Update(x3): Father Byers critiques the *purported* flagship video of Autism Speaks: Demonically Evil

[[UPDATE (1): So, with the above screen shot, we know that Autism Speaks has seen this post. Moreover, I alerted them to it by way of email. So, they know. So, we are awaiting a response as to the origin of this little film.]]

This is the video on vimeo, but I don’t know if:

• The first half is from Autism Speaks
• The second half is from Autism Speaks
• Both halves are from Autism Speaks
• Neither half is from Autism Speaks

Whatever the case, I have grave reservations about both halves of this film, though perhaps Paul from Autism Speaks can sort us out on that. Everything described in this post points to the whole thing coming from Autism Speaks. Paul?

Keep in mind as you watch this that the script was pretty much plagiarized from “The Crippler”, which was used as a scare tactic in theaters in the 1950s to get people to give to the March of Dimes to get rid of the demonized Poliomyelitis. Spooky music and demonic voice and heart-breaking scenes:

“My name is virus poliomyelitis. I cause a disease which you call infantile paralysis. I consider myself quite an artist, a sort of sculptor. I specialize in grotesques, twisting and deforming human bodies. That’s why I’m called The Crippler. You’ve never seen me but I’m sure you’ve seen my shadow. I’m never invited but I’ve been an invisible guest in practically every kind of home… As you probably know, I’m very fond of children, especially little children. I have no prejudices. I’m quite impartial…. I’m feeling unusually active today. I might start an epidemic!”

So, those with poliomyelitis, “especially little children,” are turned into nothing more than a shadow of the demonic crippler. They are no longer children, but mere shadows of the demonic. Nice, huh?

Autism is also demonized in the purported Autism Speaks video, to the point where — hey! — the kids will need an exorcism with voodoo! That’s sure to help, right?!

PART I:

I am autism. [As a personified demon with a creepy voice. Be careful of the straw men...]

I’m visible in your children [Really? How's that? Like a demon? Sounds terrifying], but if I can help it, I am invisible to you until it’s too late. [Here's the brainwashing technique: indicators of autism are equated with the demonic. This is super dangerous. But watch the image here. Autism takes over, possesses a child like a demon. The demon throws the child into the background. All that is evident is the demon, the autism. But who knows where the child is.] I know where you live. [Just like the conscienceless Mafia!] And guess what? I live there too. [Hey! Can't even hide under the bed!] I hover around all of you. [Little red demons flying about!] I know no color barrier, no religion, no morality, no currency. I speak your language fluently. And with every voice I take away, I acquire yet another language. [Because everyone on the autism spectrum can't speak, right? That would be oh so wrong.] I work very quickly. I work faster than pediatric AIDS, cancer, and diabetes combined [Just wow. Talk about scare tactics. It's gotta be like, you know, something like contagious, like stuff that kills people, like stuff old and heavy people get lots of, like, you know.] And if you’re happily married, I will make sure that your marriage fails. [This is evil. But it's supposed to be, right? Because it's the demon talking! But actually, the demon is autism, but we're really talking about a child here, except that here, the child has somehow disappeared, having been demonically possessed by the demon autism.] Your money will fall into my hands, and I will bankrupt you for my own self-gain. [I'd like to see full financial disclosure of salaries for everyone at Autism Speaks, if this is their video, since their inception.] I don’t sleep, so I make sure you don’t either. [A real nightmare.] I will make it virtually impossible for your family to easily attend a temple, birthday party, or public park without a struggle, without embarrassment, without pain. [This so makes autism impossible to be near that one would want to abort the kid or commit infanticide or just kill the person at any age, right, like in Nazi Germany? Mind you, none of these things will be refuted below. When the demon speaks, it's the truth, right?] You have no cure for me. [Here's the financial pitch for you to give your money to Autism Speaks, if this is their video...] Your scientists don’t have the resources [Give us your $$$], and I relish their desperation. [The prep for the "We'll show you!" bit to follow in Part II below.] Your neighbors are happier to pretend that I don’t exist, of course, until it’s their child. [This is the invite to dig in one's heels in all righteousness to be rid of the demon. But it is a demon here.] I am autism. [Here we go:] I have no interest in right or wrong. I derive great pleasure out of your loneliness. I will fight to take away your hope. I will plot to rob you of your children and your dreams. I will make sure that every day you wake up you will cry, wondering who will take care of my child after I die? And the truth is, I am still winning, and you are scared. And you should be. I am autism. You ignored me. That was a mistake. [You would just want to blow your brains out, right? So, despair all around, and wallets and purses are opened up. But then... but then... it actually gets worse, when it is supposed to be all better. Whoever did this is really, really creepy.]

PART II:

And to autism [the child, that is, the demon. All that follows is addressed to the "shadow" of what the child could have been, in this mentality, not to the child. The shadow is the demon. The child is possessed, and has receded into the background. This is truly frightening:] I say: I am a father, a mother, a grandparent, a brother, a sister. We will spend every waking hour trying to weaken you. We don’t need sleep because we will not rest until you do. Family can be much stronger than autism ever anticipated, and we will not be intimidated by you, nor will the love and strength of my community. I am a parent riding toward you, and you can push me off this horse time and time again, but I will get up, climb back on, and ride on with the message. Autism, you forget who we are. You forget who you are dealing with. You forget the spirit of mothers, and daughters, and fathers and sons. We are Qatar. We are the United Kingdom. We are the United States. We are China. We are Argentina. We are Russia. We are the European Union. We are the United Nations. We are coming together in all climates. We call on all faiths. We search with technology and voodoo [searching with voodoo, that is, voodoo rituals, that is, demonic spirit-channeling, you know, just to make it clear that one fights demons with... um... demons... I mean, I dunno, are there what seem to be the usual sex rituals involved with this voodoo searching, I mean, you know, with the children themselves? Just askin'. Whatever the answer to that, this is just really, really evil...] and prayer [after all that, what kind of "prayer"?] and herbs [and after all that, is the herbal thing just nature stuff, snake-oil stuff, or is it, going along with the voodoo thing, some sort of thing for witchcraft recipes? Perhaps that would involved a newt's eye or something. But I digress, possibly.] and genetic studies and a growing awareness you never anticipated. We have had challenges, but we are the best when overcoming them. We speak the only language that matters: love for our children [who have disappeared and remain missing somewhere under the demonic shadow. There are no children present with autism in the message here. "Love for our children" refers to a figment of the imagination of "what could have been" or maybe could still be, but surely is not here now, no children now, just demonic shadows. You would like to read it another way, you know, because you're nice and like to see niceness. But that's not what the film has.]. Our capacity to love is greater than your capacity to overwhelm. Autism is naïve. You are alone. We are a community of warriors. We have a voice. You think because some of our children cannot speak, we cannot hear them? That is autism’s weakness. You think that because my child lives behind a wall, I am afraid to knock it down with my bare hands? [But this skips the point of view of the autistic person, who might not at all view autism as a wall. I direct you to this most exquisite, incredible site, which, apparently, was legally threatened. It's very much well worth the read. If you persevere, and it's not all that long, you won't regret it. You will be in awe: http://web.archive.org/web/20051124032124/http://www.gettingthetruthout.org/ Note that the site was knocked off the web, and only exists on the archive.org site. Truly: Yikes! When you get to the bit with the "keyboard", follow the links for the video and then for the transcript. This will absolutely knock your socks off. So, so, so super incredibly cool!!!] You have not properly been introduced to this community of parents and grandparents, of siblings and friends and schoolteachers and therapists and pediatricians and scientists. Autism, if you are not scared, you should be. When you came for my child [who is still gone missing, abducted by the demonic possessing shadow], you forgot: you came for me. Autism, are you listening? [Just. Wow. The idea here is that the hovering demon is trying to possess the parents and siblings and everyone else, and that one must fight being possessed, the only way to do that being to attack the demon shadow. This is just so dangerous. People get the wrong idea with this kind of ambiguous confusion. Is it about research? Also. But, should a mother, say, drive off a bridge with an autistic daughter to, you know, kill that demon? Just askin'. It happened, by the way. Right after another horrific film some group put out, something like this one. I don't have the link for that though. Anyone?]

If Paul from Autism Speaks doesn’t intervene to tell us that this little film is theirs or not — and he is following this blog http://holysoulshermitage.com closely — I’ll then just have to assume the entire video is theirs. All indicators are that. Paul?

Now, I am critical here. And I’m a little bit afraid that there may be retaliation by whoever created this video. I’ve already been informed that I’ve gone beyond critical dialogue. Also, I’ve seen what may only be rumors, but there are a number of them, which state that there have been legal threats forcing self-advocate statements off the internet. Anyway, I own nothing, no land, no house. Pretty much nothing in the bank. I’ve no job. Even the rickety pickup is not mine. So, all I would have to fear is jail, right? It’s worth it. If this site is knocked off the web, I can just put it back up, minus the pictures, but at least the text will be there. It will just be a new domain.

So, I’ll now make a critique of the above video (and you thought I already did!). I do NOT say that that video comes from Autism Speaks. That has nothing to do with my critique. I’m just making the critique. If it is theirs… Just. Wow. But since Paul from Autism Speaks approached me first, I feel I have a right to ask questions, the first one being is about whether they have anything to do with this video.

Disclaimer: On the one hand, someone who’s never met me, but with whom I’ve spoken, is convinced I’m on the autism spectrum. On the other hand, a parishioner in another part of the world, who holds the record for numbers of children having autism in her hemisphere, is convinced that I don’t have even the slightest bit of autism. At any rate, I always vote for the underdog, and that would be for the autistic child, not some huge group.

MY COMMENT: The video “I AM AUTISM” makes a clear distinction between the child — who virtually does not exist — and the shadow of the demonic autism. Some take that literally, the demon bit, as is evident with the mention of voodoo, the old fighting demons with demons trick. At any rate, the point I’d like to make is that the child is depersonalized, and that it is much easier to get rid of a non-person than a child, right? The whole question is about whether or not the prevention that is so highly touted involves abortion. Murder would prevent autism, now, wouldn’t it?! But even prescinding from that question, the idea of this video is that the person cannot be seen truly to exist if there is autism present, so that autism is not a part of the person, but somehow replaces the person. This is dangerous, and smacks of eugenics and the lead-up to hitleresque death camps. I will repeat that link description above, just for coolness’ sake:

I direct you to this most exquisite, incredible site, which, apparently, was legally threatened. It’s very much well worth the read. If you persevere, and it’s not all that long, you won’t regret it. You will be in awe: http://web.archive.org/web/20051124032124/http://www.gettingthetruthout.org/ Note that the site was knocked off the web, and only exists on the archive.org site. Truly: Yikes! When you get to the bit with the “keyboard”, follow the links for the video and then for the transcript. This will absolutely knock your socks off. So, so, so super incredibly cool!!! Please use the sharing buttons at the bottom of this post.

[[Update (2): It's said that we are to have some understanding for those who created this little film, in that they have children who are autistic. Right. But I'm in solidarity with them by helping them see the error of their ways. I'm risking having the blog thrown off the internet in doing this. Moreover, those responsible for presenting this to the world should have some critical oversight with all this, no? Also...

• It is one thing to say that one regrets that people are offended over the video and take it off the internet. That's just more mockery, you know, the old "You're too stupid to understand our brilliance and our being right, so we'll just condescendingly remove the video, O.K.?!?"
• It would be another thing altogether to say that the video tragically sends the wrong message, that it is altogether antithetical to the welfare of autistics and their families, and that an entire sea-change of attitudes is necessary for those who promoted this video, possible on a world level, at the United Nations. But that hasn't happened, has it? Just askin'.]]

[[Update (3): There's seems to be a confirmation that the video seen in this post is, in fact, the Autism Speaks presentation. I say that because of this Time Magazine article including an interview with the Vice President of Autism Speaks at that time, Peter Bell: HERE. H/T to a schooling forum.]]