Showing posts with label Richard Kim. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Richard Kim. Show all posts

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Ed Koch and the AIDS Crisis - A Historical Fact Checking Duel Between NYT and YouTube Videos

In response to the biased "praises" and instant beatification of Ed Koch, I made a YouTube video set to music by Dalida, to help visualise former Mayor Ed Koch's complete failure on the AIDS crisis.

My video was made in response to the video promoted by The New York Times, which whitewashes any responsibility or culpability of the AIDS crisis away from former Mayor Ed Koch :

I'd love to hear what folks think ?

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Ed Koch, the Closet, Neoliberalism, and AIDS

From The Nation

The instant beatification of former New York City Mayor Ed Koch has a lot of folks itching to do some grave dancing. Leftists will denounce Koch because he was one of the original neoliberal mayors, ushering in a regime of gentrification and finance-driven inequality that defines the city to this day. Minorities regard him with suspicion because he marginalized the city’s black and Hispanic leadership and inflamed racial fault lines to corner the white vote, presaging the Sister Souljah moments that would come to afflict the national Democratic Party. And yet even there, among the new Democrats, Koch was never a stalwart, breaking with the party to endorse George W. Bush for president in 2004 and flirting with the neocons over Israel late in his life.

All that said, there is a special place reserved for Koch in gay hell—because he was mayor during the onset of the AIDS epidemic, which he is widely seen as failing to do enough about, and because it’s commonly assumed that Koch was a closeted gay man. “I hope he’s burning next to Roy Cohn”—or sentiments quite like it—have appeared frequently on my Facebook feed, especially from vets of ACT UP. ...

Read more : Ed Koch and the Cost of the Closet (The Nation)