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Author Topic: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)  (Read 25083 times)

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Offline Matty the Damned

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #50 on: March 25, 2010, 05:50:47 pm »
Heh. My Parkeresque riposte stands. :)

MtD

Offline Inchlingblue

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #51 on: March 25, 2010, 06:25:12 pm »
I know I'm dating myself but you two are like Alexis and Krystle Carrington. I guess MtD is like an Aussie Joan Collins and Miss P can be Crystal, um, I mean Krystle.

Offline Nestor

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #52 on: March 25, 2010, 06:55:17 pm »
Andrew Sullivan has written about being afraid of being deported. He was already here when he got HIV and I guess he probably had insurance from his job so I doubt that he was using any public funds but you're right, the policy wasn't enforced with him. Could be connections?

I came across this vitriolically funny blog. Matty did you write this? :

Why hasn’t Andrew Sullivan been deported yet?
The irksome positoid bottom, who, in a previous incarnation he’d like you to forget about, posted an ad on a bareback site soliciting unsafe sex (“no such thing as too hairy”), whined last year that somebody as special as him was faced with having to comply with the laws of the country he loves. In this case, it’s a ban against positoid visitors and immigrants, a ban that is obviously unfair because it impedes his own life. (Well, he’s the one who took loads up asses.) Sully was faced with leaving the United States in March.

Now it’s March. Why is he still there? Don’t the rules apply even to a clearly exceptional, truly important visitor with an O visa?

Sullivan held a private audience with Obama, which remains off the record but surely involved a direct entreaty to end a policy that affects Sully personally. The only news that RawMuslGlutes can manage to report is that a repeal of the ban is “in the works.” Does he really think his President will sign an executive order just for him personally within the next dozen days?


LINK:

http://blog.fawny.org/2009/03/19/frogmarch-rawmuslglutes/

He has a profile on a barebacking website under RawMuslGlutes.



I'm sorry I do not find this funny.  When you have lived in a place for years that place becomes your home.  To be thrown out of your home is a traumatic event.  Someone having that hanging over his head deserves some sympathy (even if the person in question is the irritating Sullivan.) That vile little paragraph that you find "vitriolically" funny implies that people who have HIV deserve what they get ("Well, he's the one who....") and that kicking them out of the countries where they live is reasonable behavior.  Decent people, too, do not use the word "whine" to describe someone's reaction to possible tragedy.  When I read about Jesse Helms getting a blow job I thought I'd heard the most unpleasant thing possible, and then there was the picture of the poor guy with the swollen head, but this nasty paragraph beats both.  

And by the way, Sullivan's case is hardly unique.  I have a friend who has lived here for many, many years and has had HIV for years too.  He is not a citizen of this country.  I do not know the details, but he was not kicked out of the country.  According to him, that is not done here.  We do not--did not--permit people with HIV to enter the country, but if they were already here we did not kick them out--unlike the country where I was living when I found out I had HIV, where policemen showed up at my doorstep, a few days after I got the test results, telling me I had one week to leave the country.  I cannot say what is generally done but my friend's case added to Sullivan's suggests something different.
« Last Edit: March 25, 2010, 06:58:39 pm by Nestor »
Summer 2004--became HIV+
Dec. 2005--found out

Date          CD4    %       VL
Jan. '06    725    25      9,097
Nov. '06    671    34     52,202
Apr. '07    553    30      24,270
Sept. '07  685    27       4,849
Jan. '08    825    29       4,749
Mar. '08    751    30     16,026
Aug. '08    653    30       3,108
Oct. '08     819    28     10,046
Jan '09      547    31     13,000
May '09     645   25        6,478
Aug. '09    688   30      19,571
Nov. '09     641    27       9,598
Feb. '10     638    27       4,480
May '10      687      9    799,000 (CMV)
July '10      600     21      31,000
Nov '10      682     24     15,000
June '11     563    23     210,000 (blasto)
July  '11      530    22      39,000
Aug '11      677     22      21,000
Sept. '12    747     15      14,000

Offline Matty the Damned

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #53 on: March 25, 2010, 07:02:30 pm »
I'm sorry I do not find this funny.  When you have lived in a place for years that place becomes your home.  To be thrown out of your home is a traumatic event.  Someone having that hanging over his head deserves some sympathy (even if the person in question is the irritating Sullivan.) That vile little paragraph that you find "vitriolically" funny implies that people who have HIV deserve what they get ("Well, he's the one who....") and that kicking them out of the countries where they live is reasonable behavior.  Decent people, too, do not use the word "whine" to describe someone's reaction to possible tragedy.  When I read about Jesse Helms getting a blow job I thought I'd heard the most unpleasant thing possible, and then there was the picture of the poor guy with the swollen head, but this nasty paragraph beats both. 

And by the way, Sullivan's case is hardly unique.  I have a friend who has lived here for many, many years and has had HIV for years too.  He is not a citizen of this country.  I do not know the details, but he was not kicked out of the country.  According to him, that is not done here.  We do not--did not--permit people with HIV to enter the country, but if they were already here we did not kick them out--unlike the country where I was living when I found out I had HIV, where policemen showed up at my doorstep, a few days after I got the test results, telling me I had one week to leave the country.  I cannot say what is generally done but my friend's case added to Sullivan's suggests something different.

I find it enormously funny.

Andrew Sullivan is a smug self-absorbed sack of shit and there is something particularly satisfying in watching him reap the bitter fucking harvest of the right-wing row he's hoed for so fucking long.

MtD

Offline Inchlingblue

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #54 on: March 25, 2010, 07:36:47 pm »
I'm sorry I do not find this funny.  When you have lived in a place for years that place becomes your home.  To be thrown out of your home is a traumatic event.  Someone having that hanging over his head deserves some sympathy (even if the person in question is the irritating Sullivan.) That vile little paragraph that you find "vitriolically" funny implies that people who have HIV deserve what they get ("Well, he's the one who....") and that kicking them out of the countries where they live is reasonable behavior.  Decent people, too, do not use the word "whine" to describe someone's reaction to possible tragedy.  When I read about Jesse Helms getting a blow job I thought I'd heard the most unpleasant thing possible, and then there was the picture of the poor guy with the swollen head, but this nasty paragraph beats both.  

And by the way, Sullivan's case is hardly unique.  I have a friend who has lived here for many, many years and has had HIV for years too.  He is not a citizen of this country.  I do not know the details, but he was not kicked out of the country.  According to him, that is not done here.  We do not--did not--permit people with HIV to enter the country, but if they were already here we did not kick them out--unlike the country where I was living when I found out I had HIV, where policemen showed up at my doorstep, a few days after I got the test results, telling me I had one week to leave the country.  I cannot say what is generally done but my friend's case added to Sullivan's suggests something different.

Andrew Sullivan is here on an O-1 Visa, which is a temporary visa, he knew from day one that the US could not be his permanent home. If there was a law in which others with HIV were being deported, the friend you cite nothwithstanding, then Sullivan should not receive any special treatment when it comes to any considerations over deportation. All moot now anyway.

Not to mention that he would be deported to the UK, not exactly what anyone would call tragic, lol.  I sure wish I could be deported to the UK where a person can get free excellent health care.

As an aside, IMHO, he's more than just "irritating," are you familiar with his track record? He's crosses the line from being merely irritating to being outright harmful.

There's a recent thread from a forum member in the UK who is being deported to Zimbabwe, now that's not funny at all.

LINK:

http://forums.poz.com/index.php?topic=31895.0

PS: Your friend who was not deported might be a legal resident or what's called  a "resident alien," which is different from being here on a visa.

The O-1 classification is a type of employment visa under United States immigration law that applies to aliens who have extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics which has been demonstrated by sustained national or international acclaim and who are coming temporarily to the U.S. to continue work in the area of extraordinary ability.

LINK:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-1_visa
« Last Edit: March 25, 2010, 07:58:57 pm by Inchlingblue »

Offline Matty the Damned

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #55 on: March 25, 2010, 07:38:47 pm »
Not to mention that he would be deported to the UK, not exactly what anyone would call tragic, lol.  I sure wish I could be deported to the UK where a person can get free excellent health care.

As an aside, IMHO, he's more than just "irritating," are you familiar with his track record? He's crosses the line from being merely irritating to being outright harmful.

There's a recent thread from a forum member in the UK who is being deported to Zimbabwe, now that's not funny at all.

A-fucking-men, Inchling. Couldn't have put it better meself.

MtD

Offline Nestor

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #56 on: March 26, 2010, 03:11:49 pm »

So the prospect of someone being deported from his home of nine years because he has HIV is being applauded, by people with HIV, on an HIV-related forum, simply because they happen to dislike the individual HIVer who is involved.  Nice. 
Summer 2004--became HIV+
Dec. 2005--found out

Date          CD4    %       VL
Jan. '06    725    25      9,097
Nov. '06    671    34     52,202
Apr. '07    553    30      24,270
Sept. '07  685    27       4,849
Jan. '08    825    29       4,749
Mar. '08    751    30     16,026
Aug. '08    653    30       3,108
Oct. '08     819    28     10,046
Jan '09      547    31     13,000
May '09     645   25        6,478
Aug. '09    688   30      19,571
Nov. '09     641    27       9,598
Feb. '10     638    27       4,480
May '10      687      9    799,000 (CMV)
July '10      600     21      31,000
Nov '10      682     24     15,000
June '11     563    23     210,000 (blasto)
July  '11      530    22      39,000
Aug '11      677     22      21,000
Sept. '12    747     15      14,000

Offline Matty the Damned

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #57 on: March 26, 2010, 03:22:29 pm »
So the prospect of someone being deported from his home of nine years because he has HIV is being applauded, by people with HIV, on an HIV-related forum, simply because they happen to dislike the individual HIVer who is involved.  Nice. 

Sully will live. It's not like he's being sent to the fucking Levant or something. As Inchling notes if he is booted, it's back to Blighty with him where he has access to a first world standard of care.

So really Nestor, cry me the fucking Isis.

Moreover it's richly deserved. Sullivan is an odious hypocrite. Lending his considerable intellectual weight to a political movement which denies health care for ordinary folks, rejects harm minimisation and fosters Christian lunatics in the mainstream against his own fucking interest.

Hoist on his own fucking petard, methinks.

MtD

Offline Assurbanipal

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #58 on: March 26, 2010, 03:31:10 pm »
So the prospect of someone being deported from his home of nine years because he has HIV is being applauded, by people with HIV, on an HIV-related forum, simply because they happen to dislike the individual HIVer who is involved.  Nice. 

No ...-- now that the issue of deportation is moot they are having some fun -- if the deportation was still allowable there'd be more people sticking up for him....
 :-*
5/06 VL 1M+, CD4 22, 5% , pneumonia, thrush -- O2 support 2 months, 6/06 +Kaletra/Truvada
9/06 VL 3959 CD4 297 13.5% 12/06 VL <400 CD4 350 15.2% +Pravachol
2007 VL<400, 70, 50 CD4 408-729 16.0% -19.7%
2008 VL UD CD4 468 - 538 16.7% - 24.6% Osteoporosis 11/08 doubled Pravachol, +Calcium/D
02/09 VL 100 CD4 616 23.7% 03/09 VL 130 5/09 VL 100 CD4 540 28.4% +Actonel (osteoporosis) 7/09 VL 130
8/09  new regimen Isentress/Epzicom 9/09 VL UD CD4 621 32.7% 11/09 VL UD CD4 607 26.4% swap Isentress for Prezista/Norvir 12/09 (liver and muscle issues) VL 50
2010 VL UD CD4 573-680 26.1% - 30.9% 12/10 VL 20
2011 VL UD-20 CD4 568-673 24.7%-30.6%
2012 VL UD swap Prezista/Norvir for Reyataz drop statin CD4 768-828 26.7%-30.7%
2014 VL UD - 48
2015 VL 130 Moved to Triumeq

Offline Hellraiser

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #59 on: March 26, 2010, 03:35:15 pm »
I'd never even heard of this guy, seems like a pretty smart guy politically, but then you analyze his politics...

The obsession with Palin was kinda cute too.

Offline Miss Philicia

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #60 on: March 26, 2010, 03:40:24 pm »
wat... you've never heard of Sullygirl?  srsly?
"I’ve slept with enough men to know that I’m not gay"

Offline Matty the Damned

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #61 on: March 26, 2010, 03:51:13 pm »
No ...-- now that the issue of deportation is moot they are having some fun -- if the deportation was still allowable there'd be more people sticking up for him....
 :-*

I dunno about that. There's more than one Fiver who'd cheerfully see Sully beaten to death with back issues of The Spectator.

I'd never even heard of this guy, seems like a pretty smart guy politically, but then you analyze his politics...

The obsession with Palin was kinda cute too.

Oh that was sickening. Sully wringing his pudgy hands and departing the ranks of the Rethuglicans over Carribou Barbie?

Let's be clear on this, right wing political drain clogs like Andrew sat silently for years as the Jesus freaks populated the caucuses of the Republican Party. Why? Coz they needed, nay wanted the votes that the mega churches have for sale.

Problem is of course that you can't sell your soul to Pat Robertson without taking the inevitable ideological nipple-gripple that comes with it. And now the christo-taliban has the Party by the nuts douchebags like Andy and that superannuated hack Arlen Specter have to play in someone else's backyard.

MtD

Offline blackwingbear

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #62 on: March 26, 2010, 03:56:38 pm »
So the prospect of someone being deported from his home of nine years because he has HIV is being applauded, by people with HIV, on an HIV-related forum, simply because they happen to dislike the individual HIVer who is involved.  Nice. 

Agreed. While Sullivan is indeed detestable and loathsome, there is a double-standard here. :-[
It's all a sham. Politics is a big game, same as the media - and same as religion. The point is to distract & control. If we're looking at what they tell us is the "big issue", we're not looking at what they are doing. In time, there will be different causes and different minorities to pick-on. All in the name of keeping the system going, and the people distracted.

Offline Inchlingblue

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #63 on: March 26, 2010, 04:56:27 pm »
I repeat, for the benefit of Nestor and Blackwingbear, who seem to be reading selectively:

"If there was a law in which others with HIV were being deported, the friend you cite nothwithstanding, then Sullivan should not receive any special treatment when it comes to any considerations over deportation. All moot now anyway."

It's rude to mischaracterize a person's statement. I don't do it to others and appreciate the same in return.

Matty: You're on a roll, "Rethuglicans,"  "Caribou Barbie,"  "nipple-gripple."  I love it.  it's a veritable poetry slam. You go, Ntozake Shange.

 
« Last Edit: March 26, 2010, 11:46:53 pm by Inchlingblue »

Offline Nestor

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #64 on: March 27, 2010, 10:22:37 am »
Inchling,

I was not reading "selectively"--I just didn't respond to everything point by point.  Here goes.  

To say "Sullivan should not receive any special treatment" or "no exceptions should be made" is both irrelevent and wrong.  Irrelevent because he never said that he should receive special treatment and wrong because when a law is unjust sane people want there to be as many exceptions made as possible--every exception made to an unjust law is one injustice fewer.  

You state that deportation to the UK is "not what anyone would exactly call tragic lol".  That suggests a curiously limited view of the human condition.  I personally would rejoice at deportation to the UK, but that's me.  This country happens to the place where the person in question a. has lived for years, b. has his job, and c. has a husband, a home, dogs.  To be uprooted from such things, by force, all because of a managable illness, is indeed traumatic.  Is there something about that that is not clear to you?  Life is not just about good health care.  To love a place and be forced to leave it against one's will is tragic--and I don't care if it's a case of someone being deported FROM Zimbabwe.  

Now, here is some context.  In late July 2008 Congress passed, and President Bush signed (on my birthday!) a resolution to drop the HIV travel ban.  Two months later, however, nothing had really changed, due to some beaurocratic red tape involving the DHHS.  The following editorial appeared in the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/25/AR2008092503604.html

and the person whom you loathe wrote the following post in his blog:

The Bush administration has not yet lifted the regulation barring people with HIV from entering the United States, despite the law lifting the ban overwhelmingly passed by the Congress and signed by president Bush last July. Yesterday, they simply reiterated  their previous plans to "streamline" the process, which, in fact, does nothing but make it more bureaucratically cumbersome for temporary visitors with HIV to enter the country as tourists or for conferences. They have done nothing to end the ban as the law clearly asked for.

As it currently stands, I will still be required to leave the US for good next March. And many more are in much worse straits. They say they will change the regs. And that it takes time. My guess is that it will take until after the election. But does anyone believe a Palin administration would make life any easier for people with HIV? For people with HIV, the Palin nomination should be terrifying.


That is the context for the vile little piece that you found so funny.  Let us see if it has any relevance.  It reads, with my comments in bold:

"The irksome positoid bottom......, whined last year [first offense--not only because there was no whining--read it for yourself--but because someone facing deportation from the country where he's lived for years has the right to complain about the fact without being accused of "whining"]that somebody as special as him [where does he say that?]was faced with having to comply with the laws of the country he loves. [So, when a law is unjust--even as outrageously unjust as this one, we should not only comply with it in all cases, but not even protest or complain before doing so?]In this case, it’s a ban against positoid visitors and immigrants, a ban that is obviously unfair[Does this author think it was not obviously unfair?] because it impedes his own life.[No, it's obviously unfair because it's obviously unfair.  And Sullivan, in two paragraghs on the subject, devoted exactly half a line to his own particular case.] (Well, he’s the one who took loads up asses.) ..."

That last line: "Well, he's the one who took loads up asses"--is the point where it, and various posts in this thread, went beyond annoying into "offensive enough for me to write here complaining about it."  "Well, he's the one who took loads up asses?"?  Seriously?  Do you need a translation of that?  It means: "Don't complain!  You made your bed, now lie in it!  It's your own fault you have HIV, how dare you complain about any of the consequences---or even mention them!  I'll say you're whining if you do!"  

Tell me, Inchling and others, against which other possible consequences of having HIV would a protest seem to you to deserve such a reply?  If someone with HIV were living in a place where there was HIV hysteria, and nobody was willing to come near him, and he complained about it in his blog, would you find "Well, he's the one who took loads up asses" to be a decent reply?  If a government were to revoke ADAP in a fiscal crisis, and someone faced with not being able to afford medicine were to mention his possible fate on a blog, and someone else replied "Well, he's the one who took loads up asses"--would that seem appropriate to you?  Or is it only in situations which you cannot ever imagine touching yourself that you approve of such callousness?  To say "it's your own fault you have HIV so don't whine about anything we do to you as a result" ought to be THE single most offensive thing to the ears of someone with HIV.  I never thought I would see a group of people on a forum for HIVers laughing at such a statement, which I suppose means that I underestimated what bigotry and bile could do.  
Summer 2004--became HIV+
Dec. 2005--found out

Date          CD4    %       VL
Jan. '06    725    25      9,097
Nov. '06    671    34     52,202
Apr. '07    553    30      24,270
Sept. '07  685    27       4,849
Jan. '08    825    29       4,749
Mar. '08    751    30     16,026
Aug. '08    653    30       3,108
Oct. '08     819    28     10,046
Jan '09      547    31     13,000
May '09     645   25        6,478
Aug. '09    688   30      19,571
Nov. '09     641    27       9,598
Feb. '10     638    27       4,480
May '10      687      9    799,000 (CMV)
July '10      600     21      31,000
Nov '10      682     24     15,000
June '11     563    23     210,000 (blasto)
July  '11      530    22      39,000
Aug '11      677     22      21,000
Sept. '12    747     15      14,000

Offline Inchlingblue

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #65 on: March 27, 2010, 10:43:41 am »
Inchling,

I was not reading "selectively"--I just didn't respond to everything point by point.  Here goes.  

To say "Sullivan should not receive any special treatment" or "no exceptions should be made" is both irrelevent and wrong.  Irrelevent because he never said that he should receive special treatment and wrong because when a law is unjust sane people want there to be as many exceptions made as possible--every exception made to an unjust law is one injustice fewer.  

You state that deportation to the UK is "not what anyone would exactly call tragic lol".  That suggests a curiously limited view of the human condition.  I personally would rejoice at deportation to the UK, but that's me.  This country happens to the place where the person in question a. has lived for years, b. has his job, and c. has a husband, a home, dogs.  To be uprooted from such things, by force, all because of a managable illness, is indeed traumatic.  Is there something about that that is not clear to you?  Life is not just about good health care.  To love a place and be forced to leave it against one's will is tragic--and I don't care if it's a case of someone being deported FROM Zimbabwe.  

Now, here is some context.  In late July 2008 Congress passed, and President Bush signed (on my birthday!) a resolution to drop the HIV travel ban.  Two months later, however, nothing had really changed, due to some beaurocratic red tape involving the DHHS.  The following editorial appeared in the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/25/AR2008092503604.html

and the person whom you loathe wrote the following post in his blog:

The Bush administration has not yet lifted the regulation barring people with HIV from entering the United States, despite the law lifting the ban overwhelmingly passed by the Congress and signed by president Bush last July. Yesterday, they simply reiterated  their previous plans to "streamline" the process, which, in fact, does nothing but make it more bureaucratically cumbersome for temporary visitors with HIV to enter the country as tourists or for conferences. They have done nothing to end the ban as the law clearly asked for.

As it currently stands, I will still be required to leave the US for good next March. And many more are in much worse straits. They say they will change the regs. And that it takes time. My guess is that it will take until after the election. But does anyone believe a Palin administration would make life any easier for people with HIV? For people with HIV, the Palin nomination should be terrifying.


That is the context for the vile little piece that you found so funny.  Let us see if it has any relevance.  It reads, with my comments in bold:

"The irksome positoid bottom......, whined last year [first offense--not only because there was no whining--read it for yourself--but because someone facing deportation from the country where he's lived for years has the right to complain about the fact without being accused of "whining"]that somebody as special as him [where does he say that?]was faced with having to comply with the laws of the country he loves. [So, when a law is unjust--even as outrageously unjust as this one, we should not only comply with it in all cases, but not even protest or complain before doing so?]In this case, it’s a ban against positoid visitors and immigrants, a ban that is obviously unfair[Does this author think it was not obviously unfair?] because it impedes his own life.[No, it's obviously unfair because it's obviously unfair.  And Sullivan, in two paragraghs on the subject, devoted exactly half a line to his own particular case.] (Well, he’s the one who took loads up asses.) ..."

That last line: "Well, he's the one who took loads up asses"--is the point where it, and various posts in this thread, went beyond annoying into "offensive enough for me to write here complaining about it."  "Well, he's the one who took loads up asses?"?  Seriously?  Do you need a translation of that?  It means: "Don't complain!  You made your bed, now lie in it!  It's your own fault you have HIV, how dare you complain about any of the consequences---or even mention them!  I'll say you're whining if you do!"  

Tell me, Inchling and others, against which other possible consequences of having HIV would a protest seem to you to deserve such a reply?  If someone with HIV were living in a place where there was HIV hysteria, and nobody was willing to come near him, and he complained about it in his blog, would you find "Well, he's the one who took loads up asses" to be a decent reply?  If a government were to revoke ADAP in a fiscal crisis, and someone faced with not being able to afford medicine were to mention his possible fate on a blog, and someone else replied "Well, he's the one who took loads up asses"--would that seem appropriate to you?  Or is it only in situations which you cannot ever imagine touching yourself that you approve of such callousness?  To say "it's your own fault you have HIV so don't whine about anything we do to you as a result" ought to be THE single most offensive thing to the ears of someone with HIV.  I never thought I would see a group of people on a forum for HIVers laughing at such a statement, which I suppose means that I underestimated what bigotry and bile could do.  


Nestor, this is really not as big of a deal as you're perceiving it to be. Take a deep breath. Relax.

If in writing that very long response you got some things off your chest then I'm happy you were able to vent on here (and to do so at my expense, as it were) but you might want to channel your considerable energies to a more worthwhile cause and in future consider some sage advice penned long ago by a very wise man: brevity is the soul of wit.

Offline Nestor

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #66 on: March 27, 2010, 11:02:08 am »

So I write in brief and you say I'm reading you selectively; I write in full and it's too long.  And vicious bigotry is "not such a big deal" and I should relax about it.  Here's a brief statement for you: pathetic
Summer 2004--became HIV+
Dec. 2005--found out

Date          CD4    %       VL
Jan. '06    725    25      9,097
Nov. '06    671    34     52,202
Apr. '07    553    30      24,270
Sept. '07  685    27       4,849
Jan. '08    825    29       4,749
Mar. '08    751    30     16,026
Aug. '08    653    30       3,108
Oct. '08     819    28     10,046
Jan '09      547    31     13,000
May '09     645   25        6,478
Aug. '09    688   30      19,571
Nov. '09     641    27       9,598
Feb. '10     638    27       4,480
May '10      687      9    799,000 (CMV)
July '10      600     21      31,000
Nov '10      682     24     15,000
June '11     563    23     210,000 (blasto)
July  '11      530    22      39,000
Aug '11      677     22      21,000
Sept. '12    747     15      14,000

Offline Ann

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #67 on: March 27, 2010, 11:14:13 am »
Nestor,

I think you may be misunderstanding the context of the "loads up his ass" thing. It's meant to be ironic, not literal. To start applying that phrase in that particular article to anyone who has hiv is to take it out of context.

Go back to Matty's post where he says:


Moreover it's richly deserved. Sullivan is an odious hypocrite. Lending his considerable intellectual weight to a political movement which denies health care for ordinary folks, rejects harm minimisation and fosters Christian lunatics in the mainstream against his own fucking interest.

Hoist on his own fucking petard, methinks.


To "hoist his own petard" means to be injured by the device that you intended to use to injure others. "Petard" is what rudimentary bombs were called back in Shakespeare's day.

What's being laughed at here is that Sullivan was being penalised by laws beloved by the political party he supports. That's it in a nutshell.
Condoms are a girl's best friend

Condom and Lube Info  

"...health will finally be seen not as a blessing to be wished for, but as a human right to be fought for." Kofi Annan

Nymphomaniac: a woman as obsessed with sex as an average man. Mignon McLaughlin

HIV is certainly character-building. It's made me see all of the shallow things we cling to, like ego and vanity. Of course, I'd rather have a few more T-cells and a little less character. Randy Shilts

Offline bmancanfly

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #68 on: March 27, 2010, 11:18:07 am »
Inchling,

I was not reading "selectively"--I just didn't respond to everything point by point.  Here goes.  

To say "Sullivan should not receive any special treatment" or "no exceptions should be made" is both irrelevent and wrong.  Irrelevent because he never said that he should receive special treatment and wrong because when a law is unjust sane people want there to be as many exceptions made as possible--every exception made to an unjust law is one injustice fewer.  

You state that deportation to the UK is "not what anyone would exactly call tragic lol".  That suggests a curiously limited view of the human condition.  I personally would rejoice at deportation to the UK, but that's me.  This country happens to the place where the person in question a. has lived for years, b. has his job, and c. has a husband, a home, dogs.  To be uprooted from such things, by force, all because of a managable illness, is indeed traumatic.  Is there something about that that is not clear to you?  Life is not just about good health care.  To love a place and be forced to leave it against one's will is tragic--and I don't care if it's a case of someone being deported FROM Zimbabwe.  

Now, here is some context.  In late July 2008 Congress passed, and President Bush signed (on my birthday!) a resolution to drop the HIV travel ban.  Two months later, however, nothing had really changed, due to some beaurocratic red tape involving the DHHS.  The following editorial appeared in the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/25/AR2008092503604.html

and the person whom you loathe wrote the following post in his blog:

The Bush administration has not yet lifted the regulation barring people with HIV from entering the United States, despite the law lifting the ban overwhelmingly passed by the Congress and signed by president Bush last July. Yesterday, they simply reiterated  their previous plans to "streamline" the process, which, in fact, does nothing but make it more bureaucratically cumbersome for temporary visitors with HIV to enter the country as tourists or for conferences. They have done nothing to end the ban as the law clearly asked for.

As it currently stands, I will still be required to leave the US for good next March. And many more are in much worse straits. They say they will change the regs. And that it takes time. My guess is that it will take until after the election. But does anyone believe a Palin administration would make life any easier for people with HIV? For people with HIV, the Palin nomination should be terrifying.


That is the context for the vile little piece that you found so funny.  Let us see if it has any relevance.  It reads, with my comments in bold:

"The irksome positoid bottom......, whined last year [first offense--not only because there was no whining--read it for yourself--but because someone facing deportation from the country where he's lived for years has the right to complain about the fact without being accused of "whining"]that somebody as special as him [where does he say that?]was faced with having to comply with the laws of the country he loves. [So, when a law is unjust--even as outrageously unjust as this one, we should not only comply with it in all cases, but not even protest or complain before doing so?]In this case, it’s a ban against positoid visitors and immigrants, a ban that is obviously unfair[Does this author think it was not obviously unfair?] because it impedes his own life.[No, it's obviously unfair because it's obviously unfair.  And Sullivan, in two paragraghs on the subject, devoted exactly half a line to his own particular case.] (Well, he’s the one who took loads up asses.) ..."

That last line: "Well, he's the one who took loads up asses"--is the point where it, and various posts in this thread, went beyond annoying into "offensive enough for me to write here complaining about it."  "Well, he's the one who took loads up asses?"?  Seriously?  Do you need a translation of that?  It means: "Don't complain!  You made your bed, now lie in it!  It's your own fault you have HIV, how dare you complain about any of the consequences---or even mention them!  I'll say you're whining if you do!"  

Tell me, Inchling and others, against which other possible consequences of having HIV would a protest seem to you to deserve such a reply?  If someone with HIV were living in a place where there was HIV hysteria, and nobody was willing to come near him, and he complained about it in his blog, would you find "Well, he's the one who took loads up asses" to be a decent reply?  If a government were to revoke ADAP in a fiscal crisis, and someone faced with not being able to afford medicine were to mention his possible fate on a blog, and someone else replied "Well, he's the one who took loads up asses"--would that seem appropriate to you?  Or is it only in situations which you cannot ever imagine touching yourself that you approve of such callousness?  To say "it's your own fault you have HIV so don't whine about anything we do to you as a result" ought to be THE single most offensive thing to the ears of someone with HIV.  I never thought I would see a group of people on a forum for HIVers laughing at such a statement, which I suppose means that I underestimated what bigotry and bile could do.  


He's got a point
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt."

 Bertrand Russell

Offline Ann

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #69 on: March 27, 2010, 11:35:19 am »
Nestor,

I think you may be misunderstanding the context of the "loads up his ass" thing. It's meant to be ironic, not literal. To start applying that phrase in that particular article to anyone who has hiv is to take it out of context.

Go back to Matty's post where he says:


Moreover it's richly deserved. Sullivan is an odious hypocrite. Lending his considerable intellectual weight to a political movement which denies health care for ordinary folks, rejects harm minimisation and fosters Christian lunatics in the mainstream against his own fucking interest.

Hoist on his own fucking petard, methinks.


To "hoist his own petard" means to be injured by the device that you intended to use to injure others. "Petard" is what rudimentary bombs were called back in Shakespeare's day.

What's being laughed at here is that Sullivan was being penalised by laws beloved by the political party he supports. That's it in a nutshell.

I want to clarify something I wrote above. When I said the "loads up his ass" thing was meant to be ironic, here's why. The political party Sullivan supports has many politicians who DO have exactly that attitude towards PLWA.

They'd love to see any and all hiv related funding cut. They support abstinence only and are against sex education being taught. They're against needle-exchange programs etc etc etc.

They are precisely the people who DO use that "he took it up the ass" argument. In this case, it was being used against him in an ironic fashion because this represents the sentiments of the political party HE has staunchly supported.

And if you still don't get it, I give up.

Ann
Condoms are a girl's best friend

Condom and Lube Info  

"...health will finally be seen not as a blessing to be wished for, but as a human right to be fought for." Kofi Annan

Nymphomaniac: a woman as obsessed with sex as an average man. Mignon McLaughlin

HIV is certainly character-building. It's made me see all of the shallow things we cling to, like ego and vanity. Of course, I'd rather have a few more T-cells and a little less character. Randy Shilts

Offline Inchlingblue

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Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #70 on: March 27, 2010, 03:04:24 pm »
So I write in brief and you say I'm reading you selectively; I write in full and it's too long.  And vicious bigotry is "not such a big deal" and I should relax about it.  Here's a brief statement for you: pathetic.  

I do appreciate that you took the time to respond more in depth but even in that post you were still mischaracterizing where I'm coming from, putting words in my mouth and even throwing insults my way.

I think you have a lot of passion and empathy but I think it's misplaced in this instance. If you don't agree, then let's just agree to disagree but without any venom or anger?

Ann: Thanks for providing more context.
« Last Edit: March 27, 2010, 03:32:23 pm by Inchlingblue »

Offline oater6947

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  • Posts: 3
Re: Jesse Helms spits in your face (from the grave no less)
« Reply #71 on: March 27, 2010, 08:33:53 pm »
If the gentleman sited in the article above had been in Canada or Australia he would have had to leave those countries after his travel visa had expired usually (6-12 mos).  He presumably would not have been able to get permanent resident status there because he would not have passed the medical exam requirement.  So he would have been forced to leave after 12 mos. max.

He got to stay in the US for 8 years. 

He would have been treated more harshly in either Canada or Australia.  So why the outrage at the US policy (understandable) but ok with the policies of Canada and  Australia?

Am I missing something?


I am living in Australia on visa and was diagnosed positive here I wasnt kicked out of the country I renewed my visa last August without any problems.  Im in the process of applying for my residence when I went thru the paper work for residence it clearly states that if you are diagnosed here your HIV status does not affect
 your application in any way. My tax contribution is enough to offset the cost of my treatments and drugs I will post the outcome of my residence application. I am very positive I will be granted residency

Date          CD4    Vl
24-08-08     48      850K
08-09-08      started Truvada/Kaletra Dapsone
08-10-08     94      586K
10-11-08    123     354K
12-01-09      98     176K
15-03-09    145       40K
16-05-09    170        5K
24-06-09    220        3K
02-09-09    190           80
09-09-09    172          <50
16-12-09    240            40

 


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