...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Wednesday, November 05, 2003
      ( 12:26 PM )
 
Not to Make Too Fine a Point of It

So the hoopla about the Reagan miniseries was in effect spearheaded because republicans who worship Reagan (and who obviously don't have a brain in their heads) took offense at a particular part of the transcript that was revealed by the NY Times:

Republicans said the script would show the
Reagans in an unflattering light while omitting
much of what his supporters regard as his
major achievements.

Of particular concern to conservative critics was
a scene in which Mr. Reagan says of gays who
have AIDS: "They that live in sin shall die in sin."

Mr. Reagan made no such public remark, and
opponents of the mini-series say the line was
an indication of liberal bias against the two-term
president.

Okay, disregarding all the arguments previously stated about the ridiculousness of CBS balking on airing this thing (though they probably did themselves a favor since I doubt anyone was actually going to watch it), and the whiners in the GOP, I find the particular argument above very disconcerting.

I realize that Reagan worshippers live in a bubble, and these may be the folks who currently believe everything W is telling them and insist that he did not lie to get us into war. However, the statement used in the movie transcript, while perhaps not technically said by Reagan, gets across a very TRUE point about Reagan, which I will now reiterate in plain English:

FOR 8 YEARS, REAGAN DID NOTHING TO STOP THE SPREAD OF AIDS IN THIS COUNTRY AND MILLIONS DIED BECAUSE OF IT.

By 1987, nearly 20,000 Americans had died of AIDS. Reagan finally publicly acknowledged its existence:

''After almost six years of silence on the epidemic,''
said Rep. Henry Waxman D.-Calif., chairman of the
House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on
Health, ''the president has finally said that he will
fight the disease.''

Yet Reagan's "fight" did not involve giving enough funds for research or even a concerted effort by the federal government to publicize the dangers of AIDS. Nope, this was Reagan's answer:

Reagan stressed instruction in morality as a
complement to AIDS education. He told reporters
Tuesday that he favored AIDS education ''as
long as they teach that one of the answers to
it is abstinence -- if you say it's not how you
do it, but that you don't do it.''

A year passes, and then, an article from 1988:

The AIDS commission called for a $1-billion
annual expenditure for drug-abuse treatment
and education; the president, however, simply
called for "bipartisan support" in his war on
drugs. Reagan also called for improved blood
screening, and asked the Food and Drug
Administration to encourage self-donation of
blood before surgery.

As president, he could have made a HUGE difference in how AIDS affected the entire world at its outbreak. But he remained silent. His cronies and supporters spread the general theme that gays were being punished by God. He did not argue that point. He did not insist that the CDC be listened to and the blood banks cleaned out. He did not even pay attention when thousands began contracting and dying of the disease (gay and straight alike). He did not insist on funds being put into research on how to stop its spread. In short, AIDS killed millions of people because Ronald Reagan was a hypocrite and remained silent while his constituents suffered and died.

Mama can only think of bad, bad words to describe Reagan -- this is only ONE of the crimes against humanity he committed while president. But then, you never suspected me of hero-worshipping Ronnie, did you?

| -- permanent link