marjaerwin

In any discussion of eugenics, 4 out of 5 abled people will say it’s not eugenics, and 9 out of 10 will say it’s a good thing.

This isn't about the sometimes-awkward intersection of anti-eugenicism and reproductive rights. This is about the idea that the way to address disability issues is to eliminate certain groups of people, rather than to try to include and accommodate all people. This scares me.

In any discussion of eugenicism, abled people will speak over disabled people, and silence disabled people, to decide whose life is worth living.

Abled people don’t generally have the knowledge or the moral authority to say we should eliminate some inborn condition among disabled people. Disabled people, living with that particular condition, may have the knowledge and moral authority, and we may disagree with each other. Abled people, if anything, have an obligation to en-able those they have previously dis-abled.

Torture is one of them. One of the defenders of torture claimed it worked for the French regime in Algeria:

The dirty little secret about torture is that it works. [...snip...]

In the early morning, they executed the prisoners and buried them - no exceptions. Several thousands were killed in this fashion; as Aussaresses argues, if they were to have been taken to court, all those bodies would've clogged up the justice system for a decade and there'd be a good chance they'd escape from jail.

And I bet the CIA special rendition programme is working too.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/19513603

If your goal is mass murder, torture works, but gas chambers also work. And the linked account doesn't suggest any goal beyond mass murder. If your goal is to extract confessions from "secret Jews," "heretics," and "witches," torture works. If your goal is anything else, you haven't demonstrated that it works for anything else.

There are evil means only suited for evil ends.

Some of my best friends are Aspies. I know full well they have the same capacity for empathy as any other human being. When supposed experts like Baron-Cohen claim that autistic folks are incapable of empathy, the supposed experts reveal that they themselves are unwilling to extend empathy to those different from themselves.

Our society is run by neurotypicals for neurotypicals, and treats neurominorities as perpetual outsiders. It judges people by eye contact, facial expression, and tone of voice. It excludes those of us who find eye contact stressful or facial expressions unreadable, and it dehumanizes us to justify that exclusion.

Our society is run by people who regard neurodiversity as disease, and wish to find ways to prevent it. But it is the diversity of minds and the diversity of perspectives which makes society most creative, most dynamic, most driven to overcome its injustices and find greater justice. And makes society most free for the remainder. If you abolish autism, you are abolishing your own empathy for autistics, and you will make life hell for those on the edge of autism.

I am angry here. You should be angry too.

http://www.autismandempathy.com/?p=9

http://www.questioningtransphobia.com/?p=3833

1. Capitalism can't grow itself out of the crisis. It is bringing more and more wealth to fewer and fewer people, increasing social stratification, destroying opportunities, and increasing global poverty. Since the 1970s, it has created more and more precarity. But it is also creating more and more outcasts: people who are permanently unemployed, groups which are forced into exile, and with this, a permanent countereconomy.

2. Increasing use of declining resources will create disasters. We are at or near peak oil. We are past the collapse of most fisheries. We are increasingly dependent on irrigation for agriculture, and draining the aquifers this depends on.

3. Increasing emissions threaten us all. CO2 output continues to increase. It's unclear what tipping points increasing CO2 levels and increasing temperatures will trigger, but phytoplankton levels have declined as much as 40%, coral reefs are dying from increased acidity, and permafrost is melting and releasing trapped methane gas.

4. The state-capitalist system cannot stop this crisis. It is directly responsible for much of the crisis. It is structured to protect the powerful from accountability; it pollutes, it shields polluters, and it tilts competition in favor of ignoring environmental concerns.

In order to respond to peak oil, global warming, and other environmental crises, we need to replace capitalism and the state within the next few decades, the sooner the better.

We need to act now. Within our own lifetimes. We can't wait for better economic times. They won't happen unless we replace the system. We can't wait for freer social environments, ones where we face less oppression and less precarity. They won't happen until we replace the system. If we don't act, capitalism may turn to fascism, as it has done before. American politics already accepts the torture and murder of people it considers undesirable...