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AIDS industry bites tail, generates new Victorian Age
James PinkertonTORONTO -- Remember the 60s song, "I fought the law and the law won"? Forty years after the tune came out, people are still humming it, at least I am -- although I've changed the lyrics a bit to sum up the political consequences of this AIDS conference. I'm not sure that the 24,000 delegates would like the new lyric I've thought up for them, but here goes, anyway: I fought AIDS and the Right won. What does that mean? Well, let's consider three true statements about the last 25 years: First, AIDS has skyrocketed, from zero to 28 million deaths, with another 43 million people diagnosed as HIV-positive. Second, spending on AIDS has skyrocketed, into the tens, even hundreds, of billions of dollars. An appreciable chunk of that money, of course, has been spent by -- and on -- the activists and operatives who are gathered here at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. These are the folks who run the ministries, philanthropies, and NGOs that constitute the "AIDS-Industrial Complex." Third, the world has moved to the right, politically, during the same period. We can start with the US, dominated during the last quarter-century by starboard-leaning leaders such as Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, and George W. Bush. Here in Canada, the Prime Minister is Stephen Harper, a conservative who refused even to come to this conference. And to the south, Mexico just elected another conservative. Meanwhile, in Europe, such dominant figures as Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, Jacques Chirac, and Silvio Berlusconi were on the right. And even their more liberal successors, many of them, were not exactly leftists, e.g. Tony Blair. Continuing our political survey, let's look elsewhere -- to, say, Russia. Say what you want about Vladimir Putin, he's no liberal. Posted by: Angaiter Ulomosing3983 2006-08-21 |
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