I have seen some stupid comments here today

[freetobegay]

About AIDS activist & how they are protesting.

I was an activist when the AIDS epidemic started & I am here to tell you if we didn't get crazy we would have never been noticed. There are alot of people that needs to kiss the ground that the early activists walked on!

I was arrested on more than one ocassion in the late 80's for my activisim & I would do it again in a heart beat. There is no bad way to protest, the only thing bad is people mocking other people for trying to get change (thats a Republican value!).

[Liberal Veteran]

1. Details please....I may join you in setting some people..er...straight.

Those protests were necessarily disruptive. It was the only way to get attention from a government that was siting on their hands while thousands were dying.

[RodneyCK2]

2. Same here my friend and thanks for the post.

When people are angry and the media ignores your cause/issues, then you have to make yourself heard. The AIDS activism during the 80's is a good example.

[John Q. Citizen]

3. Act up

did an incredible job of attracting lots of media attention to the issue. It's a classic case study in how a small organized group can make a huge impact on the national dialouge.

[Liberal Veteran]

5. They were right: SILENCE = DEATH!

Too bad ACT UP has been hijacked by whack job HIV denialists in the last few years.

[Bluebear]

4. delete

[Liberal Veteran]

7. I think it's a bad idea to let FAUX news dictate strategy.

We could all go out there in three piece suits and sing kum by ya and FOX news would paint us as nut jobs.

[freetobegay]

8. I am sick & tired of people saying, not to play into thier hands!

Yes I do do think it will make a difference. I was told in the 80's why bother no one will listen. We proved them wrong. Just like we will now.

[Bluebear]

13. delete

delete

[RodneyCK2]

9. It is not about playing into the consciences of Republicans...

or playing into Faux News' spin. It is about taking attention away from the RNC and making yourself heard. Sometimes, it takes a lot of shouting and extreme measures to turn heads.

[John Q. Citizen]

19. I agree with your point

but it's a free counrty

[DemVIctory]

6. As someone else pointed out earlier-

We are damned if we do and damned if we don't. Thousands of crazy OOC
protestors will be spun to make us look violent or a minimum of 'out of the mainstream.' Meanwhile protestors lacking in numbers or crazyness will be seen as 'They all support us!' That is our prob with todays tv media. BTW thank you for your efforts to fight AIDS.

[AnnInLa]

10. The "Right to Choose" activists in yester-year

also did some crazy things just to get media attention = national attention. To begin a national AWARENESS, so I agree wholeheartedly with your last sentence. You do what ya gotta do.

[Liberal Veteran]

15. We will get spun badly regardless.

Conservative protests are spun by the media as "Pro-USA" rallies or Right-to-Lifers are spun as "Good people of Conscience" as they shout and hold up pictures of dead babies and have little coffins and such.

Of course many of those same "Right to Lifers" show up outside a prison at an excution and are portrayed as bleeding heart whack jobs and nutcases.

The simple fact is that it wouldn't matter if we put on our Sunday best and held a silent prayer vigil, the right wing media would portray us as nutcases and fringe lunatics.

It's a fact.

[DeepModem Mom]

11. I salute AIDS activists, but change at this moment means swing voters --

very few of whom will be swayed by naked demonstrators in the streets of New York. Nor will these naked demonstrators sway George Bush in, God forbid, his second term. This is a window in time in which to consider one of the civil rights movement's mantras, eyes on the prize.

[freetobegay]

14. Sorry death will not wait on swing voters

I will not ask anyone with ADIS to wait for the right moment to protest. Quite frankly they don't have the time.

[DeepModem Mom]

16. If protests prove counter-productive, lives are lost, not gained, IMO...

but ftbg, I understand and respect your view, and value both you and your opinon. I'm truly sorry if comments today have offended you.

[jonnyblitz]

18. THANK YOU!!

geezuz. :thumbsup:

[Malva Zebrina]

12. so sorry that happens and it seems to happen a lot here

People have pre ordained notions on how other people should behave. Yet, whether they realize it or not, they owe a lot to these protestors.

AIDS has come to forefront and has made strides over the years. Reagan ignored their plight . I once went to a mass with my daughter, and the priest's sermon was on aids and he said "even innocent people are getting aids"


we hear nothing like that now and many more are being helped and possibly cured in the near future.

The same thing happened with women's liberation protests, although there was not, of course, the dire threat of death hanging over these. Women threw their bras into a can a set it on fire. Soon that movement played itself out. Now we see women lashing out today at the movement, yet they reap the benefits that are actually a result of that movement wihthout a word of thanks. We have a lot to thank these first women for, even though they were subjected to horrible taunts anad still are. The first women sufragettes were also subjected to terrible taunts and abuses, and in that era, the churches were all villifying them and that was eneough to be ostrasized by the community.

People posting are up tight here becasue this election is so crucial and is so close and they fear, with good reason, another four years of Bush. They so do want from the bottom of their heart, to have nothing that Bush can hang on them. Well, he is then, after all, running the show is he not? He will find something, no matter if thousands of people dress like CEO's and march with gags over their face, believe me.

[jonnyblitz]

17. i cant believe people worry that some swing voter wont vote

for Kerry because somebody got naked in a protest!! UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE. its gonna be a LONG week for these puritanical prisses. they better go cower under the bed NOW until this is over..

[prolesunited]

20. So, are you

protesting naked this week? ;-)

Sorry I'm missing all of the fun. Unfortunately, money *is* an object. Take care and be safe. :hi:

[OHswingvoter]

21. I have never been involved in

a protest myself. But I support your right to do so as free speech. And you should feel a mandate to do whatever you think is neccessary to draw attention and support to your cause. Don't let rumors inhibit your free speech. I think that is the reason the rumors are floated to stifle the protests. The protests will make Bush look bad not anyone else. But they say it will backfire to trick the Democrats into not doing them. Well I say BullShit. When people see on their TVs how many people HATE the Bushies it may make some of them WAKE UP and VOTE. So go to it.

[RodneyCK2]

22. I think the thread you are referring to was just locked.

It was a shame. I was debating a very naive poster on the issue of AIDS in the 80's and how activism, such as ACT-UP, helped changed the cause at a time when the president wouldn't even acknowledge the disease.

The poster said there was no way to prove activism, then, changed the outcome. He went on to say, time, running its course, was responsible for changing the events and mind set (reference to Reagan's administration), not actions. He was obviously wrong if you lived through that time. People were dying, no one that could help cared, and something had to be done. ACTION! was the word.

The DU administrator deleted our threads and locked the forum, as it usually happens here. It seems debate has been extracted from the word forum on DU. Sorry, I need to rant.

My questions are as follows. Is this the way today's youth (assuming he was young, if not, how scary) thinks about the 80's and AIDS? Have we become complacent in the fact people are dying, not just with AIDS, but Iraq and the American soldiers? Isn't activism, in any form, worth saving lives?