World AIDS Day- is it midnight yet?

Guess what?

I hate world AIDS day.

I hate the compression of empathy into a 24 hour period. To really understand AIDS you have to get this simple fact through your skull- there is not a single day that is not 'world fuckin' AIDS day'. If you compartmentalize, taking annual notice December first then slumber on through 'til next December you don't know a damn thing about AIDS.

I hate 'they live as long as you remember them'.

Because my friends are not alive- no matter how much I remember them. That's what AIDS really means, and no amount of the endless wallowing in our second hand 'stories', or 'prayers', etc can ever fix that simple reality- that those we loved are really gone, and are not 'alive'.

I'm sick of it.

I'm sick of the annual ritual- lighting candles and reading names, and all of it.

Tears, and 'prayers' and candle wax mean so little in the face of not just who and what we've lost, but who and what slips through our fingers every minute of every day due to this obscene plague.

The institutionalized annual rituals like a 'stories' diary on Dkos coming around just like clockwork on Dec. 1rst just exaggerate the 364 day silence those living with AIDS and dying of AIDS endure. So once a year like a pressure valve being released, a few trickles, leak across, and a great exhale takes place as people talk about what finding they were positive was like, or we take a little space to remember those now gone.

But that's not what AIDS is.

AIDS and the world we now inhabit because of it, is perhaps the defining aspect of my generation. What the disease has done to people we care about, communities we live in, countries yes even far from us, and how it has affected our most basic relation to our own sexualities and pleasure- how we touch, and don't touch- who we open our lives and our hearts to, and who some don't dare- AIDS has touched every part of that- unless of course, your either an idiot or in denial.

AIDS in America has been swept away under language like 'manageable' or 'close as he can come without being cured'- rendered even more invisible, something I never imagined possible back in the '80's. AIDS in some other parts of the world isn't invisible, it's all around you.

But we don't see, and we don't get angry, and we hold our polite cutsie little 'remembrances' that give everyone their catharsis- until next December when they get to pull their treasured photos out and allow themselves to feel for 24 hours before putting the photos back.

No, we don't rage, we don't point fingers at those systematically gutting access to condoms and sentencing people to a premature death, no that would be impolite. We don't lift our fingers to honor our dead other than to type at a nice safe keyboard. (For those of you who do do more, clearly I'm not talking to you at the moment, feel free to read on.) Simple, basic, ordinary things like condom usage are slipping away in terms of access, public policy, and foreign policy- but apparently we're all too busy to even think about that, other than December 1rst.

Shall I get personal? Sure why not. The last damn thing the world needs is some stupid red ribbon poster with tears and famous dead people. If you want to give money to AIDS services, just do it- don't wait for some disempowering whiney poster. People with AIDS shouldn't have to wait for you to be 'asked' and you get something in return before you pry open your wallet.  But that's just me. My diary, my opinion.

People come on Dkos and whine 'we need the next ACT-UP, maybe we can get those guys (And gals!) outta retirement'. And no, I'm not kidding.

The complacent shit I see around here? Many of today's 'activists' aren't worthy of wearing my dead pal's leathers, let alone stickers, least of all the red paint.

I sit here looking at massive threads contemplating the pros and cons of an Obama run for the presidency. You know, the sort of democrat who feels it's important to reach out to AIDS evangelism marketing leeches like the Rick Warrens and Sam Brownbacks of this world. You know, the same folks who think jesus and abstinence must replace condom distribution. The nonsensicality of people posting the pictures and stories of our AIDS dead in one thread and then cheering on Obama in the next is not lost on me. Nor would it have been lost on my dear dead friends.

Because when it's personal and the clock is ticking many folks just don't have time or lifespan for the bullshit. And that's what this kind of Dem: one hand mourning and preying and crying around and around in circles over our dead all the while working with the anti-needle exchange, anti- condom, anti-sex assholes is- nonsensical.

I'd call it pitiful, but too many people just don't have time or energy to waste dwelling on the stupidity and patheticness of it.

Mainly, I, at least, should just shut up- and let those living with it speak for themselves.

It would be nice if Dems had half a clue, but they don't.

So for the next 45 minutes- enjoy yer fucking world AIDS day.

•  Action = Life

  For you folks, you know who you are, I remember who you were.

  by stormcoming on Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 08:14:23 PM PDT

  •  my friend

    in response to the act up/new york slogan of "silence = death" is the person who coined the phrase "action = life."  i understand the abruptness of the new york catch-phrase; i prefer to act out of the san francisco slogan though.

    world aids day has never sat well with me,primarily because every day is such for me and countless of my friends who are still managing to keep on keeping on. to this day, i can not explain why i am the only one of my group of 10 who is still here.  or why my best friend died so suddenly never having had an OI or anything go wrong.  if there is a divine logic model, it has to e broken or so twisted as to be a joke on a scale so ginormous that its pattern is too indiscernible for mere mortals.

    i was 23 when i got infected and 26 when i tested positive.  this virus has been with me for 23 years, more than half my life.  it takes my friends and mentors, it robs me of an entire generation of men here from whom i'll never know their stories and oral traditions -- which makes not just me but the following generation of gay men all the poorer. hiv is all i know.  i am a health care advocate and devotee because if i am not for me, who will be? it ground s my well-being, it is always right next to whatever is ailing me now.  

    we will have achieved some measure of success in addressing the magnitude of this pandemic when we no longer corral all sympathy, respect, dignity and attention to this scourge into one 24-hour period.

    i remember when the red ribbon idea was first announced -- there was an immediate agit-prop campaign that came out of nowhere that read:  red ribbons are for wrapping. i am not a present.

    and i will know we have made an undeniable impact on this scourge the day that i no longer feel self-conscious on a plane, the bus or in a mall talking to my mom about my health, secure in the knowing that if i am overheard i would not be the object of silent derision and judgment.  which, sadly, is still the case, 25 years into the disease.

    your diary was beautiful, in a way i can't resally  articulate well-enough to dare the verbiage.

    i meant what i wrote in the other diary.  i still miss my best friend.  and nothing can ameliorate that pain, nothing short of him returning from the dead,alive and well and happy. no memories, no rituals, no chants and no amount of crying.  all i want is for my friends to be back, and to be well.  anything short of that is always going to be insufficient.

    aids has not made me a better person.  i have never and will never see it as a blessing. it has not been a walk in the park and it has not made me more mature, measured or thankful for each and every moment i have on this planet.  no,i resent that  have to be on notice and conscious that my time IS limited.  it has decidedly altered my life and told me in no uncertain terms that my clock is ticking, faster than most, and ticking even as i type.

    so, please accept my thanks for your diary. i needed it..  

    _________________________________

    "Coimhéad fearg fhear na foighde."

    -9.75 (economic), -7.18 (social)

    by dadanation on Sat Dec 02, 2006 at 02:09:58 AM PDT

•  Don't throw out the baby with the bath water n/t

  by Brian In NYC on Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 08:16:22 PM PDT

  •  you know what I hate most about Wolrd Aids Day?

    The trite nonsensical phrases people toss around.

    by stormcoming on Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 08:22:05 PM PDT

  •  Sounds Like You Might Not Know The Difference!

    by leonard145b on Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 08:30:16 PM PDT

•  Be bitter and bitchy, what will it get you? n/t

  by Brian In NYC on Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 08:24:40 PM PDT

  •  Silly me...

    ...how dare I post a rant on the little 24 hour period allocated for 'polite' rememberances?

    Bitter and Bitchy, Anger, and Activism, nah, never got us a damn thing, just ask ACT-UP, those of us still alive that is.

    Being angry over the loss of so many- nah, bottle it up, how dare you be angry!?!?!?

    NICE girls don't raise their voices... certainly not in the face of policies that kill.

    by stormcoming on Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 08:35:38 PM PDT

•  Does this attitude gain you support?

  Win friends and influence people?  Actually help anybody?

  by rserven on Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 08:29:37 PM PDT

  •  aoeu

    doubtful, but it's certainly an interesting point.

    by TealVeal on Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 08:30:59 PM PDT

•  you're right

  we should all wallow in rage, bitterness and despair 365 days a year.  That is what all of our dead friends would want I am sure.

  by TeresaInPa on Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 08:30:04 PM PDT

  •  like clockwork

    post a diary, count on a TeresaInPA dismissal.

    Well, it's 11:44, so I guess in about 16 mins you can go on back to forgetting AIDS.

    by stormcoming on Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 08:40:43 PM PDT

    •  don't be such a freaking ass

      I have lost at least 10 friends to AIDS. So your petulent little rant doesn't phase me.
       
      There is not a thing about World AIDS Day that stops anyone from thinking about AIDS the other days of the year.  And in fact AIDS gets a LOT of research and activism, more than many diseases that kill many more people.  The gay community can take credit for that and good for them.  So get off your cross and stop acting as if it is 1985 and no one cares.

      You have a right to criticize people for writing remembrances and lighting candles and we have the right to tell you that you are acting like an ignorant ass to do so.

      This is Michael in the blue turtleneck

      

      This is Ed.
      

      I could post 8 more picture of people I cared about who have died. I will remember them in any fashion I care to, thank you very much. And if you are going to dishonor that then you are damn right I will be dismissive of a diary like this.  Do as you think best and leave everyone else alone to do the same.

      by TeresaInPa on Sat Dec 02, 2006 at 05:50:43 AM PDT

•  I'm sorry for your loss and your pain. nt

  by St Louis Woman on Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 08:46:55 PM PDT

  •  but the point of my diary

    is that it's not 'my' loss.

    It's all our loss.

    Anyone somehow able to not feel the pain of what AIDS has meant to all of us, well it's about empathy.

    It's not 'my' pain- it's all our pain.

    Point is to turn that pain into something more- into change, into prevention, into not supporting those who advocate policies that force more people to directly experience the anguish that is AIDS.

    But the pain is all of humankinds'.

    If you don't feel it, well, think about it.

    by stormcoming on Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 09:10:55 PM PDT

    •  I think I do understand. Universal as this

      suffering is or should be, I am still sorry that you are suffering.

      by St Louis Woman on Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 09:24:50 PM PDT

•  On The West Coast

  It's world Aids Day for another 3 hours.
  Frankly I learned some things about AIDS today that will stay with me for some time and will change how I think and act in the future.  And, yes it was a reminder that AIDS is out there -- because my focus is on a different health crisis - one that my family faces every day.
  I don't fault your anger, but there are many battles that need to be won.

  by tymick on Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 08:58:36 PM PDT

  •  We can't even talk about AIDS

    This is exactly what I find so mind boggling; language like "a reminder that AIDS is out there".

    It's like, gee, I just remembered, AIDS is STILL out there.

    And that distance from it is something some of us will never have. If world AIDS day is a 'reminder', then some have the luxury of only occational reminders. That's profoundly strange, and exactly my point, because AIDS doesn't 'forget' us. It's a constant- and if public health policy is going to genuinely deal with it (to the extent that it can), recognizing that minute by minute reality, is essential.

    For those of us whom AIDS has affected, our loved ones, we don't have the luxury of forgetting or ever needing 'reminders'.

    Yes, AIDS is one of many diseases.

    But even in the one single 24 hour period alotted for attention and reminders to it, whenever AIDS is brought up, immediately people chime in with the necessity of working against other diseases.

    We can't talk about AIDS because we have to talk about all diseases.

    I guess this is a by-product of scarcity, of zero-sum-game funding that leaves families to fight it out with other families over what little scraps of funding exists for medicine, research, etc. at all.

    But not even in this pathetic little 24 hour period can one mention the word AIDS without at least someone bringing up another disease- and that says a lot.

    It says we can't talk about AIDS except in relation to other diseases. It says a lot about the way we fund medicine. And it says a lot about how when a topic comes up, we have some need to be 'fair and balanced'(?) and talk about all the other diseases too.

    This is the general fuck-upedness of healthcare (American and other).

    But my point is, it becomes impossible to ever talk about AIDS, because everything else gets brought into those discussions.

    by stormcoming on Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 09:31:08 PM PDT

•  This day cleared out some teacher time for me

  to heighten students' awareness of HIV and AIDS. It was a luxury
  of time in its way.

  On all days, I try to teach critical thinking and empathy. Maybe
  that's how it becomes year-round awareness.

  by begone on Fri Dec 01, 2006 at 09:14:17 PM PDT

•  In the local hospital...

  they had a portion of the Aids Memorial Quilt on display in the very large and very public atrium.

  I sat drinking coffee and watched as dozens (probably more than 200 people) walked by it.  A few stopped and looked, but most just breezed right past it.

  While watching I got to thinking of people I've known who've either died or lost loved ones to aids.  Hospitals are rather good for contemplating those kinds of things.  And my immediate thought was "this quilt is wasted on these people."  There's nothing about it that they relate to.  They have the quilt square surrounded by four people at the corners and walled off from those passing by.  There's no action in the scene, just a kind of weird tableau.  (I should mention that I've seen moving displays of the quilt on the Mall in DC, this local event wasn't anything like that.)

  Remembering is a good thing, and memorials are sometimes effective.  But, I think for the next World Aids Day it would be better if we actually show the friends and family making a quilt--either that, or we act-up.

  by lalo456987 on Sat Dec 02, 2006 at 06:53:54 AM PDT

•  Rage and Death

  It's natural to be angry at what causes death and at death itself and at the seemingly petty and showboated memorials. (not that they all are)I lost my son 3 years ago when he was 4 weeks old, not to Aids but to a neural tube defect called an encephalocele. There is no World Encephalocele Day and if there was I would scream. I don't need one day set aside for the world to help me  remember my lost with bittersweet mementos, false empathy from those who haven't even gone through what I have and candles, those won't bring my son back, nothing will. Nor will it lessen the pain or make the loss somehow "not in vain." Whatever that means. I remember everyday the anguish of those 4 weeks and to this day. I'm sure there are those who suffered beside thier friends and loved ones longer than my short 4 weeks watching them in pain and then die. Every word and even actions after have no comfort. How many times have I heard "I know nothing I say can comfort you, but let me say that he's in a better place." If no words can comfort, why say them? Death numbs, then you rage.
  My mother likes the "rememberences" and doing things in my son's "honor" without asking me if she can. That to me is a dagger in my heart. As I'm sure are
  the red shirts, cell phone and shoes you can buy to show your support that make only a minimal donation at best to those who have been affected by Aids one way or another. I get sick when I see those in catalogs and on tv. (not just for Aids). It seems like to me that the companies make more money off the product than the charity gets. (my opinion not sure if it's true but it sure seems that way with all the ads and hype)And if you don't get the shirts or wear the ribbons  you're just horrible even if you support the cause financially or volunteer your time and don't wear the ribbon! (remember the Seinfeld episode where Kramer refused to wear the Ribbon?) Sure we want to drum up support for research and stop this disease (and many others) as soon as scientifically possible but do we have to go around marketing suffering and death in a red cell phone and showing off our many supportees like charity gang signs and do nothing else?
  We need to get angry, get mad. Get fueled up to do something but please don't just sit there with a candle, a photograph, a tear and a red ribbon on your shirt.

  by Binkie on Wed Dec 13, 2006 at 12:58:04 AM PDT