With my current schedule–full of work, home improvements, three shows in production, and two in the works–it’s rare that I’m inclined to post twice in one day, but David Brooks’ opinion piece in yesterday’s New York Times did the trick.
Read the damn thing for yourself. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
. . .
See what I mean?
Now, despite my leftish tendencies, it’s an established fact that I appreciate Mr. Brooks. I know he’s technically a Republican, but he does a good bit of thinking for himself, and he seems perfectly comfortable veering away from the party line on occasion. This article, though…
I mean, yes, there are great things happening in the field of HIV/AIDS therapies, both in Africa and elsewhere. Yes, people are living longer than they’d ever thought possible. And yes, in the fifth paragraph from the end, Brooks dutifully includes the standard we’re-not-out-of-the-woods-yet language, but that perfunctory caveat takes up a mere four sentences of the article.
The rest of the piece is filled with new-dawn assessments and silver-lining testimonials like, “For some, H.I.V. brings death…. For me, H.I.V. brought life into my home.” But even that pablum pales in comparison to Brooks’ egregiously neat and tidy conclusion: “Many [doctors in southern Africa] are backed by money from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, finally doing the work they’ve always dreamed of doing. We could be on the verge of a recovery boom.” For Brooks to paint such a thoroughly rosy picture, as though we’ve come completely out of the tunnel and around the bend, is naive. It’s not only naive, it’s offensive.
What Brooks skims over is the fact that only a tiny percentage of those needing assistance have access to it. He skims over the fact that current treaments are far from foolproof and that infection rates are not always falling. He skims over the fact that the Bush Administration’s oft-lauded (well, by the Bush Administration) African AIDS initiative often imposes strictures that limit the ability of HIV/AIDS service organizations to work in other cultures.
Mr. Brooks, I know you’re not a great intellectual–nor do you aspire to be. You’ll never be a Frank Rich or a Thomas Friedman, and you’re clearly comfortable with that. And honestly, I don’t mind so much when you write your cutesy puff-pieces on New Orleans or New York or Italian cuisine. But please: the Book Report approach to AIDS is just plain wrong.
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