Author Archives: Peter Sanford Kahrmann

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About Peter Sanford Kahrmann

Writer, disability rights advocate, civil rights advocate.

Let Freedom Ring & Occupy Main Street!

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The following statement was released by Occupy Wall Street on October 1.  It would make the founding fathers proud.

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

In Praise of Bill Combes

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When you live with a disability, in my case a brain injury, you encounter those whose commitment to your rights is rooted in self-serving lip service and then you encounter those whose integrity, compassion and commitment to people with disabilities is so real and genuine they glow. In the case of Bill Combes, I suspect this good and decent man can read by his own light.

Bill Combes worked out of the New York State Commission on Quality of Care (CQC) for something in the neighborhood of 30 years and as of Wednesday this week, has entered into well-deserved retirement. If ever there was one deserving of accolades from the White House to the State house to the house on Main Street, it is Bill Combes.  The CQC is the Protection and Advocacy agency contracted with the federal government for brain-injured New Yorkers like me. The only flaw in the CQC is, like all such agencies, they never have the number of staff they want, and, frankly, deserve.

Disability rights advocates like me always knew they would get a serious attentive audience when talking with Bill. We also knew that Bill and the CQC would do all it could to fight for the rights of brain-injured New Yorkers. Unlike the state’s Brain Injury Association and Traumatic Brain Injury Services Coordinating Council and, for that matter, the Department of Health, Bill Combes and the CQC always offered more than just lip service.

Those of us with disabilities have lost a wonderful ally now that Bill has retired. But, wherever he is, I hope he knows that all the lives he touched are better off because of him. Unlike too many others, he never experienced or treated anyone with any disability as being less than. The completeness of each person’s humanity and worth was never – and I mean never – lost on him.

I am blessed to know him and have had the privilege of working with him. Now it is his family’s turn to have the all of him, and this includes his first grandchild, a granddaughter; she’s in for quite a treat.

You are reason enough

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There is little joy in loss and lots of pain; the absence of joy and the presence of pain can feel endless, and here is where we need to be careful.

The realities of life will please us and disappoint us simply because they are the realities of life. Companies promising a lifetime of employment have the capacity to without warning reverse field and cut you loose; people who pledge their undying love and allegiance to you have the capacity to do the same. Does this mean we give no company or person a chance? I don’t think so. If there is the chance of a hoped for lifetime connection it will never happen if any of us close the door on the possibility.

But protect yourself.

One way of protecting yourself revolves around discovering, if you’ve not done so already, that who you are, your life is reason enough to get up and live and enjoy your day. When loss strikes and guts you out of the blue and leaves your skin chilled and your heart shivering, you are still there and still alive and while life in the moment you’re in may be a terrifying place to be, keep breathing and don’t give up.

Obviously I am speaking from experience. The specifics of my experience, at least for this missive, aren’t important. What is important is this. Who you are is truly enough reason to not just live, but to give yourself permission to enjoy your life. The loss of any person, place or thing does not deserve so much control over you that it robs you of your right to enjoy your life. And hell, there is no reason to feel guilty by moving on. After all, the person, place or thing that left your life chose to do so; guilt didn’t stop them. Don’t let it stop you.

Misplaced guilt deserves no say over any life.

 

BIANYS ignores its members rights & more

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The Brain Injury Association of NY State will not support the rights of brain-injured New Yorkers to be informed of the results of the complaints they file through the joint BIANYS-NYS Department of Health TBI Waiver Complaint line. The DOH refuses to tell complainants the results of their complaints. BIANYS President Marie Cavallo and BIANYS Executive Director Judith Avner have chosen to ignore a September 14 email sent to them by this writer on behalf of the Kahrmann Advocacy Coalition, the largest advocacy group for brain injury survivors in the state, which read exactly as follows:

Please note that many are copied and blind-copied on this email, including quite a few BIANYS members who are told by you that BIANYS is the leading advocacy organization in the state.

We have one specific question and would like a direct answer to this specific question. Anything less and we will continue to conclude BIANYS does not believe TBI Waiver complainants should be given the full results of their complaints.

Does BIANYS believe TBI Waiver complainants should be given the full results of the complaints they file through the TBI Waiver complaint line current answered by BIANYS staff? Yes or NO

Keep in mind, a large number of people, including your members, are watching this email and awaiting your answer.

Peter Kahrmann, KAC Founder

Last I knew BIANYS had less than 400 members, however, a significant number of those members also belong to KAC, including me. So, it is a statement of fact to say BIANYS refusal to even answer the email is, once again, another example of BIANYS (which falsely claims to be the leading advocacy organization in the state) ignoring  the rights its own members and the rights of all brain-injured New Yorkers and their families.

So far, the BIANYS board of directors has done nothing to address this.

Brain-Injured NYers outrank Michael Kaplen’s hissy fits

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The New York State Traumatic Brain Injury Services Coordinating Council this month responded to the news that the lives and homes of brain-injured New Yorkers are in danger because of the state’s Department of Health by immediately adjourning their meeting.

No council member said a word when they were told  a federal judge protected the life of a brain-injured senior by blocking the DOH’s attempt to end her services and collect $24,000 in back housing subsidy from her.  No council member said a word when told that the DOH has been conducting a statewide campaign  to either end or slash services and housing subsidies to brain-injured New Yorkers, even though doing so puts people’s lives and homes at risk. No council member said a word when told that brain-injured New Yorkers who file complaints related to the TBI Waiver are never given the results by the DOH. Not surprisingly, this writer received written notice from the DOH yesterday denying my Freedom of Information Law request to see the results of the complaints I’ve filed. No council member said a word when they heard that the DOH has yet to provide them (or anyone for that matter) with a written policy to memorialize the verbal directive blocking waiver providers from advocating for their clients at Medicaid Fair Hearings, an action that also puts brain-injured New Yorkers at risk.

Instead, the council, at the behest of its perpetually self-absorbed chair Michael Kaplen, adjourned the meeting.

Now, do I actually think that no council members care about the issues raised above? No, I don’t think that at all. In fact some do care and care very much. Then why their silence? I think to some extent the answer rests in the understandable reluctance to deal with Kaplen’s outbursts of temper, his hissy fits.

Kaplen reminds me of the kid in the schoolyard who always throws a hissy fit when he can’t have his way. I was in a Brain Injury Association of NY State (BIANYS) board meeting once when Kaplen, angered that some in the meeting did not agree with him that a board member should remain on the board even though he didn’t attend meetings, proceeded to raise his voice, wag his finger, and threaten to  go around the table and embarrass everyone in the room. It will surprise no one to learn I verbally stepped into him telling him  he was out of line threatening people simply because they didn’t agree with him. People were so upset by his behavior that the meeting took a break and one board member, a brain-injured survivor like myself, was so upset she was trembling.

Kaplen is known for his hissy fits.

This TBISCC meeting was no different. Council member Barry Dain, as good and decent a person as there is in the field of brain injury, found himself dealing with a Kaplen hissy fit when he shared an issue that had surfaced with some providers about perceived inequities in surveys conducted by the Office of the Medicaid Inspector General (OMIG). Kaplen appeared to be trying to shut Dain down by venting his anger and frustration with the state’s Provider’s Alliance – a group of 40 to 50 TBI Waiver Providers – when, as Dain patiently explained, he was not representing the Provider’s Alliance.

In the council meeting prior to this one, Kaplen got himself worked up into a hissy fit when two council members, Dain and Bill Combes, advocated for the right of a brain-injured New Yorker in attendance to speak before the end of the meeting. In a moment best described as an equal mix of comical and, quite frankly, pitiful, Kaplen accused his two colleagues of trying to stir the pot.

It is not surprising that the council’s assistant chair, Judith Avner,  did not seek in either instance to rein Kaplen in, after all they’ve been at the head of the table for years, both on the council and BIANYS, and that is part of the problem. Avner is the executive director of BIANYS, Kaplen its past president.

If brain-injured New Yorkers are going to be given the priority they deserve by groups like the council, members of these groups must step up and stomp out those who seek to control them by throwing hissy fits. Council members cannot afford to cower or respond in silence to Kaplen’s hissy fits. Hissy fits are like any behavior, as long as they get the person’s desired outcome, they won’t stop. 

When groups like the council are told the lives and homes of brain-injured New Yorkers are at risk, they can’t respond by adjourning the meeting because they are afraid of someone’s hissy fits. Whatever challenge one has to face  internally in order deal with a hissy fit pales in comparison to the challenges being faced right now by too many brain-injured New Yorkers because of the DOH.