At Hullabaloo, Tristero is justifiably suspicious of the motivations behind this initiative:
Bush Requests $30 Billion to Fight AIDS
WASHINGTON, May 30 — President Bush called Wednesday for Congress to spend $30 billion to fight global AIDS over the next five years, a near doubling of financing that is part of a White House effort to burnish Mr. Bush’s humanitarian credentials before he meets leaders of the Group of 8 industrialized nations next week
The initiative, if approved, would build on a program that grew out of the president’s 2003 State of the Union address, when he asked for $15 billion over five years for prevention, treatment and care of AIDS patients in developing countries. Congress approved more than $18 billion, but the program is set to expire next year.
Mr. Bush’s announcement, delivered in the White House Rose Garden, adds to what has become an unexpectedly high priority for the White House. AIDS was not a signature issue for Mr. Bush when he ran for office in 2000. But it has become one in part because the Christian conservatives who make up his political base have embraced it, and in part because Mr. Bush wants to build a legacy for the United States and a more compassionate image abroad to counter international criticism of American policies in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Specifically, Tristero sees this largely as a means of feeding the access-capitalist beast the Bush administration is so fond of (and so much a part of). And this is, of course, true.
But I think we can expand upon this. Crony capitalism and spoils-system government in a democracy is hardly new. The scope of it is unprecedented, but it is more than simple cronyism at a whole new level. The Bush administration had been attempting to establish total and permanent control of outcomes for itself, and was hoping to use powerful conservative groups as a means of doing so. Anyone looking at the Republican party should view their actions through the prism of control. This desire for control of outcomes drives all of their decision making, moving them to: install people of total incompetence or ignorance into important government positions; enact truly idiotic, fact-free policy, regardless of effectiveness; and use noise and unscientific, discredited studies and reports from ideological think tanks to give their ideas intellectual sheen. Christianists and plutocrats make perfect cogs for such a machinee. In this way, the AIDS epidemic in Africa is not only a potential cash cow for Republican aligned business interests-I'm looking at you, pharma lords-it also melds these interests perfectly with Christianist's desire for political and social control.
In fact, they may be the driving force in this issue. Christianists have been instrumental in Bush administration'sthe growing interest in the AIDS epidemic. As the Times article states
AIDS was not a signature issue for Mr. Bush when he ran for office in 2000. But it has become one in part because the Christian conservatives who make up his political base have embraced it...
And, yes, they certainly have been very active. This is of a piece with Bush's "compassionate conservative" posturing in the 2000 campaign, and his blather about his Christian beliefs.
Unfortunately, the Christian influence hasn't exactly been a boon. This is because of their love of the "Abstinence Only" programs they crow so magnificently about. Christian leaders, who obsess about the sex lives of others on a near-constant basis, seem to feel that, say, advocating correct condom use as a method of preventing AIDS will lead to wanton, uncontrolled sex; and that clean-needle exchanges will encourage intravenous drug use, immediately. Thus, any program that does not push abstinence-only programs should get no money from America at all:
Some leading Christian conservatives are calling on Congress to reduce U.S. funding allocations to the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, saying that the Global Fund does not allocate adequate resources to faith-based programs and that it promotes condom use, the Boston Globe reports. According to the Globe, the Global Fund is not "popular" among U.S. Christian conservatives, some of whom object to the Global Fund's policies, which include supporting needle-exchange programs for injection drug users. In addition, some Christian conservatives are "furious that just 6%" of the Global Fund's program grants go toward faith-based groups, the Globe reports. Peter Brandt, senior director of government and public policy at the Christian group Focus on the Family, said he wants the U.S. to stop financing all of the Global Fund's HIV/AIDS programs because the group does not provide sufficient money to faith-based groups and has given little support to abstinence messages.
There is only one problem: there is no evidence that abstinence programs work:
There is no good scientific evidence that teaching abstinence to teenagers will by itself prevent unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, say the authors of a recent study. Yet they found that comprehensive sex education is declining and that more youngsters are being taught nothing more than abstinence...
...Kirby compared California and Texas, two states he said were similarly populous and were home to many Hispanics, a group whose teen pregnancy rates are high.
"California took a very progressive approach," he said. "Texas pushed abstinence and made it a little more difficult for teens to receive contraceptives. Pregnancy did go down between 1991 and 2004, but Texas had the second-lowest decline of all states, 19 percent. California had the second-greatest decrease, 46 percent.
"What's really sad is that Bush is trying to take some of the policies that didn't work in Texas and implement them nationwide."
Furthermore, the "Content of Federally-Funded Abstinence-Only Programs" study done by the House of Representatives found that such programs "Contain False and Misleading
Information about the Effectiveness of Contraceptives..."
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Latex
condoms, when used consistently and correctly, are highly effective in preventing
the transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.”26 Contrary to this scientific
consensus, multiple curricula provide false information about condoms and HIV
transmission.
Several curricula cite an erroneous 1993 study of condom effectiveness that has
been discredited by federal health officials. The 1993 study, by Dr. Susan Weller,
looked at a variety of condom effectiveness studies and concluded that condoms
reduce HIV transmission by 69%.27 Dr. Weller’s conclusions were rejected by
the Department of Health and Human Services, which issued a statement in 1997
informing the public that “FDA and CDC believe this analysis was flawed.”28
The Department cited numerous methodological problems, including the mixing
of data on consistent condom use with data on inconsistent condom use, and
found that Dr. Weller’s calculation of a 69% effectiveness rate was based on
“serious error.” In fact, CDC noted that “[o]ther studies of discordant couples
— more recent and larger than the ones Weller reviewed, and conducted over several years — have demonstrated that consistent condom use is highly effective
at preventing HIV infection.”30
Despite these findings, several curricula refer approvingly to the Weller study.
One curriculum teaches: “A meticulous review of condom effectiveness was
reported by Dr. Susan Weller in 1993. She found that condoms were even less
likely to protect people from HIV infection. Condoms appear to reduce the risk
of heterosexual HIV infection by only 69%.”31 Another curriculum that cites Dr.
Weller’s data claims: “In heterosexual sex, condoms fail to prevent HIV
approximately 31% of the time.”32
Other abstinence-only curricula contest CDC’s finding that “latex condoms
provide an essentially impermeable barrier to particles the size of STD
pathogens.”33 These curricula rely on the false idea that HIV and other pathogens
can “pass through” condoms. One curriculum instructs students to:
Think on a microscopic level. Sperm cells, STI organisms, and HIV
cannot be seen with the naked eye — you need a microscope. Any
imperfections in the contraceptive not visible to the eye, could allow
sperm, STI, or HIV to pass through. . . . The size difference between a
sperm cell and the HIV virus can be roughly related to the difference
between the size of a football field and a football.34
The same curriculum states, “The actual ability of condoms to prevent the
transmission of HIV/AIDS even if the product is intact, is not definitively
known.”35 This distorts CDC’s finding and scientific consensus.
Apparently, it isn't enough to spread Texas' failed system throughout the U.S. Bushco wants that kind of success all through Africa as well.
Of course, there isn't any reason sex-only-with-your-married partner should apply to, say, Bush operatives in charge of such programs.
This is typical of the controlling religious right. They will help you...with conditions. And those conditions are that you live in a manner that they get to choose for you (even if they do not live up to those standards themselves). The rewards for helping people with these conditions attached are obvious. They have used these occasions for bringing people in dire need into their fold, which helps to maintain their numbers and political power. This makes them invaluable to the Republican party, and this value puts them in positions of power, where they can reinforce that power all over again through programs like these. An ugly loop.
This deeply cynical symbiotic relationship has nothing at all to do with AIDS prevention or helping poverty-stricken countries dealing with a horrible epidemic. Any truly intelligent or generous approach would use what works without attaching dogmatic religious conditions. But the administration and the Christian right see AIDS as an opportunity, mutually beneficial for themselves and their agendas even as it leaves real people with real needs in the lurch. And it builds the ideological foundation that will allow for the plutocratic hog-wallow that almost certainly will follow.
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