Part Two: Ronald and Nancy Reagan: The Bastards Behind the AIDS Crisis

gonna try to get my energy back. If you listen to the first episode, you can if if you like, had a graph of my energy as we hear more and more about just how like I knew. Look, it's not like I didn't know that the Reagans were fucking awful, right, I knew about Look read manufacturing consent. Chomsky and Herman go all into like they're fucking Shenanigans in Central and South America. We all know about the Iran Contra scandal.

We know about how they allowed crack into black communities in the United States that eventually then destroyed those communities. We know they're awful people, but to have like the nitty gritty right in front of you. It just like so the graph of my enthusiasm, and it goes from like making jokes to just like these motherfucker's yeah. And so it's it's like a downhill slope of our of of the emotional journey we all went through that first episode. But I'm gonna look, I'm gonna try to put out

the energy for this one. This episode has a hero. So that's this episode has a hero. It does include a hero. Was there a Wolverine comic where he fought uh fought ray Well, he tried to fight the AIDS virus. It did not work out well, but he was he was attempting. It turns out, I don't know, he's got superhero you know, he heals. I don't want to go on this. This is not this is not a not a healing factor and a very special X Men issue

about all this. I want Wolverine and like the was the crossover where all that they their fall other enemies like mcn fought Spider Man or something and Mandarin fought siloc It's shocking to me that we're still able to have cartoon villains called the Mandarin. Oh no, remarkable. No, I believe he's dead now so that they could have less racist characters. But wolverinverse Reagan, Hey, Marvel, get on that? Oh,

maybe make that the next X Men? When now that the X Men are part of the Marvel universe, the Marvel Cinematic universe. So did that happen? Yes? When when Disney bought I'm behind on my Marvel news? Oh my, yeah, you're right Disney did. Don't you read Deadline? Speaking of Fox,

Fox in the Henhouse. Actually this does segue nicely into Fox because part of my due diligence for this podcast was reading several defenses of the Reagan administration's reaction to the AIDS crisis, And to be fair, I wanted to find the best defenses I could for their behavior. I found one such defense in a conservative journal called City Journal. It's a quarterly publication. Uh, and it claims that Reagan

actually waged a quiet war on AIDS. That's the termam it uses, where he didn't talk about it or approved much additional funding. In fact, actually slashed most medical funding for research anything. But he was it was a quiet war. It was quiet. It was so quiet you might not have heard him say anything about it until nineteen people had died. Um. The article argues that the quietness is okay because his administration took action to reform FDA procedures

that slowed down the development of better drugs. That's what it's saying. What's the source again, City Journal? If you're a conservative person, it's like it's a it's a I mean, I am sure assuming gets funding from a bunch of different Like one of the articles that I found on it was called the Democrats War on Science. So if you are a conservative, City Journal is a relatively reputable news source. If you're looking for right wing journals of

pun the tree, what democrats are all Jews with horns. Well, it's not quite that bad. Um. I'm going to read a quote from it, trying to make the claim that f d A reformed during the Reagan administration helped against the age crisis. As the gravity of the AIDS threat became clear, the Reagan FDA began writing new rules that spelled out when't significant parts of the old rules wouldn't be fully rigorously enforced. By doing so, the agency accelerated

patient access to desperately needed drugs. Pharmaceutical companies quickly began coming on board once new policies were in place that would speed up the approval of drugs. In short order, the firms delivered a slew of powerful new drugs using the new tools for designing precisely targeted drugs that were coming of age at the time. As a National Academy of Sciences later noted, the extraordinarily fast development of drugs that ended up in cocktails now used to control HIV

had a quote revolutionary effect on modern drug design. Part of this is true, uh, the research that was done in the meta, like the the fight in order to make effective medicine for age was a revolutionary moment in the development of pharmaceuticals. What's really debatable is how much Reagan's reforms of the FDA had to do with any of this. Um Now, you can make an argument that some of those reforms might have sped up the process.

There are certainly things that were done that made it easier for people to get medicines that weren't officially FDA approved, like rock Hudson had to travel to France. Could make that argument. A lot of people would laugh at you for trying to but you could make that argument important to be fair, um, but it is tough to make a evidence base case that the Reagan administration improved the FDA because they actually gutted it and slashed its funding.

And this is the fun part of being fair because now that I have gone into this is again the best argument I found about how the Reagan administration took action, and it is you can back it up with strong facts that changes that were made to FDA procedures during the Reagan administration helped certain aspects of things that people suffering. Like that's what It made it easier to get drugs that you know hadn't been fully approved yet for a disease that was working at a dang. That's a that's

a legitimate achievement of that era. Debatable as to whether or not you want to put it on Reagan or someone, and it's it's a thing that was done that helped some people. Yeah, but they also introduced a bill that if you've ever seen one's penis in a changing room like at the gym, then you no longer have access

to healthcare. So well, here's what they actually did, because it's really fucked up too, So that this is why this is the fun part of being fair because once you dig into these things, like I I read it up and it's like, okay, yeah, there are some reforms of the FDA that we're made that improved access to certain drugs. Here's what else happened. Uh So, Reagan's priority. One of the big things they did when they started

slashing funding the FDA to try to streamline it. Their goal was to make the FDA a better quote partner for the pharmaceutical industry. That did speed some things up, but it also got lots of people killed. Here's the New York Times uh an interview with a doctor named Sydney Wolf from the World Health Research Group. In October nine one, a federal government advisory committee recommended against the use of aspirint for chicken pox or flu because of

the increased risks risk of raise syndrome. But as a result of pressure on the aspirin systry raise syndrome, who's ray. It's a disease that causes like brain damage and can kill kids. I think the taking aspirin as basically the Federal government advisory committee was like the current medical advice that the pharmaceutical industry really really supports is give your kid aspirin if they have chicken poxes. I remember commercials

when I was a kid. Yeah, And so the pharmaceutical industry obviously once anything, it gets people taking more aspirin um. And but then there was evidence that this is actually bad for kids and main fact have been killing them. But quote as a result of pressure of the aspirin industry, at proposal by the FDA from mandatory warning labels with was withdrawn in the fall of Nino. As a result, a hundred and fifty American children are dead and doesn't

have brain damage. So cutting back on f d a red tape cuts both ways, and in this case it cut a hundred and fifty kids to death. Anyway, that's what fairness looks like. That's not a ton, it's only and dozens of kids with brain damage not that bad, really, less than two hundred total. Probably, if you're going to make it easier for people to get experimental medicines, some children are going to die from bad or from aspirin.

That's just sure. Yeah, I mean, look in comparison with how many people the Reagan administration murdered in Central and South America, that's nothing. You know what. You know what. It's perspective, guys. It's perspective. It's perspective exactly. Um. And now we have some perspective. I just thought we delve into the other cases here, you know, you know, the

defenses of the administration. This is what I was talking about, like part one where I was like, once the pharmaceutical industry smelled a profit to be made, is that when things started to pick up, like, oh, let's address this now, I guess not not not in the period we're getting into. That's like they get better at it later on. But again, most of the first medicines to treat AIDS did not fucking work. And we're going to talk to them about

that in a little bit here. So um. According to City Journal, another aspect of Ronald Reagan's so secret it looked invisible war on AIDS was his appointment of See Everett Coop as Surgeon General. Uh and Mr Coop is a hero of this story, and he was appointed by Ronald Reagan. But Ronald Reagan and his Surgeony General did not exactly see I to eye and looked like the colonel from KFC. Yeah, we're about to pull up his picture.

He looked amazing. He's he's I'm gonna go ahead and say, probably the best aesthetic if any surgeon general we've ever had. And he does look like I would trust his recommendation on where by fried Chicken? If se Everett Coope was to tell me, now, Son, this place has a damn good bucket of fried bud here, I'd be like, you look like the kind of man who knows where good fried chicken is. My true Vada recipes got seven secret herbs and spasses in it, the best, I mean, whatever,

the well, I guess I'll trust you. Kooby really getting a lot of play out of the Reagan voice jokes. That's that's if I was. If I was a journalist, Poop on Coop he used to say poop is sco because it was funny. Look at this guy, Look at this guy. That's what a fucking champion. That is truly a courageous chin beard. And this picture will be on Behind the Bastards dot com if you want to see. I'm gonna go ahead and say the best chin beard

any surgeon general has ever had. I think that's probably fair. Texas on who send us a message on Twitter if you find a better surgeon general with a twin. If you get a name a surgeon general that's ever Coop. That's also fair. He is the only surgeon general whose name I knew before I started on this podcast, So that's a fair point. So Charles Everett Coop was called chick by his friends in Dartmouth College because chickens living

comedy didn't wasn't really very advanced back then. What years this This is like in the forties something like that, and they get back into the yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Lenny Bruce was just a gleam and fatty Arbuckle's eye. I don't know much about the evolution of comedy. Um, so yeah. Cooper was a born again Christian um In nineteen seventy six, he published The Right to Live the Right to Die, which argued against both abortion and euthanasia.

The books sold a hundred thous copies, mostly to Christian readers in its first year. Coop said, quote, what a scam? How many? How how many grifters are there in like the Christian community. He's not a grifter. I will say this for Coop. He believes strongly everything, And I think you might come around on this, but He's definitely not you would think in any sort of reasonable corner right now, but he believes this stuff. Look I love the beard,

love his aesthetic. All right, I'm already like there. Well see, Ivert Coop wrote this book about you know how as a physician and a Christian, he didn't believe abortion should be legal or or euthanasian. In fact, he viewed them

as basically the same thing. That said He was also had a brilliant career as a surgeon and a children's hospital in Philadelphia, and he established the United states is first neal natal unit in nineteen fifty six, work there until nineteen So he was a guy with very strong, very right wing religious conservative views. But he was also a guy who clearly viewed his north star as taking care of human beings and that was the thing that was his main focus in life. And how did that

lash with his Christian beliefs. Well, we're about to get into that, um so Coop. When he was appointed, many Democrats, including Henry Waxman, spoke out against Coop. Waxman said, quote, Dr Coope frightens me. He does not have a public health record. He's dogmatically denounced those who disagree with him, and his intemperate views make me wonder about his and

the administration's judgment. Uh. Here's a quote from the book after the Wrath of God, titled doctor Unqualified, The New York Times editorial board latted Coop's work as a pediatric surgeon, but underscored his lack of public health experience. Pass surge in generals almost without exception. The article continued, have possessed experience,

specifically within the field of public health. That Coop had shown no evidence of such experience, along with the fact that he technically was older than the legally permitted age to assume the position suggested that the Reagan administration's interest in Coop had been had to be found elsewhere. Quote that elsewhere maybe his anti abortion crusade. The Times concluded with its hope that Congress would reject the appointment. For not to do so would quote be an affront to

both the public health profession and the public. So again, the start of this seems like Coop is the perfect guy to not make a fussbile tens of thousands of gay people die, right. It seems like the worst case scenario for a surgeon general and an already conservative administration. So he's like, who is the guy that's on the Supreme Court that they thought was a conservative but then

it's actually more moderate Kennedy. Yeah yeah, yeah, So he's like that, like that, They're like, this guy is gonna hate, he's gonna hate all the right people was making this Surgeon General. Um. But no, in fact, that's actually not what happened. UH. Coop monitored CDC reports UH in their sponsor public health services from the sidelines during the first

several years of the AIDS crisis. UH. Despite his his job was essentially to a form inform the American people about disease, about what was happening UH, and so he wanted to make a statement earlier in the AIDS crisis once he was conformed confirmed in nineteen eighty two, But he says he was quote completely cut off from AIDS

by other people in the administration. He blames interdepartmental politics from blocking him from any of the few conversations that the Reagan administration had about as during the early nineteen eighties. According to Coop, the reason for this was that his involvement would have implicated the Reagan administration in basically caring about gay people. Coop says that because AIDS was seen as a gay disease, the President's advisors quote took the

stand they are only getting what they justly deserve. Now. Assistant Secretary for Health Edward Brandt, Coope's boss, told him that he was not allowed to speak publicly about AIDS during the epidemic. In nineteen eighty three, when Brandt created an executive task force on AIDS, Coop was not invited. By nineteen eighty five, he'd started to get pissed about this. Coop thought it was outrageous that thousands of people had

died and the Surgeon General had said nothing. Now there were people agitating that Coop should be allowed to talk about the AIDS crisis. They were conservative Christians who sent anonymous telegrams to the Health and Human Services Secretary asking that Coope be quote unmuzzled because they thought he was going to speak out against protecting gay civil rights. They expected him to endorse the kind of anti gay public health measures like shutting down bathhouses that other Reagan administration

officials endorsed. Finally, in nineteen eighty five, Coop was made a member of the AIDS task Force. In that winter, he was ordered to prepare a report on the AIDS epidemic. Coop knew from the start that he was was going to be a hard to write an unbiased report about AIDS. He recalled in his autobiography quote, A large proportion of the President's constituency was anti homosexual, anti drug abuse, anti promesecuity,

and anti sex education. These people would not respond well to some of the things that have to be said in a health report on AIDS. So Coop is realizes immediately, if I'm going to address to AIDS, I have to talk about condoms. I have to talk about the ways in which gay people are having sex that makes it more likely for this to spread. I have to talk about sexual health to the entire American people, which is basically the kryptonite of a Republican in the nineteen eighties, nineties.

It's not not not an easy cell today, Coop. I gotta talk about condoms, about to talk about biscuits, you gotta talk about mash taters and gravy. I gotta talk about sex. And it's weird that this is the guy who realizes I have instruct America about safe sex. But this is the guy who realized that he had to instruct America about safe sex. And that's exactly what he did.

That's the that maybe like the last time that a Republican was overwhelmed by the feeling that this that this is going to spiral out of control if we don't address it. Yeah, and did something, and did something, and did something, and Coop fucking did something. Um. On October twenty two, ninety six, with more than sixteen thousand Americans dead from AIDS, Surgeon General see Everett Coop released the Surgeon General's Report on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Here's a

description of it from After the Wrath of God. It presented the best medical information available to date about HIV and AIDS and sought to alleviate the fears of the

American people. The thirty six page report called Americans to fight the epidemic as a unified group, rather than condemning certain populations disproportionately affected by the disease, who some felt deserved the illness US By saying this coup attempted to move the rhetoric of the AIDS epidemic beyond its association with homosexuality and drug use away from the idea that it was the just desserts for a moral behavior. As

he noted, we're fighting a disease, not people. Could you imagine at at any time in your life thinking of population just deserves something for Yes, I mean, look, I I think, uh, that sociopath deserve to be excommunicated from civil society. I thought that's because they have proven themselves to be destructive to the general social fabric. I think the behavior Coup is fighting against is the behavior you

see on every side of the island different things. Right now, among the left, there is a strong chunk of the American left that believes but char al Assad is a basically good guy. The gassings of his people are part

of a propaganda campaign. Sorry, who on the left believes that he's a good guy talking to me about the red Rose avatar on Twitter and talk about the gassing of people, Like I've met some of these people, Like there's like tankis in the United Kingdom, which, like the term started because the Soviet Union essentially invaded like countries and its dominion who are trying to like agitate for more independence and civil rights outside of the USSR, and

so like these British socialists were like, no, it's good that the USSR is crushing resistance with tanks and those people. There's a strong strain of that in the left who believes that Bashar al Assad, like the campaign against him is part of like a NATO conspiracy to try to ouse this guy to get serious oil. There's also the same thing with Ukraine where people will write off the

Maidan revolution in Ukraine is they're all neo Nazis. Their neo Nazis fighting against the Russians there, and the Ukrainian government is a Nazi government because there are neo Nazis in Ukraine. Like it's it is. It is very easy for people on and it's the same thing you see on the right with like, well, everybody in fucking Iran

is a religious extremist who hates America or whatever. Everybody finds it easy when you're separated enough from a group of people that have complex interests, some of which run counted to your own. Anybody can be convinced to condemn a group of people. It just depends on how far away they are. But like I'm saying, let's condemn people who don't have empathy for others. I think that would be great. Um, but they will give them Gults culture,

will give them an island of their own. So if you don't have empathy, look, I'm saying, we create a test and then for people who to see whether they have empathy or not. And then if you don't, then we put you on a little island and you get to live the rest of your life there. You can do what you want. We call it Gults culture, and they'll all be like, you know, they'll all they'll all be erect from living in their iron rams. I thought

you're describing New Hampshire. But no guns. They don't get guns, So it's not like they're not gonna be happy. They're not gonna be happy with that. Or maybe maybe guns with blanks. Yeah, that might do the trick. I mean like West World. But yeah, so Coope is doing the right thing here. Uh that's hanging with Dr Coop. Hanging with Dr Coop that surprisingly woke Dr Coop. Uh everything

else about his life. Yeah, there you go. So we're gonna get into some more things Coop proposed, and we're gonna get into the right wing backlash against his idea of talking about the concept of condoms. Uh, and how controversial that wound up being. But first, ads and we're back. We're back, and we're talking about see Everett Coop. He's just released his nineteen eighties six report on AIDS. Coop's report opposed mandatory HIV testing and quarantines for those infected.

He said that it wouldn't work. Both of those were ideas, though that conservative politicians close to the Reagan administration had suggested. Coop did more than just shoot down some of the GOP's favorite gut reactions to the crisis. He also called for a nationwide sex ed campaign that would teach, among the things, how to use condoms. He advised that this education should start at the lowest grade possible and be

worked into normal health and hygiene education. Quote, there is no doubt now that we need sex ed in schools and that it include information on heterosexual and homosexual relationships. The threat of age should be sufficient to permit a sex education curriculum with a heavy emphasis on prevention of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. From first grade on, I got economy day in school. Wow, that's a weird that's a weird school that might be too many condoms

for a first grader. I don't know. I had a lot of good water balloon fights. He you save them up if if you saved up enough, you could trade them in for prizes. You get five condoms for one dental dam or something you get well, no, you can get like baseball cards or Marvel cards. At the time. I'm gonna say it again, that's a weird school. Anyway. The point is I have a lot of expen cards, not a lot of condoms. No, well, that's a shame.

They get better with age, That's what I've heard. Vintage condoms. I get all my condoms on eBay, and you know, make sure that they're from Ah. Well, it's just gonna move fastest bit so. In his report, Coop commented on drug use as well as oral and anal sex, because those were all major wads that AIDS was being spread. He talked about these things like a doctor without judgment, because that's exactly what he was, a doctor. Everybody lost their goddamn minds the l a times he would expect

to have a reasonable take on the matter. Headline their coverage of the report, Coop urges AIDS sex course in grade school Hey, the l a time. Look it worked in migrade school. Uh. William F. Buckley Jr. A famous conservative pundit, attacked the surgeon General general piece of ship, general piece of ship, and specific piece of ship attacked the Surgeon General for suggesting American kids learn about sex.

Robert Novak Roland Evans, another notable conservative of thinkers, wrote a whole bunch of lies about the Surgeon General's report and basically accused him of wanting to groom children for pedophilia. Uh. Philis Shafelely, right wing religious firebrand, opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment. And if you've watched Handmaiden's Tale, the commander's wife in the Handmaiden's Tale was specifically based on Philis Shafeley when the book was written, Uh, yeah, this lady Wind.

Then the fly was based on the the just Jeff go before the train change was based on Philish. The fly the fly itself, the actual fly before the change, So not Jeff. The concept of a fly was based like bottom feeding vermin. Yeah. So Phillis said that aids that the AIDS report quote looks in reads like it was edited by the Gay task Force. She accused Surgeon General Coop of suggesting that third graders learned quote safe sodomy. Uh, said Coope, Why anyone paid attention to this lady is

one of the mysteries of the eighties. I'm not the surgeon general to make Philish Shafely happy. I'm the surgeon general to save lives. Again. He's fucking he's he seized his moment to be the one guy not fucking up. Coop had been prepared to be attacked by the political right because he'd known that his report was going to reject all of the suggestions they had already made, but he later wrote that he did quote feel a profound sense of betrayal by those on the religious right who

took me to task. My position on AIDS was dictated by scientific integrity and Christian compassion. I felt my Christian opponents had abandoned not only their old friend, but also their commitment to integrity and compassion. So I was talking about part yeah, yeah, Cooper compassion. Yeah. And then that's Coop. How Coop trans He does not like people that people are having gay sex. He thinks it's not what God wants, but he thinks they're also still people who deserve medical care.

These dumb turds think they know what God wants. By the way, this I mean, look, I don't believe in God, but like supposedly this be unable force, unable force that created all all things and and some turd you know in a frock is just like I can translate, Yeah, this creature. By the way, I'm gonna get a lot of a lot of hate mail for calling got a creature. Coop clearly takes the right thing out of religion, which is that like, oh, you should take care of people. Yeah, yeah, which, okay,

that's a great thing. Yeah. Uh So. For an example of the Christian rights reaction to Coop's report, we have AIDS a special report almost the same title as Coop's report, but this didn't come from the government. It was released by Summit Ministries and also published in nine. It's appendix was titled AIDS Warning the Surgeon General's report maybe hazardous to your health. In one section, Coop chickens out. It claims the Surgeon General's pro homosexual bias was causing him

to ignore the health risks of sexual immorality. They called his report quote littered with unscientific aegedly authoritative statements about the disease, most most of which let gays off the hook. So Christian right, everybody really nailing it. Uh. This report had suggestions for America to quote our public health authorities must be made to realize that their first responsibility is to protect the public's health, not the perceived civil rights

of homosexuals or drug users. You're really you're always the bad guy if you're including civil rights and quotes the way. I love their other report about how communion wafers can give you six pack abs. Well, you know, actually they are pretty low. They're gloen free. Now it's a good snack. I would actually totally buy a big old bag of communion wafers. I enjoyed eating those as a kid. Are they I'm Jewish, so I've never even had one, But

do they have any taste of them? They just nice little they're they're like little um okay, you know Nila wafers. You know they're made of that weird phoonia substance if that had no sugar in it and was tiny. It's a little bit like that. So it sounds like it's uh, styrofoam a little bit. But I like styrofoam. But like, why not look body of Christ? But also what about like could the hair of Christ be like cinnamon and sugar?

When I imagine the taste of Jesus Christ's hot, glistening body, I imagine the taste of cool ranch de Rito's, because there's nothing like that nice de rito bite to make you realize that, maybe, just maybe there might be someone out there looking out for us, reading copy from from a piece of papers. No, that was all extemporaneous. I just anyway, let's move on to aids Um that was a bad, bad segue. Uh so, as hard as I hope it is to believe right now, but probably not

at all hard to believe right now. Most of the outrage against Coope had come from his decision to endorse condoms. Quote from one of Reagan's advisers, Gary Bower, the White House doesn't like the sea word, but if you or sorry, this is a quote from women. So Coop said, sorry that every racist in this is a Southern or misogynist as a Southern person, apologies to progressive Southern people, thank you now. Coop said at the time, the White House doesn't like the C word, but if you don't talk

about condoms. People are going to die, so I talk. Another Christian Conservative who didn't like Coop was Under Secretary of Education Gary Bauer. He was a Baptist and a bit of a stickler for the word values. Uh. Here's a picture of Bower with Ronald Reagan, just to get a picture of this guy in your head before I tell you what's next. He's a little weasily looking ship. Oh yeah, he looks like a Teminaric character. He does

look like a temin Eric character. And he's wearing a suit that's clearly too big for him, which is like my favorite type of conservative. Yeah. I like how a guy in government couldn't go to a tailor, didn't have time to stop by Brooks Brothers. No, no, no, he had he had too much. Well, we're about to hear what he was doing when he wasn't getting a suit fitted. Uh. Gary is currently the president of American Values and Advocacy

group that lobbies for exactly the kind of things you'd think. Uh. In December of x he wrote up the education policy that would actually teach American school kids about eads, rather than following a need of guidelines Coup had laid down. He believed the Department of Education should quote not be neutral between heterosexual and homosexual sex, while homosexual should not

be persecuted. Heterosexual sex within marriage is what most Americans are laws and our traditions consider the proper focus of human sexuality. Bauer believed that all federally mandated are federally sponsored AIDS education supplements should quote encourage responsible sexual behavior based on fidelity, commitment, and maturity, placing sexuality within the context of marriage, which of course means you don't have

to talk about condoms. Ronald Reagan approved these changes, even though they flew in the face of what his surgeon general had recommended. Shortly after that, Senator Jesse Helms passed a law thing, so wait, hold on, sorry, so these people don't even think that married couples use condoms? Well, why would you need to do. The only reason you're having sex is to make kids, right. Uh. Ronald Reagan

approved these changes. Uh. Shortly after that, Jesse Helms passed a law prohibiting the CDC from using its fund to quote promote, encourage, and condone homosexual sexual activities or the intravenous use of illegal drugs four thousand did the CDC. Was the CDC like, by the way, if you're gonna do heroin, don't snort it, inject it? Yeah, why not? It said he's not allowed to promote intravenous drugs. Right,

What was the CDC doing before that? Was it? They were they What they're saying is that like by saying, hey, here's where you find clean needles. Here's how to like make sure your needle is clear, here's how to dispose of needles, that kind of stuff, just trying to be like you're gonna be fucking shooting drugs with needles, be safer with your needles. Wasn't just like going like, hey,

snorton's for squares. No, the CDC wasn't like, all right, so the best h on the block, you're gonna go down take a rite at the Pioneer Chicken and you want to cook it and inject it. No, man, big big Ernie sells smacks soup here. You don't gotta cook it. That's the CDC's official report. No. Uh So four thousand and fire has died in nine seven. Uh This was in spite of the fact that the year that this was the year that A z T, the first anti

HIV drug was approved by the FDA. A z T had to be taken every four hours without fail, even interrupting your sleep, and came with horrible side effects, including muscle soreness and fatigue. Subsequent large scale studies showed almost no difference between AZT and place Ebo's seven was a big year for AIDS. Not only was it the a z T year, it was also the year that the first San Francisco AIDS quote was made. It was the year that a family with three HIV positive hemophiliac sons

had their house burned down by an arsonist. It was the year the U S shut its borders to HIV infected immigrants, and the year Ronald Reagan finally addressed the nation about what he now called public health Enemy Number one. Not a lot there for humor, except no, I did come up with a character. While you're talking Johnny Arson. He's like Johnny Carson. Oh good, he lights fires, Oh good, weird fiery stuff. We got a really big blaze. That's

all I know about Johnny Carson. At this point, when Reagan finally delivered his very first public speech about AIDS, twenty three thousand Americans had already died from the disease. Part of why Reagan even addressed it is because thousands of hemophilias had also been infected. By this point, many were dying. Ryan White was probably the most famous of these hemophiliac kids to catch AIDS. He was diagnosed in by seven, he'd become one of the most prominent figures

in the fight against the disease. Since seeing other hemophiliax were not gay, they were seen as not deserving what had happened to them. This gave the Reagan administration the cover that it needed to take effective action against the disease that set. In his big speech, Ronald Reagan also

noted abstinence as an important tool in the fight against AIDS. So, wait, so, the lesser from this is, if there is a disease that affects only a small part of the population, what you want to do, I give that the blood supplies give is give that disease to someone that the government can use as covered to treat it. Yeah, I mean

that is actually the lesson here. Yeah. Uh so here's what Ronald reg Ronald Reagan noted that absence was also an important too on the fight of aid So he during this speech, he said, quote, after all, when it comes to preventing AIDS, don't medicine and morality teach the same lessons? Fucking I'm sorry that I have nothing like it just really like boils my blood. Here's the thing in speeches that see Everett Coop gave when he would

go to colleges. He said the same thing, but he was also like, but also, people are gonna do what they're gonna do, so let's teach them how to use condoms, because I'm a doctor and I don't want people to die. Like you can believe that morality says you shouldn't have sex outside of marriage. You're not evil if you believe that, as long as you're also like, but we should do basic things to make sure people understand how to protect

themselves if they choose to do something different. Coop was able to make that kind of leap in his own mind, even though he didn't approve of it and make a note of what was necessary. Reagan was not able to make that leap. Or maybe he was and he was just a political coward. I don't know. We'll talk about that a little bit. Coopers King, Cooper's King he's he's he's not perfect, is what we're saying. You'll find criticisms

of a coup that are valid, but he's trying. He's clearly doesn't want people to die and takes it seriously, which is something more than anybody else has done. Um So, in four thousand, eight hundred and fifty five more Americans died, with the death toll nearing thirty thousand. See Everett Coop believed that the government could and should do more, so we put together a pamphlet called Understanding Aids that provided frank descriptions of anal in oral sex, as well as

fact based discussions of contraception. It was the sort of thing that various grassroots groups across the country had already started distributing, particularly in coastal cities with a large gay population. But Coop was the Surgeon General, and he had a little bit more power than these people. Coop had this one pamphlet mailed out to almost every home in America. A hundred and seven million families received a copy of Understanding Aids. It was the original a O. L disc Yeah, yeah,

it was. It was like the first thing distributed on that wide A fucking like your joke, but like that that is like it was at the time the largest mass mailing in American history. Um, and it's like pictures of like how gay sex works and how condoms works. So it was how you got online originally. Yeah, well it's a line because like laying pipe, you know what you someone will get that descriptions of gay sexual practice

is often sensationalized. Had never before reached so large an audience, and now the Surgeon General pressed Americans to learn even more about sex through his education campaign, which included promoting abstinence and monogamy, but also maintained the importance of using condoms. If the sexual revolution of the nineteen sixties and seventies had not yet reached every small town and rural outpost

in the heartland, Coop's pamphlet did so. Not only is he giving out information on gay sex is the first he's forcing effective sex ad on families in rural America. Well, how did it look? How in Texas? How did you grow up? I had like such a fear of AIDS that it was like terrifying. The idea of sex was terrifying. As a kid, I didn't really understand much about what it was. To be honest, I don't remember. I'm sure

there were conversations. I know I remember a couple of talks at school about it, but I think I was late enough that most of the panic over aids had kind of faded by that point. Yeah, I mean the panic like it was no longer when I was a kid, but also grew up in a pretty egalitarian household where you know, my parents were like treat all people the same, so there was no like there was no panic at

home about like gay people or whatever like that. But like even in culture, I didn't feel that so like there wasn't anything. It wasn't like that, but there was still a panic about sex in general in the late eighties that into the like nineties, there was definitely a panic about like the the like that that was like the thing everybody joked about was like making another guy do something that looked gay so that everybody can call

him gay or whatever. Like I was definitely of the generation where like when I was in school, the word fag was like every fourth word out of my mouth and everybody else's mouth that I knew. Like that was like it was Texas, Yeah, it was Texas. It was the most one of the most common. It was one of those things. When I was like eighteen nineteen and then finally got out of school and into the world, I realized, like, oh, is it really fucked up word

to use all the time? You should you shouldn't say that about people, But it was it was I don't know, like I don't remember any education about AIDS. I don't remember ever learning any of that. Well there was, I mean, it was just like a generalized panic about That's what I was saying. Like, it wasn't like a panic about gay people. And I was that's because I grew up in like a household where everyone was treated the same

unless you were a piece of ship. Like that's where my parents were like you know this, uh, you know, they sat me down at some point and they're like, don't use gay, Like you know, gay was slang at the time for like that was dumb, and they're like, don't use that because there are gay people that we know and you know, and they're that hurts their feelings, and don't use these certain words. You can use the word funck and the word ship, don't use it around

the rabbi or whatever. Like there's certain context, but there's like forbidden words where like these hurt people's feelings. There was um swear words that you could use and that, and so the thing was like it went from being a like a panic about gay people to a panic about sex at some point. I think it became like when I remember it, because I was in you know, I was born in eighty eight, so I was I was not conscious during eight years old. Um yeah, so like I went. What I remember was more of a

generalized panic about things that weren't head or normative. Like that was the thing. Like there was no like it wasn't like if you're gay, you're going to get AIDS. When I was a kid, it was that like gay meant not what we expected, like straight masculine men, and so that's silly and you should make fun of it. Like that was sort of my what I grew up with, and that was less than I didn't really catch any that from my parents. That was just like school like that.

So there's this almost phone be everywhere, and like it was not like it's not like I went to a high school that was like super gay friendly, but it was I don't think it was as I don't think the homophobia was a suffocating and I mean I'll ask my gay friends from high school what they thought. Yeah, I certainly had. I had one gay friend when I was in high school that I met when I was a senior. He came out to me when I was a senior in high school, and that was the first

gay person that I knew. Um, so it was definitely like not you know, it was it was not a but, but we were also we were also passed enough the AIDS epidemic that like the only thing I remember in school about AIDS was then really driving home to us that you can't get it from the water fountains, Like that was the biggest part. That's the that's the thing that's stuck in my mind about my high school agent ucation.

But I was, I wonder, now if that's Texas versus Pennsylvania, if that's yeah, south of the Mason Dixon line, it was like still full of homophobia into the nineties, and north of the Mason Dixon line it turned into like a sex paranoia in general thing. I I certainly can't. I would I would describe a lot of what I in Canada is a sex paranoia in general thing but I I couldn't tell you what it was like outside of Texas because I only grew up in the one spot. Um,

but I will tell you what. This pamphlet Coop sent out looked like, Uh, this is the front. Why don't you check out. I find a little bit of humor in the last question listed on the front of the pamphlet says understanding AIDS And there's a bunch of pictures of people. It's very multiculty and it says what do you really know about AIDS? Are you at risk? AIDS? And sex? And why no one has gotten AIDS from mosquitoes?

Which tells you what what people knew about it at the time where Coop was like, all right, what are the big things we have to address? Oh, mosquitoes. Everybody's asking about mosquitoes. You could see that. I mean, yeah, I know it makes about You've got to get the info out. Yeah, And there was like it was our already around the time where arachnophobia came out and so people were worried about bugs. Yeah, yeah, this is a very basic thing. But people flip their ship over this

like this is a major issue. There's tons of like political cartoons, people freaking out over the pampo worried about Skeeter. I don't want him to talk about how gay people have sex like it there. It freaked people out, and it was a legitimately courageous move from Coop to be like, no, we're fucking mailing this out to every family in the country. And they did it. Uh. It took way longer than you'd have hoped, but it happened. In a nineteen eighty eight.

This fucking thing gets out and finally people start to get forced on them some practical sexual education. Um No. It's important to note that, see Everett Coope was not a hippie dippie dude. He was not You would certainly not call him pro gay um like. His advice was specifically like, don't have sex with anyone who could carry the virus of AIDS, and then he would go on to after a couple of paragraphs of why you shouldn't do it. If you do decide to do this anyway,

use a condom. Here's how condoms work. Like. It was the the most couched it possibly could have been, but at least he was getting the information out. If you don't use a condom, just do hand stuff. Yeah, just do it well, just do hand stuff was the second pamphlet he sent out to a hundred and seven million homes. It was forty seven pages of really hardcore hand pornogress. Should I use lub No, he's a surgeon general is

strict on that ship. Bible doesn't say nothing about luber The only luber can you're gonna need is a single page from the King James Bible, and you're gonna wrap that around yourself. Of Christ is the only Luvian. Oh boy. As I said before, Coupe Savorite Coop agreed with President Reagan that religion, morality, Uh, we're in lockstep on the matter of AIDS. Abstinence was the best way to deal with it. But he also was like, let's fucking teach

people about condoms and stuff. Teach people about fucking. Yeah, let's teach people about fucking. That was see Everet Coope, the Man who taught America to fuck another great name for his bio pic. On January nineteen eighty nine, Ronald Reagan left office. More than more than fourteen thousand Americans died from AIDS that year. Another eighteen thousand died in nineteen ninety. One of these was Ryan White. The President wrote him a public letter which was more than Rock

Hudson got. Here's a quote from a writer with a New Yorker who actually knew Ryan. Reagan wrote a letter that letter that ended with the words, Ryan, my dear young friend, we will see you again. But that letter really just shows the limits of Reagan's sympathy. Ryan White was an absolutely delightful Indiana schoolboy, so he was an innocent AIDS victim, unlike the gay men Reagan did not like to mention. It is no coincidence that Reagan would

feel comfortable signaling singling White out to honor. Nor is it a chance that the single biggest piece of HIV legislation ever enacted in the United States is called the Ryan White Act. I should note before we end that Rock Hudson was not the only friend of the Reagans to die of AIDS. Ronald Reagan's good buddy Roy Khon

died of AIDS in nineteen eighty six. He was apparently furious when, during treatment his doctor repeatedly insisted that he stay abstinent, and that that was most of the advice that con was able to get. The Reagans did send con a letter before he died, but neither showed up at his funeral. He was buried in a tie with

Ronald Reagan's name on it. The AIDS epidemic continued to kill more than half a million Americans had died by two thousand, two, eleven years before Ronald Reagan's daughter would claim that her dad had supported gay marriage, because in two thousand thirteen, that's exactly what Reagan's daughter said that she thinks her dad would have backed. Yeah, I think was past stretch. I will say she might be right because in two thousand thirteen, Reagan wouldn't have had to

pay a political price for supporting gay marriage. And I think that really was most of what it was for him. He would have been fine if he thought in nineteen eighty two, you know, jumping on AIDS and like increasing funding to it would have won him election in eighty four, he would have done it. I don't think he had a moral issue with this. I think he was just a coward. Well that's a moral issue. Well I don't

think I don't think. No, that is a moral issue, But that's not He didn't have a moral issue with treating gay people of AIDS. He himself was a coward

and that was a moral issue. He had a deeper failure that homophobia, which I think is important to note because I think people look and there, oh, Reagan was homophobic, and I'm like, well, it's actually scarier if he was not homophobic for the time, but just too much of a coward to do anything because it was bad politically because all these people who supported him thought that gay people were monsters. And I do think that's probably closer

to the real story, which is scarier. I mean, well, do we know like when he really started to get dementia. I mean, there's a lot of debate around that. Some people are going to say most of his second term he was starting to like he was definitely not from five on. But I don't really know. But are there any like I mean, we all think that, like something's wrong with Trump because like he says insane things and can't talk and is in general just a mush brained freak.

But were there any speeches? Again, I was a child, so I don't really remember anything. Were there's speeches? Were like Reagan could at least talk, right, He was a real good talker. He was a real good talker the entire time he was he was president. Okay, so there's never any kind of like it was never to the apps of what we're experiencing now. No, But like like he didn't he wasn't tweeting and stuff. Every appearance he

had was carefully stayed managed. His speeches were written for him and stuff like he was good at delivering the lines. I don't know how much he'd started to suffer from Alzheimer's at that point, but they they also think the fucking forty years before that, the president's staff was able to hide the fact that he couldn't walk. So it's clearly not hard if you've got a good staff to hide ship from the country. Um or at least it

was back then. Um So at the weekend at Bernie's FDR's legs what oh yeah, No, No, most of the nation didn't new that, No, that he couldn't walk. They would do they had like special braces made for him, and he would like walk with people who you wouldn't quite be able to tell where. And the press pool was in on it too, Like it was one of those things where people were like, but they're there's fucking wars going on. Don't let anyone know that the president

can't stand up. I have this idea that he's wearing a harness with strings attached to and there's a car driving and it just like it like strings, like a Marionett Movi is like Harry Truman, just puppets here hering him. Yeah, no, that's dark. We're the bastards now, Um we have become. I don't think so. I think ethically, I'm on the right side of history. I mean, Aftyr was was fine enough president, It was fine. Yeah, he's fine. New deal was good. New Deal was good. Not not not being

a fascist was really the best thing he did. Yeah, right, he could have kudos to that. Could have joined World War two earlier maybe, or done something economically to help help UH, like sanctions on Hitler before, could have agreed to take Jewish refugees from the country rather than before. Yeah. The only president you're going to find with less than a couple of buckets of blood on his hands is Jimmy Carter. And yeah, that's that's just the way it is.

He's the He's the one nice guy we let be president. Jimmy Carter. I would vote start the campaign. Here nineties six year old Jimmy Carter. Is there ever a symbol about how decrepiti America has become? Even as good as Jimmy Carter is hauling up a nineties year old white man. This is the best we can do. No, it's not the best we can do. And Jimmy Carter would be

the first person to tell you that. Yeah, I was crazy that Carter had to give up his peanut farm because it might make a conflict of interest when he was president. What if you're nicer to it with peanuts subsidies? Yeah? No, No, Now the president owns a hotel that foreign dignitary stay it. But it's fine. No, we've gotten off the subject of the bastards of today, and we were talking about other bastards. So many bastards and so many people behind them. I

will tell you, are I will ask you. Are you converted to my way of thinking, which is that Reagan himself was probably less homophobic than most people of his age at the time, uh, and was acting the way he did and ignoring the crisis because of political expediency rather than as of homophobia. That's my my, my take. Here's the thing I'm a pragmatist, and if there's no difference in practice, then there's no difference in the philosophy

behind the practice. So regardless of what he believed, his actions were extremely homophobic and lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of people six d and fifty thousand I think so far hundreds of thousands of people. And just like the um the spread of the AIDS epidemic, he didn't whatever he believed, the practice was we don't give a shit about gay people, and we don't give a shit if they die, And that to me is unforgivable.

I don't care what. I don't care if, like him and Nancy were both secretly gay and they're like, well, we can't if we say anything, you know, uh, people are gonna find out our secret or whatever. I find it unconscionable. I would matter what. It's certainly unconscionable, no matter what I will say. One of the things is interesting to me about this from a moral point of view is that I think you have with Reagan, you have a guy who I think, in his social life

did not act like a homophobe. Because the number of gay people were very close with the Reagan's Nancy and Ronald, both in their social life, were clearly capable of not being judgmental assholes to their friends who were gay. See Everett Coope. I doubt ever had a gay friend. He was definitely a guy who was homophobic in terms of he thought it was wrong for gay people to have sex.

I think what we have in the two of them is you have one man who's homophobic, one man who's not particularly homophobic, but is all he cares about is politics and his his career and advancing. And I think Coop cared more about human life. So even though he was homophobic, he did the right thing. While Reagan wasn't super homophobic for his era, he did the wrong thing

because all he cared about was politics. And I do think that's interesting that you have these two guys who you would expect them to act completely the opposite way in this situation, but instead, the guy who has a very strong religious condemnation for his whole life it's homosexuality, does the right thing, and the guy who has a bunch of gay friends does the wrong thing because it's

the politically expedient thing. I think that's interesting. Yeah, Well, it's about it's you know, an ethical question, which is like and and really ethics comes down to like will you do the right thing no matter what the circumstances are? And COOPI will do the right thing no matter what the circumstances are because he has deeply held ethical beliefs, whereas Reagan is at best a sociopath and at worst a psychopath. What are the differences? I don't know. There's

like but like, do you know what I mean? There's there's not. There is no deeply held ethical belief besides a kind of like instrumental whatever will help me advance. And that's not ethics. That is you know, that's the gnashing teeth of under the bed creatures. I agree with you, Andy. Do you want to plug your plugables? Sure? Hey everyone, We have a podcast me and my dear NAO. We have a podcast called Couples Therapy. We have a live show here in Los Angeles and around the country where

we have stand ups do live sets. Uh if they are lovers and spouses and siblings and best friends, they do sets together about their relationship and then on the podcast we take the best live sets and bring them to you. And it's people like says, year's a made in Nicole Bayer or Rachel Bloom from craziest girlfriend and her husband, and lots of great comics you don't know, comics you do know. And then NAO, me and I

talk and you you. Yeah, it's fine. So a couple of therapy here on the house Stuff Works Network, and I'm Robert Evans. This is Behind the Bastards. We'll be back Tuesday next Tuesday with someone else terrible and something else terrible to talk about, So please tune in, uh and uh, and you can check out the sources for this episode on on our website Behind the Bastards dot com. We'll have a good old picture see Everett Coop. Up there you'll you'll all enjoy that. He's a he he

looks like a guy named see Everett Coop. Anyway, you can find us on Twitter and Instagram at at Bastard's pod. You can find me on Twitter at I right, okay, And that is the the end of the episode. And oh yeah yeah. You can find our shirts on Tea public Behind the Bastards, So buy some shirts. Uh. Reagan's ghost will scream for every shirt that you buy. But also you can buy phone cases, and uh and and

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