Let Me Hear Your Voice By Bill Dauster Remarks Before the National Association of Developmental Disabilities Councils Public Policy Seminar July 23, 2002 We live in a patriotic time.  Since September 11, the large, full voices of national fervor ring clearly in the land, and echo in the halls of Congress. And in the past year, Congress’s work has been dominated by legislation of a distinctly patriotic tinge.  Congress enacted an Authorization for Use of Military Force to launch a war in Afghanistan.  It enacted legislation for air transportation security, border security, and bioterrorism response.  It enacted a law abridging our civil liberties and called it the “USA PATRIOT Act.”  It enacted a Supplemental Appropriations Act and a Defense Authorization Act that will spend more on the U.S. military this year than the entire rest of the world spends on military expenditures, combined.  1/  And later this summer, Congress will create a new government bureaucracy called “the Department of Homeland Security.” In the example that tells the story, the Senate spent about a day late last month roundly condemning a decision of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional.  In the words of a Washington Post story, “American flag neckties were flying” as Congressmen and Senators belted out the Pledge of Allegiance, many virtually shouting the words “Under God.” 2/ The Post story concluded: “After the Pledge, they quickly went to work on the defense authorization bill.  In God we trust, but the Pentagon is a nice backup.  As Tom Lehrer once sang, ‘The Lord’s our shepherd, says the psalm, but just in case, we better get a bomb.’” As well, those who pay more in income taxes – and by the nature of that tax, they tend to be the well-off among us – have somehow still been able to have their voices heard.  Last year, Congress enacted the President’s mammoth tax cut.  And even though we are projected to run a $165 billion deficit this year alone, Congress has continued to churn out still further tax cuts.  In this Congress, the House of Representatives has passed 25 separate tax cut bills so far, and it is spitting out new ones all the time. 3/ With the rumble and bluster of all this fighting against terrorism, and for the rich, Congress is enacting precious few laws that address any other concerns.  In a perverse way, all this focus on fighting terrorism, so often couched in the rhetoric of standing united, has divided the nation’s budget into that which supports fighting against terrorism (and for the rich), and everything else. And there is a danger that everything else will get short shrift.  There is reason for concern that this year, other voices are having a more difficult time being heard in the halls of Congress. And that is where you come in.  You who advocate and work on behalf of people with developmental disabilities and their families well know how to speak on behalf of Americans whose cannot speak for themselves. Like you, I know of one such young man.  His name is Matthew, and he is 15 years old.  He has a wonderful toothy grin, an endearing smile.  But Matthew has autism, and in all of his 15 years, he has not spoken a single word. Matthew communicates with subtle gestures that take the observation of an auctioneer to perceive.  In answer to a question, he nods or shakes his head ever so slightly.  He will gently tap a plate to say that he wants to eat more.  He points obliquely to another room, when he wants juice. A woman who wrote under the name Catherine Maurice entitled a book about her autistic daughter “Let Me Hear Your Voice,” and that is the prayer of many an autistic child’s parent. 4/  Maurice quotes “The Song of Songs”: “Come thou my love, my lovely one, come. Show me your face, let me hear your voice. For your voice is sweet, And your face is beautiful.” 5/ I know that Matthew’s parents will always make sure that Matthew has a voice in this world.  As the prophet Isaiah wrote: “Can a woman forget her baby, Or disown the child of her womb? Though she might forget, I never could forget you. See, I have engraved you On the palms of My hands . . . .” 6/ Yes, Matthew’s mom and I will speak for him as long as we have breath. But I worry.  I worry about him after we are gone.  And I worry today about those who do not have anyone to speak for them. No one heard the voice of Joseph Heard, 7/ who is deaf, unable to speak, and suffers from mental illness, across the river in the District of Columbia.  D.C. Superior Court marshals delivered Joseph to Washington’s main jail without any paperwork.  Speaking over the telephone, a court official told a records examiner at the jail that Joseph’s case had been dismissed and that he was ordered to be set free.  The files authorizing his release, however, never arrived.  Every morning for 669 days, for nearly 2 years, guards would tap Joseph on his feet to wake him and give him his medication.  When, last August, they came to take him out of jail, Joseph smiled broadly.  With the help of an interpreter, Joseph told the reporter, “I was not happy in jail.” For all our Josephs, let me hear your voice. No one heard the voice of Robert Dowling, 8/ who communicates in half-sentences and twitches, and lived in the Leben Home for Adults in Elmhurst, Queens, when they led him outside and told him to take a seat in the van.  As the New York Times reported this April in a story entitled “Voiceless, Defenseless and a Source of Cash,” the van took Robert and, over time, 30 other residents from the one adult home to a doctor’s office.  The doctor’s billing records show that he had never examined some of the residents, but he performed eye surgery on every one of them. For all our Roberts, we need to hear your voice! The story of the prophet Elijah’s encounter with the Divine shows the importance of listening carefully.  The book of First Kings tells: “[B]ehold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.”  9/ It was in the still small voice, or what another translation calls “a soft murmuring sound,” or what another translation calls “the sound of silence” that Elijah heard the voice of the Eternal.  Sometimes the most important message comes not in the loud rumble and bluster, but in the still small voice that not all can hear. And not all can hear.  That’s why we need you.  We need you to give sound to the voice of those who cannot speak. The book of Proverbs charges us:   “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” 10/ I believe that caretakers do hear the voices of those who cannot speak. This February, a caretaker named Rob Weaver, who works in the Washington suburb of Laurel, Maryland, wrote:   “I work with mentally disabled kids.  I don’t make much.  There is a student named Rocio.  Rocio cannot speak much, but we communicate.  We visit a job site where, primarily, I practice counting items with her.  I like to slap her a high-five when she counts perfectly.  Eventually I let her work independently, and when I’m not close by she looks at me.  I put my hand up in approval and see what she does.  She walks to me.  And with a rich smile, slaps me a high-five.  Rocio pays me well.” 11/ Some in Congress do hear the voice of those who cannot speak. The great U.S. Senator Paul Simon heard their voices. Early on, he led the way to ensure educational opportunity for Americans with disabilities.  And Senator Simon ran for President in 1988, and remembers fondly his close-second-place showing in the Iowa caucuses and winning the Illinois primary. But if you ask Senator Simon for his most enduring memory of his Presidential campaign, he will tell you about the time he visited a Wisconsin high school on the campaign trail.  A class of school kids with mental disabilities there recited for him the preamble to the Constitution.  In a single voice, they said: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice . . . .”  Yes, they recited “insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense,” but they also recited “promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity . . . .”  Then these students with disabilities sang “This Is My Country!”  There wasn’t a dry eye in the place. They sang: “This is my country!  Land of my birth! This is my country!  Grandest on earth! I pledge thee my allegiance, America, the bold, For this is my country to have and to hold.” And of course, it is.  This is the Country of its citizens with disabilities, every bit as much as it is the Country of those who pay the most in taxes.  One of the things that makes our Country “grandest on Earth” is that we as a Nation care about every American, including Americans with disabilities, and we are not a complete country if we do not. Like the lesson we learned in kindergarten:  We will only get there, if we all get there together. When our Nation fails these children, we fail to “form a more perfect Union.”  When our nation fails these children, it tears our great Union apart, serving some but not all.  When our Nation fails these children, it cuts a shining star out of the flag of the United States of America. We do not have to divide our Union.  We do not have to put all our needy aside to fight terrorism.  As Congressman John Spratt, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, has said: “We can pursue terrorists and still pursue other priorities.” 12/ We seek a union complete, where are heard not only the voices of the arms manufacturers and the wealthy, but also the voices of the children with disabilities. For this, “our Country, land that we love,” let me hear your voice! For our Matthews and our Josephs, for our Roberts and our Rocios, let me hear your voice! For all “the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,” let me hear your voice! For all the children with disabilities, each “engraved on the palms of [God’s] hands,” let me hear your voice! And for our “one Nation . . . indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all,” let me hear your voice!  Notes: 1/  Calculations by staff of the Council for a Livable World using data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies. 2/  David Montgomery, “Rise! Shine! Give ‘Under God’ Your Glory!; In the Senate Chamber, It’s Suddenly Pledge Week,” Wash. Post, June 28, 2002, at C1. 3/  For the list of the House tax cuts to date, go to <http://freedom.house.gov/taxcut/votes.asp>.  For whom the Bush tax cuts benefit, go to Citizens for Tax Justice <http://www.ctj.org/>. 4/  Catherine Maurice, “Let Me Hear Your Voice: A Family’s Triumph over Autism” (1993). 5/  Song of Solomon 2:14. 6/  Isaiah 49:15-16. 7/  Serge F. Kovaleski & Clarence Williams, “D.C. Wrongly Jailed Deaf Man 2 Years; Staff Failed to Realize Charge Against Detainee Had Been Dismissed, Corrections Chief Says,” Wash. Post, Aug. 31, 2001, at A01. 8/  Clifford J. Levy, “Voiceless, Defenseless And a Source of Cash,” N.Y. Times, Apr. 30, 2002, at A1. 9/  I Kings 19:11-12. 10/  Proverbs 31:8-9. 11/  Rob Weaver, “Life Is Short | Autobiography as Haiku,” Wash. Post, Feb. 24, 2002, at F1. 12/  Amy Goldstein & Mike Allen, “Bush Proposes Defense Boost, Cuts Elsewhere; ‘New Realities’ Drive Plan, President Says,” Wash. Post, Feb. 5, 2002, at A1.