Eleanor Goldfield hosts this week’s show.
July 26 marked the 34th anniversary of the signing of the Americans With Disabilities Act. But is the ADA as far-reaching as it should be? Are the large disability-rights organizations keeping too close to the country’s ruling institutions and, in doing so, defeating their own professed objectives? In the first segment of the show, Eleanor’s guests talk about the limitations of the ADA and the inherent lapses that disability-rights groups make by not confronting the institutions that inflict disabilities and worsen the lives of those already living with disabilities, most notably in Gaza.
In the second half, Eleanor and guests discuss the prospect of humans inhabiting Mars: is it a harmless sci-fi concept, or are “astro-colonial” ideas a distraction from the urgency of addressing the climate crisis on planet Earth?
Jen Deerinwater and Ezra Star are members of Disability Divest (www.disabilitydivest.org), a collective that demands that “the disability establishment ends its relationships with war profiteers.”
Zara Zimbardo is one of the creators of “Marsification” (www.marsification.com), a concept album that explores the idea of inhabiting space and finds it to be a continuation of colonialist ideology.