Aspies For Freedom

.......is us, or at least should be.

Let me explain:

We need to create a real epidemic of people doing things offline. Currently we have a large online presence in support of autism rights, but as it is mainly online it can be safely ignored. What we need is for more people to create local groups and take direct action.

I am calling for everyone who reads this to startup a local group in their area and meet once a week to discuss how to spread the word further and how to take action when an issue comes up. This will make organising protests a lot simpler and if done correctly could get very big very quickly.

This idea came about at the meeting tonight and it occurred to me that the JRC can safely ignore anything we do purely online, but not what is done in the real world. The same goes for other similar organisations and curebie charities. At the recent autism speaks protest in windsor we had a party of 4. If this is done then we could have much larger numbers at all protests and that will get serious attention.

Good idea.

So how can we do this?

People should post up if they are willing to host or organize in a particular area.  Maybe they should be approved first by admin here.  Then interested members could private message them.   There are going to be safety and privacy issues.  So there should be some outlines for conduct, dealing with minors etc.

I know some people would like to be informal but I am sure that imformal meetings between members here is already happening.  I do, however, value my privacy and anonymity.

For now, I would suggest informal arrangements until it is possible to make things more formal, posting in the local groups section is advisable.

I gladly would, but I live 45 minutes away from the nearest city. The town here is full of idiots.

I just love that word direct action! I hope one day that local group in the Netherlands will materialize... (working on it) What kind of direct action were you thinking of? Leafletting, aiming at media attention, writing letters to be published in newspapers, that sort of thing? Cause I don't know of any 'pro-cure charities' here organizing anything to protest against really. I think here the bigger problem seems to be the attitude of aspies/auties themselves (many of them see autism as a burdon and a handicap and a disease they wish they didn't have). btw is Autism Speaks an international organisation, I thought it was just American?!?

I read about the meeting before, was that an online meeting or an RL meeting? Just curious since it didn't specify any location....

maYa

The AFF meeting is held on the first wedensday of every month in the chatroom. It would be unrealistic to hold an international meeting on a regular basis.

With regards to autism speaks, they are american with a branch in the UK but no other countries as far as I am aware.

The kind of direct action I am advocating is all action related to our goals. Specifically, this includes distributing posters and leaflets, talking to the media, building up an offline community (there are many support groups, we want groups of autistics without the formal support element and organised by autistics) and when appropiate protests. Perhaps in the future seminars and conferences may also be possible. Realistically speaking for now it is only possible to do distribution of leaflets and posters and organise the local groups as an outlet for autistics without turning to support groups.

ok, tnx for the info on the meeting! I might join in nxt time then  :smile:

there, you made me think... yes, the meetings I go to are not actually official support groups at all, and they are organized by aspies themselves (the org is run by aspies/auties and has just split off from the big dutch org because they wanted to be independent) so the structure is really ok.

But I think the aspies since they become dependent on the help system they get indoctrinated by them. I really believe if the help-system wouldn't shift all the shame and blame on us, a lot more aspies wouldn't see their autism as their core problem, but rather see 'problems' as just a part of life and a learning process (all people have problems afterall but I haven't heard NTs complain their problems are because of being NT!). I do believe we also have a task to inform aspies of this view, more directly. I know this sounds logical, but I haven't really seen it anywhere written yet. I mean, it's all more about convincing NTs right? But we shouldn't forget that a lot of aspies, like us, and potential comrads -maybe the most dedicated fighters of the future- are still convinced autism is a disease they carry with them like a stigma. Because they have been told so by everyone all their life! We might also have to direct our attention on reaching them, directly, not just that they hear about our actions against cure charities over internet, newspapers, radio, tv - this might trigger them to respond in anger. If we contact them personally (for example by leaflets directed to them), we can speak to them heart to heart, explain our views calmly in a mild understanding tone, and tell them our message is one of self-acceptance, self-determination, self-realisation and love. Not one of letting them suffer in misery and of denying the problems they are facing.

I am also pre-analyzing and responding to criticism I have read against what we stand for. I think it's good to challenge these by being ahead of them. We have experience online, we can expect the same problems in RL.