conservatism

From the Komen Corporate Partners Page, Plus a List of Companies That Just Learned They're Partners With Hard-Core Anti-Choicers

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Fri, 2012-02-03 01:39

Update: As I predicted last night (as did most spectators), the recent uproar has caused Komen to back down. And since they've a) backed down in a particularly smarmy way and b) they haven't asked the acidly anti-choice vice president who brought this fiasco down on their heads to resign, I would argue that they still haven't even begun to restore the placid apolitical credibility expected by corporate sponsors whether they're very large and well-heeled or small and serving progressive markets. Furthermore, the Foundation has only retracted one reason they gave as the "main reason" for defunding Planned Parenthood -- the "under investigation by Congressional witch-hunters" one. They remain silent on the other "really, this is the main reason" reason -- that beginning yesterday they're only funding organizations that provide on-site mammograms (if their initials also contain the letter P.) In other words, I'm not really seeing any change.

Image via Barbara Kelley at Undecided. Cached as a bandwidth-conserving courtesy
Image via Barbara Kelley at Undecided.

Well, this line from the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Corporate Partners Page sounds a little creepier than the flacks who wrote it originally intended

Our corporate partners provide us with the opportunity to reach people where they live, work, and play.

Um, yeah. To reach people where they live, work, and play and... jam crappy hate-filled and, frankly, spiteful messages down their throats.

Right-wing hysteria notwithstanding, Planned Parenthood has long enjoyed thoroughly bipartisan support. Prestigious support at that! For instance the late Prescott Bush, former senator, former board member of Fortune 500 banks and manufacturers, father of one President and grandfather of another, was also Planned Parenthood's founding treasurer. And today it still enjoys considerable personal and corporate support from companies large and small across America. And why not? After all, until about a day ago the Komen Foundation supported Planned Parenthood as well.

If you visit their page and look down the list you'll find many, many companies that have supported Komen -- some having gone so far as to re-brand their products in Komen's signature pink!

But if you look down the list you'll also find that many of those same companies also support Planned Parenthood -- both through corporate direct giving, through executive board members, through charitable funds-matching, and other sources.

I'd never, ever consider boycotting a company who'd just been blindsided by the underhanded scheming of a previously singularly uncontroversially benign organization.

But if, say, I worked for one of those sponsors, particularly one that's also supported Planned Parenthood in the past, or if I served on one of their boards or advisory committees, or if I was a shareholder, or if I was a client, I might quietly inquire higher up whether it was still in my company's interest to continue sponsoring Komen.

It doesn't even have to be a matter of whether one is pro-choice or anti-choice, by the way. What really matters, to a lot of those large firms, is perception, stability, predictability, and lack of controversy. Not to put too fine a point on it, here, but if Komen fishtails back the other way tomorrow (I'm guessing the odds are better than 50/50) that just further indicates they no longer can be counted on to be consistent, non-politically-charged, or able to stay on message.

It only takes a little bit of Googling to find... quite a few companies that may have found themselves involuntarily embroiled in Komen's new entirely political agenda. Check them out.

3M, ACH Food Companies, AT&T, Alternative Apparel
American Airlines, Anchor Bay, Ansell Healthcare, Ask.com
Avcor, Avon, BIC, Bank of America
Battelle, Beemster Cheese, Belk, Berkley Packaging
Black & Decker, BoConcept, Boar’s Head, Bob Evans
Boots, Boston Proper, Boston Warehouse, Brinker
Brown Shoe, Caché, Caltrate, Canari Cyclewear
Caribou Coffee, Carlisle Collection, Caterpillar, Century Payments
CenturyLink, Chasing Fireflies, Chesapeake Bay Candle Co, Citizen Watch
Clean Ones, Clear Channel, ClearVision Optical, Coach
Coldwater Creek, Collegiate Shipping, Corning, Crayola
Dallas Cowboys, Dell, Deluxe Checks, Designs by Lolita
Deuce Brand, Discover Financial Services, Disney on Ice, Donna Karan
Dots, Eggland's Best, Emdeon, Energizer
Este Lauder, EuroBlooms, Evian, Evite
Exercise TV, Exhale Enterprises, FUZE, Fable Designs
Foot Solutions, Ford Gum, Ford, Forever 21
Freed’s Bakery, Frito-Lay, GUESS, Garden State Growers
General Mills, Georgia-Pacific, Global Filtration, Globe Electric
Goldtouch, Graphique de France, HUE, Hallmark
Hampshire Designers, Hand & Nail Harmony, Hanes, Helzberg Diamonds
Hewlett-Packard, Holland America Line, Honest Tea, HonorBib
Hunter Boot, Igloo, Imperial Headwear, Inliten
Interfresh, Jason Aldean, Jersey Mike's Subs, Kent International
Kentucky Fried Chicken, Kentucky Oaks Ladies First, Key Brands, KeyBank
King’s Hawaiian Bakery, KitchenAid, Kobian, Kodak
Koi Design, Kraft, Kyocera, LPGA
La Madeleine, LaCroix, Liberty Mutual, Lifetime Brands
Louisville Stoneware, Lowe’s, Macy's, Major League Baseball
MegaGoods, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Merck, Meredith Corporation
Microsoft, Mobile Edge, Mohawk Flooring, Mottega
Mrs. Baird's Bakeries, NBC Today Show, Napa Valley Naturals, Nature's Flowers
Nestle , New Balance, New Global Charities, NewBalance
Nordstrom, Not Your Daughter's Jeans, Nuun, Oil Can Henry's
Old Navy, On The Border, Oracle, Oreck
Oregon Cherry Growers, Inc., Oriental Trading Company, Otis Spunkmeyer, Palmer's
Pandora Jewelry, Paris Accessories, Payless, Pepperidge Farm
Pepsico, Philips, Pier 1 Imports, Pinnacle
Planet Smooties, Postmark, Pottery Barn Kids, Premium Outlets
Pretzel Crisps, Princess Cruises, Progresso Soup, Prolacta Bioscience
Provide Commerce, Purina, REMAX, Rally for the Cure®
Ralph Lauren, Redken, RiceSelect, Rich Products
SELF, Saks Fifth Avenue Samsung, Santa Barbara Design Studio
Sarah Fisher Racing, Savvi, ShoeDazzle, Shoutback Concepts
Shuman Produce, Simon Malls, Skinny Cow, SodaStream
Specialized Bicycle Components, Springs Global, Stanley , Stanley Steemer
Stein Mart, Stylemark, Sy Kessler Sales, T-Mobile
Teasdale Quality Foods, TeleTech Holdings, The Columbus Dispatch, The Hillman Group
The Maryland Jockey Club, The Mohawk Group, The Republic of Tea, Tiger Balm
Tim Hortons, Titleist, Trident Seafoods, True Religion Brand Jeans
Tubbs Snowshoes, U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation, Verbatim, Wacoal America
Walgreens, Wells Lamont, Woman Within, Yoplait
Young Dental, Zumba Fitness

Again, it's really, really important to remember this is an easily but hastily compiled list, based on nothing more than Google results. Not all the named companies have been closely associated with Komen. Not all the named companies are still associated with Komen. Many of the companies were partners and/or sponsors with state or local chapters of Komen what have (or I'm sure soon will) dissociate themselves with the extremist turn the national organization has taken. And absolutely, definitely, certainly not all the companies named (or possibly any of them!) can be assumed to actually approve of the new, anti-choice direction coming out of Komen HQ.

I'm... pretty sure, even assuming they take an official position at all, that many and possibly most of these companies would prefer not to have been dragged into this mess.  And if you're associated in a positive way with any of those companies and organizations (or others not on the list) then keep your association positive -- just quietly and calmly express your preference, suggest that there remain other perfectly respectable organizations that could still use corportate sponsorship, and let them know that you're sure that just as in the old days nobody ever got fired for buying IBM, these days nobody's likely to get fired for sponsoring, say, The American Cancer Society instead of Komen.  Meanwhile, if your association with one of these companies or organizations is not positive... eh, please remember you can catch more flies with honey than with bile... and that when someone has perhaps learned to prepare to be antagonized they're even more susceptible to calm words and sound advice.

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Red Herring Alert: Covering Viagra Didn't Inspire Church-Employee Orgies So Neither Will Contraception Coverage

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Wed, 2012-01-25 19:00

Image by Flickr user Mark Klotz. Cached as a bandwidth-conserving courtesy
Image by Flickr user Mark Klotz. Used under a Creative Commons license.

In a review of historic opposition to contraception in the face of President Obama's directive that (virtually) all employee healthcare plans fund contraception for women the way they fund Viagra and Cialis for men E.J. Graff first reviews the biggest standard, historic objection to contraception

Late-19th- and early-20th-century pundits said that the nation would become a bordello if anyone could have sex without consequences and warned of the death of the American family.

Source: TAPPED

And finds it wanting (emphasis mine)

In other words, women can work for Catholic hospitals, colleges, social-services groups, and so on—and still have the same rights to sexual health coverage as men, under the same plans. All that Viagra needn't lead to either 19 children and counting; to abortions; or to impoverished women.

Ouch!

The Viagra-but-no-pill argument actually cuts two ways with hidebound institutions such as the Catholic and many Protestant churches. Their argument against contraception is that it interferes with women's "natural and normal" functioning, and thus constitutes an unnatural intervention in human reproduction.

The problem, of course, is that even if one were to argue (as the Catholic hierarchy in fact still does) that "virtuous" men could use Viagra "only" for reproduction there's the issue of the Church's ban on other forms of "unnatural intervention" like in-vitro and artificial insemnation. Sort of by-definition if a guy can't get a woodie without medication then "nature" has decreed he should do without.

And yet to the very best of my knowledge there is no Church doctrine forbidding its employee insurance plans from covering, or indeed its healthcare facilities from dispensing, Viagra or Cialis.

But I digress...

At the end of the day, neither Viagra or Cialis have created catastrophic baby booms, orgy outbreaks, upticks in divorce, or any of the other bugaboos projected by opponents of contraception. Certainly not among the kind of people willing to become employees of the Church.

Therefore prior evidence suggests that contraception availability will also not produce similar licentiousness.  Nor, as we have seen, above, is contraception any more of an "unnatural intervention" in fertility than is Viagra or Cialis.  Both claims, therefore, are red herrings.  There may be <em>some</em> legitimate reason that conservatives object to giving women control over their own fertility.  But if so they don't seem very comfortable saying it.  Thus the prevarication.

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For Those Who Aren't Sure If the Bogus Two Rules of Desire Still Apply, "Frontrunner" vs "Whore" Edition

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Mon, 2012-01-23 14:41

Tweet from @LOLGOP. Cached as a bandwidth-conserving courtesy
Tweet from @LOLGOP.

Objectively speaking, Britney Spears is more likely to be a competent President than Newt Gingrich. Yet nobody's calling her activities "leadership."* Meanwhile, objectively speaking, Newt Gingrich has had more sex partner than Britney Spears.* Yet nobody's calling him a "whore."

This observation isn't particularly limited to the GOP in particular or even conservatism in general -- in non-partisan terms Gingrich is just a poster child of a much larger phenomen.  The bogus Two Rules of Desire are alive and well.

* Note: Rumors and tabloid headlines about her private life notwithstanding, Spears is an adroit public performer, choreography, producer, and impresario.
** Note: Rumors and tabloid headlines nothwithstanding, Spears' total "life list" of sexual partners still isn't that much higher than the number of Gingrich's marriages, let alone his other affairs, dalliances, hookups, or casual/commercial sexual relationships.

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Limbaugh Says Open Marriages Now a Sign of Character for Republicans, Still a Stigma for Democrats

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Thu, 2012-01-19 17:27

Kaili Joy Gray of Daily Kos says

Rush Limbaugh, who has been married even more times than Newt, isrushing to Newt's defense:

Now, there's an accusation out there that Newt wanted an open marriage, just like Bill and Hillary. And in fact, Newt even had the politeness to ask permission for it. Do you think Bill ever did that?

Hardy har har. See, even when a Republican cheats on his wife, it's really about Bill Clinton, and how the Most Important Blowjob In HistoryTM was was so much worse. Because, um ... well, because. So there.

Source: Daily Kos

Oddly, while there's no evidence the Clintons agreed to have an "open marriage" there's no evidence they didn't either. Even more odd, back in the 1990s there was certainly plenty of speculation by Rush Limbaugh and the 'winger outrage machine that Bill and Hillary were such out-of-touch west-coast liberals there was such an agreement between them.

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Sauce for the Gander, Item #43,228

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Wed, 2011-11-02 18:48

Bill of Portland Maine says, with tongue in cheek,

Every night, all across America, Republicans have premarital sex in freakishly large numbers. It's time we started sticking our noses in their bedrooms to put an end to these immoral acts.

Source: Daily Kos

Obviously that's exactly not what anybody should start doing. Or, more specifically, continue doing. Which of course would be the point of Bill's snark.

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Not Quite Red State vs. Blue But Close: Teen Pregnancy Rates State by State

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Sat, 2011-10-22 23:36

According to the Kaiser Family Trust's State Health Facts site, New Hampshire has only ("only?") 19.8 pregnancies per 1000 teens per year. Mississippi, meanwhile, has 65.7 per 1000.

Raw numbers like these are often complicated. And sometimes fairly finger-pointingly biased against teenagers themselves. And yeah, the bluer states do tend to have not just more responsible, better socialized children and better comprehensive sex education but also more access to birth control and abortion services. And yeah, the redder states tend to have less of all the above with the result that "pregnant teenagers" isn't all that correlated with teenagers having sex." Let alone "teenagers successfully communicating, setting and honoring boundaries, waiting till they're ready.

But still. Teens in New Hampshire and pretty much all of New England are drastically less likely to become pregnant than teens in the nominally more "religious" and "traditional-family-values" deep South. And I'm... pretty sure a county-by-county map of nominally middle-of-the-road states like California, Virginia, North Carolina, and my home state of Washington would show similar differences between progressive and conservative areas.

(Via Amy Lang)

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Head's Up -- The Spouse-Beating Business in Topika is Just the Wrapping Paper on Conservative's "Traditional Marriage" Agenda!

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Sat, 2011-10-08 21:57

Pamela Haag begins a post with the following tidbit:

Like other local and state governments, Topeka, Kansas is in the grips of a dismal budget crisis. So this week, Topeka’s City Council did something desperate. They debated decriminalizing domestic violence--because the cost of prosecuting these cases, and other misdemeanors, is just too high. The county has already turned back 30 domestic violence cases since they stopped prosecuting them on September 8.

One of the problems with these stories is that it’s hard to believe that we’re actually hearing what we’re hearing. Sometimes I think the 20th century was all a dream, and we’ve awakened back in the 19th. Could civilization unravel so much that we rip up paved roads to save money—or revive wife-beating to save a buck? It sounds like a satirical Onion headline.

Source: Big Think Proxy

My first inclination post this with the title "Oh for heaven's sakes, part 3,776" or something like that. But the rest of Haag's post is too important to miss. It's an essay on the extremely narrow definitions of marriage extreme right-wing "traditionalists" like, naturally, Kansas governor Sam Brownback emphasize is their "marriage encouragement" policies.

It’s not heterosexual marriage generically that’s promoted in Kansas and elsewhere. It’s marriage of a particular (patriarchal) brand and a particular (gender-typed) sort.

...

Ironically, in the classes and states today that have the very lowest divorces rates—the educated, affluent middle class, that is, and uber-liberal Massachusetts—it’s precisely this sort of gender role flexibility that you’re likely to see. The community welcomes stay-at-home dads as well as stay-at-home moms. Dads and moms are likely to perform a variety of roles in marriage, from breadwinning to breadbaking and childrearing and nurturing. These precisely aren’t marriages of interdependence, but of overlapping, multi-tasking competencies. Still, the defense of marriage tends to trash career moms for ruining the family, and privilege distinct husband and wife roles

...

If a view doesn’t punch our own life in the face, then we think it can’t hurt us.

But marriage politics today aren’t just about opposition to same-sex marriage and homosexuality. No, they’re interested in your big, fat, straight wedding, too. Campaigns for traditional marriage support particular versions of heterosexual marriage. To paraphrase from Animal Farm, some marriages are more equal than others.

Yes, the initial snippet about effectively legalized wife (and husband) battering is shocking but Haag reminds us that it's just one tiny foray in a very long, quiet, and persistent campaign to and to re-enact Biblical, capital-P Patriarchy.

Having rather enjoyed I can't imagine why anyone would want to effectively repeal the second half of the 20th Century as well as the first tenth of the 21st, let alone why they'd want to force everyone else to go back. But they do.

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Parenting Problem: EU, FED and Tea-Party Machinations Creating Literal Pains in the Ass!

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Fri, 2011-10-07 08:08

This is our economy in a nutshell: According to the Wall St. Journal

...recent data show diaper sales are slowing and sales of diaper-rash ointment are rising.

Via Tyler Cowen

Just how much this sucks can only be understood by parents who've done the switch the other way -- from cloth diapers to contemporary* disposable ones. And how much this really sucks can be expressed only by those who generally do not yet have the words to do so.

* Whatever else you care to say about them, modern disposables are breathable and awesomely absorbent and therefore almost never create diaper rash.

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