ageing/patronization

>From the document at <
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/einclusion/policy/ageing/index_en.htm>
is an apparently innocuous sentence: "More can be done to integrate older
people into the Information Society."

Whenever such labels as "older people" are used I smell exclusion and a
patronizing attitude that is the hallmark of what I've been calling the
"social model of disability" which acknowledges that the disability is not
because of the wheel chair, but because of the steps" but still sees a need
to "rehabilitate" those who can be so labeled.

If one substitutes "Vint Cerf, Doug Engelbart, and William Loughborough" for
"older people", the sentence is seen for what it is and although we
("seniors") are treated kindly and sometimes even respectfully, we are on
the whole not actually *heard*. This is why I find that being old is to be
"disabled" in the eye of the beholder.

There is no greater example of the need for "nothing about us without us."

Love.

-- 
http://www.boobam.org/webgeezermild.htm