#torture center

[phaon1]

Guantanamo Bay is a torture center.

I encourage all Americans who care about cruelty and injustice to protest against Guantanamo Bays' continued existence.

On a similar note, the fact slavery is allowed in many states as a form of criminal punishment, which is also stated within the constitution, is the most vile thing I have recently discovered.

Use your voice to stand against gross injustice like this

[tortured-griffith]

i tell this grown ass man to kill one noble for me and he is over here giggling, kicking his feet, batting his eyelashes, asking me to command him around, girl THE ASSASSINATION

[cardio-undercover]

I want to be fucked so insanely rough that my heart feels like it’s about to burst. I might even feel like I’m having a heart attack. I’m struggling to speak, and out of instinct start clawing at my chest. I need to reach inside, grab my heart, and pump it manually with my bare hands. But it’s no use, I can barely keep my hand stable enough to rest it on top of my beating heart. The feeling is so overwhelming, yet at the same time, if I could speak, I wouldn’t say stop…

[violet-sumire]

Idea: Touya has amnesia after waking up from his coma. He doesn't know who he is, but he knows that place he woke up in is bad news, so he flees like in canon. Except he doesn't know where to go afterwards.

A long story and a couple weeks spent being shuffled across various children's homes later, the HPSC catches wind of him and his powerful fire quirk. They offer to take him in and train him to be a hero, providing food and housing as well.

He takes the offer, thinking it's a no-brainer. And it is - they treat him well, give him a new (hero) name, he takes to the training well, and he makes a friend in his fellow hero-in-training Hawks! Everything's going great, especially once they graduate to being full-time heroes once they're adults.

Which makes the eventual reveal that the HPSC had very early on figured out who exactly he is, and didn't tell him, that much more personal of a betrayal.

[thecorvidforest]

I need you all to know about the Judge Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts.

(Content warning for below the cut: ableism, electroshock torture of developmentally & intellectually disabled people, mention of death)

Two days ago (Sep. 7th, 2023), the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that a residential school called the Judge Rotenberg Center can continue to use electric shock devices called GEDs (graduated electronic decelerator) that are worn 24/7 to attempt to control the actions of developmentally & intellectually disabled people.

JRC calls itself an education & treatment school for “emotionally disturbed students with conduct, behavior, emotional, and/or psychiatric problems, as well as those with intellectual disabilities or on the autism spectrum” (according to their website). They have around 50 residences throughout Massachusetts. Their strategies center around restraint and punishment for unwanted behaviors. At least five deaths are attributed directly and indirectly to their treatments.

They say these electric shock devices, which are stronger than a police grade taser and are irrefutably shown to cause permanent mental & physical damage, are “life saving” and that they’re used on people “for whom all other treatment options have been tried and failed”.

Here’s a short list of things their “students” (who are placed there by their families and very likely have no choice in the matter, and are disproportionately Black/Brown/Indigenous) are shocked for:

hand flapping/stimming

standing up

sitting down

swearing

speaking

not fulfilling a simple task

any perceived disobedience

making noises because of their disability

making noises while being shocked (such as screaming or crying)

sitting in the "wrong" way

acting without permission

incontinence

More info on JRC here and on their history here (content warning: graphic & disturbing descriptions of ableism & torture in both links, death & suicide in the 2nd link).

This is just the latest piece of an ongoing battle to stop electric shock treatment on disabled people. In 2023 we are still not seen as human enough to be the victims of human rights violations.

Info on how you can help here. Disabled people have been trying to get eyes on this fight for decades. Please talk about it. Please don’t let this go unseen like it always does.

[ramblesbiab]

Sometimes the lesbian experience is accepting that there’s a good chance the hottest woman you’ve ever seen is someone you pass four times in a history museum and will probably never see again

[sweetnnaivete]

not a big fan of seer pandora tbh bc people would take her seriously. she's scary and intimidating like that, she would command attention. not only that, but i don't see her as this very dreamy type of person prone to have prophecies. she's like evan, very clinical and science-minded. if i'm completely honest, i don't think she'd like divination at all.

sybill on the other hand is canonically a seer. sure, she doesn't have visions as much as she says, but she's still a seer, she's just a little crazy. and sure, we can ignore canon for fun. but i also think playing into her being a seer is interesting. unlike pandora, she doesn't really have friends, and she has no one to believe her. she is the cassandra of harry potter. she may not have clear visions, but she has gut feelings, night terrors, fever dreams. she sees everything around her in perfect clarity, but can do nothing, doesn't want to do anything, because she feels nothing but resent for the people who have made fun of her for years. who would believe her anyway?

[rutadales]

something about how c!dream and foolish both put themselves in situations they hated to get what the wanted. the prison and las nevadas. how they both did it out of fear. and then they spend the rest of the story there, in a place they hated, in a place they feared, in a place that was completely utilitarian until it wasn't. something about cages and walking in willingly.

[odinsblog]

With the backing of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, Khiam became a memorial to those who suffered and died at the hands of the SLA and Israel. But in the summer of 2006, during the 34-day Israeli onslaught against Lebanon, Israeli planes bombed the remains of the site and the neighbouring village.

Amine, a 56-year-old father of four, spent four years at Khiam after his arrest in September 1996. Today, he works to help maintain the remnants of the memorial site. Stepping through the rubble of what were once torture chambers and prison cells, he leans on a metal pole, where he and other detainees were hung by their wrists, and explains how at least 10 people died under torture at Khiam.

“Prisoners were kept naked and splashed with hot and cold water, and subjected to electric shocks,” he tells Al Jazeera. “They then had salt put in their wounds.” There were no court proceedings or charges brought against him during his detention, Amine adds.

“The address, Khiam detention centre, is a terrible address,” he says. “The importance of this place is showing that the Israelis occupied Lebanon and tortured us.”

(continue reading)

[zeroar]

An Open Letter to the People Who Support Autism Speaks

Autism Speaks is eighteen years old. The age they should start dismissing themselves as being an authority on autism like they do with autistic adults if they cared about consistency at all.

They were founded in 2005 by a couple of Hollywood executives who grieved the diagnosis of their grandchild. This was a full dozen years after the seminal "Don't Mourn For Us" by Jim Sinclair was penned and presented.

From the beginning, Autism Speaks was anti-autism. They sought a "cure" they could use to erase our existence from the planet, they fomented anti-vax conspiracies which are still plaguing our society today, and they fostered and continue to foster an environment supportive and understanding of child-murder.

But. They were connected to celebrity. And they had the endowment and reach to become the largest anti-autism group in the nation and world.

The primary method of advertising which Autism Speaks used from the beginning is known as "fear appeal".

Typically, they frame autistic children as changeling-like creatures which replace the allistic or neurotypical child you had with one which will never love you and will tear apart your family.

Autism Speaks spotlights the worst of having an autistic family member and pulls the drapes on any mitigating circumstances or assistance. They emphasize the burden we are and the harm caused to our families by our existence.

Autism Speaks then goes on to frame themselves as being the solution and the experts on everything autism. They say, don't listen to autistic people, listen to their parents and other people who have been negatively affected by their existence. Listen to these cherry-picked examples.

They talk vaguely about support for autistic children and families while they campaign ceaselessly to find the genes which contributed to making us... so they can unmake us.

As you might expect for people who frame themselves as being the victim of their children's existences, they have been easily taken in by snake-oil salesmen and conspiracy theorists.

To this day, Autism Speaks continues to emphasize the "environmental causes of autism" even while fully knowing (from the millions of dollars of research they put in pursuing a debunked study) that autism appears to be primarily genetic and our environment really only affects our presentations as autistic, not our realities as autistic.

"Environmental causes" is a dog whistle for vaccines because they no longer feel it is profitable for them to explicitly encourage widespread death and alternative disabilities of children, so they have started only alluding to it and finally, years after the study was debunked and retracted, agree that vaccines do not cause autism.

"Environmental causes" is also a dog whistle for things like heavy metal poisoning causing autism and various other external things that can be "taken care of" via chelation therapy and bleaching our insides. Yes, Autism Speaks is at least partially responsible for spreading bleach "cures".

I believe they've taken it down since I first started advocating for SPLC to recognize Autism Speaks as a hate group—something autistic persons have recognized for years—but as recently as a year ago they were still directing people to seek out these "cures".

They worded it in such a way that it was, "These 'cures' do not work and can cause harm, but you should talk to people who tried them for their children and see for yourself."

It's cruelty for cruelty's sake. Or it's believing scientifically disproven things in a way that promotes the torture of children.

Which brings us to arguably their biggest crime against humanity and against autistic people specifically thus far: the advancement of behaviorism or behavioral conditioning as the "treatment" for autism.

Behaviorism, that is, conversion therapy torture. When done on autistic people, it is commonly called ABA or PBS.

This is another reason why they cling to "environmental causes", because behaviorism is entirely consumed with external presentation.

Autism is a pervasive neurological state which colors every aspect of our lives. Their "solution" is to deny our reality, break us to their will, and have us pretend to be "normal".

Through their efforts, they have ensured conversion therapy is not just used, but frequently the only choice for covered treatment of autistic children.

I say "choice", but the torture is sometimes court-mandated (and this is more common when the parents are marginalized-by-society in some way themselves).

Autism Speaks is so very proud of their government influence. Shortly before I started the petition, I watched in horror as their testimony scuttled a bill at the state level intended to help autistic children which had the support of their parents because not enough torture was included in the "help".

People say they've "changed", yet it's not like their institution is so hallowed and sacrosanct that it is necessary to keep around even as it is continues to encourage harm and death to autistic children and autistic adults.

Autism Speaks is the multi-headed hydra of anti-autism rhetoric and hate in the world today. They have so many branches and have infiltrated so deeply that many of their supporters ( I hope ) are not even aware of the hateful rhetoric and active harm they spread.

People tend not to even question the premise that autistic humans are better off dead than alive, people have for ages not even thought of us as human. Autism Speaks recommends starting behavioral conditioning as early as possible in children as young as two. The least intensive programs they recommend are for dozens of hours a week.

This is what they recommend, push, and lobby for with *all* autistic children.

If they become able to accurately recognize autism in a fetus, then their genocide and eugenics will only accelerate. I am pro-abortion, but no one should be coerced into an abortion with lies and one-sided propaganda.

Showing hateful rhetoric and catastrophizing about our existence to a newly pregnant person is similarly abominable as the sort of thing anti-choice people do.

Autism Speaks has not changed, though they have gotten better at pretending normality. Maybe they put themselves through conversion therapy torture to learn how to pretend to be a force of good while being sympathetic of child murderers?

Or, you know, they've hired publicists and PR people.

If you were duped by them, I'm sorry that their hate is not more well-known. Can you imagine if the first place you felt supported you and understood your struggles was the bad guy? Who would think that by default?

But they are the bad guy. And they're using you. Preying on your isolation and desire for community and support.

They start early. Constant public outreach. Working with cops. University chapters. There may even be entire branches under their umbrella that are actively dedicated to good. But they support the hate and harm by supporting Autism Speaks.

If you support Autism Speaks, then you support the elimination of autism.

If you believe their fear-driven propaganda designed to earn more money for themselves, that may sound like a good thing to you.

But you cannot eliminate autism without eliminating the autistic person, too.

We cannot turn off our autism, some of us can pretend normality—frequently to our great misfortune—but others can't do that either. It's similar to what happens when you force queer people through conversion therapy torture / behaviorism regimes.

There is not some hidden switch in our brains to "fix" us. Even if there was, we would not be ourselves, we would be different people. You cannot separate autism from the autistic.

If this letter spoke to you, I hope you will consider signing my petition to get the Southern Poverty Law Center to track anti-disability hate and to recognize Autism Speaks as an anti-autism group.

You can find the petition here:

Thank you for reading, Zero Richardson

[italoniponic]

Ace: Can I ask you something? Buying pans, kitchen utensils, towels and such are more fun when you're an adult?

Crewel: It's... *thinks about it* yep

[fatehbaz]

.

[ardentpoop]

[miraluking-respectfully]

felix being referred to more or less exclusively as "your soldier" in-game speaks to how little the writers put into his character beyond his noggin full of sith secrets & his relationship with the consular; still, i do find it kind of sweet and funny, in a way. he's not a republic soldier, not even your personal bodyguard; he's your soldier. the consular is a small nation-state in and of herself

[bunnihearted]

once again crying bc im thinking abt all the homeless cats and dogs and bunnies.... :(