Published by Scotties Playtime
I am an older gay guy in a long-term wonderful relationship. My spouse and I are in our 36th year together. I love politics and news. I enjoy civil discussions and have no taboo subjects. My pronouns are he / him / his and my email is Scottiestoybox@gmail.com
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I’m reluctant to say anything as anything I say will be less than charitable. However I will observe that that behaviour by ICE is becoming far to common and the minimal public outrage by Americans tells me that brutality by authority is being quietly accepted by the majority of the population.
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Hi Barry. I fear you are correct. I think it is for two reasons. First the corporate news media that most of the country views when they view news at all have been bought by wealthy right wing maga billionairs. The reports are biased and slanted to push the idea that ICE thugs are only trying to detain the worst of the worst and that the protestors were the bad guys paid agitators who attack the good guys ICE threatening their safety. All rubbish. The second reason is the public is being normalized to the violence and illegal actions of ICE is that people are overwhelmed with how much is happening and how fast it is occurring. tRump’s people like Steve Bannon called it “flooding the zone”. Best wishes.
OT. I was wondering if you have seen any of the TV shows centering on autistic people? I have only seen clips but one is about a young doctor and the other clips feature a police officer. I was wondering if you had an opinion on how the characters are portrayed. In one respect I am glad to see TV shows that portray autistism openly but I wonder if the characters are too narrowly defined as people are different with few having the same responses to things. Not all gay people react the same or have the same desires and from what you have shared it is the same with autistic people. Thanks, Best wishes
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Scottie, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head about billionaire‑owned media shaping the story. When the same handful of ultra‑wealthy owners control most of the big outlets, it’s no surprise the public ends up seeing ICE through a very particular lens — usually the one that makes the billionaires feel safest.
One thing I’ve found helpful is mixing in news from places that aren’t owned by billionaires at all. Not because they’re foreign, but because their ownership models are completely different. When a newsroom is run by its journalists, or by a public trust, or by its readers, it tends to tell a different kind of story — one that isn’t filtered through corporate interests.
That’s why I like dipping into places like The Guardian or the BBC, and Stuff here in NZ is staff‑owned these days. There are also journalist‑run outfits like elDiario.es or The Ferret, and a whole ecosystem of non‑profit investigative newsrooms in the US itself. They all have different incentives from the Fox/NBC style of corporate media, and that variety helps cut through the “flooding the zone” effect you mentioned.
It’s not about ditching US news — just balancing it with sources that aren’t tied to the same ownership structures. When the people who own the news have different priorities, the stories they tell tend to be different too.
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You know, Scottie, the funny thing about autistic characters on TV is that most of them are created by people who aren’t autistic and who’ve never actually lived inside an autistic brain. So what we usually get is a character built out of whatever preconceptions the writers already have. And even when a show brings in “experts,” they’re usually clinicians rather than autistic people themselves — which is a bit like asking a straight marriage counsellor to explain gay relationships. They might know the theory, but they’re not exactly speaking from the inside.
Take The Good Doctor, for example. A lot of autistic folks feel that Shaun Murphy is basically the “neurotypical comfort version” of autism: the socially awkward savant with a monotone voice, a tragic backstory, and a superpower that makes him useful enough to tolerate. It’s recognisable to non‑autistic viewers, but it doesn’t reflect the huge range of how autistic people actually are. It’s autism as imagined by people who’ve mostly only read about it.
On the other hand, you’ve got shows like Bones, where Temperance Brennan was never labelled autistic but clearly ticks a whole lot of boxes — literal thinking, sensory quirks, social confusion, intense interests. And because she’s not officially “the autistic character,” she gets to be a whole person. She’s brilliant, annoying, funny, stubborn, affectionate, and occasionally a complete menace. In other words, she’s allowed to be human. A lot of autistic people find characters like her far more relatable than the ones who come with a diagnostic label attached.
So my feeling — and it seems to be shared by a lot of autistics — is that until autistic people are actually involved in writing autistic characters, shaping the stories, and ideally acting in the roles, portrayals are going to stay pretty shallow. Things are improving, but we’re not quite at the “authentic representation” stage yet.
Does that help answer what you were wondering?
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