Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Bitter Chocolate


If you are disturbed by Lindt's partnership with Autism Speaks, please contact their customer service department at lindt@qualitycustomercare.com. You can read about the boycott here and here and here.

13 comments:

  1. These graphics certainly get the point across. Did you send them to Lindt, too? Somebody there sure does need a reminder of what Easter is about.

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  2. Ooh... Those Arrogant Nuts look so good...

    No. Right. Boycott Lindt. Got it.

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  3. Lol, ASpieboy . . . I myself had a hankerin' for some creamy lies.

    Nice, Bev. :)

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  4. Wow. I had no idea about this.

    Although I know there is a LOT of human rights' abused perpetuated by the chocolate industry.

    http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/

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  5. I had already emailed them awhile back and I checked my email today, and found a reply from them.

    I'm not exactly ecstatic with the response, though. I'm not sure they even really read my email. I posted their reply here

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  6. Yeah, unfortunately, I'm afraid the popular definition of "advocacy" falls under the same nebulous cloud as "awareness". Whooo, making a difference!

    Autism Speaks is very tricksy in describing its "mission" -- it uses very vague language about achieving goals and the like, not often coming out and saying that the goal -- its only goal, in fact -- is eradicating autistics. It sounds perfectly benign to folks who don't delve that deeply into autism issues (which is the vast majority of the population, including many autistics and people who know autistics), and when folks who support AS on such a superficial level are challenged about it, the challenge just sounds like griping and nitpicking to them.

    I've probably already used this example, but I keep thinking of this teenager who was manning a booth at a movie theater, who asked me for a donation to whatever organization he was representing. Something about "help" and "handicapped" and "children". What's not to support, right? Who doesn't want to "help handicapped children"? The thing is, this kid had no brochures, no materials whatsoever (except for a little folded-up card wrapped in plastic that you got *after* you gave the donation), and didn't know a blessed thing about the organization himself. But when I declined to donate because I didn't have any information, the kid was peeved at me. And I'm quite sure he was convinced that I didn't give because I was just stingy, or didn't care about "handicapped children". Spending more time trying to convince him otherwise would've made me seem like a royal pain in the ass.

    It's very hard to make folks understand. In their minds it's quite simple -- Cause is autism, money given to cause, money given to autism. What specifically about autism the money is funding is of little consequence. When you protest, they think, "We gave to your cause -- now why won't you go away?"

    Perhaps the problem lies in the "I Make a Difference, I Stand for Something, I Walk for Somethingorother" culture in general. There are so many "causes", and so many means to feel like one is "doing" something without actually doing anything at all.

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  7. On the other hand, this is pretty awesome:
    http://www.ndss.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=155%3Anews&catid=54%3Apublic-relations&Itemid=140&limitstart=1

    “. . . new mission and strategy that narrows our focus on the national advocacy for society’s acceptance of people with Down syndrome. We see achieving this mission as our community’s most important need,” said NDSS Board Chair Joe Bockerstette.

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  8. Hi, I saw one of the bunnies in another blog posting, but not all the graphcis you show. Did you make these yourself? If so, they're awesome! Ok, well, they're awesome even if you didn't make them. If you did design those, may I use them to further advertise the boycot on my blog (below)?

    Thanks!

    http://savedaspie.blogspot.com/

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  9. I'm boycotting Lindt's as of now. I'm linking to this post with a post of my own.

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  10. Hi, SavedAspie,
    These are the actual Lindt bunnies, I just changed the text on them. As far as I'm concerned, you are welcome to use them! Thank you.

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  11. Off topic ... but in a related theme:

    I just discovered that there is a Facebook group advertising a book entitled "I Wish My Kids Had Cancer" which is supposed to be raising "awareness" (oh, there's that word again) about Autism and how awful it's supposed to be.

    The offending group here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?sid=ba2809d127e4b13113fdeca1e3b722fc&gid=39558878327

    There's a picture of the book in question on that page ... given your incredible visual imagination (have you ever done art professionally?), I'm sure you could find a way to turn it into a parody.

    I discovered it vai browsing the wall at this other group fighting the word r*tard in Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/wall.php?id=63516216741&page=4&hash=36e50fa4f6c4658891457be2a1de939e#/wall.php?id=63516216741&page=3&hash=2abfca09505be57934162dc12f08a972

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  12. Andrea Shettle,
    This is so incredibly stupid and ugly I don't know what to say. Thanks for the heads up. Ugh.

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