Immortalism

New York  June 25, 2011–-  Just in time to celebrate the 42nd anniversary of the Stonewall Riots which gave birth to the gay movement, New York state – with a population of over 19 million people — has become the largest U.S. state to give American homosexuals the same right as heterosexuals to marry.

This is an incredible feat by the Gay Movement.  And it forces a sobering question: what about the immortalist movement? What has it achieved so far?

Zilch, Zip, Nada.

Why?

Because of so-called ”leaders” like Aubrey de Grey.

Who claimed loudly in an open letter (email) to Elixxir dated January 7, 2006 that ”currently society is overwhelmingly in what I’ve termed a pro-aging trance…thus, of the four communities that might make a difference to the pace of the relevant (anti-aging life-extension) research, the one which there is no point whatever in directly lobbying is the government.”

Never has anyone been more certain and more wrong!

And Elixxir has explained Aubrey de Grey’s fatal error.

With ”leaders” like de Grey, is there any surprise that immortalists have not had their Stonewall?  Or that they never had a million-mortal march on Washington? Or that immortalism does not have one iota of political influence or credibility?

Immortalists do not have any real or viable movement to speak of.  And the responsibility must be laid squarely at the foot of people like Aubrey de Grey.

If society is in a ”pro-aging trance,” Aubrey, then it’s the work of an immortalist movement and its competent leaders to transform that trance into an anti-aging one!

Yes, Aubrey, really, it is the function of a real movement to change mass consciousness.

Do brush up on your current history for the last half of the last century.  Any high-school textbook will do. Or read Elixxir’s book.  Or ask Elixxir for a personal tutoring.  Yeah, but that will cost you.

The New York vote on gay marriage is the result of the gay movement doing its job on consciousness-raising and consciousness-transformation over 42 years.  So effectively that even some Republican lawmakers see that they risk being on the wrong side of history.

And that’s what all the other successful movements have seen the need to do.  And have done!

Whether it’s the Civil Rights movement.  Or the Anti-Vietnam-War movement.  Or the women’s movement.  Or the Neo-Cons.  Or even the Religious Right.

They all got it a long time ago.  They are not clueless. But when are you going to get it, Aubrey?!

Even the drag queens at Stonewall Inn in the West Village got it. And that was way back in 1969.  They rioted.  That got notice because they applied political pressure.  And it birthed the gay movement.

The fact is drag queens get much, much more respect than Aubrey de Grey and his ilk in the halls of power.  And rightly so.

And so now most of these movements have grabbed a seat at the funding table.  They are on the agenda and priorities of one or even both reigning U.S. political parties.  And they can expect to be in the annual budget.  This is the Most important of all.

But you never will, Aubrey.  And neither will the non-movement that you claim to lead or speak for.  It’s dead-on-arrival.  A dead end.

From being the most persecuted, condemned and despised minority, gays now has the political clout to cajole the Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York City Mayor Bloomberg to put their clout and prestige on the line for this bill. In a full-court press.

In fact, there’s tremendous political pressure even on Obama to come out in support of gay marriage.  Or lose Hollywood’s donors like David Geffen.  And quite a few progressive votes.

There’s not the faintest hope of Aubrey de Grey spawning a movement which can attain political clout like the gay movement’s.  Because Aubrey has already declared it’s impossible and therefore not even worth a try.  And that’s that.

Gays and people with AIDS were damn lucky not to have ”leaders” like Aubrey de Grey.  Lobby the anti-gay Reagan regime which was in bed with the Moral Majority and the Religious Right?

De Grey would have screamed Impossible.

We’d take Stonewall drag queens and ACT-UP’s Larry Kramer any day over Aubrey de Grey! Or better still, we’d take Elixxir.

Darwin Marx