Tough Cookie Parents Need Not Apply aka Screw Savage
Look, I usually don’t care so much for any conservative crap that reaches airwaves. My word boils down to let live and let go. If anyone doesn’t get it, let them figure it out for themselves. But the one thing I can’t help but bring up is the social ignorance of Michael Savage, the conservative shock jock from California, otherwise known to me as some of those who generally top the charts for giving Republicans or people in general a bad name. Well, he’s No. 2 to Bush, but I digress.
On my MySpace, I read the news that he was the one that flat out stated that Autism is a sham. when I heard this, I wanted to scowl at the guy. After all, autism isn’t a disease, and he also presented himself as the type of person who would force his child to act like everybody else, and assume nothing is really gonig wrong.
I sent this to everyone else, after knowing that I have Asperger’s Syndrome, a learning and social disability. And if I was the type of child who faced Michael’s iron fist as a child, I’d be more screwed up, fearful and autonomous than I am now. I’d probably be called “an idiot”, “a type of kid who corrupts humanity and society” and whatever mess he probably let out on the radio. Autism shows creativity, a new way of looking at life. Sometimes kids line up their toys or let their brightest imaginations come to life. This doesn’t really line up with the usual thoughts of a snide Republican like Savage. And what I learned from my own childhood is that you don’t ever force a lifestyle or a thought on a child, because that is when they start to rebel, as well as blame you for their social inability.
To this day, he still doesn’t take the words back. So people with Autism, family members of those with Autism or parents of children who have Autism, if Michael were to read this, what would you have to say? If he can take his freedom of speech way too far without even looking it up, what’s stopping us from doing it, too?
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@EnvyShinoItachiZetsuMello@xanga – The only ones who did the “bashing” were the responses back to the bulletin. OThers posted it back and forth.
Plus, I can’t really find it. It’s from WAY last year.
@mynameisblueskye@xanga – And does said MySpace message have evidence that they weren’t just bashing Savage?
Pretty much we should tie this guy to a chair, bind some duct tape over his mouth, and beat him up. Enough said. All this “taken out of context” shit is bull.
Savage is ignorant beyond belief. I am saddened but not surprised by his statements… after thumbing through one of his books it is plain to see he is radically conservative and messed up in the brain beyond belief. He is yet another example of how out of touch conservatives are with reality.
So are you going to join the “boycott rockstar energy drink” movement as well? The savage family owns that particular brand and people that take issue with his politics are refusing to buy his product. You probably won’t hear much from it on the net because their lawyers are sue happy. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they shut my account down tomorrow. Funny how conservatives always hide behind “free speech,” that is, until it is used to criticize them.
i listened to his show once just to see what it was like, and within five minutes he had called all women in the navy “prostitutes” and called the ships they worked on “floating brothels”
don’t care for him one bit! he’s an idiot that shouldn’t be given air time.
I know how bad Asperger’s can effect a kid after seeing how my husband has turned out as an adult. Not to say he’s not a fully functional and good person, but he has a lot of the social awkwardness that comes from growing up with that. Now that we’re having a child, there’s always the chance that our kid will have it as well (gotta love genetics). So all that being said, I know that Autism and all it’s variations are real and difficult to deal with.
BUT! Yes, there’s always a but. But, I also believe there are parents who use things like that as an excuse for bad parenting. I’m not talking about the people who legitimately try to raise their children properly and for some reason, there seems to be something wrong. And then the doctors finally figure out it’s a form of autism. What I’m talking about are the parents who don’t try to teach their children how to behave, let them throw tantrums, run around, and generally behave badly. Then they start telling people their child has autism.
There are parents who do this. Absolutely no signs of autism, no doctor’s diagnosis, not even any tests run on their child, and they’ll say “Oh, I’m sorry…Little Timmy has autism, he can’t help it.” In that kind of a situation, autism is a sham. It’s a scapegoat for bad parenting, and honestly, it always will be. The guy is an asshole for saying it the way he did, because yes, that does come across wrong. But there are people who abuse the disorder and use it as an excuse for their own failures as a parent.
I hate his show, but I was driving down the road and happened to hear him respond to this one. He was saying something like people blew his comments up to be saying something he wasn’t. Don’t remember the details but he refuted the accusations pretty well. That’s one of the few times I’ve listened without turning it off.
I need to hear or see exactly what Michael Savage said before passing judgment either way. I’m really surprised that you would devote an entire entry to this without providing direct quotations from Savage himself. It takes away from the validity of this post.
@EnvyShinoItachiZetsuMello@xanga – There was a MySpace message saying not only did he say it, but he does not take back his words. And this was collected from a Mom who just happened to have an Aspie child herself. I’ll see if I can find it somewhere.
Dopes like him, Hannity, and Limbaugh make conservatives look bad IMO. There are lots of conservative hosts who are much more intelligent and respectable, but these are the guys that get the most attention, because it’s easier to watch a trainwreck.
Let’s kick ‘im in the shin and run away.
@countryangel926@xanga – @Real_Patriot_37@xanga – @chosenandblessed@xanga – I agree with that.
I remember when ADHD was a ‘big sham’. I stood up at our local CHADD meeting against the leader, who happened to be a first grade teacher and was doing her best to lobby for ADD becoming a medical and mental disability. Basically, her stepson was driving her crazy, and she wanted compensation, and probably to stick her husband back for sticking her with his kid. A mental disability label is NOT a pretty thing to have on your record if you’d like to retain your rights and freedoms. Anyway, I stood right up at that meeting and declared that maybe ADD was *functional*, because energetic people who don’t sleep through the night are the ones who rouse the rest during fires, attacks, and bad weather. DUH. I didn’t sleep for nearly 18 years raising my own stepdaughter, but I don’t believe in turning kids into zombies and calling them crazy just because they find it impossible to sit in a desk for 8 hours a day.
I went through the public school system so far back in time that there wasn’t such a thing as ‘gifted’ or ‘challenged’. There were fast kids, average kids, and remedials. Fast kids were put in groups to keep them busy, they ENJOYED having twice the work. (I know this from experience.) Average kids (gradewise) wound up being the uber popular kids, so they didn’t have a problem with jeering at us just as much as they jeered at the remedials. Remedials got more one on one time with the teacher, which made us all jealous. I thought it all worked out pretty good.
There have always been mental variations, and there always will be. The UK has already run ‘experiments’ with their school systems and failed miserably. The U.S. has been steadily defending the idea that we all have to be the same, we all have to go at the same pace, we all have to be equal. That means there is no variation. Everything is standardized now, and if the kids don’t fit in, God help them. Parents have to fill out forms and jump through hoops just to earn fairness for their kids now if they don’t fit the standard mold. This is why some people say things like Tourette’s and Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Attention Deficit Disorder and Asperger’s and (fill in blank here) are all shams. Because NOW the schools can get extra money for ‘special needs’ children, and the more ‘special needs’ children they can prove they have, the better their funding. Same with the lunch program. I remember the schools asking us to sign up for free lunches ~anyway~ so they could turn it in for more funding, even if my kids never ate free lunch.
Follow the money. Always ask who is benefiting. And then when there is backlash, it’s not against the kids, it’s against the *system*. People are tired of the system being abused. I’ve seen it over and over, and especially people without personal experience who are concerned about wasteful spending, it’s actually normal for them to conclude this until they DO get experience. Think about it– Ebonics. Case in point. We’ve been so inundated with ‘special needs’ that Joe Public doesn’t understand. That’s why places like Autisable are vital for information sharing.
I made it through the public school system ~without~ help. It was a nightmare and a half. I was one of the lucky ones, I made it through. But since I got through it from a very unique point of view and have grown up to become a conservative parent, I feel qualified to say to Mr. Savage that making a generalized statement can come back to haunt. Blanket statements need explanations. I’m not trying to apologize for him at all. I wasn’t thrilled when Rush went on and on about ADD being a big sham, either. But he got over it. He eventually apologized.
My husband told me before he married his first wife that he was in line behind a woman whose little girl had birthmarks all over her face. He remembers thinking at the time What an ugly kid… Guess what. His own daughter was born with a big strawberry birthmark on her cheek. He has never forgotten that lesson. He’s been the sweetest guy to other people’s kids since then. Sometimes we just need experience, and to keep our mouths shut about what we aren’t experienced with.
What resnovae said is true…his comment was taken out of context, even though it was poorly worded. He didn’t mean to say that autism doesn’t exist; what he was trying to convey is that too many kids are diagnosed with this condition (or ADD, etc.) when in truth, their parents just don’t know how to control or discipline their behavior. Then they’re put on meds that they don’t need, which only makes matters worse.
I’m not trying to defend him here – I’m a right-leaning centrist and he’s much too extreme for my political tastes. But I do think it’s important to clear up what really happened.
Being a conservative who enjoys listening to talk radio, I have to say that having listened to Michael Savage’s show once, I don’t really care for it. He really does seem to be a loud-mouthed jerk. Instead of speaking his mind concisely, methodically, and reasonably about issues like say, Laura Ingraham (my personal favorite), he just goes on tangents and says things that no one’s really thinking or caring about. I’ve only listened to it once and if I were to listen to it again my opinion of his show would be more correctly formed, but given what I’ve heard, it’s not that good. And his comment, though meant to say what resnovae said, really wasn’t well-directed and caused more harm than good.
He is not the first person to say something like this. Denis Leary said something similar in his book ‘Why We Suck’. People (clearly not just Savage) have this idea that the world is full of very bratty children who scream, whine, complain, give silent treatments, and are generally disagreeable. These people think that parents are seeking out the diagnosis of “autistic” in order to feel better as parents since they are clearly raising a spoiled child. These people need to be educated, force them to babysit an autistic child for a few hours or something like that. Anyone who has been around, raised, or had siblings with autism will tell you they would rather have a spoiled child any day.
I’m watching my brother right now talk to himself, rock back and forth, with his thumb in his mouth, while playing a video game and sometimes I really wish he was a normal seventeen-year-old. At the same time (before anyone jumps all over me) I wouldn’t change him for the world. He is who he is. But one thing is for sure. He doesn’t act that way because he is spoiled.
I have a question… was there a respectable audio link and/or direct quote of said denial of Autism? The media tends to misquote many things, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the ‘news’ was written by a Dem trying to discredit Mr. Savage.
HOWEVER
If it WAS a direct quote, no paraphrasing or replacing words, with a verifiable source, then I have to agree with you… Savage has gone too far. If you still have it, would you mind sending me a link to this ‘news’ article?
I remember this… I was in CA at the time, and think the guy is a bit of a jackass, but I couldn’t entirely disagree with his point (poorly worded as it was). What he was actually talking about were parents of kids with behavioral issues that get them coded as “autistic,” “PDD,”
“Aspergers,” or what have you- when one suspects the truth is they are simply poorly disciplined and/or acting out for emotional reasons, rather than a physical disability. I can’t stand his radio personality, which is that of an obnoxious, opinionated, somewhat loudmouthed jerk.So, I do I think he’s gotten a bad rap… he wasn’t talking about those with genuine diagnoses of autism, he was talking about the shammers with pseudo-Munchausens by proxy who want their kids to be autistic so they can absolve themselves of responsibility for their bratty kids’ issues. That said, it was a moronic way to state it- because it’s kind of hard not to be offended by the statement “autism is a sham” when you actually are autistic, or raising a child who is.
My son doesn’t actually have a diagnosis of Autism, but shows many symptoms of it. He will be 3 next month and can’t talk. I don’t mean he chooses not to, I mean that he tries with everything in him, and he can’t. He has extreme melt downs because he can’t figure out how to live in the world like the rest of us. His frustrations levels increase each day. He doesn’t understand things that 3 year olds should understand. He is eager for attention and eager to find someone who can understand his thoughts. If there were a way to “force” my child to act like everyone else, I sure would have tried it. My son is living with something that is far out of his control. I just love him where he is and do everything I can for him. He is a great joy and a geat love in my life. If there is one thing I know, its that Autism is NOT a sham. Anyone who says it is, is obviously ignorant and has never actually met a child with autism.
there’s a difference between ignorance and stupidity. I think he has redefined them both.
What a horrible, ignorant person. Not only do things like autism exist, we should take the time to learn from those who have it — with each “deviation” from “normal” comes something new to experience and cherish.