Huh? I have a great deal of compassion for all people who suffer. Including gay people (a term that I ought not to use for some reason since it somehow causes offense).
At a time when there was no blood test for AIDS, at a time when there was no real treatment for the disease, it seems reasonable to have preached prevention. Efforts by others (in NYC and SF for example) were met by cries of Homophobia.
When Mitchell Katz tried to close down gay bathhouses he was opposed by The Community. Sure people died, but hey, closing down places when people have anonymous sex would send the wrong message. Or something.
When Steve Jones in New York tried to deal with AIDS scientifically, he got a massive harassment campaign.
Anyone who tried to do anything was attacked by The Community.
Maybe RR could have (heck, strike maybe, he should have) said something. He should have increased research funding. Still, that is in hindsight. What he (and every other politico saw) was that touching the AIDS tarbaby was a sure way to get people shouting you down when you appear in public.
RR asking people to control their high-risk behavior would be asking him to try to sell something to people whose leaders were not buying. He would have simply been harassed and attacked for doing what he could.
And of course now he is attacked for not doing enough.
I don’t see how he could have come out of it any better than he did.
You keep dragging the issue into questions of political popularity. Was a public statement of compassionate concern for AIDS victim likely to have political repercussions. Very likely. Does that any relevence to the moral urgency of such a statement? Not in the slightest.
And wear the opposite hat: what if RR had actually practiced the “leadership” for which he is so widely praised? What if he publicly took a morally correct but politically unpopular view? He might not have changed the attitude of the “gay community” towards Republicans in general (which, for some reason, seems terribly important to you: should I try to save the drowning child only if I am assured he will thank me? Do ungrateful little snots have no right to live?). But might he not have caused some of the bigoted amongst us to rethink thier position?
As a recovering Texan, I knew multitudes of people who thought Ron-boy was the be-all and end-all. If Ron had said to them “These people need our help, and they too are Americans”, you can damn sure bet it would have given them pause to reflect. It might very well have let a bit of sunshine into the dark crypts of thier bigotry.
He had an opportunity to do the right thing, indeed, he was urged to. He chose not to, a choice I think is entirely in character, and reveals a character at odds with his much-vaunted “moral leadership”. The idol’s feet are brown, and it isn’t clay.
Cite? Whos casting blame now. Please re read the post in which I suggested a possible statement that Reagan could have made. It did not assign blame. Just like the actions of the blood donation centers to stop taking blood from anyone admitting to homosexual activity was not an assignment of blame either.
For the record, I do not despise gay people. There is nothing morally or in any other way wrong with willing adults choosing whatever sorts of behavior they like.
AIDS is a terrible disease. Treating it as a political football has been the strategy of activists since the begining. In this atmosphere, there is very little Reagan could have said publically which would have done any good. Even some sort of commiserating statement like “I feel your pain” would have been derided as self serving, dishonest, and possibly as part of a coverup.
Just so I know, have any of you formulated a template for the sort of thing you would have liked Reagan to say? I proposed a couple and they were all shot down as blaming. Can you propose the sort of thing you are complaining about and include the dates which you think it could have been appropriate?
pervert: Fair enough, I’ll ask them. Although, “Just Say No to Gay Sex,” is not what anyone was thinking. Something more along the lines of what elucidator has proposed. Y’know, a simple declaration that those lost mattered. Simple as that. And no, I’m not naive enough to think that a simple statement would have seen Reagan crowned with laurels and hosannahs singing praise to his name. But I still maintain that he wouldn’t have been as widely despised as he was.
Paul in Saudi: See above. A simple statement that those who had died and those who were dying needed the same help that any decent American would extend to another would have, IMHO, made a world of difference. No, it wouldn’t have cured anything. So what? People were dying, and the leader of the US just didn’t seem to give a shit. Leading those people and their friends and loved ones to think that he was a callous sonofabitch who just didn’t care. Again, his actions spoke volumes.
That’s certainly true. And prevention was eventually preached. What happened was scaring the living crap out of a lot of people, and when AIDs first started destroying a population, the air was filled with a host of explanations as to what, precisely, spread it. A lot of them have since been proven to be nonsense, but there was no way of knowing that at the time.
I’ll bet that those for whom you have a great deal of compassion just fucking love to see themselves referred to as The Community.
Not by me. I attack him for not doing a single goddamned thing. Hard to define “enough” when nothing was done.
pervert:
Of course, we’ll never know that. I still maintain that if the sonofabitch had simply acknowledged the toll that was being taken on the population, he would be looked at more fondly than he is.
This argument drives me up the wall. You seem to be implying that something like this occurred:
(1) Many liberals didn’t like Reagan
(2) They gathered together in the Secret Liberal Clubhouse
(3) They wrote a bunch of hot-button issues up on a big dartboard
(4) They threw a dart at this dartboard
(5) It hit “AIDS”
(6) So, without any justification whatsoever, totally out of the blue, they decided that the Official Liberal Conspiracy Party Line would be that Reagan did a particularly bad job about AIDS
Reagan isn’t being attacked on AIDS because Liberals hate him and are desparately looking for an issue to attack him on. He’s being attacked on AIDS because he did a terrible job. Sure, there are also people talking about his stance on (say) Women’s Rights, but he didn’t do as bad a job on that (or heck, maybe he did a fine job) as he did on AIDS. If liberals were as singleminded and simplistic as you’re implying, they (we) would give him this much grief on all issues.
To answer the question in general, the OP was not asking “what could Reagan have done to stop the spread of AIDS”, it was asking “what could Reagan have done not to be so frequently accused of having done a terrible job concerning AIDS”, and it’s no way an unanswerable question. He could have (as many have pointed out), spoken out publically, attempted to calm hysteria, increased funding, advocated education, and so forth. Maybe doing so would have caused an angry reaction from extremists, then and now. But I guarantee that if he had, we would not be having this debate right now.
y’all are saying that, in the event of a catastrophic viral epidemic, the government, given an inability to instantly cure it, has NO RESPONSIBILITY TO ADDRESS THE ISSUE? Are you INSANE? 3,000 people die, and your world falls to ashes; a few million get stricken with a deadly disease, and the President doesn’t have to acknowledge its existense?
Now, I’m really trying to give you benefit of the doubt here.
Scenario.
It is a Sunday in 1993. Sudden thunderstorms sweep throgh the Bible Belt, miracuously only hitting churches. Let’s say, 10,000 Christians are killed attending their ritual.
President Bill Clinton does not mention the incident at all until 1999.
Question.
What is your reaction?
a) “Awe shucks, nothing he could have said woudl have changed it anyway”
Oh, I forgot to mention: He also does not allow any of the federal relief organizations, fire departments, or other governmental groups to mention the incident, much less intervene to help the tens of thousands of injured.
Lets make the scenerio a bit more realistic Zagadka. Say you are president of the US. A mysterious disease strikes but seems to be killing only Nazi’s and KKK members, and the indications are that it seems to be killing them because of their hating behavior. The majority of your people don’t really approve of Nazi or KKK behavior, and not a lot is known about the disease, how its transmitted or where it even comes from.
What do you do? They are American’s too you know, these Nazi’s and KKK members.
Now, I’m not equating being gay with being a Nazi or KKK member…it was only an example to make a point (I’m sure this disclaimer will be totally ignored in the firestorm of my even daring to make a counter example just to make a point). The point being that religious people DO have prejudices against the gay community…thats a fact. Well, I have prejudice against neo-Nazi and KKK types. Were I president and such a disease came out, I seriously doubt I could rise above my nature and give two shits if a bunch of fucking haters, neo-Nazis and racists were dieing from some mysterious disease. Does that make me a bad person? Probably. But its how I am…its called being human. And unless I could see some connection between the hating population and the ‘normal’ population as far as the spreading of the disease, I think I’d just keep my mouth shut about the whole thing and let matters be. Especially if I were 70 odd years old and REALLY set in my ways.
Of course, seems the government DID take some steps, if you read pervert’s links. The government did spend money on the disease, the SG did come out with some statements about it, and even RR appearently made a speach about it in '85. However I think its a lot to expect of someone who disapproves of a certain behavior to put that aside, alienate his core political support (who very much disapprove of gay behavior) and even the majority opinion at the time of the American people (remember, it was the 80’s…strong support for the gay community was still years away by the majority, if its even there now)…all for a gesture that would have comforted no one and just stirred up a fire storm all around. Put yourself in my scenerio and ask yourself this…what would YOU do if such happened to a community (i.e. Racists, neo-Nazi and KKK members) you didn’t approve of, who the majority of Americans (you know, those people you are supposed to represent) don’t approve of?
I wouldn’t ignore it, that’s for damn sure. Being a Nazi or in the KKK is not against any law (that I know of), nor does it condemn a person to deal via mysterious disease. In any event, said disease may spread to the rest of the population, as we do not know its extent.
Happy?
Yes, you are. Being a Nazi or in the KKK is a political choice based on hatred of certain peoples. Being gay is not, and if you continue to equate them, you’ll continue to sound more like one of the former.
I mean, seriously. What kind of evil, morally corrupt moron completely ignores an epidemic spreading across the country, even if it is only in the people he doesn’t like?
Well, you are a better man than I. Of course, at a guess you’ve never been harrassed or had a cross burned in your yard. I on the other hand have. I’ll take you at your word though that you really would care for the poor neo-Nazi’s and KKK and other racist scum dieing mysteriously…guess you are just one of those rare individuals able to put aside your personal prejudices…
Horseshit. It was a fucking example, to make a point. The point being people have prejudices. I’m equating nothing…I’m trying to get some logic through your thick head, and obviously failing miserably at it.
Evil? Morally corrupt? Do you always demonize and try and paint people and issues as black or white? What kind of people do such things? Thats an easy one…human beings do such things. The seeds of similar actions are in all of us (except you, who are our knight in shinning armor, a saint among men)…we all have such prejudices and blindspots. Well, most of us do anyway…the honest ones.
Now, as far as “what could Reagan (assuming he wasn’t a complete asshole) have done” about the situation…
Well, for one, THE SAME THING THEY DO TODAY.
Yep, that’s right, kiddies. We still don’t have a cure for AIDS, but by some miracle (surely, God’s hand, curing His disease after He realized He made a mistake), not as many people are getting AIDS, even though more people can be exposed to it. We have modern miracles (you may not be comfortable of familiar with these) like “education” and “condoms” that drop the chances of getting AIDS greatly.
Yes, that’s right, he could have launched campaigns talking about what AIDS is, what it does, how it is transmitted, and made means of stoppign AIDS available. This is the same god damn thing human rights groups have been doing for 25 years.
But that would be hard, and the invasion of Grenada and funding Al Qaeda were probably too high priority to let go.
I’m implying nothing. I’m saying that RR obviously had prejudices. I’m making a point that we ALL have prejudices, and that said prejudices could be our own blindspot.
How you people are reading into this that I’m equating Nazism with Gay behavior is beyond me. Is this a knee jerk reaction, or is my post really that hard to understand??
Guess I am. They may be the scum of the earth, but they don’t deserve to die a horrible death from it.
Um, welcome to Real Land, where comparing gays to Nazis isn’t the brightest idea on the planet.
Obviously. By changing my “comparison” of gays and Christians, you compare gays and Nazis. Brilliant strategy, Kissenger, because we all know gays are unworthy scum… or at least, they are in your eyes.
I call 'em like I see 'em. Dancing on the graves of people because they’re gay? I’d call that morally corrupt. But from someone who thinks gays did something as bad as Nazis, I can see where you would have a hard time telling the difference.