Why America Is So Screwed Up

Anyone who has been watching the news knows that America is in a pretty bad state. But this isn’t just because of a bad leader, rather the inevitable end result of a screwed-up system. So let’s take a closer look at America’s built-in defects. And yes, I’m looking at it all from the outside, but sometimes an outsider can see things clearer than those caught up inside it. (And trust me, the rest of the world knows a lot more about America than America knows about the rest of the world.)

First, your political system. I did a university paper on American politics, so I do know how your system works. Or doesn’t, to be more precise. There are lots of things wrong with it, but I’ll just focus on what I see as the worst failures.

1) The Separation of the President from Congress. I know you’re taught that it’s a good thing, but what ‘separation of powers’ really means is that POTUS has too much power. This can and has led to a ton of abuses, and it is almost impossible to remove them before their term is up. In parliamentary systems, an unpopular Prime Minister can be voted out by their party and quickly replaced by someone else, so no leader dares get too big-headed. Does this mean a bit of instability sometimes? Sure, but it’s still way quicker and easier than impeachment. You need to fix this.

2) The Senate. Giving equal power to each state means that states with lower populations, who tend to be more conservative, can block progressive measures. This is a big part of why American politics skews so far to the right. Seriously, what Americans think of as ‘far left’ would be barely centre-right in most other countries. If you want real change, start by eliminating the Senate.

3) The Electoral College. Another system weighted in favour of the more conservative states. How many times has a would-be president won the ‘popular’ (ie direct) vote, but lost because they didn’t get the numbers in the electoral college? Delete, delete, delete.

4) Lobbying. I suppose this happens to some extent in many countries, but America has turned it into a huge industry of, to put it bluntly, outright bribery or at least ‘persuasion’. Paid shills for groups as diverse as the gun lobby, Zionists and churches control so much of American politics as a result that it’s not even remotely funny, or just, or anything good. Kick them out. No lobbying allowed.

5) Voting Itself. And then there’s all the corruption around the actual voting process, from gerrymandering to polling stations in poor/non-white areas being shut down, from right-wingers infiltrating the voting agencies to the disenfranchisement of various groups especially women, trans people and Native Americans… I’m sure you know this all too well. Another area overdue for change.

 Second, your economic system. America didn’t invent capitalism, but it’s sure taken it to extremes. Neo-liberalism is just the horrific icing on what was always a very nasty cake. So now you have excesses/obscenities such as the ‘military-industrial complex’, crass commercialism, rampant consumerism, a work-till-you-drop ethic, a drastically poor and powerless working class and a horrific welfare system, while the ‘One Percent’ bloodsuckers hoard more and more money. There’s this meme I’ve seen on Facebook from several people, so I don’t know the origin of it, but it’s basically saying the super-wealthy aren’t an elite, they’re parasites. ‘That’ List is only the tip of the iceberg of ghastliness. This needs to change. All of it.

Third, your education system. In my country, schools in poorer areas get more funding whereas in America, the reverse is true. This means that poorer states have poorer, failing schools. The result is a massively under-educated sector of the population. It was these people who voted in this monster, and who continue to support his worst actions. Even when he’s gone, they’ll still be a problem. You won’t get a better country till you get better education. (And I’m not even going to start on how religion has way too much sway in your country and education system. But it’s all connected.)

Fourth, your medical system. How did America fail to establish a proper universal health care system when the rest of the developed world did? Now Americans are doomed to either crippling medical debt or being ripped off by health insurance companies that often don’t deliver anyway, and I’m surprised you’re not angrier. Your politicians seem reluctant to touch it, even Obama only fiddled with the edges of it. Create a proper, tax-funded universal health care system, for your own sake, and that of your children.

Fifth, your policing system. I mean seriously, you have nearly 18,000 law enforcement agencies, even if you discount the federal ones it’s still absurdly fragmented. Other countries, even quite large ones, manage without anything near that number. Your officers are often poorly trained, with too much emphasis on guns, and too ready a propensity to racism, sexism, etc. There seems to be so much variation from one agency to the next, and even police ‘gangs’ operating in some places. And then there’s a Certain Frozen Agency, which has lower standards for entry, shorter training, more suspect members, and seemingly more license for violence. Though let’s be clear, cops have been shooting and killing (especially black) people long before even George Floyd. It’s just that many didn’t care until it was white folks being killed. Frankly, it’s a mess. Sweeping change needs to happen.

Which leads me of course to your ‘racial problems’. African-Americans were denied basic rights until well into the twentieth century, and there are still entire segments of the population who don’t think any non-white is truly human. The Nazis drew on American eugenics ideas for their system. Entire communities were imprisoned during World War Two for the ‘crime’ of being Japanese. Native Americans have been robbed of so much. And on and on it goes. Yes, other countries (including mine) have their own shameful racial history, but somehow America has a talent for doing it worse – I suspect that it’s because the shadow of slavery is still a heavy trauma imprinted deep into the psyche of your entire nation. It's time for that collective trauma to be faced.

And last but certainly not least, those guns, guns, guns. How on earth did this get so out of hand? How is it that so many keep dying, especially children in school who *should* be safe… and yet no-one is willing to stop the mayhem? I very much doubt the Founding Fathers meant for every Joe and Josephine Bloggs to have firepower equal to a small nation, with daily slaughter counts in the dozens or even hundreds, and no-one seemingly able to put any restraints in place. Australia and New Zealand managed it, why can’t you? NZ Police don’t even carry guns on their persons, and I assure you our crime rate is nothing like America’s. The same can be said for many other countries.

So let’s face it… America, your soul is sick. Your country is sick. It‘s tottering and failing. America is like that guy who was a muscle-bound swaggering bully in youth, and who in old age is still trying to throw his weight around, not realising his years of excesses mean his body is now shot to pieces. You literally have a leader who embodies that.

So once this current mess is all over, I don’t think you can or should go back to ‘business as usual’, because that stuff is how you got here in the first place. Even when you get rid of the Orange Menace, the systems that created him will still be there. You are going to have to make some Big, Big Changes, or risk it happening all over again, or worse.

It’s over to you.

Why Is The World Going Backwards?

 Why does the world seem to be going backwards?

Let me expand on this idea. I am a member of the post-war generation. In our childhood, Nazis were recent, and evil, history. Despite how some see ‘boomers’ now, as we grew up we saw ourselves as progressive, throwing off the ‘fuddy-duddy’ ideas of the ‘old days’. There was also an implicit belief in science, and we assumed that the world would continue to improve as a result of it. Many of us, as we got older, joined movements like feminism, civil rights, gay rights, anti-nuclear and so on. Conservative, reactionary forces were pushed back. Onward and upward from here on, we all assumed.

Over time, however, something happened. Maybe we got tired, or burnt-out, or moved on to new things. Or we just got old. And these movements ...changed. Their focus changed. A lot of the younger generation seemed to think that all the battles had been won anyway, or perhaps they were too busy just struggling to survive in the new neo-liberal economy (which, contrary to popular opinion, boomers neither invented nor put into place). We entered a new century. Society changed. The world changed.

Somehow, from somewhere, the reactionary forces have risen again. Religion, which once seemed a spent force, has surged back, gaining a new viciousness. The prejudiced, who’d seemed few and quiet for decades, have also surged back. In the US, right-wing Christians have taken control of the Republican Party, and are now trying to control the voting process and deny voting rights to minorities. Also in America, white supremacists have surged in numbers and power, infiltrating police forces. Even the Nazis have come back.

Around the world, there’s been a surge of new, egomaniacal leaders, from Trump to Putin to Bolsanaro, as well as of those willing to follow their lead or their example, who are openly and actively oppressing minorities (eg Russian gays, China’s Uighur people), or suppressing all opposition. Yes, there have been dictators in the past (think Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Pinochet) but I guess we assumed that this kind of leader was a thing of the past, that the world was becoming more democratic.

As well as all this, there’s emerged, in a portion of the populace that even if small is still way, way too many, a level of mistrust of/hatred for government, media, scientists and doctors that is beyond reason, and a phenomenal growth in anti-vax sentiments, something that would have shocked and baffled previous generations, who eagerly embraced new vaccines as a public good.

So what happened?

Why does the world seem to be reverting to the philosophies of a former era, only with some deadly and vicious new twists?

When and how did it become okay to be a Nazi, to say ‘six million wasn’t enough’, and to have *actual* torchlit processions in the streets? When did it become okay again to be openly racist? And when and how did hippies, New Agers and other ‘leftie-ish’ types become allied with *actual* Nazis and white supremacists?

When did a subset of feminists turn into transphobic TERFS? How did they hijack feminism to mean actively working to suppress trans rights and freedoms? (Yes, back in the day these opinions were around, but rarely and only casually expressed, there wasn’t this vehemence, and they certainly weren’t organised.)

When did science and medicine lose their rep so badly that many not only don’t understand them, but consider them corrupt? When did it become okay to be an anti-vaxxer, and not get laughed out of the neighbourhood as dangerous or deluded? When did the tide of misinformation start? Is Wakefield totally to blame, or is there more to it?

When did expertise - in any field – become a thing to be derided and ignored in favour of ‘feels’ and ‘instincts’, or some crappy website/guru/New Age ‘therapy’? When did movie stars come to be seen as more ‘knowledgeable’ about science than actual scientists? When did the ludicrous idea that nature is always beneficial and ‘nice’ gain traction?

And when did simply using your common sense and objecting to any of this come to mean that you’re ‘sheeple’, or ‘shills’ for Big Pharma, and you get told to ‘wake up’ by those who obviously slept through science class?

When did ‘I want a haircut’ become of more importance to some than public safety? How  did individual ‘rights’ come to always outweigh collective good? When did it become okay to storm or besiege your centres of government, just because you don’t like their decisions, or the result of a democratic vote?

When did it become okay to blame anything on a generation (usually boomers or millennials), rather than the real culprits, that obscenely wealthy one percent who are steadily draining the rest of us and screwing up the environment?

When did it become necessary, in the eyes of the media, to present the arguments of anti-vaxxers and other science-illiterates as a ‘legitimate viewpoint’, and interviewing them as presenting journalistic ‘balance’?

When did we go from an understanding that some politicians are corrupt, sometimes, to the belief among some that all politicians are corrupt all of the time, everywhere, and that the media are nothing more than their lackeys? When did these people start to close their ears?

When did the world, or at least a substantial part of it, lose its common sense? When did so much of what my generation fought for start falling apart? What happened to moderation? When did the (supposedly ‘civilised’) world become so damn uncivil? When did the world start going backwards?

What the heck happened? How have so many people lost the plot, so badly?

And what’s worse, is that it’s so blatantly obvious that a lot of these people just don’t care what harm they do. Dictators are becoming increasingly blatant. Putin smirks at the rest of the world’s objection to his egomaniacal invasion of the Ukraine. China threatens Taiwan. Trump openly lied, bragged and sneered. Anti-vaxxers baldly state that they don’t care about the illness and deaths they are responsible for. TERFs will post screenshots of trans people’s pain and outrage as ‘evidence’ of their ‘attacking’ ‘real’ women. Right-wingers blatantly work to undermine the ‘democracy’ they claim to prize. Reactionary forces, in general, do not care about the pain and misery they inflict. They would pull apart all we’ve gained, if they could, and replace it with far worse than anything we had before. And not blink at who gets hurt.

They. Just. Don’t. Care.

And yes, I realise that many of these attitudes had to have been only deeply buried, not totally eradicated. That we were probably kidding ourselves that humanity had turned a corner. And yes, I am deeply distressed and enraged by recent events, especially Ukraine. And YES, I know that my feelings and observations are very subjective. And I know also that there are still sensible voices and rational people in abundance, and that there has been, and continues to be, genuine progress in many areas.

And yet there are some undeniable trends.

Trends indicative of a deep distortion and malaise in our collective psyche. Something, somewhere, has become unhinged. The world all too often feels like one gigantic scream. And I don’t think this is ‘just a phase’ either, and that we will swing back again any time soon. Something has come apart, and I don’t think it’s going to come back together. We won’t come back together. Deep rifts have formed in society, over which there seems to be no crossing.

And as someone whose sexuality, gender identity, neurology, political views, degree of outspokenness and level of physical disability fall outside what’s considered acceptable by these reactionary forces, my personal safety feels under threat. This is not rhetorical or theoretical. Even in my comparatively ‘safe’ country, there have been anti-vax and anti-mandate protests, with violence and mayhem, and public figures coming out in support of them. I have heard people, in my own town, loudly claiming that vaccines contain microchips. The local paper frequently publishes letters from anti-vaxxers (and their opponents, to be fair, but once upon a time editors would have just tossed AV letters in the bin). There are anti-vaxxers even in my own street. And while New Zealand is not as religion-minded as some countries, nonetheless there’s a right-wing religious element which I keep a wary eye on.

I no longer feel safe where I am, and want to move, but I’m wondering if anywhere is truly safe anymore. I fear for the future, and part of me is glad I’m old, that I won’t live to see the outcome of all this. I don’t know where we go from here. I don’t know where there is to go from here, what we can hope for, what we can do, on an individual or collective level. It all too often seems like the progressive forces are on the back foot. Please tell me I’m wrong. Give me hope, because right now I don’t have any.

THEY DO IT BECAUSE THEY CAN

Like a lot of people, I’ve been watching the Black Lives Matter protests. What strikes me every time I see the clip of that cop kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, is how little he’s worried about being on camera. He’s watching the bystanders, sure, but only, it seems to me, to judge whether they’re a further threat. Being videoed kneeling on someone’s neck till he dies? Nope, not a worry.

Why? Because cops like him have done this, and worse, to many black or brown people in the past, and gotten away with it. And I bet that he’s not even that worried now, because even in the rare cases where charges are laid, cops usually get acquitted, or a minor punishment. He’ll be expecting the same. It’s not over yet, not by a long shot.

Because pretty much everything done ‘in the line of duty’ has been excused or overlooked by complicit police administrations, passive civil authorities, and a judicial system reluctant to believe any wrongdoing on the part of police, even when confronted with glaring evidence of it. And so they  assume they can get away with practically anything.

The signs are there, for anyone to read. There’s some kind of corruption of spirit – there’s no other way to describe it –  at the very heart of policing. They see themselves as ‘heroes’ fighting against ‘wrongdoers’, who can be pretty much anyone else. (But especially black and brown people, I believe.) The result, of course, is that police themselves have now become an enemy to many.

This ethos is so pervasive, it’s even in fiction. Watch any cop TV show or movie, read any detective novel, a cop will lie or beat up someone at some point. Or the heroes-against-the-world thing will pop up. ‘It’s hard being a cop, no-one else understands’. Etc, etc, etc. And bear in mind that these shows are usually sympathetic to the police. Yet even there, the corruption has become the almost-unremarked-upon norm. (And before anyone says it, yes, I can tell fiction from fact. My point is that it’s so widespread in fact, it’s permeated into fiction.)

A note here – I went on my fair share of protests and demonstrations, back in the day. I’ve seen cops insult or verbally abuse people, threaten violence, commit it, do various dirty tricks, and even lie in court. There was a time in my life when if I saw a cop in the street I’d want to vomit and run away. So even though I’m whiter-than-white, I’m not surprised at all the videos that have emerged in recent years, though I am angry. I back BLM two hundred percent.

However – though I’m not wanting to divert the spotlight away from the Black Lives Matter movement at all – that is NOT my intention here – it’s worth noting that there is a deeper problem, an underlying pattern, which is not limited to the interaction of cops with black and brown people.

I was reminded of this recently when watching a documentary on Harvey Weinstein, and how he preyed on women for years. And he’s only one of the many, many authority figures – religious leaders, politicians, sports coaches, psychotherapists, entertainment top-dogs, etc, etc, who have long targeted the young and vulnerable of both sexes. And then there’s the abuse or even murder of autistics and disabled, by those who are supposed to be caring for them. Or the (mis)treatment of psychiatric patients, or the homeless… the list goes on. Practically anyone ‘different’ or ‘powerless’ can be, and frequently has been, a target.

In all these cases, those doing this harm do it because they can.

Because they’ve gotten away with it over and over again, for years, decades, even centuries.

Because they were in a position of unquestioned, unassailable, and unchallenged authority.

Because their victims were perceived as ‘lesser than’, ‘defective’, and/or just plain unimportant, not even worthy of life in some cases.

Because those who could have stopped them did nothing, in fact chances were they’d done it themselves, and thus it was ‘business as usual’.

Because even if their transgressions came to light, and complaints were made, the word of the powerful was always taken over the complainants.

Because even if a complaint was upheld, the transgressions were seen as minor/unimportant, or their actions were ‘justifiable use of power’.  

Because their victims were silenced in various ways – through threats, coercion, money, or just being ignored or ridiculed.

So it was okay for cops to beat up or kill black people, or for them to harass or beat up homeless people and destroy or take their belongings (and heaven help those who are black and homeless), for entertainment moguls to put aspiring actresses through the ‘casting couch’ ordeal, for priests to molest children and then simply be moved on to another parish, for professionals to put autistics through various torturous processes to make them ‘normal’. And so on, and so on.

Because the victims weren’t, and often still aren’t, considered important. They’re ‘the other’, the ‘different’, the ‘lesser than’, not worthy of the same rights as ‘normal people’, and thus it doesn’t matter what happens to them. And in the case of some groups, such as black people and autistics (once again, heaven help those who are both these things), even a ‘threat’ of some kind which has to be obliterated. So that others of their ilk can be kept in line. Subservient. Uncomplaining. Knuckling under to the Powers That Be.

THEY DO IT BECAUSE THEY CAN.

This is an important point to remember. Because they can, and have, gotten away with it for a long, long, long time. This corruption isn’t only in the police, but at the core of every imbalance of power. It’s a sickness at the heart of a world where those with power simply assume they have the right to not only define ‘the other’, but to shape and control their very lives. Up to and including whether they even get to live or not.

But at a certain point, the oppressed have had enough. They see that nothing but their rebellion will stop it. And so they say ‘no more!’ Black Lives Matter says no more. The ‘Me Too’ movement says no more. Autistic Rights says no more. Social movements since the 50s and 60s – civil rights, feminism, gay liberation – say no more.

And that’s the whole point of these protests – that black people, along with their allies, have had more than enough. They’re saying that it’s way beyond time to make the oppressors get their foot, or their knee, off black necks. Literally and metaphorically. To end this sickness, and root out this corruption.

If you still don’t understand this, if you’re still into ‘all lives matter’, or going ‘well they shouldn’t riot’, then you have missed the point entirely, and you’re going to end up on the wrong side of history.

Privilege and disability

I’ve been thinking lately about privilege. Most people think of privilege as something they have or had – “ancient rights and privileges”, “I had the privilege of meeting so-and-so last year…” etc.

But privilege, in the political sense, also has another meaning. It’s about what you don’t have to deal with, what doesn’t happen to you, because of your race, gender, religion, sexuality, neurology, or whatever. It’s what you take for granted as so normal that you don’t give it a second thought – unless for some reason you suddenly get deprived of it, or become aware of what those without it suffer. Though even if an individual is made aware of their privilege, they usually want to deny it even exists. As one person in a Facebook conversation about this said – “The thing with privilege is that those with it …are unaware of it. And many do not want to see it because it rocks the foundation of who they feel they are.”

I first became aware of privilege in this sense when I was in the feminist and anti-racism movements, back in the 80s. I of course don’t have male privilege, or heterosexual, or even able-bodied, now. But I do have the privilege that goes with my white skin and European ancestry.

So I know that as a white person, I can, say, walk down a street in a high-income area without having people think I’m there either to clean a house or to rob it. I’ve never had anyone assume that I got a job because of my skin colour, not my abilities. I’ve never been sneered at or hassled by shop staff because of my race, nor feared being arrested because of it. And if I read a history book, people of my race are almost certain to feature prominently, and usually positively, in it.

Similarly, no man walking into a boardroom for the first time is likely to have people assume he’s there either to make the tea or take notes. (Yes, even now that still happens.) They never have to think about glass ceilings or equal pay. They can fearlessly walk alone late at night, and sleep around without fear someone will think them a slut. Date rape is not a worry for them. And so on. (And this is just in Western countries. Imagine the male privilege in non-Western ones.)

And then there’s heterosexual privilege – your average straight person never has to worry about being denied a marriage license, or being allowed to adopt or foster children, or even to retain custody of their own children. Yet until fairly recently, all these have been routinely denied gays and lesbians, and still are in many countries. In fact in some countries, gays and lesbians still live in fear for their lives. And they aren’t all Third World countries either. Russia has a particularly bad track record of this, and it’s getting worse.

So what does privilege mean for the non-disabled, and/or non-autistic?

For the non-disabled, it means things like never having to worry whether you can physically enter a building, or easily get to where you need to be if you do get in.

It means you don’t have to think about whether you can find housing you can access, or whether you’ll be allowed on to a bus or train or plane, or denied a safe place to put yourself when you do get on.

You don’t have to worry that you will be talked to as if you’re stupid, or have others ignore your wishes and make decisions about your life against your will, based solely on your physical abilities and needs.

You’re never expected to be the ‘token’ person of your ability levels, or be constantly told how ‘inspirational’ you are, just for doing normal, everyday things.

If you’re not autistic, if you get bullied, it’s unlikely anyone will tell you your neurology is to blame, and that if only you acted more like others, it would stop.

You don’t have to plan your day around the fear of inducing sensory overload, and you can change plans if need be without risking panic and meltdowns.

You needn’t fear that people will ignore what you’re saying because of your neurology, or consider you a ‘burden’ because of it, or decide that any and all problems you have, even medical ones, are due to it.

You’ll never have to fear being attacked because of your neurology, or that police officers will take your normal body movements the wrong way, and arrest or even shoot you because of it.

Perhaps most chillingly of all, if you are murdered by your parents or caregivers, no-one will say that “you’re better off dead”, and offer sympathy to your killer/s, based on your neurological style or physical ability levels. Yes, this does happen, and all too frequently, alas.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the privileges of all the above groups. For more information about privileges, check out the following websites :

http://www.sap.mit.edu/content/pdf/able_bodied_privilege.pdf

https://exposingableism.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/the-invisible-backpack-of-able-bodied-privilege-checklist/

http://thatcrazycrippledchick.blogspot.co.nz/2011/02/able-privilege-checklist.html

http://www.autistichoya.com/2012/08/privilege-and-myth-of-independence.html

http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/01/neurotypical-privilege/: http://www.unholyamerican.com/2013/11/privelege-checklist.html

http://aspergersquare8.blogspot.co.nz/2009/08/checklist-of-neurotypical-privilege-new.html

http://davehingsburger.blogspot.co.nz/2016/04/conversatons.html?spref=fb

And yes, many of the above privileges, or lack of them, intersect. You can have, or not have, more than one sort of privilege. Imagine how they begin to stack up, and you see why some people’s lives are much easier, while some others almost don’t stand a chance.

And here’s the thing about privilege – there’s no point in either denial or guilt. Back in the 80s, I was in the New Zealand anti-racism and feminist movements. I realised then that guilt is a useless emotion, as it changes nothing. You’re not a bad person for being born white, male, straight, able-bodied, or whatever, anymore than others of us are bad for not being any or all of these things. What’s needed is to acknowledge your privilege as a simple fact – and then, hopefully, do whatever you can to ensure that those without it also gain it. I’m not saying that’s easy, or that all of us have to be hotshot activists, but we can always find some little thing to do to change things.

But start with simple acknowledgement. Just facing the truth can go a long way.

First Responder Training in Autism

One thing which has been on many aspies’ minds as a result of the Arie case is the need for police and other ‘first responder’ training in how to recognise and handle autistic people.

Now some might think, “oh, why should they get special treatment?”, but the issue is not ‘special’ treatment so much as appropriate treatment. Imagine, for instance, that a police or ambulance officer sees a person staggering down the street, maybe falling down, twitching and shaking, slurring their words. Their first thought is likely to be “hmm, got another drunk or druggie here!” But if they then found out that the person was actually a diabetic in dire need of insulin, or an epileptic on the edge of a seizure, their whole approach would of course change.

And so it is with autism. Use your imagination once again, and visualise a police officer who encounters a person who ‘walks funny’, who makes inappropriate eye contact or none at all, who ignores social niceties; flinches from bright lights and the clanging of steel doors, seems confused under questioning, gives ‘strange’ answers, or asks lots of ‘strange’ questions themselves; someone who perhaps rambles on and on about things that have no relevance whatsoever to the situation (in the police officer’s eyes anyway), or at any point suddenly ‘shuts down’ and refuses to talk anymore, or insists on using a communication device that the police don’t understand; or suddenly goes into a huge ‘tantrum’, throwing objects, screaming and shouting, or bursting into a sobbing fit, perhaps banging their head against a wall.

If this hypothetical officer had no experience with autism, and no knowledge of it, wouldn’t they likely think the person was drunk, drugged, a psychiatric case, or guilty of something (“He won’t look me in the eye”), or just ‘faking it’ (“She could talk just fine half an hour ago!”)? But a basic knowledge of autism would enable them to see that the person is simply frightened, confused, overwhelmed, and probably experiencing the breakdown or loss of what few social skills they possess, not to mention sensory overload; and that further pressure will only worsen the situation. They could dim lights, provide a less noisy environment, etc etc, and above all not assume the person is ‘guilty’ simply because they don’t respond ‘appropriately’.

This is not ‘special treatment’, but simply common sense, once you understand just how differently autistic people experience the world around them. It’s similar to how knowledgeable individuals interact with people of different cultures. In Samoan culture, for instance, you always put yourself physically ‘lower’ than someone who is above you in status, and staring someone right in the eyes is considered rude. Thus a Samoan, intending to be polite, will immediately sit down, and won’t meet your eye. If they didn’t know, a ‘Palagi’ (white person) might think the Samoan was being rude or evasive. Many other cultures have similar rules. It’s generally only in Western cultures that looking someone straight in the eyes is considered a good thing. This is just one small example of how things can seem very different, once you understand the person you’re interacting with, and where they are ‘coming from’.

Training in awareness of autism for police and emergency personnel isn’t about ‘special treatment’, but rather about understanding and helping all members of the community, in the best way possible.

Justice for Arie - Part Three

One little-known facet of Arie’s case has been the ‘non-association order’ that was put on Arie and Michael. Meant to stop hardened criminals from getting together to plan their next crime, it was singularly inappropriate in this case. Not only are Michael and Arie not ‘hardened criminals’, there’s a definite whiff of homophobia involved, in the sense of a same-sex relationship not being given the same value as a heterosexual one. Can anyone really imagine a straight couple, a married couple even, being slapped with such an order? Being ordered, in effect, to live apart, and have no contact at all? Would such an order even have been sought, let alone granted, if the partners were a male and female?

This order has taken a huge toll on them. They lost their flat, as they couldn’t live together. Their furniture had to be largely given away, as they had nowhere to store it. Their cat, left to fend for itself the first eleven days while they were both in jail, went ‘walkabout’, and has only just been found again recently by Michael. By the time the order was finally lifted, after three months, they were living with others on opposite sides of the city, and hardly able to see each other even then. They tried to move to another city and start again, but that proved difficult as they had to keep coming back to Christchurch for repeated court appearances.

The emotional toll it caused as well can only be guessed at. Though Arie was released from jail after eleven days, Michael spent six weeks inside – all the time without being able to have contact with his beloved partner. Though both had others around them for support, to not be able to even talk to the main person in your life must have been distressing. For Arie, as an aspie, it would also have been extremely difficult to be without his main ‘interpreter’, mediator and supporter in dealing with the confusions and stresses of the NT world. Any aspie who has such a partner or who feels the lack of one, will know how hard that must have been. As for Michael, he says of Arie simply, “he’s my rock”.

Arie and Michael – plus cat – are now planning to start their lives over again in a new city. They have behaved with enormous dignity and restraint throughout this whole business, and I’m sure many will join us Kiwi aspies and Arie’s NT supporters in wishing them all the best, and hope that their future proves to be a whole lot brighter than their recent past.

Justice for Arie - Part Two

The police press release about the dropping of charges in the Arie case is a litany of untruths. It has to be wondered – has Police Superintendent Cliff actually studied the facts of the case (and if he hasn’t, why not), or is this the version of events he’s been told (in which case someone has fed him some choice fibs), or is he telling us fibs himself?

Let’s examine those untruths. (And bear in mind, these words are from the official Police press release, on their website.) Firstly, he says that the two men were “seen entering” a building in the forbidden and patrolled ‘Red Zone’ of the CBD. He says that after “initially running from the police”, the two “were not compliant” and had to be “forced to the ground to be handcuffed”, and that it was in the course of this that Arie received a “bang to the side of his face”. He further says that they were “affected by alcohol and potentially drugs at the time of arrest”.

He then goes to defend the refusal of the police to grant diversion, claiming that this is only for those who “accept responsibility” for the offense, and then contradicts himself by saying that as there was a possibility of “issues of intellectual impairment which may [have offered] a defence”, they couldn’t grant it anyway. He maintains that “there were only two New Zealand police officers involved” and “no other police or defence staff [were] present as was later claimed”, and that he “fully back[s] the actions of the officers involved. Their actions were entirely appropriate”. He says that the reason that the “resolution” of these charges has taken so long is because of the delay in getting a psychiatric report, which indicated “diminished responsibility” on Arie’s part. And that they consequently decided to give Michael the “benefit of the doubt” as a result.

Translation and implications :- “they were two drunken and probably drugged louts caught red handed where they shouldn’t have been, doing what they shouldn’t have been, they tried to scarper (indicating sure guilt of something), they tried to fight the police and resist arrest, we didn’t hit them, the ground did it, they tried to weasel out of the charges, and in the end we let them off because Arie is a retard or a nutcase and we decided to let Michael off because he was there to look after his “mental” partner. But we’d do it all over again the same way if we had to.”

Sigh.

Now for the truth – the building was NOT in the Red Zone, but well outside it, and close to Arie and Michael’s home. The two men couldn’t have been spotting entering it, as Arie was in there for some while before Michael entered (it’s believed their torchlight was what attracted police attention). Arie had consumed a mere two glasses of wine earlier in the evening, and he never does drugs. They did not run, but rather froze in shock. Nor did they struggle or resist arrest, from the same shock, as they were quickly seized, thrown down and handcuffed, even as they tried to ask what was happening, or explain their presence there. And Michael maintains he clearly saw Arie receive a blow to the head after they were thrown to the ground. He also clearly remembers Arie’s stutter, which appears when he is under stress, being mocked and jeered at. And they still maintain there were more than two officers involved.

Subsequent to this, Arie did initially plead guilty, but despite the recommendations of no less than three judges, the police refused to grant diversion. The police were in possession of a psychiatric assessment as far back as May. And Arie and Michael’s real defense has always been not that Arie is ‘intellectually impaired’, but that no serious crime was actually committed by the pair. Arie has a slight speech impediment, but his intelligence is obviously normal, as is, I don’t doubt, his ability to know right from wrong. On the night in question, I believe it never occurred to him, in the midst of pursuing his ‘intense interest’ (I dislike the words ‘obsession’ or ‘compulsion’), that his actions could be interpreted as ‘wrong’.

Now some might think, ah well, what do a few details matter anyway? He got off, right?

But whenever the police publicly brand someone with the label of ‘looter’, or ‘burglar’ - or drunk, or drugged, or anything - the general population tends to take this as Gospel Truth, simply because it’s coming from the police, so it must be true, right? And if the defendant/s or their lawyer/s say something different, well, they would, wouldn’t they? The paradox is, that this gives the police carte blanche to lie if they want, and sometimes they do, because they can. I have seen it happen with my own eyes.

The untruths are not just a case of ‘sour grapes’, or a parting ‘up yours’ from the police. Potentially, they are seriously damaging to the public perception of those on the spectrum, which is not that good to start with. Many of the general public will have got the impression that here is a young man who got off serious charges because he ‘played the Aspergers card’. Or that having Aspergers means you’re a psychiatric case or intellectually disabled. The language of the media, who have consistently referred to Arie as ‘suffering’ from Aspergers, hasn’t really helped any. And the very people who we should be able to turn to for protection, may now prove to be our worst enemies.

Nor is this totally theoretical – every time this issue has come up on some public forum, on Facebook or elsewhere, someone always pops up with statements like “Well, if they do the crime, they should do the time”, or “no-one should get away with looting just because they’re aspie”. Repeatedly, those of us who know the real story have had to emphasize (you can almost hear the collective gritted teeth) that ARIE. WAS. NOT. LOOTING. End of. (I should add here, that this attitude comes equally from NTs and aspies, putting paid to the idea that aspies themselves believe we should have a ‘get out of jail free’ card, or that we lack the ability to form a sound moral code.) So simply by the police labelling Arie and Michael as ‘looters’, some believe their guilt from the start.

We aspies can be pleased that there’s been such unprecedented attention about this, that we adults on the spectrum have finally achieved a little public attention, and above all, of course, that there’s been a good outcome for Arie and Michael. But it has to be weighed against the damage done to our public image by such statements, damage that may take years or even decades to undo.

Do you hear that noise? It’s the sound of a whole bunch of Kiwi autistic adults banging their heads against the nearest wall, in despair or frustration …or a deep-seated and growing rage.

Justice for Arie at last - Part One

Yesterday, Monday, 22^nd August 2011, Arie Smith-Voorkamp, the aspie accused of ‘looting’ two light bulbs six months ago after the Christchurch earthquake, finally had all charges dropped against himself and his partner Michael Davis. Amidst the general celebrations of his supporters, many thoughts came to my mind. I have organized them into three parts, and this is the first.

Part One

The media focus was on Arie’s “suffering” from Aspergers, with its “compulsions” which, it was implied, bordered on mental illness or even intellectual disability, and that he should be let off all charges because of this – “poor chap, he can’t help it”, sort of thing. Most aspies greeted this with a resigned roll of the eyes – or irritation that was suppressed in the interest of getting the case widely known.

The attitude of the aspie community, however, has always been  -

(a) that the facts of the case didn’t warrant the serious criminal charges that were laid (and to give them their due, the media did push this line too),

(b) that the ‘hard-line’ attitude of the Police was the result, we had reason to believe, of an attitude within the Police that autistic people are “nuisances”, and that consequently they wanted to “make an example” out of Arie.

Think on it. To be guilty of ‘burglary’ implies pretty much all of the following –

(i) going on to private property (house, shop, factory, etc)

(ii) with criminal intent

(iii) to take something valuable

(iv) for pecuniary advantage.

Only the first applies in this case – and given that the property had lain abandoned and empty for some time even before the two earthquakes, Arie can be forgiven for assuming that it was no different to taking stuff from a tip, a rubbish skip (dumpster, for any Americans), or a demolition site. Even Michael, in following him in to the building, was concerned for Arie’s safety, not any possible illegality. I’m sure it wasn’t till the police suddenly swooped in, that this possibility occurred to either of them.

So if the ‘crime’ was so minor, why then did the police continue to take a hard and uncompromising line? Why, even after the real story was known, and even after the owners indicated they didn’t want to press charges, did the police continue to pursue such a trivial case, that normally wouldn’t even have seen charges laid? If it was ‘looters’ they were wanting to ‘make an example of’, why did they not choose someone like those who stole generators being used by emergency services? When have their faces, their names, been paraded in front of the media? The initial ‘over-excitement’ (with the exception of the assaults, etc) can be forgiven in the circumstances (residents of Christchurch describe the city during this period as “like a war zone”). But the unyielding insistence of the police on some very serious charges, for a very minor offense, has to raise equally serious questions about the police attitude towards Arie in particular, and autistic people in general.

Power and Responsibility

When I was a child, my father had a lot of little sayings. One of them was “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” We all know examples of how that works, from Mugabe’s thugs to Abu Ghraib, from Clinton’s “I did not have sex with that woman” to the shenanigans at Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World. Further back in history, there was Hitler and Idi Amin and Watergate. It’s gotten so that we almost expect corruption of some sort in large companies and high places. The more power that’s on offer, the more likely it is that it will go to someone’s head – or simply attract the potentially corrupt (and violent).

My father also had another little saying that was the flip side of the above – “responsibility ennobles, and absolute responsibility ennobles absolutely”. The problem with that in today’s world is that while many seek power, very few seem willing to take responsibility. Whenever the excrement hits the fan, whoever has that power, they are never somehow to blame, at least in their own eyes. Ass-covering has become almost automatic. Many years ago, when the Cave Creek disaster happened, I remember a very apt cartoon, which had various ministers, reps of government departments, etc, etc, all standing around in a circle pointing the finger at the next person in line and chanting in chorus “It’s his fault!” If anyone does take the blame, it’s usually some low-ranked subordinate offered up as a sacrificial lamb, or, in a few rare instances, some figurehead executive falls on their sword – “my department, my responsibility” sort of thing (this seems to be happening for Murdoch executives at the moment). Meanwhile, in the middle ranks, things go on as usual, the ‘culture’ of the place unchanged, or at most simply concealed better.

Most recently, I’ve seen this in action in our police force. Now I’m not slagging off the police in general. I’ve even met some nice ones. But there is a culture, or sub-culture if you like, within the force, of ‘bully boys’. As I’ve said in a previous post, I saw this ‘back in the day’, but had thought it was a thing of the past. Even such things as the Louise Nicholas case, I thought were simply hangovers from that past. But the Arie Smith-Voorkamp case has proved me wrong. Again, I am NOT saying all police are like this. But I do think that those who are, are being protected by their colleagues and superiors. NZ police, like many police forces around the world, tend to have a kind of ‘siege mentality’, where because of constant dealing with criminals, they often come to assume just about everybody who’s not a cop is guilty of something. They come to believe all their actions justified, and see themselves as pretty much ‘alone against the world’, and any criticism of them is ‘pandering to the crims’. They seem to believe if they admit to wrong-doing on the part of one of their own, it will not just tarnish their image, but lessen their ability to ‘catch the bad guys’. Somehow, they believe for that to happen, they must appear perfect. Cue ass-covering, denial of ‘aggro’ in courts and media, refusal to back down, etc, etc. The modern philosophy of refusal to take responsibility only feeds into this.

Let me digress for a minute. My daughter has been surrounded by unconditional love from the moment she was born. My only child, she is the ‘apple of my eye’. She also has strong, close bonds with extended family members, especially her grandmother. But if she when young had ever committed some serious wrong-doing – eg if she had ever shoplifted – I would, firstly, have ripped her a new one, and secondly, hauled her back to the shop by the scruff of her neck and made her return the goods and apologise to the shopkeeper or manager – publicly. Her grandmother would have given her an “I’m-so-disappointed-in-you” talk, and other family members would also have strongly voiced their disapproval. And she knew it too. Did she ever steal anything? Not flaming likely!!! In fact on one occasion when she was about ten or eleven, when a (so-called) friend tried to persuade her to go to a local shop and pinch stuff, she hotly refused, and stomped off home. The other girl went to the shop – and promptly got caught stealing, my daughter smugly informed me the next day.

The point I’m trying to make is that even if there are strong bonds (as police, army units, etc tend to develop), it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to approve, publicly or privately, of all each others’ actions. Nor is necessarily destructive to those bonds if one of the group is ‘hauled across the coals’ for those actions. If you think, well, that’s family, a police force is somewhat different, I suggest you look across the Tasman, to the New South Wales Police. This force was plagued by rampant corruption for decades. It was only through the stubborn efforts of dedicated people both within and outside the force that this was finally exposed and (hopefully, mostly) put an end to. Did this, at the time, damage the image of the force in the eyes of the Australian public? Undoubtedly. Does this same public now has greater confidence that their police are far less likely to be corrupt? I haven’t spoken to any Australians on the subject, but I’d be willing to bet on it.

So maybe I’m just a naïve aspie. But surely, if anyone refuses to take responsibility for their actions, insists they “didn’t do anything wrong”, lies about it, evades the truth, or stubbornly insists on the wrong-doing of others to divert attention away from their own, the more their image is likely to go down in other people’s eyes. If the police would own up, however, to occasionally ‘going over the top’ out of misplaced zealousness or righteous anger, or to a ‘misjudgement’ in how they prosecute a case, yes, a short-term dip in their image will almost certainly happen. But in the long run – after all the media hype died down - that image would surely be enhanced. “Well, hey, they’ve done wrong sometimes, but they’re man enough to own up to it, and try to put things right.” That sort of thing. Further evasion of responsibility etc, though, can only damage their image in the eyes of all the public, not just those with Aspergers.

But I admit, I’m not holding my breath it’s going to happen any time soon. This attitude seems entrenched in the police, and there are likely to be more Aries, not necessarily with Aspergers, but undoubtedly from some vulnerable group or another. I’d be willing to bet on that too.