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

[lieveling.livejournal.com]

thank you for saying that. you've said something that many people have been afraid to say tonight. there was so much coverage of his death today, so many good things said about him .. that it made me physically sick. he wasn't a decent man or president, even if i didn't know him ... i still have good reason to think that. his administration was a joke and many called him a charismatic man. however, the man i remember is the man that fell asleep at speeches. ohhh, yes. very charismatic, i'd say.

<3, hayley

[volund.livejournal.com]

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.

Some of us have never forgotten, and have been disgusted for some time at the premature and undeserved political canonization he and his presidency have had conferred upon them.

And now that he's just died, after "bravely" suffering a degenerative ailment and diminishing faculties for the past several years, it will be a bit longer before anything approaching a truly critical assessment of the man and his legacy is forthcoming.

[camfangrrl.livejournal.com]

Ronald Reagan didn't say the word AIDS 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.

Ronald Reagan, "Message to the Congress Transmitting the Fiscal Year 1987 Budget", February 5, 1986:

High priority programs should be adequately funded. -- Despite the very tight fiscal environment, this budget provides funds for maintaining -- and in some cases expanding -- high priority programs in crucial areas of national interest. Necessary services and income support for the dependent poor and the elderly receive significant funding in this budget. So do other programs of national interest, including drug enforcement, AIDS research, the space program, nonmilitary research, and national security.

[tommx.livejournal.com]

what appals me even further was that people credit him with ending the cold war, totally ignoring the fact that he provided assistance to groups that eventually became the talibann and al quaeda.

add that to the aids infected blood on his hands...

there simply isn't a hell bad enough for someone like him, but i honestly wish i could think of one.

[spiralflames.livejournal.com]

i think a friend of mine who lives in DC summed it up well- "well, reagan finally died. it'll be really interesting now to watch them all try to re-write history."

sigh.

[00goddess.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

R made me watch more than half an hour of coverage on TV yesterday. No one even MENTIONED the fact that Reagan and his administration willfully let millions sicken and die.

I was also really disgusted when they credited him with the fall of the USSR; the USSR was already falling apart, and the lives of the people in the former USSR aren't much better now than they were then; worse in some cases.

The current administration has worked very hard to whitewash Reagan and Bush 1. It's not going to stop here.