Tribute

[MachineVX]

Although AIDS was first reported in the medical and popular press in 1981, it was only in October of 1987 that Reagan publicly spoke about the epidemic. By the end of that year 59,572 AIDS cases had been reported and 27,909 of those women and men had died. When doctors at the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health asked for more funding for their work on AIDS, they were routinely denied it. Between June 1981 and May 1982 the CDC spent less than $1 million on AIDS and $9 million on Legionnaire's Disease. At that point more than 1,000 of the 2,000 reported AIDS cases resulted in death; there were fewer than 50 deaths from Legionnaire's Disease.


Heraclid, what offer are you referring to? Are you making a terroristic threat?

[transio]

Not sure if this will help anyone, but it's worth a shot. Re:

1. Ronald Reagan - Good or evil, it doesn't really matter, he's gone, and there's no benefit to arguing over how his life affected this world.
   
2. Death - We're all gonna die, like it or not. "Respect for the dead" is a little baseless, unless you're religious, but at least respect someone who isn't present to defend himself.
   
3. Good and Evil - These are myths. There's no such thing as objective Good and Evil. Every situation can subjectively perceived as either good or evil depending on perspective. Calling someone evil is a very ego-centric and borderline narcissistic.
   
4. America - Wow, people really love this country and all the people in it. Too bad we could give a sh*t less about the rest of the world. Last I checked, all humans were essentially the same. Why, then, do we worship those people who serve only to build up "our great nation" and leave the rest of the people of the earth to rot? I say we should push for a universal government and economic system, and minimize government as much as possible. But hey, that's just me. I know most Americans would be against that, because it would lower our quality of life a little.
   
5. Choice - It's debatable whether we have a choice in anything. One could say that a being of infinite intelligence and knowledge would be able to predetermine any and every event for all of history. This is a derivation of hard determinism. If you believe in an omniscient god, you may pretty much believe in it. I could debate this one issue for hours, but I'll spare you.
   
6. Homosexuality - Ok, let's say we believe in choice at all. If that's the case, sexuality is, like most attributes of people, a combination of genetics and socialization. This is a fact. There are genetic attributes that will make a man more prone to homosexuality, but there are also social circumstances that will lead to the same. A great example of a socialized homosexual is the "lipstick lesbian". These are women who aren't genetically predisposed to liking girls, but practice lesbianism mostly because it's fashionable. It's still arguable that it wasn't really a choice, but it's certainly not a genetic predisposition.
   
7. AIDS - The more we cure diseases by way of medicine, the stronger the diseases get and the weaker humanity gets. Read up on Darwin a bit. Not that I'm saying this is a bad thing. Remember the objective good and evil thing? If humanity destroys itself, it's certainly for the good of something. Maybe nature?

[Kahuna]

You know's so cool about this forum. There is a little button you can push and that button will put whoever you want to be on your ignore list so you don't have to read the ramblings of an ill-informed non-educated pesimist that doesn't know the difference between stupidity and ignorance. Everything they write is simply deleted from a thread.

TRY IT! I'ts wonderfull


not you-transio

[dutchie]

As with all presidents, there are opponents and supporters,
before we start attacking somebody, it's sometimes better to stop and listen to what they have to say...
If somebody suffered personal damage, because of something or someone, than a tribute to this thing or person, is like a slap in the face and a kick in the groin..

So if you salute a controversial person, expect controversy..

.and don't become personal.....that's just plain childish!

[Heraclid]

MachineVX, yeah better watch out - I have VX. LOL! Silly wabbit.

You got it all wrong.

I believe AIDS was not reported until 1982. Regardless, from 1984 on, every Reagan budget included a large sum specifically earmarked for AIDS to address the growing epidemic.

It is a common mistake among Reagan critics to point out that he did and said nothing about the AIDS epidemic until 1987. The source of the misconception comes from "The Encyclopedia of AIDS: A Social, Political, Cultural, and Scientific Record of the HIV Epidemic" edited by Raymond A. Smith. It erroneously says that "Reagan never even mentioned the word 'AIDS' publicly until 1987."

Official White House papers show that the 40th president spoke of AIDS no later than September 17, 1985. Responding to a question on AIDS research, the president gave an account of past and projected federal spending on the problem thus far and said, in reference to AIDS, that "this is a top priority with us. Yes, there's no question about the seriousness of this and the need to find an answer." In the end, actual federal spending during his presidency would far exceed his original figures.

President Reagan's February 6, 1986 State of the Union address included this specific passage where he says the word "AIDS" five times:

"We will continue, as a high priority, the fight against Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). An unprecedented research effort is underway to deal with this major epidemic public health threat. The number of AIDS cases is expected to increase. While there are hopes for drugs and vaccines against AIDS, none is immediately at hand. Consequently, efforts should focus on prevention, to inform and to lower risks of further transmission of the AIDS virus. To this end, I am asking the Surgeon General to prepare a report to the American people on AIDS."

In February 1986 President Reagan's budget for the next fiscal year stated the following:

"This budget provides funds for maintaining and in some cases expanding high priority programs in crucial areas of national interest including drug enforcement, AIDS research, the space program, nonmilitary research and national security." Reagan's budget message added that AIDS "remains the highest public health priority of the Department of Health and Human Services."

New York University's archived hard copies of budget documents from 1984-1989 show that Reagan proposed at least $2.79 billion for AIDS research, education, and treatment, but in a Congressional Research Service study titled "AIDS Funding for Federal Government Programs: FY1981-FY1999", author Judith Johnson found that overall, the federal government spent $5.727 billion on AIDS under Ronald Reagan. This higher number reflects President Reagan's proposals as well as additional expenditures approved by Congress that Reagan went on to sign into action.

Johnson's report shows annual federal AIDS spending during Ronald Reagan's watch was hardly the portrait of a do-nothing presidency:

Government Spending on HIV/AIDS

1982 - 8 million
1983 - 44 million
1984 - 103 million
1985 - 205 million
1986 - 508 million
1987 - 922 million
1988 - 1.6 billion
1989 - 2.3 billion

Source: Congressional Research Service

Some like to run around saying it still wasn't enough, but that's the kind of argument that takes place over everything in the federal budget. Reagan did quite a lot about it and got some results. There were no anti-virals back then. The first anti-viral developed was AZT which came along in 1987, and that was for AIDS. In all the years since then, despite the continuation of massive funding, there is still no cure. Clearly the lack of a cure to date is not due to a lack of trying, and certainly not to a lack of trying on the part of a president who left office in 1989.

Reagan's daughter, Patti Davis, recalled "the clear, smooth, non-judgmental way" in which her dad discussed the topic of homosexuality with her when she was age eight or nine:

"My father and I were watching an old Rock Hudson and Doris Day movie. At the moment when Hudson and Doris Day kissed, I said to my father, "That looks weird."... All I knew was that something about this particular man and woman was, to me, strange. My father gently explained that Mr. Hudson didn't really have a lot of experience kissing women; in fact, he would much prefer to be kissing a man. This was said in the same tone that would be used if he had been telling me about people with different colored eyes, and I accepted without question that this whole kissing thing wasn't reserved just for men and women."

"I remember Reagan telling us that in Hollywood he knew a lot of gays, and he never had any problem with them," says Martin Anderson, a high-level Reagan advisor since 1975 and coeditor of Reagan: A Life in Letters, the latest collection of material that Ronald Reagan wrote in his own hand. "I think a number of people who were gay worked for the Reagans," Anderson told me. " His basic attitude was 'Leave them alone.'"

Reagan opposed Proposition 6, a 1978 ballot measure that called for the dismissal of California teachers who "advocated" homosexuality, even outside of schools. Reagan used both a September 24, 1978 statement and a syndicated newspaper column to campaign against the initiative.

"Whatever else it is," Reagan wrote, "homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles. Prevailing scientific opinion is that an individual's sexuality is determined at a very early age and that a child's teachers do not really influence this." He also argued: "Since the measure does not restrict itself to the classroom, every aspect of a teacher's personal life could presumably come under suspicion. What constitutes 'advocacy' of homosexuality? Would public opposition to Proposition 6 by a teacher, should it pass, be considered advocacy?"

That November 7, Proposition 6 lost, 41.6 percent in favor to 58.4 percent against. Reagan's opposition is considered instrumental to its defeat.

"Despite the urging of some of his conservative supporters, he never made fighting homosexuality a cause," wrote Kenneth T. Walsh, former U.S. News and World Report White House correspondent, in his 1997 biography, Ronald Reagan. "In the final analysis, Reagan felt that what people do in private is their own business, not the government's."

Reagan evidently exhibited tolerance of homosexuality in his private life, and when it comes to public policy, he opposed the persecution of gays and devoted considerable taxpayer resources to AIDS research and treatment. The ideas that Ronald Reagan did nothing about AIDS and hated gays are both tired, left-wing lies about an American legend.

[MachineVX]

I was wrong that Reagan didn't mention AIDS until '87. I'll clarify my statement by saying Mr. Reagan did not make extensive public comments on AIDS until 1987

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As for funding, $5.7 billion over eight years -- less than a billion a year for a disease that is incurable almost universally terminal isn't impressive. Besides, at least one billion of that came at the urging of Henry Waxman in 1988, and more than half of it came in the last Reagan Budgets after years of pressure from groups.
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In Reagan's authorized biography, Dutch, author, Edmund Morris, writes that Reagan once said of AIDS, "Maybe the Lord brought down this plague," because "illicit sex is against the Ten Commandments."


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And while Reagan may have been tolerant towards gay people, either Reagan approved of his administration's statements or was too out of the loop to control his people.

For example,

Reagan's communications director Pat Buchanan argued that AIDS is "nature's revenge on gay men."

Here is a transcript from Reagan's Spokesperson, Larry Speakes, using a question about AIDS as a way to make queer jokes.

October 15, 1982.:


Q: Larry, does the President have any reaction to the announcement from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, that AIDS is now an epidemic and have over 600 cases?

MR. SPEAKES: What's AIDS?

Q: Over a third of them have died. It's known as "gay plague." (Laughter.) No, it is. I mean it's a pretty serious thing that one in every three people that get this have died. And I wondered if the President is aware of it?

MR. SPEAKES: I don't have it. Do you? (Laughter.)

Q: No, I don't.

MR. SPEAKES: You didn't answer my question.

Q: Well, I just wondered, does the President ...

MR. SPEAKES: How do you know? (Laughter.)

Q: In other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke?

MR. SPEAKES: No, I don't know anything about it, Lester.

Q: Does the President, does anyone in the White House know about this epidemic, Larry?

MR. SPEAKES: I don't think so. I don't think there's been any ...

Q: Nobody knows?

MR. SPEAKES: There has been no personal experience here, Lester.

Q: No, I mean, I thought you were keeping ...

MR. SPEAKES: I checked thoroughly with Dr. Ruge this morning and he's had no - (laughter) - no patients suffering from AIDS or whatever it is.

Q: The President doesn't have gay plague, is that what you're saying or what?

MR. SPEAKES: No, I didn't say that.

Q: Didn't say that?

MR. SPEAKES: I thought I heard you on the State Department over there. Why didn't you stay there? (Laughter.)

Q: Because I love you Larry, that's why (Laughter.)

MR. SPEAKES: Oh I see. Just don't put it in those terms, Lester. (Laughter.)

Q: Oh, I retract that.

MR. SPEAKES: I hope so.

Q: It's too late.

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Dr. C. Everett Koop, Reagan's surgeon general, has said that because of "intradepartmental politics" he was cut out of all AIDS discussions for the first five years of the Reagan administration. The reason, he explained, was "because transmission of AIDS was understood to be primarily in the homosexual population and in those who abused intravenous drugs." The president's advisers, Koop said, "took the stand, 'They are only getting what they justly deserve.' "
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Writing in the Washington Post in late 1985, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, stated: "It is surprising that the president could remain silent as 6,000 Americans died, that he could fail to acknowledge the epidemic's existence. Perhaps his staff felt he had to, since many of his New Right supporters have raised money by campaigning against homosexuals."
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at the 1986 centenary rededication of the Statue of Liberty. The Reagans were there sitting next to French president Francois Mitterand and his wife, Danielle. Bob Hope was onstage entertaining the all-star audience. In the middle of a series of one-liners, Hope quipped, “I just heard that the Statue of Liberty has AIDS, but she doesn’t know if she got it from the mouth of the Hudson or the Staten Island Fairy.” As the television camera panned the audience, the Mitterands looked appalled. The Reagans were laughing.

[t2p]

His draconian social policies and fear of hypothetical welfare queens hurt millions of Americans and put many thousands of people on the streets.

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Those policies helped to eliminate some of the 'programs' that helped to propel the US into it's worst economic tailspin since the Great Depression.
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[t2p]

Let us remember Ronald "Raygun" Reagan as a mass murderer, whose support of Nicaraguan Contras, conspiring with Iran, killed over 200,000 Men, Women and Children. Let us remember him as a supporter of the Taliban and someone who armed Osama Bin Laden and directly led to the deaths of thousands of Americans in the War on Terror.

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In retrospect, these decision did have consequences - consequences Reagan was (or became) aware of. But they did limit the US involvement - and kept the US out of war.

[t2p]

Let us remember him as someone who's supply side Reaganomic policies are still used by the Republican Emperors to run up a record debt, bolster the military-industrial complex, and cut social services, hurting millions of Americans.

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The policies - not without their consequences - helped the US climb out of the worst economic tailspin since the Great Depression. 'Longest PEACETIME period of economic expansion' is the phrase that I read and hear often.

[t2p]

And lets not forget that he was a bad guy to his own children, treating the two children from his first marriage as such pariahs that there were official biographies that failed to list them.

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I thought the Reagan children payed great tribute to their father -especially for a 'bad guy'.
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[MachineVX]

Either Reagan knew that his administration subverted the Constitution and the will of Congress to send arms to Iran in exchange for money and cocaine or he was clueless. Either way is un-heroic and either way maintained an illegal war in Nicaragua, in violation of the Constitution that Reagan pledged to uphold.
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Grenada was invaded because Cubans were building an airstrip for tourism.
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And his children from his first marriage said kind things about the man after he got sick. He was, afterall, their father. But when growing up, Reagan didn't bother to tell Patti that she had a sister. When Maureen confronted him, he just shrugged it off with that vacant look of his and said he just hadn't gotten around to telling her. His daughter Patti Davis, notorious for her colorful life and tell-all memoirs, remarked in 1991, “The mark of this family is that everybody is distanced from everybody else. ...There was no glue in this family.” Once, Reagan failed to recognize Michael after giving the commencement speech at his graduation from an Arizona boarding school. “My name is Ronald Reagan,” he said to his son. “What’s yours?” Michael, in a 1988 memoir, wrote that he spent his childhood seeking affection. He complained that he and Maureen were raised by nannies and maids. After their parents divorced, they were sent to boarding school — Maureen at 7, Michael at 5. It was only when Michael was 14 and returned to live with his father that the children from his second marriage learned they had half-siblings from his first.

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Reagan's policies helped cause the worst recession since the Great Depression: two bleak years with nearly double-digit unemployment! Reaganomics failed in less than a year, and it took an entire second year for the economy to recover from the failure. The total federal tax burden increased during the Reagan years, and most Americans paid more in taxes after Reagan than before. Six years into Reagan's presidency, Democrats retook the Senate, and began to reverse some of Reagan's horrendous policies. By that time, Reaganomics had "accomplished" quite a bit: doubled the national debt, caused the S&L crisis, and nearly wrecked the financial system. The economy enjoyed its recovery only after total tax increases larger than the total tax cuts were implemented. Most importantly, average annual GDP growth during the Reagan 80s was lower than during the Clinton 90s or the JFK-LBJ 60s.

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Ron Regan Jr. on W -- "The big elephant sitting in the corner is that George W. Bush is simply unqualified for the job... What's his accomplishment? That he's no longer an obnoxious drunk?"

[t2p]

Reagan's policies helped cause the worst recession since the Great Depression: two bleak years with nearly double-digit unemployment!

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whaddayacrazy ? ........

ummmm ...... I believe Ronald Reagan - as president - inherited the recession - not caused it. And I believe even his harshest critics - excluding you - will agree with me.
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Of course it took a few years - the country was a mess.