In the no news is good news department an anonymous reader of autism's gadfly was wondering why there was no news about the ASAN protest of autism speaks latest fund raiser which included musician Bruce Springstein and well-known comedian Jerry Seinfeld helping to raise funds. He wrote a comment inquiring about this. He wrote another follow-up comment stating that a whopping 15 persons from ASAN showed up to demonstrate against the fundraiser according apparently to a twitter feed that ASAN has. However in what seems to me to be a strange take on the matter, ASAN member Marc Rosen called the protest a success
We can see one of them being rather antagonistic to Mr. Seinfeld:
We see in a recent update from AS that they managed to raise 1.7 million dollars from this gala event, in spite of the 15 ASAN protestors.
Anyone remember the old philosophical question about if a tree falls in the forest a thousand miles away from anyone does it make a sound?
Addendum: I pointed out to ASAN's Marc Rosen that they were only 15 persons as opposed to the 1.7 million that AS manage to raise from this event and the lack of sound from a tree no one hears being analogous to how effective their protest was, as well as their inconsistencies in supporting Laurent Mottron when he accepted funding from AS, yet instead of protesting Dr. Mottron, they have lauded the research of he and his associates that the organization they protest fundraises. I believe this is an inconsistency. Rosen responded by stating that if I had nothing useful to say that he would delete my comments and that I should save it for my blog and overbearing mother.
So we see, again ASAN is an organization like other ND proponents who are trying to bring back the Bettelheim era, having to stoop to insulting one's mother because they have nothing productive to say and can't refute anything I say. Marc Rosen is so typical of the ND movement, just engaging in censorship of anyone who posts a comment they disagree with. Apparently ASAN loves to dish it out but they can't take it.
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11 comments:
When I read the article on The Examiner I knew that the title had obviously been fudged to read "Highly Successful." No surprise, it was written by an ASAN activist. The most high functioning often have important jobs, such as in the media, so they have the most influence over the public.
I'm not surprised at the HUGE turnout of Disability/ASAN supporters since they've had 6 or so when thousands turn out for AS walks. I see the Aspies who work for NASA, Google, Microsoft... and any other organizations... who have spouses and lives have turned out in droves to embrace their inner autism-ness.
But I keep wondering about all those parents that claim to hate Autism Speaks.... where are they??? Or has ASAN's attitude of shunning parents turned them off ASAN as well.
There was an article (if you want to call it that, really) in the NY Post about how angry Bob Wright, the leader of Autism Speaks, was at the protesters.
The article didn't even mention ASAN or "Neurodiversity," just "protesters."
And over at Socrates Blog there are ND Activists actually thinking this is a good thing.
I can't believe just how funny all of this is, really. It has just become one huge joke.
NY Post Article
Stephanie: I believe that Socrates, the autism hub and ASAN and neurodiversity are all big jokes (albeit not amusing ones) They are entitled to their opinion about the demonstrations and Bob Wright's (whose grandson apparently is so severely autistic he can't speak) reactions to them, I am entitled to mine.
I wish there were more rational blogs. ND is very active on the internet (and the internet only it seems) and it's difficult to find something that isn't so ND.
At least he said "they stigmatize us," not "they're searching for a cure." I think I might agree, AS doesn't even try to help us, just find out what is wrong with us by studying our genes, which goes nowhere. They see as as science projects rather than actual people with chronic conditions that need to be redressed.
Jake,
There's hope for you yet.
As you can see from the protest ASAN is active off-line as well as on.
And it advocates for people across the Spectrum.
To few people realise the reality of life with HFA/AS. For example, Digby Tantam's take on Shiny Happy Aspies:
Timing of psychological disorders associated with AS(many of these disorders probably greater in more able group)
• Aet 11-13 Surge of anxiety-related problems including OCD, dysmorphophobia, panic disorder
• Aet 16-18 Secondary depression, social phobia• Aet >16
• Progressive social withdrawal often attributedto schizophrenia
• Late adolescence bipolar disorder
• Brief ‘cycloid’ psychoses
• Non-psychotic hallucinoses
• Aet >18 ‘Catatonia’
• Aet >25 Paranoid states
•Aet >35 Social withdrawal, isolation, relationship disrepair
@Socrates: You have provided even more evidence that quality of life is still poor even for those with HFA/AS. How does this help your cause? You also provided more proof that ASAN truly is nothing but a group of Shiny Aspies and radical college kids.
And no, ASAN does NOT speak across the spectrum. If they did than Bob Wright wouldn't be so angry at the protesters, would he?
This movie is the other theory, refrigerator mothers:
http://www.snagfilms.com/films/watch/refrigerator_mothers/
Anonymous said...
"This movie is the other theory, refrigerator mothers:
http://www.snagfilms.com/films/watch/refrigerator_mothers/"
It took me two days to watch this movie due to the fact it was very emotional to me to see. I saw my own mother and what I know she was put through in each of these women, and I still feel very badly for what they did to her.
I was born in 1964.
I still have records in my possession where a doctor described my father as 'a milktoast sort of man" and talked about how my mother 'was a dominant woman' -- this all being said while I lay in a coma on a ventilator because of a serious self injurious act...
sorry, lots of memories and emotions really were drawn up by this
and this is the thing I see Neurodiversity doing to parents all over again, on the forum boards and everywhere they blindly attack, telling them its their (the parents) failings, they are wrong every way they turn, and 'let me tell you how to raise, let me tell you about your child"
you see.. I have something in common with each of these parents I encounter online and now in this movie, and that is that I have two parents too, and I remember that and I know that any of these could have been mine as well.
and I see another, like Bettelheim, performing a massive hoax on these parents and Autistics, I see someone who claimed to have such hardships in instituations where they simply never were (Bettelheim was never in the camps, and someone else has never spent one year in any institution), I see the parallels, I see the false clutching to Judiasm and the horror that real people such as my grandparents faced (Bettelheim's 'like in a concentration camp' and her/their "ballastexistenz")
and I know this is going somewhere really bad, and fast, and people are being and are going to be really hurt by all of this before its over, just as they were back then.
Something else people don't talk about is what this does to the rest of families, the fathers and children, the siblings who are led to believe their wife/mother were cold hearted monsters and the whole impact this sort of thing really had on everyone...
This is one of many parts of why I've kept to our family's privacy (or had until my privacy was summarily violated by Neurodiversity and Baggs to do as they've done), is my mother, who's been traumatized quite enough in her life and wishes to have no more of it, and my wish to respect that.
You Neurodiversity 'hip college kids" and flat out frauds, at some point you need to develop consciences, begin to understand the full impact of everything you do, the real lives of real people, all of us, Autistics and parents alike, that you violate and ravage with your stupid senseless self serving propaganda, and for what?
So you can have a little fame, a little undue sympathy thrown your way, a few goodies and your tap into desperately lacking supports and services that we, the severely disabled need in order to function and survive?
You are so incredibly shallow and self serving, narcissistic and callous to the real situations of others and the damage you cause us that its just mind blowing..
He claimed to be helping us, and now you claim the same
Why did Bettelheim do this to us? (and I say "us" because it was our whole families who were impacted), and why do you do this now?
What must he have been thinking?
What are you thinking?
Jonathan, I was the person berating Jerry Seinfeld in that video. You wouldn't believe the complete 180 I've done since then. I also have film I took that afternoon and night showing me also berating Ari and his group for being fake autisitics and cowards for not standing up and taking on low functioning autism needs. I now, and have for the past 7 years, believe ND is extremely dangerous to autistic people.
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