Sunday, July 4, 2010

The Aucreeps of Autreat

I've been looking around to hear some stuff about what went on with Autreat this year. It still lives up to an annoying and disturbing reputation. Seems like there was a lot of pseudo-intellectual hogwash discussed at the presentations, that likely had hardly anything to do with actually making various conditions somewhat tolerable for many on the spectrum. I heard that in attendance, there were some advocates who work with local agencies and organizations, so I wonder what accomplishments are being made by them.

I wonder how much funding it requires to bankroll conferences like this, and how various entities came to decisions to appropriate money for it. Yet still there is so much stress involved in getting services and programs accessible for many on the spectrum. I think of the lack of money spent on such things and the misallocation of resources going on, while something like this is somehow funded, which has so many pointless, over-hyped aspects to it. I have waited around for over a year while dealing with bureaucracies in various ways, to try to get services, since before and even after I received my Aspergers diagnosis. So many that I've dealt with seem not to know what to do with me. And the waiting time I'm dealing with so far, is lucky compared to the very long delays experienced by so many others on the spectrum. I seldom see the anti-cure individuals specifically talk of such inefficiencies when mentioning the need for services. I heard on Clay Adams' blog that Amanda Baggs couldn't attend, which is nice to hear, but that she sent an audio which was presented.

I get tired of how things like Autreat are purported to provide environments likable and convenient for autistics, while they are so willing to exclude real autistics who refuse to agree with their nonsense, and even invite non-autistics to join them, and ones that are screwing over the majority of autistics at that. Such as the hack autism researcher Morton Gernsbacher, who did a presentation this year in which she used her credentials to repudiate functioning labels. They also had some thing called "Ask an NT" Panel. I wonder what kind of a farce that was designed to be.

Since Autreat claims to be run by autistics for autistics, I wonder which autistics among them they have in mind, since they also say that they focus on "positive living with autism", but not on causes and cures, which are things of interest to many on the spectrum. These leaders have let it be obvious that they're happy to team up with some slimy characters who are non-autistic, to help undermine efforts to devise a cure and to even understand why one is needed. I know from this that Autreat is just another instance of intellectually-elite autistics serving their own interests to further their own success, while suppressing the needs of the deeply impaired autistics .

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