Here’s what really sucks about the Komen Foundation’s decision to cease their support of Planned Parenthood: it forces women to take sides in a political conflict they don’t want to be in. I have supported the breast cancer cause in the past and would like to continue to do so, without all this…excess baggage. Most women would. We all oppose breast cancer, no matter which side of the aisle we’re on.
Part of me says this shouldn’t matter. The Komen leadership has a right to its own views and the cause of finding a cure is so important we should be able to transcend our differences.
But another part of me says this is just a small piece of a larger battle. The Komen Foundation decided to withdraw its Planned Parenthood funding after getting consistent pressure from pro-life groups. I can’t help but think that the effort to put us all in a time machine and take us back to the bad old days has been accelerating lately. Rep. Cliff Stearns’ right-wing witch hunt against Planned Parenthood is one symptom of this. State governments have been proposing a slew of anti-abortion bills, and we have Presidential candidates in the running who don’t even think the Pill was such a great idea in the first place.
So I think many of us feel we have no choice but to stand up against this—before it gets even worse. Hence the head of Los Angeles County’s chapter of the Komen Foundation resigning, and the many protest posts to be found on Facebook. The Komen Foundation is losing support from many women, and it is doing this damage to itself—unnecessarily.
I would love to be able to continue to wear the pink ribbon, and to have it stand just for that, pink and the fight against breast cancer. But I suppose it’s a sign of the times: our nation is so divided right now that even the most innocent cause is no longer innocent.
eurobrat 
02/04/2012 at 12:01 pm
I think the Komen Foundation rang a bell that now cannot be unrung and they are going to rue the day. We were all giving, running, and “pinking” it, but now that that curtain has been lifted, we’re getting to see that the monies aren’t being utilized as effeciently as they should be and that they are in bed with political entities that don’t have women’s best interest at heart in the end. It’s really sad.
02/05/2012 at 6:37 pm
Yep, and now that they’ve made the “reversal” the pro-life people hate them for it too. They just decided to shoot themselves in both feet…it’s sad but it’s going to take time for me to get over my suspicions and get back to supporting them…if ever.
02/05/2012 at 10:54 pm
Just read a nice article about how China is the largest fascist nation in the history of the planet. I can’t help but think how the Komen situation is just another chip in spark of thousands of years of humanity rising towards something greater, which now seems slipping away at an impossible rate. Either we blow the living shit out of each other because we’re incapable of change, or we merge as a fascist planet with pockets of resistance effective like PTA’s are effective on an international scale.
There’s an endgame here that I cannot fathom. Specifically I cannot fathom the planet-wide short-term clannish thinking we’re still endlessly up to. I don’t know what the gain here is. I suspect the cocksucking belief that we’re all going to our individual heavens is what makes so many of us willing, in our little monkey minds, to kill the shit-ton rest of us and not bat an eye. ‘God’s will’ or some such claptrap. My strident point of view here, now and for always, is that we should legalize suicide and let them all find their gods that much quicker. I’ll even write the legislation.
02/06/2012 at 8:35 pm
But most of those idiots who are the best candidates for legalized suicide believe that suicide is a sin, ergo will not go for it. They would much rather kill or imprison other people, instead of helping the rest of us out by voluntarily making a dignified exit.
The endgame is even more painful since I occasionally have glimmers of a faith in some kind of spiritual higher purpose for us, which then inevitably get squashed by the reality of stupidity. I don’t know what the ultimate goal of all this is, but I know we ain’t getting there by taking this route.
And, since the cries for conflict with Iran are getting ever louder, I do believe the correct answer is “…we blow the living shit out of each other”, Devil. Ding ding!
02/05/2012 at 11:04 pm
‘chip in the spark,’ ah, i hate typos…
02/06/2012 at 8:30 pm
i got a little divergent there, but i see the komen bizarrofest as a psychological symptom of a much larger sickness. it reminds me of anita bryant’s point of view in the 70’s that women should follow the barefoot and pregnant routine as well as becoming notoriously homophobic to the point of actively campaigning to deny gays and lesbians their basic constitutional rights. it absolutely sucks that woman go out of their way to discriminate against other women (hear that karen handel?) in much the same way as mini-fascist hasidim absolutely hate non-hasidist jews telling them, in a rage of righteousness, that they should “burn in hitler’s ovens.” try telling that to a jew with a straight face. and try telling a woman she’ll go to prison for following her conscience – especially when it’s another woman putting her in chains. welcome back anita bryant!
02/06/2012 at 8:37 pm
Well, yeah. The howling chorus against women is increasing again, and it’s scaring me, because the rights we’ve won for ourselves are so tenuous. It won’t take much to take us back to the dark ages…but they’ll have to drag me there kicking and screaming. Handmaid’s Tale anyone?
02/07/2012 at 8:01 am
9 keajaiban di dunia…
[…]Caught Up In The Komen Fight « eurobrat[…]…
02/07/2012 at 10:19 pm
Handmaid’s Tale hey yep. Fundamentalism teaches women to hate their sisters. Step out of line and yer a bad bad woman! Islamic. Christian. Judaic. Buddhists seem much better. Fundamentalism also teaches its entirety to, if ya’ can’t convert em’, then enslave them till they see the light. or kill em’ and be done with it. Remember those romantic Crusades? Howzabout Nazism? Fundamentalist or Fascist, the goal is the same and the methods are similar. And both are stupid as shit.
We are sliding back. As a planet. And in America you’re right in that all our hard won rights are diminishing as we globally militarize and think, always the same damn thing, that if we don’t they will. It’s the rationale of the Cold War except back then it was only a 2-player deal. Now it’s, hell, Oprah Winfrey could destroy the planet if she wished. So could Elton John. It only takes so much money, our true God, to do it. I trust Oprah and Elton to not destroy the world (what would happen to Steadman and David Furnish!??), but there’s about 10,000 other potential psychos that might. In the meantime we’re working to enslave our own people so that our enslavers can be free! It’s a kind of American dream, I think.
I have long wondered if we split the US into two halves, literally red and blue, would that work? Probably not. 1. We’d enter into 10,000 years of litigation. 2. The blue nation would be split at each coast minus the Carolinas 3. Red would militarize and attack blue in any event.
The point here is again Komen. Back in the late-70’s, my best friend’s father was an abortionist. His clinic was bombed, death threats, the works. I used to hang out at their house all the time. Noone ever came to his door. Now it seems odd as he was listed in the phone book. In any event, Dr. Bliss (actual name) considered approaching the Cuban government about setting up clinics in Havana for when Roe v. Wade was overturned or the bombings of clinics simply made it impractical. Again Komen.
My mother had me join in pro-abortion protests in the early-70’s. She had a t-shirt that read “Keep Your Laws Off My Body”. It was a nice shade of blue. I liked it. Again Komen.
I think too of Logan’s Run where when someone turned 30, I believe, they entered Cathedral which extinguished their life. Could be wrong. Read it a long time ago. The point here is limited resources, limited food = Cathedral. However, the greater point was that that society came to understand its limitations, accepted its shortcomings and sacrificed for the greater good of the society. There is no sacrifice these days, none at all, and the ones that do are either lionized after 90 years as beacons of charitable hope like feel-good posters lovelorn teenage girls ponder, or else they’re chewed up and spit out bones and cartilage as examples for everyone else to consider. Again Komen.
My best friend Adam is absolutely certain aliens or an alien lifeforce is directing our movements, each and every one of us. He believes that these alien forces both manipulate us individually as if we’re Sims in an online universe, but also that the greater picture is that these same aliens seek to restart human existence like a game ending, pop in a new quarter and start over. He has asked me to consider the complete extinguishing of human existence whereby it is collectively vacuumed out by some kind of gigantic space pump, radiation and all, so that life can start up again that much quicker. Again Komen.
We are insane, generally speaking, I think brought on by the sheer size of our masses. We were just clubbing grunts not so long ago. Now we’re talking about colonizing other planets when we can’t even manage our own. We are absolutely out of our collective skulls because, generally speaking, we cannot manage what we’ve become, we just don’t know how to handle it and all our old prejudices are still active, still screaming in our skulls. So one step at a time, Komen, we in small collective pockets, Komen, having learned all our fundamentalist teachings and cultural defensive clues, Komen, strike out against the very things that have propped us up all along.
I get it. I don’t get it. It’s clear as day where this all ends. It’s a hell of a charade, a kind of collective denial of the obvious, that we just can’t live with each other, we just can’t get along. No idea what to do about it. Adam says if 6 billion people rose against the 600,000 that oppressed us we’d be free! 1. Free to do what? 2. The 600k have nukes. Take that coffeeshop revolutionaries!
In any event. I gotta go to bed. You know the drill. And thanks for listening.
02/08/2012 at 8:41 pm
Wow, that is a long comment that I just cannot match at this late hour. However, here are a couple points which jumped out at me:
1. Absolute admiration for your friend Dr. Bliss. I am filled with respect for the people who are willing to put their very life and safety at risk to provide a basic medical procedure.
2. Your Mom sounds cool as well.
3. Life ending at 30 on Logan’s Run: haven’t watched that show, but probably just a way to make sure all the actors on the show were young and attractive.
4. I’m sure your friend Adam is cool too, but aliens are kind of a cop-out. I keep hearing about how the aliens might be controlling us/taking us over. Unfortunately, we are controlling (or not controlling) ourselves.
5. You are correct about the potential uprising. Also: if the 6 billion people rose up against the 600,000, a new 600,000 would quickly come into being. That is the ultimate joke.
6. Cheer up. You’ll feel better after you’ve had some sleep 🙂
And no, I’m not deleting this comment, I think it’s good! Nyah nyah nyah.