The game is played like this: You are allowed to ask one question, to anyone living or dead. The question is started with, "What were you thinking when------?"
I'll start the game. A question to Ronald Reagan. What were you thinking when you knew and never spoke or provided leadership before 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS and 20,849 had died. The disease had spread to 113 countries, with more than 50,000 cases, and you didn't make any statement, until the last year of your term? The first modern case was diagnosed in 1981.
What is your What were you Thinking question??????
Thank you BBC World Sevice International.
Renegade Eye
13 comments:
Edog you are wrong on two points.
1) In the 19th century Dr. Joseph Lister, whom Listerine is named after; discovered disease is caused by microbes, not demons. AIDS is revenge against sin?
2) I'm not a liberal. My ideas on politics are mostly shaped from the early leaders of the Socialist Workers Party.
Two points.
1. I am not so sure that Reagan was as indifferent to AIDS (and gays) as you claim. Remember that Rock Hudson was a very close personal friend of his. Maybe some day someone objective (neither Dem nor Rep) will investigate and provide a unbias report. For now, liberals claim one thing and conservatives another.
2. My question would be to Kaiser Wilhelm: 'Why on Earth did you send Lenin and other Bolsheviks from Switzerland to Russia in the spring of 1917?'. If you didn't do it, Russia would remain a prosperous and happy country, Hitler would never come to power as a reaction to Bolshevik excesses, there would be no WWII, therefore no nuclear bomb, no Auschwitz, no Hiroshima, no gulags, no Mao Tse, no Pol Pot...
Sonia, we may never know Reagan's personal feelings on AIDS. What we do know is his comportment as a leader. And in that, he did little or nothing to address the burgeoning AIDS crisis either rhetorically (speeches) or in terms of public policy.
Stay within the rules of the game.
I'm flattered some want my thoughts, more than anyone else's, in all of history.
For some reason Sonia is more conservative, when she posts on my blog, than her own.
Again stay away from personal attacks please.
Brian has an intelligent, well written blog, I hope you'll visit.
Give Edog credit. He comes to blogs that he doesn't agree with, willing to engage in ideas.
You are probably right, Brian. But remember, Reagan was deceiving his own base (and Republicans were FAR more homophobic in the 1980's than they are now, as hard it is to believe), because he was far more open-minded than his supporters were ever led to believe. He simply didn't dare to publicly embrace the gays (and any meaningful speech about AIDS would force him to either denounce homosexuality - which he didn't want to do - or defend it - which he didn't dare to do). He choose to be silent.
A coward's way out? Perhaps, but do you really believe that if Ronald Reagan (of all people!) told gays in 1981 to use condoms, that they would listen to him?
It's a little like people saying (like in films like "Amen") that if Pius XII had forcefully denouced Hitler's Final Solution, then German Catholics would refuse to carry out Hitler's orders... Quite naive. The only thing such a speech would save would be Pius's reputation. Jews would have still died...
I like it, Ren, when you try to play referee in a Rodney Kingish "can't we all just get along" way...
So, you told Reidski that I wanted to reconcile with him? I actually don't recall ever saying anything nice about him (except ironically), but I agree that it would be cool if he come back and debated us here (on "neutral" ground).
I miss his insults (they turn me on), though his obsenities are nothing compared to some of the abusive statements I have received in the past. Like "you are a disgrace both to your family and your kids." I am particularly proud of that one since it came from a fanatical Stalinist (known as Angrykrill).
So you think my blog is less conservative than my statements here? Interesting, but it depends on what your definition of "conservative" is. Denouncing Ann Coulter, Pat Robertson, American imperialism etc. (like I do on my blog) might still be "conservative". And attacking Allende, Chavez, Castro, Lenin, etc. (like I do on your blog) might be far more progressive than most people could imagine.
"Ren, where's the plug for my blog?"
Well, Fontaine, Ren has a link to your blog, while you don't have any links on yours...
Ren:1
Fontaine: 0
edOg and me, we also posted questions...
My question is for "black leaders" who defend (what even Ruth Bader Ginsberg says is poor jurisprudence) Roe v Wade and planned parenthood when they know that its founder, Margaret Sanger, a eugenicist, desired to aggressively introduce abortion to black communities to cull this inferior gene pool from America? She had the temerity to record her thoughts in writing and was concerned that black folk would find her out. 14 million unborn child murders later (the equivalent of America's black population today) What were/are they thinking?
What was I thinking when I didn't plug Yebo Gogo?
Hey
Good to see a blog with leftist views
Not too many of those here in Asia
What were scientists and educators thinking when they allowed the teachings of evolution (not so much a theory anymore) to be reduced to the idea that man evolved from apes? While I believe this facet to be true, the oversimplification of this natural process has led to continued ignorance by even those who are willing to forego their human arrogances long enough to learn it. I see the same trend happening with stem cell research today, where this potentially beneficial process has become invariably linked with fetal destruction and thereby falls on deaf ears. If we are to make advances in science and medicine, we must first become smarter in how we project these new concepts to the fearful.
In response to Reagan and AIDS, his failure in leadership on this issue clearly led to a public health catastrophe, whether it was initially biased or not. However, simply using political rhetoric or throwing money at certain corporations, like Bush is doing regarding Bird Flu, is not enough to curb a crisis.
What were scientists and educators thinking when they allowed the teachings of evolution (not so much a theory anymore) to be reduced to the idea that man evolved from apes?
I don't know -- but it has produced a society of apes. Seriously, I am unimpressed with much of western society and what it has degenerated into. Whenever I have cause to speak with someone bored and bred in the west, I generally draw a great intake of breath, quite prepared for some casual dominance and submission idiocy.
You know what though? I'm not an ape. And I'm also way too clever for your operant conditioning techniques, which are supposed to turn me into a busy and productive little worker.
What was I thinking when I came to this blog seeking intellectual discourse on the condition of human events and finding schoolyard banter and juvenile one-ups-man-ship. :(
Thank God for sonia's picture or it would have been a complete waste of time. I remember my dad's old '58 DeVille ragtop had bumbers just like that.:)
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