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Speaker 1: Mhm Hi everybody, I'm Robert Evans, and this is once

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Speaker 1: again Behind the Bastards the Shore, where we tell you

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Speaker 1: everything you don't know about the very worst people in

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Speaker 1: all of history. Now, this is part two of our

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Speaker 1: episode on the Reagans and the AIDS crisis. Uh And

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Speaker 1: my guest with me as with on Tuesday is Andy

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Speaker 1: Beckerman and a couple of therapy Hey, everyone, how you doing?

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Speaker 1: How are you doing? And it's going on. I'm going

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Speaker 1: so we're recording this right after the first episode. I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna try to get my energy back. If you listen

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Speaker 1: to the first episode, you can if if you like,

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Speaker 1: had a graph of my energy as we hear more

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Speaker 1: and more about just how like I knew. Look, it's

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Speaker 1: not like I didn't know that the Reagans were fucking awful, right,

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Speaker 1: I knew about Look read manufacturing consent. Chomsky and Herman

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Speaker 1: go all into like they're fucking Shenanigans in Central and

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Speaker 1: South America. We all know about the Iran Contra scandal.

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Speaker 1: We know about how they allowed crack into black communities

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Speaker 1: in the United States that eventually then destroyed those communities.

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Speaker 1: We know they're awful people, but to have like the

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Speaker 1: nitty gritty right in front of you. It just like

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Speaker 1: so the graph of my enthusiasm, and it goes from

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Speaker 1: like making jokes to just like these motherfucker's yeah. And

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Speaker 1: so it's it's like a downhill slope of our of

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Speaker 1: of the emotional journey we all went through that first episode.

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Speaker 1: But I'm gonna look, I'm gonna try to put out

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Speaker 1: the energy for this one. This episode has a hero.

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Speaker 1: So that's this episode has a hero. It does include

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Speaker 1: a hero. Was there a Wolverine comic where he fought

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Speaker 1: uh fought ray Well, he tried to fight the AIDS virus.

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Speaker 1: It did not work out well, but he was he

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Speaker 1: was attempting. It turns out, I don't know, he's got

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Speaker 1: superhero you know, he heals. I don't want to go

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Speaker 1: on this. This is not this is not a not

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Speaker 1: a healing factor and a very special X Men issue

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Speaker 1: about all this. I want Wolverine and like the was

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Speaker 1: the crossover where all that they their fall other enemies

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Speaker 1: like mcn fought Spider Man or something and Mandarin fought

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Speaker 1: siloc It's shocking to me that we're still able to

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Speaker 1: have cartoon villains called the Mandarin. Oh no, remarkable. No,

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Speaker 1: I believe he's dead now so that they could have

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Speaker 1: less racist characters. But wolverinverse Reagan, Hey, Marvel, get on that? Oh,

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Speaker 1: maybe make that the next X Men? When now that

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Speaker 1: the X Men are part of the Marvel universe, the

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Speaker 1: Marvel Cinematic universe. So did that happen? Yes? When when

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Speaker 1: Disney bought I'm behind on my Marvel news? Oh my, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you're right Disney did. Don't you read Deadline? Speaking of Fox,

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Speaker 1: Fox in the Henhouse. Actually this does segue nicely into

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Speaker 1: Fox because part of my due diligence for this podcast

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Speaker 1: was reading several defenses of the Reagan administration's reaction to

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Speaker 1: the AIDS crisis, And to be fair, I wanted to

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Speaker 1: find the best defenses I could for their behavior. I

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Speaker 1: found one such defense in a conservative journal called City Journal.

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Speaker 1: It's a quarterly publication. Uh, and it claims that Reagan

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Speaker 1: actually waged a quiet war on AIDS. That's the termam

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Speaker 1: it uses, where he didn't talk about it or approved

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Speaker 1: much additional funding. In fact, actually slashed most medical funding

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Speaker 1: for research anything. But he was it was a quiet war.

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Speaker 1: It was quiet. It was so quiet you might not

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Speaker 1: have heard him say anything about it until nineteen people

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Speaker 1: had died. Um. The article argues that the quietness is

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Speaker 1: okay because his administration took action to reform FDA procedures

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Speaker 1: that slowed down the development of better drugs. That's what

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Speaker 1: it's saying. What's the source again, City Journal? If you're

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Speaker 1: a conservative person, it's like it's a it's a I mean,

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Speaker 1: I am sure assuming gets funding from a bunch of

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Speaker 1: different Like one of the articles that I found on

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Speaker 1: it was called the Democrats War on Science. So if

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Speaker 1: you are a conservative, City Journal is a relatively reputable

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Speaker 1: news source. If you're looking for right wing journals of

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Speaker 1: pun the tree, what democrats are all Jews with horns. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's not quite that bad. Um. I'm going to read

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Speaker 1: a quote from it, trying to make the claim that

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Speaker 1: f d A reformed during the Reagan administration helped against

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Speaker 1: the age crisis. As the gravity of the AIDS threat

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Speaker 1: became clear, the Reagan FDA began writing new rules that

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Speaker 1: spelled out when't significant parts of the old rules wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be fully rigorously enforced. By doing so, the agency accelerated

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Speaker 1: patient access to desperately needed drugs. Pharmaceutical companies quickly began

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Speaker 1: coming on board once new policies were in place that

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Speaker 1: would speed up the approval of drugs. In short order,

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Speaker 1: the firms delivered a slew of powerful new drugs using

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Speaker 1: the new tools for designing precisely targeted drugs that were

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Speaker 1: coming of age at the time. As a National Academy

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Speaker 1: of Sciences later noted, the extraordinarily fast development of drugs

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Speaker 1: that ended up in cocktails now used to control HIV

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Speaker 1: had a quote revolutionary effect on modern drug design. Part

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Speaker 1: of this is true, uh, the research that was done

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Speaker 1: in the meta, like the the fight in order to

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Speaker 1: make effective medicine for age was a revolutionary moment in

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Speaker 1: the development of pharmaceuticals. What's really debatable is how much

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Speaker 1: Reagan's reforms of the FDA had to do with any

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Speaker 1: of this. Um Now, you can make an argument that

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Speaker 1: some of those reforms might have sped up the process.

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Speaker 1: There are certainly things that were done that made it

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Speaker 1: easier for people to get medicines that weren't officially FDA approved,

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Speaker 1: like rock Hudson had to travel to France. Could make

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Speaker 1: that argument. A lot of people would laugh at you

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Speaker 1: for trying to but you could make that argument important

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Speaker 1: to be fair, um, but it is tough to make

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Speaker 1: a evidence base case that the Reagan administration improved the

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Speaker 1: FDA because they actually gutted it and slashed its funding.

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Speaker 1: And this is the fun part of being fair because

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Speaker 1: now that I have gone into this is again the

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Speaker 1: best argument I found about how the Reagan administration took action,

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Speaker 1: and it is you can back it up with strong

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Speaker 1: facts that changes that were made to FDA procedures during

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Speaker 1: the Reagan administration helped certain aspects of things that people suffering.

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Speaker 1: Like that's what It made it easier to get drugs

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Speaker 1: that you know hadn't been fully approved yet for a

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Speaker 1: disease that was working at a dang. That's a that's

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Speaker 1: a legitimate achievement of that era. Debatable as to whether

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Speaker 1: or not you want to put it on Reagan or someone,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's a thing that was done that helped

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Speaker 1: some people. Yeah, but they also introduced a bill that

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Speaker 1: if you've ever seen one's penis in a changing room

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Speaker 1: like at the gym, then you no longer have access

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Speaker 1: to healthcare. So well, here's what they actually did, because

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Speaker 1: it's really fucked up too, So that this is why

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Speaker 1: this is the fun part of being fair because once

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Speaker 1: you dig into these things, like I I read it

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Speaker 1: up and it's like, okay, yeah, there are some reforms

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Speaker 1: of the FDA that we're made that improved access to

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Speaker 1: certain drugs. Here's what else happened. Uh So, Reagan's priority.

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Speaker 1: One of the big things they did when they started

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Speaker 1: slashing funding the FDA to try to streamline it. Their

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Speaker 1: goal was to make the FDA a better quote partner

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Speaker 1: for the pharmaceutical industry. That did speed some things up,

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Speaker 1: but it also got lots of people killed. Here's the

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Speaker 1: New York Times uh an interview with a doctor named

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Speaker 1: Sydney Wolf from the World Health Research Group. In October

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Speaker 1: nine one, a federal government advisory committee recommended against the

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Speaker 1: use of aspirint for chicken pox or flu because of

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Speaker 1: the increased risks risk of raise syndrome. But as a

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Speaker 1: result of pressure on the aspirin systry raise syndrome, who's ray.

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Speaker 1: It's a disease that causes like brain damage and can

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Speaker 1: kill kids. I think the taking aspirin as basically the

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Speaker 1: Federal government advisory committee was like the current medical advice

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Speaker 1: that the pharmaceutical industry really really supports is give your

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Speaker 1: kid aspirin if they have chicken poxes. I remember commercials

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Speaker 1: when I was a kid. Yeah, And so the pharmaceutical

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Speaker 1: industry obviously once anything, it gets people taking more aspirin um.

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Speaker 1: And but then there was evidence that this is actually

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Speaker 1: bad for kids and main fact have been killing them.

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Speaker 1: But quote as a result of pressure of the aspirin industry,

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Speaker 1: at proposal by the FDA from mandatory warning labels with

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Speaker 1: was withdrawn in the fall of Nino. As a result,

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Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty American children are dead and doesn't

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Speaker 1: have brain damage. So cutting back on f d a

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Speaker 1: red tape cuts both ways, and in this case it

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Speaker 1: cut a hundred and fifty kids to death. Anyway, that's

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Speaker 1: what fairness looks like. That's not a ton, it's only

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Speaker 1: and dozens of kids with brain damage not that bad, really,

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Speaker 1: less than two hundred total. Probably, if you're going to

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Speaker 1: make it easier for people to get experimental medicines, some

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Speaker 1: children are going to die from bad or from aspirin.

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Speaker 1: That's just sure. Yeah, I mean, look in comparison with

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Speaker 1: how many people the Reagan administration murdered in Central and

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Speaker 1: South America, that's nothing. You know what. You know what.

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Speaker 1: It's perspective, guys. It's perspective. It's perspective exactly. Um. And

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Speaker 1: now we have some perspective. I just thought we delve

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Speaker 1: into the other cases here, you know, you know, the

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Speaker 1: defenses of the administration. This is what I was talking about,

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Speaker 1: like part one where I was like, once the pharmaceutical

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Speaker 1: industry smelled a profit to be made, is that when

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Speaker 1: things started to pick up, like, oh, let's address this now,

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Speaker 1: I guess not not not in the period we're getting into.

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Speaker 1: That's like they get better at it later on. But again,

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Speaker 1: most of the first medicines to treat AIDS did not

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Speaker 1: fucking work. And we're going to talk to them about

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Speaker 1: that in a little bit here. So um. According to

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Speaker 1: City Journal, another aspect of Ronald Reagan's so secret it

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Speaker 1: looked invisible war on AIDS was his appointment of See

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Speaker 1: Everett Coop as Surgeon General. Uh and Mr Coop is

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Speaker 1: a hero of this story, and he was appointed by

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Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan. But Ronald Reagan and his Surgeony General did

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Speaker 1: not exactly see I to eye and looked like the

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Speaker 1: colonel from KFC. Yeah, we're about to pull up his picture.

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Speaker 1: He looked amazing. He's he's I'm gonna go ahead and say,

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Speaker 1: probably the best aesthetic if any surgeon general we've ever had.

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Speaker 1: And he does look like I would trust his recommendation

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Speaker 1: on where by fried Chicken? If se Everett Coope was

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Speaker 1: to tell me, now, Son, this place has a damn

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Speaker 1: good bucket of fried bud here, I'd be like, you

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Speaker 1: look like the kind of man who knows where good

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Speaker 1: fried chicken is. My true Vada recipes got seven secret

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Speaker 1: herbs and spasses in it, the best, I mean, whatever,

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Speaker 1: the well, I guess I'll trust you. Kooby really getting

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Speaker 1: a lot of play out of the Reagan voice jokes.

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Speaker 1: That's that's if I was. If I was a journalist,

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Speaker 1: Poop on Coop he used to say poop is sco

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Speaker 1: because it was funny. Look at this guy, Look at

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Speaker 1: this guy. That's what a fucking champion. That is truly

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Speaker 1: a courageous chin beard. And this picture will be on

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Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards dot com if you want to see.

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna go ahead and say the best chin beard

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Speaker 1: any surgeon general has ever had. I think that's probably fair.

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Speaker 1: Texas on who send us a message on Twitter if

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Speaker 1: you find a better surgeon general with a twin. If

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Speaker 1: you get a name a surgeon general that's ever Coop.

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Speaker 1: That's also fair. He is the only surgeon general whose

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Speaker 1: name I knew before I started on this podcast, So

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Speaker 1: that's a fair point. So Charles Everett Coop was called

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Speaker 1: chick by his friends in Dartmouth College because chickens living

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Speaker 1: comedy didn't wasn't really very advanced back then. What years

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Speaker 1: this This is like in the forties something like that,

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Speaker 1: and they get back into the yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: Lenny Bruce was just a gleam and fatty Arbuckle's eye.

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Speaker 1: I don't know much about the evolution of comedy. Um,

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Speaker 1: so yeah. Cooper was a born again Christian um In

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, he published The Right to Live the

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Speaker 1: Right to Die, which argued against both abortion and euthanasia.

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Speaker 1: The books sold a hundred thous copies, mostly to Christian

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Speaker 1: readers in its first year. Coop said, quote, what a scam?

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Speaker 1: How many? How how many grifters are there in like

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Speaker 1: the Christian community. He's not a grifter. I will say

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Speaker 1: this for Coop. He believes strongly everything, And I think

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Speaker 1: you might come around on this, but He's definitely not

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Speaker 1: you would think in any sort of reasonable corner right now,

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Speaker 1: but he believes this stuff. Look I love the beard,

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Speaker 1: love his aesthetic. All right, I'm already like there. Well see,

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Speaker 1: Ivert Coop wrote this book about you know how as

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Speaker 1: a physician and a Christian, he didn't believe abortion should

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Speaker 1: be legal or or euthanasian. In fact, he viewed them

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Speaker 1: as basically the same thing. That said He was also

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Speaker 1: had a brilliant career as a surgeon and a children's

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Speaker 1: hospital in Philadelphia, and he established the United states is

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Speaker 1: first neal natal unit in nineteen fifty six, work there

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Speaker 1: until nineteen So he was a guy with very strong,

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Speaker 1: very right wing religious conservative views. But he was also

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Speaker 1: a guy who clearly viewed his north star as taking

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Speaker 1: care of human beings and that was the thing that

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Speaker 1: was his main focus in life. And how did that

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Speaker 1: lash with his Christian beliefs. Well, we're about to get

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Speaker 1: into that, um so Coop. When he was appointed, many Democrats,

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Speaker 1: including Henry Waxman, spoke out against Coop. Waxman said, quote,

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Speaker 1: Dr Coope frightens me. He does not have a public

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Speaker 1: health record. He's dogmatically denounced those who disagree with him,

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Speaker 1: and his intemperate views make me wonder about his and

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Speaker 1: the administration's judgment. Uh. Here's a quote from the book

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Speaker 1: after the Wrath of God, titled doctor Unqualified, The New

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Speaker 1: York Times editorial board latted Coop's work as a pediatric surgeon,

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Speaker 1: but underscored his lack of public health experience. Pass surge

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Speaker 1: in generals almost without exception. The article continued, have possessed experience,

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Speaker 1: specifically within the field of public health. That Coop had

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Speaker 1: shown no evidence of such experience, along with the fact

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Speaker 1: that he technically was older than the legally permitted age

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Speaker 1: to assume the position suggested that the Reagan administration's interest

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Speaker 1: in Coop had been had to be found elsewhere. Quote

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Speaker 1: that elsewhere maybe his anti abortion crusade. The Times concluded

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Speaker 1: with its hope that Congress would reject the appointment. For

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Speaker 1: not to do so would quote be an affront to

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Speaker 1: both the public health profession and the public. So again,

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Speaker 1: the start of this seems like Coop is the perfect

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Speaker 1: guy to not make a fussbile tens of thousands of

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Speaker 1: gay people die, right. It seems like the worst case

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Speaker 1: scenario for a surgeon general and an already conservative administration.

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Speaker 1: So he's like, who is the guy that's on the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court that they thought was a conservative but then

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Speaker 1: it's actually more moderate Kennedy. Yeah yeah, yeah, So he's

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Speaker 1: like that, like that, They're like, this guy is gonna hate,

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Speaker 1: he's gonna hate all the right people was making this

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Speaker 1: Surgeon General. Um. But no, in fact, that's actually not

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Speaker 1: what happened. UH. Coop monitored CDC reports UH in their

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Speaker 1: sponsor public health services from the sidelines during the first

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Speaker 1: several years of the AIDS crisis. UH. Despite his his

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Speaker 1: job was essentially to a form inform the American people

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Speaker 1: about disease, about what was happening UH, and so he

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Speaker 1: wanted to make a statement earlier in the AIDS crisis

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Speaker 1: once he was conformed confirmed in nineteen eighty two, But

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Speaker 1: he says he was quote completely cut off from AIDS

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Speaker 1: by other people in the administration. He blames interdepartmental politics

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Speaker 1: from blocking him from any of the few conversations that

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Speaker 1: the Reagan administration had about as during the early nineteen eighties.

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Speaker 1: According to Coop, the reason for this was that his

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Speaker 1: involvement would have implicated the Reagan administration in basically caring

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Speaker 1: about gay people. Coop says that because AIDS was seen

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Speaker 1: as a gay disease, the President's advisors quote took the

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Speaker 1: stand they are only getting what they justly deserve. Now.

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Speaker 1: Assistant Secretary for Health Edward Brandt, Coope's boss, told him

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Speaker 1: that he was not allowed to speak publicly about AIDS

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Speaker 1: during the epidemic. In nineteen eighty three, when Brandt created

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Speaker 1: an executive task force on AIDS, Coop was not invited.

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Speaker 1: By nineteen eighty five, he'd started to get pissed about this.

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Speaker 1: Coop thought it was outrageous that thousands of people had

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Speaker 1: died and the Surgeon General had said nothing. Now there

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Speaker 1: were people agitating that Coop should be allowed to talk

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Speaker 1: about the AIDS crisis. They were conservative Christians who sent

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Speaker 1: anonymous telegrams to the Health and Human Services Secretary asking

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Speaker 1: that Coope be quote unmuzzled because they thought he was

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Speaker 1: going to speak out against protecting gay civil rights. They

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Speaker 1: expected him to endorse the kind of anti gay public

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Speaker 1: health measures like shutting down bathhouses that other Reagan administration

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Speaker 1: officials endorsed. Finally, in nineteen eighty five, Coop was made

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Speaker 1: a member of the AIDS task Force. In that winter,

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Speaker 1: he was ordered to prepare a report on the AIDS epidemic.

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Speaker 1: Coop knew from the start that he was was going

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Speaker 1: to be a hard to write an unbiased report about AIDS.

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Speaker 1: He recalled in his autobiography quote, A large proportion of

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Speaker 1: the President's constituency was anti homosexual, anti drug abuse, anti promesecuity,

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Speaker 1: and anti sex education. These people would not respond well

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Speaker 1: to some of the things that have to be said

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Speaker 1: in a health report on AIDS. So Coop is realizes immediately,

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Speaker 1: if I'm going to address to AIDS, I have to

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Speaker 1: talk about condoms. I have to talk about the ways

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Speaker 1: in which gay people are having sex that makes it

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Speaker 1: more likely for this to spread. I have to talk

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Speaker 1: about sexual health to the entire American people, which is

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Speaker 1: basically the kryptonite of a Republican in the nineteen eighties, nineties.

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Speaker 1: It's not not not an easy cell today, Coop. I

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Speaker 1: gotta talk about condoms, about to talk about biscuits, you

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Speaker 1: gotta talk about mash taters and gravy. I gotta talk

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Speaker 1: about sex. And it's weird that this is the guy

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Speaker 1: who realizes I have instruct America about safe sex. But

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Speaker 1: this is the guy who realized that he had to

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Speaker 1: instruct America about safe sex. And that's exactly what he did.

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Speaker 1: That's the that maybe like the last time that a

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Speaker 1: Republican was overwhelmed by the feeling that this that this

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Speaker 1: is going to spiral out of control if we don't

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Speaker 1: address it. Yeah, and did something, and did something, and

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Speaker 1: did something, and Coop fucking did something. Um. On October

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Speaker 1: twenty two, ninety six, with more than sixteen thousand Americans

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Speaker 1: dead from AIDS, Surgeon General see Everett Coop released the

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Speaker 1: Surgeon General's Report on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Here's a

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Speaker 1: description of it from After the Wrath of God. It

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Speaker 1: presented the best medical information available to date about HIV

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Speaker 1: and AIDS and sought to alleviate the fears of the

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Speaker 1: American people. The thirty six page report called Americans to

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Speaker 1: fight the epidemic as a unified group, rather than condemning

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Speaker 1: certain populations disproportionately affected by the disease, who some felt

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Speaker 1: deserved the illness US By saying this coup attempted to

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Speaker 1: move the rhetoric of the AIDS epidemic beyond its association

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Speaker 1: with homosexuality and drug use away from the idea that

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Speaker 1: it was the just desserts for a moral behavior. As

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Speaker 1: he noted, we're fighting a disease, not people. Could you

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Speaker 1: imagine at at any time in your life thinking of

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Speaker 1: population just deserves something for Yes, I mean, look, I

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Speaker 1: I think, uh, that sociopath deserve to be excommunicated from

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Speaker 1: civil society. I thought that's because they have proven themselves

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Speaker 1: to be destructive to the general social fabric. I think

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Speaker 1: the behavior Coup is fighting against is the behavior you

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Speaker 1: see on every side of the island different things. Right now,

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Speaker 1: among the left, there is a strong chunk of the

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Speaker 1: American left that believes but char al Assad is a

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Speaker 1: basically good guy. The gassings of his people are part

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Speaker 1: of a propaganda campaign. Sorry, who on the left believes

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Speaker 1: that he's a good guy talking to me about the

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Speaker 1: red Rose avatar on Twitter and talk about the gassing

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Speaker 1: of people, Like I've met some of these people, Like

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Speaker 1: there's like tankis in the United Kingdom, which, like the

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Speaker 1: term started because the Soviet Union essentially invaded like countries

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Speaker 1: and its dominion who are trying to like agitate for

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Speaker 1: more independence and civil rights outside of the USSR, and

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Speaker 1: so like these British socialists were like, no, it's good

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Speaker 1: that the USSR is crushing resistance with tanks and those people.

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Speaker 1: There's a strong strain of that in the left who

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Speaker 1: believes that Bashar al Assad, like the campaign against him

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Speaker 1: is part of like a NATO conspiracy to try to

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Speaker 1: ouse this guy to get serious oil. There's also the

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Speaker 1: same thing with Ukraine where people will write off the

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Speaker 1: Maidan revolution in Ukraine is they're all neo Nazis. Their

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Speaker 1: neo Nazis fighting against the Russians there, and the Ukrainian

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Speaker 1: government is a Nazi government because there are neo Nazis

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Speaker 1: in Ukraine. Like it's it is. It is very easy

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Speaker 1: for people on and it's the same thing you see

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Speaker 1: on the right with like, well, everybody in fucking Iran

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Speaker 1: is a religious extremist who hates America or whatever. Everybody

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Speaker 1: finds it easy when you're separated enough from a group

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Speaker 1: of people that have complex interests, some of which run

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Speaker 1: counted to your own. Anybody can be convinced to condemn

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Speaker 1: a group of people. It just depends on how far

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Speaker 1: away they are. But like I'm saying, let's condemn people

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Speaker 1: who don't have empathy for others. I think that would

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Speaker 1: be great. Um, but they will give them Gults culture,

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Speaker 1: will give them an island of their own. So if

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Speaker 1: you don't have empathy, look, I'm saying, we create a

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Speaker 1: test and then for people who to see whether they

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Speaker 1: have empathy or not. And then if you don't, then

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Speaker 1: we put you on a little island and you get

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Speaker 1: to live the rest of your life there. You can

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Speaker 1: do what you want. We call it Gults culture, and

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Speaker 1: they'll all be like, you know, they'll all they'll all

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Speaker 1: be erect from living in their iron rams. I thought

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Speaker 1: you're describing New Hampshire. But no guns. They don't get guns,

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Speaker 1: So it's not like they're not gonna be happy. They're

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Speaker 1: not gonna be happy with that. Or maybe maybe guns

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Speaker 1: with blanks. Yeah, that might do the trick. I mean

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Speaker 1: like West World. But yeah, so Coope is doing the

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Speaker 1: right thing here. Uh that's hanging with Dr Coop. Hanging

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Speaker 1: with Dr Coop that surprisingly woke Dr Coop. Uh everything

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Speaker 1: else about his life. Yeah, there you go. So we're

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Speaker 1: gonna get into some more things Coop proposed, and we're

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Speaker 1: gonna get into the right wing backlash against his idea

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Speaker 1: of talking about the concept of condoms. Uh, and how

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Speaker 1: controversial that wound up being. But first, ads and we're back.

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Speaker 1: We're back, and we're talking about see Everett Coop. He's

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Speaker 1: just released his nineteen eighties six report on AIDS. Coop's

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Speaker 1: report opposed mandatory HIV testing and quarantines for those infected.

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Speaker 1: He said that it wouldn't work. Both of those were ideas,

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Speaker 1: though that conservative politicians close to the Reagan administration had suggested.

401
00:20:52,119 --> 00:20:53,840
Speaker 1: Coop did more than just shoot down some of the

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Speaker 1: GOP's favorite gut reactions to the crisis. He also called

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Speaker 1: for a nationwide sex ed campaign that would teach, among

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Speaker 1: the things, how to use condoms. He advised that this

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Speaker 1: education should start at the lowest grade possible and be

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Speaker 1: worked into normal health and hygiene education. Quote, there is

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Speaker 1: no doubt now that we need sex ed in schools

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Speaker 1: and that it include information on heterosexual and homosexual relationships.

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Speaker 1: The threat of age should be sufficient to permit a

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Speaker 1: sex education curriculum with a heavy emphasis on prevention of

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Speaker 1: AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. From first grade on,

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Speaker 1: I got economy day in school. Wow, that's a weird

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Speaker 1: that's a weird school that might be too many condoms

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Speaker 1: for a first grader. I don't know. I had a

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Speaker 1: lot of good water balloon fights. He you save them

416
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Speaker 1: up if if you saved up enough, you could trade

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Speaker 1: them in for prizes. You get five condoms for one

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Speaker 1: dental dam or something you get well, no, you can

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Speaker 1: get like baseball cards or Marvel cards. At the time.

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna say it again, that's a weird school. Anyway.

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Speaker 1: The point is I have a lot of expen cards,

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Speaker 1: not a lot of condoms. No, well, that's a shame.

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Speaker 1: They get better with age, That's what I've heard. Vintage condoms.

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Speaker 1: I get all my condoms on eBay, and you know,

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Speaker 1: make sure that they're from Ah. Well, it's just gonna

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Speaker 1: move fastest bit so. In his report, Coop commented on

427
00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:19,440
Speaker 1: drug use as well as oral and anal sex, because

428
00:22:19,440 --> 00:22:21,480
Speaker 1: those were all major wads that AIDS was being spread.

429
00:22:21,560 --> 00:22:24,000
Speaker 1: He talked about these things like a doctor without judgment,

430
00:22:24,040 --> 00:22:27,200
Speaker 1: because that's exactly what he was, a doctor. Everybody lost

431
00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:30,080
Speaker 1: their goddamn minds the l a times he would expect

432
00:22:30,080 --> 00:22:32,560
Speaker 1: to have a reasonable take on the matter. Headline their

433
00:22:32,560 --> 00:22:35,879
Speaker 1: coverage of the report, Coop urges AIDS sex course in

434
00:22:35,960 --> 00:22:41,080
Speaker 1: grade school Hey, the l a time. Look it worked

435
00:22:41,080 --> 00:22:46,679
Speaker 1: in migrade school. Uh. William F. Buckley Jr. A famous

436
00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:49,960
Speaker 1: conservative pundit, attacked the surgeon General general piece of ship,

437
00:22:50,119 --> 00:22:53,760
Speaker 1: general piece of ship, and specific piece of ship attacked

438
00:22:53,760 --> 00:22:57,080
Speaker 1: the Surgeon General for suggesting American kids learn about sex.

439
00:22:57,280 --> 00:23:00,800
Speaker 1: Robert Novak Roland Evans, another notable conservative of thinkers, wrote

440
00:23:00,800 --> 00:23:03,159
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of lies about the Surgeon General's report

441
00:23:03,400 --> 00:23:07,040
Speaker 1: and basically accused him of wanting to groom children for pedophilia. Uh.

442
00:23:07,080 --> 00:23:11,240
Speaker 1: Philis Shafelely, right wing religious firebrand, opponent of the Equal

443
00:23:11,320 --> 00:23:14,560
Speaker 1: Rights Amendment. And if you've watched Handmaiden's Tale, the commander's

444
00:23:14,600 --> 00:23:17,399
Speaker 1: wife in the Handmaiden's Tale was specifically based on Philis

445
00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:20,920
Speaker 1: Shafeley when the book was written, Uh, yeah, this lady Wind.

446
00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:28,320
Speaker 1: Then the fly was based on the the just Jeff

447
00:23:28,320 --> 00:23:30,840
Speaker 1: go before the train change was based on Philish. The

448
00:23:30,840 --> 00:23:35,439
Speaker 1: fly the fly itself, the actual fly before the change,

449
00:23:35,640 --> 00:23:38,960
Speaker 1: So not Jeff. The concept of a fly was based

450
00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:46,600
Speaker 1: like bottom feeding vermin. Yeah. So Phillis said that aids

451
00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:49,280
Speaker 1: that the AIDS report quote looks in reads like it

452
00:23:49,320 --> 00:23:52,439
Speaker 1: was edited by the Gay task Force. She accused Surgeon

453
00:23:52,520 --> 00:23:57,080
Speaker 1: General Coop of suggesting that third graders learned quote safe sodomy. Uh,

454
00:23:57,160 --> 00:23:59,960
Speaker 1: said Coope, Why anyone paid attention to this lady is

455
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:02,639
Speaker 1: one of the mysteries of the eighties. I'm not the

456
00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:05,480
Speaker 1: surgeon general to make Philish Shafely happy. I'm the surgeon

457
00:24:05,520 --> 00:24:10,639
Speaker 1: general to save lives. Again. He's fucking he's he seized

458
00:24:10,720 --> 00:24:13,639
Speaker 1: his moment to be the one guy not fucking up.

459
00:24:14,640 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 1: Coop had been prepared to be attacked by the political

460
00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:18,760
Speaker 1: right because he'd known that his report was going to

461
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:21,639
Speaker 1: reject all of the suggestions they had already made, but

462
00:24:21,720 --> 00:24:24,280
Speaker 1: he later wrote that he did quote feel a profound

463
00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:26,720
Speaker 1: sense of betrayal by those on the religious right who

464
00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 1: took me to task. My position on AIDS was dictated

465
00:24:29,760 --> 00:24:33,439
Speaker 1: by scientific integrity and Christian compassion. I felt my Christian

466
00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 1: opponents had abandoned not only their old friend, but also

467
00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:38,800
Speaker 1: their commitment to integrity and compassion. So I was talking

468
00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:43,960
Speaker 1: about part yeah, yeah, Cooper compassion. Yeah. And then that's Coop.

469
00:24:43,960 --> 00:24:46,440
Speaker 1: How Coop trans He does not like people that people

470
00:24:46,480 --> 00:24:48,879
Speaker 1: are having gay sex. He thinks it's not what God wants,

471
00:24:49,160 --> 00:24:52,080
Speaker 1: but he thinks they're also still people who deserve medical care.

472
00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:54,840
Speaker 1: These dumb turds think they know what God wants. By

473
00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:57,640
Speaker 1: the way, this I mean, look, I don't believe in God,

474
00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:02,840
Speaker 1: but like supposedly this be unable force, unable force that

475
00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:09,119
Speaker 1: created all all things and and some turd you know

476
00:25:09,359 --> 00:25:13,800
Speaker 1: in a frock is just like I can translate, Yeah,

477
00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:17,360
Speaker 1: this creature. By the way, I'm gonna get a lot

478
00:25:17,359 --> 00:25:20,919
Speaker 1: of a lot of hate mail for calling got a creature.

479
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:23,720
Speaker 1: Coop clearly takes the right thing out of religion, which

480
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:27,879
Speaker 1: is that like, oh, you should take care of people. Yeah, yeah, which, okay,

481
00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:30,920
Speaker 1: that's a great thing. Yeah. Uh So. For an example

482
00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:33,479
Speaker 1: of the Christian rights reaction to Coop's report, we have

483
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:37,159
Speaker 1: AIDS a special report almost the same title as Coop's report,

484
00:25:37,280 --> 00:25:39,160
Speaker 1: but this didn't come from the government. It was released

485
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:43,440
Speaker 1: by Summit Ministries and also published in nine. It's appendix

486
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:47,159
Speaker 1: was titled AIDS Warning the Surgeon General's report maybe hazardous

487
00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:50,800
Speaker 1: to your health. In one section, Coop chickens out. It

488
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 1: claims the Surgeon General's pro homosexual bias was causing him

489
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:57,399
Speaker 1: to ignore the health risks of sexual immorality. They called

490
00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 1: his report quote littered with unscientific aegedly authoritative statements about

491
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:05,000
Speaker 1: the disease, most most of which let gays off the hook.

492
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:09,760
Speaker 1: So Christian right, everybody really nailing it. Uh. This report

493
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:12,840
Speaker 1: had suggestions for America to quote our public health authorities

494
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:15,240
Speaker 1: must be made to realize that their first responsibility is

495
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:18,639
Speaker 1: to protect the public's health, not the perceived civil rights

496
00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:22,720
Speaker 1: of homosexuals or drug users. You're really you're always the

497
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:25,840
Speaker 1: bad guy if you're including civil rights and quotes the way.

498
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:29,320
Speaker 1: I love their other report about how communion wafers can

499
00:26:29,359 --> 00:26:32,439
Speaker 1: give you six pack abs. Well, you know, actually they

500
00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:36,680
Speaker 1: are pretty low. They're gloen free. Now it's a good snack.

501
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:38,639
Speaker 1: I would actually totally buy a big old bag of

502
00:26:39,119 --> 00:26:41,560
Speaker 1: communion wafers. I enjoyed eating those as a kid. Are

503
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 1: they I'm Jewish, so I've never even had one, But

504
00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:46,560
Speaker 1: do they have any taste of them? They just nice

505
00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:50,119
Speaker 1: little they're they're like little um okay, you know Nila wafers.

506
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:52,119
Speaker 1: You know they're made of that weird phoonia substance if

507
00:26:52,160 --> 00:26:54,119
Speaker 1: that had no sugar in it and was tiny. It's

508
00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:56,200
Speaker 1: a little bit like that. So it sounds like it's uh,

509
00:26:56,520 --> 00:26:59,360
Speaker 1: styrofoam a little bit. But I like styrofoam. But like,

510
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 1: why not look body of Christ? But also what about

511
00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 1: like could the hair of Christ be like cinnamon and sugar?

512
00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:11,600
Speaker 1: When I imagine the taste of Jesus Christ's hot, glistening body,

513
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:15,320
Speaker 1: I imagine the taste of cool ranch de Rito's, because

514
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 1: there's nothing like that nice de rito bite to make

515
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:22,200
Speaker 1: you realize that, maybe, just maybe there might be someone

516
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:27,640
Speaker 1: out there looking out for us, reading copy from from

517
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:31,199
Speaker 1: a piece of papers. No, that was all extemporaneous. I

518
00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:35,800
Speaker 1: just anyway, let's move on to aids Um that was

519
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:39,800
Speaker 1: a bad, bad segue. Uh so, as hard as I

520
00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:41,800
Speaker 1: hope it is to believe right now, but probably not

521
00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:43,639
Speaker 1: at all hard to believe right now. Most of the

522
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 1: outrage against Coope had come from his decision to endorse condoms.

523
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 1: Quote from one of Reagan's advisers, Gary Bower, the White

524
00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:54,520
Speaker 1: House doesn't like the sea word, but if you or sorry,

525
00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:59,680
Speaker 1: this is a quote from women. So Coop said, sorry

526
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 1: that every racist in this is a Southern or misogynist

527
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:07,080
Speaker 1: as a Southern person, apologies to progressive Southern people, thank

528
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:10,400
Speaker 1: you now. Coop said at the time, the White House

529
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:12,160
Speaker 1: doesn't like the C word, but if you don't talk

530
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:14,440
Speaker 1: about condoms. People are going to die, so I talk.

531
00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 1: Another Christian Conservative who didn't like Coop was Under Secretary

532
00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:20,639
Speaker 1: of Education Gary Bauer. He was a Baptist and a

533
00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:23,240
Speaker 1: bit of a stickler for the word values. Uh. Here's

534
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:26,360
Speaker 1: a picture of Bower with Ronald Reagan, just to get

535
00:28:26,359 --> 00:28:27,639
Speaker 1: a picture of this guy in your head before I

536
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:30,240
Speaker 1: tell you what's next. He's a little weasily looking ship.

537
00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:32,919
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he looks like a Teminaric character. He does

538
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:35,080
Speaker 1: look like a temin Eric character. And he's wearing a

539
00:28:35,119 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 1: suit that's clearly too big for him, which is like

540
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 1: my favorite type of conservative. Yeah. I like how a

541
00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:42,680
Speaker 1: guy in government couldn't go to a tailor, didn't have

542
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:44,560
Speaker 1: time to stop by Brooks Brothers. No, no, no, he

543
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:46,000
Speaker 1: had he had too much. Well, we're about to hear

544
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:49,040
Speaker 1: what he was doing when he wasn't getting a suit fitted. Uh.

545
00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:52,160
Speaker 1: Gary is currently the president of American Values and Advocacy

546
00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:54,880
Speaker 1: group that lobbies for exactly the kind of things you'd think. Uh.

547
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 1: In December of x he wrote up the education policy

548
00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 1: that would actually teach American school kids about eads, rather

549
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 1: than following a need of guidelines Coup had laid down.

550
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: He believed the Department of Education should quote not be

551
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:10,400
Speaker 1: neutral between heterosexual and homosexual sex, while homosexual should not

552
00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 1: be persecuted. Heterosexual sex within marriage is what most Americans

553
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 1: are laws and our traditions consider the proper focus of

554
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:20,120
Speaker 1: human sexuality. Bauer believed that all federally mandated are federally

555
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:25,520
Speaker 1: sponsored AIDS education supplements should quote encourage responsible sexual behavior

556
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:28,760
Speaker 1: based on fidelity, commitment, and maturity, placing sexuality within the

557
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 1: context of marriage, which of course means you don't have

558
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 1: to talk about condoms. Ronald Reagan approved these changes, even

559
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:36,720
Speaker 1: though they flew in the face of what his surgeon

560
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:40,480
Speaker 1: general had recommended. Shortly after that, Senator Jesse Helms passed

561
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 1: a law thing, so wait, hold on, sorry, so these

562
00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:45,600
Speaker 1: people don't even think that married couples use condoms? Well,

563
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:46,920
Speaker 1: why would you need to do. The only reason you're

564
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 1: having sex is to make kids, right. Uh. Ronald Reagan

565
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:57,200
Speaker 1: approved these changes. Uh. Shortly after that, Jesse Helms passed

566
00:29:57,240 --> 00:30:00,120
Speaker 1: a law prohibiting the CDC from using its fund to

567
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:04,080
Speaker 1: quote promote, encourage, and condone homosexual sexual activities or the

568
00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 1: intravenous use of illegal drugs four thousand did the CDC.

569
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:11,120
Speaker 1: Was the CDC like, by the way, if you're gonna

570
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:14,800
Speaker 1: do heroin, don't snort it, inject it? Yeah, why not?

571
00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 1: It said he's not allowed to promote intravenous drugs. Right,

572
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:22,760
Speaker 1: What was the CDC doing before that? Was it? They

573
00:30:22,760 --> 00:30:25,680
Speaker 1: were they What they're saying is that like by saying, hey,

574
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:28,080
Speaker 1: here's where you find clean needles. Here's how to like

575
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 1: make sure your needle is clear, here's how to dispose

576
00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:32,440
Speaker 1: of needles, that kind of stuff, just trying to be

577
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:35,240
Speaker 1: like you're gonna be fucking shooting drugs with needles, be

578
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:39,480
Speaker 1: safer with your needles. Wasn't just like going like, hey,

579
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 1: snorton's for squares. No, the CDC wasn't like, all right,

580
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 1: so the best h on the block, you're gonna go

581
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:47,200
Speaker 1: down take a rite at the Pioneer Chicken and you

582
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:51,320
Speaker 1: want to cook it and inject it. No, man, big

583
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:53,840
Speaker 1: big Ernie sells smacks soup here. You don't gotta cook it.

584
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 1: That's the CDC's official report. No. Uh So four thousand

585
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:02,840
Speaker 1: and fire has died in nine seven. Uh This was

586
00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:04,440
Speaker 1: in spite of the fact that the year that this

587
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:06,400
Speaker 1: was the year that A z T, the first anti

588
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 1: HIV drug was approved by the FDA. A z T

589
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:11,960
Speaker 1: had to be taken every four hours without fail, even

590
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:14,560
Speaker 1: interrupting your sleep, and came with horrible side effects, including

591
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:18,240
Speaker 1: muscle soreness and fatigue. Subsequent large scale studies showed almost

592
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:22,360
Speaker 1: no difference between AZT and place Ebo's seven was a

593
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 1: big year for AIDS. Not only was it the a

594
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 1: z T year, it was also the year that the

595
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: first San Francisco AIDS quote was made. It was the

596
00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:32,360
Speaker 1: year that a family with three HIV positive hemophiliac sons

597
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 1: had their house burned down by an arsonist. It was

598
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:36,680
Speaker 1: the year the U S shut its borders to HIV

599
00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:40,040
Speaker 1: infected immigrants, and the year Ronald Reagan finally addressed the

600
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:43,920
Speaker 1: nation about what he now called public health Enemy Number one.

601
00:31:44,600 --> 00:31:48,400
Speaker 1: Not a lot there for humor, except no, I did

602
00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 1: come up with a character. While you're talking Johnny Arson.

603
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 1: He's like Johnny Carson. Oh good, he lights fires, Oh good,

604
00:31:56,760 --> 00:32:02,960
Speaker 1: weird fiery stuff. We got a really big blaze. That's

605
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:05,760
Speaker 1: all I know about Johnny Carson. At this point, when

606
00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:09,120
Speaker 1: Reagan finally delivered his very first public speech about AIDS,

607
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 1: twenty three thousand Americans had already died from the disease.

608
00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:14,600
Speaker 1: Part of why Reagan even addressed it is because thousands

609
00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:17,280
Speaker 1: of hemophilias had also been infected. By this point, many

610
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:19,680
Speaker 1: were dying. Ryan White was probably the most famous of

611
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 1: these hemophiliac kids to catch AIDS. He was diagnosed in

612
00:32:24,120 --> 00:32:26,640
Speaker 1: by seven, he'd become one of the most prominent figures

613
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:29,320
Speaker 1: in the fight against the disease. Since seeing other hemophiliax

614
00:32:29,360 --> 00:32:31,959
Speaker 1: were not gay, they were seen as not deserving what

615
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:34,720
Speaker 1: had happened to them. This gave the Reagan administration the

616
00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:37,400
Speaker 1: cover that it needed to take effective action against the

617
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:40,480
Speaker 1: disease that set. In his big speech, Ronald Reagan also

618
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 1: noted abstinence as an important tool in the fight against AIDS. So, wait, so,

619
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:47,960
Speaker 1: the lesser from this is, if there is a disease

620
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 1: that affects only a small part of the population, what

621
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:53,040
Speaker 1: you want to do, I give that the blood supplies

622
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:57,920
Speaker 1: give is give that disease to someone that the government

623
00:32:57,960 --> 00:32:59,959
Speaker 1: can use as covered to treat it. Yeah, I mean

624
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 1: that is actually the lesson here. Yeah. Uh so here's

625
00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:06,320
Speaker 1: what Ronald reg Ronald Reagan noted that absence was also

626
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 1: an important too on the fight of aid So he

627
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:11,480
Speaker 1: during this speech, he said, quote, after all, when it

628
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 1: comes to preventing AIDS, don't medicine and morality teach the

629
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:19,720
Speaker 1: same lessons? Fucking I'm sorry that I have nothing like

630
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 1: it just really like boils my blood. Here's the thing

631
00:33:22,920 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 1: in speeches that see Everett Coop gave when he would

632
00:33:25,080 --> 00:33:27,800
Speaker 1: go to colleges. He said the same thing, but he

633
00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 1: was also like, but also, people are gonna do what

634
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 1: they're gonna do, so let's teach them how to use condoms,

635
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:34,200
Speaker 1: because I'm a doctor and I don't want people to die.

636
00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 1: Like you can believe that morality says you shouldn't have

637
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:42,719
Speaker 1: sex outside of marriage. You're not evil if you believe that,

638
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:44,840
Speaker 1: as long as you're also like, but we should do

639
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:47,680
Speaker 1: basic things to make sure people understand how to protect

640
00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 1: themselves if they choose to do something different. Coop was

641
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 1: able to make that kind of leap in his own mind,

642
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 1: even though he didn't approve of it and make a

643
00:33:56,120 --> 00:33:58,800
Speaker 1: note of what was necessary. Reagan was not able to

644
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:00,480
Speaker 1: make that leap. Or maybe he was and he was

645
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:02,680
Speaker 1: just a political coward. I don't know. We'll talk about

646
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 1: that a little bit. Coopers King, Cooper's King he's he's

647
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 1: he's not perfect, is what we're saying. You'll find criticisms

648
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:11,799
Speaker 1: of a coup that are valid, but he's trying. He's

649
00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:14,880
Speaker 1: clearly doesn't want people to die and takes it seriously,

650
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:19,839
Speaker 1: which is something more than anybody else has done. Um So,

651
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 1: in four thousand, eight hundred and fifty five more Americans died,

652
00:34:23,719 --> 00:34:26,479
Speaker 1: with the death toll nearing thirty thousand. See Everett Coop

653
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:29,360
Speaker 1: believed that the government could and should do more, so

654
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:32,840
Speaker 1: we put together a pamphlet called Understanding Aids that provided

655
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 1: frank descriptions of anal in oral sex, as well as

656
00:34:35,239 --> 00:34:38,200
Speaker 1: fact based discussions of contraception. It was the sort of

657
00:34:38,239 --> 00:34:40,920
Speaker 1: thing that various grassroots groups across the country had already

658
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:44,360
Speaker 1: started distributing, particularly in coastal cities with a large gay population.

659
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:46,800
Speaker 1: But Coop was the Surgeon General, and he had a

660
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 1: little bit more power than these people. Coop had this

661
00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:52,320
Speaker 1: one pamphlet mailed out to almost every home in America.

662
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:55,960
Speaker 1: A hundred and seven million families received a copy of

663
00:34:56,040 --> 00:34:59,879
Speaker 1: Understanding Aids. It was the original a O. L disc Yeah, yeah,

664
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,120
Speaker 1: it was. It was like the first thing distributed on

665
00:35:02,239 --> 00:35:05,759
Speaker 1: that wide A fucking like your joke, but like that

666
00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:07,800
Speaker 1: that is like it was at the time the largest

667
00:35:07,840 --> 00:35:11,280
Speaker 1: mass mailing in American history. Um, and it's like pictures

668
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 1: of like how gay sex works and how condoms works.

669
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:17,279
Speaker 1: So it was how you got online originally. Yeah, well

670
00:35:17,320 --> 00:35:21,319
Speaker 1: it's a line because like laying pipe, you know what

671
00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 1: you someone will get that descriptions of gay sexual practice

672
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:28,160
Speaker 1: is often sensationalized. Had never before reached so large an audience,

673
00:35:28,200 --> 00:35:30,520
Speaker 1: and now the Surgeon General pressed Americans to learn even

674
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 1: more about sex through his education campaign, which included promoting

675
00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 1: abstinence and monogamy, but also maintained the importance of using condoms.

676
00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:40,240
Speaker 1: If the sexual revolution of the nineteen sixties and seventies

677
00:35:40,239 --> 00:35:42,760
Speaker 1: had not yet reached every small town and rural outpost

678
00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:47,160
Speaker 1: in the heartland, Coop's pamphlet did so. Not only is

679
00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:49,640
Speaker 1: he giving out information on gay sex is the first

680
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 1: he's forcing effective sex ad on families in rural America. Well,

681
00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:56,799
Speaker 1: how did it look? How in Texas? How did you

682
00:35:56,840 --> 00:36:01,000
Speaker 1: grow up? I had like such a fear of AIDS

683
00:36:01,040 --> 00:36:05,440
Speaker 1: that it was like terrifying. The idea of sex was terrifying.

684
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:08,319
Speaker 1: As a kid, I didn't really understand much about what

685
00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:11,000
Speaker 1: it was. To be honest, I don't remember. I'm sure

686
00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 1: there were conversations. I know I remember a couple of

687
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 1: talks at school about it, but I think I was

688
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:17,520
Speaker 1: late enough that most of the panic over aids had

689
00:36:17,600 --> 00:36:20,440
Speaker 1: kind of faded by that point. Yeah, I mean the

690
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:23,040
Speaker 1: panic like it was no longer when I was a kid,

691
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:27,480
Speaker 1: but also grew up in a pretty egalitarian household where

692
00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:30,880
Speaker 1: you know, my parents were like treat all people the same,

693
00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:33,080
Speaker 1: so there was no like there was no panic at

694
00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:36,160
Speaker 1: home about like gay people or whatever like that. But

695
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 1: like even in culture, I didn't feel that so like

696
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:43,000
Speaker 1: there wasn't anything. It wasn't like that, but there was

697
00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 1: still a panic about sex in general in the late

698
00:36:45,680 --> 00:36:49,400
Speaker 1: eighties that into the like nineties, there was definitely a

699
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:51,840
Speaker 1: panic about like the the like that that was like

700
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:54,200
Speaker 1: the thing everybody joked about was like making another guy

701
00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:56,120
Speaker 1: do something that looked gay so that everybody can call

702
00:36:56,160 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 1: him gay or whatever. Like I was definitely of the

703
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:00,919
Speaker 1: generation where like when I was in school, the word

704
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:03,240
Speaker 1: fag was like every fourth word out of my mouth

705
00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:05,480
Speaker 1: and everybody else's mouth that I knew. Like that was

706
00:37:05,560 --> 00:37:07,520
Speaker 1: like it was Texas, Yeah, it was Texas. It was

707
00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:08,960
Speaker 1: the most one of the most common. It was one

708
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:10,960
Speaker 1: of those things. When I was like eighteen nineteen and

709
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:12,920
Speaker 1: then finally got out of school and into the world,

710
00:37:12,960 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 1: I realized, like, oh, is it really fucked up word

711
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:18,719
Speaker 1: to use all the time? You should you shouldn't say

712
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:22,480
Speaker 1: that about people, But it was it was I don't know,

713
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:25,120
Speaker 1: like I don't remember any education about AIDS. I don't

714
00:37:25,120 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 1: remember ever learning any of that. Well there was, I mean,

715
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:31,000
Speaker 1: it was just like a generalized panic about That's what

716
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:33,120
Speaker 1: I was saying. Like, it wasn't like a panic about

717
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:36,360
Speaker 1: gay people. And I was that's because I grew up

718
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:40,959
Speaker 1: in like a household where everyone was treated the same

719
00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:44,120
Speaker 1: unless you were a piece of ship. Like that's where

720
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:48,400
Speaker 1: my parents were like you know this, uh, you know,

721
00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:49,719
Speaker 1: they sat me down at some point and they're like,

722
00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:52,279
Speaker 1: don't use gay, Like you know, gay was slang at

723
00:37:52,280 --> 00:37:54,680
Speaker 1: the time for like that was dumb, and they're like,

724
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:57,400
Speaker 1: don't use that because there are gay people that we

725
00:37:57,560 --> 00:38:01,720
Speaker 1: know and you know, and they're that hurts their feelings,

726
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 1: and don't use these certain words. You can use the

727
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:06,839
Speaker 1: word funck and the word ship, don't use it around

728
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:10,040
Speaker 1: the rabbi or whatever. Like there's certain context, but there's

729
00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:13,120
Speaker 1: like forbidden words where like these hurt people's feelings. There

730
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:17,000
Speaker 1: was um swear words that you could use and that,

731
00:38:17,239 --> 00:38:19,520
Speaker 1: and so the thing was like it went from being

732
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:23,800
Speaker 1: a like a panic about gay people to a panic

733
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:26,759
Speaker 1: about sex at some point. I think it became like

734
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:28,759
Speaker 1: when I remember it, because I was in you know,

735
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 1: I was born in eighty eight, so I was I

736
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:34,400
Speaker 1: was not conscious during eight years old. Um yeah, so

737
00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:36,520
Speaker 1: like I went. What I remember was more of a

738
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:39,640
Speaker 1: generalized panic about things that weren't head or normative. Like

739
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:41,960
Speaker 1: that was the thing. Like there was no like it

740
00:38:42,040 --> 00:38:43,879
Speaker 1: wasn't like if you're gay, you're going to get AIDS.

741
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:46,160
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, it was that like gay

742
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:50,160
Speaker 1: meant not what we expected, like straight masculine men, and

743
00:38:50,239 --> 00:38:52,200
Speaker 1: so that's silly and you should make fun of it.

744
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:54,960
Speaker 1: Like that was sort of my what I grew up with,

745
00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:57,080
Speaker 1: and that was less than I didn't really catch any

746
00:38:57,080 --> 00:38:59,000
Speaker 1: that from my parents. That was just like school like that.

747
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:01,640
Speaker 1: So there's this almost phone be everywhere, and like it

748
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:03,920
Speaker 1: was not like it's not like I went to a

749
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:06,200
Speaker 1: high school that was like super gay friendly, but it

750
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:08,879
Speaker 1: was I don't think it was as I don't think

751
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 1: the homophobia was a suffocating and I mean I'll ask

752
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:16,960
Speaker 1: my gay friends from high school what they thought. Yeah,

753
00:39:17,040 --> 00:39:19,120
Speaker 1: I certainly had. I had one gay friend when I

754
00:39:19,160 --> 00:39:20,719
Speaker 1: was in high school that I met when I was

755
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:22,279
Speaker 1: a senior. He came out to me when I was

756
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:24,480
Speaker 1: a senior in high school, and that was the first

757
00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:28,480
Speaker 1: gay person that I knew. Um, so it was definitely

758
00:39:28,560 --> 00:39:31,759
Speaker 1: like not you know, it was it was not a but,

759
00:39:31,760 --> 00:39:33,600
Speaker 1: but we were also we were also passed enough the

760
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 1: AIDS epidemic that like the only thing I remember in

761
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:37,719
Speaker 1: school about AIDS was then really driving home to us

762
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:40,000
Speaker 1: that you can't get it from the water fountains, Like

763
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:42,000
Speaker 1: that was the biggest part. That's the that's the thing

764
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:44,440
Speaker 1: that's stuck in my mind about my high school agent ucation.

765
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:47,040
Speaker 1: But I was, I wonder, now if that's Texas versus Pennsylvania,

766
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 1: if that's yeah, south of the Mason Dixon line, it

767
00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:53,160
Speaker 1: was like still full of homophobia into the nineties, and

768
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 1: north of the Mason Dixon line it turned into like

769
00:39:55,800 --> 00:39:59,200
Speaker 1: a sex paranoia in general thing. I I certainly can't.

770
00:39:59,200 --> 00:40:00,920
Speaker 1: I would I would describe a lot of what I

771
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:03,080
Speaker 1: in Canada is a sex paranoia in general thing but

772
00:40:03,200 --> 00:40:05,200
Speaker 1: I I couldn't tell you what it was like outside

773
00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:08,640
Speaker 1: of Texas because I only grew up in the one spot. Um,

774
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:10,680
Speaker 1: but I will tell you what. This pamphlet Coop sent

775
00:40:10,719 --> 00:40:12,879
Speaker 1: out looked like, Uh, this is the front. Why don't

776
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:15,000
Speaker 1: you check out. I find a little bit of humor

777
00:40:15,040 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 1: in the last question listed on the front of the

778
00:40:17,200 --> 00:40:21,000
Speaker 1: pamphlet says understanding AIDS And there's a bunch of pictures

779
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:24,080
Speaker 1: of people. It's very multiculty and it says what do

780
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:26,960
Speaker 1: you really know about AIDS? Are you at risk? AIDS?

781
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:30,000
Speaker 1: And sex? And why no one has gotten AIDS from mosquitoes?

782
00:40:30,280 --> 00:40:32,880
Speaker 1: Which tells you what what people knew about it at

783
00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:34,360
Speaker 1: the time where Coop was like, all right, what are

784
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:37,160
Speaker 1: the big things we have to address? Oh, mosquitoes. Everybody's

785
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:39,960
Speaker 1: asking about mosquitoes. You could see that. I mean, yeah,

786
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:41,440
Speaker 1: I know it makes about You've got to get the

787
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:44,839
Speaker 1: info out. Yeah, And there was like it was our

788
00:40:44,880 --> 00:40:48,480
Speaker 1: already around the time where arachnophobia came out and so

789
00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:51,880
Speaker 1: people were worried about bugs. Yeah, yeah, this is a

790
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:54,239
Speaker 1: very basic thing. But people flip their ship over this

791
00:40:54,320 --> 00:40:56,200
Speaker 1: like this is a major issue. There's tons of like

792
00:40:56,239 --> 00:40:59,880
Speaker 1: political cartoons, people freaking out over the pampo worried about Skeeter.

793
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:02,400
Speaker 1: I don't want him to talk about how gay people

794
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:05,680
Speaker 1: have sex like it there. It freaked people out, and

795
00:41:05,680 --> 00:41:08,759
Speaker 1: it was a legitimately courageous move from Coop to be like, no,

796
00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:11,800
Speaker 1: we're fucking mailing this out to every family in the country.

797
00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 1: And they did it. Uh. It took way longer than

798
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:18,000
Speaker 1: you'd have hoped, but it happened. In a nineteen eighty eight.

799
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:20,560
Speaker 1: This fucking thing gets out and finally people start to

800
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:25,279
Speaker 1: get forced on them some practical sexual education. Um No.

801
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:27,719
Speaker 1: It's important to note that, see Everett Coope was not

802
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:30,400
Speaker 1: a hippie dippie dude. He was not You would certainly

803
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:33,320
Speaker 1: not call him pro gay um like. His advice was

804
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:35,919
Speaker 1: specifically like, don't have sex with anyone who could carry

805
00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:38,719
Speaker 1: the virus of AIDS, and then he would go on

806
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:40,800
Speaker 1: to after a couple of paragraphs of why you shouldn't

807
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:44,000
Speaker 1: do it. If you do decide to do this anyway,

808
00:41:44,400 --> 00:41:47,040
Speaker 1: use a condom. Here's how condoms work. Like. It was

809
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:50,239
Speaker 1: the the most couched it possibly could have been, but

810
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:52,040
Speaker 1: at least he was getting the information out. If you

811
00:41:52,120 --> 00:41:55,080
Speaker 1: don't use a condom, just do hand stuff. Yeah, just

812
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:57,200
Speaker 1: do it well, just do hand stuff was the second

813
00:41:57,239 --> 00:41:59,560
Speaker 1: pamphlet he sent out to a hundred and seven million homes.

814
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:04,400
Speaker 1: It was forty seven pages of really hardcore hand pornogress.

815
00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:08,680
Speaker 1: Should I use lub No, he's a surgeon general is

816
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:13,840
Speaker 1: strict on that ship. Bible doesn't say nothing about luber

817
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:16,520
Speaker 1: The only luber can you're gonna need is a single

818
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:18,920
Speaker 1: page from the King James Bible, and you're gonna wrap

819
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:28,239
Speaker 1: that around yourself. Of Christ is the only Luvian. Oh boy.

820
00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:32,360
Speaker 1: As I said before, Coupe Savorite Coop agreed with President

821
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 1: Reagan that religion, morality, Uh, we're in lockstep on the

822
00:42:36,040 --> 00:42:38,520
Speaker 1: matter of AIDS. Abstinence was the best way to deal

823
00:42:38,560 --> 00:42:40,959
Speaker 1: with it. But he also was like, let's fucking teach

824
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:44,439
Speaker 1: people about condoms and stuff. Teach people about fucking. Yeah,

825
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:46,640
Speaker 1: let's teach people about fucking. That was see Everet Coope,

826
00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:51,359
Speaker 1: the Man who taught America to fuck another great name

827
00:42:51,440 --> 00:42:55,880
Speaker 1: for his bio pic. On January nineteen eighty nine, Ronald

828
00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:59,000
Speaker 1: Reagan left office. More than more than fourteen thousand Americans

829
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:02,080
Speaker 1: died from AIDS that year. Another eighteen thousand died in

830
00:43:02,200 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety. One of these was Ryan White. The President

831
00:43:05,200 --> 00:43:06,880
Speaker 1: wrote him a public letter which was more than Rock

832
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 1: Hudson got. Here's a quote from a writer with a

833
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:12,120
Speaker 1: New Yorker who actually knew Ryan. Reagan wrote a letter

834
00:43:12,160 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 1: that letter that ended with the words, Ryan, my dear

835
00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 1: young friend, we will see you again. But that letter

836
00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:20,200
Speaker 1: really just shows the limits of Reagan's sympathy. Ryan White

837
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:22,920
Speaker 1: was an absolutely delightful Indiana schoolboy, so he was an

838
00:43:22,960 --> 00:43:25,440
Speaker 1: innocent AIDS victim, unlike the gay men Reagan did not

839
00:43:25,560 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 1: like to mention. It is no coincidence that Reagan would

840
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 1: feel comfortable signaling singling White out to honor. Nor is

841
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:33,320
Speaker 1: it a chance that the single biggest piece of HIV

842
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:36,520
Speaker 1: legislation ever enacted in the United States is called the

843
00:43:36,600 --> 00:43:39,759
Speaker 1: Ryan White Act. I should note before we end that

844
00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:42,240
Speaker 1: Rock Hudson was not the only friend of the Reagans

845
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:45,759
Speaker 1: to die of AIDS. Ronald Reagan's good buddy Roy Khon

846
00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:48,960
Speaker 1: died of AIDS in nineteen eighty six. He was apparently

847
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:52,360
Speaker 1: furious when, during treatment his doctor repeatedly insisted that he

848
00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:54,720
Speaker 1: stay abstinent, and that that was most of the advice

849
00:43:54,800 --> 00:43:58,080
Speaker 1: that con was able to get. The Reagans did send

850
00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:00,360
Speaker 1: con a letter before he died, but neither showed up

851
00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:02,239
Speaker 1: at his funeral. He was buried in a tie with

852
00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:05,880
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan's name on it. The AIDS epidemic continued to

853
00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:08,040
Speaker 1: kill more than half a million Americans had died by

854
00:44:08,040 --> 00:44:11,080
Speaker 1: two thousand, two, eleven years before Ronald Reagan's daughter would

855
00:44:11,080 --> 00:44:13,440
Speaker 1: claim that her dad had supported gay marriage, because in

856
00:44:13,480 --> 00:44:16,640
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen, that's exactly what Reagan's daughter said that

857
00:44:16,680 --> 00:44:19,279
Speaker 1: she thinks her dad would have backed. Yeah, I think

858
00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 1: was past stretch. I will say she might be right

859
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:24,960
Speaker 1: because in two thousand thirteen, Reagan wouldn't have had to

860
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:27,600
Speaker 1: pay a political price for supporting gay marriage. And I

861
00:44:27,600 --> 00:44:29,960
Speaker 1: think that really was most of what it was for him.

862
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:33,440
Speaker 1: He would have been fine if he thought in nineteen

863
00:44:33,480 --> 00:44:37,600
Speaker 1: eighty two, you know, jumping on AIDS and like increasing

864
00:44:37,640 --> 00:44:39,959
Speaker 1: funding to it would have won him election in eighty four,

865
00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:41,480
Speaker 1: he would have done it. I don't think he had

866
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:44,080
Speaker 1: a moral issue with this. I think he was just

867
00:44:44,800 --> 00:44:47,680
Speaker 1: a coward. Well that's a moral issue. Well I don't

868
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:49,439
Speaker 1: think I don't think. No, that is a moral issue,

869
00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:51,200
Speaker 1: But that's not He didn't have a moral issue with

870
00:44:51,280 --> 00:44:53,920
Speaker 1: treating gay people of AIDS. He himself was a coward

871
00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:55,800
Speaker 1: and that was a moral issue. He had a deeper

872
00:44:55,880 --> 00:44:58,879
Speaker 1: failure that homophobia, which I think is important to note

873
00:44:58,920 --> 00:45:01,600
Speaker 1: because I think people look and there, oh, Reagan was homophobic,

874
00:45:01,600 --> 00:45:03,759
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, it's actually scarier if he was

875
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:06,440
Speaker 1: not homophobic for the time, but just too much of

876
00:45:06,440 --> 00:45:08,800
Speaker 1: a coward to do anything because it was bad politically

877
00:45:08,800 --> 00:45:10,960
Speaker 1: because all these people who supported him thought that gay

878
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:13,920
Speaker 1: people were monsters. And I do think that's probably closer

879
00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:16,520
Speaker 1: to the real story, which is scarier. I mean, well,

880
00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:21,040
Speaker 1: do we know like when he really started to get dementia.

881
00:45:21,800 --> 00:45:23,440
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of debate around that. Some

882
00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:25,600
Speaker 1: people are going to say most of his second term

883
00:45:25,680 --> 00:45:28,839
Speaker 1: he was starting to like he was definitely not from

884
00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:31,600
Speaker 1: five on. But I don't really know. But are there

885
00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:33,920
Speaker 1: any like I mean, we all think that, like something's

886
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:37,560
Speaker 1: wrong with Trump because like he says insane things and

887
00:45:37,640 --> 00:45:43,520
Speaker 1: can't talk and is in general just a mush brained freak.

888
00:45:44,280 --> 00:45:46,920
Speaker 1: But were there any speeches? Again, I was a child,

889
00:45:47,040 --> 00:45:50,160
Speaker 1: so I don't really remember anything. Were there's speeches? Were

890
00:45:50,160 --> 00:45:52,480
Speaker 1: like Reagan could at least talk, right, He was a

891
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:54,920
Speaker 1: real good talker. He was a real good talker the

892
00:45:55,040 --> 00:45:57,200
Speaker 1: entire time he was he was president. Okay, so there's

893
00:45:57,239 --> 00:45:59,759
Speaker 1: never any kind of like it was never to the

894
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:02,879
Speaker 1: apps of what we're experiencing now. No, But like like

895
00:46:03,200 --> 00:46:05,600
Speaker 1: he didn't he wasn't tweeting and stuff. Every appearance he

896
00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:08,160
Speaker 1: had was carefully stayed managed. His speeches were written for

897
00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:11,720
Speaker 1: him and stuff like he was good at delivering the lines.

898
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:14,799
Speaker 1: I don't know how much he'd started to suffer from

899
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:17,920
Speaker 1: Alzheimer's at that point, but they they also think the

900
00:46:17,960 --> 00:46:20,879
Speaker 1: fucking forty years before that, the president's staff was able

901
00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:22,759
Speaker 1: to hide the fact that he couldn't walk. So it's

902
00:46:22,760 --> 00:46:25,160
Speaker 1: clearly not hard if you've got a good staff to

903
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:28,359
Speaker 1: hide ship from the country. Um or at least it

904
00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:32,240
Speaker 1: was back then. Um So at the weekend at Bernie's

905
00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:34,920
Speaker 1: FDR's legs what oh yeah, No, No, most of the

906
00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:36,880
Speaker 1: nation didn't new that, No, that he couldn't walk. They

907
00:46:36,920 --> 00:46:39,040
Speaker 1: would do they had like special braces made for him,

908
00:46:39,040 --> 00:46:41,040
Speaker 1: and he would like walk with people who you wouldn't

909
00:46:41,080 --> 00:46:43,280
Speaker 1: quite be able to tell where. And the press pool

910
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 1: was in on it too, Like it was one of

911
00:46:44,560 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 1: those things where people were like, but they're there's fucking

912
00:46:47,960 --> 00:46:50,040
Speaker 1: wars going on. Don't let anyone know that the president

913
00:46:50,080 --> 00:46:52,000
Speaker 1: can't stand up. I have this idea that he's wearing

914
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:54,760
Speaker 1: a harness with strings attached to and there's a car

915
00:46:54,880 --> 00:46:57,480
Speaker 1: driving and it just like it like strings, like a

916
00:46:57,560 --> 00:47:01,520
Speaker 1: Marionett Movi is like Harry Truman, just puppets here hering him. Yeah, no,

917
00:47:01,719 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 1: that's dark. We're the bastards now, Um we have become.

918
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:09,080
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think ethically, I'm on the

919
00:47:09,200 --> 00:47:12,600
Speaker 1: right side of history. I mean, Aftyr was was fine

920
00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:15,520
Speaker 1: enough president, It was fine. Yeah, he's fine. New deal

921
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:18,640
Speaker 1: was good. New Deal was good. Not not not being

922
00:47:18,640 --> 00:47:21,560
Speaker 1: a fascist was really the best thing he did. Yeah, right,

923
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:24,080
Speaker 1: he could have kudos to that. Could have joined World

924
00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:27,800
Speaker 1: War two earlier maybe, or done something economically to help

925
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:33,160
Speaker 1: help UH, like sanctions on Hitler before, could have agreed

926
00:47:33,200 --> 00:47:38,680
Speaker 1: to take Jewish refugees from the country rather than before. Yeah.

927
00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:42,839
Speaker 1: The only president you're going to find with less than

928
00:47:42,880 --> 00:47:44,520
Speaker 1: a couple of buckets of blood on his hands is

929
00:47:44,600 --> 00:47:48,719
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter. And yeah, that's that's just the way it is.

930
00:47:49,080 --> 00:47:51,400
Speaker 1: He's the He's the one nice guy we let be president.

931
00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:56,880
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter. I would vote start the campaign. Here nineties

932
00:47:56,880 --> 00:48:01,960
Speaker 1: six year old Jimmy Carter. Is there ever a symbol

933
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:04,799
Speaker 1: about how decrepiti America has become? Even as good as

934
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:08,359
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter is hauling up a nineties year old white man.

935
00:48:09,160 --> 00:48:12,279
Speaker 1: This is the best we can do. No, it's not

936
00:48:12,320 --> 00:48:14,520
Speaker 1: the best we can do. And Jimmy Carter would be

937
00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:18,000
Speaker 1: the first person to tell you that. Yeah, I was

938
00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:23,160
Speaker 1: crazy that Carter had to give up his peanut farm

939
00:48:23,200 --> 00:48:25,640
Speaker 1: because it might make a conflict of interest when he

940
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:32,359
Speaker 1: was president. What if you're nicer to it with peanuts subsidies? Yeah? No, No,

941
00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:35,480
Speaker 1: Now the president owns a hotel that foreign dignitary stay it.

942
00:48:35,560 --> 00:48:38,040
Speaker 1: But it's fine. No, we've gotten off the subject of

943
00:48:39,160 --> 00:48:41,880
Speaker 1: the bastards of today, and we were talking about other bastards.

944
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:45,000
Speaker 1: So many bastards and so many people behind them. I

945
00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:46,880
Speaker 1: will tell you, are I will ask you. Are you

946
00:48:46,920 --> 00:48:49,400
Speaker 1: converted to my way of thinking, which is that Reagan

947
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:53,279
Speaker 1: himself was probably less homophobic than most people of his

948
00:48:53,360 --> 00:48:56,279
Speaker 1: age at the time, uh, and was acting the way

949
00:48:56,320 --> 00:48:59,279
Speaker 1: he did and ignoring the crisis because of political expediency

950
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 1: rather than as of homophobia. That's my my, my take.

951
00:49:02,719 --> 00:49:05,000
Speaker 1: Here's the thing I'm a pragmatist, and if there's no

952
00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:09,520
Speaker 1: difference in practice, then there's no difference in the philosophy

953
00:49:09,560 --> 00:49:14,080
Speaker 1: behind the practice. So regardless of what he believed, his

954
00:49:14,239 --> 00:49:19,160
Speaker 1: actions were extremely homophobic and lead to the deaths of

955
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:23,000
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of people six d and fifty thousand

956
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:25,400
Speaker 1: I think so far hundreds of thousands of people. And

957
00:49:25,480 --> 00:49:30,200
Speaker 1: just like the um the spread of the AIDS epidemic,

958
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:35,200
Speaker 1: he didn't whatever he believed, the practice was we don't

959
00:49:35,200 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 1: give a shit about gay people, and we don't give

960
00:49:37,520 --> 00:49:40,359
Speaker 1: a shit if they die, And that to me is unforgivable.

961
00:49:40,560 --> 00:49:43,080
Speaker 1: I don't care what. I don't care if, like him

962
00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:45,839
Speaker 1: and Nancy were both secretly gay and they're like, well,

963
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:49,480
Speaker 1: we can't if we say anything, you know, uh, people

964
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:52,960
Speaker 1: are gonna find out our secret or whatever. I find

965
00:49:52,960 --> 00:49:57,239
Speaker 1: it unconscionable. I would matter what. It's certainly unconscionable, no

966
00:49:57,280 --> 00:49:58,880
Speaker 1: matter what I will say. One of the things is

967
00:49:58,880 --> 00:50:00,759
Speaker 1: interesting to me about this from a moral point of

968
00:50:00,840 --> 00:50:03,239
Speaker 1: view is that I think you have with Reagan, you

969
00:50:03,280 --> 00:50:05,800
Speaker 1: have a guy who I think, in his social life

970
00:50:06,600 --> 00:50:09,160
Speaker 1: did not act like a homophobe. Because the number of

971
00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:12,200
Speaker 1: gay people were very close with the Reagan's Nancy and Ronald,

972
00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:14,400
Speaker 1: both in their social life, were clearly capable of not

973
00:50:14,440 --> 00:50:17,719
Speaker 1: being judgmental assholes to their friends who were gay. See

974
00:50:17,719 --> 00:50:20,359
Speaker 1: Everett Coope. I doubt ever had a gay friend. He

975
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:23,239
Speaker 1: was definitely a guy who was homophobic in terms of

976
00:50:23,320 --> 00:50:25,640
Speaker 1: he thought it was wrong for gay people to have sex.

977
00:50:26,400 --> 00:50:28,080
Speaker 1: I think what we have in the two of them

978
00:50:28,239 --> 00:50:30,800
Speaker 1: is you have one man who's homophobic, one man who's

979
00:50:30,800 --> 00:50:33,759
Speaker 1: not particularly homophobic, but is all he cares about is

980
00:50:33,800 --> 00:50:37,200
Speaker 1: politics and his his career and advancing. And I think

981
00:50:37,239 --> 00:50:39,840
Speaker 1: Coop cared more about human life. So even though he

982
00:50:39,880 --> 00:50:43,000
Speaker 1: was homophobic, he did the right thing. While Reagan wasn't

983
00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:45,759
Speaker 1: super homophobic for his era, he did the wrong thing

984
00:50:45,760 --> 00:50:47,759
Speaker 1: because all he cared about was politics. And I do

985
00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:50,760
Speaker 1: think that's interesting that you have these two guys who

986
00:50:50,960 --> 00:50:53,839
Speaker 1: you would expect them to act completely the opposite way

987
00:50:53,880 --> 00:50:56,960
Speaker 1: in this situation, but instead, the guy who has a

988
00:50:57,200 --> 00:51:01,120
Speaker 1: very strong religious condemnation for his whole life it's homosexuality,

989
00:51:01,239 --> 00:51:03,920
Speaker 1: does the right thing, and the guy who has a

990
00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:06,359
Speaker 1: bunch of gay friends does the wrong thing because it's

991
00:51:06,360 --> 00:51:09,480
Speaker 1: the politically expedient thing. I think that's interesting. Yeah, Well,

992
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:12,239
Speaker 1: it's about it's you know, an ethical question, which is

993
00:51:12,280 --> 00:51:15,040
Speaker 1: like and and really ethics comes down to like will

994
00:51:15,120 --> 00:51:17,759
Speaker 1: you do the right thing no matter what the circumstances are?

995
00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:20,600
Speaker 1: And COOPI will do the right thing no matter what

996
00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:24,040
Speaker 1: the circumstances are because he has deeply held ethical beliefs,

997
00:51:24,040 --> 00:51:29,800
Speaker 1: whereas Reagan is at best a sociopath and at worst

998
00:51:29,920 --> 00:51:32,960
Speaker 1: a psychopath. What are the differences? I don't know. There's

999
00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:37,959
Speaker 1: like but like, do you know what I mean? There's

1000
00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:42,480
Speaker 1: there's not. There is no deeply held ethical belief besides

1001
00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:47,160
Speaker 1: a kind of like instrumental whatever will help me advance.

1002
00:51:47,480 --> 00:51:52,279
Speaker 1: And that's not ethics. That is you know, that's the

1003
00:51:52,400 --> 00:51:59,240
Speaker 1: gnashing teeth of under the bed creatures. I agree with you, Andy.

1004
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:02,840
Speaker 1: Do you want to plug your plugables? Sure? Hey everyone,

1005
00:52:03,160 --> 00:52:05,400
Speaker 1: We have a podcast me and my dear NAO. We

1006
00:52:05,440 --> 00:52:07,839
Speaker 1: have a podcast called Couples Therapy. We have a live

1007
00:52:07,880 --> 00:52:10,839
Speaker 1: show here in Los Angeles and around the country where

1008
00:52:10,880 --> 00:52:14,759
Speaker 1: we have stand ups do live sets. Uh if they

1009
00:52:14,760 --> 00:52:19,560
Speaker 1: are lovers and spouses and siblings and best friends, they

1010
00:52:19,600 --> 00:52:21,719
Speaker 1: do sets together about their relationship and then on the

1011
00:52:21,760 --> 00:52:24,759
Speaker 1: podcast we take the best live sets and bring them

1012
00:52:24,760 --> 00:52:26,839
Speaker 1: to you. And it's people like says, year's a made

1013
00:52:26,840 --> 00:52:30,279
Speaker 1: in Nicole Bayer or Rachel Bloom from craziest girlfriend and

1014
00:52:30,280 --> 00:52:33,440
Speaker 1: her husband, and lots of great comics you don't know,

1015
00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:36,440
Speaker 1: comics you do know. And then NAO, me and I

1016
00:52:36,480 --> 00:52:40,640
Speaker 1: talk and you you. Yeah, it's fine. So a couple

1017
00:52:40,640 --> 00:52:43,400
Speaker 1: of therapy here on the house Stuff Works Network, and

1018
00:52:43,440 --> 00:52:45,920
Speaker 1: I'm Robert Evans. This is Behind the Bastards. We'll be

1019
00:52:45,920 --> 00:52:49,960
Speaker 1: back Tuesday next Tuesday with someone else terrible and something

1020
00:52:50,000 --> 00:52:54,080
Speaker 1: else terrible to talk about, So please tune in, uh

1021
00:52:54,120 --> 00:52:56,400
Speaker 1: and uh, and you can check out the sources for

1022
00:52:56,440 --> 00:52:59,399
Speaker 1: this episode on on our website Behind the Bastards dot com.

1023
00:53:00,080 --> 00:53:02,440
Speaker 1: We'll have a good old picture see Everett Coop. Up

1024
00:53:02,440 --> 00:53:05,560
Speaker 1: there you'll you'll all enjoy that. He's a he he

1025
00:53:05,560 --> 00:53:08,960
Speaker 1: looks like a guy named see Everett Coop. Anyway, you

1026
00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:11,839
Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter and Instagram at at Bastard's pod.

1027
00:53:12,080 --> 00:53:13,880
Speaker 1: You can find me on Twitter at I right, okay,

1028
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:16,279
Speaker 1: And that is the the end of the episode. And

1029
00:53:17,840 --> 00:53:19,799
Speaker 1: oh yeah yeah. You can find our shirts on Tea

1030
00:53:19,880 --> 00:53:23,840
Speaker 1: public Behind the Bastards, So buy some shirts. Uh. Reagan's

1031
00:53:23,880 --> 00:53:27,600
Speaker 1: ghost will scream for every shirt that you buy. But

1032
00:53:27,719 --> 00:53:31,120
Speaker 1: also you can buy phone cases, and uh and and

1033
00:53:31,120 --> 00:53:34,480
Speaker 1: and mugs mugs. Thank you for the word mugs in

1034
00:53:34,480 --> 00:53:37,200
Speaker 1: the word mugs stickers, all of which will make Reagan's

1035
00:53:37,200 --> 00:53:41,920
Speaker 1: ghost screech in horror and shame. So do that by

1036
00:53:41,920 --> 00:53:45,320
Speaker 1: buying products on tea Public dot com and until next week.

1037
00:53:45,800 --> 00:53:49,720
Speaker 1: Real I love about jelly beans.