Susan Senator

All I’m askin’
Is for a little respect in your group home, yeah
In your group home
–Aretha and me

How do I get an online petition started to close down the Judge Rotenberg Center which I can then bring to my Governor. I can’t believe that the $%^& Boston Globe has an editorial today saying that “there is a role for aversive therapy if it is practiced with great restraint and respect.” Respect? How does that work, exactly? “Oh, dear autistic student, with the ‘self-destructive and violent’ behavior: forgive me for what I am about to do to you in the name of teaching you how to be calm and peaceful.”

That is because — with all due restraint and respect — The Globe Editorial page has its head up its ass. Instead of condemning electric shock for being outmoded and barbaric, and calling for the JRC to be closed, The Globe thinks it knows enough to merely recommend — in mealy-mouthed, spineless, we-don’t-know-what-it’s-like- we’re-not-the-experts-or-parents-dealing-with-these-monsters, and let’s-be-moderate-and-not-throw-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater fashion — that the JRC be investigated and monitored in an “ongoing and intensive” manner.

Sure, investigate. But close it down in the meantime. Do we really need another team of “experts” to tell us that this is wrong?

I know what it’s like. Okay? I know. Read the book. Read the blog. Ask me. Look at my hands, my scars.

You don’t torture to teach a lesson. You just don’t. Case closed.