Amanda Baggs Snows CNN (Hating Autism)
Partial proceeds go to
stress relief.
What I just watched on CNN with Amanda Baggs playing the role of a low functioning autistic was a disgrace. Low functioning autistics can't type anything. They can barely pay attention to anything, nevermind keep up a conversation by typing 120 words a minute. Cute little girls don't usually turn into fat ugly monsters either.
Did anyone else notice the little blond girl who turned into this beastly brunette? That little girl's eye contact with the camera looked normal to me. Perhaps her whole face changed when she was smitten with schizophrenia. Maybe she's not even the same girl.
How come Amanda can focus long enough to type without stopping to twiddle her fingers? One who deals with autism every day knows that expecting a low functioning person to pay attention to any task for long is expecting a lot. This overacting is a dead giveaway that Baggs functions much too well to be considered autistic. Why didn't she space out in the middle of answering a question and go finger twiddling for awhile? Bullshit, this imposter can focus long enough to make her point for CNN without having any autistic "moments".
Autism occurs a spectrum and every autistic manifests differently. This is complicated by a number of other "comorbid" conditions that tend to show up with autism, but are not in themselves autism, and which also occur in other contexts. It's a difficult diagnosis even if you are not a quack, because there are overlaps with many other possible conditions - and all of this is generally determined without the input of the person concerned using diagnostic criteria that can only be described as "maddeningly vague."
I should state for the record that there is, factually, NO credible scientific evidence of a link between mercury toxicity and autism. I have to admit that I was somewhat surprised and skeptical, seeing that mercury is by no means health food, and does have cumulative neurotoxic effects. But Autism is not the damage mercury manifests, and there have been enough studies to make what seemed like an attractive quick fix obvious quackery.
Likewise, Applied Behavior Analysis and other such Skinnerian behaviorist approaches cure nothing. What they do is create a set of conditioned reflexes, which may or may not generalize into understanding of why the behavior is desired. Autistic children are trained in the same way the "white stallions" are trained to caper and dance - they learn that disobedience results in a shock prod to the genitals.
This overcomes their reluctance to do nonsensical things they are uninterested in doing.
Surface compliance is not a cure, nor is obedience evidence of respect. But I think this person is so insecure in his own masculinity that he takes his' son's autism as being willful disrespect for his authority.
As far as I know, the only real cure for disrespect is to be respectable. Alas, I suspect that cure to be outside of John Best's grasp. He's far too attached to his own dysfunctions and personality disorders to either deserve respect or respect anyone with divergent, more useful viewpoints.
tag: cure autism now, neurodiversity, posactive, pro-autistic, aspie, aspergers, AS, autistic spectrum, autistic parenting, chelation therapy, Amanda Baggs, Autism Quackery, xenophobia, bigotry
5 comments:
Looks like another case of a person who is more concerned with "winning" their own personal case/agenda than with the welfare of the people they pretend to care for.
I'd go farther and state that he's incapable of comprehending that his child's welfare and his own are not the same thing.
An authoritarian perp-daddy, in my blunt opinion. As I will be explaining in a forthcoming post, I see this as outright evil behavior and I refuse to defer to the threats and outrage of such poor excuses for human beings.
Gee, I'd say Amanda is the one with the agenda. The evil behavior here is a person pretending to be a low-functioning autistic and making autism look a lot easier to deal with than it really is.
You know, Sam, I don't think you really grasp the concept of "actionable statements."
Your comment above is, prima facia, libelous and defamatory, absent your ability to prove that she is not really autistic and also has an agenda to make autism look a lot easier to deal with than it "really is."
Autism is a diagnosis and unless you have a suitable degree and have a relationship with her which would perforce preclude makeing any public statments about her condition, you cannot say "she IS not Autistic."
You'd be on safe ground saying that "she doesn't seem autistic to me." That's your opinion, for what it's worth.
Amanda - and others, such as myself and Oddzims are, however, living proof that "living with autism" seems to be less of a problem for the autistic than is for parents who insist on subjecting them to their magic cures.
I of course do not presume that being wrong about what will help your children is the same as willful abuse - but having been on the short end of that stick myself, I can assure you, it's the outcome that matters, not the intent.
Besides, when people willfully abuse strangers, how unlikely is it that they will abuse those that directly frustrate and anger them?
I, for one, would avoid acting in a casually abusive way in a context that is filled to the brim with mandatory reporters, even as I thank my lucky stars that I am not one of them.
Your analysis of Best's behavior is right on. Sad that he cannot see that.
On several occasions I have taken John Best to task for his actions. He IS hurting his child.
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