The anti Autism Speaks I see are a "me too" organization, who not being able to stand out for good works, attack those who are doing something.
They see the money coming in, and want part of it, some use there are other ways supported by the Atistic Community, others just resort to blackmail, we will disrupt your Walks with blood in the streets unless you meet our demands.
If they knew anything about it, as I think the OP does, there is not an "Autistic Community."
There is an Afro American Community, unified by skin color, but little else.
There is a Gay Community, united by same sex sex.
Autism is everything anbuend pointed out, no universal agreement about anything, with the addition of parents, siblings, gradparents, teachers, who all hold other views.
As such the largest group would be parents and grandparents, and that is the focus of Autism Speaks.
So most of their media is directed at the non Autistic. It does come out as we feel your pain and share your suffering. People do need a place to vent their frustrations.
If that was all I would support it just as I support the group of Spouses and ex spouses of Autistics. They tried, but living with an autistic for years had the same result as us living in bright lights, with many people, and noise, We can do it for a while, but there will be a price to pay later, and it can all just meltdown. Plus this situation also often involves children, so coming to terms with autism is needed.
Autism Speaks does raise money for research, and as Autism is still undefined, both inside and out, the research is directed towards the next step in understanding humans.
They do not do, or direct, the research, that comes from peer reviewed science, and supports the whole quest for knowledge, that Autism Speaks, or funding from another source, would still be spent on the next research step.
So far the Autism directed has de bunked the snake oil cures that were common, metals, vaccines, proven that the genetics are complex, not a single defect, like Downs.
The money is now going to early childhood intervention, and it is showing progress.
Speach Therapy has been reported as having cured some of my problems by autistic people.
Cure is a slippery word, those who attack Autism Speaks say it means final solution, genocide, but the actual results seem to be getting to children before the First Grade, with speaking, social help, and pre school child therapists hardly seem monsters.
Now programs for adults are being tested, first in the lab, then small groups, before being made broadly available.
I am old, only heard about this a few years ago, but learned a lot on Wrong Planet, from Temple Grandin and Tony Attwood, which has been useful in my life, so I think the new programs will also be useful for us old folks. Some are not just for us, but hold promise of helping in many human conditions, so there are spinoffs.
While other groups have compained, such as Aspies For Freedom, their protest was against Psychology, and the dangerous use of drugs, commitment, and bring up those evils, they did put an end to a lot of it.
Other groups have less noble goals.
Times change rapidly, AFF was fighting One Flew Over the Cucoo's Nest, which was still going on, and much has changed since then. In it''s first few years Autism Speaks started by taking over the Quack Fringe, they went after Genetics, Metals, Vaccines, looked at drugs, Psychology, and basically disproved everything.
It cleared the decks for science, and the treatments coming out do have vality. We are hardly in the second year of a scientific look at autism, Autism Speaks is five?
AFF, Autism Speaks, and Wrong Planet all come from the same era, and have changed a hundred years of the views on autism. They are different takes on the same subject, all valid, and all converging toward what is best for the Autistic.
Looking at the autistic, they lack the unity claimed through ancestors, Afro, Hispanic, or sexual behavior, Politically, Intellectually, body type, you name it, it is all here. The Autistic seem to have little in common, except, a differance in thought and perception, that is near universal.
It blows up disability, disorder, defects, for it is like going to a mental asylem and finding that everyone, staff included, are sure they are Napoleon.
Also the place is full of INTP, ENTP personalities, both rare in the general population.
By that measure it is a natural human varient that 1% of the population shares, no matter what the rest of their background is. Everything Jung wrote about them seems true today, and it never was a problem till that Storefront Religion Psychobabblescientology got started pushing drugs in the 60s. They are the ones who declared an epidemic of new customers.
I am from before then, I assimilated, my skills were in demand, most adults report that we did fit in till the social types formed Human Resources and valued social skills above job performance.
We survived and prospered for thousands of years before then, and our isolation has been more than a small part of the fall of American Business. Well dressed social people with degrees in Communication have screwed it up totally. We have been in depression for a decade, still Dow 10,000.
The last two advances were from us, computers and the internet.
I do support Autism Speaks, for the programs they are coming up with would have helped me as a child, and when Jung's Personality Types were used during WW II, the cluster found on Wrong Planet would be chosen for detailed work that took learning, and they were in high demand.
All humans are one thing, and cutting away one part can cause all to fail.
I am Autistic, I see it as one machine with a structure, because our ways are rare, we are a very important part of the process.
So I can see that the children should get all the help they can, that autistics should be accepted, bookish, geeky, nerds, and Muffy with her dual Masters in Audio Visual Communication and Badmitton is not going to get us out of the mess we are in, nor is the sports star who used steroids and joined the Police, went to Bible School, and is going to tell us what Jesus wants.
We live in a complex world, no one can learn everything, nor the new stuff that is coming fast. We need people with focus, who can make a special interest in a narrow field, just to keep this running.
We are not the first human culture, there have been many, and they all fell to ashes.
I think Autism Speaks is doing great and important work for the wrong reasons, but it is getting done.
Our survival has been based on education and technology.
Our Culture for the last few decades has been based on social conformity.
The result is that people who have been a part of the culture for a long time and made it work, have been excluded for being less social, in the latest fad.
We did not change, it was the rise of Psychogy and Social Conformity that changed the world for the worse. The Silent Majority, The Christian Right, who produced a voting majority of anti intellectuals, and declared everyone who did not fit their standards to be defective, and most likely devil worshiping communists.
Autism has been used to show that Intellectuals do in fact have that Autism Disorder.
Autism Speaks will give children better skills, verbal, social, but will not change who they are.
Our Cure will come through Social Reintegration, and everyone will benefit.
01 Jul 2010, 1:01 am
