Check out the Yoplait Facebook page — it leads with some stuff about breast cancer in pink writing suggesting (obliquely) that they may drop Komen. The comments are unscrubbed and from what I can see they are about 50:1 anti-Komen.
I don’t see how Yoplait doesn’t drop Komen within a few weeks.
As I’ve said before, I love a good train wreck, and this is one for the ages.
Steve M thinks Komen can benefit by becoming the Fox News of charities, but I doubt it. Right now, they get a lot of money from corporate sponsors — many of whom will drop them — and (I’m guessing here but I’m almost sure this is true) from affluent women in Westchester County, etc. That money is gone and it’s not coming back. Plus, nobody, not even the biggest Tebow-freaks, likes a fuck-up. And that’s what the Komen brass is.
machine
I’ve got $5 that says beyond the politicizing of women’s health, it’s also an advance wedge issue to further polarize voters before the general election.
Or I can just don my tinfoil beanie and shut up.
JPL
How much money does the 27% donate? Besides pink guns what other products do they buy.
curiousleo
You’ve provided a nice link to the Yoplait fb page. Which corporate sponsor is next? I don’t actually know who else has Komen branding on their products. That seems the obvious place to start…
Rosalita
@curiousleo: I’d like to see what Estee Lauder does…
Mino
Gonna be real curious how many women show up for their walks/runs after this.
ItinerantPedant
I believe this is gonna backfire big time. In looking around my wife’s friends every single one has used PP for women’s health at one time or another.
These are affluent women, college educated and professionals. The reason there’s such an outcry is that fundamentally between about 85 to last year, a 22 year old woman fresh out of college with massive student loan debt and no longer able to use her parents insurance was pretty much stuck. Most of them had to use PP at one point or another, so lines about the “mission” of PP being abortion are KNOWN to be false.
Other than the 27%ers, women know what good work PP does. Thus the insanely rapid meltdown for Komen.
The only good thing about Repub wingnuts is that they actually BELIEVE their political spin.
Cat Lady
The funny part is how many wingnut men want to wear pink in support for more than one day?
mistermix
@curiousleo: Energizer batteries took a big hit, too – they were Komen’s latest announced partner. Their wall is full of anti-Komen comments:
http://www.facebook.com/Energizer?sk=wall
I think DougJ is right that a FoxNews version of Komen is a loser. Komen was a safe, apolitical place for corporations to donate. Most corporations will drop their support for Komen and just pick another charity if Komen turns further right.
Danny
Maybe Komen can become some targeted conservative charity. But then their new donor base will feel they’re donating money to the pro-life/anti-choice cause and expect Komen’s policies to reflect that. Hard to see that road leading anywhere else but marginalization and eroding what credibility they’ve had as a non-partisan women’s health non-profit.
But Brinker is quickly running out of good options. The only other option is to backtrack; mend the fences with PP and let Handel go. And then they’ll anger the fundies.
jibeaux
@mistermix: Me three. Can you think of another politically charged charity that gets massive corporate donations/associations/partnerships? I don’t see yogurt companies, batteries, or football players particularly wanting to be dragged into the culture war?
Stav
One more thing about Komen getting Conservative or Talibangelical Bucks: these are generally very generous people. Tend to be the biggest per capita givers in the country, but…
they only give to their church or other church-affiliated groups.
Someguy
I’m looking forward to helping to drive SGK out of business and we’ve already switched to non-pink ribboned yogurt in my house. The $4 billion they’ve raised over the last several years won’t be missed; I’m sure people will find other charitable outlets that support a woman’s right to choose.
As for SGK becoming the Fox News of fundraisers… well, it’s already started. See this for what it is, a huge opportunity to repudiate the assorted baby fetishists, anti-women activists and papists who are lining up behind SGK.
Steve
Komen is claiming their donations are up 100% in the last two days. They have no credibility, of course, but I don’t think anyone would be surprised if this development resulted in them getting a bunch of one-time donations from people who hate Planned Parenthood. But who cares? If you weren’t already invested in the cause, you’re not suddenly going to commit to a long-term donor relationship. You’re going to write them a thank-you check and that’s it.
The numbers are on our side on this one. They’re going to be getting bad headlines for quite a while.
Lawnguylander
Doy.
JCT
@Danny: Komen can do what ever the fuck they want at this point. Women aren’t coming back — we know better than to come back after betrayal and lying.
SGK, the Newt Gingrich of Non-Profits. They can have fun with that.
And DougJ — anectodal, but my friends back in Westchester say folks are dropping Komen like a hot potato — walk Team organizers quitting, etc. It’s all everyone is talking about. And bear in mind many of those communities are filled with pretty conservative women, this was a bridge too far even for them….
balconesfault
@Stav: One more thing about Komen getting Conservative or Talibangelical Bucks: these are generally very generous people. Tend to be the biggest per capita givers in the country, but…
they only give to their church or other church-affiliated groups.
Bingo. That, or wingnut-political heavy hitters. Or whenever possible, both at the same time.
beltane
There are already many, many Fox News of charities. Susan G. Komen will have a hard time standing out among that crowd. By re-branding themselves as a right-wing hate group in such a publicized way they have lost the ability to further their agenda through stealth and deception. I don’t see how they are of any use to anyone at this point.
dww44
@JPL: Last nite I read comments at one blog post about this debacle to the effect that “No,Komen wouldn’t suffer financially as conservatives are the ones who contribute to charities, not liberals.” Methinks the implication there had something to do with who’s in the Dem Big Tent, perhaps the poor and the not quite so poor? Anyways, I’d love to see data on giving by conservatives versus that by liberals which would ideally include numbers of givers as well as dollars donated.
TooManyJens
@Steve:
Yeah, a money bomb wouldn’t surprise me, but I don’t think it’s likely to be sustainable. Although there are a lot of right-wing corporations out there who would see a new commitment to Komen as a way to burnish their cred in the conservative community, so who knows.
Anecdotally, I’ve seen quite a few women in the last few days who oppose abortion saying that they’re going to stop supporting Komen. They may not like that Planned Parenthood does abortions, but they don’t think it makes any sense to punish them for that by cutting off funding for the things they do support. Not to mention, you know, punishing women who need breast cancer screening.
JGabriel
From the Yoplait FB comments:
This is a good idea for people donating at the individual level. But, sadly, it’s kind of useless at the corporate level.
Corporations don’t care about breast cancer. They care about looking like they care. Yoplait gives to SGK because they have a pretty logo that appeals — or appealed — to Yoplait’s core marketing target of women at the age where breast cancer is most common.
In the short run, Yoplait may give some money to John Hopkins or Sloan-Kettering, but only so Yopait looks like it still cares when (note that’s not an if)it announces that it’s dropping support for SGK due to the outrage. And it will only be for a year or as a one-time donation — unless John Hopkins or Sloan Kettering come up with a pretty logo of their own.
By the way, it’s not my intent to single out Yoplait here as especially cynical. It’s not. The above is true for just about every one of SGK’s corporate donors. And unless someone with an equally good logo steps in — but not a pink logo, pink is done for — corporate giving to breast cancer research will be significantly reduced. Not to nothing, but, most likely, to a point that’s commensurate with other causes.
.
Face
But how can the base for a org that pimps research and science and facts/logic be right-wingers, who dismiss research, science, and facts/logic?
Not seeing this fundie support lasting more than a week.
Zak44
I know Komen spends a million bucks suing other charities who dare to use the color pink or the words “for the cure.” But how much goes toward keeping Nancy Brinker in Botox and plastic surgery? In the Andrea Mitchell clip she looks (and sounds) downright scary.
Elizabelle
@dww44:
I saw some comments like that too.
Conservatives cannot believe liberals give to charity (or have jobs, or have brains, or don’t live in their mom’s basement).
It’s a meme, and may they learn how incorrect.
Note also: the world divided into conservatives and liberals. That’s all. No in between.
Manichean.
Rob
Pepperidge Farm’s FB page says it concluded its partnership with Komen 12-31-2011 “for business reasons”.
balconesfault
What REALLY struck me … and what should be talking point #1 …. is the Komen CEO making annually close to the same sum they defunded PP to the tune of.
Maybe Brinker can get out there and do a few hundred thousand screenings herself next year to make up for this action?
Someguy
We should be kind to the SGK though and offer them some slogans to help them in their news business endeavor as a right wing hate group.
SGK: For the Cure… but only if you’re not an immoral liberal hussy.
Support SGK: We’re against providing cancer screening for daughters of Republicans secretly getting abortions at PP clinics.
SGK: We’re against cancer. And abortions. And homos and librulls and all the people you hate.
SGK: We care about your boobs. Just not if they’ve been handled by others.
shortstop
It’s almost impossible to take your eyes off it. It has so many juicy elements: wingnut overreach, superspeed fail, the rising up of the righteous masses with indignation and replacement dollars, a flailing and comical response, a cautionary aspect for other organizations, and horrible hair.
Apart from the difficulty of retaining corporate sponsors, I don’t think Komen will be able to find reputable researchers willing to accept its grants once this plays out. I don’t see how they can avoiding failing both on the donor front and in the scientific community.
Steve
@dww44: If liberals don’t give to charity, where does Planned Parenthood get its $250 million in annual donations? From conservatives?
Someguy
@Elizabelle:
Yeah, well, that’s because they’re evil fuckers and we aren’t. Next question.
negative 1
The long-term answer for charities (and I’m a former non-profit auditor, so I have a lot of first hand experience in this) is that it is toxic to be labeled political. They may get a short term bump for being the ‘right-wing’ charity, but by and large donors don’t want anything political attached. Why? Because for many corp.s or large money individual donors, their donations are also part of a tax strategy. If the charity screws up egregiously enough, then they jeopardize their 501(c)3 status and the donations may not be fully deductable. I realize it’s a longshot but these donors don’t want to put too much effort into it. As soon as there’s a stink of scandal, they wait until no one is looking and just move on to the next charity. There are a lot of deserving ones to choose from that have virtually no risk attached.
Waldo
Komen is the Enron of charities. Pink ribbons are selling for pennies on the dollar. The Bush family has stopped taking their calls. Even going full Teatard can’t save them now.
RSA
@Steve:
Even if this is true, I wonder what it really means. They could be saying that every two days they take in about 0.55% of their annual donations, and over the past two days that amount has doubled to 1.1%. With annual donations of over $400 million, 0.55% or 1.1% is a lot of money, but in a larger context it could be just a blip.
Pongo
I think the ‘Fox News of charities’ notion is a reasonable, if short-lived, possibility. Koch brothers or some other insanely wealthy nutjobs will jump in with a major donation sometime in the next few days and Komen will not suffer from lack of money. But I agree overall with Douglas. This show of wingnut support will be as fleeting and unsubstantial as Komen’s programs and diminishing support from the sponsors and partners who actually feed their marketing machine will, over time, ultimately relegate them to being a very rich, but very irrelevant org.
The fact that they quietly politicized their research program last November, pulling $12,000,000 from stem cell research funding at Johns Hopkins, Yale and others is going to alienate the scientific community, as well.
So they are a medical research org that does not support science, a patient services org that does not fund essential services and a breast cancer advocacy org that fights legislation to help women with breast cancer. They have, of their own accord, narrowed their base of support to the 27%–and it’s a fair bet not all of that crowd even gives a shit about fighting breast cancer, because suffering is a gift from god and science is from the devil.
Nice work, Komen.
beltane
@Rob: Wonderful! Now I can enjoy my morning Milano and coffee with a clear conscience.
shortstop
@TooManyJens: Agreed. Those are one-time donations from members of anti-choice organizations. Reading the “I’m a new donor — thanks for not funding the baby-killing machine!” form comments on FB and elsewhere, it’s obvious that these new gifts aren’t sustainable UNLESS Komen becomes a full-out anti-abortion organization 24/7. As TBogg says, the last thing that group of supporters cares about is funding healthcare for anyone, much less for women alone.
JGabriel
curiousleo:
Here’s a link to the SGK list of Corporate Partners.
And since I don’t expect that list to stay up too long — it’s basically a boycott list now and I’m sure it’s donors will ask them to take it down — here’s a copy of the list. WARNING: Long-ass block quote ahead:
.
Satanicpanic
I’m with you DougJ, I love a trainwreck, especially when people deserve it. SGK’s decision was pure hubris.
geg6
@dww44:
Don’t have time to look it up, but it’s true that conservatives tend to give more than liberals. But that includes giving to their churches, which where a large percentage of their of their “giving” goes. Liberals tend to give to causes more.
JGabriel
@Face:
Because that’s not the part of the base Komen intended to appeal to long-term. SGK’s target is the rich corporate base who don’t actually believe most of that conservative/fundie shit, but use is to get votes and support for their de-regulatory and anti-tax agenda.
I don’t think it will work, because SGK just made its brand toxic, but that was probably the plan.
.
Someguy
Thanks for posting that list. Holy shit I need a new insurance company and mortgage, and it’s going to be interesting trying to finish my home renovation without using any Georgia Pacific products. The Rich Foods thing is going to be tough too – they’re ubiquitous in the supermarket. I hope those bastards bail out soon because this boycott is going to be a bigger hassle than I thought.
FridayNext
@mistermix:
Not just a safe apolitical place for corporate sponsors, but small ones as well. I only participated in one or two SGK races (I run a lot of races for a lot of disease related charities. Who remembers all of them.) and one of the things that always struck me about them, and some other charity runs, is the singleness of purpose and the passionate apolitical nature of the participants. I had no idea what the politics were of those around me on abortion or anything else and didn’t care. Contrast to other races where people wear political signs and slogans on their shirts and people shout at each other about them. (I recall some heated mid-race debates about DATD during Marine Corps Marathon and arguments about invading Iraq during the LA Marathon in 2002) There was something about SGK events, on the ground at least, that made them energizing and fun. You really felt like everyone had set aside their petty squabbling to come together for Women’s Health.
They have totally ruined that, even if they refund PP. Maybe especially so. I can’t imagine taking part in one of their events now. I can hear the squabbling, bitching, and proselytizing in the pre-race holding pen now. No thanks.
JGabriel
@geg6:
I’d like to see a breakdown of that factoid that separates or excludes church giving.
I have a strong suspicion that those numbers are reversed once you pull out tithing.
.
shortstop
@FridayNext: I’m just impressed that you have the lung power to debate heatedly mid-race! I’d be all, “I have strong opinions on this, but I need my oxygen so you can’t hear them.”
shortstop
@geg6: I feel really comfortable pulling this one out of my ass: I do not think that ultraconservative people have represented much of the traditional donor base of any organization devoted to women’s health activism. Nor do I think they will in the future.
Lee
@JGabriel:
Thank the FSM the Boston Brewing Company is NOT on that list. I would have really missed my Sam Adams. The only other one that is going to cause me severe pain if I boycott is Microsoft as I am a programmer.
Redshift
Rachel Maddow had a segment last night wondering why, after all the outrageous attacks on abortion rights and women’s health, this was the one that caused widespread outrage. They talked about the idea of betrayal, which I think is part of it, but I think it’s simpler than that.
Komen had built a massive PR machine, linked with that of many high-profile corporate sponsors. This was as if someone had hacked into that machine and used it to broadcast the message “conservatives are attacking women’s health!”
So thank you, Karen Handel. If you were subtle, you probably could have quietly phased out most grants to Planned Parenthood over time and caused actual harm. Instead, you acted like most wingnuts, assuming that a silent majority was on your side and it would be a good thing to make your move extremely obvious by hitching it to a right-wing witch hunt. Thank you again; you accomplished what a thousand email blasts by liberal groups couldn’t do and a cowed media won’t do — broadcast to a mass audience the truth that women’s health and lives mean nothing to conservative ideologues, and they’ll gladly sacrifice you to their “causes” if you don’t fight back.
Mnemosyne
@JGabriel:
IMO, this provides a good opening for the American Cancer Society if they’re prepared to step in and offer themselves as a new partner for these companies. They’re “controversial” because of stem cells (forced birthers have been targeting them for a while) but after the Komen fail, I don’t think that should be much of a factor.
@Someguy:
I have a more targeted suggestion — tell the companies you deal with that you will no longer buy products that support Komen. If you have a choice in the grocery store between the pink ribbon Komen product and the plain, go for the plain one. If you have any pink ribbon products in the house that are returnable, return them to the grocery store and explain why.
I really think the grass-roots pressure point here is the grocery stores. If they end up having to return pallets of Komen pink ribbon products to their suppliers, they’re gonna be pissed, the suppliers are gonna be pissed, and that pissery is going to go right up the ladder to General Mills, Con Agra, Kraft, Nestle, etc. The food companies were counting on selling X more of their product because of the Komen pink ribbon, and if that pink ribbon instead becomes a pariah, they won’t be able to drop Komen fast enough.
Steve
@Redshift: The reason this didn’t happen quietly is that Planned Parenthood played the PR game extremely well.
Steve
@Mnemosyne: I think trying to spark a mass movement to return stuff to your local grocery store is way too indirect. There is no reason to think that direct pressure on the SGK corporate partners won’t be effective.
Redshift
@Pongo:
Considering the general lack of empathy among most modern conservatives, the only ones who care about breast cancer are the ones who have had it or had a family member or close friend suffer with it. “It’s not a really problem unless it happens to meeeee!“
Danny
@JCT:
Yep. That’s the lesson that conservatives refuse to learn, they break stuff and it isn’t as easy putting it back together again. Fuck them.
JGabriel
@Lee:
Yeah, some of these are almost impossible to boycott. Microsoft, for instance: most people are paying for a Microsoft OS when the by a new PC unless they make a special effort not to, or build their own.
In MS’s case, I’d write them an e-mail instead. MS is one of those companies that really does listen to their customers (and employees and contractors) about this sort of thing — even if it doesn’t impact their bottom line all that much. The issue for Microsoft is that they get enough bad press as it is, and, as a tech company, they don’t need to be associated with a charity that pisses off a lot of people and, even worse for the MS brand, makes them appear socially backward-looking — Microsoft wants to be seen as the future, not the past.
So send them an e-mail.
.
beltane
@Steve: Yoplait is already soliciting suggestions for other breast cancer organizations they can sponsor on their FB page. It won’t be long before others follow suit.
Redshift
@Someguy: You don’t have to go quite that far yet. Now is the time for threatening a boycott and giving them a chance to disassociate themselves, since it’s not the sponsors that did this.
General Stuck
I know this is an important issue, but I gotta get back in the boat. After being chased by a fetus with a blade in my dreams. It looked like Frau Blinker, [[[shudders]]]
eric
Where I live, it seems that most of the volunteers, walkers, runners in these events are do-gooder liberal type folks. They will not be participating anymore, I am sure.
thatguy
That “our donations are up 100%!” thing is fishy at best. Notice how PP said that they raised $400k in a day? Easy to understand. Using percentages is suspect. Up 100% over last year’s February 1 donation haul? Up 100% in typical number of givers per day? Etc. I suspect the news is less good than they are trying to suggest.
Someguy
@Redshift:
Yeah, you’re right.
Begs the question though – why isn’t there a group looking at all the corporate sponsors of all the right wing shills, and getting together a combination of email campaign and “buy ethical” list? It’d even make a nice iPhone app. It pains me to think that my money is going to support hate groups. Sometimes it’s tough. Georgia Pacific & Pacific Gypsum are Kock Brothers firms. Good luck buying construction materials for even a simple home reno that don’t have some tie to them. But except for the hard core sponsors like them, maybe we can scare off a lot of companies that don’t have an extremist right wing orientation.
JGabriel
@Mnemosyne:
I agree, but they need a new logo. Their current logo connotes “Health Care Products and Old People”. They need something red, magenta, or salmon in color that connotes “Hope and Charity: I care”.
.
Brandon
Komen had a special niche as a Republican charity whose core constituents were liberal leaning suburban women. It was the model of W’s compassionate conservatism, with emphasis on the ‘con’. The W connection is particularly appropo not just because Brinker is also a TX Republican and W “Pioneer” rewarded with an ambassadorial appointment, but also because the organization of this charity perfectly mimics W’s vision and execution considering that Komen are excellent at marketing and have enriched themselves greatly, but have proven extremely ineffectual at their core mission and have through their incompetence undermined broad support for the entire breast cancer charitable industry.
Aside from all that though, what we have seen over the past two years is that even W’s corporate friendly, grifter conservatism has no place in the modern Republican party. Which means that it was no longer operable for Komen. And the one thing I have always thought interesting about the whole meme that Komen did this because of external pressure was how come no one is asking why Komen should feel succeptible to this pressure in the first place. If they did feel pressured, it was because the folks pressuring them were their own. What seems more likely is that it was some combination of internal and external that drove this very political decision. And the fact that conservatism has turned so hard right, they didn’t even consider that they needed to consider presenting a purely political decision as anything but. Because there were a lot of easy and weasly ways they could have defunded PP. But they were too blinded by ideology.
schrodinger's cat
@Brandon:
Its like they don’t even bother to cover up their true motives any more, especially since Obama got elected. I have noticed this hard right turn on other issues as well, such as union representation and immigration.
Remember when McCain sponsored the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill in 2006 with Kennedy, that was not that long ago. The last election cycle he was talking about building the dang fence.
Paul in KY
@JGabriel: From the list you posted: ‘Zeta Tau Alpha Fraternity’.
I’m sure the fine ladies of ZTA sorority would not like being IDed as a frat.
Since their slang nickname was ‘Zits, Tits & Armpits’, I expect them to sever their ties with SGK.
TooManyJens
@shortstop: That’s what I was thinking, too. “Holy shit, you can argue in the middle of a marathon?”
Soonergrunt
@Someguy: You go after them one at a time. It gets easier over time as sponsors fall, others will quietly end their association.
FridayNext
@shortstop:
One of the tricks to finishing a marathon or any endurance race is to not let yourself get winded. You should be able to carry on a conversation while running. At least at my place back in the pack. Elite runners are a different story.
And by “heated debate” I meant “shouting political slogans mixed with epithets.”
Paul in KY
@General Stuck: Neeiiigh!
schrodinger's cat
@FridayNext: When did you run the Marine Corps Marathon? Mr Cat did it in 2006.
Southern Beale
Knowing how these controversies usually play out, I’d say it’s only a matter of time before the anti-choicers start attacking breast cancer survivors. Maybe Ann Coulter or whatever Republican harpy Bill Maher has booked for tonight’s show.
Just you wait.
FridayNext
@schrodinger’s cat:
2003 and again in 2005.
schrodinger's cat
I think the Republican Party’s hard right turn after the elections shows that they are scared, in their imagination, they could never see a black person become President. If that is possible what else is possible? They are afraid that they will be given the same consideration, they gave the powerless
(black people, poor, women etc.) They hate that. This coming election is going to be an extremely ugly one.
JGabriel
@Brandon:
Yeah, I don’t really get that meme either. Everyone in the leadership at SGK is a hard right, social conservative, Republican. They weren’t “pressured” into this decision. SGK defunded Planned Parenthood because they wanted to.
The only justification for the “pressure” meme, that I can think of, is that some people want to give SGK plausible deniability, so they can back out of the decision.
It’s Epistemic Closure all over again. SGK’s conservative leaders have turned so far inward to right wing rhetoric, delusions, and “facts” that aren’t facts, that it never occurred to them there’s a whole world out there existing beyond the sphere of Fox News propaganda — beyond the Wingularity.
.
schrodinger's cat
@FridayNext: I was cheering MrCat, it was fun. So many cute Marines! I have never run a Marathon, just 5ks and 10ks, someday..
WereBear
@balconesfault: She ain’t touching MY tatas.
shortstop
@schrodinger’s cat: I’ve also wondered about this new openness of intention. Many have put it down to wingers’ nervous sense that they need to fuck up as much stuff as quickly and as thoroughly as possible, since people are finally starting to notice that death and carnage follow them wherever they go.
I have slightly less confidence in the electorate’s powers of observation/sustained concentration, so my theory is that these gaffes come mostly from extreme insularity and echo chambering. The GOP base really does seem to think that most Americans share all its views, and it resorts to angry denials when presented with evidence to the contrary.
ETA: Or what JGabriel said.
Bullsmith
Can the Kock brothers hire women to show up at race for the cure events? I doubt it. Komen has shot itself in the head here. They may survive fine. They will never recover the position they had, however. The people who will remember are exactly the type of people who were most invested in their org- they take breast cancer treatment and research personally.
schrodinger's cat
@shortstop:
Word. I think they are also desperate, they know they are racing against time, soon they are going to be outnumbered…
schrodinger's cat
@Bullsmith: One of my black friends who was one of the earliest Obama supporters, I knew,
was also a big fundraiser of SGK, being a breast cancer survivor herself. I think this move has lost many supporters like her.
GregB
Perhaps Komen should rebrand.
The Susan G. Komen Foundation for the prevention of breast cancer in conservative women.
shortstop
I’m a little disappointed that no FPer has used “Komen chameleon” as a headline yet.
good2go
@mistermix: Bingo. They co-opted the ribbon from the AIDS movement, which the Corps. were hesitant (to say the least) to support. Come-on gave them the perfect vehicle to grab some easy good will while cutting salaries and benefits.
Bullsmith
Another element to this story I haven’t seen discussed as yet is how much SGK’s cover story is crafted as a smear of PP. They have to be dropped because they’re under investigation. Like criminals are. When that doesn’t fly, they were dropped because they didn’t meet unspecified standards. In all cases this isn’t about politics or abortion, they say, rather its’ all about PP being a shady, sub-standard, possibly criminal organization.
With friends like these…
JGabriel
@shortstop:
[Big laugh.]
Win!
.
JGabriel
@Bullsmith:
Yep. Very good point.
.
harmonicbalance
Komen’s walking it back ya’ll.
http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2012/02/komen-apologizes-for-recent-de.html
shortstop
@Bullsmith: Yes, right, and that’s very much in keeping with the way the fringe right views PP. Many, many of the people writing messages of support to Komen refer to the discredited O’Keefe video (pimping of underage girls) and make dark references to PP running dirty facilities and secretly using otherwise restricted funds to convince people to have abortions. Komen’s implied smear of PP is direct pandering to these wackos.
dogwood
@Paul in KY:
Actually all but one of the national “sororities” are official titled fraternities. So no, they are not freaking out.
satby
Breaking news: Komen is reversing the decision banner on MSNBC now
Mnemosyne
@Steve:
I may not have been clear — the strategy I’m proposing is not a boycott of Komen sponsors, exactly, but a boycott of Komen branded-products. And, yes, we should all be telling Komen’s corporate sponsors that we will not be buying anything they put the Komen branding on.
The point is to make the boycott specific to Komen. A pallet full of rotting Komen-branded cheese will get Kraft’s attention better than a pallet of mixed products, some branded and some not. We want the Komen brand to be poison to their corporate partners.
becca
@satby:
Though all the perfumes of Arabia will not stop the stench left on the little pink ribbon.
Mnemosyne
@satby:
Too little, too late. This kind of fiasco is what corporate branding people have nightmares about, because once your brand is no longer trusted by the public, you are screwed.
Komen exposed themselves as being a political organization, and big corporations don’t want to be publicly associated with any one political movement. (Political donations, obviously, are different than the branding you put on your yogurt.)
Maude
@satby:
Too little, too late.
We can talk about original intent.
satby
Well on my FB page when I shared one of the walkback headlines, I did tell Komen “FU anyway”.
They are dead to me.
Gust Avrakotos
Same old shit. Sure Faux has already put out feelers to see if any of those winguts that run Komen are interested in a job.
Paul in KY
@dogwood: Did not know that. Thanks for the info.
pseudonymous in nc
To quote myself:
Part one, I was pretty close. Part two, we’ll see.
pseudonymous in nc
@Steve:
It’s February. One-time donors don’t generally give in February. So I don’t think it’s that hard to double your donation numbers on the back of wingnuts. Wait and see who coughs up in October for Put A Ribbon On It! Month, or in December when most people do the bulk of their charitable giving.