Wear Clean Draws  (because there’s 5 million ways to kill a ceo)

REMARKS MAKE BY LARRY KRAMER AT ACT UP/HealthGap DEMONSTRATION AGAINST OBAMA

THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2010, ST. REGIS HOTEL, NEW YORK CITY:

Obama is not my president. Obama is not your president. Obama does not like AIDS. Obama does not like gays. Now what are we going to do about it? Because we continue to sit on the sidelines while our world is
denied us, yes, our world, which is as much our world as anyone
else’s, is denied us. Our rights are denied us. Our love is denied us.
We are even denied the right to fight for our country. How long must
we be denied all of this before we truly rise up in united anger!

Why is it always so hard for us to fight back? This man does not like
us. When someone does not like you, you fight back. This Obama who is
not my president and not your president obviously does not like us. It
is not a secret. Day after day and week after week and month after
month he tells us he does not like us. He tells us! He does not keep
this a secret. His government does not like us. His chief of staff
does not like us. His Attorney General does not like us. His
Department of Justice does not like us. His Generals do not like us.
His Department of Health and Human Services does not like us. This is
not a new situation for us.

President after President have treated us so badly. Ronald Reagan.
George Bush the first. Bill Clinton. George Bush the second. Barack
Obama. They have all treated us like…shit. Like little pieces of
shit that they can step on with their heels and grind into the ground.
Obama is treating us just like that. Like little pieces of shit he can
grind into the dirt with his heel to make us go away. I wish you could
see that. I wish you could see what he is doing to us for for what it
is. He is manipulating us into invisibility. He HAS manipulated us
into invisibility. Our people in Washington live in a never-never
cloud cuckoo-land, thinking that this man likes us, not responding as,
little by little, he take bits and pieces of us away. That is how they
control us. Can’t you see that? Why can’t our people in Washington see
that? They give them a dinner as they take away another right.

How long are we going to allow ourselves to be treated with such
disdain, to be cast way in such an unwanted and disposable and ignoble
fashion?

We forget what miracles we once were able to accomplish. Every single
treatment for HIV/AIDS is out there because of us. If they are out
there because of us, why can’t all the people waiting for Ryan White
meds get them? Why can’t over 90% of the rest of the world get them?
We did not fight for them just for ourselves. So many dead young men
fought as activists for those drugs to save the world and this Obama
will not let them save the world. Little by little he takes away our
Ryan White drugs in America and our PEPFAR drugs for the rest of the
world and our AIDS organizations and clinics everywhere so he can
grind even more people with his heel into the earth like little
helpless smelly pieces of shit. Yes, this man, like all his rotten
hateful predecessors treats us like shit.

I am so tired of being treated like shit.

I wish you could realize that my words and my language and my
vocabulary are not too strong. They are not strong enough!

I beg of us all. Re-assemble! Re-unite! Fight back once more with the
passion and honor and truth and unity and brotherhood as we once did.
We once accomplished miracles. Why do we not recall our glorious
fights and build anew upon them? They treat us like shit because we
let them treat us like shit. When will we get that into our heads and
hearts and fight back?

How effective and fierce and unstoppable we can be when we take action
together. The only reason we got those drugs is because of direct
action, mobilization, fighting back. That is the reality of what we
have been able to accomplish. We are alive, for those of us who are
still alive, because we saved ourselves! When we fought back rudely
and together, we were able to achieve miraculous victories. I take
these victories, as do many of you, every morning with my breakfast.

This Obama president made a commitment to ensure that America does its
fair share to fight AIDS, in Africa, in America, and around the world.
He has broken that promise. He, like Clinton, has lied to us. He does
not like us, this president, as the other presidents did not like us.
We are not a part of their American People. He does not want us to get
married, he does not want us to fight for our country, he does not
want to end the plague of AIDS.

We must have the presence of mind and the force of character to insist
that he and his society are wrong and we are right.
Do you need to know any more than this? This is all you need to know.
And that once upon a time we accomplished miracles.

Can we do it again? Oh, please, can we do it again?