Why I'm voting for Ralph Nader and don't care if Gore loses

by Wayne Turner
(202) 547-9404
e-mail: actupdc@aol.com

The Clinton/Gore Administration has committed terrible crimes against people living with, and dying from HIV and AIDS. For eight years, they have gotten away with murder.

Had a Republican White House enacted these same policies, there would have been a united scream of bloody murder from the Democratic establishment and their inside-the-beltway apologists like the Human Rights Campaign.

Their silence has meant our deaths.

Imagine if, during the last eight years, it were a Republican Administration that:

• signed into law an HIV/AIDS immigration ban and ten day travel restriction for HIV positive non US citizens.

• fired the Surgeon General of the United States for simply mentioning that masturbation is safe sex.

• signed into law 'welfare reform,' which cut tens of thousands, including many living with HIV/AIDS, from the food stamp program, and other lifelines essential for the survival of poorest of the poor, left out of the 'economic boom.'

• assigned the a series of low level, powerless bureaucrats as the 'czar' to address the global AIDS pandemic.

• signed into law the 'Defense of Marriage Act,' denigrating the loving, committed, relationships of same sex couples while engaging in Oval Office adultery.

• refused to support clean needle exchange programs by working to lift the federal funding ban, thereby condemning countless men, women and children to a horrific, and preventable death.

• pushed for the mandatory names reporting of all those testing positive to HIV antibodies.

• threatened physicians' licenses if they recommend medical marijuana their patients, shut down cannabis buyers clubs, and campaigned against medical marijuana initiatives in eight states and the District of Columbia.

• gave hope to those infected by pledging to launch an all-out effort to find a cure, a Manhattan-Project for AIDS, and yet, once in power, after eight years, has never mentioned it again.

Would we be better off, in 2001, with another weak Democrat President that keeps appeasing the right, or an even weaker Republican President facing a strong, united opposition?

When I cast my vote for Ralph Nader on November 7, it will be a vote against the 'I feel your pain' lipservice, betrayals, and lies we've heard since 1992.

If Al Gore loses his bid for the presidency, good riddance. The two party choice is either an enemy we know, or a 'friend' who continually stabs us in the back.

No more votes for the evil of two lessers.

for more information on the Clinton/Gore AIDS record visit www.actupdc.org.

(ACT UP is a non-partisan group of individuals united in anger, committed to ending the AIDS pandemic, and does make make organizational endorsements)