Or, the alt title for this post: “you must be THIS out of touch with the entire fucking world to run this country” (like those “this tall” signs at amusement parks). Because it seems that our elected officials, if they do or do not represent the will of the poeple, certainly think they’re in some candy-colored dream and think that Magic Mountain is a real mountain, and are rather starting to look like some kind of David Lynch characters from the retirement home dressed like 12 year olds from the 1950s waiting for their turn on the Tilt-A-Wheel. Seriously. Case in point: Senatard Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) tried to re-name the AIDS relief bill after the recently deceased Jesse Helms. The bill, titled ““Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008”.
SA 5074. Mrs. DOLE submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by her to the bill S. 2731, to authorize appropriations for fiscal years 2009 through 2013 to provide assistance to foreign countries to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows: On page 1, line 5, strike ”and Henry J. Hyde” and insert ”, Henry J. Hyde, and Jesse Helms”. (via Crooks and Liars)
You know the guy. Global leadership and AIDS — um, he’s the one who globally led the charge against not AIDS, but people WITH AIDS. Memo to Dole. No, really, this almost actually happened. Joe. My. God. reminds us:
Jesse Helms, the man who in 1987 described AIDS prevention literature as “so obscene, so revolting, I may throw up.”
Jesse Helms, the man who in 1988 vigorously opposed the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS research bill, saying, “There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy.”
Jesse Helms, the man who in 1995 said (in opposition to refunding the Ryan White Act) that the government should spend less on people with AIDS because they got sick due to their “deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct.” (…read more.)
The good news is that the bill has passed without the big “fuck you” to everyone who has half a brain, has an LGBT friend, family member, or lover; all of Act Up, everyone HIV+ who did and did not survive Helms, everyone who watched the population of San Francisco turn into a ghost town at the height of the epidemic when the president wouldn’t even say the word, and all of us gnashing our teeth watching the statistics rise, again. The good news is that the funding is triple. The problem is, the biggest AIDS relief bill in history almost carried forth the ugliest legacy of hatred I’ve seen in my generation. I think Dole is one of many so-stupid-they’re-evil elected officials, but I think she’s on her way to first place for Worst Person in The World award for her horrifyingly insensitive actions.
