How Inclusive Advocacy Rhetoric for Exclusive Budget Policy Benefit Divided the Autistic Community

 The paper

released with an 'email blast' within 2 days of the 2014 #SOTU Republican response didn't say 'vote for' or 'vote against' a candidate or bill.  "Vote for" or "vote against" candidates or legislation are the 'trigger words' 501c3 nonprofits absolutely can't say as one of the only 'nonpartisan' tests of tax deductible nonprofit status that uses the IRS code to encourage good human behavior ('socially engineer' in the words of social and fiscal conservative Republicans and 'Independents') in how private money is spent.  But the Republican response did use the same word "hopeful" that the paper "Welcome to the Autistic Community" turned into an acronym to guide autistics how to assert control over their life choices from caregivers and service providers.

The 2008 Autreat presentation here revealed a problem in the autistic community whereby people found to live with autism, under the DD diagnostic category, had an easier time, particularly if diagnosed as children not as adults, in obtaining IL (Independent Living) services (LTSS) than people found to live with autism under the mental/behavioral health diagnostic category. 




4) Government Sponsored Discrimination Against Autistics-in California
and Beyond

Janis Oberman  Thursday 10:45am-12:30pm

The State of California discriminates against the Autistic population
by using DSM-IV diagnostic categories in a divisive manner, by
distinguishing between "AS/PDD-NOS" and "Autistic Disorder" in its
policies and when delivering social services. Discriminatory policies
are applied more rigidly to the older adult Autistic population, than
to the younger adult Autistic population, especially concerning adults
who were not diagnosed with Autism before the age of 18. Effectively,
these practices force many Autistic adults into a "Mental Illness"
classification in order to receive social services, where they usually
receive no Autism related services. Such practices exemplify more
general political, economic and cultural processes which occur in many
geographical locations other than California.

The erasure of Asperger's Syndrome and inclusion of past 'clothes dryer setting for humans'/diagnostic 'label' into Autism Spectrum Disorder in DSM 5 by 2013 does not eliminate the discrimination.  In fact, discrimination in eligibility criteria application to individual applications for services continues despite DSM 5 stating intensity of deficits in IL (independent living) skill levels (less negatively judgmental term for 'high' or 'low' functioning 'trigger words') should not affect eligibility for services.  Discrimination still occurs if there is not enough money, from public budgets, to fund the services.  Discrimination often takes the form of service request denials if person is not determined to be ID/intellectually disabled (new 'human dryer setting'/'label' for 'mental retardation' to avoid 'retardation' being turned into the 'r-word' slur) while the person is acknowledged as DD/developmentally disabled.  ID with DD has become the new barrier to financial aid (tax-supported services) with LTSS that mental health or developmental disability diagnostic labels had been as of the 2008 presentation.   The term DD is applied in an exclusive manner while activists use the term DD in an inclusive manner to build a bigger constituency for advocacy and activism.  I call this problem 'inclusive rhetoric for exclusive benefit.'

How Inclusive Rhetoric for Exclusive Policy and Budget Benefit Civic Process Distortion Worked to Favor 'low functioning' Autistics Leaving 'higher functioning' Autistics Perpetually Underserved

Updated March 31, 2017 to correct dollar amount of Medicaid cuts in AHCA that was not voted on March 24, 2017 because Republican whip counts (vote projections) likely could not pass the Republican majority federal House of Representatives.



  State Developmental Disability councils, recommended in the "Welcome to the Autistic Community" paper,



There are also federal and state entities designed to help autistic adults, such as your state's developmental disabilities council. You can find your state's council here: http://www.nacdd.org/about-nacdd/councils-on- developmental-disabilities.aspx. Some state councils may be able to assist in extreme situations; however, councils are not expected to provide individualized services to people.
There are more services for Autistic adults than ever before. However, with our advocacy efforts, more and better services can exist in the future.


Your full participation and pro-active approach toward your own life path can ensure a promising, H.O.P.E.F.U.L future!




 usually ration the tax-funded assistance they recommend be provided, as policy recommendations, to people diagnosed with autism and ID formerly known as MR.  


Compounding 2008-2011 austerity after the Wall Street mortgage lending crash the 'sequester bill' of 2011 cut public services for autistic adults further with little restoration since the 2014 and 2016 Congresses.  Fewer resources are available for 'utilization' in the 'hopeful' acronym/meme if an autistic has trouble paying the costs in money.  


From the "Welcome to the Autistic Community" paper adult version:

Autism has given many of us the gift of dedication. Personal success is promising when our dedicated focus is placed on our personal strengths, talents, and special interests.

Utilize Available Resources.

Do you prefer group outings? Informative books? Online forums? Conferences? Explore and find what options work best for you, then utilize those resources for your advantage.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1214


http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2013/03/05/disability-cuts-stay/17424/

As sweeping federal budget cuts set in, the impact is starting to become clear for those benefiting from special education and other disability programs.
President Barack Obama issued an order late Friday instituting what’s known as sequestration, a process of deep spending cutbacks that was triggered when Congress failed to reach a budget deal in 2011. While both Democrats and Republicans insisted that they did not want to see sequestration take effect, the parties were not able to reach a deal to avert the cuts.Accordingly, some $85 billion will be trimmed from this year’s federal budget, touching nearly all military and domestic programs. Funding will be reduced for numerous initiatives benefiting those with disabilities including special education, housing assistance, employment supports, mental health services and research. Medicaid and Social Security benefits are some of the few areas to be spared.  

Because of ASAN commendable 'self' (more accurately many 'selves') -advocacy the sub-minimum wages paid to workers with ID, formerly MR, have risen to the Federal employee and contractor minimum wage of $10.10/hour unless Pres. Don Trump (D'ump) has reversed the executive order, if the 'sheltered workshop' wasn't closed.  The AHCA (repeal and replacement of the ACA that was pulled from voting on March 24, 2017 would have cut Medicaid by $880 billion dollars over 10 years to pay for tax cuts for the rich as part of a 'block grant' to states scheme to shift the budget cuts to the state level.  The disability rights constituency/community would have been unfortunately divided state by state instead of remaining unified as a national advocacy 'single' 'voice.'  


In a commercial park near Mechanicsburg, some 200 people with intellectual disabilities work as fast and hard as their abilities permit.
They also strain against a hard free-market reality: They get paid for what they produce.
As a result, most earn less than minimum wage, and some earn only $2 or $3 an hour.


At the S. Wilson Pollock Center for Industrial Training, Brian Marks gathers armloads of cardboard, dumps it into a bin and rolls it away for disposal.
 
Or read the content at this link


  Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-WA) gave little policy specifics and fails to answer the question how will children with Down's Syndrome/ID live at 66, as well as others with less severe developmental disabilities, live with as much life satisfaction from personally meaningful activity, if not income if they can't work for it to a middle class living standard, as she describes her son's life at 6 w/o the Class Act but with the Able Act her campaign donors will enrich by her Congressional career and possible lobbying career, as well as her husband's potential lobbying career, later.

excerpts from the 2014 #SOTU Republican response with same "hopeful" word and rhetoric that the ASAN paper turned into an acronym:



Tonight the president made more promises that sound good but won’t actually solve the problems facing Americans. We want you to have a better life. The president wants that too. But we part ways when it comes to how to make that happen. So tonight I’d like to share a more hopeful Republican vision, one that empowers you, not the government. It’s one that champions free markets and trusts people to make their own decisions, not a government that decides for you. It helps working families rise above the limits of poverty and protects our most vulnerable, and it’s one where Washington plays by the same rule that you do. It’s a vision that is fair and offers the promise of a better future for every American.


If you would have told me as a little girl that I would one day put my hand on the Bible and be sworn in as the 200th woman to serve in the House of Representatives, I wouldn’t have thought it possible. I grew up working on my family’s orchard and fruit stand in Kettle Falls, a small town in eastern Washington, getting up before dawn with my brother to pick apples.

My dad drove a school bus and my mom worked as a part-time bookkeeper. They taught me to work hard, help others, and always, always dream for more.

So, when I showed my 4H animals at the county fair, my parents used to say to me, “Cathy, you need to save this money so you can go to college one day!” And so I did -- I saved, I worked hard, and I became the first in my family to graduate from college.

The chance to go from my Washington to this one was unexpected. I came to Congress to help empower people, not politicians; to grow the working middle class, not the government; and to ensure that everyone in this country can find a job. Because a job is so much more than a paycheck: It gives us purpose, dignity and the foundation to build a future.

I was single when I was elected -- but it wasn’t long before I met Brian, a retired Navy commander, and now we have three beautiful children, one who was born just eight weeks ago.

Like all parents, we have high hopes and dreams for our children. But we also know what it’s like to face challenges. Three days after our son was born, Cole, we got news no parent expects. Cole was diagnosed with Down syndrome. The doctors told us he could have endless complications, heart defects, even early Alzheimer’s. They told us all the problems.

But when we looked at our son, we saw only possibilities. We saw a gift from God. And today we see a 6-year-old boy who dances to Bruce Springsteen; who reads above grade level; and who is the best big brother in the world.

We see all the things he can do, not those he can’t.

And Cole, and his sisters, Grace and Brynn, have only made me more determined to see the potential in every human life, that whether we’re born with an extra 21st chromosome or without a dollar to our name, we are not defined by our limits, but by our potential, because our mission, not only as Republicans, but as Americans, is to once again to ensure that we are not bound by where we come from, but empowered by what we can become. That is the gap Republicans are working to close. It’s the gap we all face: between where you are and where you want to be.

The President talks a lot about income inequality, but the real gap we face today is one of opportunity inequality. And with this Administration’s policies, that gap has become far too wide. We see this gap growing every single day. We see it in our neighbors who are struggling to find jobs, a husband who’s now working just part-time, a child who drops out of college because she can’t afford tuition, or parents who are outliving their life’s savings.


  Other people with disabilities, who are not 'graded' 'severely disabled' by eligibility criteria for assistance with paying monetary costs of inclusion of people with disabilities,  are left on their own. Whether the rejected or wait-listed safety net services applicant even has a disability is questioned, shamed, demonized, delegitimized with double standards regarding whether public money is necessary to pay the costs of community living that a person with a disability cannot pay themselves.   



  Whether disclosure is moot or a choice to disclose, or not, is necessary, the question both the ASAN paper and Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-WA) forgot in her 2014 #SOTU response, is how a person with a disability is helped to live independently in inclusive community settings (based on a 'severity contest'/'oppression olympics' of issues lived with that Republicans and neoliberal Democrats divide the disabled community with) and who pays the costs if the person with a disability and their friends and family (private resources) cannot pay.  Some self-advocates would call that statement 'disrespectful' or 'bigoted against autistics' to then assess  

 (the process of assessment becomes the new dispute and distraction from doing most self-defined good for the most autistic people at the fastest systemic pace with acceptance of individual variation)

the long term body of research and how many people have benefited from the body of research over a 10 or 20 year time frame.  

  The Autistic self-advocacy community is unfortunately replicating the SPMI/mental health/behavioral health/substance use and addiction consumer/survivor community's narrow impact long-term in the behavioral/mental health community supported by entities such as SAMSHA, the National Empowerment Center, the Connecticut Center on Addiction and Recovery CCAR, the Copeland Center and other peer and life, or recovery, coach accreditation sources questioned in the books "Sham how the self help and actualization movement made America helpless" by Steve Salerno and PC MD by Sally Satel  that Steve Salerno cites.


   Both books ignore private insurer and social liberal-fiscal conservative (neoliberals in both major USA political parties as well as 'independents') taxpayer greed facilitating drug and device symptom treatment rather than long-term person-centered treatment with LTSS delivered in HCBS settings.  Doctors and other health care providers try to provide health care by making up, in clinical practice income, in the volume of patients treated what they can't earn from individual patient billings.  Economies of scale, to control public costs, in the health care field ignores individual diversity.  People aren't widgets in b-school (business school) or undergraduate economics class lectures regarding what is a sustainable economy. 

Please watch the economics lecture at beginning of the film "Back to School" (starred the late Rodney Dangerfield) for the public policy context of collectively, through democratic self-governance, deciding 'who pays the costs that an individual cannot pay' I refer to above in satirized form.  

ASAN paper 'coordinates' memes/themes with R-WA Rep. McMorris-Rodgers #SOTU response

Update Aug 19, 2018 ASAN physical address added.


  ASAN (Autistic Self-Advocacy Network) shows their leaderships' (as of 2014 and probably continuing in 2017) economic 'world view'/political philosophy as well as crosses the partisan line in the timing of the Jan 30, 2014 release of the "Welcome to the Autistic Community" paper to neoliberal Republican-light, deniably enough because of not saying 'vote for or against a candidate or bill,' after they worked



 with Rep Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-WA) on trying to pass the Keeping All Students Safe Act (HR 4247) in Congress that died in Dec 2010.  The paper turned the word 'hopeful,' also used by McMorris-Rodgers as a theme/meme in her Jan. 28, 2014 #SOTU Republican response,  into an acronym to divert as many autistics as possible into an 'autistic community' of crowdsourced supports with costs shifted away from the public sector and advocacy directed away from demanding an expanded educational and social safety net of publicly-funded LTSS that are inadequately funded in the first place.

 The #SOTU response 

So tonight I’d like to share a more hopeful Republican vision, one that empowers you, not the government. It’s one that champions free markets and trusts people to make their own decisions, not a government that decides for you. It helps working families rise above the limits of poverty and protects our most vulnerable,


used the same rhetoric as 'moderate' Republican outreach to the disability community with only enough money to keep people with intense needs, some of whom were formerly known as 'low functioning' autistics, included in communities of their own choosing not RTC institutions.


  The "Welcome to The Autistic Community" paper sought to create an 'autistic culture' where it's only 'acceptable,' in public discourse about autism spectrum disorder, to generalize only good possibilities, not bad ones as well as ignoring who pays the costs in money and time that an autistic cannot pay, as part of a "hopeful" acronym-based future


Your full participation and pro-active approach toward your own life path can ensure a promising, H.O.P.E.F.U.L future!


Be Honest.  [underline added]


Observe Yourself in Your Environment.


Be Pro-active. [underline added]


Educate Yourself and Others


Focus your energy on your strengths and talents.


Utilize Available Resources.


Live!
 
[from pg 40-43 of "Welcome to The Autistic Community" paper]



 for all autistics in the paper released two days after the #SOTU Republican response, in a Jan 30, 2014 email
blast,


From: Autistic Self Advocacy Network <info@autisticadvocacy.org>
Subject: Introducing "Welcome To The Autistic Community"!
Date: January 30, 2014 11:01:01 AM EST


The Autistic Self Advocacy Network is proud to announce Welcome to the Autistic Community, educational books which were co-written by ASAN's communications team and the Autism NOW center and illustrated by Anabelle Listic.

Welcome to the Autistic Community introduces newly-diagnosed Autistic people to the community and answers common questions they might have, covering topics such as legal rights and identity.

Welcome to the Autistic Community is currently available in English. It can be found on the ASAN website in two versions, “Adolescent,” written at a sixth-grade reading level, and “Adult”, written in standard simple English.

Read Welcome to the Autistic Community!


Donate to ASAN »   Become an ASAN member »
Autistic Self Advocacy Network: PO Box 66122 | Washington, DC 20035
 







[as of 2017 ASAN moved its physical office space from 2013 H St, NW 7th floor to 1010 Vermont Ave, NW suite 618]

 

 Specific language


There are also federal and state entities designed to help autistic adults, such as your state's developmental disabilities council. You can find your state's council here: http://www.nacdd.org/about-nacdd/councils-on- developmental-disabilities.aspx. Some state councils may be able to assist in extreme situations; however, councils are not expected to provide individualized services to people.
There are more services for Autistic adults than ever before. However, with our advocacy efforts, more and better services can exist in the future.


Your full participation and pro-active approach toward your own life path can ensure a promising, H.O.P.E.F.U.L future!


from the "Welcome to The Autistic Community" paper that subtly redirects people from publicly-funded LTSS in HCBS settings toward an identity politics-based community (autistic) without systemic public funds leading to savage inequalities in long-term individual life outcomes.   The savage inequalities have a basis in individual skill variation at replacing public services with 'vibrant social cooperation'  


In the last decade, social media has been important for connecting the Autistic community. Many organizations and interest groups have appeared online. We recommend that if you use social media, you should connect with people online. It also has the benefit of allowing you to be basically anywhere in the world with an Internet connection, and still be in contact with the community.


through individual communication in public and private (user to user messaging) functions between accountholders on social media platforms. 


This tweet, 



No. Not everything is possible. Not for everybody, everywhere, all the time. Stop pressuring people to have to be able to do everything!

    •    Retweet 1
    •    Likes 4
    •     
7:52 AM - 1 Oct 2016




with nuance unfortunately stripped out by the 140 character cap,  sums up the flaws in the ASAN paper and advocacy strategy of diverting as many people out of the publicly-funded social safety net, delivered in HCBS settings, toward 'autistic community building' as a 'demand reduction' ideological inversion of failed Reagan-Republican 'supply side economics.' 


 In the absence of a passed and signed HR4247, by Dec 2010, autistic 'self' (more accurately many 'selves') advocacy for two people within the next 6 years, Zakh Price and Kayleb Moon-Robinson, successfully saved both from the school to prison pipeline.  That autistic community-led advocacy is commendable but in no way a substitute for the systemic change HR 4247 and adequate funding for regulatory enforcement would have made.  There are probably many other autistic students who were not so fortunate to attract nationally-based social media and IRL support leading to the dropping of wrongfully filed legal charges and are suffering in institutions of juvenile correctional environments.   

Social acceptance goal of Autism Acceptance Month Can Happen Faster with Individual Economic Security for all Autistics

Updated March 17, 2017

  What does cure mean with respect to autism spectrum disorder ASD?  Individual difficulties carrying out activities of daily living/self care in the community a person with a disability chooses to live in ("Major Life Activities" & "essential functions" to borrow ADA legal terms for application to personal lives) exposes issues indicating impaired functioning at levels compared to people without disabilities, among them communication and executive functioning skills (personal organization, time management, dealing with disagreement and coping with stress).  

  People with disabilities experience a range of problems, varying by degrees of severity from person to person, in day to day life functioning.   As well, variations exist in the degrees of help an autistic needs with earning money, from finding & keeping a job working for others or self-employment, to support oneself from employment a person with a disability ideally finds both meaningful and lucrative.  Help comes in many forms and all #PwDs should have access to all of the forms including help that costs (tax) money that the #PwD needs financial aid in paying for.    


  Rethink what 'curing autism' means. 

  People with disabilities who identify as disability, human rights and neurodiversity activists who don't want a prenatal genetic test for autism to lead to as many abortions as the trisomy 21 (Down's Syndrome) test has led to after positive tests for trisomy 21 (Down's Syndrome) fetuses should stop separating social acceptance of differences from economic costs (and who pays those costs the individual or public sector systems).

  Social acceptance comes more quickly with a state doing the most good for the most people at all deliberate speed with cognizance of individual variation.

  The private for-profit, AKA the corporate-form of business organization, sector seeks to shift its costs of market participation/business operations, to accommodate individual variation in prospective customers/target markets, from large aggregated groups to 'niche market' prospective customers/target markets. The cost shift helps maximize profit for the private or public equity as that is the core mission of a private corporation. The non-profit form of business organization attempts, but rarely can and should not, completely assist its served population (target market) with paying the costs that the for-profit sector has shifted for the fiscal benefit of each corporations' human owners.  Filling in gaps unmet by either the for-profit or non-profit private sector is the job of the public sector (demonized and delegitimized as 'big guvmint/politics.')


The public sector uses a civil rights law protected class framework that relies on the belief that an individual who is left behind in social and economic progress creates costs that grow over time as the individual is continued to be left behind.  The private non-profit sector is necessarily limited by the discretionary income, in money, skills and time, of donors to each non-profit organization that inevitably forces horrible "tradeoffs"
in how to spend limited money and personal resources.  The public sector has, or should have, a greater base of human and fiscal capital to lessen the need for horrible tradeoffs.  At least that is how 'the system' of public and private cooperation to organize civil society of national, state/province and local governance, IMHO, should work. 


  A dispute 


 I see that one of my favorite hatemongers and propagandists in the neurodiversity movement, someone who calls themselves the autism bitch from hell is at it again Her latest post is another propaganda effort with the tired cliche constantly purported by neurodiversity. She writes: Autism Speaks has never come close to being an anti-vaccine group. Its agenda consists of one thing only: Genetic research to develop a prenatal test to be used for routine abortion of autistic children.



between a blogger calling him/herself "autism gadfly"  and other bloggers over neurodiversity may have been rooted in the 'autism gadfly' blogger being 'left behind' in social acceptance and economic (secure livable personal income to 'pay his/her bills') progress. 




 The failure to grasp the concept that many similar independent living problems that autistics live with are repeated manifestations of systemic failures that can be resolved more quickly with a systems change (public and fiscal policy) approach rather than an individual change approach, including assistance with paying the costs of change in money and time, may have been a principled view of the autism gadfly blogger expressed in unfortunately rude and hurtful words leading to conflict.   

 The depth of frustration and desperation of personal living circumstances, from not having his/her views adopted by other autistics as issue and policy consensus in the autistic self-advocacy/disability rights/independent living movement, may have led the autism gadfly blogger to post crude insults about bloggers with whom he or she disagreed, taken out of the original context below:



by a blogger who later died. 

Cross-disability stigma-busting requires ID/DD community reciprocity to MH/BH/SPMI community

   Stigmatized language to talk about, rather than with, people with disabilities is a problem for the SPMI/Mental Health/Behavioral Health community as it is in the ID/DD and physical disability communities.  Indeed, the term "intellectual disability" only came into use because of the federal Rosa's Law after activism state by state for the exclusive benefit, after use of inclusive rhetoric, of the ID (formerly called MR) and DD (developmental disability) community.  


  The letter below represents one manifestation of the similar and persistent problem.

Letters to the Editor
A terrifying disorder




October 24, 2014
   Please, please educate your reporters and editors on the proper use of the word “schizophrenic.” The otherwise excellent Oct. 18 front-page article “Florida floods magnify political climate battle” reported that state leaders took a “schizophrenic” position by denying climate change yet trying to combat it.
   Schizophrenia is a terrifying, severe, disabling brain disorder that affects millions of people and their families. It is characterized by bizarre, paranoid behaviors, including the belief that others can control your thoughts and read your mind.
   Please remember that politicians and others frequently exhibit “puzzling” or “contradictory” behaviors that have nothing to do with this tragic mental illness.


Peter Perl,
Silver Spring


The 'slogan' "Einstein's definition of insanity" in 'political dialogue/conversation,'
 represents another manifestation of the stigmatizing language that still exists after the statutory victory of the 'no r-word' campaign by 2010.
 

("Doing the same thing twice and expecting different results") called "Einstein's definition of insanity,"

often used as part of the pathologization of political disagreement, is as bad as using '- t a r d,' that no r-word activism fought in an anti-stigma campaign that coalesced around the use of the r-word in the 2008 film "Tropic Thunder."


 
This tweet


also shows that the problem of stigmatizing language used to talk about, instead of with, people with disabilities still exists for people living with (and trying to recover from the worst symptoms/traits of) SPMI (serious and persistent mental illness) in HCBS settings with LTSS as people with intellectual/developmental disabilities are (with the 'recovery' concept replaced by social acceptance, mutual respect and community inclusion).  


  No reciprocity has been given in coalition work, on ending stigmatizing language, to mental health consumer and family advocates, who participated in the United Cerebral Palsy-Special Olympics (Disability Policy Collaboration) 'no r-word' coalition.  


  Or, to be more nuanced, at least no meaningful reciprocity, leading to quantifiable gains in quality of life for people in the ID/DD community for the commensurate benefit of the SPMI/Mental/Behavioral health community, was given. 

  

  Use of the r-word in the 2008 film "Tropic Thunder," if a person had bothered to see the film for themselves instead of practicing zombietime.com - style individual activism following the loudest, often remote to a person's physical location, social media advocate voice including 'I don't want my money supporting the film' = BDS tactic, was an admonishment to self-advocate, take charge of one's life, that should not have included the replacement of monetary costs of Independent Living skill improvement, that an individual could not pay themselves, with time on social media searching for a similarly-situated peer and using DIY/maker/open source culture to make what one can't afford to buy or live without.


http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/full-retard?full=1


Here is a video clip of the scene in which the r-word was used. Watching the clip doesn't involve 'spending my money to support the film' also known as the BDS tactic.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y3FzVQi-R8

Lazarus: “Everybody knows you never do a full retard.”

Speedman: “What do you mean?”

Lazarus: “Check it out. Dustin Hoffman, ‘Rain Man,’ look retarded, act retarded, not retarded. Count toothpicks to your cards. Autistic, sure. Not retarded. You know Tom Hanks, ‘Forrest Gump.’ Slow, yes. Retarded, maybe. Braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and won a ping-pong competition. That ain’t retarded. You went full retard, man. Never go full retard.”















Shorter script:

Try to maximize your innate strengths.  Self-advocate (for self but mostly as part of a person with disability-led disabled community because ( "individual representation is a legislative fiction"



Try telling that to Autism Speaks or Grasp then, who act with much less
honourable motives than ASAN.
Individual representation is always a legislative fiction, no one person in 
any large community can accurately represent the beliefs and aspirations of 
every single constituent, not in the least because those are likely to be 
paradoxical an contradictory. One therfore advocates a community rather than 
individuals.




   Try to make a case for/demonstrate expanding eligibility for adequate financial aid with LTSS in HCBS settings AKA the social safety net. DIY/maker/open source culture and self-help and actualization/consumer-survivor/self-advocacy disabled community movements can't fully 'work around' paying for or obtaining, for all community members at a decent living standard of daily shelter/permanent supportive housing/food/clothing and employment.
 

   All of the above movements, led by people with disabilities, are to one degree or another attempts to expand what should be a public good/part of what President Lyndon B. Johnson originally intended as a "Great Society" and what President Franklin D. Roosevelt originally intended as a "New Deal."  


   Unfortunately these movements have been turned into attempts to privatize what should be a public good/part of the Great Society and New Deal.  Both the Great Society and the New Deal were disrupted/creatively destroyed by the military-industrial complex, in service to the richest 1% of multinational corporate business owners, trying selfishly to stay richest (kill economic class mobility) in a struggle against communism and national socialism (fascism) or (radical Islamic) terrorism/(sharia law/Islamofascism).  Actually all three 'global enemies' of 'western interests/way of life' represented 'undemocratic socialism' of a socialist economic system without representative, or proportional, representation within democracy, as a political system, of how people self-govern.  

   Note small d and r for nonpartisan world view/outlook/tone.

   

   What used to be called the military-industrial complex has morphed into the homeland security/counterterrorism-industrial complex, fighting an 'endless war' of a  'global war on terror/man-made disasters' against supremacists of all religions who go horribly wrong in trying to make a moral case of how people should treat each other, that the socialist economic and democratic political case couldn't make before.  More appropriate integration of religion and pluralistic democracies is what used to be known as interfaith (ecumenical) cooperation among communities of different faiths on social justice issues nonviolently within political systems.  Interfaith and ecumenical cooperation on social justice issues has taken the new form I blogged about here.


     


The comments from 'know your meme' make the same point that the 'no r-word' or 'say the word to end the word' social media and IRL stigma-busting advocacy campaigns stripped from public discourse by focusing too much on the use of a word, at all, rather than noting the context of how a word was used. 




Che
2 years ago
I think the summary above is wrong: “he talks about how Chuck’s acting method for his mentally handicapped character, the titular Simple Jack went “full retard”, thereby overdoing the acting and making a possibly decent film stupid.” In the dialogue it seems more like the fellow is saying, “Don’t accept the part of a fully mentally handicapped person.” Not, “Don’t overdo the acting.”



precambrian_ARISE
2 years ago  Che
It’s more that “retards” in successful oscar bait films are esthetically “retarded” (i.e. act in a weird way) instead of actually being afflicted by any mental disability. Probably the only exception to this would be the Aviator, however, OCD doesn’t influence intelligence and they barely show the later part of Howard Hugues’ [Hughes'] life where he utterly lost control.
Furthermore, the disability his frequently shown to allow them to do something great instead of being a, well, disability (i.e. A beautyful [Beautiful] mind).
Overdoing the acting has little to do with that. You just need to take the role of a “retard” that is actualy a superhero. You end up with a uplifting movie that get you a best actor oscar. If you take a role with an actual “retard” you get a realist but ultimately bleak movie and you go back home with nothing (i.e. the Aviator).
2


Che
2 years ago  precambrian_ARISE
There is the conspicuous exception of Day Lewis’s Oscar-winning performance in My Left Foot (1989), no? Cerebral palsy is also classified as a type of ‘mental retardation’; i.e., ‘intellectual disability’ (cf. ‘developmental disability’).


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precambrian_ARISE
2 years ago  Che
Haven’t heard of that movie, but yeah that might be another exception (also Cerebral palsy ISN’T a type of mental retardation, those affected have normal intelligence but have muscular control problems).
The Simple Jack movie is a reference to the movie “I am Sam”, which was an obvious oscar bait movie that failed. In [comparison], Forest Gump and Rain Man got the oscar. These two movies show the lead role accomplishing great things because or with the help of their “retardation” while I am Sam is a little more realistic, showing the lead role to be actualy disabled and unable to be a decent father despite him wanting to. The movie with the lead caracther being “full retard” failed to get the oscar.
Also, this might be relevant to this article


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_Thunder#Controversy