Oxman on Ortleb
The Interview and
Vice Reversa
Richard Oxman—01/2005 |
| |
Richard Oxman interviews Charles Ortleb, a
prominent AIDS campaigner and writer about his
work and his view that orthodox AIDS research is
seriously misguided. |
| |
| Charles Ortleb was publisher of New York Native
from 1980-1996. He was one of the first journalist/publishers
to take the epidemic seriously. He published investigative
reporting on AZT and HIV dissent by John Lauritsen
as well as Neenyah Ostrom's reporting on the links
between AIDS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and HHV-6. |
| |
| Since 1996 he has been writing fiction about
the politics of AIDS. His first novel " Iron
Peter", was a satire about the AIDS Establishment
and AIDS Activists.Celia Farber called it the "'Animal
Farm' of the AIDS era". His first collection
of stories, " Last
Lovers on Earth", is a funny and disturbing
series of portraits of the gay community as it faces
the challenges of survival in a world of AIDS propaganda
and collaboration. |
| |
| His most recent novella, " The
Closing Argument", presents the trial
of an African-American man accused of spreading
AIDS. The novella is one of the first books to
expose AIDS as an epidemic of medical racial profiling. |
| |
| He is also writes poetry and lyrics.Under the
name of "Julian Lake" he has created cartoons
about coming out. His daily cartoons can be seen
at www.gaywit.com. |
| |
| He has begun work on the history of the AIDS
epidemic, tentatively titled "Homodemiology
and the Origins of Medical Totalitariansim" (click
here). And since then, he's made the movie version
of "The Last Lovers on Earth" (click
here). |
| |
| * * * |
| |
| ROX: January 15, 1994, the Advisory
Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE) was
created by President Clinton to investigate and report
on the use of human beings as subjects of federally
funded research using ionizing radiation. Does
this resonate at all vis-a-vis the Aids Establishment? |
 |
| Ortleb: Sorry,
I don't know how to answer that. One thing Clinton
did that was supposed to help get African-Americans
to cooperate with the AIDS agenda was to make a formal
apology for the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. By doing
that, it was hoped that African-Americans would stop
bringing up that experiment as a way of trying to make
the community distrust what the government is doing
in the name of AIDS. The AIDS establishment wants members
of the African-American community to all get tested
for AIDS and to take their medications (and eventually
the AIDS vaccine) and to forget the Tuskegee Syphilis
Experiment. In my novella, "The Closing Argument," I
urge the African-American Community not only to remember
the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, but to also consider
AIDS something akin to "The New Tuskegee Syphilis
Experiment". I've said that it's too bad the gay
community doesn't have a Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
to remember. If it did, maybe more members of the gay
community would wake up and refuse to cooperate with
the homophobic AIDS agenda. |
| |
| ROX: Care to elaborate on that last
point? |
| |
| Ortleb: I think
African-American intellectuals have an easier time
than gay intellectuals believing that bigoted ideation
is at work in AIDS epidemiology. If tomorrow a story
appeared in the "New York Times" that the
Centers for Disease Control admits that the definition
of AIDS is actually racist and homophobic (and fraudulent),
there wouldn't be that much surprise in the African-American
community. But I think there would be total shock in
most of the gay community. Gays assume that scientists
and doctors only have their best interests at heart.
Hand-in-hand the gays and the government AIDS scientists
have been working for a better future for the gay community — all
because of the overwhelming love and concern our society
has for gay people. Right. And people wonder why I've
turned to writing satire about the epidemic. |
|
| ROX: Tell me something about your
most recent writing… and underscore, if you will,
why satire seems so appropriate. |
| |
| Ortleb: My most
recent project is "The Last Lovers on Earth," a
film version of three satirical short stories from
my collection with the same title. I co-directed the
100-minute film with Michael Cimpher. I've spent the
last fourteen months making it. We will begin screening
it in Boston (where we filmed it) and New York next
month. In the first story of this dark comedy, "Bruschetta
on the Beach", Eddie is a gay man who is cursed
by extreme ugliness. He moves to New York hoping that
the gay community will give him the love that he was
denied all his life. Instead, no one will have sex
with him. He never finds a lover even for fifteen minutes.
In his first few years in Manhattan, he figures that
1.2 million gay men have rejected him. His luck gets
worse when he gets severely ill and is diagnosed with
AIDS — even though he has never had sex with
a single soul. The diagnosis changes his luck because
only when he is thought to have AIDS is he loved and
honored. The second story, "Daddy's Little Clown",
is about a gay man who grows up in a family in which
the father is obsessed with clowns. His greatest hope
is that one of his children will one day become a clown.
When his youngest son tells him that he is going to
become a "gay" rather than a clown, the father
is crushed. Only when the gay son later becomes a leading
AIDS activist in New York and his parents see his wild,
over-the-top AIDS activist behavior on television do
his parents realize that he has not disappointed them,
for he has truly become one of the great clowns of
the twentieth century. The son's behavior and leadership
is so out-of-control and loony that he turns AIDS research
and activism into a three-ring circus. With his loud,
hysterical and menacing antics, he succeeds in getting
all the AIDS activists, the AIDS research establishment,
and the government to do his bidding. Tragically, he
falls victim to his own ridiculous clown act. The third
story, "The Last Lovers on Earth", begins
with the premise that the AIDS epidemic is over and
all gay men are dead. All Hell breaks loose when two
gay men are found to be still alive in Cape May, New
Jersey. The entire AIDS research establishment suddenly
realizes that the historic AIDS research effort has
not been a complete success. The two gay men are invited
to appear on a leading talk show to explain why they
are still alive and every other gay man in the world
is dead. Billions of viewers tune in to hear them explain
that they have survived by not doing a single thing
that the government's AIDS researchers or the AIDS
activists have told them to do. Shortly after their
appearance on the talk show, they are shot to death
by a disgruntled AIDS researcher. Thus, it seems that
the AIDS epidemic is finally over. Cumulatively, the
three in-your-face stories paint a very disturbing
picture of the AIDS epidemic. It's not the plague anyone
thought they knew. |
| |
| I use outrageous satire in these
stories to try and wake people up. I think humor helps
us see things anew. Times when we're supposed to show
reverence to fools call for massive irreverence and
the wittiest mockery we can manufacture. I think satire
sends a message that people who secretly see what is
really happening and are afraid to speak up, are not
alone. These are dark times for gay people. Folks who
should know better have looked the other way while
the AIDS establishment and the AIDS activists have
humiliated and cowed the entire gay community. Progressive
humiliation only promises to lead to worse things.
People don't know what to do. They retreat to their
private lives, into something I think Hannah Arendt
referred to as "internal exile". They whine.
But they do nothing. They live in fear and denial.
We're living in a quiet reign of medical and scientific
terror (based on fraud) that nobody has fully described
yet. Humor has a role to play here in making fun of
the oppressors and giving the oppressed hope. First
the AIDS powers that be have to be mocked and shown
to be naked emperors. It worked during the French Terror
against Robespierre in a moment of public ridicule
that Simon Schama described in "Citizens" and
which is an opening epigram in my movie: "The
one weapon against which Robespierre was helpless then
struck him down: laughter." |
|
| ROX: Great. Now… in the name
of making more Robespierres helpless… I ask you
what you think of Almodovar. In a Marcia Pally piece
on Pedro's Politics of Passion… his Camp Esthetic… she
says: "Jews and gays, each in their fashion, milk
the trouble they've seen. Hounded for religious
beliefs, Jews exaggerate the tsuris that comes from
being God's 'chosen'. In a parallel way, gay men, stereotypically
dismissed for being effeminate, overblow the heartache
of femininity, most pointedly in cross-dressing." She
goes on to say, "Dolling up their troubles, gay
men made a comic theater of abandonment and isolation." What
think you? |
| |
| Ortleb: Not
an expert on or a fan of Almodovar. I think Marcia
Pally used to write for the "New York Native" which
I published many years ago. I adore sentences like "Dolling
up their theater of abandonment and isolation." I'd
love to have a writer say it in the film version I'd
want to do of my story "Banned in Boston." It
would be a comedy about a pretentious "queer writers" conference.
I'd like to make a comic theater of people who say
that "gay men made a comic theater of abandoment
and isolation." I guess we all have our own individual
ways of "dolling up" our troubles. |
| |
| ROX: We met over a piece I wrote
titled No Angels in America. What about my work on
Tony Kushner's play moved you to contact me? Do you
remember? |
| |
| Ortleb: When
you dared to suggest that his politics were platitudinous.
Anyone who sees through Tony Kushner is an angel in
my America. Even though Andrew Sullivan is a poster
boy of AIDS foolishness himself, his criticism of Kushner
made me forgive a great deal. |
| |
| ROX: In your watershed piece "Where
is the Massive Gay Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?" you
say, "I bet that virtually no members of the gay
community are aware that there could be thousands of
members of their community with the contagious "mirror
image of AIDS." Tell us all, if you will, something
about this "mirror image of AIDS." And anything
else about the article — there is much there
to digest — which you think readers should know
about yesterday. |
| |
| Ortleb: I was
being sarcastic by using that expression. There is
a massive epidemic of AIDS-like immunodeficiency in
the general population. It broke out at the same time
as AIDS. It is called "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
(CFS)" or "Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction
Syndrome (CFIDS)". It has symptoms and immune
abnormalities that are very similar to AIDS. We're
all supposed to pretend that it's not a form of AIDS
or a part of the AIDS epidemic. I can't play along
with that nonsense. Desperate to find a distinction
with a difference, so to speak, someone decided to
call it "the mirror image of AIDS", because
they could find some difference in the types of T-cells
that were being affected. But there really is too much
that the syndromes have in common for that to be true.
It is a desperate distinction without a difference.
The wall between these syndromes was built by racist
and homophobic politics. The same disease is occurring
on both sides of the wall. If you're on the gay and
African-American side, you have the criminal form of
immunodeficiency called "AIDS," and if you're
on the white heterosexual side of the wall and have
the same basic form of immune deficiency, you have
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Being told you have Chronic
Fatigue Syndrome makes it sound like you should just
take a vacation even though your immune system looks
like swiss cheese. Being told you have CFS is better
than being imprisoned in the AIDS paradigm. |
|
| ROX: Ah, sarcasm, satire, syndromes,
salvation! And what about this new "Proposal for
a New Medical Group: Doctors Without Borders, Brains
or Ethics?" |
| |
| Ortleb: Insofar
as Doctors Without Borders is exporting America's fraudulent
AIDS paradigm to the rest of the world, it is essentially
bringing death and deception in the name of health.
If I was in another country and saw a Doctor Without
a Border coming towards me, I would grab my family
and head for the border. I guess we can't blame them,
because doctors are not paid to think independently
(if at all) and they're just doing what the top public
health people tell them. And the fish rots from the
head. |
| |
| I woke up one morning recently
and saw that a spokesperson for Doctors Without Borders
was expressing concern in the "New York Times" that
because of the scandal that was in the papers about
the government not telling the truth about an experiment
in which a drug called Nivirapine killed a woman and
caused all kinds of bad side effects, it was endangering
the ability of doctors to get that drug into people's
bodies. Hello! And these are our great liberal friends.
So I penned a little piece calling for the creation
of an organization called "Doctors Without Borders,
Brains or Ethics." It began like this: "I
think it is time that doctors who are worried about
the growing public concern that something is rotten
in AIDS research — at least as manifested by
the Nevirapine scandal — to start an organization
to protect the AIDS establishment." |
| |
| I used the piece to warn people
about a very interesting "AIDS expert" and
medical fascist in Canada: "Doctors Without Borders,
Brains or Ethics needs strong leadership. Only one
man has the courage and vision to lead the organization
at this time of crisis, and that man is Dr. Mark Wainberg,
the distinguished Canadian AIDS researcher. In Robin
Scovill's recent documentary, 'The Other Side of AIDS,'
the good doctor had the guts to say what many of his
AIDS colleagues are thinking: 'As far as I am concerned,
and I hope this is adequately represented, those who
attempt to dispel the notion that HIV is the cause
of AIDS are perpetrators of death. And I for one would
very much like to see the Constitution of the United
States and similar countries have some means in place
that we can charge people who are responsible for endangering
public health with charges of endangerment and bring
them up on trial. I think that people like [AIDS dissenter
scientist] Peter Duesberg belong in jail.'" |
| |
| As you can see, questioning the
AIDS establishment is a risky business. |
|
| ROX: "And the fish rots from
the head." Now there's a title for something.
But… before I forget… I've got to ask you
about the cartoons you do under the name of Julian
Lake. I think ALL activists should have them at their
side… to split their sides when they need it
in the midst of their… Arduous Activism. THE
funniest; just sent some to my daughter in NYC. Oh
yes, now I'm remembering why I brought the humorous
note up. For your Courtroom Novella, "The Closing
Argument", you dedicate to Jesse Jackson, Sharon
Stone… and the memory of William Kuntsler. I'm
torn between asking you what kind of contact you may
have had with Kuntsler — a Top Hero of mine — and
asking you whether or not you've ever considered doing
cartoon takes on JJ and/or SS. |
| |
| Ortleb: I've
done some cartoons on my gay cartoon site about AIDS
dissidence and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I came out — or
in those days joined the Gay Liberation Front — in
1971 at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. A week
after I did that, William Kunstler was speaking at
the University and I went up to him after the speech
and asked him if he would represent the gay group in
a suit against K.U. because the university was refusing
to give it official recognition. And he said yes! And
shortly after that Walter Cronkite reported on the
fact that he was taking the case on the nightly news.
It was pretty wild. Kunstler came back for a meeting
before the case was to go to court and I had a chance
to spend some time with him. The reason I dedicated "The
Closing Argument" to him is that the novella is
about a lawyer who pulls a Kunstler Chicago Seven by
turning the tables on the AIDS establishment in a criminal
trial in which an African-American is accused of spreading
AIDS in New England. The lawyer puts AIDS science
on trial and tries to convince the jury that AIDS is
a racist and homophobic tissue of lies. I included
Jesse Jackson in hopes that he might see the book and
rethink his policy of being the government's AIDS puppet
in the African-American community. And Sharon Stone
was included because she has replaced Elizabeth Taylor
as the celebrity face of AIDS philanthropy. All of
the Hollywood celebrities who have helped reinforce
the official AIDS propaganda should be ashamed of themselves.
There's a satirical bit about Sharon Stone's AIDS work
in my movie. |
| |
| I haven't given up on Jesse Jackson.
He responded appropriately to the recent Nevirapine
scandal. I hope one day he will help raise awareness
in the African-American community that AIDS is as racist
in its underpinnings as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. |
|
| ROX: This is, arguably, my favorite
of all the responses thus far; I think it'll go a long
way on several counts with a range of readers here.
I have just about three more questions, I think. One
is…what do you think, ideally, American AIDS
activists should be doing — that they're not
doing — in solidarity with their counterparts
abroad? |
| |
| Ortleb: By the
way, having said some fairly negative things about
scientists and doctors let me just go on the record
as saying that when science and medicine are good they
are very good, and when they are bad they are AIDS,
Lysenkoism, the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, and Nazi
medical research. |
| |
| From a scientific and a human
rights standpoint AIDS activism has been so wrongheaded
and so disastrous that the very word "activism" gives
me palpitations. I'm not sure that any of the people
who helped create this mess will be instrumental in
changing it, although given the probable opportunism
of some of these satire-worthy characters, they'll
make all appropriate changes when they sense way the
wind is blowing. One bit of advice I do have for the
activists is this: hide your red ribbons, fast! |
| |
| Thomas Kuhn's description (in "The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions") of how scientific
paradigms change probably has some application here.
There has to be a crisis in which people of good will
recognize that the old paradigm doesn't explain nature
as well as the new paradigm. That crisis should have
occurred many years ago, but political factors prevented
the normal course of events. We're not necessarily
dealing with people of good will. Anyone who challenged
the prevailing HIV paradigm of AIDS has been attacked
in one way or another. Scientists who don't think HIV
is the cause of AIDS are subject to the sanctions of
career derailment and the defunding of their research.
The matter has been settled politically rather than
scientifically. And the public hasn't even been exposed
to the debate. Instead of blowing the whistle on the
censorship, intellectuals like Nadine Gordimer have
attacked people like President Thabo Mbeki of South
Africa who spoke out about his doubts about HIV being
the cause of AIDS. That book she put together for AIDS
should have been a collection of essays exploring the
politics of AIDS science. That would have been a real
contribution. By and large, our intellectuals have
been gullible handmaidens to AIDS fraud. |
| |
| The first thing concerned citizens
and intellectuals need to do is demand freedom of speech
about all AIDS issues. There must be a vigorous free
and open debate about what AIDS is and what causes
it. And it has to include not only those people who
think that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. HIV dissenters
themselves have not allowed a full and open debate.
Just like the AIDS establishment, the HIV dissenters
have refused to debate the connection between CFIDS
and AIDS and the possibility that another virus like
HHV-6 is the real culprit in both CFIDS and AIDS. |
|
| Everyone must do their homework
on this issue. If you haven't read books by Duesberg,
John Lauritsen, Root-Bernstein, Bialy, Ostrom and Hillary
Johnson on issues related to this debate, you are not
an informed citizen. Time is running out on this issue.
All kinds of laws are being passed to criminalize AIDS.
Something called Directly Observed Therapy (DOT) for
AIDS is just around the corner. DOT is used for TB.
If you have TB the state forces you to take TB medications
until you are no longer infectious. If you don't cooperate,
you can be incarcerated and forced to take the medications.
There are already experiments with DOT for AIDS going
on in prisons. All the AIDS establishment has to do
is declare that their toxic treatments are effective
in controlling AIDS and suggest that DOT should be
used on AIDS patients — for the rest of their
lives. Legislators will be only too happy to pass DOT
laws to control the epidemic. Then people will understand
why I suggested in my novella "Iron Peter" that
the AIDS paradigm is a concentration camp. And then
there is he matter of the potentially dangerous AIDS
vaccine that people may soon be asked or forced to
take. Keep in mind that we're talking about a vaccine
for a virus that may not even be the cause of the disease.
The AIDS activists and the AIDS establishment have
brought us to the gates of a Brave New World. |
| |
| ROX: I have a new favorite response.
Thanks sooooooo much for that invaluable contribution,
Chuck. On a lighter note… before returning to
some heavy items, maybe you can tell me whether or
not Julian Lake (as in Rocky Mountains) as anything
much in common with Cape May, New Jersey… which
seems to pop up often (enough) in your writing. |
| |
| Ortleb: "Julian
Lake" was just pulled out of a hat. I grew up
in New Jersey and spent part of one summer in Cape
May. |
|
| ROX: In your "The Last Lovers
on Earth" — something that DOES have a shot
at being one of the most instructive satires, if not
one of the most important films of our time (having
to reserve comment on that count till I see it!) — in
the trailer for it… you use the words collaboration,
resistance and violence… at one point. Three
parting questions. One, is there anything you'd like
to add to this collaboration… in the form of
a question you wish I'd asked? Two, what's your take
on optimistic outcomes for resisting The Powers That
Be? You may have answered that already. And, three,
what role do you think violence can/should play in
resisting? I might ask one more… after this. |
| |
| Ortleb: 1. Do
you miss being a newspaper publisher? To which I would
say yes, some days. But not having a paper has allowed
me to begin writing fiction and that path led to filmmaking
which I think is the best way ofreaching people these
days. |
| |
| 2. My optimism trumps my darkest
visions of where we are going. Paradigm shifts can
get pretty messy. I don't really know how it is going
to turn out. In both good ways and bad it could be
a very interesting time. |
| |
| 3. The word "violence" is
about something that happens in one of the stories
in the movie. I think very creative nonviolent political
work is the only way to change anything without creating
an even bigger mess. What we need first is a commitment
on the part of concerned citizens to find what is going
on and to build the next wave of AIDS political activity
around the truth rather than propaganda. |
|
| ROX: Mercimucho! One final ditty,
as promised. Let's see if we can end this thing on
a Golden Hope Note for the Globe. To wit, you say that "all
of the Hollywood celebrities who have helped reinforce
the official AIDS propaganda should be ashamed of themselves." Short
of having them "read books by Duesberg, John Lauritsen,
Root-Bernstein, Bialy, Ostrom and Hillary Johnson" on
issues related to what we've been discussing… so
as to be informed citizens… capable of intelligently
making decisions, choosing sides… what would
you have those influential individuals DO… starting
Monday… if we can grab the microphone at Sunday's
festivities to tell them? And, on a lighter note, are
you rooting for or booing against any elements at the
upcoming Golden Globe Awards? Predictions? Remember… many
readers will be going through this after all the winners
have been announced. |
| |
| Ortleb: Well,
in an acceptance speech one of the stars should call
upon Mel Gibson and Michael Moore to jointly produce
a film called "The Passion of AIDS Dissent." |
| |
| As for rooting for certain people,
one performance that still resonates with me is Virginia
Madsen's in "Sideways". |
| |
| ROX: Clear as a bell. Well, if the
Madsen flick is the one where she says something like "If
I tasted this wine on any other day, it wouldn't blah
blah blah… taste the same" I pray your roots
don't take hold award-wise. Or… in case my judgment
from TV ads is off… I trust her performance is
better than what they've been sound-biting at us. Haven't
seen it. Regardless, you have been a gem of rare gems
here, Chuck. And you ARE the Nonpareil AIDS Activist.
Now let's do what they used to do at the end of the
Dating Game. |
| |
ROX / Ortleb: (throwing
Jim Lang kisses) MWAH!!  |
| |
| |
| Copyright © Richard
Oxman |
| |
