On Media: Autism Speaks Plays Nice with Savage

Note: At 2:00pm this afternoon there will be a press conference at 111 Broadway, NYC, outside the offices of WOR 710, held by Autism United.

By Anne Dachel *

On his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage claimed that autism is "[a] fraud, a racket. ... I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, 'Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot.' " Click HERE.

I can't express my anger at these words. The outrage is shared  by many groups like NAA and others who truly advocate for our  kids  ... except Autism Speaks.  This is what they had to say about Savage's comments:

"One important goal of increasing awareness about autism is to foster a greater level of acceptance and understanding of the very real and significant challenges it poses to individuals with the disorder and their families. The good news is that we see more and more expressions of this compassion every day and everywhere, from classrooms and playgrounds to ballparks and supermarkets. Unfortunately, there are those who are apparently incapable of feeling compassion. They deserve our pity, not our scorn."

No Autism Speaks, you are wrong.  Michael Savage doesn't deserve our pity. He's dangerous.  The world has to learn what has happened to a generation of children.  News stories tell about affected kids being kicked off planes, banned from churches, voted out of kindergarten classes, and asked to leave restaurants. 

Where is the outrage over such inhumane treatment of the disabled?

In a few short years, all the children with autism will be adults dependent on the taxpayers for their support and care.   The bill will be tremendous and many will be unwilling to pay it.


Will our kids be seen as burdens or as victims?

Autism Speaks, you do not speak for our children.  If you really cared about about affected kids, you'd express the same outrage felt by parents struggling each day with their disabled sons and daughters.
--
Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

* Pab·lum   

1. Trademark. a brand of soft, bland cereal for infants.
 
2. (lowercase) trite, naive, or simplistic ideas or writings; intellectual pap. 

Comments

[Julie]

The Mississippi Talk Radio Station has just cancelled Savage's show. Radio Shack sent me an email to please spread the word that they should not be associated with Savage. They do not advertise with him, nor will they ever agree to do so. AFLAC has pulled their advertisement also. Autismlink is asking for nationwide support from any organization who wants to put their name on a petition to have Savage fired. Please email them at info@autismlink.com to have your organization added to the ever growing list. We need to continue to put an end to this "Savage Network".

[Rachel Keslensky]

Autism Speaks refuses to do anything about Michael Savage not because they're scared of him or because he's well-connected, but because deep down in their pocketbooks, they agree with Michael Savage and everyone else who demonizes autistic children.

I hope the incident opens more people's eyes to realize that Autism Speaks is just another charity that refuses to actually help people when the time comes to stop fundraising and start funding.

[Adonya Wong]

Autism Speaks does not speak for me. Issues, like this one, need to be addressed with fevered passion and outrage. Playing nice nice to a "Savage" isn't the stance our children need us to take. They look to us for protection. If we don't fight for them, who will?

Adonya Wong
Mother to an amazing 7 year old autistic boy
___________________________________________

"Talk Radio Network, the employer of Michael Savage, should air educational public service announcements about autism. To balance the negative view of autism which Michael Savage stands for, Talk Radio Network should open up a media window within their network to promote a positive discussion of the reality of autism."

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/trn-should-air-autism-psas

[K Fuller Yuba City]

Mr.Savage has in his mind the same picture of Autism that our parents have.
They know about the Autistic kids in thier day who were so disabled they never spoke and many parents followed the "experts" advise to institutionalize them.
When our son was first called Autistic we were in disbelief, our picture of Autism did not match the way our son behaved.
The medical establishment put this label on our children. Those in the know matched this horrible condition to the behaviors of Autism. Our children are not responsible for this. Did the medical establishment know in the early 90's that this was vaccine injury? Did they call it Autism to steer us away from vaccines?
Dear Mr. Savage, Call the condition whatever you want to, this does not change the fact that 1in150 American children have been damaged. Put your passion to good use. Join us in finding the solution.

[Angela Warner]

I saw an earlier post that said this bastard was ridiculing the 1 in 150 prevelance rate. Anybody have an email addy for this jerk? Or a phone number for his boss? There is so much I am not able to do right now - I am overwhelmed with work - but I will MAKE the time to attempt to educate this fool on the true prevelance rate and exactly what the numbers mean and who they include!

[Kelly Langston]

Micheal Weiner (okay, I am a person that believes names are very significant!) would love to have parents call into his show this afternoon so that he can further belittle parents and promote himself. He's good at it and he makes a living off of it remember.

"Mike Savage is opening up his show to our calls today from 3-6pm Pacific Time. The call in number is 800-449-8255."

I would like to see SPONSORS of his show call into the show and voice their concerns about Weiner's cold-hearted comments. If sponsors care that thousands and thousands of parents are angry and frustrated with Michael Weiner/Savage (both names tell a lot) and his show, they they should make a statement.

A simple "we don't share Mr. Savage's views" is not enough. They are FUNDING Mr. Savage's critical and harmful viewpoint, and as such, that is SUPPORTING it.

SPONSORS, call into the show today! Parents, let's urge them to do so.

[Robin Nemeth]

Btw, John, nice tee shirt designs. :}

I particularly liked the 'eye contact is over-rated'. Haven't some of the slimiest bastards you've ever met had the most lovely eye contact?

[Robin Nemeth]

While I’m not going to apologize for last night’s tirade that I posted, I think I will point out that I probably wouldn’t have written it at all if I hadn’t broken a promise. (There they are, those consequences for actions, thwacking me in the face this morning as I reread what I wrote last night.) I’d made a promise elsewhere not to listen to Savage, anymore. Right after his first stupid comments aired. And there I was, last night, just as soon as my husband told me he was talking about autism, with my radio on. And omg but he makes me soooo angry... My own tirade, I think, was meant to function as a sort of wall in my brain, against his evil and stupidity.

But anyway, I’m sorry, for that. That I broke my promise and was listening to his show, last night. I guess I felt I owed it to him and to me to keep an open mind. But after the comments about how the mercury has been removed from the vaccines, well, this time I really mean it. No more. I know enough to stop listening to people who have lied to me. Don’t try to tell me he’s uninformed. As Jim said, “How stupid do you think we are?”

[John Kirton]

We are the family you may have heard about from Utah with 6 Autistic children.

We were in ‘People’ magazine this last February and were featured on Good Morning America, Inside Edition and Larry King. We have our own website, a blog and our own line of t-shirts. AND… a documentary about our family, will be shown this fall on the Discovery Health channel.

We KNOW Autism. Our children are NOT morons,
idiots or just in need of a good spanking!
Michael Savage is obviously extremely ignorant and has NOOOOOO idea what he has bitten off by making these comments on Autism.

In fact he has made ME so mad that I created 3 t-shirts to go with our current line-up. They point out exactly what I'm sure you feel... just like me. Check them out here:

http://www.cafepress.com/autismbites

[Robin Nemeth]

Cindy wrote: I'd like to hear more about the arrest attempt Robin.

To tell you the truth I’m starting to get that same feeling that I used to get when I was in grade school, and there was some joke and everyone got it but me, and that was a big part of the funniness of the joke for everyone else. Which almost makes me not want to say anything because the jokes were almost always mean, and anyway it’s not as though I haven’t put the details down in writing plenty of times. But you want me to talk about the details again? The joke’s on me—I’ll bite. Hardy har har.

House of Blues, April of last year, Autism Speaks benefit concert, I’m standing with my husband outside and I’m handing out flyers about thimerosal when I’m asked to leave. “We’ll put your flyers on our table” says the woman behind the information table. I suspected that they’d put my flyers into the circular file as soon as I walked out the door, but I know it would’ve been rude to say as much, and so I said only “I’d prefer to hand them out to people personally.” “We’ll call the police if you don’t leave” I was told. “Do you have a child with autism? I have a child with autism. Can you understand that?” I told her no. “We worked really hard for this and we just want to have a good time tonight” I don’t know who she was. I didn’t understand why it should bother her that I was there. I didn’t know why her having a child with autism should mean that she had the right to tell me I had to leave. So I stayed. Two police cars came. The fact that there is no official police record, I believe, tells you that I wasn’t actually harassing or threatening anyone. If I had been, there’d have been an official police report filed. I think that’s what the receptionist I spoke with at the police department said, or implied. But if you look at the dispatch report, which I got a copy of, you’ll see that when the House of Blues called the police, the police were told that I was threatening and harassing people. That right there pisses me off. Because I most assuredly was doing no such thing.

http://www.wideopenwest.com/~r_nemeth/HOB_incident_report.htm

But honestly, it’s the stuff that happened afterwards that really makes angry. The bitch lied about it. Excuse my language, but I really don’t see what other word there is for the likes of her. They didn’t just stop with lying about what I was doing there that night, with lying and telling the police I was threatening and harassing people. On a local yahoo internet forum, after seeing the local AS chapter president Ms. Goldberg soliciting donations for another AS event, I wrote of the arrest attempt. And the president of the local chapter of AS replied, on the forum, with “Robin, nobody tried to have you arrested.”

I know that I’ve heard a few people take issue with my use of those words. In that the police didn’t actually try to arrest me after they showed up. But actually, they did tell me, initially, that I would be arrested if I didn’t leave--it was only later when the chief of police came that I was told I was within my rights to stay. So while there wasn’t any sort of actual physical scuffle, I’m standing by my words. And the bitch, who I’ve never met, might have been there that evening or she might not have. But if she was there, then she knows what happened. She saw the police cars come, she saw the officers talking to me and to my husband, telling me to leave, asking him if he “couldn’t just take me home.” And if she wasn’t there, then the bitch should shut her trap. If she is going to speak about that night, she should be speaking the truth.

Part of the reason I’m so furious is that it seems to me that a person would have to have colossal gall to do what she’s done. I can’t imagine what she is thinking. Surely she knows that others saw what happened that night. Perhaps she thinks it doesn’t matter at all. Perhaps she is right. It certainly hasn’t seemed to matter. I at first thought sheesh, for her to do this she must be so used to being able to say anything at all, and get her way and get away with it, and have no consequences. The empress has no clothes, and nobody seems to care to say so.

I understand that there are situations in which people don’t know what happened, and it is, as far as they are concerned ‘he said/she said’, as they say. And yet, I’ve had people, so many people, tell me that they believe me, or that they knew of someone who spoke with the police about it, and that they think it was wrong for them to have done this. And they say this to my face, but they’re two faced. Because, a month or two later when I would be at another meeting or another function, there would be the people who had told me “gee it’s terrible what they did”, and they’re cozying up to the people who’d supposedly done this, in their opinion, terrible thing as if they were just the best of friends. Hugging, smiling, laughing, dancing with them. All smoochy poo. And helping them to raise money.

I’ve heard the term ‘incestuous’ used to describe the various charity organizations. I know it’s a broad brush to use to paint them all with, and all of the people in those organizations. But here where I live, it is quite accurate. I don’t care who I offend or insult by saying so. They tried to have me arrested. And I’m supposed to worry that I’ve committed some stinking social faux pas by naming the *(*&*^& names of people who lie blatantly and shamelessly??

This is another thing that’s really pissed me off over the past year. Every last person who’s in charge of any of the support groups, here where I live, has either refused to let me post about this on their internet forum, or else made me feel that I’m nuts for speaking of what happened to me. I’m made to feel as if I really ought to have my head examined for even thinking about speaking of it, for even thinking about naming names. “Let me help you edit this into something more acceptable”—this is what I heard a year ago from the moderator of AutismNE. “Let me help you edit this, oh and btw, don’t mention your problems with the others”—this, almost the very same thing, is what I heard a month or two ago from the GC-AS moderator. Along with “I hope you’re not offended.” How the hell would I NOT be offended at the idea that I would acquiesce to censorship?? Is this what it means to be neurologically typical?? Ack.

For six or eight years I went to political chat rooms and I chatted amiably with people about every topic you can think of. When I said ‘thimerosal’, the chit hit the proverbial fan. Excuse my language, again, but I can really not thing of a better way of describing what happened to me there. It all sounded very much like what you heard from Savage. Obscene. And it was accepted and tolerated and *I* was the one who was painted as the sick person, the twisted person, the lunatic. But I told myself, as scared as I was by it, “oh well, these aren’t real people, these people who op on these channels they are nameless and faceless. And they aren’t representative anyway of what people are like, the people on the internet.” That’s what I said to myself, and it’s why I got away from the stinking internet chat rooms. I made myself get away from them and go out there and talk to real people in real life. And do you know what I found? I’ll tell you what I found. I found the same ugly evil obscene things. The same censorship. The same two faced hypocrisy. The same people who think it’s hilariously good fun that there are children with autism. No I’m not talking about the local women of AS now, I’m talking about Savage.

I got so tired of seeing the same thing over and over again—the “oh it’s terrible what happened to you” to my face, followed by the glad handing as soon as I walked away. I got so tired of it, and yet I said to myself “oh well maybe you’re mistaken, Robin. Maybe that particular person isn’t really aware of what happened to you, or that one, or that one. Why on earth would you expect them to be angry about what happened to you, if they’re actually not even aware of what happened to you? Maybe you’ve forgotten who you told, or wrote to, or maybe they never read the email you wrote, or maybe you’re confusing this person with someone else.” And so, one evening, at a local meeting, I spoke to Andrea, who is the wife of the local NAA president, and I said “Please, give me fifteen minutes after your speaker, to talk to the group”. And she did. And there were about fifteen or twenty people there, most if not all women, and they heard what I had to say. About the arrest attempt, and the subsequent lies by Ms. Goldberg, local AS chapter president, and about the censorship by the local support forum AutismNE. And afterward, I asked Andrea to please send me a list of names of people who were there that night. So that I would, in the future, know. I would be able to say to myself “ah, that person—that two faced sleazebag—knows exactly what happened to me, and yet there she is, hugging Marian, the moderator of AutismNE as if they were sisters.” I don’t even care that much about the hugs and the smiles. I know it is important to remain positive, and even to forgive at times. But they help these people raise money! That infuriates me. They help AS raise money, and they help AS censor the truth. All of this while knowing that AS uses their money and their power to go so far as to call the police to try to shut up those they disagree with. It’s happened over and over and over again, here. This two faces schmoozing.

Andrea never got back to me with those names. I don’t know why. I don’t know what she thought I might do with them. I know that when I was on the internet chat rooms, years ago, and would be banned for increasingly longer periods of time each time I would post a factual web address with new information about thimerosal, I got really scared and really angry. I had to smile at the person who commented here of their hands tingling, as if they could feel the baseball bat in them. Because that is exactly what I wanted to do to the operators of those channels. And I said as much, there in those channels, when the ten day or twenty day or thirty day ban would be lifted. But only after I posted the latest convincing evidence. And I promise you that any threats that were made were made LONG after the bans started, and I promise you that the bans started for nothing more than merely saying “there’s this evidence that mercury causes autism—here it is”. Eventually as the bans got longer and longer and the abuse got more and more cruel I was saying things like “those ops better just be damned glad I don’t know where to find them.” It’s probably a good thing for me, as well, that I didn’t know where to find them. I will say that I had no intention, ever, of going after anyone in real life with a baseball bat. If only because it sufficed to know who they were. It sufficed for me to be able to say to myself “oh, that’s the two faced bitch who says one thing to my face, but then her actions speak exactly the opposite”. Because I know that other people see the things that I do. And if there are people doing things, evil things, out in the open, with faces and names that people know and see, I tell myself that the evil will stop. It has to. People won’t put up with it.

God I’m naïve.

I didn’t much care that I never got that list of names. I don’t remember who was there that night, and I don’t think I’d recognize any of the people if I saw them again. I don’t care. I have no use for any of the people in the ‘support’ organizations around here. Not Shari Goldberg or the women who were behind that table at the House of Blues, not Marian Helmick of AutismNE who only posts ‘positive’ things on her forum, not Gus Gallucci, who wanted to speak to me out in the hallway, away from the others at the ASGC meeting, to tell me that he believed me when I wrote of what happened to me in front of the House of Blues but, when it comes to helping AS raise money well he’s going to keep on doing that because “I can’t shun a whole group of people simply because YOU happen to have some issues with them.”

I’m listening to Savage as I’m writing this. The ‘expert’ Savage has on tonight (Steven Cameroda (spelling?)) is saying the increase in autism is due to the fact that children live now who wouldn’t have lived decades ago. Arrrrrgh!…….I have to stop listening and concentrate on writing this. I’m pissed off enough as it is already. I hope somebody has a transcript of this show cause I’m dying to find out if there’s any mention of thimerosal at all. I know he mentioned it once before on his program, years ago.

Where was I? Oh yes.

I don’t care if I get those names or not, because I’m likely not going to cross paths with any of them again. I’m pretty much of the belief that anyone I might cross paths with, in the ‘autism support’ world of the greater Cleveland area, is going to be of the same belief. It’s perfectly fine to tell people that it’s horrible and terrible to try to have someone arrested for saying ‘thimerosal’. It’s also perfectly fine to befriend the people who try to have people arrested for saying ‘thimerosal’, and it’s even perfectly fine to help those same people raise money. It’s all I’ve experienced so far in the last year and a half. I’ve no reason to believe things are any different with any other group of people, around here. This is what people want. They want to continue getting money to ‘help’ their children and the ends justify the means and they don’t mind if they are doing it through the suppression of information. I know that when most groups have meetings, there is a secretary who takes the minutes and records what is said, and a sheet of paper is passed around where people sign their names to say they were present at the meeting. If Andrea doesn’t want me to know the names of the people who’ve been told, who know what happened to me, who’ve seen the police incident report (I took a copy with me that night), then that is her prerogative. It’s not as though I paid money for an NAA membership. If it had been ASGC, I would have gone off in a huff after telling Gus and Rory that I’d like my five dollars I paid for my years membership returned to me.

Don’t tell me you don’t wanna hear this. Don’t tell me you don’t wanna hear rants. Heh. I know better. As I’m writing this, Savage is back on, on my radio. And he’s spreading more crap about the causes of autism. I’ll rant as long as I like. Rant and spew. I really don’t take issue too much with the things he’s saying about the expansion of the diagnosis, or with the pharmaceutical companies who just want to medicate our children. But he’s lying about the mercury in the vaccines. Of course he is. He has to, if he wants to keep his job.

Now this ‘expert’ who’s on the Savage show tonight, he’s saying chelation has no basis in fact. And that vaccines have nothing to do with it. Mercury’s been removed years ago. Yadda yadda. Same old shit. Michael Weiner: “yah, it was taken out years ago…” Vanderbilt university, that’s where this ‘expert’ is from.

But let me get back to what I was doing, which was ‘trashing’ people. My mother did teach me by the way that it’s not polite to speak about people who aren’t present to defend themselves. When those people are people who do not allow you to speak, who think it’s perfectly acceptable to censor the things you have to say, then rules schmules—screw the rules, I don’t buy it.

I don’t have any use for Theresa Szalkowski, of GC-AS, whose idea of ‘support’ for people is to tell them “let me help you edit your introductory letter from five pages to two paragraphs and oh btw, don’t mention the problems you’ve had with the other people”.

My husband said to me, a few weeks ago, that I wasn’t really being polite, when we were there handing out flyers at the House of Blues. And I freaked out. I totally freaked out. Do you have any idea how terrifying it feels to hear this, knowing that I’ve got nothing between me and the lies of that bitch who is the local chapter president of AS except for one photocopied document from the police department, and THAT says the police were called out because I was ‘threatening and harassing’ people? After a little while he said that “well the polite thing would’ve been to have left when they asked you to.” Which was a relief to hear, even though I think he has a very strange definition of ‘polite’ if you ask me. I told him that you might as well tell our daughters that if some guy wants to rape them, they should just tell him “oh you just go right ahead and have your way with me” in order to be polite.

When I first posted about the arrest attempt on AutismNE, somebody suggested to me that perhaps the women who organized the House of Blues benefit concert were simply afraid. Because of 911. And so I pointed out to those in the group that I, too, had some reasons to be afraid. Support? From these people?? Ha. Instead of support I got told, when I tried to post the police incident report--the documentation which verifies what I say-- “oh, sorry. That’s not positive. We only talk of positive things, here.” You want positive, Marian? You and those like you are positively corrupt to the core. I don’t know what motivates you. I don’t want to know.

God help your kids.

Now I’m listening to an ad for how depression can be treated. On Savage. In between his rants about how the medical establishment wants to drug our youth. An ad for a website called ‘depressionisreal.org’. Lol. Is he even aware of who advertises on his show?

I’ve got a new nick on the internet chat rooms. It’s ‘Almostnormal’. Please God, if normal is what you have to be to understand what’s on the airwaves these days, please God don’t ever let me be normal.

Robin Nemeth
http://www.wideopenwest.com/~r_nemeth/vaccine_flyer.htm