Everytime I think the Bush administration can no longer shock and awe me, they prove me wrong. Excuse me while I go pick my jaw up off the floor and reattach it to my face.
Aids campaigners have welcomed a decision by Brazil to turn down US funds because of a clause in the agreement condemning prostitution.
The US development agency, USAid, had offered Brazil around $40m (£21m).
But Brazil's top Aids official, Pedro Chequer, said the US' conservative approach to treating the disease would not help.
Correspondents say references to prostitution are likely to become a condition for all US Aids funding.
Washington says it is important not to promote prostitution, and does not want any of its funds to be spent on treating prostitutes...
Does this make the least bit of sense to you? Block AIDS funding because the host country wants to treat sex industry workers with HIV? Sex industry workers who are the primary transmission source of the virus?? How in the sam hell does treating HIV-positive prosititutes “promote prosititution”? All a person can read into this is that BushCo would rather the hookers just die. That's their “final solution” to the AIDS epidemic in Brazil.
Where in their bible does it say to let someone die a slow and miserable death if you do not agree with them? This is wrong in so many ways that it makes me cry. I suppose you're right, just let the prostitutes die, but before they die, they'll continue to spread the virus so there really is no desire by the US to help anyone. It's all show and no heart. There is no culture of life, it's instead a culture of lies.
Not treating the prostitutes falls right in line with “abstinence only” and demonizing the folks who try to institute needle exchange programs.
The needle exchange program is one of those items that just makes so much sense. It's not as if young people (or anyone else) is going to say, “Oh,wow, I get free, clean needles if I become an IV drug abuser--way cool!” However, the Holier Than Us sneer at the idea that slowing down the spread of AIDS might keep someone they care about (son, daughter, wife, self) from getting that particular affliction.
Heartless and, actually, brainless behavior on the part of the folks who dreamed this up. Hope W's keeping Neal from going to Mardi Gras in Rio--never mind his partying in Bangkok.
These people are truly evil — nothing more than discrete nazis. And they're even losing their sense of discretion.
