| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| AIDS industry bites tail, generates new Victorian Age |
| 2006-08-21 |
| James Pinkerton TORONTO -- 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 |
| #11 I thought prostitutes got rich by marrying wealthy bachelors, I mean look at Pretty Woman, and that Julia chick. This is the first movie she didn't die of sumpthin nasty |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-08-21 21:03 |
| #10 Simple solution,I don't have AIDS because I don't dick around. Those who do, Die, So this simply is a Stupidity Cure. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2006-08-21 19:29 |
| #9 It gets down to ignorance and idiology. Aids in the West was a very stoppable disease. We figured out pretty quickly how it spread and could have killed it cold with some common sense. Instead we got folks screaming repression and continuing unsafe practices. For the life of me I'll never understand why Gays didn't just come up with a fashion thing to help them know who was infected or not. Say a red wristband or something. Than infected folks could be avoided by the uninfected and targetted by those already infected. Do that, combined with semi-frequent tests and condoms and everyone could have been happy without changing a damn thing. In the third world there wasn't much that could have stopped it, not as long as governments are corrupt and people are poor. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2006-08-21 17:45 |
| #8 Oh, one thing I forgot: in the traditional third-world societies under discussion here, there was a feedback loop re: the status of prostitutes; it was (and is) a low-status, undesireable profession, to the degree that most of the people in it were basically those people who were forced into it by dire economic circumstances or coersion by other people. Which reinforced the already existing low status... |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2006-08-21 14:05 |
| #7 It's a bit over the top only in the fact that he acts as if it is the PC response to AIDS and only AIDS that has caused the shift. The PC mentality is an adolescent mentality, born of the 60's and is silly selfish and childish thinking like all adolescent thinking. It's a generation that thinks that mommy needs to make it right without any inconvenience or trouble to members of the ME generation. They've already proven they won't grow up. Their children are suffering the consequences of their immaturity. |
| Posted by: Shush Sholuth7794 2006-08-21 10:58 |
| #6 This is a bit much, but his point on women and AIDS is close. In Asia AIDS has infected the older generations of prostitutes, the younger ones are much more careful. The older ones have move back to the provences and are spreading it amongst the community. As TW put it, their infected tomcat men are spreading it to the young. BTW, Cambodia and Viet-Nams AIDS problems were brought to them by the UN in the form of African demining teams. I think he really misses the mark on the third world. The political structure in the third workd cares very little, if at all, for the people outside the capital city. They could care less about education, health care, or the safety of their people, why should they care about someone that is going to die anyway? The only way to get the political structure to act is through incentives that will benifit them, not the people. As sad as it is, in the third world, folks are literally dieing for simple meds like antibiotics and vitamins. AIDS is just a bridge too far and will destroy a large portion of the third world. |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2006-08-21 10:00 |
| #5 When the Great Heterosexual AIDS Epidemic [tm] that was forecasted in the 80s by great prophets like Time and Newsweek never materialized, the Gay community started to shift the advocacy propaganda from numbers in the US to numbers in the world. The problem was that it tried to cover up that social behaviors in the West [EU and North America] were different than behaviors elsewhere. Regardless of what Hollywood and MSM try to put out, a good part of America remains uptight and tied to 'old fashion' values and behaviors. And if the reproduction number of Europe are any indicator, their [hummm] drive has dropped off considerably which means their behaviors do not mimic those of Africa or Asia either. As AIDS continues to expand markedly elsewhere it leveled out many years past in the States. One of the biggest problems with the whole approach that is prescribed by the Gay community is that they want a magic bullet to cure the problem. Unfortunately for a lot of victims of this disease, one of the more effective methods developed by humans in dealing with plagues [The Plague*, Cholera, etc] is to alter the behavior of people and their communities. It does not rid the species of the afflicting, but it reduces the active presence of the pathogen. That is not what the advocates of the Gay community want. So in this case they brandish labels on behaviors which work effectively against the threat. * The Plague came from Central Asia where the inhabitants generally do not suffer from it. That is attributed to the adoption of taboos within the region which result in behaviors that inhibit infection and transmission. Adaptation to environment - Darwinism. |
| Posted by: Unimble Elmomort5902 2006-08-21 09:49 |
| #4 It's funny, everyone wanted to replace the creationist, puritan, God-lays-down-the-law-and-the-humans-follow it universe with a cold impersonal clockwork universe in which everything happens by evolution, without stopping to think that traditional societies evolved to be cold and hard thanks to a very cold and hard physical world. Meet the new boss, 100% less Christian Mercy than the old boss. |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2006-08-21 09:15 |
| #3 "I know that Rantburg men are noble and chaste outside of committed relationships, gallant gentlemen all." Thou doest us much honor, my Lady. Thy flatteries doth shew themselves to good effect. |
| Posted by: mcsegeek1 2006-08-21 09:09 |
| #2 Good essay, but the gentleman misses the key point. He gets halfway there when he notes that the face of AIDs is now a female of colour, but loses it when he wanders into the brothel. Most of the women with HIV/AIDS are not prostitutes, but wives and girlfriends whose men freely tomcat with others, whether for their own amusement or the mythical "Virgin Cure". It isn't the traditional, despised prostitutes that are the problem, but the traditional men doing what it is that men have always done when they could. (Not all men of course, she hastens to add; I know that Rantburg men are noble and chaste outside of committed relationships, gallant gentlemen all. But not all are such as you, my dears.) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-08-21 09:02 |
| #1 This is way overblown, but one point is on the mark and that is that the left is clueless on the AIDS issue. You want to see what real progress looks like? Here's a link (HT: instapundit). But of course since it's due to Bush, it can't be told. Go on Left, let millions die for your idiot-ology, that's what you're really good at. |
| Posted by: Spot 2006-08-21 08:55 |