Attwood makes public statement in response to petition

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Attwood has made a firm public statement that Aspies do NOT make bad partners and parents, nor are they
any more prone to be violent.

This came in response to a recent petition
objecting to Attwood's involvement with two NT/AS relationship support groups, FAAAS and ASPIA. (Well, technically it came right after the petition, anyway. Tony doesn't mention it.) These groups had both published material which claimed that Aspies are prone to be abusive and damaging to the NT's close to them. Attwood frequently collaborated with these groups. The Aspie community was objecting to Attwood lending his credibility toward what was perceived as hate speech.

from http://www.faaas.org/doc.php?29,358 :

Attaboy, Attwood topic

Tony wrote this in his book The Complete Guide to Asperger Syndrome. I hope he stands by this and disconnects himself from what he was purported to have said.

This statement is nothing but vamping BS on his part until and unless he completely disassociates himself with, and no longer presents workshops for, the likes of FAAAS, ASPIA and similar hate groups. Period.

And FAAAS and ASPIA are not "support groups for NT/AS relationships." They are nothing more than hate groups perpetuating and promoting hateful stereotypes and damaging policies, period.

Hey, give the guy a break. He's got a great program for preventing alcoholism and drunk driving.

At least he does if he waters down his drinks half as much as he waters down his lame-ass excuses.

Better not let Jelibean see our comments on this thread!! !! !

realpolitik or moral cowardice?

Either way, Attwood's time of being everyone's best friend is over.

I have no problem saying I'm a fan of Attwoods. I've talked to him on several occassions and he's done a lot of good in our area for getting schools to see the child, not the dx, and work on helping them reach their full potential instead of shuffling them off in a SpEd class and slapping more labels on them.

I gotta love all these personal testimonials. Kinda like what George Bush said about Putin, "I looked into his eyes and I saw his soul," or all those women who went off with Ted Bundy because they could tell he was so sincere and caring.

I'm glad you told me how much Tony Attwood cares about the education of aspie kids. I don't have much of any way of knowing about my aspie daughter's education, and there's not much point in me having an opinion about it because I have more say about the Bangladesh Post Office than I have about my children's education.

It's totally illegal, but Tony Attwood and his friends don't have to worry about things like laws. Who cares about the law or some aspie guy when there's more money to be made getting brain dead estrogen junkies to lie and piss and moan about how aspies are so "abusive?"

There's no reason for Tony Attwood to care about my aspie daughter, since she's too young to have a credit card.

Harry, we worked together very well, and perfectly in tune, on the 'autism monster' campaign in the UK against the demonisation of a child with AS on television campaign by Action for Children. And, as you will recall, Tony Attwood gave the first and spontaneous fierce public statement about this, calling the campaign 'brainwashing'. It was very forthright. I recall that at the time everyone was spurred on by that honesty and open condemnation from the world expert, to offer their own support of the campaign we ran, between us. It worked. The campaign, with Tony's clear condemnation which encouraged others to condemn it, finished the ad thing a week ahead of schedule, and they never used the third of the prepared shoots.

So now 'Attwood's time of being everyone's best friend is over' ?????????

What's that all about?

Tony and I waited for you on Cambridge train station for over an hour. You didn't turn up. We gave up on your protest. It didn't materialise. Did it?

I honestly don't see anything wrong with what Mr. Attwood said. Leave him alone. I respect him very much and there is nothing that you or anyone else will say that will keep me from respecting him.

Thank you. And some need to access the ASPIA website, to see what changes have been made there. And not by threats - by negotiations.

More will happen soon, I promise, in its own time. But this can't be done by threats of violence, or stalking, which has happened so far. It's got to stop. Please.

The thing is this campaign isn't an attack on Tony Attwood as a whole, it's an attack on Tony Attwood's association with FAAAS. If he has his name removed from their "Professional Advisory Board", then I think most of us will be glad to declare him a valuable supporter of the autistic community again (depending on how long this thing goes on). As you can see here (http://www.faaas.org/doc.php?17,9,,341718p,faa256063,,,Index,map.html), he has not yet done so.

The public statement he has made is not sufficient - his name is still being used to promote the viewpoints he claims to oppose, by offering FAAAS a legitimacy it does not deserve. He could change this with a word. He has chosen not to.

I have no idea what Barbara's talking about when she mentions "threats of violence or stalking", unless she considers taking signatures at his conferences to be "stalking" - This has been an entirely civil campaign. I actually managed to talk to Tony personally about the issue, and it was a discussion with no bad feeling on either side - although getting him to commit in writing to some of the things he said in person has been difficult...

Good. You haven't got a clue about Harry's agenda - even though you've read it on here. Clearly.

Tony has no problem, at all. Nor have I.

Threats of violence - do you want the now cleared threats from Harry's blog?

Shall we start with this one:


"The right question is not where's my Aston hatchet job; it's, where's yours?

So don't get cute with me Jacobs or I'll kick your arse in an entirely non-metaphorical manner."

The blog's been deleted - which means that it's not possible to confirm or discuss any claims made about it.

Besides which, this petition was organised by Ari Ne'eman, with campaigns relating to the petition being organised through ASAN. Harry's agenda just simply isn't part of the discussion.

EXACTLY, thank you! Until he disassociates himself with that hate group FAAAS, I simply will not believe that he has our best interests at heart.