Larry Kramer

J

Jaybee00

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Jaybee00 said:
Fauci remembers AIDS activist Larry Kramer for 'extraordinary courage'

“He changed the relationship between the afflicted community and the scientific/regulatory community— we’ve got to be in [the same] tent.”
Click to expand...
Unfortunately that relationship change was a one-time deal and no lesson was learned from it. In fact the scientific/regulatory community, Fauci included, basically outdid themselves not learning those lessons and failed even worse after that not-learning-of-lessons.

That would have been great, though. Imagine that, learning from failure. What a concept.
 
Larry was a very angry man and also lovable, although I only knew him slightly in the '80s. When the epidemic occurred, he found an appropriate target for his rage. I was involved in ACT-UP from its start at the gay and lesbian community center (no one said LGBTQ then) when Larry came to talk on Tuesday in 1986. He screamed at us that two-thirds of us would be dead in five years. ACT-UP came out of that. I was involved for couple years, when I moved to San Francisco and became a newspaper reporter. Then I couldn't scream on the streets and get arrested anymore--I was on the other side reporting about those things.
 
dave30th said:
Larry was a very angry man and also lovable, although I only knew him slightly in the '80s. When the epidemic occurred, he found an appropriate target for his rage. I was involved in ACT-UP from its start at the gay and lesbian community center (no one said LGBTQ then) when Larry came to talk on Tuesday in 1986. He screamed at us that two-thirds of us would be dead in five years. ACT-UP came out of that. I was involved for couple years, when I moved to San Francisco and became a newspaper reporter. Then I couldn't scream on the streets and get arrested anymore--I was on the other side reporting about those things.
Click to expand...
I would to read what you wrote about it!
 
Fauci remembers AIDS activist Larry Kramer for 'extraordinary courage'

“He changed the relationship between the afflicted community and the scientific/regulatory community— we’ve got to be in [the same] tent.”
Click to expand...

A couple of corrections. Kramer was a catalyst, a match that lit a fire that became Act Up, a political grassroots movement that consciously operated as a collective. This representation of Larry Kramer as the pivotal individual in the transformation that Fauci speaks of is not accurate. Many others did the hard work of research, education, and took on the burden of direct action, just as courageously and effectively as anything Kramer did. It is no surprise that Fauci would advance this view of Kramer as prophetic hero because of the complexity of his public relationship to him as it unfolded over the years. It's an image Kramer attributed to himself.

I think it had a lot to do with Fauci's desire to be absolved of the burden of guilt he bore for his participation in the grotesque neglect of HIV. Simply put, if Larry loved him then he was forgiven.

Also, I think his assessment has much more to do with an idea of a kind of Great Men of History, actors of "consequence" rather than the more threateningly subversive movement that arises from the ability of a group to recognize injustice and organize dissent collectively in a fight for their lives.

For a better picture of Act Up, have a look at either the book or documentary How to Survive a Plague.

Our day of reckoning with Fauci is yet to come.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom