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Tuesday, April 29 2008 - 05:08 PM
Wright is Wrong!
Once again, the media – from broadcast television to the blogosphere – is abuzz with news of fresh, controversial comments made by Jeremiah Wright, Sen. Barack Obama’s longtime pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.
In remarks to the National Press Club in Washington, Wright claimed that the U.S. government had likely engineered HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, specifically to target the African American population for genocide. Obama has attempted to distance himself from Wright.
Wright’s remarks would be laughable if they weren’t so patently sad. Even worse, it seems that Wright and a good-sized chunk of the African American population are very misinformed with regard to the actual history of the AIDS virus in the U.S. and abroad.
In it’s July 1994 edition, National Geographic came out with an extensive article on viral illnesses, and specifically HIV. The virus originated in Africa amongst primates, where it has been identified as Simean Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV). A similar retrovirus also exists in cats and is called Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV). HIV has been traced back to SIV. The virus is believed to have species-jumped sometime early on in the 20th century. In 1959, a British sailor died a mysterious and sickly death after having been stationed in East Africa. Tissue samples preserved later revealed that the sailor was HIV positive.
In the U.S., HIV first took off in the gay and bisexual male population. It was first known as GRIDS (gay-related Immune Deficiency Syndrome) and thought to be a cancer. At this time, gay populations in major U.S. urban areas were ravaged. For the most part, the epidemic was ignored because of the primary population involved. In worse cases, the disease was seen as God’s punishment for homosexuality and bisexuality.
HIV did not take route in the black community until the late 1980s – an entire 10 years after it had begun to be noticed amongst gay and bisexual men. When black basketball player and presumed heterosexual Magic Johnson announced to the world his HIV positive status, suddenly, AIDS became something that everyone was concerned about.
Since then, AIDS and HIV prevention programs have incurred huge sums of philanthropic donations and government funding.
For Wright to say that blacks in the U.S. were the targets of intentional HIV infection is an outright lie!
mattkeltner says...
Randy,
HIV (not AIDS) has jumped from IV Drug Users and MSM (men who have sex with men). The virus is spread via heterosexual means as well and is the primary mode of transmission outside of most industrialised nations. Increasingly, heterosexuality is also becoming a primary mode of transmission in Westernised nations as well.
HIV is a retrovirus. It does not “violate” any known “rules” of being so.
HIV is infectious under the right circumstances.
Lastly, I am not going to be drawn into one of your bizarre and archaic debates about the mere existence or nature of HIV, Randy.
If your posts proceed down that route, they will be deleted without hesitation.
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mattkeltner says...
BTW Randy, everything else aside, I actually do agree with your opinion on the matter of breast cancer research.
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mattkeltner says...
Yes, I am familiar with this data, Randy. What is the point, Sir?
If you’re alluding to the fact that people developed AIDS when exposed to blood that was initially screened as “HIV negative”, there is a reason for that.
That being, most often, it takes the body an average window period of 4-6 weeks to produce antibodies to the virus during seroconversion. If blood is screened before six weeks time, antibodies will not be present and a test will present a “negative” result.
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138hwy says...
Stupid ass, delete this!!
There is no chance of hetrosexual aids.
Quit spreading your falsehoods.
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mattkeltner says...
Well Billy, it seems you have enough trouble spelling the word heterosexual correctly to begin with.
Secondly, your denial is what is truly “stupid”, but I suppose you’re entitled to bask in your own stupidity, so go ahead.
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mattkeltner says...
And, here’s a little education for you Billy:
Men with an uncircumsised penis are 3 to 5 times more likely to contract HIV when exposed to the virus through blood or infectious vaginal fluids. This is due to the presence of extra mucosal receptors located in the foreskin.
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RealSteve says...
matt
Don’t forget, Billy likes to catch.
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Redflag says...
“There is no chance of heterosexual AIDS.”
From 1992-1995 my former wife and I volunteered one of our homes to Sunrise HIV/AIDS Coalition (SHAC) for use as a food bank for AIDS patients. She and I assisted in the food bank’s day-to-day operations which included the delivery of food and other necessities to the homes of people living with HIV/AIDS. The two of us alone made weekly deliveries to as many as two-dozen homes, most of which were inhabited by women who had contracted HIV either as a result of intravenous drug use or from their having had sex with infected male partners. In either case, the vast majority of these women were also mothers who had passed HIV to their children while in utero.
To make a very long and painful story short: I have attended a total of seventeen (17) “AIDS funerals”; seven (7) of which were held to honor the memory of men who happened to have been gay.
Persevere.
Guy
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mattkeltner says...
At the HIV site where I am a forum moderator, I cannot even begin to tell you how many heterosexual men we deal with who log on out of sheer terror after having found out that the Commercial Sex Worker they “met” while in Asia or Latin America was likely to be HIV positive.
Yet, we counsel them, answer their anxiety-driven inquiries and provide them releif until their six week window period has passed and they can test accurately. Neither myself, nor the other moderators/counselors, judge them for the events that led to their risk.
I suppose that’s why I find it particularly bothersome when someone ignorantly makes the claim that “hetrosexuals[sic]” don’t get AIDS.
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138hwy says...
RH..
I am not one to cut and paste, but I certainly could quote just as many learned doctors and others to support my contention that the risk to hetrosexuals is almost non-existant. This is something acquired through homosexual contact and sharing of needles used in drug usage.
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Billy EBT Bernier says...
I am not one to cut and paste, but i certainly could quote just as many learned doctors..
Hehehehehehe. I’m telling you I just love all of these people who actually went to school and did the work needed to understand the English language. Its so fun to swoop down like a vulture and copy them like the chimp I am so that I can pretend to understand the English language and pretend to be intelligent.
Yah I’m a complete phony, but I don’t care. Hhehehehehehe
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annette tappa says...
But heterosexuals CAN get hiv/aids if they had sex or shared a needle with someone who already had the virus.
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annette tappa says...
Randy, why is it almost non-existant now in heterosexuals? Why the decrease? What happened?
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138hwy says...
kelter/ebt..
post under your name. BTW..got a PM from someone bout you. Quite interesting, indeed.
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annette tappa says...
If Matt wanted to insult you, he’d have no problem using his own name.
Matt doesn’t hide himself behind fake screen names.
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138hwy says...
Who rattled your cage? How do you know who is a doppleanger and who isn’t.
Lord knows your hubby uses about 10 different names, pretending to be an attorney, etc.
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mattkeltner says...
The moniker “Billy EBT Bernier” is not a creation of mine. Rest assured. As Annette said, I have no problem ripping you to shreds under my own screen name.
I do happen to know who it is, however. In case you don’t, he happens to be one of the people you habitually insult on this site.
Since you claim you can “quote” a list of doctors who state that HIV does not effect heterosexuals, I’d like to see that list, please.
As soon as you post it, I will be contacting them. So, again, please hurry up and get that list posted!
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Billy EBT Bernier says...
Annette.
Billy isn’t bright enough to understand that I am not Matt. I’m not Real Steve either. It just goes to show you how many of us don’t like Billy Bernier or ‘138Hwy’ the circus chimpanzee who sits on his ass in his Section 8 apartment blogging all day long at taxpayers’ expense.
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annette tappa says...
That’s the point I was wanting to make, he hasn’t made friends here, so I’m sure many who would love to insult him other than Matt.
I also find it quite humorous that Bill would insult my husband when my Craig is far more than him. Jealous I guess…
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Redflag says...
Happy May Day/International Worker’s day – the day that commemorates the long and in fact bloody struggle toward the establishment of the eight-hour workday, and the day that was originally intended to be set aside as Labor Day. (Yet, by dragging its proverbial feet for more than fifty years, those ruling-class henchmen known collectively as the United States Congress, did its part in dissociating Labor Day from the often deadly struggle for the establishment of the eight-hour workday. Put another way, we are to believe that the eight-hour workday was simply given to us out of the kindness of the political state’s heart when, in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. So, too, does it show that we workers hold the ability to bring about limitless social and economic change, up to and including the social ownership and democratic administration of this nation’s means of industrial/economic production.)
Persevere.
Yours in solidarity and revolution.
Guy Marsh
Lancaster, 93536
Member-at-large:
Socialist Labor Party of America (est. 1890)
I’m out. :-(
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mattkeltner says...
Guy,
You know, May Day was originally called “Beltaine”—a pagan fertility festival. In ancient Europe and the Middle East, people decorated a May Pole (a phallic symbol) with flowers and garlands and danced around it in hopes of becoming impregnated.
When Europeans converted to Christianity, the sexual aspect of the May Pole was discontinued, but the dancing and feasting continued.
In Eastern Europe after the rise of the Soviet Union, all religious aspects of May 1 were erased and the day became affiliated with workers and labour. In much of Europe, it’s now celebrated as Labour Day. Though, in many of the smaller towns and villages, a May Pole is still decorated.
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138hwy says...
kelter.
I keep getting these “private messages” about you from an unknown source. Needless to say, they are not too nice, because you aren’t too nice because you are a dickhead. We already know that you have no character, but should I divuglve these messages?
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Randy Hall says...
Any comments MK why AIDS has failed to jump out of IV drug using, homosexuals, or those that mess around with IV drug using, homosexuals groups?
Also cancer is reported in new cases per year as are most disease processes. Any comments why AIDS is a cumulative stat?
Any comment why AIDS is the only “infectious” disease that violates any of the rules of infectious disease?
Any comment why we spend $50k per death on AIDS research but only about $3k on breast cancer research that takes thousand of more lives per year than AIDS does in decades? Isn’t it true that DDT would save millions of Africans if we’d just let them use it?
Wasn’t’ it The Oprah that said by the year 2000 everyone would know an AIDS patient?
Isn’t it known in dissident circles that AIDS isn’t infectious and it was AZT that killed the first reported victims? Wasn’t Magic warned not to take the AZT?
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