The Standard Review

Determining the Future of Aspergers and Attacking Character

This is the link to a story about the future of Aspergers.

The industry of psychology has been encouraged by parents seeking learning accommodations for their children and adults searching for answers to why people behave improperly.

Society can't be very accommodating when industry and the politics that support it are dependent on showing the worth of products and people at the expense of defining products and people that are worthless.

These comparisons are often justified by claiming that this is instead a competition to find what is best and what is true. Unfortunately, that alone wouldn't stimulate the economy. Therefore, comparisons are made without the necessity for any of them being ethical or good. It is only important that something or someone is described as bad so that something or someone else appears better and can therefore, be marketed.

Thinking as it relates to either pathology, mental illness, learning disability, or neurological impairment has always been described by the degree of impairment as it relates to the fleeting, unrealistic, and unattainable definition of normal and is supposedly used to define whether someone needs nothing but care or is in need of (or able to receive) some type of therapy.

Due to the market driven mentality that creates these comparisons based on nothing more than popularity, different degrees of impaired thinking can only be given so much aid. If the solution to the problem ever becomes too attainable people will see the true goals of the industry and their stock will plummet.

In whatever way that Aspergers is now used to define a higher functioning level of autism a similar word or diagnoses will ultimately replace that word if it's taken away. We who are attempting to better define a social model for autism are fighting against an industry and a mindset that the industry uses to create profits. Politics is an extension of industry so the same exclusionary and discriminatory methods are used there as well.

In order to create a product/person that people will buy a determination must be made of what people don't want and how to get people to invest in preventing or fixing what is considered to be the problem. In psychology this product is basically defined as abnormal.

The two leading industries who make decisions about autism are the must-be-cured/must-be-fixed disease model and the behavioral deficit model defined by ABA/PBS etc. Most of the decisions I see being made in politics will create profits for one of those industries.

Like all other definitions of thinking impairments, it will not be profitable to encourage "treatment"to this population based on their impaired skills. People don't typically buy based on practicality but rather on emotion and impulse. Peoples character needs to be suspected for people to get emotional enough so they will buy something. If people believed that people were being mistreated based on their level of skill, they would see the injustice more clearly and work to end it. Therefore, the marketing campaigns are designed to describe the spectrum of skills as a spectrum of moral character as it can be associated with appropriate behavior.

Claiming that people are diseased and can't help what they're doing, people are misbehaving and need to have that misbehavior treated, and people are too lacking in self-awareness and empathy to be given respect, makes up a lot of how people are characterized and dishonored by the psychology industry, and it provides the justification for the neglect and abuse.

The most important way I can think of to encourage the respect of autistic people is to expose how the industry's are profiting by using the most convenient and effective way they know to assign what they claim is our deficit of skills an association between that and ugly stereotypes about our character.

In order for people to encourage autistic people they/we need to get away from the unfair commercially driven standards which are used as reasons for treating this population so badly.

Don't the Privileged Deserve Privileges Too?

There seems to be a theme in many of what are considered life's most important questions. The discussions and debates which focus on those questions seem to be whether or not we are striving for perfection and sophistication at the expense of our humanity.

What doesn't seem to be discussed enough is who is benefiting most from our desire to become better and more sophisticated and in what ways is the general public manipulated into chasing an ideal in a way that will ultimately lead to our demise.

There is no longer any way to track what is considered knowledge about most subjects and what isn't by anything other than popularity. Popular opinion is what gets written about most and therefore, the exposure defines its validity. The subjects that matter to the people with the most power are what gets written about. However, what this population is concerned with is mainly privilege and therefore, basic human rights are ignored by default.

The best way to protect this privilege and keep the focus on privilege rather than what will best provide basic human rights for everyone is for privileged people to use their resources to persuade the belief in whatever they claim is true and to get people to strive for the unattainable in a way that they exclude and even abuse the basic human rights of their neighbor. Once a standard is set that the majority of people don't have the resources to achieve the people with the resources to manipulate the standards can manipulate and enslave this population.

The way to create discourse among these people is to teach them that privilege is just normal (which means they are abnormal) and to focus their attention on the claim that society is overly concerned with providing for the poor and disadvantaged who are unworthy due to their bad character. As long as people believe the advantages are earned those who have them are enabled to believe in and abuse their authority over those who don't.

I often hear from people who won't acknowledge what I write, unless I validate it in their eyes by borrowing credibility from someone who has written the same thing. Thinking is considered mysterious and dangerous to many people. This is how many serious issues concerning human rights are treated as nothing more than a superfluous game.

Unfortunately, due to people with the experiences I write about being so discouraged from feeling that they will have any impact on changing things and due to them not having the knowledge of how to speak in a way that people are accustomed to hearing so-called credible people talk/write, they are silenced. The association of people with these experiences creates a force that society can easily be attacked and broken.

This means that no culture can be established, no pride in that culture empowers them, and ultimately no progress is made in establishing the respect that people look for when determining who has rights.

Education is not only a privilege, but it is the privilege of knowing how to sell particular knowledge so that you and the people you learned it from are accredited and revered for salesmanship skills. The freedom of information has been hijacked by people who decide what is and isn't information.

Although most educational pursuits may have been liberating to others in the past it is now too often nothing more than an industry (as well as a part of and beholden to many other industries) who use their product as a means of oppression.

Many types of intellectual disability as well as other labels that describe how people are excluded from education are associated with ugly stereotypes and this population is silenced in a multitude of ways.

Neurodiversity as a movement cannot build and sustain momentum by showing how some autistics are able to achieve an education thereby separating themselves from the plight of the intellectually disabled. People showing how they can meet standards that are exclusionary is fine for individuals but true liberation of a group cannot come at the expense of other groups.

Education is also not just a road to academic pursuits. Many other vocations and achievements that socially validate people are based on the same exclusionary standards.

Too many subcultures are describing their oppression based on specific means that target their specific groups rather than accepting a broader systematized attitude and by doing so they often unknowingly adopt the same attitude. Of course people can change and of course humans are very resilient and able to overcome great obstacles. However, if the standards don't change for how standards are arbitrarily made and changed due to privileged whims  then whether or not any of us are liberated will be decided by the view of those with the resources who do not need to be concerned with our welfare.

Conflict of Interest

One myth that causes a lot of confusion and upset is that people are either competitive or lazy, or they are instead being passive/aggressive. Such motivations can only be attributed to people based on their behaviors and behaviors are too often narrowly judged by too few comparisons.

Once these judgments have been made in error they are too often accompanied by undue punishment. This is one reason that behavioral therapy can be so destructive even when it is described as constructive.

Due to the way that society is taught to chase trends based on emotion and impulse, independent thinking and the liberation it encourages is greatly discouraged. The ways we are taught to be consumers is heavily influenced by behavior modification methods.


Once people who for whatever reason are otherwise unable to determine their circumstances has their motivation judged by a narrow set of standards the ways they can be controlled and manipulated have few limitations.

It is very inconvenient to not be chasing what someone else claims that the majority wants (which is typically motivated by commercialism) or to want something so extravagant as safety and individual expression. It is typically fine for people to join in and advocate with others to attain something so that everyone can be judged by the same standard but to individually express what no one else seems to be in control of, even an expression that is an essential need such as safety or human rights, it is seen as aberrant and dangerous.

At the same time, evidence is growing to show the mental health industry as serving as the protectors of the public rather than wanting to provide therapy and rehabilitation to the population they label. The education that psychology provides is also meant to provide a standard of normal behavior that they know will exclude many people who society wants to dispose of. What are described as learning disorders can exclude people for racing thoughts, attention deficit, being overly excitable, and for generally not being able follow directions.

Thinking in specific ways and the ability to chase trends is very important in today's society. It not only determines what we buy and when we buy it, but it also impacts what products are chosen for international trade, what employers are looking for, and therefore, how we judge intelligence and even character.

The combination of quick prejudicial and unreasonable judgments about what people think along with a growing demand for a mainstream consciousness allows autistic people to be very vulnerable to abuse and neglect along with warehousing for the disenfranchised or for when all else seems to fail.

The best way I know for including more people and changing the thinking that leads to so much oppression is encouraging people to think independently and express independent thoughts. The narrower our judgments become about what people want and what their motivations are the more dependent we are on people who can make our decisions for us. Including more people who think different things or think in different ways is an important part of what will turn that around.

Incomplete Assignment

The judgment of how people think as in good vs. bad and smart vs. not smart is how the terms high vs. low functioning are justified.

When it comes to types of thinking (in three divisions of intelligence, pathology, and neurology) all labels are assigned in terms of severity by the amount which is determined that someone's thinking deviates from the norm.There is no diversity but instead only hierarchy.

People who are with the least resources will ultimately have all these divisions disappear and will be classified as simply having their thinking to be wrong and bad. The only reason the divisions exist in the first place is so that supposedly there will be therapy and/or accommodations but once someone has reached a level of convenient isolation from the public, they are all placed in one group who are simply seen as bad and a drain on public resources.

Sometimes that includes warehousing with walls and sometimes the warehousing that is isolating and abusive by the same institutional methods is without the walls.

Advocates often dismiss this population in the same way as public programs do. People who have attempted to create advocacy movements or a culture who speaks on a behalf of a group that includes this population have been every bit as exclusive.

Debates are held within a realm that discounts every statement made by them and demeans them as much and sometimes more than those who were considered their oppressors.

One of the ways people in the United States declare a democracy is by those who have the power to do so assigning a false label of power to oppress populations so that they will seem justified in further oppressing them.

It's sort of like planting a weapon on someone after they've been killed by someone else with a weapon. The weapon really never did them any good, but now it can be seen as though the killers aggression was justified by needing to protect themselves.

This is the largest group of people and yet those who claim to be helping them never encourage them to have independent thoughts or to share what they have learned from their experience.

For whatever reason they have become isolated, they are now seen as the craziest, the dumbest, or those with the greatest impairment in thinking for whatever reason in order to justify the original false hierarchy of judgments that divided them in the first place. My experience is that these judgments are due only to their circumstances and resources and serve only to "protect" the public from having to acknowledge their existence by conveniently making them invisible.

The moral justification for excluding this group has no basis in fact. Yet they are further labeled as having rights and being empowered in places where they are not. The claim is that the standards are the same for everyone, but it is not factored in how most people who have no way of determining our fate do not have anything like the level of resources as those who speak on our behalf.

The claims I have seen of creating an autistic community have not accepted any responsibility for avoiding this injustice as they move forward. Instead I see political pragmatism as being a guide for all decisions made on behalf of the autistic population. I sincerely hope this will change.

I have never seen a political effort to liberate this group. I have never seen a culture who aspired to include them. Many who are part of this group at this point will tell you that they don't care. Many are also accepting of the value judgments of others who see them as unworthy of encouragement. For this group to be encouraged the standards that exclude them need to be reviewed. The walls created by privileged peoples attitudes need to be torn down and then people will see this otherwise invisible group and hear from them as to what they want and need for true inclusion to occur.

Chasing Validity

Chasing the valid opinion or trying to determine how others will decide what is the most popular opinion is such an exercise in futility. As long as the unreasonably justified methods of such determinations are not honestly evaluated and a fairer and more honest system of equal justice is demanded so much of what we do becomes useless.

Relativity is usually just an excuse for drama and games of better than less than. It needs to be understood by more people that being in the right place at the right time and absorbing the most popular view typically creates nothing more than delusions of grandeur.

Having what you say be seen as valid often has very little to do with being right or saying what is true. It's usually more of a political game or an arbitrary declaration of what events are historical and what is judged as hearsay due to not enough important people declaring it worthy of their attention. The objective of these games is for enough people to join the group for whatever reason in order to overpower the another group they oppose. Once the total focus of a group is to discount what another group says or even one person whose focus is to discount what another person says often the other views that need to be discussed are similarly discounted due to the blindness which comes from seeking the thrill of victory at all costs. Within such an environment, all variations of opinion along with all efforts dissolve into the wave of the mainstream consciousness.

This mainstream consciousness is encouraged by ugly stereotypes that polarize people's opinions
 so that the standards and the people who are already in positions of power as a result of those standards doesn't change. This begins by people being defined as either for or against something or someone. The fate of an idea or even the person who brings up the idea is validated based on the personality of the presenter. To whatever degree this is inappropriate and harmful to other groups having to fight for their civil rights, it is crucially detrimental to autistics who have to do so.

What is unpopular and uncomfortable about autistic people did not only come from the label itself. Instead it is how the characteristics themselves have traditionally made people uncomfortable that created societies need to create a label in the first place. Trying to give credit to the functioning levels of autistic people will continue to isolate and hurt rather than help everyone's cause as long as functioning remains an arbitrary value judgment attributed to the people themselves.

When people try hard to not qualify their statements in an effort to allow an idea to either be seen as valid or invalid based on nothing more than the merit of the idea itself, often people are prone to not be able to suspend their typical and unfair methods of judgment.

An experience demands ownership. There are as many different ways of describing the very same experience as there are people who have the experience. Because no two people can have the same experience the experience itself becomes relative. The trouble is therefore, in the judgment of how others determine the validity of the experience. Because societal rules demand certain types of evaluations of a person's validity based on the unreasonable and unfair classifications and assumptions, fighting against those rules is really the only way to liberate an otherwise marginalized group of people. Attempting to do that by any other means is just a part of the same typical cycle of oppression, which unfairly gives more to those who already have power at the continued expense of those who don't.

However the societal rules that are now in place came into existence it was not done fairly.  It was also not done without giving power to people due to nothing more than their name, social status, or how their particular set of skills (often a matter of personable and personality skill) were arbitrarily given status that would be undue to them in another place and time.

Autistics are an oppressed group. Not just because some are less capable than others or just because some can pass societal standards when others can't. It's also not necessarily because some are employed and others are described as dependents. The main reason is that what autism represents is something that makes people uncomfortable. It doesn't need to make people uncomfortable and all that would be needed to overcome this discomfort is by the same means of understanding and liberating any oppressed group.

This understanding comes from evaluating why the discomfort and therefore, the disrespect exists. It is because people don't ask why certain aspects of people make them uncomfortable that people are marginalized and disrespected due to unrealistic assumptions. That is where opinions are truly made valid or invalid because taking on honest inventory of those discomforts and adjusting ourselves accordingly is what makes people whole and makes us a whole society rather than fragmented by unrealistic and unfair judgments. With fair unprejudiced evaluations, people would naturally be accommodated without all the unfair treatment that typically goes along with that.

The way the United States has traditionally learned to expediently and conveniently deal with unwanted populations is by a method of warehousing. Warehousing (or institutionalizing) provides a way of categorizing people similar to the franchising principles of McDonald's, the auto industry in the way that Henry Ford designed, or the construction practices of the Hoover dam, the interstates, the railroads, and some of our largest bridges. Much of the surviving population who was on this land before the European invasion is today warehoused on land that is sometimes glamorously referred to as "reservations". Many of the surviving populations who were enslaved are warehoused in what are glamorously referred to as ghettos and housing projects. If you look at the way the residents of New Orleans were treated by what was glamorously described as a natural disaster, you will further see an example of the methods the United States uses to herd its most unwelcome citizens.

Every time a decision is made in the United States that does not factor in the well-being of everyone who is affected by that decision, the warehousing principles are again reinforced as to how we do things. I can't think of a phrase that I find more offensive than "that's just the way things are". Every bit of the way things are would change tomorrow if everyone were given a vote. The problem is that this opportunity at this point can only come with encouragement. Without this it is no opportunity at all.

If all opinions were judged equally based on their own merit with personalities not be the deciding factor we would have freedom of thought. Until that happens, we don't have the right to free thinking.

The part of the autism community who is judging expressions based on how they assess which is the most important expression are the ones who are ultimately creating more marginalization, more institutionalizing, and more oppression of autistic people.

When people claim that we as the autistic community should try harder to get along, they often reinforce the validity of the already bad typical standards which create the biggest division of all. The attitude expressed in this validation is ablism. Ablism is the pathway to warehousing. Warehousing for autistics will come in the form of mental institutions and the public programs (including behavioral programs) designed for people who have supposedly been "freed" from institutional living. These opinions are as oppressive as the forces that result from them. Encouraging those opinions is how people have been oppressed all along.

Ghosts Matter; Autistic Inclusion

There are many reasons that so many people in our society are silent or are hidden. As I have written about in previous posts one of the reasons for this is that forms of media, which are considered mainstream encourage a narrow set of unattainable elite standards, which encourages people to want to achieve what they can't and are reminded of how they are seen as unimportant until they do. However, the main reason for this group's exclusion (which most other reasons can be attributed to) is the lack of encouragement.

It's not just that this population is fed a constant stream of images, which reminds them of what it takes to be considered important but everyone else in their environment is fed the same. This is how people draw conclusions about themselves as well as how they judge and often discount others. Oppression is most easily achieved when the oppressed accept standards that can be used to discount each other.

I'm glad that something I say on the internet sometimes seems to be important to others. If I was required to say these things by being directly in front of someone rather than writing them (even if I could string words together) many things about my appearance and my presentation would remind people of how unimportant my thoughts were. I have found though that there is enough lacking in how I present myself on the Internet also which reinforces the same standards.

I have heard that even the Internet may become much more exclusive soon. It seems to me that it would of course become that way. This means that more of a financial investment would be required to have a website that the general public can access. This means that this medium (the Internet) will become more exclusive, more commercial, and the commercial interests of those who run the websites will demand the same typical unattainable and exclusionary standards of those who present their message.

I don't believe that anyone ever thought that the Internet would be used much as a tool for liberating oppressed minorities. To whatever degree it has been used in this way I imagine this window of opportunity is quite limited by time.

I'm very appreciative of others who have spoken up on the internet before me about the things that I feel are important and those who continue to do so. I especially appreciate when they've done so in an environment where it wasn't popular.

What is considered truth and even the so-called facts that we use to determine what is logical are tainted by a set of values, which excludes the worth of most people.

At times when I was hospitalized, I would see someone who was being treated badly by a staff member fighting back in a quite unfashionable manner. I look back at that now, and I consider that to be advocacy. The only place that advocacy may have really changed things is in the mind and heart of the person who is being abused by helping them to realize that they didn't deserve to be treated that way. However, now for those who read what I write I can tell you that you also benefit from what those patients did because what I saw ultimately affects what I write. It also affects why I write.

Too often I hear people speaking of solutions to oppression by means, which are less-than-radical when they aren't considering how unreasonable that it is to expect in some places and by some people based on how they have been treated, and what they have been taught about their personal worth. If we wait until everyone meets the typical standards for expressing themselves before they are listened to those standards will continue to become narrower as will our version of the truth.

Whatever I have felt I needed to do to get heard is something that I hope others won't need to do. All the abilities I have, which are the result of extreme pressure and abuse (which pretty much includes all of them) are worth very little to me except for how I'm able to protect myself and others.

I appreciate hearing comments on blogs from people who are speaking up and speaking out more than I do from what is otherwise considered a formally educated opinion.

The autistic people that aren't being heard right now are most likely not formally educated nor do they most likely appear fashionable. Sometimes they are people who have put up the worst shit and told more often and more strongly than anyone, of how they are viewed by society as worthless. Typical standards are not likely to encourage these people and adhering to those standards is not likely to encourage them to begin to feel empowered and to speak out.

Without what I am suggesting autistic people will have a few (or only one) political groups with very narrow views who speak on our behalf and those groups will not be required to accept much if any alternative opinions.  Like most political groups the objective will be pragmatic and momentum will be protected at any costs to the population being advocated for. Autistic people will continue to be divided between the high functioning token performers and the low functioning who are considered to deserve pity and treatment by whatever means necessary.We will have one monopolizing commercial method of control used by schools (sometimes referred to as  educational supports) and all other public institutions which will define us as behaviorally challenged and will set and change the rules at will by which we are restrained and punished.  We will need to qualify our every statement and refer to how it qualifies as valid based on the statements of celebrities whose accomplishments set the standards by which we are judged.

This is the future I want to avoid. Autistics just like all minorities need to speak out with whatever means they have available. Even more importantly I hope those who can see how these voices have been suppressed will be encouraged to find more ways to include them. The standards and values we show appreciation for are what will determine our future and the typical standards we have now were not created with these voices in mind.Our inclusion won't be created without work, and if we want a society that includes more people we need to include those who are now excluded in the decision of what the society we hope for will look like.

How and Why Junk is Sold

A society which focuses on the buying and selling of any product with little regard for its value to the purchaser and the effect the purchase has on the rest of society is encouraging false hopes and the insecurity that accompanies those hopes.

Education in the United States is a product that often does not liberate, encourage, or empower the masses in the way that is sometimes described. When education is used as a tool to create the illusion of dominance by people who have been included and gained authority by this structured hierarchical system it often instead discourages and further enslaves the masses who are excluded.

There are classrooms that teach of differences in beliefs and cultures from all around the world but very few that teach about the most prevalent culture in the U.S. Instead this culture is discouraged even from existing as a culture at all and independent thoughts and ideas are either ignored or even punished. This group is considered ignorant, lazy,and for the most part, unworthy of respect. They are certainly not encouraged to think and their views are given little validity whatsoever.

Personal Note: (and I really hate to do this )

      As I have said before (apparently not often enough lately) this blog is for the promotion of thinking and the encouragement of people to express themselves even when their views are rarely accepted as valid in mainstream society.

All I think about is stuff that I learned from experience and from casually observing what others say. I have never studied anything, and I don't really read (or at least not very well). My documented education level would be the equivalent to that of graduating elementary school (7th grade) although I haven't been to school even nearly that much. I have always wanted to go to school and have worked very hard to get the opportunity.

After a complicated birth and weeks spent on a respirator, the doctors informed my parents that if I survived, I would have CP or be otherwise be mentally retarded. I was diagnosed with learning disabilities as a child (although not much was specific), mental illness as an adult (again often unspecific and usually incorrect), and was considered disabled when I became an adult. As an adult I have been diagnosed with autism. Furthermore, as an adult I've spent my time either in mental institutions or government run programs. . (which make up the experiences I draw from to write my blog) Now I avoid any and all evaluations whenever possible. Also, I don't read very well and typically use voice recognition and text-to speech on the internet along with programs that correct my spelling and grammar.I have not accomplished anything that would show me to be someone with abilities, knowledge, or skill.

As far as how my education relates to this blog, I know nothing about history, psychology, or any other subject I refer to on this blog. I have no authority nor have I ever wanted it. I don't want to be an iconic figure or even to influence anyone beyond the idea of encouraging and validating more ideas and expressions. (and BTW this really isn't an invitation for others to "educate" me on this blog. Please consider I may have had enough of that by now.) (end note)

Those who are in positions of power in the US evaluate most people as non-contributors. Most of what is said to be "the way things are" is based on statistics that a large majority of people is not included in.

Ranking the validity of one person's experiences over another (for how typical standards evaluate those experiences) as the basis of truth for anything is every bit as arbitrary and speculative as ranking the validity of information or what may be considered "truth". The only thing that a subject which is taught in school or anywhere else can depend on is how history has recorded events. History is very exclusive. Things that are recorded and change how society does things are recorded in a way that our societal values have taught us of who we need to watch and what types of actions we need to look for.

I personally attempt to give more of my attention to the voices who are not otherwise heard. This is not to level the playing field because that will never be done. I simply choose this way because I believe it is the best thing that I can do with my time and energy. It's not a reflection on how others do things as much as it is based on how what my experiences and the values I have learned as a result have taught me that this is the best place to focus my attention.

The reason I advocate for this is because typical standards of evaluation are already given plenty of validation, and I am privileged to have been given the ability and the experiences that enable me to see things differently.

It's good when we don't associate so much of our self-worth with how valid society sees what we think and do. It's even better when we can look beyond how typical values have validated some people at the expense of making the thoughts and experiences of someone else less valid. Every person has the right as well as the responsibility to acknowledge and show respect for as broad a spectrum of diverse abilities that they can personally see. I think that's important.

Individuality & Respect

 

This is cross posted at Turner & Kowalski

Individual people and individual thoughts are very important to recognize and respect in order that a civilization that still includes ethical boundaries is protected from corruption. No group can effectively fight for the civil rights of some at the expense of the civil rights of others. The number one concern of any civil rights group needs to be the encouragement of individuality. Otherwise their message will contradict itself.

The denial of civil rights is based on exclusive standards that empower some at the expense of others so in order to combat this it won't work to discourage individuality and individual expression. Individuality is validated when it is seen as diverse rather than being ranked by typical hierarchical standards.

A society that discourages regulations can allow power that does not need to be earned and the corruption that follows it to exclude and even destroy those who cannot or choose not to defend themselves by unethical means. This denies people their civil rights by encouraging people who have attained and established power by unfair means to continue in their oppressive ways.

Those who are considered disabled have often had their rights denied because others chose to (in a way they often call charitable) reinforce the standards by which disabled people were oppressed while at the same time claiming to be helping them. Doing this seems to suggest that somehow oppressive means are not systematic in nature and that what needs to be overcome is simple. It is also a way of validating the standards that exclude most disabled people by showing how their favored few are worthy of the elite's acceptance. This ultimately excludes more people than it includes.

Oppressed people are exploited and otherwise used to support a very few with their excessive consumption. The only way that this consumption is ever justified is by how people who would not otherwise be employed are given the opportunity to benefit by serving this insatiable apatite.The justification isn't valid because this servitude displays and promotes a class system that continues to oppress the majority. People are formally and subtly educated to believe in revering specific symbols of class status that are unattainable to them. They are not taught to be the best that they can be and to accept themselves as valuable. All they see are unattainable images that discourage their security and self-worth.

Once people understand and are educated in the way that they unknowingly promote standards that exclude and demean them, they will hopefully stop fighting against each other by either claiming they deserve assistance while someone else doesn't, or that they are further up the ladder of being someone that deserves respect due to status they have fairly achieved. Either way, this is reinforcing standards that exclude all of us.

In the US where commercialism is king, celebrities and the commercially advantaged are our royalty.The disability community has recognized that oppression is the result of a set of values and has attempted to assert themselves as who they are rather than attempting to present themselves in ways that compliment exclusionary standards. This unapologetic expression is done as a sign of unity and respect for each other.

Since autistic people have now been recognized for being able to assert themselves against their own oppression some seem to want support from the disability community while at the same time separating themselves as better than "those" people.

The disabling ways that society treats autistic people are now being fought in commercial and political arenas by a movement defined as (you guessed it) neurodiversity. It is an unfortunate trend among some within this movement who not only don't want to be associated with any type of disability, but they don't want to be associated with other autistics whose abilities are less respected.

They use words like Aspie, spectrumite, and spectrum people, which show (in ways they may not be fully aware of) how some autistics are more worthy of respect than others in a similar way that broader exclusive standards show admiration and respect for one group at the expense of another. Anyone without a valid societal classification is often seen by the majority as deserving of charity and sometimes even unethical treatments.How society interprets these terms is most important in how they are publicly used.

I can't imagine any other group defined by their classification of disability aligning themselves politically with groups that encourage a treatment that is as harmful and disrespectful to those within that classification as ABA is to the autistic population.

When such a group also demands absolute solidarity and will target and exploit any individual who is seen by how their questions and concerns may compromise the momentum of this group, they are hurting themselves and their cause. Individuals who are only seeking validity often have their valid concerns dismissed and/or attacked by those who are seeking power and who will only regard any dissent from their following as a threat to that power.

A civil rights group that goes by the name Neurodiversity and yet discourages individual expression along with only listening to people who have attained celebrity status (in their group or the broader public) is a bit of ironic to say the least.

Exclusion is no more advantageous for a civil rights group than it is for an exclusive broader public. Exclusion is not practical and the few that may be served originally will ultimately be hurt just as bad.

If people allow for and participate in unregulated and unethical methods of thinning the herd and promoting exclusive and elitist standards they need to be very careful to recognize, they too will ultimately be rejected by the set of values they have encouraged.

Disabling Attitudes

Around 1980 the mood and attitude toward civil rights changed quite drastically in the US.

Along with more incentives and less regulations on business came a resurgence of the idea that better enabling the best and the brightest would also allow resources to trickle down to those who were really in need.

The ideals of unregulated capitalism support the old ideas of how charitable organizations pity disabled people rather than getting involved and accepting their difference in how that requires support.

The slogan of the disability community "nothing about us without us" is meant to help in the battle against the hierarchical notions that exclude disabled people. This means that a disability is not simply similar to a characteristic of our appearance but instead is something that defines how we need to be equally enabled like the rest of society. You can't truly be respectful of disabled people by showing their strengths in the way that they would commonly be revered in typical society at the expense of the people who are truly in need in of what are now considered atypical supports. You can't overcome ugly stereotypes of people by supporting values that encourage those people to be seen as ugly.

It is insulting to disabled people to focus on how some people can overcome the unrealistic typical standards that other disabled people do or how they are simply not the ugly stereotype. Doing that supports the standard rather than changing it. It makes disability advocates less unified and more competitive rather than encouraging and supporting people right where they are.

In the early 1980s the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) which has been shown to receive more than half of its funding from the pharmaceutic industry stole the independence from the population they claim to serve along with many of their opportunities to personally fight for their civil rights.

The majority of the participants in this so-called advocacy organization where parents of those affected rather than the people themselves. As the result of the parents domination within this organization NAMI was enabled to be highly instrumental in government decisions that were not in the best interest of those who are most affected by the laws.

Kendra's Law is an excellent example of this. Kendra's Law is based on the claim that schizophrenic episodes are likely to result in violence. The claim goes to support a law that allows family members, spouses, friends, and mental health workers to demand that someone be admitted to a psychiatric facility (which can begin with out patient care and forced medication)without their consent.

The people who are allowed to make these decisions are not the ones who have an understanding of what these facilities are like as a result of having been there. They would also not have the same understanding of how the police and mental health workers would be likely to abuse this law in ways that would justify their abuse.

The majority of people who understand how these laws directly affect this population would not support this law. The fact that most of these people don't vote is part of how they are further exploited. Supporting standards that give the best and the brightest the right to make all the decisions that affect them is extremely disabling.

This is Mental Illness Awareness Week and I would like to remind people that there is little power that this population has to influence decisions that are made about their lives. It is a perfect example of everything "about us without us".

People who advocate for the rights of autistic people need to be very cautious and remember how historical events have exposed our disabling attitudes and exposed what are methods of advocacy that have harmed rather than helped those whom they claimed they were serving.

When I hear people use the term "with autism" rather than autistic (and at the same time claim that they are neurodiversity advocates) in order to have their message more broadly heard and accepted it causes me to question their sincerity or at least their judgment. Jim Sinclair as shown the importance for using first-person language very clearly. To claim that it is more reasonable to join the majority is a way that people show their support for personalities and personal messengers and getting any message across rather than support for the real message and disrespects the experiences that have taught people why this is important. Ultimately disrespects and even exploits the people themselves.

It is not reasonable to support standards that glorify the pursuit of what is unattainable for most people. Neurodiversity advocates need to be careful of how they dilute what is important about the message at the expense of those whom it is important to.

I am often reminded of the following message and its importance in the struggle for human rights. It shows why we should be most concerned with not promoting exclusive standards. Supporting exclusive standards is simply exploitation. Someone's rights are protected at the expense of someone else's.


When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Enemies of Autism Speaks

Autism Speaks new video

It's very clear that the intent of Autism Speak's latest video is to create fear and hatred of autism. Unfortunately there is little if any attempt to separate autism from autistics. They even went so far with their attempt to put a face on autism by using a horrifying voice to represent autism that sounds like the devil himself.

The people making this video are not overcommers at all. The focus of what they claim is so difficult to contend with are autistic people and an attack on someone (or even something) that you don't try to understand is a cowardice act.

They are not breaking down any walls but instead are creating them. This video shows the harsh realities of how charitable organizations promote their cause at the expense of those they claim their cause is supposed to serve. The act of people being assigned worth based on what is seen as their capabilities is the real enemy of all civilization. People who don't recognize this are making enemies of disabled people rather than encouraging them or providing them any aid.