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Editorial Review:
Movie celebrity Clint Eastwood fights an access lawsuit. Christopher Reeve insists what's needed is cure. Those who argue for civil-rights protections for disabled people -- rights guaranteed by federal law for over a decade - are all but silent.
The Americans with Disabilities Act "defies logic and common sense," The New York Times once editorialized. Salon.com dismissed it as "a surreal ideology." Why are disability rights so disliked? Why do detractors insist nobody knows about it, even as thousands of articles have been devoted to it? Why do they claim it's a bad law?
In "Make Them Go Away: Clint Eastwood, Christopher Reeve & The Case Against Disability Rights," longtime disability-rights journalist Mary Johnson sheds rare light on this issue by examining the case against disability rights in depth. What are its main arguments? Where do they come from? And what is the other side? Can a valid -- strong -- case be made FOR disability rights? It can, says Johnson, who makes a compelling argument that, since the disabled minority is the one minority any of us can suddenly and unexpectedly join, the nation ignores disability rights at its peril.
Make Them Go Away: Clint Eastwood, Christopher Reeve and the Case Against Disability Rights Reviews:
This should be required reading! 
2007-07-11 - At the risk of sounding dramatic, I can honestly say that this book
changed the way I see the world. It was my first formal introduction
to the disability rights movement, and more profoundly, to the social
model of disability.
I consider myself a liberal, and civil rights have always been at the
top of the list of issues important to me. Unsurprisingly (but still
appallingly), I'd never really thought about disability rights. I had
always just believed the medical model, because that's how disability
had always been presented to me. I ran across this book by chance, and
more or less decided to read it because the title intrigued me. The
case against disability rights? Who's against the disabled?
Chapter by chapter, Make Them Go Away reversed the way I think.
Mary Johnson combines history, anecdotes, and quotes from other people
to weave several convincing arguments that broke down everything I
thought I knew about disability. I started it knowing nothing about
disability rights, and by the time I finished it I had resolved to
become an advocate for the issue. I have been trying to tell other
people what I learned from it, but the book is so well-crafted, so
effective, that I just can't put it into my own words. I can only
recommend that people read it for themselves.
Despite being an excellent introduction to disability rights, Make
Them Go Away is not a textbook, and is definitely biased in the
direction of the social model. But I don't think that's bad at all. On
the contrary, I think it's exactly what the average person needs in
order to wake up to the reality of the marginalization of millions of
people.
I Won't Go Away!
2006-11-15 - Quick! Who made the following comment:
"I think it's important to realize that treating all disabled
people as equal--with equal rights and responsibilities--is absurd.
Many of the patients that come through any rehab hospital are there
because of their own ignorance, negligence, stupidity or criminal activities."
A member of a supremacist group? Nope. It was Dr. Kenneth Lefebre
at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. How about this?
"The legal requirement that 'the handicapped' be 'mainstreamed'
is damaging to 'the normal child'."
That was written by Eileen Gardner, appointee to the Reagan
Education Department, in one of her policy papers.
One more, and this one is the real shocker because the
commentator has a disability herself:
"Deny as we may want to, at the point when a person can not be
totally independent physically from others, one is no longer
equal in body. I do not want to be treated equally. I can still
think, but for the life of me I can't think of a way to get rid
of the wheelchair. Therefore, I am not on the same ground I used
to be on. To me that makes my way not equal...How can we bury our
heads so deep and say we are equal to the able bodies around us?
We are not. That's why it is called a handicap, because it is."
Comments like these only bolster the viewpoint Mary Johnson is
fighting against in her perception-shattering book, "Make Them
Go Away: The Case Against Disability Rights". She argues that
people with disabilities are a minority just as women and people
of color are nowadays. Disability, she posits, is a social and
cultural idea, and not merely a "medical problem".
Because people are perceived to be disabled, they are perceived
by society to be unable, incapable of doing much for themselves
or others. Johnson theorizes that the case against disability
rights is strong right now because of this philosophy. It is
also strong because "a disabled person's role in society was
not to criticize it from a minority perspective--for they were
not a true minority--but to work at becoming normal, to be
rehabilitated if not cured."
That, and there have been several lawsuits about the ADA, or
Americans with Disabilities Act. Nobody likes lawsuits, so...
...no wonder most of society still thinks, "Make Them Go Away"!
God Bless America the Ignorance lives on 
2006-07-31 - This book describes what has been happening for years centuries. As an EEO specialist I know my rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 should protect my rights at the Federal Level. The ADA Act is suppose to protect me at the local level and it does not. I do believe that EVERYONE has rights in this country our rights are comprised every day. As I read the other reviews I noticed Tomthumbguy believes the Civil Rights Moment 60s is not the same I beg to differ. Disabled people like African Americans in the 1960's are still not allowed to eat , shop, go to the movies, travel and live in certain places because there is limited accessibility or people just don't want us there. If I am not mistaken does that not sound like the segregated south from the 1700s until maybe 30 years ago. Also, let's keep in mind disabled people come from all walks of life and ethnicities. That included African Americans.
Glad this book makes people think.
2006-03-13 - I have not completely read this book. But I am glad that it is making people think. To the reviewer who is up set with this book... I am white so I have no reference for what it is like for African Americans. However, I am disabled and I too would like to be able to go to the same places that everyone else does.
Good book with some serious questions 
2005-09-29 - I too personally have experienced what Mary Johnson documents in her well-researched work.
Social antipathy against people with disabilities is so mainstreamed in America that progressive activists who rush to condemn other forms of bigotry, engage in bigotry against people with disabilities. We are time and/or money consuming entities that are still honestly not perceived as contributing anything to society let alone being recognized as social equals.
This inequality then leads people to interpret the ADA as a burden on them as opposed to considering the greater burdens which unjust discrimination places on both the recipient and the nation.
However, I have one minor suggestion to ensure that this book gets to those most needing to read it.
Change the title to more accurately reflect that this book is a critique of how society handles disability instead of something itself which opposes the disability rights movement. Because the disability rights movement is acknowledged as seeking liberation of stereotypical attitudes and laws, it aids Mary Johnson's case.
