Posted on 06/02/2007 2:13:37 PM PDT by pleikumud
The United States has responded vigorously to this crisis. In 2003, I asked Congress to approve an emergency plan for AIDS relief. Our nation pledged $15 billion over five years for HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care in many of the poorest nations on Earth. In the years since, thanks to the support of the United States Congress and the American people, our country has met this pledge. This level of assistance is unprecedented, and the largest commitment by any nation to combat a single disease in human history.
(Excerpt) Read more at whitehouse.gov:80 ...
ROTFLMFAO !!!!
BUTT, so true.
One western country after another has sunk boatloads of coin and aid into the African continent, where it has sunk into the pockets of corrupt leaders and their tribesmen, with nary a ripple to show for it.
A African ex-pat once told me that Africans have a saying: “Africa wins again.” This is a refrain upon observing the inability of civilized men to improve almost anything in Africa. He said that one tends to mutter this expression more the further north one went in Africa. Despite the best of intentions, Africa will always win against civilization.
The US would be best served by realizing that Africa is a bottomless pit of despair and a hopeless cause. This is tragic, this offends our sense of charity and our desire to “do something!”, but it is the truth. And sometimes, truth is not beautiful.
Was that $30 billion in bounties for apprehending illegal aliens? No didn’t think so.
While not every African country is, as we speak, a corrupt dictatorship, the history of African governments makes such evaluations highly ephemeral. From the mid-50’s to the mid 80’s, there were, what, 60 military coups in sub-Saharan Africa?
60 in 30 years doesn’t make for stability. It could make for terrific ratings on the evening news if anyone in the west gave a rat’s rear end anymore, but after about the rate of one coup per year, folks sorta lost interest.
An example of a non-basket case country becoming a bona fide basket case: Zimbabwe used to be a) called Rhodesia, b) stable, c) able to feed itself and export food besides, d) not a basket case. Oh, but the fact that a white minority was running the show offended western intellectuals, including one Henry Kissinger (remember him?). The whites running the show were pressured into allowing elections, and Mugabe came into power.
Since then, it has been a one-way road downhill for Zimbabwe. Now they’re importing food, they’ve run white landowners off their farms as a result of “land reforms” and handed the lands off to Mugabe’s merry band of thugs. For folks who aren’t farmers, here’s a clue: when you hand a farm off to a non-farmer, it takes only a couple years before the place is wrecked and it takes a huge effort (in both capital and labor) to make the land productive again.
Zimbabwe is headed down the road to permanent food insufficiency and becoming Yet Another Case Of African Political Famine.
All this is the result of western meddling. Even today, some countries in the EU are treating Mugabe as a perfectly normal national leader, giving him legitimacy. So in 30+ years, the west replaced white anti-democratic rulers that could keep the population fed with black anti-democratic rulers that can’t, and we used democracy to accomplish this.
Way to go. All we proved in the process is that giving democracy to a population with a primitive tribal view and understanding of civics is like giving a toddler a hand grenade: sure, it might be entertaining from a distance, but it will almost always be messy.
“Africa needs Christianity,” (I’ll agree to that one!)
and this program is one tool will NOT make that happen...”
At times I truly believe “separation of church and state” is right on! This is one of those instances.
Have you ever wondered what a program to bring Christianity to the world would look like IF we turned it over to the government? (Visualize Katrina - still a mess !)
Our churches are the answer to the AIDS problem and lets not abdicate our responsiblity to bring the truth to people in order to set them free!
That still doesn’t fix the problem that this money would be distributed through corrupt NGOs with their own agendas. Oil for Food was an admirable idea, until the kleptocrats figured out how to skim off the top.
Aid is much more effective, not to mention more Christian, when done through private channels. I will not be judged on how compassionate GW Bush was with my money. I will be judged on how compassionate I was with my money.
The US is, in a very real sense, broke. We spend, each year, billions more than we take in. We have unfunded future liabilities in the hundreds of billions. We can’t afford to carry all the problems of the world on our back. If the Africans want to cure their AIDS, they can stop being promiscuous and clean up their act, both literally and figuratively. The solution to poverty is good government. The solution to AIDS is education coupled with restraint. None of this can be imposed by outsiders. People must want it for themselves.
The US has been diligently and systematically trying to buy friends around the world throughout much of this century. Hasn’t worked, won’t work. You know the definition of insanity.
You wrote:
“Here is “the story” as I understand it: AIDS is a homosexual disease in the United States. AIDS is a heterosexual disease in Africa. End of story.
This story never made sense to me. Africa is far away, but I think chemistry, biology and medicine work the same way. Inquiry on this matter is not politically correct.”
I think it is correct to state that AIDS originated at some point in time as a homosexual disease, not a heterosexual one. It’s “root” or original cause is gay sex, not hetero sex. So if gay sex had never happened among homo sapiens, it would not be a problem. I think it is also correct that the disease has been spread from the originating homosexuals to the heterosexual population by means of blood, prostitutes, needles, etc. Now, even babies are born with AIDS.
Count on it.
Yes, I believe you are right. The rumors that she was cast up out of Hell may be premature.
As for the insanity of our projects in promoting Democracy in the Third World, see Democracy In The Third World.
William Flax
“I think it is correct to state that AIDS originated at some point in time as a homosexual disease, not a heterosexual one. It’s “root” or original cause is gay sex, not hetero sex. So if gay sex had never happened among homo sapiens, it would not be a problem. I think it is also correct that the disease has been spread from the originating homosexuals to the heterosexual population by means of blood, prostitutes, needles, etc. Now, even babies are born with AIDS.”
HIV-AIDS started as a heterosexual disease in African humans and became a “gay disease” in the US when a gay male flight attendent from Air Canada had sex with multiple partners most likely including a bi-sexual African. His name was Gaetan Dugas and he is known as “patient zero” in the HIV-AIDS epidemic in the Americas. Dugas died of kidney failure from AIDS related symptons in 1984.
In most of the world today, HIV-AIDS is not primarily a gay disease but is spread most often by injection drug addiction and sharing infected needles.
It sounds like you’re saying that AIDS is a gay disease in the U.S. but a heterosexual disease in Africa. Medical science is different on different continents? I doubt that’s the case.
Why don’t we spend money on diseases that can’t be prevented like cystic fibrosis, huntington’s disease, ALS, spina bifida, down’s syndrome and other genetic and inherited disorders.
“Gay sex is the root cause, the originating cause, of this worldwide health crisis. “
Maybe it’s an investment in illegal immigrant HIV research.
“It sounds like you’re saying that AIDS is a gay disease in the U.S. but a heterosexual disease in Africa. Medical science is different on different continents? I doubt that’s the case.”
Medical science isn’t different. The route of transmission of a virus is what is different.
How do you think that infants can be born with HIV if it is a “gay disease?” Gay men don’t produce children.
If you’d like to learn more about HIV-AIDS in Africa:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7331/207
Bush will piss away $30B on foreigners with AIDS, but will let the government fu&k every citizen that has had their paychecks robbed by Social Security? Jorge, you have sunk beneath contempt.
“Gay men don’t produce children.”
That is only partially correct. Bi-sexuals, prostitutes and other people who have been infected by needles, blood, etc. produce children.
And you also said: “The route of transmission of a virus is what is different.”
The route of transmission is different because the virus knows it’s in Africa?
I suggest our charities can deal with this horror. Our tax monies for this round the globe and in SF or LA. is not where I want my money spent. I am more afraid of terrorists coming across your open borders, gang members in LA., and the bankruptcy of our entire infrastructure, health, Medicare, SS et al. Now that would make sense. This does not. And oh btw, it will not get the GOP any more black, gay, or Hispanic votes either.
A large chunk of that $30 billion comes from short changing other medical research. Oftentimes much more promising research. And more often, for diseases that are not self inflicted. IOW, AIDS is a disease that can be largely eradicated by behavior changes. Most of the diseases that are losing research dollars to AIDS are those that people have no way of avoiding.
Also, medical research is not something that can necessarily be speeded up by shoveling in more money. After a certain point, more money is wasted.
Unfortunately, since AIDS is the most political disease in history, to say that AIDS research is getting more money than it can effectively utilize, is to commit political and professional suicide.
“That is only partially correct. Bi-sexuals, prostitutes and other people who have been infected by needles, blood, etc. produce children.
And you also said: “The route of transmission of a virus is what is different.”
The route of transmission is different because the virus knows it’s in Africa?”
A blood born virus can enter the body in various ways. Heterosexual or homosexual intercourse are two ways, sharing hypodermic needles is another way, through mother’s breast milk is a fourth way and in the womb is a fifth way.
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