Category Archives: disaster capitalism
Why Ideology Matters, and what the AIDS Movement Can Teach the Left about Organizing
Every day I read another depressing news article about how the lame duck Democrats are going to cut off unemployment checks for millions of people right before the holidays and keep Dubya’s tax cuts for the super-rich intact. And sometimes … Continue reading
Gone ’til November? Wyclef Jean and the Haitian elections
I’m a huge fan of Wyclef Jean’s music, from 1996′s height of Fugees glory, The Score — an album played nonstop at every activist dance party that year — to his solo efforts, which never fail to lift my spirit. I was intrigued to hear that Wyclef was running for president of Haiti, one of the first places in the world to be hit hard by HIV in the ’80s. So was the AIDS activist group Housing Works, which does some organizing there and asked on August 2nd, Would President Wyclef Jean Make HIV/AIDS a Priority? Unfortunately, my research on Wyclef’s politics sang me a tune that was not music to my ears. It turns out Wyclef Jean supports the policies that keep 90% of the population desperately poor and without the resources to recover from famine, tropical storms’ destruction, and HIV/AIDS. Continue reading
ADAP Crisis: More people on waiting lists for HIV meds than ever before
“We die — you make money!” That’s what we shouted at the stock exchange in 1997, during ACT UP New York’s 10th anniversary Wall Street action. How is Wall Street doing today? It’s hard to tell. The Campaign for America’s Future reported in April that “multiple federal agencies have disbursed $4.6 trillion dollars in supporting the financial sector since the meltdown in 2007-2008…. This is an astonishing 32% of our GDP (2008) 130% of the federal budget (FY 2009).”
OK, so how are people living with HIV and AIDS doing? Well, on July 6, the Bilerico Project noted that more than 2,090 individuals in 12 states are now on waiting lists for lifesaving medications through the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP). Since its founding more than ten years ago, ADAP has always been in crisis. But this is the longest the waiting list has ever been. Continue reading
US Social Forum workshops not to be missed!
1p – 5:30p: HIV/AIDS and Social Justice – Cobo W2-61 – Fighting for the rights of people in prison, living on the streets, or in schools. Organizing against gentrification, poverty, and government neglect. Challenging racism, homophobia, and discrimination of all sorts. Confronting the forces of corporatization, globalization, and greed. AIDS activists are at the center of each of these battles, because we have long recognized that the AIDS epidemic is fueled by each of these forms of oppression. Good activists link local, national, and global struggles. They bring a broad range of voices to confront those with power. They work to amplify silenced voices within their own groups and throughout the world. And they win. We’ve won local victories like on-demand housing for everyone living with AIDS in NYC, and global victories like forcing drug companies and governments to accept generic drug competition. We are led by people living with HIV and have always brought the voices of those infected directly to those in power, amplified but not drowned out by the voices of allies. Come help us connect the dots between AIDS and oppressions faced by people on a daily basis, and learn what the successes and challenges of the AIDS movement can teach us all. Continue reading
Filed under Africa, African Americans, Alternatives to 501c3, arts and culture, California, disaster capitalism, displacement and gentrification, Drug users' rights, economic justice, gay and bisexual men, gender, Haiti, harm reduction, housing, immigration/migration, imperialism/colonialism, Latina/o communities in the United States, New Orleans, New York City, police repression, prison, revolutionary strategies, sex workers' rights, sexual violence, Southern United States, trans and gender non-conforming, transformative justice, treatment access, women
Housing As HIV Prevention
“One of the single biggest ways to prevent HIV by reducing risk behavior is to provide stability in housing,” says Charles King, president and CEO of Housing Works. “As long as you have chronic homelessness, people will be involved in drug activity that’s related to their homelessness and sex trade that’s related to their homelessness. Whether you’re HIV positive or negative, homelessness increases the risk of HIV transmission. The more people are forced to engage in survival activities, the greater the risk.” Continue reading
Abahlali baseMjondolo – The South African Shack Dwellers Movement
Abahlali baseMjondolo began in the large port city of Durban in early 2005, with a road blockade organized by people living in the Kennedy Road settlement to protest the sale to a local industrialist of nearby land that had long been promised by a local government representative to the shack dwellers for housing. The movement grew quickly, and now includes tens of thousands of people from more than 30 settlements, according to a history of Abahlali written by the Abahlali baseMjondolo Book Collective in October 2006. The document reports, “Amongst other victories, the Abahlali have democratised the governance of many settlements, stopped evictions in a number of settlements, won access to schools, stopped the industrial development of the land promised to Kennedy Road, forced numerous government officials, offices and projects to ‘come down to the people,’ and mounted vigorous challenges to the uncritical assumption of a right to lead the local struggles of the poor in the name of a privileged access to the ‘global,’ i.e., Northern donors, academics and non-government organizations (NGOs), that remains typical of most of the NGO-based left.” The group’s peaceful demonstrations have frequently met with police beatings, rubber bullets (and sometimes live ammunition), and arrests. Continue reading
RESOURCES
May/June 2008 • Issue 8 English Links: New research from National Housing and HIV/AIDS Research Summit (Press release, March 2008) Information about two major, long-awaited studies showing that housing for homeless people living with HIV/AIDS not only improves health outcomes … Continue reading
Open Letter to the Left and the AIDS Movement: Two ships passing on our winding way to a new dawn
I got a sense that people of color—especially immigrants, indigenous people, women of color and queer people of color—were like, “the Left is ours,” and were bringing the most innovative strategies and concepts to be seen in years, rocketing the whole thing into another dimension. Continue reading
Filed under African Americans, Alternatives to 501c3, disaster capitalism, Drug users' rights, economic justice, gay and bisexual men, gender, harm reduction, hepatitis, housing, imperialism/colonialism, Latina/o communities in the United States, New York City, people with AIDS in leadership, Philadelphia, police repression, prison, revolutionary strategies, sex workers' rights, Southern United States, stigma, trans and gender non-conforming, Uncategorized, women
Harm Reduction Activism in Russia
By Masha Ovchinnikova JUNE 2007 • Issue 5 Masha Ovchinnikova is an activist and project coordinator at FrontAIDS, a Russian AIDS activist group. She is a former drug user living in Moscow and has been doing harm reduction work for … Continue reading
Solidarity Project 4 – Disaster, conflict, and displacement
The Solidarity Project, published online by the Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project (CHAMP) from November 2006 to November 2008, is available in pdf format on CHAMP’s website. Download Issue 4 – Survivors in Action – here. En Español: ABRIL 2007 • … Continue reading
