Last year, I wrote an angry post for World AIDS Day. In the year since, nothing has happened to reduce my anger. This year, indignation is added on top.George Bush—my second least favourite American, after Dick Cheney—has announced he wants the US Congress to approve US$30 billion to fight AIDS. He said: “We dedicate ourselves to a great purpose: We will turn the tide against HIV/AIDS—once and for all. I look forward to seeing the results of America's generosity.”
Let me put this as generously as I can: Bush is a hypocrite. US money spent on AIDS prevention can't be spent on condoms; it must be spent to promote abstinence. How dare he make it sound like he will help fight HIV/AIDS when he and his far-right christianist buddies forbid any meaningful efforts that really would fight it?
Mind you, money spent to ease the suffering of people with the disease would be a good thing, but wouldn't it be better still to work to prevent the infection from happening in the first place? Or maybe that's too logical, too sensible.
After seven years of this regime's lies, deceptions, criminal activity, profiteering and wholesale slaughter of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, it's natural to assume their motives are dark. They apparently do nothing that doesn't enrich their buddies or advance the theocon/neocon agenda. They certainly don't care about combatting HIV/AIDS at home, and not really in Africa, either.
On the bright side, there's only one more World AIDS Day with that man occupying the White House.
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