ACT UP Commemorates 25th Anniversary

[Ember]

Is there any role for ME in all this?


ACT UP COMMEMORATES 25TH ANNIVERSARY
BY RETURNING TO WALL STREET FOR MASSIVE PROTEST

SAVE THE DATE APRIL 25TH 2012
ACT UP New York 25th Anniversary Action

Its time for effective healthcare to be made available to everyone to the 99%, not just the 1%.

Additional organizations are expected to join the demonstration in New York City, including Housing Works, Health GAP, National Nurses United, OWS Healthcare for the 99% Working Group, Visual AIDS, MIX NYC, Le Petit Versailles, Queerocracy, Queering OWS and others. The action will be in New York on April 25th but the need is global. And, the time is now."

http://actupny.com/index.php?option...-media-advisory&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=50


Twenty-five years ago, a group of young men and women started an organization called ACT UP to fight an enemy that, at the time, seemed almost unbeatable.

A small collective of artists had been working on a striking image they hoped would galvanize the community to act. Overnight, images bearing the radical truism SILENCE = DEATH appeared on walls and scaffolding all over lower Manhattan. The fuse was setand then the writer and activist Larry Kramer struck a match. Hed been invited to be a last-minute substitute for a lecture series at the Lesbian and Gay Community Center.

If my speech tonight doesnt scare the shit out of you, were in trouble, he began. I sometimes think we have a death wish. I think we must want to die. I have never been able to understand why we have sat back and let ourselves literally be knocked off man by man without fighting back. I have heard of denial, but this is more than denialit is a death wish. He concluded, Its your fault, boys and girls. Its our fault.

Just like that, a new, grassroots direct- action movement congealed. Within weeks it would adopt the name ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and a deceptively simple demand: Drugs into bodies.

That was 25 years ago this month, and so much has happened since then, all of it stemming from that one electric moment. ACT UP revolutionized everything from the way drugs are researched to the way doctors interact with patients. Ultimately it played a key role in catalyzing the development of the drugs that since 1996 have helped keep patients alive for a near-normal life span. act up also redrew the blueprint for activism in a media-saturated world, providing inspiration for actions like Occupy Wall Street.

http://nymag.com/news/features/act-up-2012-4/


How to Survive A Plague

Here are some quotes from an interview about the documentary:

We're down here because we think we should be deciding research priorities;

We really all went back to square one and a crash course in trying to learn the science;

ACT UP started really basically guilt-tripping the government and all of Washington by actions that really grabbed public sympathy;

And it's really changed, from that moment on, how most illness advocacy groups interact with the US government;

Really amazing. It sort of felt like reaching the Wizard of Oz. You got to the centre of the system, and there's just this shmuck behind a curtain.

http://www.queerty.com/watch-commem...ory-of-game-changing-aids-activists-20120324/: 23:00; 26:00; 39:00; 41:40.

 

[*GG*]

No system is perfect, but I don't want socialized medicine. thank you

Its time for effective healthcare to be made available to everyone to the 99%, not just the 1%.

I like capitalism also, thank you.

GG

 

[Valentijn]

No system is perfect, but I don't want socialized medicine. thank you

Its time for effective healthcare to be made available to everyone to the 99%, not just the 1%.

I like capitalism also, thank you.

The alternative to socialized health care, for many people, is no health care at all.

 

[*GG*]

The alternative to socialized health care, for many people, is no health care at all.

Which from the sound of things, would be better than what you get? I have heard that since our Medicare was instituted, that health care costs have gone up more than inflation. Which is also what has happened to education and housing. It seems like the typical solution for gov't screw ups is more gov't, which takes more money, freedom and costs go out of control!

GG

 

[Valentijn]

Which from the sound of things, would be better than what you get?

Not really. I have access to a GP and an ME specialist, blood tests, and access to other specialists when referred by one of my regular doctors. The ME specialist is somewhat limited in what she'll do, but at least I'm getting very cheap magnesium, and other sleep meds if needed. They offer some other drugs which might be helpful as well. And when I had an acute OI episode, I was able to at least see a doctor, even if the visit was not productive itself - and she wants to do a followup now that the blood tests were all (of course) normal.

In six months or so I should even be able to get into an OI specialist! I'm highly annoyed that I'll have to wait that long, but back in the US with no income and probably no insurance by now (my old insurer switched the names of plans every year to purge customers that aren't profitable), that wait to see an OI specialist would be much much longer. Like, it would never happen.

The only reason I'd be able to get any treatment without socialized medicine (and the only reason that I can see a naturopath while waiting for things to happen), is due to wealthy family members. If they didn't have money or weren't supportive of me, I'd be completely screwed back in the US. And I'm not willing to say that socialized medicine is unnecessary just because I would be taken care of either way. A lot of people do not have any financial support available, but they are still entitled to the basic necessities of life.

I have heard that since our Medicare was instituted, that health care costs have gone up more than inflation. Which is also what has happened to education and housing. It seems like the typical solution for gov't screw ups is more gov't, which takes more money, freedom and costs go out of control!

This is due to health insurances companies being very poorly regulated in the US. Costs are much cheaper here, despite that literally everyone has mandatory health insurance. Currently prices are going up slightly in reaction to some regulations being relaxed, but it's unlikely to happen for long, as even the most hardcore conservative capitalists view healthcare as a universal right.

The problem is that health insurance companies are businesses. It is their purpose to make a profit. The services they offer are just a means to that end. While a profit-driven model is fine (and even desirable) in many areas of business, it is counterproductive for essential social services to operate in such a manner.

 

[Ember]

Chained AIDS Protesters Arrested in Wall St. Area

By VERENA DOBNIK Associated Press

NEW YORK April 25, 2012 (AP)

Longtime AIDS activists who have been chanting in the streets for a quarter century joined with supporters of the much newer Occupy Wall Street movement Wednesday in a rally and march through lower Manhattan to call for better health services.

New York Stock Exchange workers jeered from the sidewalk as handcuffed protesters wearing Robin Hood costumes were loaded into police vans after chaining themselves together and blocking traffic in the area around Wall Street. Police used chain cutters to remove them.

Protesters said they were marking the 25th anniversary of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power the organization known as ACT UP which was founded in March 1987 when the group marched on Wall Street to protest the high cost and low availability of HIV medications.

Eric Sawyer, one of the founding members of the group, which has grown to include chapters worldwide, said Wednesday that 25 years later the organization returned to the financial district for good reason.

When it comes to AIDS and housing services, he said, "big business is not funding anything, but they got the bailout."

Another longtime member, Julie Davids, said it made sense for the organization to march with Occupy supporters.

"ACT UP has always looked at the AIDS crisis through an economic justice lens and has always recognized that obstacles were rooted in greed and profit motive," she said.

Some protesters dragged couches and chairs into the middle of Broadway and chanted "Housing saves lives!" to draw attention to what they said was the lack of adequate housing assistance available to people with HIV. In all, several hundred people marched from City Hall, flanked by police in riot gear and on scooters.

The group was calling in part for a tax of less than a penny on all Wall Street transactions, to be used for medical and social services for people with HIV and AIDS, as well as for universal health care.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/...s-arrested-wall-st-area-16212460#.T5hOfOJTFyA