The Holocaust and why we should remember that it happened

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Oh God.

I hung out with a young woman with Down Syndrome for a few days when I was 13. Other kids in that group ignored her and said nasty things behind her back. Some of the things they said were a lot like these quotes. She understood that, and she felt that. One of the adults asked me if I knew other people like her, since I could get along with her all right. I didn't know any "other people like her", and I wasn't particularly good at getting along with her, but I knew other people and I knew bullies.

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A new persecuted minority. Let us not forget that either.

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Also, really, a fairly old one. I'm sure many autistics were considered insane or feeble-minded when those were two broad labels of people who were routinely sterilized or killed. Those things still go on (in smaller scale than they at some times and places have), and so does institutionalization and other forced segregation, either in the name of the psychiatric or developmental system (the new terms encompassing what used to be insane and feeble-minded). Just about anything unusual they can find an in-utero test for is slated for eugenic elimination, be it albinism or Down syndrome, and autism is only one of many things that is and will be targeted for this. In America (where I live) today, programs are being cut that enable the survival of a lot of people, and autistic people will be affected by this along with anyone else: I'm afraid for my own life at the moment, and there's truth behind that fear. But the forces that would take that away from me, and that have aimed to normalize or sterilize or institutionalize or euthanize people throughout history, have never aimed only and specfically at autistic people, and my own aims are to celebrate the variety and uniqueness and fundamental personhood in all of those of us who are targeted. Looking this kind of potential destruction in the face is one of the few times when autism doesn't set me apart at all, and I find myself more and more unable to act as if it does.

Uhhhhhg. Reading up on eugenics has made me sick to my stomach.

And to think that stuff like that was going on where I lived as late as 1992 in the public school system I attended.

Exactly. And about our not being a new persecuted group, you're right, of course. I think some people with an Asperger diagnosis who wouldn't have been considered "strange" in an earlier time feel it as something new, but I don't; in fact I suspect I might have been worse off 50 or 100 or 200 years ago.

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Anyone ever see Amedeus!? There is a scene near the beginning I think that show how bad any mental disorders were treated around the 17th and 18th centuries. Just that one scene is pretty disturbing.
These persecutions remind me of The Man in The Iron Mask and The House on Haunted Hill (the new version with Famke Jensen).

Even I have a few memories of attempts to force conformity, which as everyone knows works so well, just look at Tecumseh and readily he accepted conformity or Cetshwayo, or Liu Bei, or Spartacus, or the Phillipines at the turn of the 19th to 20th century, or the Confederacy, or the English Colonists of the 13 states, or the York family vying for the throne in the 1600's, or the French people in the late 18th century, or whites and the reds in russia after WWI, or Geronimo in the 19th century American southwest, or (several thousand examples later) Earl David in medieval England. I go on and on, but I hope you get the ironically and sarcastically put picture by now.

as recently as last year, in the "civilised" UK, my pregnant sister's husband was refused the information about the gender of their baby, as she had already said she didn't want to know. i applaud this, absolutely. however, it shows that eugenics is nothing new, and female children are STILL aborted or killed after birth, even in this "civilised" country.

In certain areas in the UK they will refuse to give this information out even if both parents want to know. And yes the wrong sex babies are still aborted in the UK.

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Last edited by Minus on 22 Oct 2005, 1:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Or, thanks to Doe v. Bolton, during the third trimester.

this is the oldest (deadist?) thread in this forum.

I think the person who raised Israel/Palestine did so in extremely poor taste.

Arashi?
it did not bother me maybe i'm not sensitive enough?
racial war was maybe too strong.

I'm in favour of the Palestine cause, it's just that saying "hey you jews! Remember the holocaust when you're dealing with the Palestinians" is an unfair comparison. It is also a bit Racist as the victims of the holocaust are now dead and have no bearing on Israel/ Palestine. I dont know. It doesnt matter anyhow as nobody's offended. You need uber pc liberal do gooders like me to get offended for you

That comment is way out of line, the Israelis could have wiped out the Palestinians at any time, instead they constantly try to use surgical strikes to kill terrorists without hurting civilians, and you want to compare that to the holocaust, are you out of your mind?!?!?!

I wouldn't take it too seriously, it's a typical knee jerk reaction. And knee jerk reactions in this case always fail to consider that maybe precision guided bombs are a lot less susceptible to collateral damage than car bombs.