight, why are you astounded by disabled people performing astounding physical achievements? When disabled people are fully supported they can achieve incredible things, it’s because of the attitudes of politicians and people like you who make it harder for disabled people to exist as independent people in today’s society, it’s because deep down the able-bodied population inwardly hate everything that is different from themselves, seeing a twisted or limbless body shows them how fragile their own lives are, able-bodied people don’t wish to see the reality of what their own lives could be like, whether that be through an accident or illness, perfection in today’s society is the goal, nothing less will be accepted.

Ms Philips does go on to say

Of course, there is now a danger that all  disabled people will be assumed to be capable of overcoming their infirmities,  though many find even the simplest of tasks all but impossible.

Ms Philips also say’s

Nevertheless, what the Paralympics have exposed  is the lazy equation of disability with incapacity. They show us that this need  not be the case — not just through exceptional talent, but even more importantly  through a refusal to be defined by disability and a determination instead to  conquer life rather than be conquered by it

It is not Disabled people who define themselves through their disability but by societies negative and disgusting failure to accept difference, societies failure to accept that being disabled is a possibility for them, disabled people are not a different species but you would have thought by the increase in both verbal and physical abuse of the disabled that we were from a different planet?

Ms Philips also mentions the assessment process briefly, she argues that: 

If Atos has wrongly assessed claimants who  really are too infirm to work, that is a worrying situation which should be  addressed.

But we know that far too many people have  indeed been claiming disability benefit when they are, in fact, fit enough to  work.

If Atos have wrongly assessed claimants who really are to infirm to work then that is a worrying situation, a worrying situation “Ms Philips it’s a bloody nightmare” you’re not concerned with the amount of suicides or deaths that have been attributed to the removal of a person’s benefit? Your not concerned about the number of disabled people who have to choose between eating or keeping warm or the people who have lost their homes, journalists like yourself continue to spread the spurious lies that hundreds of thousands of disabled people are faking it, next time you decide to write an article on a particular subject maybe you should try to use FACTS instead of your bigoted and outdated views, disabled people are here to stay Ms Philips, you may not like the fact that disabled people are fighting for equality or their human rights but get used to it.

Society and governments have to realise that it’s all well and good talking up disability rights as important but unless your prepared to put money into disability then your words mean nothing, being disabled or severely ill costs more than If your able-bodied or fit, it’s simple, cutting disabled people s benefits and then using the paralympics as your tool to deride and inflict degradation on us will not go unpunished, last weeks demonstrations are only just the beginning, this is not a game, disabled people are angry and when people are angry they will fight to survive, disabled people are fighting for their very survival in society.

Keep strong and don’t let the bastards get you down, those who deride and attack us now will get their just deserts???? 

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