Savage Action News - Updates from the Autism Community
Michael Savage and Talk Radio Network have created a website called "Savageonautism.com" which describes the network's perspective on Savage's comments and reiterates what Savage himself says is his true opinion on autism in America.I've been the About.com Guide to Autism for more than two years now, and it's been a tumultuous time for our community. But I've got to say that I've never seen so much attention paid to an issue! Major genetic breakthroughs, significant legal findings, celebrity events - not one has come close to touching as many hearts and minds.
Wendy Fournier, President of the National Autism Association, went on Savage's show in an attempt to offer her own point of view on his comments. Not surprisingly, she was unhappy with the outcome! As a result, she has written an open letter to Savage which readers can find on the organization's website. It's called "Man Up, Mr. Savage."
Many readers have noted that a good way to have an impact on Savage is by contacting sponsors and local radio stations. MediaMatters.org has created a page which allows you to do just that.
Can anyone explain why a shock jock can have this much impact on this many people over so much time? His statements were truly nasty and hurtful, but after all, isn't that Savage's stock in trade - the kind of thing he says almost every day about some group or other? What is it about Savage - or his particular choice of words and timing - that makes him worthy of so much interest and action?
Your thoughts are welcome!
Comments
I don’t know if it’s more what Savage said or how he said it. He tends to get quite loud and abusive when he goes on his rants, which is what this monologue was. And I think people have a more visceral reaction to nastiness when it is yelled at them as opposed to when it is delivered in a calm, “reasonable” tone.
You’re right, Savage’s stock in trade is making outrageous statements. But then he always stands by what he says, no matter how ridiculous, which exacerbates the situation. He’s repeated many things over the years that I have documented in my book, “Savage Lies,” to be untrue.
He’s now had a few days to “finesse” his statement and try to blunt the criticism. But make no mistake, he considers autism to be a “phony” disease.
“Freedom of Speech” is a political right to stand on a street corner and express opinions of any nature. It does not extend to the right of public figure to make defamatory, slanderous statements that lack any basis in fact. This is why our legal system offers recourse to those who are SLANDERED.
I think the timing as to do with summer, and many of our kids are home. I also think maybe parents are just a little fed up with all we deal with in the public and here you have this guy adding to the uneducated. I scrolled around to other forums and do not see anyone giving Savage much attention but the autism community. It could be the asthma community wont waste precious air on the man.
America likes shock jocks, people feed into them and obviously from either opinioned side.
There is no legal recourse under slandering for this public person or another unless it is directed at a person and damages can be proven. The code of ethics of a shock jock are hardly limiting. The only time anything matters with Savage or Imus is the sponsors since that’s how many things are paid for. Drop a sponsor, loose money, get fired. The personalities of a shock jock rarely fades away, either. They just move on.
Just remember, Savage is no expert on autism nor does he have employment of which to know much about asthma or autism.
You raise a good question. His words have raised the hackles of the parents and those who support us and really almost everyone outside his fanbase. I keep thinking of this comic:
http://xkcd.com/386/
It’s not just that he’s wrong, it’s the venom of the personal attack on our kids and us. There’s widely divergent views in the autism community over the nature, treatment, neccessity of treatment, epidemiology and definition of autism. While we decide on different paths, we could probably reach a consensus that we really don’t need a no-nothing bully talking trash about any kids, especially ours. I guess we all are either struggling enough with our burden, or if we’re really doing OK, we want to protect the others who are still struggling.
As Mr. Bowman above mentioned, it’s partly the way he said it. Anger, disgust, accusations of lying and fraud. He represents a perfect encapsulation of ugly thoughtless ignorance that’s somehow hard to ignore.
Coupled with that is his bizzare sanctimonious excuse that it’s for our own good, that he represents some critical piece of information that we as parents need. As if he after a rant like that, we would look upon him as an educational resource for better parenting. I somehow don’t feel I’ve learned any workable parenting tips from him.
Michael covered the topic for several days and had a lot of parents and professionals who supported his positions. I am not pleased that info didn’t make it into this article. His website has various clips of this info, if anyone really cares to hear what he was trying to say. The man is very well informed on anything that comes up. In various debates/conversations I think he makes this oppoents look like monkeys. He is anti-communist and so am I. I hope you are going to get on Barry H. Obama’s case about using his real name? Michael thanks for being honest and for your hard work. We do have the right to speak our minds. The left is the one who does the slandering. I don’t see them being attacked by our commi-biased media.
My activist site, the E-Advocate, hopped right on the issue. Why? Because Michael Savage has 8 million listeners who are very loyal and it will take plenty of work on our part to undo the idea that an autism “racket” can exist. With the funding being so low, we all know that is untrue.
Many non-profits have worked extremely hard to provide services, fund research and provide awareness. Thanks to Savage, the facts about autism became a self-manufactured controversy on his part.
I created a petition on Care2 to fire him and have received over 300 hate e-mails, all by people who believe that most children diagnosed with autism are faking it so that their parents can be leaches on the government. People are believing him.
I listen to Savage almost every night. some times i agree other times not. yet one thing is for sure. he did make a lot of people take notice of autism.
i took my son to one doctor and after the visit we were told, our boy has autism.
we went to another doctor she had us come back 2 more times and told us that he did not have autism. just need a little more discipline. now we give him more time out, and it seems to be working.
so who do we believe.
BS”D
I realize that my response will be controversial here, as while we all find the 84-second rant deeply offensive, I am more disturbed by the attempts by Big Pharma to censor one of its leading critics (especially as more autistic children are drugged with Risperdal, Zyprexa, and other neuroleptics). I can more easily defend myself against someone who calls me a “brat” than I can someone who tries to assault me with a hypodermic full of Risperdal. I e-mailed several advertizers with the following letter:
Dear ____,
I am contacting you in response to the campaign of some disability advocates and parents of autistic children to get ____ to withdraw advertising from Savage Nation and Talk Radio Network in response to Michael Savage’s controversial comments on autism, calling most autistic kids “brats” and “morons.”
I am an adult on the autism spectrum. Nonetheless, I oppose this effort. Yes, the 84-second clip of Savage’s response to a caller are misinformed and indeed offensive, and he has also offended other minorities in the past. But one needs to look at this in a larger context of Savage’s opposition to the massive psychiatric drugging of our children, a legitimate and understated position which I heartily agree with. His willingness to support those like Dr. Peter Breggin on this issue is something desperately needed, especially as increasing numbers of autistic children are prescribed dangerous drugs like Risperdal. Savage has also strongly condemned eugenic policies which seek to eliminate people with disabilities. It would be sad indeed if a leftist interest group with no particular interest in autism were to censor such views based on one rant.
Ultimately, censorship and politically correct speech codes are a much greater threat than a misinformed rant regarding the alleged over-diagnosis of autism. The controversy has, if anything, promoted greater awareness of the autism and Aspergers, and that is the positive side of freedom of speech. I urge you to recognize that advocates do disagree here, and not cave in to those understandably upset advocates and parents on this matter who seek to silence opposing views under the guise of stopping “hate speech.”
I am the mom of an 11yr son diagnosed with PDD.I moved to the central Pa. area in May of 2007.My son went to school on August 26th 2007.By September 6th 2007 I informed the school that my son was in need of an IEP,but that he already had a 504 from another jusidiction.They told me that he would have to be evaluated to see if he was eligible for the IEP.I signed the permission slip.On this same day the school district told me that the school that he was attending,which was right behind my home, could not educate my son.I was told that my son would need to go to another school.I was not aware that there was a procedure to follow to change his placement, so I went to the new school and toured it to see what services they claimed they could offer him.I was shown classes with 7 kid teacher and aide.I agreed for my son to attend because he needed to be in a small class setting,and they said they would offer him services that would help him be more successful in school.
On September 18th , 2007 my son walked into a classroom with about 33 children in it as opposed to the class that they showed me with 7 kids, he had a meltdown and ran out of the room.Instead of them offering services to help de escalate the situation, they allowed him to run all the way down stairs to the office and they cornered him there.He began having what I would call an anxiety attack.He was cornered in this small office and he began to do whatever he had to , to get out of the situation.He tried to run out, but they had him cornered.He then began to try to fight his way out. I was so hurt because they did not call me until after the fact, but they described my son as a wild animal.Had the staff offered my son the services that they promised me they would offer him in this situation things would have been different.In fact the reason that that I started driving my son a half hour away from my home to go to school was because of the services that they claimed they would offer.Instead , they suspended my son on September 18th, 2007 and he has been out of school since.
They finally evaluated him,finding he was eligible for the IEP,but refused to allow him in any school.I asked that he be allowed to remain in the school until we developed the IEP,but they refused,.In fact the Director of Special Education services told me the only placement that they had for my son was in a psychiatric hospital(inpatient).They even suggested that they would send my son to a school in another state , two hours away from my home.Of course ,I refused such a ridiculous proposal.They scheduled a date for us to sit down for an IEP meeting.I obtained an attorney , because I thought that these people were crazy to be so bold as to suggest that my child be placed in a hospital as opposed to trying to offer what was needed in a regular ed class(”try”, being the operative word).I told them how imperative it was that I return to work.They told me if returning to work was that important to me ,I would accept their offer to place my son.I said I would wait for the IEP meeting.I also informed the district that I had retained an attorney to attend the IEP meeting with me.
On the morning of the IEP meeting, I received a call from the school district telling me that the IEP meeting had been cancelled and they would notify me of a new date.I again asked about my son being allowed to return to school.They told me he could not.
I waited a couple of weeks to receive a call or letter about a new IEP meeting date.I started to call them, but they would not return my calls.I went to the building on several occassions to try and meet with them, but they would always tell the receptionst that they were on their way to meetings and to tell me that they would call me, which they never did.At the advice of the attorney, I filed a complaint with the Office of Dispute Resolutions on December 17th,2007.
In January I received a letter from the Director of Pupil Personnel services stating that they had been trying to contact me between the months of October and November to set up the IEP meeting, but they said I would not respond to their calls and letters.I pulled my phone records to prove that the only call that I received from them was the one in October cancelling the IEP meeting.She then apologized for them lying to her and told me she would straighten out this whole thing for me and my son.They agreed to pay for tutoring and an inependant evaluation.I took my son to the evaluation which was done by a doctor located about 2.5 hours away from my home.He found that my son did in fact suffer from Pervasive Development Disorder Nos, not the emotional disturbance that the school district psychologist stated.On February 26th, 2008 they began tutoring my son at the public library requiring me to stay at home with him and take him to the library and sit there with him.
The school district offered my son a settlement of compensatory education if I would agree to waive my right to take any further actions against them and to close the case that I had filed with tHE Office of Dispute Resoultion.I have been out of work since September 18th, 2007.The district refused to talk to me or even acknowledge that I or my son even exhisted.They also lied and said that I did not respond to their requests to schedule an IEP meeting for my son.When I say I have been out of work, I don’t mean work in terms of a 9-5 at some company.I mean a business that I started myself 11 years ago, after working 18 hours days and sacrificing time away from home to build the business.All of this went down the drain, because the type of business that I was in required my time.I also sell real estate, which requires my working with my clients during the day.I have suffered financially and so has my marraige.I have gone through anxiety and depression and was actually forced to start seeing a therapist and taking medication to deal with all of the losses that I was experiencing because of the school district’s actions against us.I am in serious financial trouble because I had to shut down my business behind all of this.
On several occassions the tutor that was hired by the school district to tutor my son started questioning my son about things concerning my case against the school district.I had asked her several times to stop.She continued.She also began making racial comments about and to my son.I also addressed this with her.The final straw came when she told me that my son knows that something is wrong with him.She told me that she has had extensive conversations with my son about Autism, although I had asked her not to discuss this with my son.She even had the audacity to say that my son was playing the system.She is entitled to her opinion, but this comment was made in front of my son.I reported it to the district.They made it seem as though my son had done something wrong and then they stopped the tutoring, although it was supposed to continue through the Summer.
I have been trying to find a new lawyer because the old lawyer quit on me after becoming very nasty and verbally rude, because I refused to sign a settlement agreement that would have allowed him to be paid a lot sooner that later, but would have forced me to sign away any rights that I may have had to recoupe any of the loss of income or damages that the district has caused to happen to my family because of the loss of income for just about an entire year.
My family is in a crisis now and I do not know how much longer we are even going to have a place to live.I had my electicity turned off, my water turned off my homeis in foreclosure, I have no home telephone any more and many other things are just up the pike.Please help!!!!If ther is an advocate out there that would be interset in helping us please contact me.I am also in need of a new attorney that can handle special education matters and civil rights cases.If anyone knows of resources available to me, please inform me of them.Thanks
Let’s face it. Savage’s core audience would put our kids in sheds in the backyards.
Michael Savage is a pseudonym for Michael Alan Weiner!
)
Michael Alan Weiner is a little, old, Jewish man
(I can say this because I, myself, am a little, old Jewish man
and he is in constant search of narcissistic photo op’s. That’s all it is folk’s.
Mr. Weiner, and I use that name Weiner loosely, you are a deceitful and treacherous egotist and nothing more.
I am dismayed by the comments a few have made about Savage always being right, rhisperdol, how he has brought attention to autism. Anyone who knows anything at all about Autism knows that Savage is absolutely clueless. Anyone who knows anything about the treatment of Autism knows that almost no kids with Autim are given rhisperdol. That is more often given to kids with ADHD. Anyone who has two brain cells to rub together knows that Micael Weiner Savage is frequently incorrect, doesn’t mind lying, and makes his money manipulating the general public by appealing to their lowest common denominator. In the case of his Autism rant, he sank even lower than I thought he could.He offended my child, my husband and my family, ( along with millions of others), and THEN he and his lemming followers have the nerve to blame it on “commies” and homosexuals.Give me a break. if you kick someone, don’t be surprised if they don’t like it.
As for his bringng attention to the issue of Autism…..no one needs that kind of attention. Are we supposed to be grateful. That’s like saying that the KK brought attention to the needs of black people by hanging them from trees. The man is an ignorant, egomaniac who is a blight on the Earth!
Oh, his radio broadcasts…the ones with the “experts” who agreed with him were as phony as he is. He only allowed the words that he wanted people to hear. Everything else was blocked out.He truly doesn’t have the guts to talk, face to face, with anyone who knows anything about Autism. He is a coward in addition to everything else.He should have listened to his father…and stopped acting like an idiot.
As a parent of a 14 year old with autism, I was extremely upset and offended when I heard Savage’s comments on autism. Autism is a complicated disorder and if you don’t deal with it on a daily basis like we do, I guess it would be hard to understand. I am sure other parents of children will agree with me when I say that autism is the last thing we would wish for our children. The struggles these kids go through everyday just trying to be educated in school, learn social skills, etc. It is a long, difficult road. We do live in a country of free speech but in my opinion, Savage is an idiot who got more media attention and probably has more listeners for saying such cruel things about people with autism. All I can say is shame on him. He is a vile, disgusting man in my opinion.
“Sigh”. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. “His brain needs to be rewired”. A person who uses the disabled for personal gain should be prosecuted. I hope he looses everything. (Not that he has all that much to loose to begin with). What he has done in actuality, is proclaim himself as an idiot.
I think we all owe Michael Savage a debt of gratitude. He has cast a bright spotlight on the ‘racket’ we have all gotten away with as Autism Parents. We can come out of the closet and live without guilt and fear of discovery now that our dirty little secret is known.
Yes, Michael Savage, you and the countless others that share your opinions are right. We in the Autism community have been secretly reveling in the multitude of benefits that come with having a child on the spectrum. Can you imagine the joy we experience as we cope with the emotional and financial devastion that comes with the diagnosis? Or, the sheer giddiness we all feel as our marriages and friendships crumble? Most of us giggle all the way to the bank to cash our non-existent aid checks provided by our state and federal governments. And, really, is there anything better than having a 5 year old still in diapers?
One of my favorite quotes from Savage’s rant is: “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.’ ”
It would seem that Savage shares at least one thing in common with the children he is attacking. It is clear that his father never told him to “stop acting like a putz”.