Editorial #269: Faked Perfection
Autism Politico is aware that there is a photo making its way around neurodiversity social media. Its caption appears to make an excuse for autistic non-conformists who are too lazy to try to do what everyone else in society does. Observe:
Some autistics are using this as an excuse to refuse to fit in with people. If everyone thought this way, we’d be a bunch of social recluses.
Autism Politico doesn’t know and doesn’t care whether or not its readership is religious. One doesn’t need to be religious to understand that men and women, boys and girls, are imperfect. We all have flaws and defects, either mentally or physically, or both.
Despite the fact that nobody is perfect, most people aspire to be better than they are and come to being as near-perfect as they can. Not that we would want a society of insufferable snooty people, but Autism Politico believes it is admirable to improve oneself as life goes by.
But it would appear that some autistics and some autism warriors feel that it’s better to send around photos with captions that make excuses for their not doing anything to improve themselves.
“I was born to make mistakes, not fake perfection.”
Faking perfection is what most people do. They do it at school. They do it at work. They do it in social situations. The reason they do it is because even though they know they make mistakes, they know that other people do not think highly of people who willfully choose to remain ignorant all of their lives. So people try to look as though they are overcoming their ignorance.
Not so with some autism warriors evidently. They would rather throw their ignorance in people’s faces and dare those people to call them stupid.
This happens to be why most neurodiversity groups go ignored, or why they get laughed at privately behind closed doors at some recognized autism organizations. After all, who can respect perfectly capable people who choose to act helpless?
Ironically, this faking helplessness on the part of some autistics and some autism warriors is what is causing people to flock to organizations like Autism Speaks. People get tired of the antics of certain online activists, and want them out of the picture.
Autism Politico is happy all this is taking place, because it means that soon, with the more annoying autism warriors out of the way, people can go back to focusing on providing assistance to autistics who really need help.
In the meantime, Autism Politico suggests that certain online autism warriors quit spending their days typing up a storm in their social media forums and get jobs as typists. We suggest they quit trying to run online forums where they pick on the people who know better than they do, and instead run social media sites for companies that might pay them a living wage. Autism Politico staffers are tired of our tax dollars going to support autism warriors who can do everything employed people can do but who refuse to get off their butts and get a job, in other words.
Also, it’s not just regular people who should tell some of these autism warriors to quit embarrassing autistics. Governments all over the world would should teach the worst of the autism warriors a lesson too. Specifically, governments should quit providing funding for them. How rude it is for willfully ignorant people to receive benefits and then complain that their benefits aren’t enough, even as they harangue other people for trying to help them step out of their black holes. Maybe there should be a “Farmville” for certain autism warriors. There, they could play all they want, and see if they like it there better than on the government dole.
Replies to this editorial are welcome.
Editorial #268: Rising Above Adversity
Autism Politico believes it finally understands the social dynamics of autistic online social media groups.
It seems to Autism Politico that those people who do not get along with others in the real world, congregate in the virtual world. There, they positively reinforce one other, telling each other that it’s okay to be rude, lazy, whiny, dirty, stinky, hostile, hateful, criminal, demanding, dependent, bullying, babyish, ignorant, obnoxious, immature, immoral, belligerent, unethical, unemployed, uneducated, self-absorbed, etc., and justifying their opinions and behavior by saying that the above described behaviors are all part of the “autistic experience,” or even, “autistic culture.”
Whenever an educated, intelligent, competent, capable, self-sufficient, employed autistic joins these online social groups and tries to inspire everyone to better themselves, the group gangs up on that person and convinces the group’s moderator or administrator to eject the competent person. The group then follows the ejected individual around the web, haranguing them to the point where his or her ability to function becomes as impaired as those lazy people he or she tried to inspire.
In other words, the people who inhabit many of these autism forums are like Pig Pen from the Peanuts comic strip, except what they carry with them isn’t fifth, but willful helplessness. Literally, people in some online groups drag others down to their level. Metaphorically, they come from the wrong side of the tracks and they look and live the part with pleasure.
Autism Politico encourages those autistics who have risen above persecution by the “virtual losers” to continue to try to inspire others to greater accomplishments. That one segment of the autistic population seems hell-bent to destroy the success of all autistics through misguided neurodiversity movements, and by making excuses for themselves even though they willfully engage in socially unacceptable behaviors, is reprehensible. But that doesn’t mean all autistics have to subject themselves to the foolishness of a select few.
Do not be discouraged in your attempt to rise above adversity. You will be rewarded when you leave the losers behind.
Replies to this editorial are welcome.
Editorial #261: Keeping the Peace
Autism Politico is chagrined to discover that people are still ganging up on each other in the autism community.
“I disconnected Xxxxx Xxxxx and Xxxxxx Xxxxxx from all 11 FB pages that I operate and co-moderate. I also blocked their 9 main supporters. That is 7,351 folk in the world-wide autism community who – like this page – will now get to be XX/XX/XxX Rancid Rancour-free.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1) Who are the people being blocked? And…
2) Who put the post up on Facebook in the first place?
The answer to either of the above two questions doesn’t matter.
Only the actual behavior does.
On the one side, you have people who are known the world over for the work they do to raise awareness for people with disabilities. On the other side, you have people who…who…want to “disconnect” them…from doing further service.
There are plenty of ways to describe the second group of people, but no way to do it on a blog that may be perused by young children.
As we may expect from the peanut gallery who supports the “disconnectors”, they want us to NAME NAMES or else shut up. Except of course, when you actually NAME anyone, if the person or people you name happen to be friends of theirs, they report you for slander, or libel, or anything else they can think of, and they try to get your online media thrown off the net, as if anything on the net really matters in the first place.
But maybe it does if you are unemployed, friendless, and the internet is all you’ve got.
At any rate, this behavior on the part of the peanut gallery is called hypocrisy, and it’s why Autism Politico exists. To expose hypocrisy wherever it appears.
Autism Politico will even admit that WE are hypocritical. After all, WE are oftentimes online “friends” and even personally acquainted with people from both camps (i.e. the people being picked on, and the people who are doing the picking).
In this case, we know the people who enjoy going after Xxxxx Xxxxx and Xxxxxx Xxxxxx.
Would it surprise you to know that 7,351 people have now been “disconnected” from Xxxxx Xxxxx and Xxxxxx Xxxxxx, who have connections to disability organizations worldwide, not to mention worldwide government organizations?
Not if you are in the autism community. But, if you were in almost any other disability community, it might be a shock indeed.
And so an individual, or select group of individuals has made the sole decision to try and cut off THOUSANDS of people from off this valuable resource (Xxxxx Xxxxx and Xxxxxx Xxxxxx and their iniative) because they think they know better than the Xxxxx Xxxxx and Xxxxxx Xxxxxx whom they seem to hate so much.
Autism Politico has observed that the biggest whiners, complainers, and volatile people in the online autism world are usually unemployed, self-diagnosed (albeit DEFINITELY diagnosed with something other than autism, such as bi-polar disorder, antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, psychopathy, etc.) people.
So generally, we don’t pay any attention to them.
Don’t get us wrong. If they HAVE been diagnosed with something -say bi-polar disorder- they certainly have a right to talk about THAT, but if they haven’t been diagnosed with autism, then they know nothing about autism except what they have read, or heard about it. We’d rather read about autism in a newspaper or periodical, or hear about autism from someone who has actually been diagnosed with it rather than hear about it from someone who THINKS they have autism.
There are people in the world who think they have been abducted by aliens. Does this make them astronauts? We don’t think so. And if there is no such thing as aliens, it doesn’t even make them abductees.
It just makes them crazy.
We admire any self-diagnosed person who wants to get an official diagnosis, but we wonder why their supposed “autism” wasn’t discovered when they were diagnosed with other disorders. After all, self-diagnosed Aspies seem very good at spotting AS in other people, you’d thing medically trained clinicians could to the same. But maybe people who went to college and got medical degrees don’t know as much as armchair self-diagnosed Aspies.
That these self-diagnosed people serve on the boards of most well-known autistic advocacy organizations is not important, since the public at large appears not to know about them or the organizations they are affiliated with.
In other words, since no one else pays attention to them, and neither do we. (Most of the time.) Even though they embarrass us from time to time with their protests, or their publishing porn on the net, or their arrests for possession or distribution of child porn, we put up with it, because the only people they can really affect by their nonsense are the self-diagnosed people who follow them.
As most autistic people will tell you, the more foolish self-diagnosed people make themselves look, the better. Maybe they’ll eventually hang their heads in shame and go away.
Or get a diagnosis.
In a way, it’s a pity. An organization like Autism Speaks, who, to hear self-diagnosed Aspies tell it, “everyone” hates, becomes a household name, whereas people who supposedly seek to paint Aspies as the intelligent people that we are, get shunned because self diagnosed people…or…we must admit…diagnosed people with attitude problems…conspire to shut them up, stomp on them, and grind them into the dust.
If the know-it-alls who are screwing things up for the autism community would just shut their mouths and let Xxxxx Xxxxx and Xxxxxx Xxxxxx speak for everyone, we’d have some real progress here.
And if any online thugs find themselves locked up in the psych ward or even in jail, would that be such a bad thing?
Replies to this editorial are welcome.
Editorial #245: Personal Privacy Breach
Autism Politico would just like to point out the hypocrisy of the people within the autism rights movement who bemoan the breach of privacy that occurred when an autism organization’s laptop was stolen but continue to ignore the autism registry in New Jersey which compels doctors to register autistics without their consent.
In yet another data breach, it was recently discovered that a laptop containing sensitive information about 80 children with Asperger’s syndrome was stolen from Asperger’s Children and Carers Together (ACCT).
It has also been learned that the laptop was stolen from an employee’s house last December, and that it carried names, addresses and key medical information about these children.
Not surprisingly, the Information Commissioner’s office reacted quite sharply by calling the incident a violation of the Data Protection laws, and asked the charity to ensure that in the future “information is encrypted”.
Autism Politico almost wishes that the stolen personal information belonged to the people at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network who supported the New Jersey autism registry. Lots of children are having THEIR privacy rights violated by having them signed up for the registry without their consent, but no one cares.
And if you’re reading this and do nothing about it, you don’t care either.
Replies to this editorial are welcome.
Editorial #230: Oh shut up!
Autism Politico wants parents and caregivers of autistics to know that you can stop grieving for autistics who will never achieve what you’ve achieved. You don’t seem to realize that, like any member of the human race, we have our own desires, dreams, and goals, and our own measures for success.
Guess what? The people writing this entry could appear to be twisting/stimming/useless lumps to anyone of the neurotypical population who look at them in public. But maybe through the use of assistive/adaptive technology we appear through our writings to be normal, everyday people who are high functioning, and capable.
If you are non-autistic and reading this, then know that your own personal prejudices are what obscure a realistic view of the autistics you love. You sap their strength and energy every time you pity them and feel sorry for them. How about getting off your rear ends and trying to see what goals the autistics you supposedly care for want? How about helping them to achieve those goals? How do you know that some diagnosed non-verbal LFA isn’t writing symphonies in her head? Have you ever tried to find out what’s inside the craniums of autistics in a way that doesn’t involve doctors?
And for all you so-called “autistics” out there who ARE lazy, or who pity yourselves because you think you get picked on all the time, why don’t you stop giving us all a bad name and DO SOMETHING about your lives. Write a book! Start an internet business, or become an advocate. Autism Politico is sick of going into online forums and reading about autistics whining that their disability benefits are getting cut as they post tweets, post to message boards, and play Farmville and Mafia Boss for 12 hours straight. Those of us autistics who brave the arrows of rejection from coworkers in the workforce are sick of paying taxes so you can play your dumb internet games on the computer all day.
For all you diagnosed autistics or self-diagnosed autistics who are “leading” the autism community…LEAD. Get jobs. Earn money. Make a living for yourselves. If you can set up hundreds of blogs, produce radio shows and podcasts, and administrate forums, you should be able to do something else FOR PAY and inspire lazy autistics to get out there and do the same.
We could add lots more, but won’t. First we need to sit back and laugh at all the uproar this is going to cause when the autism advocates this post is aimed at throw up their hands and ask “Who, me?” before going back to their Farmville.
Replies to this editorial are welcome.
Editorial #229: Thank you Donna!
Here is what Donna said:
Everyone is entitled to their viewpoint. We’re pleased Donna has expressed hers.
Replies to this editorial are welcome.
Editorial #226: Kudos to Robert MacNeil!
Autism Politico would like to thank Robert MacNeil for the excellent job he’s doing on PBS’s NewsHour six-part special about the autism spectrum. The show is called ”Autism Today.” It’s probably worth watching especially because (at the time of this writing) no one from one some of the most well-known autistic advocacy organizations was interviewed for the piece.
This is fine with Autism Politico. Many of these autistic advocacy organizations have become so embarrassing that even autistics shy away from them. Hopefully this will be a lesson to them that the worse they behave, the more they are going to be ignored by credible news agencies.
Already, one autistic advocacy organization is raising a stink over being excluded from the show – as if they are entitled to an interview. Or as if anyone cares what they have to say?
Did it ever occur to them that elbowing their way into things is one of the behaviors that causes people NOT to like autistics?
Perhaps not.
Or maybe the show’s producer’s just don’t like that particular organization’s reputation.
We won’t say which autistic advocacy organization is upset, but if you’re part of the autism community, you can guess. Maybe if autistics want to be heard, they should tell autistic militants to shut their mouths so REAL autistics can speak for themselves.
Replies to this editorial are welcome.
Editorial #202: What Ne’eman Isn’t Doing
Autism Politico reads in Disability Scoop that:
Under Obama’s proposal, funding to ensure voter access for people with disabilities will be eliminated. And there will be $104 million less in federal money available to build new housing for those with disabilities.
What’s more, a program that administers federal grants to promote the inclusion of people with developmental disabilities in the community is slated to be cut nearly in half.
Ari Ne’eman, sits on the President’s National Council on Disability, which has people who are
“appointed to represent people with disabilities, national organizations concerned with people with disabilities, providers and administrators of services to people with disabilities, people engaged in conducting medical or scientific research relating to people with disabilities, business concerns, and labor organizations. A majority of NCD members are people with disabilities. NCD members are broadly representative of minority and other individuals and groups.”
Here is what Ari was quoted as saying in Disability Scoop about the new Obama plan:
“There’s a lot of stuff that’s very concerning,” says Ari Ne’eman, president of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. “Everybody recognizes that these are difficult fiscal times but we need to make sure that we aren’t sacrificing the long-term rights and opportunities for people with disabilities.”
Given that Ari Ne’eman has been appointed to represent people with disabilities, that is not a very strong statement in our opinion.
What’s your opinion?
Replies to this editorial are welcome.
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