a plan to destroy autism speaks

Post Reply New Topic

It is not hypocritical. It is what we call fighting the battle in the adversary's own arena. And I rested my case already, so don't start on it again.

Then do not feel the need to reply to this. If you were against sliqua (not saying there is any reason to be) then I would understand the "adversary's own arena. But I haven't seen Autism Speaks people here very much, if at all. Partially funded doesn't equal "their own arena"

But since you started on it, I might as well ride along, not with lengthy diatribes as I did with aghogday, but with statements.

If you're a football fan (association, not gridiron), you ever heard of Man City (an Etihad-sponsored team) playing against Arsenal at their own stadium sponsored by Emirates? Kind of works that way. I am fighting against that vile group you were talking about in an arena that they happen to sponsor.

A FEW FUN FACTS

1.wrongplanet is not owned by autism speaks
2.wrongplanet gets some funding from autism speaks
3.most of wrongplanets member do not suport autism speaks
4.no poster who has spoken out against autism speaks has ever been censured.
5.some posters who bully or try to intimidate those who defend autism speaks have been sanctioned but only because they made personal attacks

I have heard of the team Arsenal through a book series but sense I am american I could not understand the analogy, a lot of the names are ones I haven't heard of before.

So would you go to a NASCAR stadium (which is sponsored by autism speaks) and scream about how autism speaks is a vile company worse than the KKK?

Well, I can do that, but only if the stadium holds a large-scale debate involving Autism Speaks supporters and detractors, not on a NASCAR race where people don't know who Autism Speaks is or whatever.

So NASCAR is fine even though they are being sponsored by Autism Speaks? Why the double standard?

Just realized it could appear that I am using a made up example, I am not.

Oh, that's news to me.

If it were true, I don't know that the Mafiosi actually sponsors NASCAR. I'm no fan of car racing, and I don't happen to have access to NASCAR races. But that premise is something I could actually use against them, if that is true.

@dalurker.

Actually, I do know people, and have read things others have said, who don't want to be cured, who are both severely impaired and not given the label of Asperger's (Asperger's actually can include quite amount of impairment, but that's irrelevant to this statement anyways)

They don't want to gain things like being able to reliably speak. They don't want to stop being autistic even if they're prone to things that might kill them if they don't have solutions. They don't want to be cured.

The reasoning is simple and tends to fall into multiple of 4 categories.

1. They don't want to have to relearn how to live life without autism. Autism is part of them, and has shaped their entire life up until this point. Removing that means they'd have to near completely have to relearn how to live as a neurotypical person.

2. They have a strong sense of self identity, including their autism, and don't want to change themselves, but instead work around their issues. They want to get better at coping with the challenges, but they explicitly want to do that without removing them, because autism is part of themselves.

3. They want to succeed, even in a minor way, and share their abilities, as a potentially severely disabled person. There are people who are nonverbal who want to share their stories and have people learn about their abilities, about what they can do, about what they can do for others, without speaking. Doing this while nonverbal is about more than themselves, is about more than autism, and is about more than disability as a whole; its about people and how we judge each other and how we treat people based off of that judgement. Having those disabilities can make it easier to show people weaknesses they have and strengths others have. Some people value sharing that more than removing the struggles of their life.

4. They are happy as they are.

Sure, this isn't everyone. But this is a solid subset of the autistic community, even once you've limited the community to those which would be considered legally disabled.

There is nothing wrong with you for you personally wanting to be cured. There is things wrong with you saying that others have the same preferences as you do. It took me until my teens to realize that others might have different preferences than I do, but eventually I learned. These people, including some of us with Asperger's, some with speech delays, some without the ability to speak, do not have the same preferences as you do. They do not think in the same manner that you do. They are are disabled, they are struggling with things far beyond many people's comprehension, and despite this, would choose to remain disabled when given the choice.

I personally am among that group. I do have language impairments (its taken 10 years of speech therapy to get me to where I am now, I will go nonverbal for hours at a time, I am often not able to communicate my needs to others). I am incredibly socially inept, and the degree of which I am is being shown to me more and more currently. I have terrible hand-eye coordination to the point where people cannot believe that I'm not faking how bad it is. I have severe sensory issues that most people I've read posts of on this forum cannot imagine because they are that severe. I cannot drive and never will be able to. I cannot take care of a one bedroom apartment on my own. I'm applying for disability because every person, professional or not, who's attempted to help me find a job has responded with not having any clue how to work around my challenges. I am without question disabled.

Yet, don't want to be cured. If I was given the option of removing my sensory issues, I'd almost certainly deny it (though I would ask for my migraines to be removed). If I was given the option of removing all of my autism the question would be even simplier, there is no way that I'd make the decision to not be autistic. My reasoning personally falls into all four of the above areas.

Autism doesn't make me unhappy. Certainly it makes me have to deal with things that will make me unhappy that other's don't have to, but it doesn't make me unhappy. I can't say I'm always happy. I'm human, I deal with problems that I don't want to mention on things like this forum that will make me unhappy, but overall, I know that my life isn't bad, and I know that I can get through the periods of time that I'm unhappy and get back to my default optimistic, happy, autistic self.

How I go about my daily life is absolutely dependent on my autism, both in things I avoid, and in things I do. It would be far more difficult than people realize to have to relearn how to do things as complete as how to do dishes and those activities people take for granted.

I have an incredibly strong sense of self identity. I am Tuttle. Autism is part of me. I am autistic. I am me.

And something that I've only recently learned - my autism has given me abilities because of the impairments. I don't mean despite the impairments. I don't mean that I got random gifts with autism , I mean the impairments themselves are along with impairments, abilities that others don't have. The fact that I can't walk to the grocery store (a quarter mile away), and back without disassociating if its night time is not a good thing. It's not a gift. And yet, having to deal with that, knowing I deal with that, and sharing that I deal with that, has given me the ability to affect other's lives in positive ways that someone without that would be unable to do. People who disassociate for entirely other reasons have been able to learn from me. Professionals are able to tell parents things that their children are dealing with, such that the parents can change their actions to ones that aren't problematic for their child. People can learn. People can change. People can have happier lives, whether or not they are autistic, because of my impairments. How could I, personally, say that I'd take my life being easier, not necessarily any better, but easier, in exchange for not being able to continue learning, and continue sharing, and continue helping others because of these challenges? How could I say that I'd take my life being easier in exchange for other people's lives being less pleasant? It's not something I could do.

Not everyone is called to that. Not everyone has that manifestation of autism. Not everyone is called to put others before themselves to the point where it is actually likely a weakness. Not everyone has the interest in determining what they about themselves, and using that to share information with others that they didn't necessarily have. But some of us are. And the fact that we are impaired, the fact that we are disabled, the fact that some of the people I've read blogs of are nonverbal, does not change that part of us, the part that would choose a hardship for ourselves for the ability to make a difference in improving others lives.

No, not everyone impaired wants to be cured. Judging by the same amount of information as I have for you wanting to be cured (with you stating, it explicitly in posts online) I can claim that some people, though certainly not everyone, who are nonverbal and unable to take care of themselves, do not want cured.

Tuttle, I salute you for speaking out on this issue. You have my huge respect. Way to go!

What do you mean? Use what against them? I don't what nascar, just saw a commercial that autism speaks sponsors it (at least in some stadiums.

Wrong interpretation of the message. Admittedly I can see how people could take that assumption.

Actually, it was the Autism Speaks 400.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Autism_Speaks_400_presented_by_Visa

It was VISA who sponsored it, not those con artists. It said that for every ticket sold, US$5.00 goes to the Yakuza -- I mean, the Mafia -- pardon me, the Nazis -- Autism Speaks, rather.

Still, something to spit at. And wrong move for VISA and NASCAR.

At least in the US, you might run out of spit, before you run out of Corporations in the US whom are sponsoring the fund raising efforts to help individuals with autism across the globe.

Here is several pages of detailed efforts, linked in the first link below, of corporate sponsors that are fundraising as part of the effort and mission to help individuals with autism both in the US, and acrosss the globe

Some may be among corporations, that reach into your area.

http://blog.autismspeaks.org/category/corporate-sponsors/

http://www.walknowforautismspeaks.org/site/c.igIRL6PIJrH/b.7735105/k.8C71/Recent_Walks.htm

But the corporations are only a small part of the effort, per the second link above. The Walks that raise money from among the 340 thousand volunteers reported in 2010 on the IRS form 990, are efforts carried out throughout the country. But, perhaps the number alone does not provide a good idea of just how much support the organization receives from volunteers in the US.

If there are close to 300K volunteers associated with the walks, annually, and just 10 sponors per every walker, that is 3 Million separate individuals sponsoring and donating to Autism Speaks financially, just through this one aspect of their fundraising effort.

Here is a listing of recent walks in just the last 2 months and money raised:

Multiply that number by 6 per what one sees below and the expanse of their support through just this one avenue of walks, if one can imagine hundreds if not thousands of walkers at each event, and the scores of sponsors per each walker, it is an impressive amount of support. Overall, per the information below there is an average of about a walk every other day, throughout the course of a year. That's about 180 events.



I seriously don't think you have enough spit, to deter the enthuisiasm of literally millions of people in the US that are supporting, just this one organization, in their effort to support a mission to help individuals with autism in the US, and across the globe.

Keep in mind, there are over 2000 organizations just in the US, associated with charitable causes per autism, listed by the guidestar.org, that gather much more support in totality than autism speaks, likely measuring close to or over a billion dollars a year. As impressive as the list may look above, it is only a tiny effort compared to the overall effort. Not to mention the billions of dollars the federal and state governments provide each year for financial support for education, direct support, awareness, and research.

It is a constructive effort to support any organization that is making a positive effort to help individuals, but there is zero chance than anyone is going to actually harm a non-profit organization, that is well respected, with millions of supporters spread out across the globe, in support of a mission to help individuals with autism, with oppositional rhetoric backed up with no substantial evidence.

Again, at most, the free advertisement for "Autism Speaks" continues here on this site as this thread goes on with the catchy autism speaks phrase in the greenlighted topic continuing at the top of this discussion forum. The last one went three months.

That was three months with the opportunity for any of the average 14,100 individuals that browse through this internet site per day, to see that catchy phrase "Autism Speaks", greenlighted as a topic and google it, to find out what it is, what the actual reputation of the organization is, potentially adding financial support to the millions that already support the organization.

If any of the accusatory concerns you make were evidenced, the list above would not be the impressive list that it is.

I don't financially support Autism Speaks, but I as well as any other contributor to the discussions that keep the greenlighted "Autism Speaks" advertisements glowing at the top of the topics of threads in this discussion forum, are all unwitting volunteers of the organization, helping to ensure that that the free advertising does not die. The great thing for Autism Speaks in this effort is that the organization does not have to go to the trouble to count us as additional unwitting volunteers on their IRS form 990.

If I present an ironic tone, it is indeed ironic in a sense, but it is part of Marketing 101; any free advertisement that gets people to notice a brand name, is icing on the cake.

I would have never knew the organization existed, unless it was brought to my attention as a greenlighted topic, at the top of this discussion forum. I couldn't tell you what that phrase meant at that time, but I definitely understand it now, thanks largely in part to the efforts of others that have contributed here to the topic in this forum.

Also a pretty good example of a special interest related both to an organization, as well as an inherent part of autism. Most people, historically, who have had a special interest in the subject have described it as a negative one, but never the less, through that negative interest, close to 10 million people have probably had an opportunity to catch a glimpse of that brand name, through all the negative interest, in online autistic communities in the last 7 years, per the highlighted topics that include the brand name.

Autism Speaks hit the jackpot, per free assistance to raise money for the organization, with the birth of online autistic communities, in part, through the phenomenon of the trait of special interests. It was an unwitting jackpot though, if they did not make misteps, where there was no intention of offending someone, they likely wouldn't have stirred up the hornet's nest of special interest. We might be talking about the Autism Research Institute, instead, that absorbed the DAN endorsed methods of treating autism, that are highly controversial among some.

Anyway the issue is dying, there really are no more negative concerns of substance, and even self advocacy organizations like ASAN are moving closer to acceptance with their recent endorsement of ASA, another organization that fits into the category of the medical model of disability, as well as what is referred to as cure ideology.

Eventually when Autism Speaks and ASA are understood to be the same type of organizations, one just larger than another with a somewhat hidden sister organization that does research, Autism Speaks will likely drift into obscurity like other organizations, such as ASA, perhaps noted as an endorsed organization on the websites somewhere, but not a special interest for greenlighted topics that last for months, providing additional free advertisment focused on one autism organization. Perhaps some of the other 2000plus autism associated organizations will get their day on the top of topics, perhaps some in a positive light.

This thread has bumped up the Autism Speaks Goggle ranking eight point.

Key word use brings in the ad dollars to Alex.

Lets keep playing this fish!

Credit where credits due, it's mostly due to the good work of theimperiousdork
AUTISM SPEAKS, AUTISM SPEAKS, AUTISM SPEAKS, AUTISM SPEAKS, AUTISM SPEAKS