I’ve been
here before. It was 1989. I stood in Nollen Plaza in Des Moines, the
state of capitol of Iowa, and said:
“Terry
Branstad (my governor) is a murderer!”
People had a
real problem with my saying that, even after I explained I only said it because it's true. By the end of that year, the death
count due to complications from HIV/AIDS would reach nearly 90,000. The
first reported case was in 1981, and 618 had died by 1982. There was no federal or state funding for
research or treatment of the disease. (Contrast
this, if you will, to the all-out federal government and CDC response when 34
people had died from Legionnaires Disease a few years earlier in Philadelphia.)
I had a
clever friend name named Rick Graf who would, tongue-in-cheek carry around a
chart showing AIDS/HIV funding in “thousands of dollars” with a huge “0” next
to it. It killed Rick in 1995.
It was
because people hated gay people, and they were okay with letting gay men
die. To object to these deaths was
considered “being political” or being supportive of homosexuality. A position even only a fraction of gay people
wanted to take in public then.
But, I’d had
it. I’d begun to lose friends, good men,
gifted men, and no one seemed to care.
The red ribbon I wore was problematic at my job. I was accused of being “disrespectful” and “in
your face” of those who thought it was wrong to be gay.
“But people
are dying,” I’d say.
“I know,”
they’d say, “but….”
The “buts”
were always stupid and thinly veiled in bigotry and self-interest. It wasn’t as if I was without
self-interest. I didn’t want my friends
to die--one in particular, my soul-mate and life’s best friend a gay man named Michael. I made a secret pact with God, that if I took
any sling or arrow thrown my way to stop this travesty, that he would spare
Michael. It killed Michael in 1996.
However, the
truth has a way of winning, and justice won’t shut up. Little by little, by too damned little, people
joined the few; and the few became the many.
It took a little boy named Ryan White dying of AIDS to shift the
paradigm. Still, in 1991, when the Ryan
White bill was finally passed, my “liberal” Democratic senator Tom Harkin, made a point of
announcing that the bill was for those “who didn’t get AIDS on purpose.”
Michael and
I went to one of the last showings of the AIDS Quilt in 1992 on the Capitol
Mall in Washington, D.C. He was sick by
then and gaunt. It ripped my heart in
ways I can’t talk about much without weeping.
I still hoped he would live, you see.
We joined an Act-Up Demonstration and helped wrap a red ribbon around
the White House. We sat on the wet grass
behind the White House on Xeroxed photos of George H.W. Bush. Bush the first, would lose the election in a few
months. We prayed for that. We believed Bill Clinton would do everything
for gay people. He didn’t. He passed laws against us, in fact.
I sometimes
sit alone in my living room and become very quiet. I allow myself to feel the vacuum of the
presence of all we lost because of an irrational hatred that is still given too
much berth. I imagine Michael’s clothing
designs, Kevin’s musical gifts with children, Kerry’s exquisite talent as a
concert pianist, Allan’s magical fiber creations, David’s beautiful baritone voice,
Bill’s compositions…. I literally could
go on all day.
We have no
comprehension of the beauty that was stolen from our world because we let these
men die. It gutted the artistic
community in a way that’s never been acknowledged. Our souls have been irreparably damaged by
this, and we don’t know have an inkling as to the totality of that damage.
Still, I
survived. But barely. I’d struggled with clinical depression my
whole life, but I didn’t know it yet. I
self-medicated with booze and a lot of it. My emotional immune
system was so worn down, that even a relatively mild blow would leave me in
total darkness. I didn’t know how to
take care of myself and instead let my passion do the driving. I would dovetail quixotic efforts for justice
rather than rest in between. I was
furious with people who wouldn’t help. I
was flattened by good friends who, out of self-interest, would be betray me. I attempted suicide six times. It would take a good decade before I was
properly diagnosed and received the treatment I needed.
Then, one
day in late 2012, a weird, miraculous drop of grace tickled my soul while I was
having a goofy memory about myself, and I fell in love with me. I’d never loved myself, but suddenly I
did. I became very protective of me in
every way. I became whole enough to know
what being whole meant. Ironically, this
dissolved my resentments and left me better able to love and forgive. Who’d have thought?
I’ve been
here before.
Hillary
Clinton is a murderer. So is every
member of Congress who is not a co-sponsor of HR676, the Single Payer Bill in
Congress, which includes my congressman, Dave Loebsack. Yes, David, you’re a murderer. So, is every supporter of Health Insurance
companies, an enterprise that every second of every day commits genocide with
glee.
Others may
not call it murder to let people die when the resources exist to save them, but
I do. So, there you have it. Why mince words? I really doubt the insurance companies will
close shop or politicians will stop capitulating to them if I ask them nicely.
Only this
time it’s poor and low-income people we hate.
I believe Hillary Clinton is of brilliant intellect, and I don’t believe
Dave Loebsack is stupid. They know we can
afford Single Payer. They know, in fact,
it would cost us less than how we’re doing it now. They know that until we have a Single Payer
system that guarantees healthcare for everyone that some will suffer and
die. They know it. God help their souls, they’re just lying
about it to protect their own self-interests.
I’m truly sorry if this offends Hillary or Loebsack supporters, but it’s
the God-blessed truth, and lives depend on someone telling it. Imagine holding your dying friend and having
some politician say we might get to your problem by 2020.
"Incremental change" or "doing what we can" is a lot hooey for not doing what needs to be done. Or, at the very least being square with people about the reality of this mess.
Obamacare
may have helped a few, but it’s not even a drop in the bucket that needs to be
filled. Don’t worry, the GOP isn’t going
to get rid of most of Obamacare, especially the subsidies. Stop believing the Bullshit Partisan Food
Fight Theater. The empirical evidence of
what I’m saying is pretty easily available if you care to look. The insurance companies want that cash, and
their toadies will make sure they get it.
They’ll just increase the premiums and deductibles and the fines for not
having insurance until we’re paying hundreds each month to them for
nothing. What a God-forsaken racket.
America hates
poor people. Americans make fun of how
they dress, what they eat, how they talk, where they shop, and the music they
love. We’re just not that bothered if
they suffer and die. It’s not as if it’s
happening to people who matter. Admit
it.
As I type
this, I am keenly aware that there are millions who are suffering and in pain
but afraid to go to a doctor.
“What if I
spend that money, and it’s only a virus?”
“I can’t
miss work.”
“I wish
there were a free or cheap clinic where I live.”
“I can’t
spare the $50 to get in at the online clinic right now.”
Most will
live. Some will not. They’ll have something serious that needed
immediate care or an infection will turn to sepsis that a $4.00 antibiotic
would have cured if they could afford to see a doctor to write the
prescription. The least consequence they’ll suffer is being terrified (actually terrorized), and feel pain longer
than that should have. That is inhumane
and wrong by any standard of decency.
The number
who are killed for being poor looks like an afternoon in the park compared to
the AIDS/HIV epidemic. Approximately
26 million Americans can’t afford the healthcare they need. A little more than 100,000 of them will die
this year. I believe these people are human beings who matter.
Therefore, I
intend to do all in my power to make a living hell of the lives of anyone who
stands in between me and an end to this holocaust. I survived. And, I’m much better now at taking care of
myself. And, I’m old now anyway.
Let me be
perfectly clear, I want health insurance companies to die, and I’ll do anything
I can to make that happen. They are
evil. It’s past time to call them that.
AIDS taught
me something. If I yell loud enough, long enough, people will start to
listen. Oh, they may hate me. They may say dumb-ass drivel like, “It’s not
what she says, it’s how she says it.”
They may form bullshit committees and project that I’m not allowed to
join. I don’t bloody care.
You have
been warned. I’m going to keep screaming
my head off until Single Payer is the law of the land. You know sort of like every other
industrialized nation in the world? As
my friend Rick used to say, “Silence=Death.
So, I’ll just keep talking, thank you.”
Mona Shaw is
a grandmother of six and a high school graduate who lives in the low-rent district in
a small town in Iowa.
