MUCH ADO ABOUT A NAZI
This man must be either very talented or lucky that he is supported by a powerful and invisible sponsor. Most probably it's the second. Now he is the most famous deputee of the newly elected sub-parliament and everybody says he has won the elections. It is only partly true, the same as saying that Yeltsinists lost the elections. Maybe they really did, but does it really change anything? If the elections could change anything they would have been abolished. Those who were the architects of this farce tried their best and of course after so much money was invested in the starting part of their election campaign (the famous coup d'etat) they just couldn't afford to lose. They were smart enough to make their defeat almost impossible. They proclaimed that 25% of the voters is enough to be the basis of democracy. And they were right to do that since it could have been forseen that in some regions there will be not so many people willing to register their opinion when it really doesn't interest anybody on the top.
by Ivan Papugai
Only 54,8% of the voters turned up at the polling stations. The constitution was approved by the Russian people. Of course not by all and not everywhere. In a number of regions less than 50% of the voters went to the polls. During these elections we saw the highest percentage of abstention and voting against everybody (17%), 7% of the votes were thrown out because they weren't filled correctly. It is interesting to note that almost all the radio and TV stations announced on December 12, when the elections were the focus of media interest, that at 3 p.m. in Moscow and Leningrad only 17 and 20 per cent of the voters respectively turned up at the poll stations. But of course it is no surprise that by midnight the number was correct - a little more than 50%. It is not 99,9% of the Brezhnev era. But they don't need so much, this would have been too hypocritical.
So the man was the first. He got the largest number of votes in the majoritarian system, leaving behind all the boring and clever; he spoke the language that even three year-olds were able to understand. (*) He wasn't rich enough to bye more TV time than his vivisectorial opponent Yegor Gaidar, but he just used what he had rationally - shuting all these gentlemen up, not letting them say a word. These respectable gentlemen were not smart enough - they tried to reply intelligently, they tried to argue... This is exactly what was best for him. He was getting his new status - the status of a man whom you can argue with, the one who is accepted as an opponent. Tomorrow he will be accepted as a member of the political elite. The media will broadcast his bullshit -- what he thinks about cosmos exploration, the origins of Romanian nation, technical projects like dumping all the nuclear waste on the border with the Baltic states and making a strong wind using ventilators so they will get it all. Just a few phrases ago he was probably speaking about the rights of Russian minority on the very same territories. He has verbal diarea but nobody seems to feel the smell.
He is not the smartest, he is the brightest of all those elected. Those who are the most disaffected with his victory try their best to secure his fame. In search of sensation and trying to scare those who will probably try to think about it seriously, the newspapers write that the majority of the military voted for the real man. Later it turns out that it's not true -- the military were voting together with the civilians so nobody can know whom they really voted for. Those military who voted separately from the civilian population (1% only) in fact voted for the man. But the majority of the military never did. This is what the Central Election Committee said while announcing that media reports were not true. The report was published in small print in some of the papers. Almost nobody paid attention to it. The rest now know that military supported the man. Though it is not true, the majority believes it. And they are scared. Or they love the man themselves. Those who bother to think can be easily counted by numbers.
It's true that in the former Soviet republics he got almost half of the votes of the Russian citizens. Of the military and the civilians. Because they feel like they were betrayed and redundant for their historical nativeland. Because he was rather vocal to suuport them. He was less vocal about his desire to help the refugees who escaped to Russia, but the rest didn't even remember about them. And the man can easily promise the Earth and the Moon. Both to the workers and the entrepreuners, separately to each group, while assuring both that he won't let anybody to violate their rights.
He was obviously a Nazi, but according to the information that leaked from the president's office there was a secret decision to promote him on TV so that he could take votes from the more moderate opponents of the Yeltsin- Gaidar course. And so he did. The majority of the Communist and Gaidar electorate knew whom they are going to vote for already when the elections were announced. It wasn't so with the moderate bloc of Yavlinsky, who was both pro-democracy and pro-social guarantees. Those who hesitated whom to vote for (the overwhelming majority of the people) could have voted for Yavlinsky, since he looked smart, intelligent and nice and promised his assistance for the poor who were suffering from the shock therapy of doctor Gaidar. Of course, the guy almost didn't appear on TV. And the man took the votes of those who were hesitating.
He didn't win anyway because this would have been too much for a puppet on nomenklatura/secret police strings. He won the majoritarian vote, but that was not all. Almost all the celibrities and the necessary people got elected through the candidate system. The rulers studied the results of the April referendum and cut the territory of Russia the way that secured their victory. And though everybody thinks the man has the majority, it is not true. He posesses no serious danger to the system so far. He is the one with whom the system can make agreements on particular issues. His vocabulary is quite the same - Great Russia, Nation, State, etc. - as that of the official propaganda. He is not the only Nazi on the podium and he is not the main one. There are reasons to believe that he himself votes according to the instructions of the invisible conductors. Being a "passionate opponent of the Yeltsin regime" he in the same time supported the constitution. Of course, he said, the constitution is just a piece of paper (true), but for some weird reason he called on his electorate to support it. If you will read the text of it you will see that this parliament is a fiction too. It can't influence the policy, neither internal, nor foreign. It is there to be a constituonal democratic fiction.
The past of the man is unknown to the general public. So there are reasons to believe he is a serious politician. Back in 1988 he was just a crazy man on the street. While the oppositional activities were still semi-legal he tried to be everything - a Zionist, a radical liberal, a social democrat. He was kicked out of everywhere for reasons that were obvious. First, he was obviously crazy. Second, he was almost surely a provocateur. Some time later his party was the first to be registered. Soon he was already running for the president of the USSR. He got several million votes and was the third popular candidate. Some time later he developed his success.
Out of many people on the street, out of all the insane would-be-czars it was he who was chosen by the anonimous conductor. Being a marionette he nevertheless made a big success. He is accepted now. There is a chance that some day the strings will be too thin to hold him. Or that he as a leader will be necessary.
(*) Literally. My friend's son who is three occasionally was left at the kitchen with a TV on when the man was delivering his pre-Christmas fairy tail. Being asked what Uncle Zhirinovsky said, the boy thought and said that "It's cold here 8 month a year so there will be no ice-cream advertisments anymore. No more Snickers. The movies will be in Russian." Quite close to the original, I bet.
REVIEW: DISINFORMATION AND DISTORTION: An Anarchist Expose
The latest pamphlet put out by BAD Press can be seen as a follow up to one written some four or five years ago entitled Misinformation and Manipulation: An Anarchist Critique of the Politics of Aids. A well researched and well thought-out pamphlet, its implications reach out beyond the spectrum of AIDS politics itself and is highly recommended to our readers.
of AIDS Politics by Joe Peacott. BAD Press P.O. Box 1323
Cambridge MA, 02238 USAby Laure Akai
The beginning of this 64p. the pamphlet is devoted to substantiating Peacott's claim that the government, the media and the activist movement have manipulated the facts about AIDS to support their own political agendas. This has ranged from employing scare tactics to help promote chastity and "family values" to manipulating statistics and blowing the "epidemic" out of proportion (in relation to other diseases and illnesses which have delivered a more fatal toll to the population) in order have moral strength to beg the government for solutions. (The fact that governmental "solutions", with its focus on and interest in corporate medicine are far from the best possible is also treated extensively in this pamphlet.) In fact, what is needed is the truth about the risks of contracting HIV so that people can make informed decisions in terms of their sexual practices and other personal behaviour (such as drug injection), and not scare tactics, and sensationalized media treatments of the topic which pander to public paranoia about sex as primarily the bearer of bad consequences.
An excellent section of the pamphlet, which I will know reprint almost in its entirety, is the part entitled Teenagers, Aids and the Statisticians. Peacott thus approaches this topic: (footnotes omitted due to space considerations and personal laziness).
"Several years ago, one of the more popular and inflammatory topics for discussion about AIDS was the impending heterosexual epidemic. Since then, because this predicted outbreak never arrived, the experts and the media have casted around for a new method of frightening people, and have decided on the supposed teenage AIDS epidemic. The press now subjects us to headlines such as "AIDS Runs Wild Among Teenagers," and statements like the following: "AIDS and HIV infection are rising fastest among teens and college-age kids."
"Overblown press coverage, however is not justified by the facts of HIV-infection and AIDS rates among teenagers. Among united states teenagers as a whole AIDS cases dropped from 170 in 1990 to 160 in 1991, and among those aged 20-24, they dropped from 1626 in 1990 to 1485 in 1991. In 1992, the number of cases among teenagers was the same as in 1991, and that among 20-24 year olds declined again. Since there were so few cases earlier in the epidemic, looking at the increase in the cumulative number of cases led one newspaper to state, in 1992 that, "AIDS in 13-24 Age Range Grows 62% in Two Years," and Karen Hein, and adolescent AIDS specialist in New York was quoted in June, 1993, stating that AIDS cases among adolescents in the united states have increased 77 percent over the last two years. Howver, using the technique of looking only at the cumulative case figures, as these people have done, obscures the fact that while the number of total cases when the computation was made was significantly higher than that of two years before, the number of new cases had either fallen or remained unchanged in the most recent year.
"...Not content with simply exaggerating the overall numbers of teenagers with AIDS and HIV infection, some reporters and experts have also greatly overstated the extent of heterosexual transmission of HIV among young people. One writer in the Boston Herald, for instance, wrote in 1990 that, "AIDS in teenagers is being spread through heterosexual intercourse, with equal numbers of girls and boys being infected." In fact, the majority of cases of AIDS in teenagers have occurred among hemophiliacs (the largest single group, and almost all men), men who have sex with men, and injecting drug users of both sexes. In 1990 only 37 cases were attributed to heterosexual contact, while in 1991 there were only 21 such cases. This, of course, does not stop an alarmist like Karen Hein from declaring, in total disregard of the facts, that "The new face of the epidemic is teen-age girls."
"...In addition to the standard statistical manipulations and half-truths that have appeared in the press, a number of outright fictional statements and horror stories about HIV infection among teenagers have appeared in the press and the romour mill. Particularly outrageous were the incidents where a blood collecting agency had to publically quash rumours that "a third of the Santa Fe High School students who donated blood during a recent blood drive had tested positive for HIV," since in fact none actually had, while the texas health department had to deny the claims of a school AIDS counselor that 6 of 179 students at Rivercrest high school and seven other students at two other schools were HIV-positive, after they were unable to locate any of these students.
"Despite the nonsense we have been subjected to, it is clear that AIDS and HIV infection are not widespread among teenagers. To put it in perspective, while there are under 200 cases of AIDS among teenagers every year, 5000 die in car accidents (half preventable by seatbelt use) each year, and almost 4200 were killed by bullets in 1990. This is not to belittle the need for AIDS education among young people, but lying about the extent of AIDS and HIV infection among teenagers, just as has been done in the case of heterosexually active adults, can not only lead to a diversion of efforts away from those most at risk, but may well promote an irrational fear of sex or an even more irrational - and dangerous- fatalism and increased risk- taking. As writer Micheal Fumento said in The New Republic, "The disinformation campaign that grossly overemphasizes the groups and activities least at risk of getting AIDS does those in greater jeopardy no favor."
"The hysteria about teen AIDS has led to a debate about AIDS education and condom distribution in the schools, the likely result of which, whichever sides wins out in the end, will be the continued intrusion of the state into the lives of young people, with little, if any effect on the course of the AIDS outbreak among students. The conservative anti-sex side of the debate supports teaching abstinence as the only way to avoid AIDS and is opposed to any sex education in the schools at all. The other side, including much of the AIDS activist movement calls for extensive sex and AIDS education in the schools, sometimes starting as early as first grade, and the distribution of condoms in schools. Unfortunately, both sides rely on the state to achieve their goals and neither side wants young people to be told the truth.
"While the dissemination of truthful information about sex and AIDS and easier access to condoms are worthwile goals, the approach of the condom distribution and sex education supporters is misguided in several ways. First, though they want the schools to teach sex education and give out condoms, they want students to be told only one message: they are all at the same (very high) risk of HIV infection and it is always unacceptably risky to have sex without latex. One "certified teen speaker for the AIDS Action Committee", in an article in the Boston Herald even made the preposterous claim that, "If HIV spreads as expected, 160 of the 400 people in my high school graduating class will be HIV-positive or dead when I go to my 20th reunion." Comic books such as The Works and Risky Business, published by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and clearly directed at teenagers, make no distinctions between different sexual activities in terms of HIV-transmission risk and take great pains to put out the message that "viruses aren't prejudiced" and "anybody can catch a virus."
"Likewise, in their song "Let's Talk About AIDS," which was written to support their "Sisters for Life " AIDS education campaign aimed at young black women, singers Salt- N-Pepa imply that oral and anal sex are equally risky. This is simply untrue. As I will discuss in greater depth later in this pamphlet, the only really high-risk sexual activity is butt fucking (and then, only for the receptive partner, or bottom), with vaginal fucking significantly less risky for women and very low risk for men. Sucking dick is very low risk, and eating pussy is essentially risk-free. So the AIDS activists are willing to have students lied to in order to frighten them into complying with their version of safer sex. Students, and everyone else, should be told the truth and encouraged to make their own choices based on reason, not fear.
"The second problem with the activists' program is that, besides advocating dissemination of an inaccurate message, they have also chosen a flawed messenger. The schools are the worst place for kids to learn about sex - or anything else, for that matter. Do we want our children's ideas about sex to be influenced by authoritarian, intolerant institutions and individuals who encourage not active decision- making and individual responsibility, but passivity and obedience? Can we reasonably expect the state and its schools to adequately discuss why buttfucking is more risky than eating pussy, or to encourage students to consider oral sex instead of fucking as a means of both birth control and safer sex?
"...If the activists feel, as I do, that sex and AIDS education in the home and school is inadequate, or that condoms are inaccessible, it would make better sense for them to act for themselves. Queer Nation has done successful leafleting campaigns about homosexuality at high schools. Similar informational leafletting - only this time with truthful information about HIV transmission - and condom distributions by AIDS activist organizations would be time and money better spent than that wasted on lobbying school committees and other politicians. Instead of encouraging state intervention in people's lives, such activity would provide a model for independent, voluntary responses to problems like AIDS."
Peacott believes , with much to substantiate this, that measures taken by the government to inform people and to help people in regards to AIDS (and presumably to just about anything), are largely misdirected, and that much of the time and energy put into fighting for changes in government policy, is better spent organizing grassroots education and help programs. Asides from this, as an anarchist, Peacott realizes that taking action for oneself or in a community, rather than relying on the government, has its own importance as an act of validating the ability of people to do by themselves, without the help or the sanction of the government. (This premise of course being the cornerstone of anarchist philosophy.) Of course, given the fact that the state continually takes control of money and resources, to restribute as it sees fit, he can understand the desire of people to see these resources go to things such as health care and education, rather than to the military, corporate subsidies, and into poiticians' pockets. He writes , "Surely if government is to confiscate my money, I'd rather see it spend the stolen goods on improving health care for people who have AIDS, than on murdering people in iraq and somalia. But this does not mean it is acceptable to advocate either higher taxes to pay for this, or a larger role for government than it already plays in regulating and attempting to control medical research and provision of health care."
A good part of Peacott's arguments against government intervention in health care choices revolve around his conviction that what would be most helpful is in fact not more government action, but rather less; he calls for government deregulation of the medical industry as one way of improving the situation in health care. (For those of you interested in these arguments, I would also recommend a previous BAD pamphlet, Regulated to Death: Anarchist Arguments Against Government Intervention in Our Lives authored by Peacott and Jim Baker, which also contains arguments for the deregulation of medicine.) Although Peacott admits that ,"A relatively free market in health care, in the context of an otherwise statist society, would certainly be distorted and far from ideal" -(and here I think that he should have also criticized the profit motive in health care, and capitalism in general, because a relatively free market in which people have the choice of purchasing what they want and need, and will have some sort of guarantee that this will be available at affordable costs can only have a limited scope under capitalism)- he realizes that all the same, that health care would probably be better, because people would have more choices, and would be freed of certain impediments constructed by the state.
"Therapeutic drug manufacture and sales should be completely deregulated. Government intervention in the drug market, through the FDA, the patent system, and the prescription system has severly restricted people's access to therapeutic drugs. The FDA, through its obstructionist rules causes delays, sometimes as long as a decade, in the release of effective drugs available in other countries. Prescription laws prevent people from choosing which drugs they want to take when, and forces them to hire the services of expensive conventional doctors in order to obtain the medicines they wish to take. And the patent system, by preventing competition in the manufacture and sale of drugs, allows pharmaceutical companies to charge extortionate prices for their drugs. A free market in drugs would produce plentiful, cheap and varied medicines for treatment of AIDS and its related diseases.
"...Health care providers should be similarly deregulated. The government, through its licensing of health care providers and institutions, both limits people's health care options and makes available health care artificially costly. Most alternative methods of healing, many of which may be beneficial to people who have AIDS, are heavily regulated and restricted by law, and, consequently unlikely to be covered by health insurance policies. Granting monopoly status to convential physicians, either MDs or DOs, has allowed these groups to control the number of providers, maintaining a shortage, and thus driving up prices. Free competition among health care providers would allow people who have AIDS to choose whatever kind of health care provider they desire, and competition between providers would drive down costs to affordable levels."
There is much here which deserves further serious discussion. Deregulation is, and has been a taboo idea, even in more radical or liberal circles, due in part to the myths of specialization, to the idea (naive) that the government, and other official bodies exist to protect us, and that only their benevolent wisdom will ensure that we get safe drugs and qualified doctors, despite the obvious fact that the government has not only approved, but has developed drugs and chemical agents that are indeed harmful for human life. But perhaps what frightens people more about the idea of deregulation is the fear that people will make uninformed decisions, or will be led astray by devious drug peddlars, or treated by incompetent doctors; what many seem to fail to take into account is that now, as doctors are often accredited with an unquestionable knowledge of the best medical treatments and care methods, people are very reliant on their doctors, often taking drugs or submitting to treatment with little knowlege of what they are doing, and that perhaps allowing medical alternatives to exist more openly, and allowing people to educate themselves and pratice various forms of medicine will motivate people to actually become much more informed, and to start looking at medicine as not only the realm of the government approved, traditionally ($) educated specialist, but of the average person as well.
Peacott is totally for the individual's right to make his or her own choices, even if these choices seem like risky behaviour. Different people should be able to choose how much risk they are willing to take in their lives; they should have ready access to the facts about the risks they are taking, but Peacott realises that even when people know that something is potentially dangerous, they might choose to do it anyway, and that decision should be respected. In particular, Peacott addresses the problems of AIDS and intervenous drug use. While readily crediting those who have campaigned for greater access to needles or have done something to make them more readily available to IDUs, he also dislikes tendencies which view drug use as a mental disease or a moral difficiency, rather than a personal choice.
"Opposition to needle use arises from the opposition to drug use that is so widespread in this country. Many feel that drug use for recreational purposes is evil and destructive, and therefore to be avoided. Others consider it a sign of illness, either physical or "mental". Despite the differences in their views of the nature of drug use and users, both groups feel that the sale and consumption of recreational drugs should be suppressed by the state, and users wither punished or "treated". Consequently, anything that could be construed as facilitating drug use is to be dealt with in a similar fashion. However, there is no evidence to support the contention that more people would inject drugs if needles were freely accessible. In fact, the states with the toughest laws around drugs and needles are precisely the places with the highest rates of recreational injectable drug use."
Part of this pamphlet is addressed to activists and Peacott, although often praising the work of activists in circumventing the government and medical establishment and in trying to work out approaches to alternative education about AIDS and treatment programs, also has his share of criticism of activists who have double standards of tolerance or who alienate people from their cause. As in the above passage, Peacott tries to reveal how a certain type of pernicious racism has permeated the tactics of many of the activists.
"It is interesting to note that the activists have singled out the catholic church for special contempt, although anti-homosexual ideas are spread by many religious leaders of all faiths, including many black protestant and jewish clergy. However, activists don't attack these people becasue they fear being perceived as insensitive to black or jewish people. Similar concerns about sensivity don't seem to come up when the targets are catholics. Since the catholic church is large and influential (and largely white), activists consider it a legitimate target for actions they would not take against other religious groups."
Mostly, however, Peacott criticises the mainstream of AIDS activism for relying too much on the government and of distorting reality to fit their political agenda. Activists, for example, often use unrealiable or misleading statistics from the mainstream media which are frequently reported in terms of cumulative cases. As Peacott notes, "Concentrating on cumulative totals lends an apocalyptic feel to statistics about AIDS, making it seem more widespread and dangerous than it actually is." Also, "While many in the AIDS establishment and the AIDS movement seem wedded to the idea of AIDS as holocaust, the numbers don't support their case." He notes that, despite the claims of many activists,a good deal of money is dedicated to AIDS, disproportionately so in relation to other diseases, but that does not guarantee a cure. In addition, "...much of the money dedicated to AIDS programs, wherever it has been acquired, has been misspent, directed at people at low risk of AIDS."
Among the people at low risk, Peacott points out, are female non-IDUs (and non-hemophiliacs), particulary lesbians. Still, that doesn't stop the alarmists, the anti- sex zealots and some "activists" from playing up the risk.
"Safe sex information aimed at women who have sex with women is even more distorted than that aimed at homosexually active men. Most studies have shown no sexual transmission of HIV between women, but there have been a handful of anecdoctal reports of such transmission, most recently that of two women in texas, although an expert on AIDS among homosexually active women has stated that only one of these two women is likely to have acquired HIV from another woman. Such a small number of cases among the millions of women engaging in sex with each other, should be cause for reassurance and elation. Instead we see the kind of fear- mongering evidenced by the following headline found in the feminist journal, New Directions for Women: "Nowhere to Hide:AIDS an Equal Opportunity Killer Invades the Lesbian Community." Women are frequently advised to use rubber gloves and dental dams when having sex with other women, despite the fact that most of them know no other women who acquired HIV homosexually. Prominent lesbian activists tell the story of their decision to get tested for HIV (both were negative, of course) in the lesbian/gay press, while safer sex groups visit women's bars to hand out kits containing gloves, dams and safer sex disinformation, and women-only porn movies feature performers who wear gloves and use dams. Time, money and effort are being wasted on such efforts, while those who are taken in by the arguments of the safer sexers are unnecessarily sacrificing their sexual pleasure."
And,
"...Besides being counterproductive, the anti-drug position is also hypocritical coming from the many activists who engage in homosexual sex. The same experts and "scientists" who still call recreational drug use a disease, until recently thought of homosexual sex the same way. Drug and needle use, like homosexual sex, are voluntary, private activities which are the business of no one but the participants."
Of course this can lead to a debate over how people make choices, over whether free choice really exists, and whether something like drug use is a totally private matter. (I am writing this for example in a country where alcohol abuse is rampant, particularly given the social situation, and drunks readily abuse the people around them.) I would argue that, while respecting others rights to do as they like with their bodies and their lives, including things most people would tend to look at as self destructive, there must also be a sensitivity of how our actions can effect others. (For example, smoking in the workplace. Although smoking might be your personal choice, it might not be that of your co-worker, and that person's right to a smoke-free environment will be enfringed upon if you smoke in that person's presence. ) I should say however that the possible effects of drug users' actions over other people's lives should not be blown out of proportion, especially if motivated by any moralistic (and undeserved) contempt of drug users; to put things into perspective, I would argue that the actions of any number of businesspeople are more likely have a much more far reaching and detrimental effect on our lives, yet society at large hasn't declared a war on them, and most certainly doesn't view them as "mentally ill".
Perhaps more potentially controversial is Peacott's insinuation that a largely white activist community, and perhaps a smaller non-white one, by separating people on the basis of their skin colour (in regards to creating separate strategies for communicating with non-white people) is helping to perpetuate a largely artificial and unnecessary division. In regards to AIDS specifically, he writes that, "Much press has been given to the disproportionately high rate of HIV infection and AIDS among "people of colour". While it is politically correct to lump all people who aren't white together under this classification, there is a major problem with this group-based way at looking at people: namely, that people who are not white do not all engage in the same activities, and therefore do not run similar risks of HIV infection." In fact, the insinuation that Peacott makes (and that I myself am aware of) is the fact that a patronizing, latent racism is often behind the veneer of separation. (This can also be seen in regards to women and the special place accorded them in some activist circles.) Peacott gives an example of activists applying different standards to people of colour, (confusing challenge with contempt), who in such a way failed the people they were purporting to help.
"This idea that black and latin people need to be talked to differently from white people can also backfire and directly hurt AIDS education efforts among black or latin people. For instance, some area residents objected to a billboard in a black neighborhood in Boston that featured black people talking about AIDS and condoms, and forced its removal. Even though the billboard was designed by two black women and other black people publically expressed their support for keeping the billboard in place, there was no attempt on the part of AIDS activists or service organizations to intervene in the incident and prevent removal of the sign. This was despite the fact that AIDS organizations in Boston were able, for example, to convince (and sometimes force) the unwilling local transit authority to carry various pro-condom ads. The AIDS groups also tried to get the city government to force all bars and restauarnts with entertainment licenses to carry condom machines, regardless of any opposition based on religious or other "cultural" convictions of the proprietors. The unwillingness to confront the ignorance and biases of some, while catering to that of others, under the guise of "cultural sensivity" is based on racist assumptions about the differences between people and their ability to learn and change.
"Interestingly, while the more zealous among the safer sexers are willing to distort information about sexual transmission of HIV to terrorize people into draping their body parts in latex in any and all sexual encounters, they are more than willing to deemphasize other kinds of risks when it suits their political agenda. For example, the activists wish to have condoms distributed by school personnel. Therefore, when those who oppose giving out condoms in the schools bring up the failure rate when condoms are used to prevent conception and claim that they would be even more likely to fail to prevent HIV transmission, the pro-condom forces routinely dismiss such concerns. This is despite the fact that condoms do indeed sometimes rip or fall off, although not as often as the anti-condom people imply, and are more likely to do so in rectal than in vaginal intercourse. Remember these are the same folks who themselves exaggerate the practically non- existent risk of woman-to-woman transmission of HIV."
Disinformation and Distortion, although seemingly a pamphlet on a single issue, touches on various important ones, from reliance on government, to politics that downplay the importance of pleasure in this libertarian critique of AIDS politics. Although at times I felt that certain aspects of the problem were not sufficiently examined (such as the role of the media or capitalism 's influence on health care), these are usually well treated in other articles on AIDS politics, so perhaps the author felt that they have already gotten their fair share (or too much of it) already. Joe tries to keep a consistent libertarian view of the problem, rejecting increased government action as the answer to the problem, instead calling for less government meddling in people's lives and for greater individual action and responsbility for their actions. I hope that those of you who have found this review interesting will take the time to read the whole pamphlet, and, more importantly, I hope that it will eventually spur some serious debate on any of the important issues that the author raises.
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