Flyer for Progressives
The San Francisco area has long been known for its left or progressive activism--and more recently for its AIDS activism. It is a mystery why in recent years these two communities have been almost entirely separate--with the respective organizers seldom knowing each other, let alone working together.The issue of access to treatment in developing countries--especially access being blocked by government power used on behalf of giant multinational pharmaceutical companies, regardless of the human cost--seems almost ideal for building strategic alliances between these communities ("almost" ideal because it would help if more AIDS activists were familiar with global issues). In political as well as medical areas, AIDS casts a bright light on fundamental problems which would need attention anyway, even if there were no AIDS.
We have prepared a flyer ( it's text is in the following article in this issue ) for talks to environmental, labor, and other organizations preparing protests against corporate globalization during the meeting of the world trade ministers in Seattle, November 29 - December 3. It is too late for AIDS to have a prominent place in the protests and public education which will occur later this month in Seattle. But AIDS activists have been remarkably successful in bringing the issue of drug patents, treatment access, and government trade policies into public awareness in the U.S., and progressive activists are interested in this issue, and in how it developed.
[Note: Permission is granted to copy, print out, and distribute the flyer in the following article. But after December 3, we suggest checking with us first, because the information may have changed by that time.]
