Psych groups' fury over 'ransom' ads (NYDailyNews.com)

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No it is not.

This is most confusing to me. I have no idea what you are saying. Nowhere does their announcement make the slightest suggestion that they retract anything. They seem to be most self-congratulatory on how much interest they generated. They do not renege on any of the ransom notes. They do not admit that there was anything wrong with them.

Having sown the wind, they reaped the whirlwind. On the one hand, they say how pleased they are with the success(sic) of their campaign, then they complain about "the debate(sic) over the ads" causing their telephone and email to be swamped, I guess.

A retraction would have somewhere said "We acknowledge that the adverts were badly conceived. We will not use them, or any similarly poorly thought-out techniques in the future."

As I said, their current announcement does not preclude them using the identical adverts again.

yes it does. Its a typical retraction letter.




I quoted that for you in my last post. again thats a typical way of retraction




I agree. And thats why I called their retraction letter a joke





They do that right there in the bit I quoted. That's why I quoted it for you:





This phase of our campaign talks about the ransom notes, as is obvious when viewed in context of the letter. The latter part of the sentence further removes any doubt one could potentially have about the ransom notes being pulled, as it clearly states the debate over them is preventing them from reaching their goals




Not in the business world my friend. That would be seriously detrimental to their daily operations, even more so than the ransom notes were. They couldn't very well be asking for money to help their cause if they did such, and the goal of the campaign was to raise money for thei cause, so they'd double-lose. And if one of their people really did put something like your wording up, you can guarantee that person would be out of the organization by the end of the week.

There retraction letter is pretty standard for a business or organization that has made a foolish mistake and knows its better for their operations if they cover their mistake as best as possible, while appeasing those wronged by it. The first rule in correcting a business mistake is to minimize all damage, past, present and future. Your statement would bring about added damage.



And the sentence I quoted shows beyond any doubt that you are mistaken on this. I rather get the impression you aren't the least familiar with business operations, legalese and business-speak

There are also other statements in the letter that shows this is not the case:



- Here they're admitting their campaign failed to achieves its goal of talking about the issues




and here they admit the ransom part of the campaign was a mistake as it was hurting and offensive to some


I don't have the link to it right now, but elsewhere (either on the site of the site of the marketing agency they used) I have read about how they decided to include autism and aspergers in the ransom notes, because they felt the only people they'd be arguing with were those uninformed about what autism and asperger's were. However, when the ads went up they found the two groups they were arguing with were autistic adults and parents of children with autism.

Au contraire, mon cher. Having had my own company for thirty years, gone through quite a bit of legal stuff, at one time or another, and done work for more companies than I can offhand count,...

The phrase you keep quoting does not define what they regard as "this phase of our campaign". The fact that you interpret the phrase as referring to some all-time non-use of the adverts does not make that binding on them to interpret it the same way. As I suggested, "this phase" could just mean the local use of the adverts. The commencement of their next phase might be to show them internationally. I certainly hope this is not the case.

Both your further quotes just serve to show how wheedling they are being. They speak of "debate", when I doubt they had any such thing. Their comment that their ads' effects were in some way unintentional just leaves one wondering how much intentionality they are capable of.

I suppose I'm just unhappy that they didn't just admit they got it wrong. Plus I still see no commitment on their part not to repeat the whole fiasco.

I don't care if their campaign ends, I'm still gonna complain.

In contexct of the letter, there is no possible doubt that "this phase of our campaign" refers to the letters.


I have interpreted it int he only logical way possible, as anyone with business experience would tell you. The fact that you are unable to see this makes me sincerely doubt your business experience (not to mention your personal website which negate some of the business experience you - you are either lying about owning your own company for 30 years, or you have left out the most crucial bit of knowledge, and the one thing that is most likely to get you hired, off of your CV. If you sent that resume to me it would go straight to the trash, because the only thing it shows is that since the 1960's you've been completely unable to maintain steady employment with any one company. There is also nothing on your homepage that would change my impression of this - nowhere does it say you own your own business. And of course theres also the fact you list "beer" as one of your personal interests on the same page you are trying to get people to hire you - that also shows a lack of business knowledge. In fact beer is even the top interest listed, and one has to read past two others before they see an interest that is related to a job you hope to get. That's demarketing yourself. You're in essence telling potential employers you are more interested in beer than you are in the job you want them to hire you for.

If you are in fact telling the truth than the top of your resume should state "Successfuly ran X company since 19??, and above the list of work experiences you should have a line of text stating that these were projects contracted to your company. You should also keep personal stuff separate from business stuff. And personal stuff like an interest in drinking beer should not be easily traced back to you, as employers are increasingly running people's names through a search enginge/myspace etc before deciding whether or not they are job worthy. Many a candidate looks great until the empliyer stuymbles across the myspace page of them getting wasted.


However the letter I'm quoting from makes it clear beyond any possible doubt that that is the case. And the quotes I have posted for you prove that. You can't doubt that without trying to deliberately misunderstand what is there.




So you are now criticising them because they say the ads effects were unintentional? So you think they posted them around town because they wanted to intentionally destroy their own credibility on the issues they propose to support? You seem to go quite beyond the realms of normality to find reasons to attack these people.


They admitted as such as much can be expected from any business looking to make a buck. That's the whole retraction letter



Thats no surprise given that you are completing blinding yourself to well they spelled it out, in no uncertain terms for you. I've quoted that, and I've explained that. if you still can't see it, its not because its not there, its because you aren't willing to see it. Granted I can understand not wanting to see that, being as they didn't say it straight forward, but that still doesn't negate the fact that they have admitted it was a mistake.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am pleased to announce that th NYU Child Study Center
has discontinued its "ransom notes" campaign, according to
eFlux Media. Here is the web address for the relevant story:

http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_NYU_Chil ... 12088.html

Last edited by Douglas_MacNeill on 21 Dec 2007, 9:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

What a strange child you are.

"Dr. Koplewicz is collaborating with the BBDO for the next campaign on children with disabilities, which is expected to be available within the next three months."

What's next, ACTUAL ransom letters?!

And it took them TWO WEEKS of complaining to finally get it?!

Hey, guys and gals:

I sent a cheerful little reply of my own
to the good people at the Child Study Centre
over the Web. In it, I made a discreet
little suggestion to the effect that the
Health Research Ethics panel at NYU was...
asleep at the switch? absent and accounted for?
unjustly overruled by a third party? too
scared to stand up for the panel's rightful authority?
No matter; if NYU wants to try another advertising stunt
like that, I'm ready to take them on if their HRE panel
bails out again.

I was thinking about a ransom note, about their ransom note ads. So I guess it'd go something like this:

We have your dreams and your hopes for the future of your children. We will destroy these dreams, and replace them with nightmares. Nightmares that your children will suffer some form of perceived disorder. Once we have decided what to call that disorder, we will then plague you with guilt and fear for your children. We will convince you that your child needs to be cured, by us, even though there isn't anything all that wrong with them. Once we have control over you, and your children, we will proceed to assimilate you to our idea of what a person should be. We will make you more social, more willing to take orders without question. We will make you malleable, and without resistance. Then we will proceed to pronounce you as cured.

NYC Child Study Center - www.aboutourkids.org


*Praise Ford!



*If you don't get it, it's a reference to the book Brave New World. Yeah, cause this whole thing kind of ended up sounding a bit totalitarian, like 1984 and all that.

This is horrific. I treat aspies, ADHDers and HFAs and approach it from a completely non-mind-therapy angle. Our conditions just have some symptoms that manifest as emotional or behavioral. That is all. How awful that someone is using the skewed viewpoint of mind disorders to get money to hammer the point of the mind disorder nonsense.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt57870.html

That is sick. I can't stand it when the NTs think this way. So just because we are different, we are being 'held ransom'? what a load of poop...

Thank (insert deity here) that these ads are not in my city. Otherwise I'd be in jail for arson. Just hearing about these makes me want to grab a match, some gasoline, and a bus ride to New York. These bastards better hope they dont meet me in a dark alley.

Similar here, Roxas, fortunately, it's a bit a journey to NYC for me.

I'm not in complete isolation even though I am less involved in society than others...

The NYU Child Study Center is an tremendously harmful organization that tricks parents using deceptive, emotionally manipulative ad campaigns, and then uses their children as guinea pigs in human experiments, often involving toxic, addictive, brain damaging psychiatric drugs.

Last summer, while I was in NY, me and a small group of other homeless youth, all survivors of psychiatric child abuse, engaged in a form of direct action protest of the NYU Child Study Center on the upper east side of Manhattan by raiding their entry way for their propaganda literature, which we tossed into the nearby river. It is good to see that other people are recognizing them as a force of harm.

It makes me really happy to hear folks decry the psychiatric industry for portraying kids on the the Autism spectrum as diseases in need of cures, but it makes me sad to see some of those same folks insist that, although it shouldn't be applied to Autistics, the disease concept, and all of the associated discrimination and abuse, is still suitable for certain other kids, kids who are labeled with what you would consider to be "legitimate" mental illnesses (which Autism's apparently not).

It reminds me of similar stances taken by the transgender community. The drive to free oneself from the tyranny of psychiatric abuse, while still making it clear that no larger challenge of the psychiatric industry is in store. After all, the "real" crazy people need to stay where they belong, so as to better illustrate the difference between "us" and "them", right?

I disagree with that logic, and I want to believe that more people in the Autistic spectrum community would likewise reject that claim, if they only had more access to data about the abusive practices of the psychiatric industry, the harm caused by psychiatric drugs, and the fabricated nature of all "mental illness".

Children receiving the increasingly popular label of Autism face much of the same abuse as children labeled with another increasing popular "disease" Bipolar Disorder. Kids who get put on neuroleptic antipsychotic drugs to control their behavior develop brain damage, interfering with learning, lowering IQs, and bringing about a syndrome of neurological damage called Tardive Dyskinesia, which results in abnormal, uncontrollable movements. Psychiatrists blame the deteriorating condition of these poor kids on their "mental illness" and drug them more and more in an endless cycle that few escape. I escaped.

I am 24 years old, and I am a survivor of psychiatric child abuse. My drug induced mental illness received many labels along the way, although, before I was put on any drugs it was first suggested that I might be Autistic, (this premise was rejected largely because my language skills were so extensive and this was before the popularization of the Asperger's label). I believe that a successful movement to affirm the value of, and prevent the psychiatric industry abuse and exploitation of, kids who are labeled with any kind of difference, must be unified, regardless of diagnostic label.

Anyone who is interested in learning more about psychiatric abuse, the fabrication of mental illness, and the harm caused by psychiatric drugs, should visit my website
again**********ry dot com I am new on Wrong Planet. This is my first post, so they wont let me put a hyperlink to my website because apparently they think that wanting to post a hyperlink right away means that you are a spammer (I just got an error message saying that) but it's pretty simple to just type in again**********ry then . then com and that will get you to the site just as well as a hyperlink. I would appreciate it if folks would take the time to check it out, to read the articles, watch the videos, etc. I am very interested in getting feedback from more folks on the Autism spectrum about the ideas presented on Again**********ry!, a project that that was partially inspired by conversations I had in 2003 with a fellow psychiatric abuse survivor who identifies as Autistic. In 2005 I cofounded Again**********ry! with another young psychiatric abuse survivor who was recently happy to be re-labeled as having Asperger Syndrome.
best,
-Fritz.