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Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Day 265: President Obama: Fund Global AIDS!

Now, I have no idea how this is going to go over on Flickr. Generally, my photos of protests get a lot less comments than those that aren't, which is fine. But this is a photo of a group of my friends disrupting the President during a fundraiser in NYC tonight.

If you want to know more, you can click here to see other photos, read the 'breaking news alert', and see press coverage, including an Associated Press story that was picked up in literally hundreds of outlets. We are angry with Obama because he made a pledge to increase funding for global AIDS, but he has not kept it. This has led to millions of people being forced to wait in line for medication they were promised, and that would save their lives and nearly completely prevent them from transmitting HIV. Watch this video for a simple explanation (and yes, that's my voice).

We've spent the past two years (since before he was elected) trying to meet with his advisors to explain why they have to keep their promise. But they haven't met with us, instead choosing to go ahead with their plans to take money from AIDS and distribute it across other global health programs. Those programs need an increase too! But it shouldn't come at the expense of AIDS programs that are the most successful foreign aid program since the Marshall Plan! Anyway, point is, we've tried to meet with them. We've tried street protests. We've tried writing op-eds. We've tried contacting Congress. None of it was working - so we went right to Obama, who can make this happen!

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