Reagan and AIDS

[rm]

Ronald Reagan didn't say the word AIDS in a speech to the public until 1987. That this sin of omission is being recommitted in the endless coverage of his legacy that refuses to note this is appalling to me. He was our first AIDS-time president. And what he didn't do, and the vitriol with which he was reviled for it, is as critical to today's political and social landscape as anything else.

I don't think he was as craven as our current leaders (words I never thought I'd say). But people died because of him and the rhetoric he and his supporters spewed and perpetuated. In the 80s it was a perfectly normal idea that some AIDS patients were innocent -- meaning that many were not. That was fucking appalling; it remains fucking appalling.

It is the nature of being president that all of them must at some point take responsibility for terrible things. For people that were once here and are no more.

But it should never have happened like that.

And while he was an old man, with Alzheimers, and there may well not have been much of a point in being angry anymore, I can't believe that we are somehow supposed to forget that we were.

And while we're quoting Reagan in the comments -- read this folks: http://www.livejournal.com/users/insomnia/422922.html?mode=reply

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

I should have been more specific -- in speeches to the general public, of which what you cite wasn't. AIDS funding under Reagan was pathetic as was his public leadership and acknowledgement of the issue. And without the generally available Internet at that time, no one had any way to know he was at least acknowledging the disease in more private governmental settings.

Regardless, his AIDS legacy was deadly, and we could be years ahead in current research had he not bowed to the power bestowed on him by conservatism, and stood up and said not just difficult things, but any damn thing at all.

Additionally, a six year silence is hardly better than a seven year one.

Finally, I don't like you. I don't know why you persist on reading this and it seems the many other journals you read just to dissagree with their owners' choices, perception, values and communication styles (which I will also note are a damn bit more effective than yours).

I know a lot of morally superior jackasses, but you're one of the most pointless and boring ones I've ever had the displeasure to have interacted with.

You are ignorant and petty on such a broad range of social issues and nicities it astounds me, and while I spend a lot of time trying to be a more gracious individual than I have been in times past, I'm not feeling it right now.

I can't stop you from reading my public entries, and I recognize and accept that. But I really do wish you would both go away and find a productive use for all your negative energy and misplaced self-satisfaction.