ADAPT Storms John McCain's Office: Deaf Woman Taken to Ground by Police

good work getting the photos and video, that is just crazy!

I just watched this video. As the son of a cop AND also a deaf individual, I can tell you, based on what is shown, this woman was NOT "taken to the ground" (which implies a lot of force was used).  I see nothing excessive with the handling of this person. I also want to say, while I fully support an activist role in making sure that our voices are heard, basically storming the office of a US Senator and creating a scene such as this is oftentimes counterproductive. A protest outside of the building, a letter-writing campaign, etc. all would serve the same purpose.

Now, I may not have all the facts, I am going by what is presented in this article, but I see nothing here that shows these types of actions were taken before storming his office.

That deaf woman is a very smart, talented, passionate activist from Chicago who I am good friends with.  She is already on the ground when the video starts and so we don't know what kind of violence was used and whether "taken down" was an accurate description.  

Unfortunately, I couldn't be in DC this week because of other obligations, but how I will respond is that letter writing campaign and the like will NOT serve the same purpose as civil disobedience.  Different tactics are used for different scenarios but when power relations are so out of balance that you can't even get acknowledged by your adversary as a stakeholder, something more is needed before negotiations can even happen.  This is an idea that was understood by Ghandi and articulated by MLK when people told him that he should not use tactics that are the model for those used by ADAPT (non-violent direct action):

You may well ask: "Why direct action?

Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?"

You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.

-Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

Philosphercrip, I understand completely that sometimes direct action is needed in the event voices are not heard. My concern is, in this particular event, for the support they are trying to garner for the Community Choice Act, I have not seen anything that shows an attempt was made to first initiate negotiations/talks.  If the attempts were made, and in fact rebuffed, THEN direct action (non-violent) is appropriate.

In this day and age, with the Internet, news media, and so on, the chances of a far-reaching letter writing and protest campaign FIRST (I'm not yelling, emphasizing my words) would be far more likely to create a groundswell of support and force a Senator or Congressman to at least acknowledge those voices (just look at Karen Putz's success so far in the Steak and Shake debacle). But with sensationalist titles such as "ADAPT takes over Health and Human Services Office" "ADAPT Storms John McCain's office: Deaf Woman Taken to Ground by Police" and so on, the narrow attention span of today's readers allows them to tend to develop a quick opinion before even reading an article, if they in fact do. It perpetuates a stereotype of militancy that would generally cause a non-disabled person with no understanding of the issues at play to unfairly dismiss this group as "rabblerousers" or "troublemakers" unneccessarily.

The quote you posted from MLK actually supports my thought on this with this particular part: "Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has CONSTANTLY REFUSED TO NEGOTIATE (capitalized by me for emphasis) is forced to confront the issue." This shows that repeated attempts first should be made to make contact and open negotiations. As I said before, I may not have all the facts, but the article, as presented, does not illuminate the average reader on what steps were taken first that were perhaps rebuffed or ignored, beore direct action was left as the last, best option.

Lastly, as you state, the video starts and she is already on the ground. All the steps and actions we are able to see afterwards are actually very persuasive and indicative of a calm response by the police/security in direct proportion to her resistance. It indicates to me that she did not actually resist, and was not "Taken down", but rather, was laid out in a prone position for the purposes of being restrained and detained/removed from the premises. The sensationalist title attempts to create the impression she was mistreated or treated excessively, which I take exception to. If more were shown, and evidence was presented that she was handled in an excessive manner in proportion to her resistance, I would have no problem with it. But as shown, the title exaggerates the actual actions.

First, ADAPT, NCIL, and an entire laundry list of disability rights orgs  has been trying to negotiate with McCain and every other US Senator on the CCA and other piece of legislation that addresses the issue of long term care that has come through Congress (i.e. MiCASSA, MFPA, etc) for over a decade.  This is not a new issue.  Believe me, letter writing campaigns (and a gazillion other less "militant" tactics) have been tried.  The fact is, we are a collection of grass roots activists that are up against the nursing home lobby which is supported by a $75 Billion a yr industry.  The power differential is waaaay out of line, as it was in the deep south during Jim Crow.  What the article doesn't tell you is that what ADAPT was trying to get from McCain was a mere promise of a meeting and they weren't even respected enough to be given that.  That is when tensions had to raise and arrests had to be made.  This is issue of the institutional bias is literally older than I am and it isn't going to be solved by a letter writing campaign when we are up against that kind of money/power.

Finally, I think argument over the title is a moot point.  The fact is, we don't know what the "actual actions" were because the footage begins with her on the ground.  How she got there is not known.  Whoever shot the footage was obviously there and so why should we automatically assume this is an exaggeration?  I am more inclined to give the actual witnesses posting the video the benefit of the doubt rather than making a claim based on complete lack of information of actual events.  

Captioned

www.overstream.net/view.php

This should be a no-brainer, since McCain receives a 100% disability pension from the Navy.  Of course, he was subsequently recertified to fly, but he still gets the full disability pension, fully tax exempt, so he OUGHT to be fully sympathetic...right?

zennie2005.blogspot.com/.../la-times-is-wrong.html

Digg that story! digg.com/.../L_A_Times_McCain_article_has_it_wrong

From what I read, the CCA has a fairly broad based support group of something like 82 legislators.  Why not use the support of those legislators to ask THEM to set up meetings with those other Senators and Congressmen/women they are trying to reach? John McCain is a supporter of disabled rights, as evidenced by his strong work on the ADA, authorship of the telecommunications portion that made the adoption of the relay network mandatory by the states, etc. I simply feel, based on what is shown, that the video doesn't support the claim she was "taken down". Again, that is based upon the implication that it was excessive.  You may feel it is a moot point, and I respect your opinion, but I am a believer that if you make a claim, as a witness or not, show evidence to back up your allegations. That is my point of contention with the title. I don't give the benefit of a doubt if what is posted doesn't support what is implied. I'd love to see the video in it's entirety, because it appears to be edited some.

I agree completely that lobbyists are a huge and unwieldy consortium that is hard to defeat, I grant you that point and will not even attempt to argue it because I believe it too.

If the article simply at least had a link (at a minimum) showing me their other efforts undertaken prior to this protest, I would have been able to read and make more informed comments. I even mentioned several times in the last couple of posts, I was making comments based on WHAT I KNOW as it is presented here. Since you obviously are a part of ADAPT, I will take you at your word that you have attempted numerous times to initiate negotiations. My point is, you have supporters (at least 82 of them) in the House and Senate. Why not utilize those contacts to set up meetings? Why not ask them "Since you support this legislation, would you be so kind as to also assist us in meeting with others to garner more support?"  Sometimes you just have to work within the system, fair or not. Based on what I've read of the CCA, it appears to be a good bill and would actually result in huge fiscal savings, and that is a good thing, since Medicaid is a broken system in serious need of both financial and institutional reform.

@Eddie1: you said, "I can tell you, based on what is shown, this woman was NOT "taken to the ground" (which implies a lot of force was used)."

I agree that it doesn't look like excessive force was used (based off of what we can see in the video), however I'm not sure I agree that 'taken to the ground' necessarily implies that a lot of force was used.  If it said 'thrown to the ground' I'd agree that the language used to describe the event was too extreme.

Crazy incident. Glad we have some pictures and even video from the events. Thank you.