Welcome to ASPIE!

Many people visiting this blog right now are likely to be interested by our recent advertising regarding our organisation.

For the uninitiated, ASPIE is an autism acceptance organisation, different from other autism organisations.  While other organisations mess around with genes and look for a cure, we tend to look at the more human side of things.  And from a human point of view, it can be seen there are many problems in society today regarding autism.

Even the most innocent articles in newspapers can spread fear and misinformation about those that are autistic.  Autism is generally seen as a mental disorder that causes all sorts of behaviour problems, and the only way to cure it is Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA).  Unfortunately, these first impressions tend to be lasting impressions, and once you look at it from that way, one generally does not turn back.  They would consider autism acceptance absurd.  But what these people generally do is that they miss the point of our arguments.

For our point of view regarding autism, please check out “ASPIE – An Introduction“.  If you would like to join ASPIE, please consult the information in the header of this blog.

Meeting 13: Tough luck

Not many members participated in Meeting 13. Our previous plan was to continue the topic mentioned in our previous meeting (posters and values), but we did not have a sufficient number of members. Only three people participated, including Ms B.

An advertising campaign will be taking place over the next two weeks, hopefully targeting all demographics, in order to draw passionate members of the community. This time, however, we will not attempt to differentiate ourselves from traditional autism awareness organisations until after the next two meetings, which will be trial meetings for new members. (Which I personally think is a bad idea, but we haven’t tried it yet so we’ll give it a go.)

I’d better get to work on that booklet I was planning too (“Defining Autism for the 21st Century”) and make a list of critical flaws in society’s present point of view regarding autism.

Our next (trial!) meeting will take place on 30 May – same time, same place.

Meeting 12: Aims and Objectives (Revised)

A possible reason why many members dropped out of ASPIE after the tenth meeting is that:

• We did not agree with each other in terms of values.
• Some opted for a more traditional autism awareness approach, rather than autism acceptance and pride.

So it was decided that we would revisit the Aims and Objectives that we discussed in Meeting 3, and the four of us decided that the following revisions be made.  Note, though, that we have not decided on the order of priority.

Our Aims and Objectives (edited for clarity):

• To decrease discrimination and promote equality.
• To educate others on autism awareness with an emphasis on acceptance.
• To motivate and empower autistic people both in general and individually.

It is important to agree on an order of priority, because what destroyed our organisation was that we did not agree on what we should present, organisations we should support, and so on.  In fact, one of our previous members suggested that we use Autism Speaks to spread autism awareness and ASPIE would handle the acceptance part.  Also, one of us (that person was unfortunately me) suggested more radical, active approaches, and this alienated a lot of current members.  We really should be more prepared this time, and we should at least think of, say, a week for ASPIE to spread its values?

In the meantime, an article I wrote about my vision of the new ASPIE’s core beliefs can be found here, but please do not take it as the ultimate bible of ASPIE’s beliefs.  It’s just my vision for it, and I think that aspects of it should be made more clear among current ASPIE members.  And of course, I will need to see if everybody agrees if this article should be a reference point.

Our next meeting:  Wednesday, the 16th of May.  See the top of this page for more information, and expect a fairly angry response to an article I read in the papers.

Update:  The blog Autistic Hoya has once again prompted me to post a link to this petition on the blog.  Please be sure to sign it.

A problem with our members list

It seems that our members list has gone awry.  So-called regular members have not attended meetings in two months, the dates of previous attendance have somehow been messed up, and the number of meetings people have attended is inaccurate.  And this is my own fault.  There may not be a strong enough sense of loyalty in the organisation.  I have attempted to do research on how to create loyalty in an organisation, but all I get is “How to create brand loyalty”, “How to create customer loyalty in x easy steps”, “Creating loyalty to your product or service”, etc.  How the world has changed!

Suggestions are highly recommended, and the next meeting will have to begin with a fresh slate and new, empty roll.

Lindt chocolate is evil for two reasons now

Just got this in the e-mail, abridged for your convenience.  I have signed numerous petitions at Change.org, and am convinced that this is legitimate.

[NAME CENSORED] -  Children as young as seven are enduring 16-hour days and beatings to produce the cocoa that major companies use to make chocolate. And only days before Easter, these companies are desperately competing with each other to maximise profits.  It’s their most lucrative holiday period — but their profits will come from modern day child slavery. And whileevery other major chocolate company has already taken steps to ensure their cocoa isn’t harvested by children, Lindt and Ferrero continue to put massive profits ahead of basic child welfare.

Childcare worker Morgan Rayner loves chocolate. But when she found out about the children farming the cocoa, she could only imagine her 9-year-old little brother in their shoes. She’s started a massive global Change.org petition calling on Ferrero and Lindt to take immediate steps to make sure no children are involved in making their chocolate.

They can’t afford a huge consumer backlash and negative media coverage that will threaten their sales just days away from Easter — if tens of thousands join her, the pressure and threat to their brands will convince them to act.

Thanks for being a part of this,

Nick and the Change.org team

I would say this is another reason to speak up against Lindt Chocolates, apart from their support for Autism Speaks.  Be sure to mention the autism rights movement and the Lindt controversy in the reason you submit for signing the petition!  I didn’t have a Facebook account, so I can’t share with any friends.

The link to the relevant petition is here.

As you can probably tell, I really don’t check my e-mail very often.