No Satisfaction for Hillary

I was planning to post this entry about three months ago, when it became obvious to everyone but Hillary Clinton herself that she had no chance of winning the Democratic nomination, but her campaign just kept on stumbling around like a dinosaur that had such a rudimentary nervous system it didn't know it was dead after its head got cut off. But finally, the time to put her in the graveyard has come. So without further ado, and with a generous sprinkling of garlic cloves and holy water around the gravesite to keep the undead creature from rising, I present Hillary's tombstone:





For her eulogy, I've chosen the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction."


I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no satisfaction
'cause I try and I try and I cry and I cry
I can't get no, I can't get no

When I'm panderin' for votes
and kissin' up to Autism Speaks
and they're tellin' me more and more
about some research that could affect 'em
supposed to cure and prevent the spectrum
I can't get no, oh no no no
Hey hey hey, that's what I say

I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no satisfaction
'cause I try and I try and I cry and I cry
I can't get no, I can't get no

When I'm workin' on policy
and the Wrights come by to tell me
how pure the gene pool can be
Autistics can't be human 'cause they don't have
the same kind of brain as me
I can't get no, oh no no no
Hey hey hey, that's what I say

I can't get no satisfaction
Can't get past the voters' gut reaction
'cause I try and I try and I cry and I cry
I can't get no, I can't get no

When I'm campaignin' all around
and I'm doin' this and I'm promisin' that
and there's not a vote to be found
I got my overconfident butt kicked into next week
How did I get on this losing streak?
I can't get no, oh no no no
Hey hey hey, that's what I say

I can't get no, I can't get no
I can't get no satisfaction
No satisfaction, no satisfaction, no satisfaction

Rumpelstretchspin

Once upon a time, in a mythical kingdom by the sea, there lived a humble and downtrodden people suffering under the evil rule of King George the Second, a corrupt and bloodthirsty tyrant who was always starting wars and oppressing his peasants.

The tyrant knew that his days were numbered, however, because an enchanted apple tree grew in the center of the kingdom. It was guarded by fairies, and no mortals could pick the magical apples. Legend had it that if a person were to bring a crowd of followers to the enchanted tree and inspire the crowd to shout for justice, the fairies would pick some apples and give them to him or her; and when a person got enough apples, he or she would become the next ruler. Although King George had tried several times to burn the tree or chop it down, he had never been able to do so.

A tall, dark, and handsome knight rode into the country one day. Before long, the people were flocking to him to listen to his words of hope and inspiration. "Go to the enchanted apple tree and save us from the tyrant," the people urged him.

But a wicked witch called Rumpelstretchspin already was planning to try to become the next ruler. She got her name from her rumpled ethics and her extraordinary talent for stretching and spinning the truth at every opportunity. She had no idea what hope or justice meant, but she was a pretty good rabble-rouser, and she thought that she might be able to get some of the magical apples if her followers yelled enough.

So both Rumpelstretchspin and the handsome knight went to the enchanted apple tree. The knight's followers spoke of his goodness and beseeched the fairies to give the magical apples to the knight and make him the next ruler. The fairies were greatly moved by the knight's capacity to inspire his followers, and they gave him a huge pile of apples. It seemed impossible that Rumpelstretchspin could get as many, but she was undaunted. She told her followers all sorts of ugly lies about the knight, until they were screaming furiously. The fairies pelted her crowd with rotten apples to shut them up.

Rumpelstretchspin greedily gathered up her rotten apples, declaring that it was her destiny to become the next ruler! There was just one problem, though. The knight's pile of apples was still much larger. What could she do? She thought about it for a moment and decided to stretch and spin some weeds into the shape of apples. Perhaps the spirits of the enchanted tree would pick her as the next ruler before anyone noticed the difference.

Before long, Rumpelstretchspin had a big shiny pile of something that looked like apples, and the people were all muttering about the great loss that the knight had suffered. However, she got too gleeful about her scheme and cackled a bit too loudly, and all of her weed-apples blew away on the wind from her noxious breath. The enchanted tree then made both King George and Rumpelstretchspin disappear, and the people lived happily ever after, guided by the knight's great wisdom.


Edit, March 6: Once again, the Clinton campaign has been caught in another dirty trick, as reported by MSNBC.com.

More Clinton Dirty Tricks

The results of the Super Tuesday primary elections were split almost exactly down the middle on the Democratic side, which has thrown Hillary Clinton into a panic; she was so overconfident going into the primary season that she expected to have a lock on the nomination by now. So, what is her campaign doing? Has she started listening to voters more, trying to improve her understanding of their concerns, or otherwise becoming more responsive to the people?

Not a chance.

Instead, the Clinton apparatchiks, resorting to their same old corrupt political business-as-usual ways, are sneaking around in the proverbial smoke-filled back rooms and trying to twist Democratic Party rules to give their candidate extra delegates to the nominating convention. Several months ago, the Democratic National Committee stripped both Michigan and Florida of their convention delegates in response to their disobedience to party rules in changing the dates of their primary elections. Accordingly, the presidential candidates, including Senator Clinton, pledged that they would not campaign in these states. Barack Obama, John Edwards, and several minor candidates removed their names from the ballot in Michigan (but were unable to do so in Florida) and honored their pledge not to campaign.

Hillary Clinton promptly broke her promise by leaving her name on the ballot in Michigan. She also visited Florida and pretended that she wasn't campaigning there. Now, having won a majority of the votes cast in these two states by campaigning unopposed, she's trying to convince Democratic National Committee officials to change the rules in the middle of the game and allow Michigan and Florida to send delegates to the convention.

Here is a link to a petition condemning this underhanded tactic:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Give-Us-Fairness

If you are concerned about the subversion of America's political party system by Hillary Clinton's sneaky, cheating schemes, please sign the petition and let the Democratic National Committee know about your views.

Plenty of sympathy, Hillary, but none for you

The pundits have been saying that Hillary Clinton’s better than expected performance in the New Hampshire primary, in which she narrowly edged Barack Obama in the popular vote and earned the same number of convention delegates, was the result of a much publicized teary-eyed conversation in which she declared her deep feelings of concern for the country. Supposedly, women were moved to vote for her because she was under such great stress and they felt sympathy for her.

Gah. Spare me. I have plenty of sympathy for women who are feeling stressed and are deeply concerned about the country, but the women I have in mind don’t include Senator Crocodile Tears. Rather, I have a mental image of an 18-year-old autistic first-time voter who—like many female teens—imagines that she will someday have a beautiful wedding and a happy marriage and, perhaps, a child somewhat like herself. She may feel enthused, at first, about the historic candidacy of a woman—until she diligently does her research on the candidates and discovers that Sen. Clinton supports the eugenic agenda of Autism Speaks, right down to putting the entire autistic population in the history books. What a way to discover that a democracy, even in the 21st century, cannot be trusted to protect its minority groups—and that certain politicians who claim to care deeply about children and families would have no problem taking part in the extermination of the less popular sorts, if a few votes could be gained by doing so.

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.

The Starkest of Choices

'Tis the season for doing our civic duty as Americans—that is, buying Christmas gifts to keep our relatives happy and the economy afloat, while getting ready to vote in the primary election. I know I'm not the only one who dreads going into overcrowded shopping malls with loudspeakers blaring "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" for the umpteenth time. But fortunately, in this age of convenient websites, we can do all of our holiday shopping from the comfort of our desk chairs.

Voting is also quick and easy in the Internet era. Some folks haven't registered because they mistakenly believe that it might be too hard or a nuisance. If you are one of them, I have some good news for you: Voter registration forms are available online, and you can also avoid the nuisance of going to the polls by voting absentee (that is, filling in the ballot at home and mailing it in) if you prefer. Like Christmas shopping, though, it has to be done soon; every state has different deadlines for how many days before the election you must register, and those deadlines are fast approaching.

In past years, some of us might have skipped the primary election, thinking that one candidate was as good as another. That is most emphatically not the case in the 2008 election. In the two leading presidential candidates, Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton, we are faced with the starkest of choices for the direction of the country and our own personal futures.

Barack Obama, who was a civil rights lawyer and constitutional law professor before he went into politics, understands the struggle of autistic people (and others who are affected by disability prejudice) for recognition of our basic rights as human beings. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, blatantly pandered to Autism Speaks' bigotry earlier this year by suggesting that it would be desirable to prevent and cure anything along the autism spectrum. Her idea of making health insurance more affordable seems to consist of eugenically "preventing" any group of people who might have higher than average medical costs.

If you prefer a different Democratic candidate, or if you are registered as Independent or Republican, please give some thought to voting for Obama anyway. You can always change your registration back to Independent or Republican after your state's primary is over. And if you're leaning toward another Democrat, well, this is how I see it: Edwards has good intentions, Biden and Dodd are respectable elder statesmen, Richardson is a capable governor, and Kucinich is a man of strong convictions. They're all decent guys—but this is clearly not their year for winning, and we all know what happened in 2000 when a few people in Florida decided to vote for the guy they liked (Ralph Nader) instead of the guy who could actually win the election (Al Gore). Let's not make that mistake this time around!

Getting back to Christmas shopping for a moment, the Obama campaign (which, unlike the Clinton campaign, does not take money from lobbyists) needs to raise funds from individual contributors to compete effectively in the primaries. If, like most of us, you don't have a lot of extra money to give to a political campaign, you can still help the cause by going to the Obama Store to shop for holiday gifts. You can get good quality T-shirts and other merchandise with Obama '08 campaign logos. They make great Christmas presents for Obama supporters, and all proceeds go to the campaign. Buy some for yourself while you're there!

Also, in some states (Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia) a person who is 17 years old on the date of the primary election, but who will turn 18 by the general election, can vote in the primary. If that's you, or if you have a 17-year-old friend or relative who lives in one of these states, it's time to get registered! You can find more information about your state's specific voter registration requirements and get a registration form online by visiting the voter registration information page on the Project Vote Smart website. It's as easy as a tasty slice of holiday pumpkin pie.

(Edit, Nov. 19: The above list of states where 17-year-olds can vote in the primary may not be complete—thanks Kassiane for pointing that out. To be sure, check with your local election officials to determine if your state is one where 17-year-olds can vote.)

Journalistic Bias Syndrome

The Columbine Syndrome, a recent New York Times article by Judith Warner, addresses the prejudices shown by journalists and others in our society toward people with neurological differences. Not long ago, a news report on a particularly heinous rape-murder case gratuitously mentioned that the perpetrator had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, and dysgraphia; Warner characterizes this reporting as "a sinister detail that piled on a broad insult to all the gruesome injuries, victimizing a whole new set of people."

Indeed, when neurological differences and psychological diagnoses are mentioned frequently in the context of criminal offenses, such reporting skews the general public's perceptions and leads many people to assume that there must be a causal relationship. Warner cites studies showing how widespread these prejudices have become:


This past May, the journal Psychiatric Services published the results of the first large-scale nationally representative survey of public attitudes about children's mental health. Eighty-one percent of respondents said they thought children with major depression would be dangerous to themselves or others; 33 percent said they believed children with A.D.H.D. were likely to be dangerous...

...Another study released in March found about one in five parents saying they would not want children with A.D.H.D. or depression as their neighbors, in their child's classroom or as their child's friends.

It's deeply ironic that at a time when more than ever is known about children's mental health needs and more methods than ever exist to help kids with behavioral or emotional issues, the stigma attached to those problems won't budge. Instead, our brave new world of diagnosis and treatment has spurred new kinds of myth-making and prejudice.


Warner is quite right that, every time we get a new label to describe cognitive and behavioral differences, we just end up with a new prejudice. This is where we are today with the medicalization of human diversity: if a few psychologists get together and decide to call something a disorder, that instantly makes the most revolting bigotry OK in many people's minds. The concept of the autism spectrum has only been in the clinical parlance since 1994, but we have politicians like Hillary Clinton who see nothing wrong with the idea of wiping out the entire spectrum through eugenic abortion, just because of the label. Makes me wonder—how quick would Hillary change her tune if the psychs invented Pandering Syndrome and diagnosed her with it?

Then again, habitual pandering already fits into the criteria for sociopathy. Not that you'll ever see anyone with money and clout getting that diagnosis. That's all right, though, because sociopaths deserve equal rights and recognition of their ability to contribute to society, too. Just think, if the whole sociopath spectrum got wiped out tomorrow, we'd have a major shortage of politicians, CEOs, and lobbyists. I have the utmost respect for Hillary's neurodiversity. But I digress.

About a hundred years ago, when a murder or other serious crime was committed in the United States, most newspapers would gleefully report that the suspect was an immigrant, or a Jew, or a Catholic, or a "Negro," or anything other than the native-born white Protestant face of "normal" America.

Eventually, things changed for the better. Publishers implemented rules for non-biased reporting that instructed journalists not to mention race, religion, or other personal characteristics that were irrelevant to the story. That went a long way toward reducing society's prejudices against minority groups.

Nowadays, people who have been diagnosed with so-called mental disorders are fair game in many journalists' minds. Just as ethnic and religious minorities were stereotyped as having a natural inclination toward criminal behavior a century ago, neurological minorities have to contend with the same sort of ignorant attitudes today.

If you're interested in contributing to a worthy initiative to reduce such bigotry, you may want to consider donating to the Carter Center, as I do. In addition to the Center's better-known activities of monitoring elections and funding public health efforts in emerging democracies, it is also the home of the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism, a program that teaches journalists how they can improve the public's understanding of mental health issues and play a critical role in reducing stigma and discrimination.

Christschool Educates Hillary Clinton

In his description of his latest video, which deals with Hillary Clinton's misguided support for Autism Speaks, Christschool writes that he met Hillary several times at White House functions during Bill's second term as President.

He believes that she has had very little experience with autistic people in everyday life and "just needs to be introduced to autism outside of the framework of Autism Speaks and the various other charities that pretend to support autistic people."

Let's hope this video will give her a wake-up call.

Edit, March 2008: The video is no longer available.

Hillary Clinton, Talk Is Cheap

Over the weekend, Hillary Clinton gave a commencement address exhorting a group of university graduates to speak out against "the degradation of women or minorities, the weak, the vulnerable, the marginalized."

Nice inspiring sentiment. I'd take her purported concern for justice a lot more seriously if it weren't for the fact that (as I blogged not long ago) Sen. Clinton has made it clear that she wants to "prevent" the existence of "anything along the autism spectrum." She doesn't even acknowledge that the autism spectrum is made up of human beings—apparently we're just inconvenient things to be eliminated.

Several people commented on my earlier post that it appeared Sen. Clinton was speaking out of ignorance and pandering to wealthy supporters, rather than expressing deep feelings of hate. That's probably true enough. There aren't many Americans who actually hate autistics; indeed, there aren't many who even had a clear idea of what the word meant before the recent "autism awareness" propaganda campaign began. Until a few years ago, most Americans just thought of their autistic neighbors and co-workers as people. But ignorance can be deadly, even without deep-rooted malice.

Many of us don't realize how quickly genocidal prejudice can spread. A couple of weeks ago, I noticed a comment on the Autism Vox blog from someone who claimed that autistics were not truly human because of differences in mirror neuron function. Here's what struck me about that: Until quite recently, nobody had ever heard of mirror neurons, except for a few neuroscientists in research programs—and I think we can safely say that the ignorant yahoo who posted that comment wasn't one of them. Evidently, for said yahoo, all it took was a dumbed-down popular science article or two, reporting on a preliminary study of mirror neurons (as to which very little is even known yet) to transform millions of people worldwide into some sort of hideous subhuman infestation.

This is not, of course, the first time in history that a minority group has been systematically dehumanized by the twisting of science to fit a prejudiced agenda. In its first go-round, about a century ago, eugenics in America consisted of efforts to prove by scientific means that non-whites were mentally inferior. Researchers often wrote scholarly-looking articles to that effect. Not long afterward, the Nazis had their own doctors and scientists who claimed to have proof that Jews lacked various attributes of true humanity. There were many otherwise intelligent people who actually believed that stuff.

Now it's happening all over again, with the connivance of amoral politicians like Hillary Clinton, whose concern for vulnerable marginalized minorities goes only as far as the campaign donations of those minorities.

If Sen. Clinton really cared about justice for marginalized and misunderstood groups, she would not be participating in an effort to exterminate one.

Eugenics is totally incompatible with respect for diversity.

Hillary Clinton's Final Solution

One would think that in the 21st century, a leading candidate for President of the United States would know better than to advocate the extermination of a minority group. Unfortunately, one would also be wrong.

Here's the ugly evidence—a video in which Hillary Clinton, who has been a strong supporter of Autism Speaks since its inception, describes autism as an "epidemic" and declares her intent to "prevent and cure anything along the autism spectrum."

And we all know what she means by "prevent." That's the favorite euphemism of Autism Speaks and its supporters in referring to their ultimate goal of prenatal screening and abortion of all autistic children worldwide.

Considering how many apocalyptic statistics spew forth regularly from Autism Speaks, there's no doubt the Senator from New York knows that she is talking about a very large number of people. The autism spectrum is made up of somewhere between 40 and 60 million human beings, possibly even 70 million, as indicated by a study last year.

One would think Sen. Clinton might have just a few qualms about the prospect of committing a global genocide that would be a full order of magnitude larger than the Holocaust. (It should be noted here that measures intended to prevent births within a minority group are specifically included in the definition of genocide in Article 2, section d, of the 1948 United Nations Convention on Genocide.) Given how close the election results have been in recent years, one would also think that she might find it prudent to pause for a moment of sober reflection before suggesting that the existence of at least 1 million American citizens of voting age should have been "prevented." But, again, one would be wrong.