[lbo-talk] AIDS in the USA, AIDS in the World

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 2/13/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Feb 13, 2007, at 9:36 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > Global AIDS drug prices have much more to do with struggles over
> > patent than with ACT UP and other US AIDS activist orgs, just as big
> > race and class gaps in infection rates, mortality rates, etc. in the
> > USA have much more to do with economic inequality, lack of
> > single-payer health care, the "war on crimes" (which has led to
> > "[r]oughly one-fifth of black adult males in the United States" having
> > served time ["New Perspectives on the Social and Economic Contexts of
> > HIV/AIDS Infection," Focus Vol. 24, No. 3, Fall-Winter 2006,
> > <http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc243f.pdf>]), and
> > so on than with ACT UP and other US AIDS activist orgs.
>
> Worse, ACT-UP hasn't done a thing about global warming, not to
> mention baldness.

I'm not claiming it should -- I'm saying it can't.  Is it so
controversial to point out the model of identity politics doesn't work
for the poor?

Identity politics is weak or non-existent where it could do a lot of
good -- weak in social democratic countries, non-existent in state
socialist countries -- and is strong where much more than identity
politics is necessary -- like the USA.
-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>