• Hot Saucerman@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    it’s not 40 years later and we still have no vaccine or cure for HIV/AIDS.

    What? We have multiple examples of massive growth in treating and stopping the spread of AIDS/HIV?

    The Reagan administration literally acted like it was a joke that no one should care about because it only affected gay people. This was during a period of time where people preached that the disease was God punishing sinners. You can rewrite history all you want, but Reagan killed people by minimizing the seriousness of the disease and minimizing the gay community at the same time, essentially saying “It’s okay if we let the queers die.”

      • Hot Saucerman@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Fauci was not the one on the news cracking jokes about it and making fun of the gay men it was affecting. The entire administration didn’t take it seriously.

          • Hot Saucerman@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            It was believed to be a gay disease and that belief came from the CDC and other health organizations.

            Wow, shocker. In a period of history where queerness was regularly met with violence for being queer, straight people in positions of power were making crude assumptions about the queer community. I’m pretty sure the discrimination came first, and that’s where assumptions, even from scientists who are fallible human beings like anyone else, came from. I mean hell, this was barely 30 years after Alan Turing, a fucking war hero was chemically castrated for being gay. Doctors signed off on that, too.

            It doesn’t mean it wasn’t an issue that traveled through the entire administration. You can dump it all on Fauci’s feet if you want, but it was painfully obviously much bigger than that, with the dominant straight community pretending it wasn’t an issue, or an issue to be joked about since they didn’t think it would affect them.

                  • Hot Saucerman@lemmy.ml
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                    1 year ago

                    Yeah, we have different feelings on that. A much older man taking advantage of a younger woman when he is in a professional position of power over her is skeevy as fuck, no matter how you slice it. The Republicans were full of shit and just trying to discredit him, but the fact of the matter is he is a scummy old pervert philanderer. Honestly, a lot of my personal issues with Hillary Clinton center around her not divorcing his ass and having a great political career without him. She should have, I would have a lot more respect for her today if she had. She covered for his creepy ass in public.

                    That isn’t to say that other President’s didn’t do similar things and just didn’t have them publicized, but those were wrong, too.

                    Also, I will say that Bill Clinton at least admits when he fucked up.

                    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bill-clinton-we-blew-it-on-global-food/

                    Today’s global food crisis shows “we all blew it, including me when I was president,” by treating food crops as commodities instead of as a vital right of the world’s poor, Bill Clinton told a U.N. gathering on Thursday.