Political exploitation of personal suffering

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As somebody with autism myself, I dislike seeing the whole left wing intersectional crowd often claim autism as part of their list of oppressed groups. Generally I dislike the oppression heirachy these people push because it still perpetuates an oppressive mindset it just takes the current pyramid and reverses it. And as the old saying goes, two wrongs don't make a right.

So when I see autism lumped into this it bothers me for the same reasons I dislike that whole concept, except in this case it's personal. I don't think there's anything wrong with advocating for yourself and I do believe autism (and some of the other groups these people include in their coalition) do have their own unique challenges, I believe the way they go about the advocacy is regressive.

The reason I believe it is regressive is that the whole ideology is largely pushed by journalists, corporations, politicians, and entertainment industry juggernauts. All of these people are interconnected and there is significant mingling between them. They're basically an elite class that all mutually benefits from drumming up social outrage so that the politicians they've aligned with will win so they can dish out paychecks and favors to corporations and those corporations can dish out paychecks to others. It's almost like multi-level marketing all funded by taxpayer dollars.

It doesn't help that this ideology is attached to policy that gives government significant power which in turn helps perpetuate the interests of this elite class. The plot is this- The media, corporations, and Hollywood cook up incendiary narratives for a list of special groups for they want to get votes from exploiting that emphasize an oppressor vs oppressed heirarchy. This weaponizes genuine pain and suffering of people in a manner that incubates hatred, and of course with all the intense emotions related to these topics, people either rationalize or overlook entirely the more overly authoritarian policies they want and if that doesn't do it they'll create a moral panic around the issue.

This mixture of personal suffering, false empathy, moral outrages, and resentment churns out what are essentially acolytes to this ideology; people that adhere to every single position the elite class puts out there from their massive bully pulpit of cultural institutions. They can't think for themselves or break off from it because this ideology has taken the place of actually coming to terms with their personal suffering. Their pain has been successfully exploited by the elite class.

This initiative by the elite as some of you know has been a massive success and some of you might even be affected by it yourself. I want you to know if you adhere to this ideology- I do not hate you. I am not invalidating your suffering as part of a disadvantaged group. But I personally believe you have fallen into a snare that promotes authoritarianism and hatred and I believe there are other solutions that are far better for society.

Unfortunately, I fear that no alternative solutions will be adopted because this is what the elite wants, and it seems people are just going to keep falling for it as we march towards authoritarianism. Anyway, let me know what you think of my thoughts.

I'm not sure all those elites you mention are pushing intersectionalism, they're just merely worried about offending customers who acknowledge it.

I also fail to see how being more aware of oppression somehow reverses it.

I believe you've fallen for a lot of BS spouted by people hostile to these ideas about what they represent and pushing their regressive talking points isn't in anyone's best interests.

I don't think that what they're doing is economically advantageous for a business because you don't need to shove political messaging down your throat to respect peoples' identity. They could simply take a neutral stance to maximize customer appeal. A lot of people voted for Trump, after all and that's a huge block of customers to potentially lose. I think it's economically advantageous to make sure that the party that burdens your competitors win. Taxation and regulation is no skin off a huge companie's back when they can just outsource to China and make profits off slave labor. It's the small business that are limited to the American market that gets killed.

I'm not saying not to be aware of oppression nor even that said groups aren't opppressed. It isn't necessarily the diagnosis I disagree with, it's the prescribed solutions, which I find to be authoritarian and heavy handed. Why should I vote for a massive increase in government power just because LGBT and black people are oppressed? Surely there are less authoritarian ways to tackle these issues, and additionally the solution to hate certainly isn't giving hate back. That'll just lead to a back and forth where each side escalates hate in response to the other's hate. For instance the current media narrative on "whiteness" is a particularly nasty example of hate in response to hate.

And last off, I'm not some sheepish clone of Ben Shapiro and the right as you seem to be implying. I have my own views, some of which would be called left wing. I don't sheepishly subscribe to partisan politics pushed by authoritarian elites.

It's because the Left needs people to be victims. Even if they have to invent new categories of victim and place you into it against your will. That is how they obtain power and money by championing oppressed groups that they really care nothing about. They also always have to have a Boogyman to defend these victims against. Usually Republicans will do because that is why Republicans exist but most of the time the enemy is some vague (imaginary) movement like "White Supremacists" or "Institutional Racism".

Right now they've been creating a new enemy in the media called "whiteness". They posit that to have "whiteness" is to be inherently oppressive in your personal character. It's a pretty scary idea if you just look into history for previous examples of linking a particular race to bad character.

Who mentioned Ben Shapiro? There's a lot of talking heads who repeat similar talking points and those talking points tend to diffuse through media that isn't aimed at the far-right.

You're right that there are a portion of right-aligned people who might be driven off if they're offended and that's why historically companies have been hesitant to stake out positions that might offend those people. If they're willing to risk it now it's likely a calculated risk. They're not worried about losing customers who are nearing the end of their lives but they are worried about losing young potential customers who might otherwise become loyal lifelong customers for many decades.

But, among things I don't agree with your framing that discussing the struggles of people who might be disadvantaged somehow amounts to 'giving hate back'. It's that framing you're using that I'm pointing out sounds like those talking points because you're repeating those claims but not substantiating them in anyways. If that's your opinion all the power to you but it's not persuasive in the slightest.

I’ve never allowed any group or majority a say into what I feel pulled to do or achieve in life. We, on the spectrum, need to forge ahead without care of what others think, if we are to achieve or make any difference in this life. I learned this at the age of 16yrs. I only excelled because of oppression. It gave me reason to find a way out and make a difference for others, not just myself.

It is true that the right tends to be older and the left tends to be younger, but we're yet to know what actual percentage of Gen Z is going to be liberal/conservative. My guess is that they will be liberal, but I don't think it is because the left is particularly correct and logical, I think it's more like left wing ideology is all young people really see in media, and media companies see to it that anything else is throttled if not outright banned. You can't adopt other ideas if it's all you ever see. It's part of why people who grew up into a religion often stick to it for life, it's all they know. Maybe it is a calculated risk, but could you address my point regarding the potential advantages of having the democrat party in power for them due to outsourcing and dissolved competition?

I gave an example of them giving hate back already- the current left wing narrative about how to have "whiteness" is to have an oppressive and domineering personality. That is stereotyping an entire race negatively. That is hate. I understand that the people that oppressed black people were white, but that oppression isn't a defining aspect of white people in this day and age and to say so in my opinion is pretty hateful.

I notice your use of the term far right seems to be directed at any media that isn't overtly left wing. Which implies to me that you are hard left. I myself am not hard right or left, though you might consider me hard right because I disagree with the left on specific issues. I disagree with the right on issues too. I am just my own thinker as far as politics goes.

I agree with this mentality.

Does this kind of thing fit in with what you are saying?


North Carolina law ends supervision of Behavior Analyists

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btw I envy your writing skills OP

I don't know enough about your views to try to label you yet, but also on a personal level I like more specific labels than just right or left because those terms are terribly vague.

How else would you describe what the concept of whiteness in that context means to describe? It's not wrong to point out that a lot of white people struggle to understand the issues faced by PoC in their societies and this inability to get it needs a label to describe it. This conversation might come off as offensive because you don't like the problem being discussed from that perspective because it's hard to sympathize with but that doesn't make it invalid or just hate.

I don't believe the issue is always intentional gaslighting although that is often part of it. The other part is that people who don't want to recognize how deep it goes just fail to see it even when someone is offering up a specific example and they make excuses for it because they don't want to acknowledge that it's still a problem.

Labelling this notion as hate actually helps reinforce the arguments for why it's relevant. Trying to drown it out won't make it suddenly less relevant.

It's like the bitching about NTs that often occurs on here, it's just the perception of people who aren't in the majority of how the majority operates.

This seems to be an example of deregulation on the basis of helping autistic people get therapy. I agree with the act as it loosens that government grip on autism resources. I see that it is by a democrat government, which is interesting because typically democrats want more regulation and oversight on these kinds of things. It breaks the mold with the general attitude of the democratic party. Fyi, I'm aware Republicans also have stupid, authoritarian views as well. I'm not either.

Well I understand the strong emotions associated with the experience of being say, black or gay. I have a gay mom and black family so I firsthand have seen how hate against them can effect them personally. I think it is really hard to separate from those emotions to be like "ok, but not all these people are like this" and I certainly have experienced negative sentiment about NTs but I also make sure to check myself.

I feel like the conversation on how to address these issues with oppressed groups is currently being completely controlled by people who believe socialism is how we deal with it in part. What I would like to see is discussion of non-socialist solutions to these issues. That's more about the authoritarian policy than the hate. I believe that the actual authoritarians who spearhead this are indifferent to the feelings of the oppresed people they champion and are merely using them for votes so they can put in a semi-socialist (really, more corporatist) agenda. It's more of a marriage of megacorporations and the state to control people than it is socialism. It certainly isn't free market.

Politicians and activists have always exploited personal suffering, always have, always will.

Individual circumstances differ but in general if you are a member of a minority group you are more likely to be at a disadvantage be it overtly, covertly, intentionally or unintentionally then if you are not. The more minority groups you belong to the better chance you will bevat a disadvantage and be at a greater disadvantage. This fact of life is the basis of the concept of intersectionality.

What is being described above is the weaponized version of it sometimes referred to as “oppression olympics”. I think this weaponized version is harmful. It really boils down to the old saying too much of good thing is no good. It is beneficial for autistic people not to be naive, to be aware of these disadvantages. It is self defeating if one is fixated on this at the expense of enjoying what one can, a negative thought loop. If one thinks everything is stacked up against one it is so tempting to give up, easier to become mentally ill.

Making NT’s aware of their advantages and our disadvantages is a good thing. If you do nothing, nothing will change. A “woke” strategy of constantly confronting NT’s, constantly making them uncomfortable is going to have varied effects. You will win over some to our side that you would not have. You will trigger some ablests into exposing themselves.That is good. On the bad side you will turn non ableists into ableists. We are not there yet but suppose we got as powerful as some other “woke” groups have and are able to force a situation whereby they have a choice give in to our demands of face some very negative consequences. Many will hate us and become more ableist. Of those some will see resistance is futile and cave while privately seething. Their loss our gain I suppose. Some will become radicalized and commit terrorism. Most will find harder to detect ways to discriminate against us. I guess I am a dinosaur in this way of thinking but I think having people be neutral about us is not as bad as being hostile. Today's thinking posits that neutral is just as bad if not worse then ableist because neutrals enable ableists.

As I am sure most you recognize that above I replaced racist with ableist. The above at this point in time is for the most part hypothetical. I just do not see what the OP is seeing where the intersectional movement is embracing autistics. I see the opposite, because of the stereotype we are viewed as white, male, savants, a group of people that need to have our privileges checked. I don’t see anything like Critical Neurology Theory being mandated, no autistic mobs at the homes of ableists. This means we are not down that rabbit hole, we have a choice as to which way to go.

Did you start to notice that you faced challenges as an autistic person because celebrities, journalists, and politicians told you so? No, you didn't.

The same goes for people who are women, black, brown, or queer. They didn't need those people to tell them these things. They've been perfectly aware of them for decades if not centuries.

The fact that certain sections of the 'elite' now acknowledge the challenges these people face does not mean they are the ones who started it or keep it going.

Where do ppl get the idea that it's all celebrities, journalists, and politicians who started this? The people who think that are the people who managed to never listen to the people who are women, brown, black, or queer who have been talking about these experiences for decades if not centuries. Idgaf that a tiny tiny subset of the population wants to cash in on it--and even then, it's much less than what you and (ironically) much of the MSM wants me to believe.

Pull your head out of the internet and the for-profit news machine and consider the very real roots of these beliefs. They are not new. Study history. Read a book. Talk to people outside the internet.

Some people in society are oppressed. This is inarguable. Recognizing when one is oppressed does not foster inaction and self-pity. Recognizing oppression is the first step toward breaking that oppression for oneself and others.

Recognizing we are not alone in being disadvantaged is how we, as a group, can work together to destroying those disadvantages heaped on us by society. Doing otherwise is opening ourselves up to being divided and ruled. Doing otherwise opens up the
door for autistic children of tomorrow to suffer the injustice we suffer today.

This rhetoric of dismissing these movements as 'weaponising personal suffering's is not new either. The oppressor always wants you to think that your circumstances are unique to yourself so that you won't work with others to fix your lot in life.

There are people living in some of the best Conservative neighborhoods of Orange County (Ca.), and whose sole income is derived from the "Administrative Costs" they invoice to the fund-raising foundations they run.

These invoices can equal 90% or more of the funds those foundations raise.

Many of these "Fundraisers" work alone.

So ... you too can live as a wealthy Conservative gated community if you do not mind calling strangers on the phone all day, talking them out of their money by exploiting someone else's suffering, and keeping all but a few pennies out of every dollar they send to your "Foundation", as long as you can show that those pennies actually go toward some charitable effort somewhere.