Thinly veiled homophobia WRT to HIV/AIDS rant.

[Liberal Veteran]

It has become increasingly clear to me that with regards to removing stigma associated with HIV, that our own house (ie, even many democrats here) needs cleaning.

This was made exceedingly evident to me by the recent threads regarding Reagan's non-action in the beginning of the AIDS crisis.

I can't begin to tell you how hurtful it is to see every thread with a handful of posters who go out of their way to point out that AIDS is a disease of behavior.

Oh sure, they don't say it that way, but that's essentially what it boils down to. Time and again the bottom line has been "well, why didn't the gay community do more to correct their behavior".

But you know what? Most did. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 1-2 percent of gay people actually have HIV these days.

But really burns me is the fact that so many people feel a pressing need to go out of their way to place the onus on gay people of that time (most of whom were infected before it was evident there was a fatal communicable disease going around given the long interval between infection and illness).

It is a rare thing to see a thread where someone talks about heart disease or lung cancer to hear people feeling compelled to pipe up that a good majority of those cases are also behavioral in nature.

Not many people would be so callous as to jump into a thread about someone getting lung cancer and scream how smokers have only themselves to blame and that our government has no role in their lack of leadership on the issue. Same with heart disease.

The only conclusion I come to as to why people feel differently about HIV/AIDS is two reasons:

1) The puritanical nature of our society on the subject of sex (sex is bad, m'kay?).
2) Some underlying homophobia that allows one to feel that somehow gay men deserved it for their own behavior.

It's boggling to me particularly when we look back at how the gay community basically had to tackle the problem using grass roots politics rather than leadership from the top down that anyone would feel the need to go out of their way to blame the gay community for being devestated by HIV.

So if you are one of those who felt the need to say something like that or imply it, I encourage you look inside yourself and ask if you would feel compelled to do the same thing in a thread about lung cancer or heart disease. And if the answer is no, you may want to look at why you feel differently about those things.

That's all I have to say on the issue.

[LittleApple81]

1. Nothing to do with your complaint. But being an idiotic smoker (by

my own admission--it is easy to quit I have done it 20 times) I HAVE HEARD PLENTY OF PEOPLE TELLING ME EXACTLY THAT: what I get in terms of illnesses related to smoking IS MY FAULT.
And, in MY case, it is true.
By the way, heterosexuals have gotten a lot of VTDs and, even though there is a huge problem with personal "embarrassment" to admit it when you ask for help, I have not seen the negative attitude towards those VTDs that I saw against AIDs. And you are right: it was because the first epidemic showed up in an easily targeted and vilified population.

[Liberal Veteran]

10. The question is, do you require someone to rub that in?

As someone with HIV, I don't really require anyone to drive home the mistake I made (which was basically having unprotected sex with a man a loved and trusted who was cheating on me).

I have a handfull of pills that drive it home for me every 12 hours of my life.

And yeah, I'll be the first to rail against the idiots who think that meds mean HIV is something you don't need to try to avoid anymore.

I just think it's crass for people to feel compelled in every thread concerning Reagan's lack of leadership to try to place all the onus on the community that was devastated by this disease.

[crossroads]

48. Some people like to feel superior so try to make others feel guilty...

by implying they are beneath them...it's a human thing. Lots of people have that MO. I saw one of the threads a coupla nites ago, and I was appalled at the biased smugness. It is based IMO, on ignorance...

I had an emergency surgery 3 yrs ago and required 3 units of blood to save my life. I was told then that the tests they give to screen blood aren't 100% effective and I still have a danger of contacting the disease on down the road... can't tell you what a helpless feeling it gives one...
:shrug:

[phaseolus]

2. For what it's worth --

1.) I believe your analysis is spot on target, and

2.) I will make DAMN sure my kids don't grow up thinking that way. I have a sinking feeling it will take decades to really make homophobia as unacceptable as racism. Look how long it's taking to really make racism go away... But as for me and my house, we will not hate.

[foreigncorrespondent]

53. You, my friend...

...are a truly enlightened person. :)

[beyurslf]

3. I think those attitudes are certainly do not represent most people

here. Some, sure.

Agree 100% about the heart disease or diabetes or other diseases related to weight. I think plenty of people would point out to someone with lung cancer or other disease from smoking that it was caused by their behavior. In fact, I think more people would do this with smoking than HIV.

As someone who has HIV, I can readily admit it was MY behavior that caused it. I was STUPID and I don't get on anyone who points that out. Hopefully, in pointing it out, other young men (and women) will wake up to the reality of the disease. Pointing out that BEHAVIOR spreads the disease, it NOT homophobic. It is reality.

Yes, in the 1980's, Reagan is squarely in the cross hairs of blame. Had the causes and spread of the disease been better publicized, many could have avoided it. But today, everyone knows what causes HIV and how to avoid it.

[Liberal Veteran]

6. True, but the leadership is still lacking.

On one side you have a populace that has grown complacent due to the fact that HIV is not quite as much a death sentence or in your face and a new generation who have the air of youthful invulnerability.

On the other side, you have the puritans who rail against the notion of honest and frank sex education.

I daresay until we get those factors under control, we are still going to have problems with this disease.

[greekspeak]

4. Preach on

That is such a fundamentalist, neo-con way of thinking, that Gays get AIDS because they deserve it. No one group of Americans is responsible for the spread of the disease. Personal repsonibility should be a factor, as should a government that wants to nip diseases in the bud. Under smiling sniveling Ronald Reagan, AIDS was passed off as a disease those dirty faggots get because they deserve it for their evil "lifestyle." To this I say BULLSHIT. Reagan and others did NOTHING until prominant heterosexuals started getting it too. And still, years later, its all those dirty faggots' fault. This attitude of denial is a disease in and of itself.

I have not witnessed this mentality on DU personally, but it is still alive and well in many circles. If there are DUers that are perpetuating this, SHAME ON THEM!

[Warpy]

5. If HIV is a disease of behavior

one needs to point out that it is a disease of universal behavior. People who are truly asexual are such a tiny minority as to be statistically insignificant, and even they may require blood products at some point.

I remember in the late 80s that what finally got the scumbag Reaganites to acknowledge the epidemic was that infants were getting it from their mothers and that hemophiliac children were getting it from their clotting factor. Big-eyed, suffering children got them to wake up to the fact that HIV is a disease, not a judgment from the Hebraic god. Alas, moralists are slow learners, and that message is still trying to get through to the worst of them.

Of course, we can give up risk. We will also be giving up everything that makes us human. We can forego death itself if we refuse to be born alive.

When you read the messages from the moralists, pity them. Their ignorance puts them at risk for HIV above what the rest of us face, and their desire to be above risk forces them into an ugly, pinched, inhuman little world.

[Tansy_Gold]

11. Many can't avoid risk

It's one thing, I think, to blame individuals who engage in behavior they know ahead of time to be risky, whether it's smoking or unprotected sex or eating a quart of ice cream every night for thirty years when you have a family history of diabetes.

But what always made me so furiously angry at the moralists was that their arguments of "they deserved it" never took into consideration all the people who did not engage in the proscribed activity but still suffered from the disease: children still get cancer and diabetes, young athletes still have heart attacks, faithful spouses get STDs from their unfaithful mates or cancer from their smoking partners. The result of the moralists' ferocious moralizing was and is that the innocent are at exactly the same risk than the "guilty." Does that make them guilty, too? If so, what's the diff? Wouldn't that then make the "guilty" innocent?

That sort of shit makes my brain hurt.

Reagan's puritanical silence condemned many, but even after we know more about HIV, the puritanical righteousness of the fundies who control our governments still condemns millions of children, millions of innocent partners, and even millions of the "guilty" who have no way of learning the truth or protecting anyone else, but that's a rant that's been promulgated often enough. I'd be preachin' to the choir to rehash it.

Or maybe not.

Tansy Gold

[nostamj]

7. the veil wasn't very thin

imho...

if it's the thread I'm thinking of.... I wish I had hid it before my BP hit the roof!

[Liberal Veteran]

8. That's why I had to wait until this morning to rant on it.

Because I was so angry I couldn't put together a coherent rant on the subject.

[davsand]

13. I wish I'd had your intelligence.

I waded into the fray later on, and managed to let myself get pissed off all over again. The end result was I couldn't sleep because I was so pissed off, and I had one post deleted because I went over the top.

I fail to understand the attitudes, and it eludes me how any progressive website could have that kind of crap mentality running around.

I was so horrified by attitudes about HIV and AIDS in the 80's that it actually drove me to the activism I practice to this day. My entire personal political philosophy was formed as a result of the late 80's and the AIDS policies of Ronnie Raygun (THAT really freaks me out when I think about it...)

I watched men I loved dying and it pissed me off that anyone would play politics with their lives. It pissed me off that the so called "moral majority" had taken control and they were exhibiting nothing resembling morality.

I had grown up in a head space where I honestly thought that public policy was supposed to be dictated by the welfare of the people. I honestly thought that our politicians were maybe flawed (as is any human) but that for the most part they were trying to do the right thing.

I guess that innocence can only last for so long, and AIDS was my personal political Waterloo...

Maybe I was too well versed in biology or maybe I'd seen how many married "straight" men tricked with other men to ever believe that HIV and AIDS was gonna limit itself to just the gay men or the Haitians. I knew then, and discussed THEN with my friends that it was a matter of time before it became an issue to the straight world.

The big question was how many had to die before it was taken seriously enough to be talked about frankly and openly.

So, we sit here years later, and I find that SAME mindset in a place where I don't expect to see it. Old scars were re-opened, and frankly, now, at this stage of my life,I lack the time and fortitude to try and teach the people who are determined to remain unlearned.

I've always held the thought (or maybe it is a dream) that everyone is on an equal footing. Nobody should be held as somehow less because of who they are--what they were born to. I'm not seeing that here, and I'm running out of patience.

Peace to you all, I have to work past this.


Laura

[Liberal Veteran]

15. Hey, don't feel bad....I lost my temper a couple of times last night.

Unfortunately, I allowed the thread to put me on the defensive instead of the offensive and I ended up crossing the line unapologetically and half expected to have a few of my messages to be deleted.

[nostamj]

16. I was going to make my usual call-in to

The Guy James Show but I was SO pissed off I knew I'd go off on a rant that I'd probably regret.

it was a sobbing disgrace to have to defend against such nonsense though...

[Sapphocrat]

43. Glass of water for nostamj!

And a hug and an affectionate, butchy kinda punch in the arm for restraining yourself so admirably. Which you did. But you didn't just lie there and take it, either -- and that's a hard, hard line to walk. But you do. :)

[salin]

19. I am glad that I missed it

There are times that what gets written here is heart-wrenchingly caustic. At those times I want to find an old copy of the Musical Hair... and blast (and force it to be blasted upon others)... "Easy to be Hard"

(first three verses)

http://www.poplyrics.net/waiguo/soundtrack/hair/018.htm

Easy To Be Hard

How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold

How can people have no feelings
How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no

And especially people
Who care about strangers
Who care about evil
And social injustice
Do you only
Care about the bleeding crowd?
How about a needing friend?
I need a friend


... don't know why but this has always captured my anger, frustration in reaction to some of the reactionary voices that make there way here and show an almost thinly veiled venom instead of compassion.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

9. theres homophobia everywhere...even here.

sorry to say, but its still sort of OK to be this way, even at a place like DU.

It just shows you how far the GLBT community has to go with making homophobia unacceptable.

[WilliamPitt]

12. Well said.

'And the Band Played On' has perhaps the definitive description of how this all came to be. To lay the spread of AIDS at the feet of those who frequented the San Francisco bathhouses of the early 1098s, and those who fought the closure of those places on personal freedom grounds, misses the point.

San Francisco was Stonewall, was Harvey Milk, was the place where a previously shunned segment of the populace had carved out a welcoming home. Health officials alarmed about AIDS (or GRID, as it was first known), saw the bathhouses as a place where the disease was spreading. The gay community fought the closure of those places, and this is why some put the 'behavioral' blame for AIDS upon that community.

The gay community fough the closure of those places because they were sick of getting pushed around, sick of being told they were wrong and evil, sick of having to hide. I suppose, then, that the 'behavioral' thing does apply, but the question becomes different.

Whose 'behavior' created the phenomenon? The gay community, or the larger community whose institutionalization of homophobia laid the framework for the whole process?

And let's not forget the I-don't-give-a-crap funding priorities from the administration, and the selfish gamesmanship between the scientists researching the disease.

'Gay Behavior' is a simplistic place to lay responsibility for all this.

[Stephanie]

18. actually Stonewall was NYC

And it's back, reincarnated, in almost the same spot, on Sheridan Square. I had drinks there with nostamj. :toast:

Sorry, guys. I never imagined getting that kind of argument from DUer's, if that's what they were. I just wanted people in their 20's to know what Reagan did. This past week has been one big whitewash and some of it's sticking. I was talking with a 24 year old last night who had no idea about Reagan's culpability in the AIDS crisis.

And davsand, I had a very similar experience. I was a volunteer at GMHC in the late 80's and I'll never forget that time.

[nostamj]

20. to be 100% accurate...

Stephanie and I (and others that night) had drinks in Stonewall Bistro, Andy (g_b_n_c_) and I went through the connecting corridor into the Stonewall Inn for a drink and that IS the same site as the original Stonewall...

the two establishments are owned by the same people but the INN, which has it's main entrance on Christopher Street, is the historic "Stonewall" site.

:hi: stephanie!

[davsand]

46. A lot of people have forgotten what was going on then

Yeah, there WAS promiscuity--in all the populations. It seems to me that a lot of people have forgotten what it was like back then.

There were odd strains of VD running around out there that were resistant to antibiotics--but for the most part, you could either take care of most problems with either antibiotics or Qwell.

Herpes was there--but a lot of people were aware of that. It didn't kill you--but it made you mighty unhappy and posed some serious health risks. So did warts. People just didn't realize that unprotected sex was the huge risk that it is.

Our government knew it--and chose to say *nothing* about it.

To be brutally honest, NOBODY wore a condom back then except under extreme circumstances. For sure, condoms were not viewed favorably as a form of birth control, and it was so uncommon that it was the subject of jokes. (Remember in Saturday Night Fever when the girl is begging John Travolta to have sex with her and she tells him she has condoms to prevent pregnancy? He laughed at her! THAT is how deeply ingrained it was.)

The charges made here that people are unwilling to accept personal responsibility just boggle my mind. It wasn't an unwillingness--it was a lack of knowledge. I find it impossible to think that so many would have been willing to gamble with life itself just in the interest of a quick roll in the hay.

Sure--some folks will always gamble--but painting everyone as some kind of suicidal fool is just wrong. In this case, it is comparable to blaming a toddler for drowning after falling in a pool or holding people accountable for not knowing how malaria was transmitted in the 1800's. THAT is the point we were at.

We didn't know, and anybody who DID know was not saying a word. THAT is what I damn Raygun for.

It is possible to say that some good DID eventually come from it all, I guess. Medical research finally discovered retro viruses, the activist community realized that publicity WAS the avenue for change, and the gay community did mobilize.

I can only hope that the knowledge gained doesn't go by the wayside...


Laura

[msmcghee]

14. I'd like to hear Cheswick's . .

. . take on this subject. If you are there.

[Cheswick2.0]

35. well I just made the mistake of opening this thread

So what is you want to know? If you see this post PM me. Because I probably will not come back to the thread otherwise. What I see here is a lot of willful misinterpretation so that people can continue an argument in which they have created imaginary opponents and cast them in the roll of villan.

Oh the self indulgence of it all.....

[Rowdyboy]

17. I'm so glad I missed that thread-luckily, I had friends over last night...

Its the same stupidity to causes imbeciles to post the "Is Bush gay?" or "Is Rush gay?" threads. Hell, I'd think more of those freaks if they were gay, not less. But some idiots here think its funny to use it as a stigma, as though being gay was something to be ashamed of.

Some people are basically a waste of perfectly good oxygen.

And yes, I've done things that were stupid, and things I'm sorry for. And, yes, I'm paying the price and will for the rest of my life. Sometimes, thats just how life is.

[supernova]

21. Actually I think gay men were the heros

early on for even noticing the connection between the illness and the risky behaviour. The bold willingness to talk about it, do something about it, and care for those in need. It truely was heartwarming to see.

I honestly don't know if less people would have died if the WH had gotten involved earlier. It's useless speculation at this point.

I remember how strictly taboo even talking about AIDs was. It was an exact replay of the obscentity of the word "cancer" in earlier decades.

Act Up is still the late 20th Century model for citizen activism, proving that you don't need leaders to tell you what to do from the top. That it can work from the ground up too.

And hey having as many scars as I do, I condemn no one for illness because if I did I'd be condemning myself as well.

edit: I agree with you about the puritanical attitudes about sex. We are very uncomfortable with the entire subject. Instead we use it to market products.

[Liberal Veteran]

22. It's nice when leaders actually lead, however.....

And it's probably not too much to ask of a president.

[troublemaker]

23. bogus premise

re:"Not many people would be so callous as to jump into a thread about someone getting lung cancer and scream how smokers have only themselves to blame and that our government has no role in their lack of leadership on the issue."

I'm sure we have all noticed how fucking sympathetic people are about smoking... what a crock! Smoking is far more stigmatized today than HIV.

There are no lung cancer threads because it's not a politicized disease. If there were such threads you would see intolerance beyond anything you've cited. And 'progressives' would lead the way.

Everything that's gone on over the last ten years regarding second-hand smoke is about the same as throwing Ryan White out of school. Ryan White posed *at least* as great a public health menace in school by being HIV positive as he would have if he smoked in class.

[Liberal Veteran]

24. No....lung cancer isn't politicized, not at all.

Which is why tobacco companies are still allowed to peddle a known carcinogen to the public with the full backing of our government.

To claim lung cancer is not politicized is to ignore the reality of what has gone on in last two decades with regards to tobacco companies.

[troublemaker]

33. I agree with the general meaning

of your post as far as HIV/AIDS is concerned. I agree that there's a very ugly moralistic tone to HIV/AIDS policy debates. I also agree that many people who think of themselves as progressive reveal deeply cherished bigotry on almost anything anything related to sex of any kind.

I just don't think you could have possibly picked a worse counter-example than smoking; smoking is about the only thing *comparable* to what you are complaining about.

Smokers are shunned, taxed, lectured on the street, and generally herded about like animals. Smokers are openly and PROUDLY discriminated against. Many progressives are willing to ignore reason when smoking is the topic... the idea that people get lung cancer from second-hand smoke in public parks is scientifically indistinguishable from the idea that people get AIDS by riding on elevators with gay men, yet it forms the basis of public policy. And I'm not saying that's even wrong... only that it's a fact.

You would have had an EXCELLENT point if you have used obesity instead of smoking. There *are* obesity threads here where some people blame the behavior of the obese while others don't. And there is much political confusion as to how responsible fat people are, etc..

[yardwork]

25. I'm surprised that there still so many misconceptions about HIV

Ryan White posed *at least* as great a public health menace in school by being HIV positive as he would have if he smoked in class.

This statement is simply not true. For the record, I'm not HIV positive and I'm not gay, but I do know a little about HIV.

It can't be spread by casual contact. Unless Ryan White was running around biting his classmates, they couldn't have caught HIV from him.

However, HIV is spread easily by sexual contact - all kinds of sexual contact. The most rapidly growing HIV+ demographic are women who have caught it from their husbands or boyfriends, without ever knowing that they were at risk.

It's stupid to ignore a new virus just because it spreads by sexual means, but that's exactly what the Reagan administration did for eight years. The policy was short-sighted, and as a result the virus is now out of control in many places around the world, including poverty-stricken rural communities in the U.S.

[Liberal Veteran]

26. Agreed.

You could spend a lifetime in a room with someone with HIV and you aren't going to get infected unless you specifically engage in body fluid sharing acts such as sex.

Try being an asthmatic going into a restaurant full of smokers though.

You are NEVER exposed to HIV through casual contact, but you ARE exposed to carcinogens due to second-hand smoke.

[yardwork]

27. I don't blame you for being angry about this, liberal-veteran

I'm surprised to see that these misconceptions are still floating around. It's probably a result of health education and scientific studies being deep-sixed during the past three and a half years. In the absence of public information and health education, some of the old myths are resurfacing.

[troublemaker]

36. not true

re: "You are NEVER exposed to HIV through casual contact"

People are routinely exposed to the HIV virus through casual contact; just not in quantities sufficient to have a real chance of prompting infection. There is some HIV virus in saliva, for instance. And there are blood traces in everyone's mouth all the time, and thus on everyone's hands all the time.

I have no doubt that I've been in contact with live virus--I've had too many positive friends not to have. Fortunately a few individual live viruses are not sufficient to cause infection 99.9999% of the time.

Similarly, exposure to carcinogens is also generally insufficient to prompt viable cancers; otherwise we would all be dead long ago.

Any doctor that would say "never" or "cannot" is trying to soothe people's nerves, not trying to be rigorously accurate. If you followed with "Can you assure me that no person has ever been infected from a sneeze or handshake" I hope a real physician would say, "it could have happened, but your odds of being hit by a meteorite are higher."

[Liberal Veteran]

37. Aren't you stretching your facts a bit, friend.

Sorry, but when you sitting in a room with someone with HIV you are not coming into contact constantly with HIV.

There is a precise series of EXTREMELY unlikely events that would have to take place in order for an infection to occur.

Hell, there are no documented cases of people contracting HIV from casual contact (and as someone with HIV, I should probably know that myself). It's not even a particularly easy virus to get or a very strong virus that could exist on the hands.

However, a lit cigarette is constantly giving off smoke that contains carcinogens and in an enclosed enviroment you are constantly exposed to those chemical. It might not happen from one incident of exposure, but being in an office full of smokers (or an airplane) you increase your expose daily.

Your hair splitting over this is intellectually and medically dishonest.

[troublemaker]

34. I'm surprised that there still so many problems with reading comprehension

The words have what meaning they have. The odds of a classmate getting AIDS from Ryan White was greater than their odds of getting lung cancer from Ryan White smoking in class.

Children do bite other children in school. It's rare, but it happens. They get wounds on the playground too. That doesn't mean a child is likely to contract HIV from an HIV positive playmate. It's very very unlikely.

That doesn't mean it's LESS likely than the other. The lung cancer scenario is *even less likely*

(If one wants to address asthma rather than lung cancer it's a different story. The risk would still be minor, but I would guess it's asthma>AIDS>lung cancer)

[Liberal Veteran]

29. Oh, and one more thing.

I've noted that when people refer to HIV as a policitized disease, it has more often than not been code for saying that HIV got some kind of "special treatment" because of big bad monolithic homosexual agenda.

If anything, the only "special treatment" it got was it was specifically ignored and made fun of by bigots.

I'm sure you have heard some of them: Gay=Got Aids Yet? or Anally Injected Death Serum.

Hospitals and health care workers would refuse to treat AIDS patients. People were fired and denied entry into certain places.

The point I am making is that we should do better than stigmatizing people who caught a virus. The Democratic party has surplus compassion per member than the entire right wing combined. Let's use it.

[troublemaker]

38. I absolutely agree

I'm really sorry I replied at all because I completely agree with you about AIDS.

Your examples just happened to run into a pet peeve: I've been complaining for years that the tendency of progressives to adopt hysterias about smoking completely divorced from any medical reality, like telling total strangers in open-air environments that they are giving people cancer, is the same as right wing nuts thinking they can get AIDS from riding on an elevator with a gay person. It's the same unfortunate aspect of human nature expressed within two different groups.

[Liberal Veteran]

40. I'll be the first to agree that in OPEN AIR ENVIROMENTS....

....the dangers of second hand smoke are fairly insignificant.

But where we started butting heads was in the notion that Ryan White smoking in a classroom (a closed air enviroment unless they are in extremely progressive school) would pose less danger than being in the classroom having HIV.

[troublemaker]

50. Fair enough

The danger from sitting in a room with him is indeed another matter, but at that point I was objecting to non-exposure being synonymous with non-transmission.

I agree that the risks of simply sharing air are most likely higher in the smoking instance.

But the genral point was that *neither* is likely enough to be worth worrying about--pulling kids out of school, etc.. (I wouldn't want kids exposed to the behavior of smoking, but I wouldn't care about the smoke itself)

[KittyWampus]

28. Well, Many People Find It Difficult To Consider The Viewpoint

that there might, just MIGHT, be a MEANING to why someone may have contracted HIV and died.

That when we die of some illness or at the hands of sick, violent people... it might be the consequence of something we did in the past... either in this life and/or in a previous life.

This viewpoint is very old and shared by many, many people across the globe.

It has NOTHING to do with the blame, guilt or punishment that runs through our Judeo-Christian heritage.

It certainly has nothing to do with homophobia.

It has EVERYTHING with taking control of ones own destiny and at a very deep, inner level rejecting the notion of Victimhood.

[Liberal Veteran]

30. That strikes me as a very passive way of becoming a doormat.

It is not victimhood or embracing victimhood to recognize that and criticize our government when it drops the ball whether they did it willfully or inadvertently.

That is what this whole business with Reagan and his lack of leadership on the issue of AIDS is about.

If we all take an attitude of "oh well, I guess it's just a consequence or karmic payback" then nothing ever changes.

[KittyWampus]

31. Who Said Anything About Not Criticizing Reagan Or The Govt.'s Silence?

frankly, I think the Government might be legally culpable much the same way Big Tobacco was found liable.

The more we become aware of our Karma (Actions) the more we are able to control our Environments and what happens in our lives.

If you throw a rubber ball against the wall and don't pay attention it might hit you in the head.

If you throw a rubber ball against the wall and DO pay attention... then you can run forward to catch it when it bounces back at you.

All depends on how much Responsibility we are prepared to take for ourselves.

Not a popular notion... but again, it has NOTHING to do with "deserving" pain or death.

Edit: or being uncomfortable with "buttsex" as someone with an attitude once quipped.

[Liberal Veteran]

32. However, when one constantly harps about personal responsibility...

...in a thread criticizing the inaction and lack of leadership role our government played in this, it comes across as crass, off-topic, and blaming the injured party.

If anything, the gay community showed an incredible amount of responsibility and leadership in the early days of the crisis, both in trying to change public perception and change the way this disease was being treated.

We didn't embrace victimhood. We stood up and fought back against an uncaring and bigotted bureaucracy that failed to do what we pay them to do.

Making a claim of embracing victimhood is not only historically inaccurate, its hurtful and insulting.

[KittyWampus]

39. I Apologize For My Inability To Express Myself Clearly

because you don't seem to hear what I'm trying to say.

[Liberal Veteran]

41. I'm sorry as well....

...that you are expressing yourself so poorly.

:eyes:

I can do without the backhanded apologies, thank you.

[Sapphocrat]

42. I'll ask you again, and hope you answer this time...

If we get sick and/or die as the consequence of something we did in this or a past life, how is one supposed to take control of (or responsibility for) one's own destiny in this life? Sounds like predetermination or predestiny to my ears.

And if it is a consequence of something you did, how is that consequence not "punishment"? And how can you not be "blamed" in this life for something you did in your last life?

I'm just following your train of thought -- you emphasize "personal responsibility" while simultaneously explaining away that responsibility by a force now completely out of your control (i.e., past lives). Does that "personal responsibility" apply only to your next life?

Forget about carving out a better existence in your next incarnation. I'm talking about the here and now. So if you've ruined your current life due to your mistakes in a past life, is your current life a total loss, except for the way(s) in which you prepare to make your next life better? Sounds to me like that's throwing your current life away; why bother to live it -- or any subsequent life?

If so, that goes against the grain of all Eastern philosophies -- which, in a nutshell, can be boiled down to living in the "here and now," making each moment count, and dismissing hope for a future that may never come.

Finally, how is your "karmic" philosophy so different from the assignment of cause and effect (sin and punishment) of the Judeo-Christian belief you decry?

How, especially, is it different when at the heart of Judeo-Christian belief -- and at the heart of what you seem to be saying here -- is the hope for a better afterlife?

Ex-Christians who practice Brahmanism and study Buddhism would like to know.

[union_maid]

44. Lots of people with serious diseases

are "living here now" and making each moment count often in more important ways than they did before they became ill. Maybe something like that is what's meant.

[Sapphocrat]

45. Oh, absolutely. they are

And for many, terminal illness (or other life-altering events) can indeed trigger a "here and now" sea change.

That's easy enough to understand. What I'm trying to figure out is how one can blame the lack of "personal responsibility" for illness and death, yet simultaneously attribute illness and death to circumstances beyond one's control -- in this case, karmic retribution.

[KittyWampus]

49. Is Getting Burned Punishment For Grabbing A Hot Pot?

No, but if you do it enough times you internalize the lesson Not To Pick Up A Hot Object.

We are conditioned to consider Adversity as undesirable. Rather than realising that "terrible circumstances" are our best opportunities to learn and grow.
..........................................

A man found a catepillar ready to shed its chrysalis and pulled off the silk casing hoping to save it the trouble of working its own way out.

The resulting butterfly had mishapen and weak wings and died. Without the massive effort of working its own way out of its "bondage" it wasn't able to develope.
............................................

Past lives need NOT be out of our control... but it takes a lot of work and many lifetimes to become fully conscious of who we are and how to Operate the Universe. Noone is born full grown. Ever watch a baby eat? They make a terrible mess cause they haven't the muscle coordingation yet.

How else can we learn how to Consciously control our environment but by Trial and Error?

And being ever more Conscious requires paying a lot of Attention and making a Commitment. A Decision. The Will to take control.

And of course we very rarely reach perfection the first time we sit down and try to play piano. BTW, how is it that some very young children are able to play instruments perfectly? Could it be they practised a great deal in a previous life?
......................................................................................................

1. We are fully responsiblity for our lives.
2. We are eternally connected to one another.

The Right tends to only see #1
The Left tends to only see #2

IMO, We are the authors of our own destiny. Everything happens for a Reason.

I refuse to believe that my friends' deaths were meaningless. This also includes Mike (who wasn't gay) who got drunk and slammed his car into a tree. There was some Reason why that had to happen. And it hurts like heck being left behind. But I know he was no more defined by his dead body than a person is defined by the vehicle they travel in.

[Liberal Veteran]

51. A much better attempt at explaining what you have been trying to say.

I don't share the spirituality that you attribute to pain and suffering and adversity, but I understand that some people do believe that and derive some kind of comfort from it.

[LesIsMoore]

47. The puritanical nature of our society on the subject of sex...

I think I am in the camp of most here that there is nothing wrong with extra sex. Many of us feel that
extra deserved sex that even married people get in the privacy of their own home while their mate
is out is to be forgiven, overlooked or ignored. Our greatest President since FDR is not to be blamed
for doing what he and his co-worker did in their own privacy and it's time for the purists to just get
over it like Hillary has done and she still loves, supports and respects the Big Dog like we all do here.

[Stephanie]

54. God. Please go back to your spider hole.

Why do all of you people post the SAME thing? Is there like a camp or something where you're all taught phony buzzwords? They need to start by teaching the basics instead, like spelling and grammar, if you want to pass.

[foreigncorrespondent]

52. LV...

...before I read the responses you have received in your thread I just want to say, VERY WELL SAID!

You are spot on with what you say. Unfortunately though, there are some who lack so much intelligence, they will never understand what it is you are actually saying.

I may not have lost a great number of friends to AIDS as some here have, but having watched someone who was close to me die from AIDS during my "straight" days, I can tell you, having it brought home like that for me, woke me up to a lot of things. Perhaps those who say that AIDS is a disease of behavior need to go visit some hospitals and just sit with AIDS patients and get to know the family, freinds, and the person affected by this awful disease.

Some people just really need a wake up call.

Anyway, my friend, I pat you on the back for a wonderful OP. :)

[noiretextatique]

55. reagan's inaction was typically callous and heartless

short-sighted and irresponsible. and frankly, once a person is infected, it doesn't really matter HOW it happened. the gay community did (and does) a stellar of educating people about how to have safer sex.
i can't imagine moralizing to my cousin about how her PAST behavior caused all the problems she's having now...when she gets out of the hospital this time. nor could i imagine telling any of the people i saw descimated by this disease that their karma just caught up with them. i understand the spritual principle, bur i don't know that it gives anyone who is living with HIV/AIDS any comfort or hope.

bottom line: HIV/AIDS deserved the attention that any public health CRISIS should receive. if straight people had been dying, there wouldn't be any discussion about behavior.