World AIDS Day: more people are living with AIDS than ever before
December 1, 2005 1:30 PM   Subscribe

"[S]ave more lives" is what George Bush pledged to do in a speech today about the AIDS epidemic. With more people living with AIDS in the world than ever before, is the US's problematic stance of promoting an ABC policy and other controversial policies working? Or is it an appropriate response to a culturally touchy topic that some oddball health officials in African nations are still coming to grips with?
posted by jessamyn (18 comments total)
 
Did anyone else notice that he pronounced "condoms" as "condemns"?
posted by leapingsheep at 1:45 PM on December 1, 2005


[I]s the US's problematic stance of promoting an ABC policy and other controversial policies working?

Categorically: Bush's policies are a failure and people are dying as a result.
posted by Rothko at 1:52 PM on December 1, 2005


Abstinence is an unrealistic pipedream.

You'd have just as much success putting a male and a female rabbit in a cage and sternly warning them not to boink each other.

People have sex... it's what we do. In a way, it's why we're here.
posted by BobFrapples at 1:56 PM on December 1, 2005


I don't get what the big deal is. All I had to do to cure my AIDS was sleep with a couple virgins.
posted by mullingitover at 1:59 PM on December 1, 2005


Bush's policies are a failure

That is what I think as well. It's so odd to hear the Bush machine trot out their weirdo policies [the prostitution one is appalling and really affecting their ability to get AIDS funding in places that need it most] and then watch the fake science come out to support it. The article that I linked to on the silverthing blog is a NYT article talking about how Bush's approach of even saying that condoms were acceptable as more of a "last resort" was beyond the pale for his fundamentalist base. Incredible.
posted by jessamyn at 1:59 PM on December 1, 2005


"Mr. Bush, do you advocate total abstinence, and therefore the ultimate extinction of the human species? Because if so, I stand by you one hundred percent."
posted by Faint of Butt at 2:01 PM on December 1, 2005


so much ignorance coming out of one man's mouth, it's almost too much to take in at once. and he runs the show.
posted by wakko at 2:07 PM on December 1, 2005


AIDS is something sacred to be shared between a husband and wife!
posted by I Foody at 2:20 PM on December 1, 2005


I think Bush actually DOES have compassion - I think his belief in christian compassion is completely sincere. He just doesn't have any idea what to DO about it. And the people around him tell him that abstinence works... so that's good enough for him.

Bush is interesting in that he made it "hip" for the right to care about them people that got "The AIDS." Now even Rush Limbaugh talks about it... where before he mocked AIDS victims.

Basically, after being shamed by pop stars like Bono they have co-opted it from the left. Before Bush you rarely ever heard any prominent Republicans talk much about HIV/AIDS... unless it was to call it a plague on the gays or something.

Eventually they have to put money behind the treatments and policies that do work or they are going to look like idiots. Er. Worse idiots. I think there's hope yet.
posted by tkchrist at 2:27 PM on December 1, 2005


To play devil's advocate for a moment, abstinence is much more effective than condom use. The fact that human nature undercuts the plan is profoundly frustrating to Republicans, as it is with so many of their policies. "Why won't you people just behave?" To be fair, putting two rabbits in a cage and urging them to use a condom won't get you far either - which is to say, promoting condom use suffers from the same lack of compliance as promoting abstinence, they differ only in degree.
posted by zanni at 3:12 PM on December 1, 2005


I dont know tkchrist, I think Bush gives lip service to things that he doesn't really care about. Like the "clear skies policy that purports to show his concern for clean air that really does more to diminish air quality. And his plans for strengthening Social Security that would by all calculations cut benefits and require the government to borrow money.

Yes, I think they're that cynical and calculating.
posted by Red58 at 3:17 PM on December 1, 2005


I think that if an ABC policy promotes all three forms equally, it will be of great help to humanity and can be seen as a halfway point between our (common sense) point of view and the conservative dogma that would otherwise prohibit it.
posted by Dean Keaton at 4:13 PM on December 1, 2005


zanni: To play devil's advocate for a moment, abstinence is much more effective than condom use.

True though that may be, that's not the issue.

Condom distribution and education has been shown to be more effective that abstinence education, and that IS the issue.
posted by pompomtom at 4:14 PM on December 1, 2005


BobFrapples - You'd have just as much success putting a male and a female rabbit in a cage and sternly warning them not to boink each other.

What if one of the bunnies was really really really ugly? Kind of like the problem with captive pandas...
posted by PurplePorpoise at 4:15 PM on December 1, 2005


Here's an article describing the effects of the ABC style funding in Uganda, claimed by the American Enterprise Institute as a success story and model (also 1, 2).
posted by fleacircus at 7:16 PM on December 1, 2005


Bizarrely, South Africa [the one with the batshit insane minister of health] legalized gay marriages today. Good news, but odd timing.
posted by jessamyn at 8:09 PM on December 1, 2005


Great article, fleacircus.
posted by gsteff at 8:43 PM on December 1, 2005


Bizarrely, South Africa [the one with the batshit insane minister of health] legalized gay marriages today. Good news, but odd timing.
posted by jessamyn at 8:09 PM PST on December 1


You know your country is in a mess of trouble when South fucking Africa has saner civil rights policies.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 9:39 PM on December 1, 2005


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