Village horrified at the prospect of saving African lives
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More evidence that the Village really is a sack of pus comes from Saturday's Washington Post:
AIDS Funding Binds Longevity of Millions to U.S.
Open-Ended Commitment of Money Is Implied
President Bush plans to sign a bill next week that commits the United States to spending about $40 billion over the next five years to fight AIDS overseas, a major expansion of what many consider his most successful foreign policy initiative.
The legislation also extends an implicit pledge that has little precedent in the history of U.S. foreign assistance: to continue purchasing lifesaving drugs for millions of individual people in developing countries for an indefinite period of time. ...
... Although Bush's initiative enjoys support in both parties and has been praised around the world, some policy experts say the implications of its open-ended commitment have been largely ignored. A few view PEPFAR as essentially an open-ended "entitlement program" for citizens of other countries.
One person with that view is Mead Over, a former World Bank economist who is now at the Center for Global Development, a Washington think tank. He fears that if PEPFAR's commitments grow, as they are likely to, they will squeeze out funding for other, equally important, foreign aid.
The village begrudges every penny that is spent on saving lives, and this is the attitude we must confront in our struggle for universal health care. The sickening truth is that these people really don't value human life.
These people don't care about money. They are perfectly happy to squander billions on an open ended commitment to steal Africa's oil and impose a neo-colonial order.
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Comments
It Really Is
It really is amazing. IMO, it's one the more noble and practical things we can do to encourage economic and social development around the world.
When you consider we spent $70 billion (+ $100 billion) in fiscal year 2007 for the Iraq war, alone, the concern for an open-ended committment for $40 billion over a five year period doesn't seem to carry much weight.
Why do I get the feeling they'd write rave reviews for an invasion of say Nigeria, instead?
BTW, while I've been critical of Bush's anti-contraception stance on the prevention side of things, I've been impressed with his pro-treatment stance on the treatment side of things. That is, unless I've been horribly fooled.
Don't get all excited about this
As Elizabeth Pisani explains in her book, the Wisdom of Whores (reviewed by yours truly here), there are a few catches in PEPFAR:
1. It funnels money to faith-based labs. Half of the money is distributed through NGOs and faith-based organization.
By statute, 20% of PEPFAR money is to be spent on HIV prevention, one third of that on abstinence-only programs, cuz we know they work so well.
2. PEPFAR is not against condoms... it allows for condom use "when appropriate" = when one spouse (yes, spouse) is infected and the other is not... which is stupid. you don't need to be infected or know you're infected to use protection. And obviously, condoms are only for married people.
3. AIDS researcher nicknamed PEPFAR as "Purchasing Expensive Pharmaceuticals from American Retailers"... 'nuff said... this was imposed to undercut the production of cheaper generic from other countries and guarantee markets to Big Pharma.
4. Organizations that agree to receive PEPFAR $$ have to agree to certain conditions, like promoting abstinence only and limited condom use (see my #2).
So, organizations would take PEPFAR $$ and use it under the required conditions, but would use their other sources of funding to do the right thing... well, that loophole was closed. Orgs that now take PEPFAR money have to show that ALL their budget and spending meet PEPFAR conditions.
More on that at The Wisdom of Whores' site.
Fool Me Once...
I guess the devil is always in the details. *sigh*
That said, it doesn't sound like the concerned are so much concerned with the details of the plan, rather that we're doing so much.
Well, if the focus were on prevention
instead than on treatment, then fewer people would get infected and therefore, everybody would be spared the cost of treatment. But that would mean having to talk about uncomfortable stuff, like, you know, s-e-x.
Plus, prevention is a lousy business model for big pharma
Much better to let people get infected, then sell them drugs as expensively as possible, and then get PR points for getting cheaper drugs to certain classes of people.
Remember, you're not a person, you're a human resource.
However, DCBlogger is right to call out the Village suck, because look at the range of acceptable opinion here (the Overton window). The choice is between:
1. Supporting a program that only ameliorates the medical problem, but conforms to corporate and Christianist norms, or
2. Abolishing the program because it's an entitlement.
In other words, between Conservative, and batshit insane Conservative.
Teh pus! It b-u-u-u-u-r-n-s!
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
In This Case
In this case, where the issue really is a choice between life or death, this is a place I can more than except the lesser of two evils.
It sounds like the Village is advocating that we do less than we already are, which isn't really an option.
Of course, if we had UHC
then, everybody would be covered and these stupid debates about doing for other people what we're not doing here would disappear.
Another thing that Pisani said about PEPFAR is that a lot of money is wasted on general population campaign rather than targeting at risk groups, because these are groups that are socially stigmatized (prostitutes, drug users, homosexuals, etc.).
See comment...
.... on Overton Window above.
So often, the real issue is not any one particular choice, but how the spectrum of choices got narrowed. (See under Primaries, Democrat, 2008.)
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
DCB, I forgot to say...
Nice headline.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.