Hypothetical situation: Autism Speaks has just ceased to exist. Now what?

I find it difficult, if not impossible, to imagine an organisation that is allowed to call itself a charity being hated by the people it claims to be working for to a greater extent than is the case with Autism Speaks. In fact, Autism Speaks’ behaviour in general reminds me of one of the few moments in RoboCop 2 that even comes close to working. During the MediaBreak segment that opens the film, we are told that the police in Detroit have gone on strike once again. In the accompanying interview footage, an officer states that the company that has taken control of the police service in the city has cut the force’s salaries by forty percent and cancelled their pensions. And now, he says, said company will not even talk to them. “God knows why,” the officer opines, “but they want this strike.”

Society has failed us, part one of many

As I was growing up, the level of hostility between one generation and another was quite palpable. The way I saw it both as a child and as an adolescent was that we had one faction who thought they were entitled to demand the respect of the other, and the other faction felt the first was only entitled to a “fukk you”. Now that I am old enough to have taken the place of one of these factions, I think it is worthwhile taking a look at the situation in more eloquent terms and exploring the question of who is wrong as well as who is right. Because, as with all questions of this kind, the answer is none, both, and a little of one mixed with a little of the other. If that statement confuses you, well, let us just say that it confuses me a bit, too, and I am the idiot who is writing this waffle.