Posted by: J2D3 contact

Protest Alert: Stop The HIV Cuts

As I mentioned last week, in an effort to close a $5.5 billion budget gap, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed eliminating state funding for California's HIV/AIDS programs, among several other vital social services programs.

Today from 5-7pm in front of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, a rally will be held to protest these actions and convince the legislature to find another way to handle the state's financial problems.

As we've seen over the past year, the federal government has trillions of dollars on hand to lend give to corporate entities deemed "too big to fail," despite the fact that many of these entities are entering bankruptcy proceedings where our loans to them may well be discharged and used to pay off higher-priority investors and other debt obligations first. Taxpayers will likely never see a dime back from these massive loans to corporate America, which amount to an unprecedented transfer of public wealth to the private sector.

So, the government, having already spent trillions of imaginary money from the Fed on "saving the global economy," has absolutely nothing left to help the citizens of the State of California, even though when measured separately this state is the world's seventh largest economy. Perhaps our ultra-pragmatic  Governator is thinking about how much stronger the state will be once its killed off all the poor, sick, uneducated, and unproductive parts of the population.

Luckily, the Governator doesn't automatically decide to do this... such a decision must be approved by the legislature. That's why it's important to loudly protest this ill conceived budget proposal now.

Watch the embedded video from NBC Nightly News as Lynnea Garbett, the young woman who testified against cuts to HIV programs in Sacramento last week, tells her story and expresses her fears about the impact these cuts will have on her personally and the approximately 30,000 others in the state whose lives depend on this program.

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