Saturday, April 3, 2010

petition to oppose Ne'eman's appointment to NDC

petition being circulated to president Obama opposing Ari Ne'eman appointment to NDC:

Sign here

14 comments:

Unknown said...

As a Canadian I can't sign but I hope the petition is successful. The US generally carries great weight and influence in the world, especially next door in Canada.

I am very concerned that this appointment will help push US autism policy, and ultimately the world's, in the "don't cure autism" direction that Mr. Ne'eman advocates.

SM69 said...

Hi Jonathan

Whilst I do agree that Ari divides autism rather than unites it and that he should not be representing ASD, I am concerned that it would be hard for people to sign this petition. Several issues: 1- Most would see the nomination of someone on the spectrum as a step forward and it is hard to go actively against this. 2- There are a lot more ideas packaged in that petitions than the one that relate directly to Ari’s nomination. Even though I would agree with some of these points, there are not sufficiently nuanced on the whole. Because of the nature and diversity of autism, only a voice that is comprehensive, knowledgeable, inclusive, representative and balanced will do to represent it. It would be easy to illustrate why Ari is not fully knowledgeable, representative, inclusive, comprehensive and balanced, without asking people to endorse views, which are still currently under debate.

Jake Crosby said...

Harold, you can sign. John Stone did and he's all the way in England. Just say you are not a US citizen, it will be no problem. This nomination would affect everyone affected by autism, even those not American.

jonathan said...

Actually I would agree that it is not appropriate for nonAmericans to sign this petition as the NDC is paid for by American tax dollars and only serves American citizens, but I guess people will do what they want.

Of course to any American citizens, I hope as many of you as possible will sign this petition, though admittedly getting Ne'eman out of the running is a longshot

Jake Crosby said...

good point, on second thought.

Kent Adams said...

I would sign this petition, but it asks me to support views unrelated to Ne'eman and views I find that are delusional.

If the petition stated that Ne'eman wasn't sufficiently inclusive or representative and that he does not make a good candidate because he has shown a willingness to exclude LFA people and demonize those that don't support ASAN, I could support the petition. However, as presented, it would be demagoguery for me to sign onto something that spends the majority of the time trying to get me to endorse views that are quackery.

jonathan said...

As this petition I am pretty sure was drafted by Age of autism folks, who have a lot of views I don't agree with, there were some things in the petition that I did not agree with also. I did sign the petition however and qualified that though there were things I did not agree with, I opposed the nomination of Ne'eman, so I did sign, but with that caveat.

SM69 said...

I had not wanted to criticize the content of the petition too much, because I thought you had written it with Jake C, even though some points rather surprised me if they had come from you. Now you are explaining that it was written by the AoA, I can criticize it, because they should have written something a lot more focused and tighter than that. It sounds like very loose thinking to me. It is a shame as valid points are being embedded in this all. This has been a problem all along.

jonathan said...

Lorene: No I had nothing to do with the writing of the petition. This petition was sent to me by Jake Crosby who not only forwarded it to me but many other people as well. I am not sure who wrote the petition, but given the fact it was sent to me by Jake and the rhetoric sounded so much like AoA talking points, I think I can say it is likely that at least some folks from there were probably the one's who wrote it, but that is all I know about the specifics.

Though, like Kent Adams, I did not agree with a number of the petition's talking points, I think the need to go for the longshot of outsting Ne'eman is so important that I was happy to sign the petition and link to it on autism's gadfly. As I said before I did qualify in the petition itself that I did not agree with everything in it.

I guess if Jake reads this comment he can correct me if I am wrong about anything.

John Best said...

Kent,
Until you try chelation to see if it works for your son or not, you are the one suffering from delusional thinking, that being that the government gives a damn about your son and will tell you the truth.
Please`wake up and help your kid.

Anonymous said...

If the petition stopped after #3 I'd sign.

Oliver M Canby said...

I signed this petition as it would be absolute horror to have Ari Ne'eman in the White House. You don't have to agree with Age of Autism in order to sign it, as that is not its main point. It's main point is to get Ari Ne'eman rejected, and if you're for that then you should sign the petition.

SM69 said...

In the end, I signed with this message and a note on AoA's blog on the unrelated political issues attached to the petitions.

Even if you think Jonathan that non-US members should not sign, autism is a world issue. What happens in autism in the US entirely relates to what happens in the UK, so we are all implicated in this debate.


This is the content of my message to the petition:

Mr Ne'eman does not show sufficiently balanced and broad views of autism to represent it. His attitude is to divide our community and actively exclude the voices of others on the spectrum that either disagree with him or shed an uncomfortable light to his concepts of autism. The rise in autism rates, across westernized countries is a real phenomenon, not solely attributed to better recognition or changes of diagnostic criteria. This requires full and non-bias investigations, treatment and prevention, in addition to better accommodation and services. Effective biomedical interventions have emerged, but they do not benefit everyone and often do not address the issues affecting individuals fully. This also needs investigating. Educational and early intensive interventions are very beneficial too and must be provided, as early as possible and at no cost to families. These are not on Mr. Ne'eman's agenda, partly because of his insufficient knowledge of the fuller spectrum and partly because he presents with insufficient open mindless to other views.

Oliver M Canby said...

Yo Mitch! Check out the three new blogs I just created. You're in for a real treat.