Whose Planet Is It Anyway?

Monday, November 26, 2007

More Bogus Autism Promises from Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton is up to her old tricks, shamelessly making conflicting promises to all of the cure groups, while ignoring the views of autistic people entirely. While campaigning in Iowa on Saturday, she characterized autism as an environmentally caused health crisis:


"I believe there are environmental triggers," she said.

Clinton said people are exposed to thousands of chemicals. "They are in the carpets. They are in the paints. They are in the clothes we wear," she said.



If you've been wondering what sort of political experience the second-term junior Senator from New York has been touting when she goes around claiming to have 35 years of experience, well, I'll have to admit that her skills at equivocation and triangulation are right up there with the best of Washington's career liars. It's not easy to pander to the biomed crowd and the behaviorists at the same time, while also sucking up to Autism Speaks and advocating eugenic "prevention," but she manages it:


Clinton’s plan would include a task force, that would include people from the autism community, that would be charged with identifying gaps in evidence-based biomedical research, behavioral treatments, and services for children and adults with autism.


It's all too obvious that her idea of "people from the autism community" does not include any actual autistic people. Looks like she still hasn't noticed that there are over one million autistic Americans who are of voting age. Or perhaps she thinks that we have so little money and influence that we can be ignored, marginalized, and eugenically exterminated without any political cost to her.

To contrast Hillary's smarmy pandering with the principled views of Barack Obama, who cares deeply about the civil rights of minority groups, take a look at these comments posted by Kassiane on the Autism Vox blog:


...Obama listened in the summer of 2004 when a pigtailed dripping wet kid who’d been in an outdoor fountain (designed for the purpose) nearly tackled him at an Event to talk about autism, just before voting in her first big election...

Before then he said he hadn’t heard anything about autistic adults except the inaccurate bits in college & in the awareness campaigns. And in 2004 Obama said he would respect all diversity, that the idea that differences in brain wiring are valid ways of being made sense…



Respecting diversity may not get as much media attention as making phony promises to combat a staged epidemic of mass hysteria, but it certainly shows which candidate would best represent America's autistic citizens.

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8 Comments:

  • Yet another reason to vote for A.B.H. (Anybody But Hillary).

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:58 PM  

  • Hi :) I wasn't planning on voting for Hilary anyway and after her little speech of "curing anything along the autistic spectrum", that's another nail in her coffin. On the other hand I'm not in 100% favor of Obama even if he is autistic-positive. That's a big issue but I do look at other points of policy as we're not going to have autistics or NTs around if our country goes under.

    Of course one of the things I like about America is we have freedom of choice in voting and you're not necessarily "wrong" if you disagree with me. :)

    What's interesting is some people don't think Hilary's cure standpoint doesn't go far enough.

    I really hope for a future when this is not going to be an issue and we can vote for policies rather than possible eugenics. Sadly I don't see that time coming soon.

    By Blogger Unknown, at 6:00 PM  

  • Hi S. I'm not a single-issue voter either. I believe that Obama's willingness to consider different perspectives and to listen to all sides of an issue is a character trait that will serve him well in everything that he does as president, from conducting diplomacy abroad to bringing both political parties together to get legislation passed.

    I don't necessarily agree with every one of his policy positions, but I believe that he will govern with integrity and that he will be humble enough to acknowledge and correct whatever mistakes he may make. Both of these qualities have been greatly lacking in the White House for many years.

    By Blogger abfh, at 7:47 PM  

  • "It's all too obvious that her idea of "people from the autism community" does not include any actual autistic people. Looks like she still hasn't noticed that there are over one million autistic Americans who are of voting age."

    Your quote above is very telling, indeed,about the truth. I would be willing to bet she does not realize autistic people grow up, marry, have families, get jobs, go to college and grad school, become moms and scientists and teachers or professors or dads or welders or cashiers----needless to say,

    I just wonder if she knows that.

    By Blogger A Bishops Wife, at 9:00 AM  

  • Hi. I'm Swedish and therefore I will not be voting for either one of the candidates, obviously.

    Still, the question of who is the president of the USA is important to the rest of the world as well.

    It saddens the feminist part of me that Hilary has turned out to be such a poor choice, but fortunately there actually is a good choice in Barack Obama. Things could be worse, right? In my country there is absolutely no politician that adresses these issues in the way he does, so consider yourselves lucky.

    And: I love this blog. It makes my spirit grow stronger.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:03 PM  

  • Anonymous,

    :)

    By Blogger abfh, at 6:12 PM  

  • Has Edwards said anything about autism either way? Just curious,

    Jay

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:19 PM  

  • Jay, there's a good discussion of the Democratic candidates' views about autism on the Autism Vox blog:

    The Candidates' Autism Plans

    While I don't believe Edwards is as strongly pro-eugenics as Clinton has shown herself to be, Edwards was the sponsor of a bill to fund research on Fragile X, and there is a prenatal test for that condition.

    By Blogger abfh, at 10:11 AM  

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