Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Straight, Inc. and Derivatives => Topic started by: B.A.D. on June 05, 2004, 05:24:00 PM
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"I'm glad he's dead. He was styoopid!"
- Quote from Wild @ Heart.
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that's all they can do now is die. They never wanted redemption, they never wanted to recognize their most horrible acts.
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Well, I'm watching the news, and was wondering if anyone has already heard... I guess the word is out.
Reagan - Not a bad man per se - but an unfortunate leader of an unfortunate era.
It's amazing that (at least in my case) the parents that were so rebellious and preached about "free thought" in the 60's couldn't break FREE from the blatant propaganda of the 80's.
::deal:: what a sale.
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http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040605/D83136KO0.html (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040605/D83136KO0.html)
WASHINGTON (AP) - Ronald Reagan, the cheerful crusader who devoted his presidency to winning the Cold War, trying to scale back government and making people believe it was "morning again in America," died Saturday after a long twilight struggle with Alzheimer's disease, a family friend said. He was 93.
He died at his home in California, according to the friend, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The White House was told his health had taken a turn for the worse in the last several days.
Five years after leaving office, the nation's 40th president told the world in November 1994 that he had been diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer's, an incurable illness that destroys brain cells. He said he had begun "the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life."
Reagan body was expected to be taken to his presidential library and museum in Simi Valley, Calif., and then flown to Washington to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. His funeral was expected to be at the National Cathedral, an event likely to draw world leaders. The body was to be returned to California for a sunset burial at his library.
Reagan lived longer than any U.S. president, spending his last decade in the shrouded seclusion wrought by his disease, tended by his wife, Nancy, whom he called Mommy, and the select few closest to him. Now, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton are the surviving ex-presidents.
Although fiercely protective of Reagan's privacy, the former first lady let people know his mental condition had deteriorated terribly. Last month, she said: "Ronnie's long journey has finally taken him to a distant place where I can no longer reach him."
Reagan's oldest daughter, Maureen, from his first marriage, died in August 2001 at age 60 from cancer. Three other children survive: Michael, from his first marriage, and Patti Davis and Ron from his second.
Over two terms, from 1981 to 1989, Reagan reshaped the Republican Party in his conservative image, fixed his eye on the demise of the Soviet Union and Eastern European communism and tripled the national debt to $3 trillion in his singleminded competition with the other superpower.
Taking office at age 69, Reagan had already lived a career outside Washington, one that spanned work as a radio sports announcer, an actor, a television performer, a spokesman for the General Electric Co., and a two-term governor of California.
At the time of his retirement, his very name suggested a populist brand of conservative politics that still inspires the Republican Party.
He declared at the outset, "Government is not the solution, it's the problem," although reducing that government proved harder to do in reality than in his rhetoric.
Even so, he challenged the status quo on welfare and other programs that had put government on a growth spurt ever since Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal strengthened the federal presence in the lives of average Americans.
In foreign affairs, he built the arsenals of war while seeking and achieving arms control agreements with the Soviet Union.
In his second term, Reagan was dogged by revelations that he authorized secret arms sales to Iran while seeking Iranian aid to gain release of American hostages held in Lebanon. Some of the money was used to aid rebels fighting the leftist government of Nicaragua.
Despite the ensuing investigations, he left office in 1989 with the highest popularity rating of any retiring president in the history of modern-day public opinion polls.
That reflected, in part, his uncommon ability as a communicator and his way of connecting with ordinary Americans, even as his policies infuriated the left and as his simple verities made him the butt of jokes. "Morning again in America" became his re-election campaign mantra in 1984, but typified his appeal to patriotrism through both terms.
At 69, Reagan was the oldest man ever elected president when he was chosen on Nov. 4, 1980, by an unexpectedly large margin over incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter.
Near-tragedy struck on his 70th day as president. On March 30, 1981, Reagan was leaving a Washington hotel after addressing labor leaders when a young drifter, John Hinckley, fired six shots at him. A bullet lodged an inch from Reagan's heart, but he recovered.
Four years later he was re-elected by an even greater margin, carrying 49 of the 50 states in defeating Democrat Walter F. Mondale, Carter's vice president.
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Nupee,
Why are you posting that bullshit up in a survivors forum ?!?
Reagan helped to advocate the covert abuse of lots of innocent children ... fuck you Nuprin for putting that bullshit up here you twat.
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Laugh all you want, B.A.D. Just goes to show what some people find worthy of celebrating (the death of the 40th President of the United States of America). You and that wacko Hinckley should be roomies at the same psych prison.
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I guess you give two shits about a worthless actor / president who skyrocketed our deficit and had a large hand in abusing children nationwide. Eh ?!?
Hinckley unfortunately Missed the head, that doesn't make him a psycho. I'll tell him you said hi.
I catch some regard for the government in your fuckass very pussy post there. Whenever someone posts anonymously I know that there's only one anonymous postor who's been coming to these survivor / victim sites to heckle those who are doing good for themselves, your ID is indicative of your life and loneliness - you are anonymous. Good luck with that one, no cure for retardation of the brain.
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[ This Message was edited by: groovy1634 on 2004-06-05 23:34 ]
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Unfortunately for you, B.A.D., Ronald Reagan will be remembered as one of the nation's best and most beloved presidents. No, he wasn't perfect but he was genuine, what you saw was what you got, and it WAS NOT ALL BAD. Bottom line, he ended the Cold War years before anyone believed it was even possible. That is the mark of a great president, not how many blow-jobs he can get in a day.
:wave:
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On 2004-06-05 23:40:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Unfortunately for you, B.A.D., Ronald Reagan will be remembered as one of the nation's best and most beloved presidents. No, he wasn't perfect but he was genuine, what you saw was what you got, and it WAS NOT ALL BAD. Bottom line, he ended the Cold War years before anyone believed it was even possible. That is the mark of a great president, not how many blow-jobs he can get in a day.
:wave: "
I completely agree with you. Finally something worth reading about on this forum.
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On 2004-06-05 14:24:00, B.A.D. wrote:
""I'm glad he's dead. He was styoopid!"
- Quote from Wild @ Heart."
You are a sick person.
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:smokin: Can't really say anything bad about him now......he's dead. "The only good man was a dead good man" Peristroika...peristroika.......Glastnost. OMG!!!!!!!
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Reagan sucks, big deal he was president. He didn't stop the cold war alone, Gorbachov was involved. why we even hated the stupid russians is beyond me. Just political agendas. Reagan thought he was funny and now he's dead. we should all expect more from our presidents instead of licking their asses lke they are some god.
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If you are going to demonize someone, don't forget that asshole Clinton getting his rocks off while there was a war in Kosovo to worry about. Or how about Fairy Kerry, who wouldn't even be running for president if not for his better half, Mrs. Ketchup bankrolling his campaign (not to mention those gas-guzzling SUV's Kerry was so quick to point out don't belong to him, they belong to his "family".
:rofl:
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Dude, you are stupid because for one we have to have a president and I think we're better off with someone who actually cares about Americans and not some bullshit war profitter. Kerry needs money because that's our stupid ass system all caught up in campaign finacing. It's easy for the republicans to make the money they'll exploit anyone to get it and try to make everyone else look like an ass for not having money. No president is perfect, but look at the individual and their true intention.
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"Hinkley had a vision," The most devout of
JODY FOSTERS ARMY
His efforts brought us the "Brady Bill"
Sing to theme of "Brady Bunch."
::drummer::
There's a story of a man named Brady,
who got shot with Reagan one day.
It was bloody, it was gory, but he lived anyway.
There's a story of a violent country
where people shoot each other everyday.
Family violence, public schooling
to protect yourself is O.K.
Till the one day when Brady signed a paper,
taking second amendment rights away.
Now you have to wait 5 long days,
to shoot someone you hate.
the Brady Bill, the Brady Bill
that's the way it became the Brady Bill.
::drummer::
the "Brady Bill" CRAPPLE 1995 self-titled
limited edition 313.....out of print
Fairy Kerry :exclaim: global unity
Wild cowboy sneaking into war zones
assuring soldiers op will be missles vs. stones
Client Eastwood on his mind the people are blind
by the Bush family kill.....
and still.....
Bush has got go, got to go, got to go.
go go go go
Got to Go -- PORN JUNKY 2004 "Court ordered masturbation"
Due for release when summer meets the fall
http://www.purevolume.com/pornjunky (http://www.purevolume.com/pornjunky)
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On 2004-06-06 23:08:00, Anonymous wrote:
"If you are going to demonize someone, don't forget that asshole Clinton getting his rocks off while there was a war in Kosovo to worry about. Or how about Fairy Kerry, who wouldn't even be running for president if not for his better half, Mrs. Ketchup bankrolling his campaign (not to mention those gas-guzzling SUV's Kerry was so quick to point out don't belong to him, they belong to his "family".
:rofl: "
What you dont like to fuck/ jack off when we are at war?
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On 2004-06-07 07:17:00, Scarstruck wrote:
"
On 2004-06-06 23:08:00, Anonymous wrote:
"If you are going to demonize someone, don't forget that asshole Clinton getting his rocks off while there was a war in Kosovo to worry about. Or how about Fairy Kerry, who wouldn't even be running for president if not for his better half, Mrs. Ketchup bankrolling his campaign (not to mention those gas-guzzling SUV's Kerry was so quick to point out don't belong to him, they belong to his "family".
:rofl: "
What you dont like to fuck/ jack off when we are at war?
"
Well, getting blow jobs in the Oval Office and then lying about it may not seem like a big deal to you, but the White House is the people's house, not a presidential whore house. Clinton fucked up and didn't even have the balls to admit it, until years later in a multi-million dollar book deal. What a guy!
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Not Even a Hedgehog
The stupidity of Ronald Reagan.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, June 7, 2004, at 10:03 AM PT
Not long ago, I was invited to be the specter at the feast during "Ronald Reagan Appreciation
Week" at Wabash College in Indiana. One of my opponents was Dinesh D'Souza: He wasn't the only
one who maintained that Reagan had been historically vindicated by the wreckage of the Soviet
Union. Some of us on the left had also been very glad indeed to see the end of the Russian
empire and the Cold War. But nothing could make me forget what the Reagan years had actually
been like.
Ronald Reagan claimed that the Russian language had no word for "freedom." (The word is
"svoboda"; it's quite well attested in Russian literature.) Ronald Reagan said that
intercontinental ballistic missiles (not that there are any non-ballistic missiles?a
corruption of language that isn't his fault) could be recalled once launched. Ronald Reagan
said that he sought a "Star Wars" defense only in order to share the technology with the
tyrants of the U.S.S.R. Ronald Reagan professed to be annoyed when people called it "Star
Wars," even though he had ended his speech on the subject with the lame quip, "May the force
be with you." Ronald Reagan used to alarm his Soviet counterparts by saying that surely they'd
both unite against an invasion from Mars. Ronald Reagan used to alarm other constituencies by
speaking freely about the "End Times" foreshadowed in the Bible. In the Oval Office, Ronald
Reagan told Yitzhak Shamir and Simon Wiesenthal, on two separate occasions, that he himself
had assisted personally at the liberation of the Nazi death camps.
There was more to Ronald Reagan than that. Reagan announced that apartheid South Africa had
"stood beside us in every war we've ever fought," when the South African leadership had been
on the other side in the most recent world war. Reagan allowed Alexander Haig to greenlight
the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, fired him when that went too far and led to mayhem in
Beirut, then ran away from Lebanon altogether when the Marine barracks were bombed, and then
unbelievably accused Tip O'Neill and the Democrats of "scuttling." Reagan sold heavy weapons
to the Iranian mullahs and lied about it, saying that all the weapons he hadn't sold them (and
hadn't traded for hostages in any case) would, all the same, have fit on a small truck. Reagan
then diverted the profits of this criminal trade to an illegal war in Nicaragua and lied
unceasingly about that, too. Reagan then modestly let his underlings maintain that he was too
dense to understand the connection between the two impeachable crimes. He then switched
without any apparent strain to a policy of backing Saddam Hussein against Iran. (If Margaret
Thatcher's intelligence services had not bugged Oliver North in London and become infuriated
because all European nations were boycotting Iran at Reagan's request, we might still not know
about this.)
One could go on. I only saw him once up close, which happened to be when he got a question he
didn't like. Was it true that his staff in the 1980 debates had stolen President Carter's
briefing book? (They had.) The famously genial grin turned into a rictus of senile fury: I was
looking at a cruel and stupid lizard. His reply was that maybe his staff had, and maybe they
hadn't, but what about the leak of the Pentagon Papers? Thus, a secret theft of presidential
documents was equated with the public disclosure of needful information. This was a man never
short of a cheap jibe or the sort of falsehood that would, however laughable, buy him some
time.
The fox, as has been pointed out by more than one philosopher, knows many small things,
whereas the hedgehog knows one big thing. Ronald Reagan was neither a fox nor a hedgehog. He
was as dumb as a stump. He could have had anyone in the world to dinner, any night of the
week, but took most of his meals on a White House TV tray. He had no friends, only cronies.
His children didn't like him all that much. He met his second wife?the one that you
remember?because she needed to get off a Hollywood blacklist and he was the man to see. Year
in and year out in Washington, I could not believe that such a man had even been a poor
governor of California in a bad year, let alone that such a smart country would put up with
such an obvious phony and loon.
However, there came a day when Mikhail Gorbachev visited Washington and when the Marriott
Hotel?host of the summit press conferences?turned its restaurant into the "Glasnost Cafe." On
the sidewalk, LaRouche supporters wearing Reagan masks paraded with umbrellas, in mimicry of
Neville Chamberlain. I huddled from dawn to dusk with friends, wondering if it could be real.
Many of those friends had twice my IQ, or let's say six times that of the then-chief
executive. These friends had all deeply wanted either Jimmy Carter or Walter Mondale to be,
presumably successively, the president instead of Reagan. They would go on to put Michael
Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen bumper stickers on their vehicles. No doubt they wish that Mondale
had been in the White House when the U.S.S.R. threw in the towel, just as they presumably
yearn to have had Dukakis on watch when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. I have been wondering
ever since not just about the stupidity of American politics, but about the need of so many
American intellectuals to prove themselves clever by showing that they are smarter than the
latest idiot in power, or the latest Republican at any rate.
******
Sen. John Kerry waited until the first week of June 2004 to tell us that he met Ahmad Chalabi
in London in 1998 and that he didn't care for him then. That makes six intervening years in
which the senator could have alerted us to this lurking danger to national security. But
something kept him quiet. One must hope that that something wasn't the tendency to pile on.
Cheer up, though. At least this shows that Kerry has no pre-emptive capacity.
Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair. His latest book, Blood, Class and Empire,
is out in paperback.
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Christopher Hitchens sucks and so do you. :wink:
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http://www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.1 ... agans.html (http://www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.11.14/news.extra.reagans.html)
The Truth About Reagan and AIDS
By MICHAEL BRONSKI
FORWARD CORRESPONDENT
For the past two months I've been teaching a course entitled "Plagues and Politics: The Impact of AIDS on U.S. Culture" at Dartmouth College and have spent an enormous amount of time thinking about the AIDS pandemic. So when the political flap over the historical accuracy of "The Reagans" ? the CBS miniseries on the lives and White House years of Ronald and Nancy Reagan that was pulled from the network's lineup and dumped on its sister cable outlet, Showtime ? hit the headlines, I was intrigued to see that one of the main complaints against the series was that the original script (no one actually has seen the final version of the series itself) accuses President Reagan of religious intolerance and prejudice against homosexuals. In a scene in which Nancy Reagan asks her husband to do something to help people with AIDS, he responds by answering, "Those who live in sin shall die in sin."
Elizabeth Egloff, who authored the script, has conceded that Reagan's answer is a fictionalized invention, and indeed, Reagan rarely employed religious sentiments or metaphors in political situations. The show's critics have made a strong, salient point: Having Reagan use the language of conservative Christianity to explain why he and his administration did almost nothing for the first seven years of the AIDS epidemic is historically irresponsible and highly misleading.
From everything that we can ascertain from the historical record, Reagan's religious background, feelings or beliefs had nothing to do with the political response to the AIDS epidemic. Rather, his appalling lack of leadership and vision ? which led directly to enormous setbacks for HIV/AIDS research, discrimination against people with AIDS and the lack of any comprehensive outreach for prevention or education work, thus adding to the already-staggering tally of deaths ? was a product of indifference, disdain, self-imposed ignorance and a political capitulation to the rising wave of a new, staunchly reactionary and religious Republican constituency that was to reshape not only the party but the state of American politics.
As we read about and discuss the history of the American AIDS epidemic in class, my students ? all Reagan babies, born between 1981 and 1985 ? are often dumbfounded when faced with simple facts. Although AIDS was first reported in the medical and popular press in 1981, it was only in October of 1987 that President Reagan publicly spoke about the epidemic. By the end of that year 59,572 AIDS cases had been reported and 27,909 of those women and men had died. How could this happen, they ask? Didn't he see that this was an ever-expanding epidemic? How could he not say anything? Do anything?
But the public scandal over the Reagan administration's reaction to AIDS is complex and goes much deeper, far beyond the commander-in-chief's refusal to speak out about the epidemic. Reagan understood that a great deal of his power resided in a broad base of born-again Christian Republican conservatives who embraced a deeply reactionary social agenda of which a virulent, demonizing homophobia was a central tenet. In the media men such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell articulated these sentiments that portrayed gay people as diseased sinners and promoted the idea that AIDS was a punishment from God and that the gay rights movement had to be stopped. In the Republican Party, zealous right-wingers such as Rep. William Dannemeyer of California and Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina hammered home this message. In the Reagan White House, people such as Secretary of Education William Bennett and Gary Bauer, Reagan's domestic policy adviser, worked to enact it in the administration's policies.
What did this mean in practical terms? Most importantly, AIDS research was chronically under-funded. When doctors at the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health asked for more funding for their work on AIDS, they were routinely denied it. Between June 1981 and May 1982 the CDC spent less than $1 million on AIDS and $9 million on Legionnaire's Disease. At that point more than 1,000 of the 2,000 reported AIDS cases resulted in death; there were fewer than 50 deaths from Legionnaire's Disease. This drastic lack of funding would continue through the Reagan years.
When health and support groups in the gay community were beginning to initiate education and prevention programs, they were denied federal funding. In October 1987 Senator Helms amended a federal appropriations bill to prohibit AIDS education efforts that "encourage or promote homosexual activity" ? that is, efforts that tell gay men how to have safe sex.
When almost all medical experts spoke out against mandatory HIV testing (since it would drive those at risk away from being tested) and groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal Defense Fund were attempting to combat discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS, Republicans such as Vice President George Bush in 1987 and Dannemeyer (in a California state referendum) in 1988 called for mandatory HIV testing.
Throughout all of this Ronald Reagan said nothing and did nothing. When Rock Hudson, a friend and colleague of the Reagans, was diagnosed with AIDS and died in 1985 (one of the 20,740 cases reported that year), Reagan still did not speak out as president. When family friend William F. Buckley, in a March 18, 1986, New York Times opinion article, called for mandatory testing for HIV and said that HIV-positive gay men should have this information forcibly tattooed on their buttocks (and IV-drug users on their arms) Reagan said nothing. In 1986 (after five years of complete silence), when Surgeon General C. Everett Koop released a report calling for AIDS education in schools, Bennett and Bauer did everything possible to undercut and prevent funding for Koop's too-little-too-late initiative. Reagan, again, said and did nothing. By the end of 1986, 37,061 AIDS cases had been reported; 16,301 people had died.
My students ask me how all of this could have happened. They are all smart, they understand politics, they understand the fear of AIDS, they understand how complicated ? and confusing ? history and life can be. But they cannot understand such indifference, even when politically motivated. I told one of my students that the most memorable Reagan AIDS moment for me was at the 1986 centenary rededication of the Statue of Liberty. The Reagans were there sitting next to French President Francois Mitterand and his wife, Danielle. Bob Hope was on stage entertaining the all-star audience. In the middle of a series of one-liners Hope quipped, "I just heard that the Statue of Liberty has AIDS but she doesn't know if she got it from the mouth of the Hudson or the Staten Island Fairy." As the television camera panned the audience, the Mitterands looked appalled. The Reagans were laughing. By the end of 1989 and the Reagan years, 115,786 women and men had been diagnosed with AIDS in the United States, and more than 70,000 of them had died.
The protests against "The Reagans" are really nothing more than a political sideshow with conservatives flexing their muscles (and threatening an economic boycott) to protect their own version of history. The genre of the television miniseries, even one based in contemporary history, is by its nature a project of interpretation ? a fact that seems to have escaped the protesters. But the irony is that portraying Reagan as being anti-gay because of his religious convictions, while wrong, is, in fact, the kind interpretation. Looking at history it is clear that Reagan's inaction during the first decade of the AIDS epidemic was due to indifference, emotional callousness and greed for political power. In the end I agree with those who protest "The Reagans" ? CBS should have told us the truth.
Michael Bronski is a film critic for the Forward.
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::read::
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How could they tell he was dead? I'm glad that asshole is gone....times like these I wish there was a Hell!
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The biggest mistake made was not treating AIDS like an epidimic and quarantining those suffering from this deadly disease. Anyone know why that never happened? Was it politics? Ignorance? Denial?
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No, I think the bigger mistake was made around the turn of the century. That's when we, as a nation, fell for the fiction that government could, should and would do a better job of looking after our personal health and wellbeing than we, ourselves.
But, just as in every other time and place in recorded history, government only promises to look out for us in order to keep us voluntarily handing over all the resources they need to dominate others. That is, after all, what government is all about.
The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are constitutional rights secure.
-- Albert Einstein
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The biggest mistake made was not treating AIDS like an epidimic and quarantining those suffering from this deadly disease. Anyone know why that never happened? Was it politics? Ignorance? Denial?
In the very early days it was exclusively a gay mans disease. To quarteen the patients would have been homophobic. At least, that was the argument. It should not have mattered. It should have been done. It should have been handled just like any other incurable, communicable, terminal disease.
Politics did indeed get in the way of taking any kind of effective action. The patients didn't want the only kind of action that might have mattered - quarantine. And b/c the patients were a protected minority (simply from the fear the community leaders had of being called a homophob) nothing was done to stop it.
Keep in mind, early on, there was no kind of treatment at all. It was profoundly hopeless.
That the drugs available now are able to suppress it are not much short of a miracle; when you understand even a little about what this virus is.
There is much to be grateful for, but don't ever seriously expect a cure.
AIDs BTW, it at least partly responsible for the popularity of the Programs. Parents are terrified their promiscuous teens getting infected.
And AIDs is why health insurance is difficult to impossible to pay for. Its largely why health care is so outrageously expensive. I suspect, Why there is a shortage of nurses.
As for Regan, what would you have had him do?
Do you imagine the gays would have abandoned the bath houses b/c he suggested they do so? Poor C Everet was stridently trying to get the message out and was reviled for telling the truth.
No one wanted the to hear to the truth.
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Yes, I think you're right Anon. Nobody wanted to hear the truth. Including the French who killed a thousand or so of their own people through AIDS infected blood transfusions, even though they had the capability of testing for the virus. IDIOTS!
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Electronic Telegraph
2/9/99 Susannah Herbert in Paris
LAURENT FABIUS, the former prime minister of France, and two of his cabinet colleagues will be tried today for manslaughter, 14 years after the state-sanctioned distribution of contaminated blood left about 4,000 people infected with the Aids virus.
More than 1,000 of the victims are now dead, including five of the seven people behind the charges. The trial will investigate claims that the French political and official classes were part of a criminal conspiracy to sacrifice haemophiliacs and other blood transfusion patients to the interests of the French pharmaceutical industry.
It will also establish whether politicians can be held responsible for the actions of their subordinates, which the French establishment fears could open the way to the systematic prosecution of public figures.
Fabius, his health minister Edmond Hervé and his social affairs minister Georgina Dufoix face fines of up to 500,000 francs (£54,000) and five years in prison if convicted. They are accused of delaying the introduction of screening of donated blood for several months in 1985 "for commercial reasons". All three deny the charges.
Their accusers say that approval of the American-developed Abbott test for the presence of HIV in blood - available from March 1985 - was withheld until August of that year to allow French scientists from the Pasteur Institute to develop a rival test.
Hervé and Dufoix are also accused of delaying the heat treatment of blood products given to haemophiliacs and of authorising the distribution of untreated blood products until October 1985 in order to use up existing stocks.
French medical experts knew from November 1984 that the state-approved blood products were tainted with HIV and that safe - though more expensive - products were available. Hervé is further charged with negligence in failing to stop the collection of blood from France's prison population, known at the time to include a high proportion of high-risk HIV carriers such as drug users and homosexuals.
Although public opinion is overwhelmingly against the politicians, the trial is a first for the Court of Justice of the Republic, an institution created in 1993 simply to try politicians for alleged offences committed while in office. The judges include six MPs and six senators, prompting fears that the French political class may acquit its peers out of solidarity.
The untried court has been heavily criticised for procedural anomalies: survivors of the contaminated blood scandal and their lawyers are not allowed to participate in the case as civil parties but will appear only as witnesses.
Stranger still, many of the officials most closely involved in decisions over blood screening have announced that they will not attend the trial. The officials - including advisers to all three politicians - are to appear shortly as defendants in a separate but related case and, under French law, they cannot be forced to incriminate themselves in the witness box.
Fabius, who has temporarily stepped down as speaker of the National Assembly to fight the case, has claimed to be a victim. Some of his supporters have compared the trial to the Dreyfus case, alleging that the former premier, a Jew, is a victim of anti-semitism.
Fabius himself has expressed "deep compassion" for the victims of the tainted blood scandal, but has also insisted that he acted correctly at all times, even claiming to have saved "hundreds of lives" because of his rapid response to the crisis.
He has stressed that little was known of HIV at the time, that he was not fully informed of the urgency of the public health threat and that France was one of the first countries to test blood stocks.
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France Sucks Big Baguettes!!!
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just brought this one to the top because it is so damn funny
Ha, he wouldn't even know if he shit in his own pants. Nancy would though, as she ate it out of his britches.
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On 2006-03-20 12:39:00, Anonymous wrote:
"just brought this one to the top because it is so damn funny
Ha, he wouldn't even know if he shit in his own pants. Nancy would though, as she ate it out of his britches."
ha ha ha
yeah whatever
now fucking shut the fuck up you fucking fuck.
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On 2006-03-20 14:44:00, Anonymous wrote:
"
On 2006-03-20 12:39:00, Anonymous wrote:
"just brought this one to the top because it is so damn funny
Ha, he wouldn't even know if he shit in his own pants. Nancy would though, as she ate it out of his britches."
ha ha ha
yeah whatever
now fucking shut the fuck up you fucking fuck."
hahahahahahaha. Eat it Nancy, eat it!
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On 2004-06-21 20:04:00, Anonymous wrote:
"The biggest mistake made was not treating AIDS like an epidimic and quarantining those suffering from this deadly disease."
I respectfully disagree. The biggest mistake was letting your parents reproduce.