Aspies For Freedom

BROWN ROW ON AUTISM

Daily Mirror
9th December 2005


GORDON Brown yesterday angrily slapped down a Conservative MP who dubbed him "financially autistic".

The Chancellor described the slur by Tory backbencher Peter Viggers as "offensive".

Mr Brown was giving evidence to the Treasury Select Committee of the House of Commons when Mr Viggers, MP for Gosport, said: "You are all suffering from financial autism."

The Chancellor hit back: "I think you will find that is offensive to people affected by autism."

Their clash came a day after a right-wing commentator also used the term "autistic" to describe Mr Brown in a newspaper column.

It sparked rumours rumours that the jibe was the Tories' latest attack strategy against the man who appears likely to become PM


Source: Daily Mirror
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid..._page.html

He meant financially incompetent to the point of blindness to the claimed importance of the market economy &c.

Stella

I have heard that in the german parliament they use the word autistic as an insult to each other.

Perhaps they  do in parliaments everywhere, Amy  :cry:

I have seen the term used in a similar context a lot. Many people associate autism with mental retardation, so the word "autistic" is used in an insulting context similar to the word "***".

Good idea, without the word suffered though :!:

Here is another example of the word "autism" being used in a perjorative context:

Electronics and social decay

The Ithaca Journal
10th December 2005


When I was involved in juvenile justice in the early 1980s, video arcade games were the newest fad. Within months of their introduction, our community had an epidemic of residential burglaries in which kids as young as 12 were breaking into homes to steal jars of coins to play them.

I thought of that again when columnist George Will recently noted the widespread societal “autism” which has resulted from immersion in electronic gadgetry. To be sure, everywhere you look children are playing hand-held games and young (and not so young) adults are talking or text-messaging on cell phones.

Source: The Ithaca Journal
http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbc...00304/1014

Yet more political mud-slinging:

"Unlike his recent Tory predecessors, {the new Tory leader}  is not perceived as weird or sinister. He appears sincere and compassionate; like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, he oozes emotional intelligence and empathy. He stands in stark contrast to the dour, brooding, socially autistic and increasingly discredited Brown)"

Source: The Scotsman
11th December 2005
http://news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=2383942005

well done Iron Man  :smile:

Problem is that NTs wont realise that it is suffering because of the way society is, and it adds to their cure fever to think that auties and aspies are sufferers as a whole.

The use of the word "autism" in this way could be looked at as a good thing in a way.  Other words have gone through simular uses before.  The use of the word in this way suggests acceptence that we're here to stay and not something thats just going to suddenly go away.  The next step of course will be the outcry of people who disprove of the word being used in such a matter and laws probably being passed that its use could be considered a hate crime, as well as attempts to educate people into acceptence.  Then adventually acceptence as well as the word no longer being completely associated with something hateful.

I look at it as being kind of like the stages AA reconize, but on a global level rather then on an individual level:

* Denial of a problem   (or deniel of the difference in our case)
* Blaim  ("refrigerator" mothers, the government, mercury, etc.)
* Anger (demanding the government or pharmasicdical industry pay for it)
* Resentment (using "autism" in this way, some blaiming, some anger, some belief that the government should of known, should of been able to do something about it, etc)
* Reconizing a problem exists (hopefully this will involve being aware of our difference and that its not something bad and not actually a problem just a difference, which might take some educating the public and pointing out the positives and changes that might be necessary for us to be sucessful and succeed)
* Acceptence of a problem (hopefully this will involve alternative educations that don't leave kids bored and adults bored and nothing to do)

I think I'm missing a few in there somewhere.  I think theres 10 or 12 of them total.

Sadly this is being used increasingly. At my old school ADD was used as an insult (eg "you must have ADD"). It's unfortunate that autistic is beginning to be used in the same way.

Or the next generation won't even exist because of prenatal testing.

You are so right, Iron Man, we have a moral obligation to act.

Seems like they think if they use the word Autistic, instead of the phrase ***..it's somehow more politically correct. It's just the same thing, with a more specific word. Like people think if they say something negaitve about blacks, it's somehow less offensive if they call them African-Americans first.

I decided while I was at the site, to read their stuff on Autism. You should all see it, it's rediculous. They're coming up with nothing but fear mongering articles. Anorexia caused by Autism in women, is one of them. Unbelivable. They're nothing short of propagandists.