This is near Indianapolis — I’ll bet you the numbers will be even worse near more liberal cities:
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – Registration for the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure is down by almost a third.
The Central Indiana chapter is urging you to leave politics behind and sign up.
Organizers at the local level say it all started when the national organization pulled its funding for Planned Parenthood. Now donations are down almost 30 percent along with registration for the race.
I hope that the Susan G. Komen foundation is weakened to the point where it ceases to exist. Yes, I know it helped people, but it’s a pretty small fish, and what good it did doesn’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things. There’s plenty of other charities people can run races for.
The right is very good at collecting scalps and scaring people. The left needs scalps too.
Clime Acts
Congratulations, DougJ.
My name is Clime Acts, and I approve this message.
PLH in NYC
Agreed. There is no reason for this charity to continue when it’s president draws some ungodly sum like $500K as a salary. That’s a lot of breast exams wasted.
beltane
What does “signing up” do in terms of preventing or treating breast cancer? This is a longstanding question I’ve had regarding SGK, and it seems to be one that is impossible to answer today.
Elizabelle
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving group.
Stick a fork in SGKomen Foundation.
Angela
SGK does not spend near enough on funding the research that could lead to a cure. Enough awareness, and enough pink washing that gives the impression breast cancer is simple and sweet.
I am happy that SGK is down in donations, and I hope those dollars are now going toward research and caring for needs of those with breast cancer.
dmsilev
Leave politics behind, huh? The phrase “you first” comes to mind.
russell
Nobody needs scalps, and IMO Komen doesn’t count as a “scalp”. That was 100% own-goal. They blew up their own brand.
They did a lot of good, and if they go away, somebody else will do it. The world does not need the Susan Komen foundation.
Jay in Oregon
The Central Indiana chapter is urging you to leave politics behind and sign up.
The way the national organization “left politics behind” when it decided to invent excuses to withdraw consideration for funding to Planned Parenthood?
EDIT: dmsilev beat me to it.
Joyschtick
So what’s a better alternative for breast-cancer specific donations, that would have the secondary benefit of underscoring the point that the issue shouldn’t be politicized?
Kathy in St. Louis
There are many cancer charities out there that have races, walk, and other fund raisers. My suggestion to all my fellow women out there who have walked for Komen in the past is to support one of these charities.
Komen began to believe the hype that it was THE cancer charity. While I know that they did some fine work in bringing about the awareness that breast cancer needed, they should have guarded their reputation and mission more closely.
No One of Consequence
In the ear. Sideways, with 3-inch metal teeth, no lube and a mean-streak.
– NOoC
Patricia Kayden
The scalp I want is McConnell’s. I want him to eat his words that his sole aim in life is to make Obama a one-term President.
pragmatism
@Kathy in St. Louis: they did some fine work building awareness of their brand. awareness for the disease and results for sufferers and potential sufferers were secondary and tertiary benefits. at the top level this was always about jane galtian superheroes. i agree (and disagree) that cared greatly about their reputation (as superheroes) and their mission (self glorification). if brinkman and handel were candid, they would tell you that they were furthering their reputations by defunding. they felt that their reputations couldn’t withstand the ties to PP.
Shinobi
I don’t understand this whole run/walk bs for cancer thing. If you want to do a fundraiser for cancer or some other disease, cool, I’ll give you money if I want to. If you want to run a marathon, or walk a long way, or whatever, cool, I do not care.
It just seems to me that people are asking us to bribe them to exercise, which I find annoying as hell.
tweez
I hate it, but you’re right. The Left needs scalps.
les
I think (and this is my theory, which is my own) that fucksticks like the southern pol the SGK hired, and her followers, may be seeing what happens when they try to export their politics of hatred and division to an audience that would not exist if it didn’t start out with at least a shred of charity, empathy and concern for others. The wingnuts, having none of these characteristics, don’t really know how to approach them.
Ben Franklin
My unrequited love for the democratic process leaves my virginity behind.
cathyx
What they are realizing is that it’s the liberals who contribute more to their causes than the conservatives. Idiots.
RosiesDad
I have friends and clients who have done Komen events in the past and I have supported them. If they continue to do these event, I will direct donations in their name to ACS or PP instead. (And hopefully they will understand.)
kindness
I don’t feel the least bit guilty of saying I hope the Susan J Komen Foundation dies. They sucked as a charity. I mean, they only dispersed 40% of the money raised. Most their money went to salaries and ‘expenses’.
@tweez: Blow me. It has nothing to do with ‘needs a scalp’ and everything to do with integrity. SGK had none.
kuvasz
@tweez: Being Old School, I prefer ears.
Bubblegum Tate
My mom–a breast cancer survivor–has done the Komen walk for years. No more. Not only is she ditching that foul organization, but she’s stepping up her donations to Planned Parenthood and is even going to volunteer at some PP clinics (she’s a mostly-retired RN). My mom’s not very political at all, but she does care very deeply about women’s health (and in particular about breast cancer, for obvious reasons). That’s the kind of support Komen threw away in pursuit of wingnut bullshit.
pluege
the money is there to be collected whether Susan G Kormen Foundation is or not. Its all part and parcel of the arrogance of success that the foundation greatly exaggerated their own important.
russ
Dear Susan G. Komen Foundation;
It is supposed to taste like a shit sandwich!
VividBlueDotty
@Kathy in St. Louis:
They were too busy guarding their “trademark” (at a cost of about a million dollars a year.) Many lifelong Komen supporters only discovered this recently, largely due to the publicity of the Planned Parenthood kerfluffle.
In its beginning, SGK did something amazing – Brinker was a TRUE pioneer. At the time the organization came to be, few people even SAID breast cancer out loud.
But somewhere along the way, they LOST their way. In addition to the crazy lawsuits against small charities with “for the cure” in their names of materials, SGK was also lobbying behind the scenes AGAINST ACA and other state level health care accesibility bills. If not for the Planned Parenthood issue, I might never have read these stories and known how far astray they’d gone.
That being said, I don’t think of Komen as a scalp, and certainly wouldn’t be proud to say heh, the left took down Susan G Komen. The other poster is correct in that this was completely self-inflicted.
Southern Beale
Good. Fuck’em and their pinkwashing campaign, anyway.
And remember: the other side isn’t “pro-life,” they’re “anti-family planning.”
PurpleGirl
@beltane: You pay a fee to join the race. They get the fee, part of which should cover the costs of the race but part of which goes to their fundraising.
sharl
I remember hearing almost consecutive 30-sec spots one night on local news radio, first for Avon Walk for Breast Cancer (complete with that g-d annoying pink everywhere), then SGK. Coming as it did hard on the heels of “The Incident”, cracked me right up.
Is the Avon organization legit, as in: honest, thrifty and efficient? Perhaps that is a suitable nationwide substitute for SGK, and if so, maybe their contributors can stay on Avon’s heels to not get politicized; lessons learned, and all that.
joel hanes
We don’t need no steenking races. Or walks. Or crappy pinkwashed swag. Or half-million-bucks-per-year middlewomen.
Support Planned Parenthood. Directly.
FlyingToaster
I saw an ad for the Komen walk (sorry, don’t know which channel, was flipping through) last night.
They didn’t say “leave politics behind”, but they had half-a-dozen women in Komen t-shirts talking about “what the walk means to me”.
You know, whenever I see the movie ads of “real people” talking about the movie, I know to not even watch it on cable.
Desperation. Smells like Victory. Or unburned hydrocarbons in the morning :)
pragmatism
@Southern Beale: i have been going with “forced birthers” or “no choicers”
sharl
@joel hanes: Yep, I’m with you. I signed up for monthly donations to both the national and my local PP affiliate, after this SGK crap hit the news.
Still, I recognize that lots of folks actually like the collective group activity of a fun walk (or whatever). I’m no expert, but I see no reason why it couldn’t work out, if not left in the hands of a greedy, self-absorbed character like Ms. Brinker. So for thems who roll that way, it would be nice to have an alternative event that combines fun and doing good.
j
@russell: Just like the Catholic “Church” and “gay” adoptions. They claimed thay they, and only them, could run adoption services.
The Lutherans said they would be happy to take over adoptions (and all those millions of government money).
Catholics lose. Lutherans actually do what Jesus said to do.
Joseph Nobles
The problem is that liberals collect scalps by boycotts and rightwingers collect scalps by bombing Planned Parenthood clinics.
Gwangung
Do something stupid. Reap the dividends.
And I say this as someone who actually benefits frm the presence of the local chapter.
Gex
I’m not really a fan of keeping a charity who would kill women to participate in a political battle. Sure they helped people. But other groups managed to do it without telling women to just fucking die.
ETA: It’s like keeping the Catholics in charge of adoption. Sure they help some kids. Someone else would too. And they’d do it without using them as collateral in their demands to ban SSM wherever they work. Added bonus? Fewer kids spending time with Father Diddlyhands.
ExurbanMom
The thing that always bothered me about the walks is that each participant had to raise thousands to take part. They send letters to all their friends trying to get that money. Of which a huge percentage goes to the aforementioned “expenses”: running the race, the t-shirts and other swag, and the ridiculous salaries of their employees.
Give to PP, give to the MD Anderson Cancer Hospital in Texas (if you designate a focus for your dollars, 100% goes to research…they do separate fundraising for expenses). Give locally rather than nationally; those dollars are much more likely to go to helping someone directly.
j
@PurpleGirl: Part of which goes into Brinker’s pocket.
FIFY
David Koch
The roof the roof the roof is on fire
The roof the roof the roof is on fire
The roof the roof the roof is on fire
We don’t need no water let the motherf#cker burn
Burn motherf#cker burn
bogdan
Those numbers are still way too high. I wish people would keep screaming about this so Komen has less than half the number of participants.
VividBlueDotty
@sharl: Avon was doing the 3-Day walks back when Komen only had the 5K runs or whatever their Race for the Cure is. I actually DID the Avon three-day in Dallas 7 or 8 years ago – I think it was 2003. These multiple day events that you really have to train for and where you spend all that time with other people with a common goal can be amazing life experiences. From everything I could see the Avon events are well-run and efficient as far as how much is donated. With Avon being a for-profit company, they are less likely to get entangled in the kind of issues Komen did, but still your suggestion to keep an eye on them is good.
To all who are saying that direct giving – no walks, runs, pink swag, etc. – is better, I agree. But these events generate benefits beyond the $$ both to the participants and the beneficiaries. I don’t need to see ALL of these kinds of organizations and events go away.
And I don’t think Komen will go completely away either, but they will never get another dime from me, ever. Plenty of other people feel this way, which is greatly reducing Komen’s donations and their STATUS as a charity. That diminishing status to me seems a fit punishment for having allowed their ego-frenzy and political motivation to ruin their brand.
wrb
Damn Obama. Because of his free contraception the sluts are getting so much they can’t walk for charity.
gwangung
@VividBlueDotty: Yup. Got no problem with that.
SectarianSofa
This kind of post should really come with an ‘alternatives to Susan. G Komen’ list (but maybe we’ve done that a bunch already?). Fortunately, you can use the Google for that, but still, would be nice to see a balloon-juice based set of links for research/activism/etc..
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@SectarianSofa:
I’d like to do that too, but the idea of doing the research to find good ones scares me to death.
Dave
Yes, Komen is egregiously bad and worthy of being a scalp. But, and I say this sincerely as a bleeding heart lefty, fuck charity in general. Charity is for societies that have failed.
Frankensteinbeck
@Patricia Kayden:
If (and I firmly believe when) Obama is reelected, I will make an exception in turning the other cheek. I hope to enjoy a huge bowl of man-turtle schadenfreude. McConnell is an aging Kentucky patrician with a blatant history of smug assholery. When he utterly fails to make an example of the uppity negro, it will strike at his bedrock assumptions of reality. He won’t be able to endure it, and will completely lose his shit.
gex
@Dave: YES! This! If you are born into a society you should have basic needs met. Period. Charity is for societies that don’t think all members have a right to food, water, shelter, etc. Those are the societies that need to keep oppressing harder and harder to keep the have-nots from rethinking their membership in this particular society.
Villago Delenda Est
Sorry, but the people who seem to have benefited the most for this scam are the grifters who ran it.
I’m glad to see this piece of marketdroid shit dying.
schrodinger's cat
I am watching Steven Colbert’s interview of Charles Murray. What a smug bastard. Colbert is eviscerating him.
debbie
My company sponsors a team for the local run. I declined to help out this year. When I said I wasn’t a fan of Komen after recent events, all I got was crickets.
schrodinger's cat
DougJ@top
I read a cringe worthy post on OTB (went there via Sully) about GOP’s War on Women
Quoting from the blog post by James Joyner.
It is a feature not a bug, PoPS (Professor of Political Science). This is your party, this is what they want, stop feigning ignorance. Perhaps it is time to move OTB from the blogroll to the Blogs We Monitor And Mock As Needed, instead of linking approvingly.
David Koch
@schrodinger’s cat:
Well, Stephen is a mohel.
TuiMel
Maybe its because I was treated for breast cancer last year or maybe I’m just a dopey lefty. But, I would be happier if SGK got its house in order and directed its considerable brand and resources toward what I and many others thought its mission was prior to the Planned Parenthood dust up. My niece is running a triathalon for cancer and dedicating her effort to me. Even if this event is associated with SGK, I will support her. That will be the only money SGK gets from me, but I find nothing to smile about in saying so. I suspect the foundation and its affiliates employ more than a few fine and appropriately dedicated folks. I will feel no guilt if the foundation withers, but I find no satisfaction in that fate either.
rb
@Bubblegum Tate:
My mom—a breast cancer survivor—has done the Komen walk for years. No more. Not only is she ditching that foul organization, but she’s stepping up her donations to Planned Parenthood and is even going to volunteer at some PP clinics (she’s a mostly-retired RN). My mom’s not very political at all, but she does care very deeply about women’s health (and in particular about breast cancer, for obvious reasons). That’s the kind of support Komen threw away in pursuit of wingnut bullshit.
Repeating your whole comment for all-inclusive truth. This is the whole conversation.
@Shinobi It just seems to me that people are asking us to bribe them to exercise, which I find annoying as hell.
It’s known that there is little to know “real” (i.e. economic, research etc.) benefit to ‘awareness,’ particularly for something like breast cancer, of which most sentient beings are ‘aware.’
However, I do think there is nontrivial unmeasured social benefit to weapons of mass awareness program-related activities. Personally, I find the pink everything a little nauseating, but if it could happen in such a way that it wasn’t actually cutting into research dollars, then more power to the organizers. There’s nothing wrong with people wanting to build a community around shared trauma, people enjoy it, it serves a public good. That SKC’s particular shtick is, in my opinion, infantilizing and condescending, doesn’t negate the overall point.
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@schrodinger’s cat:
I put Murray in the category of people who genuinely frighten me. It’s him, the board members of Americans Elect, Bobo, Santorum, and not that many other people.
CaseyL
@Dave:
Needs to be repeated. A lot.
This is why anyone listened to John Edwards, even though he was a tool. He was the only major party candidate who still talked about lifting people up from poverty. The fact that it was all talk on his part (his voting record was pro-corporate) doesn’t detract from the fact that it was a conversation we damned well ought to be having.
When Romney says he doesn’t worry about the poor because the country has a safety net for them, steam comes out of my ears. Not only is the safety net so frayed it does very little good but also, more importantly:
Charity for poor people is not a solution to poverty. It’s a way for the non-poor to stop thinking or caring about poverty as something to be eradicated.
What breaks my heart is that I don’t see us reviving The Great Society anytime in the foreseeable future. Every one of the programs designed to lift people out of poverty has been discontinued, and the very philosophy behind The Great Society has been derided out of existence. Job training? There are no livable-wage jobs to train people for. Education? There is no such thing anymore as an affordable college education. (I remember when community colleges charged no tuition at all; now community college tuition costs about the same as university tuition.) Unions? The few that are left are fighting for their continued existence in a country that thinks working people should be damned grateful to have any employment at all, and should never dare demand better wages or benefits or working conditions.
In a mere 50 years, we’ve gone from being a country that prided itself on enabling upward mobility to one whose economic policies ensure and encourage downward mobility.
It angers me, and I have no idea what to do about it.
SatanicPanic
@Dave:
Chumbawamba’s first album was concept album mocking live aid:
Charity is like parking an ambulance at the foot of a notoriuusly dangerous cliff instead of erecting a fence at the top
ice weasel
This sot of dovetails in with my wish that NPR die and go away. For years I was a fervent NPR supporter and listener. I really believed they were different, dare I say it, better.
But over the last decade and half NPR has slid into a cheap parody of what it once was. Yes, there are still some excellent shows on NPR but I’m talking about NPR news and produced content.
NPR affiliates have gotten more and more offtrack. Our own local station is much more interested in raising money, playing commercials and patting themselves on the back for the multi-million “media center” than they are in actually producing decent, local content. They’re actively worked to throw union employees out of their operation.
The problem is, as long as NPR is around, they sucking all the oxygen out of the room and it will be very difficult for anything else to really start. So let NPR die and let something else, something better replace it.
Same for Komen. Whatever good work they did can and will be done by others, other who, very possibly, won’t be so tied in to the egos of the founders and interested in political mayhem.
Ruckus
@CaseyL:
Dave’s post and your follow up. A thousand times yes.
Gretchen
@sharl: When I was a runner I did a lot of charity runs, including Komen, because they were fun and gave me a goal. There are several, for various charities, from the zoo to various illnesses to local schools, every weekend. Someone who wants to boycott Komen, have a fun run, and donate to charity will have no problem finding an alternative.
John of Indiana
Lay down with Dogs, get up with fleas.
My money goes to Lance.
brantl
@Joyschtick: Give to Planned Parenthood, the frontline on this kind of shit.
Palli
@sharl:
Avon Walk has some philanthropic questions too.
http://www.charitywatch.org/articles/Avon.html
“Beginning with reporting year 2008 APF provided the breakouts AIP needed in order to analyze how efficiently the charity is operating and assign to it a letter grade rating. The group earns a grade of C+ based on its 2008 financial information, the most recent available. The group spent 69% of its cash budget in 2008 on programs that did not include fundraising appeals, and it cost the group $39 to raise each $100 in public support that year.
APF considers the funds it spends on activities that have both a fundraising and educational component to be a program of the charity. Such expenses are referred to as “joint costs,” and for many charities these activities consist of the telemarketing calls or direct mail solicitations they send out as part of their fundraising efforts. For APF, joint costs for 2008 include a portion of the funds the group spent on things such as advertising and promotion ($9.2 million), or printing ($3.6 million), among other items.
…
The charity’s close ties to its for-profit counterpart, however, may cause some to question whether the publicity the charity garners for its popular walks does as much to raise consumer awareness for Avon products as it does for breast cancer causes.
…
It is difficult in many ways to tell where Avon ends and APF (Avon Products Foundation) begins.”
brantl
@ice weasel: No shit about NPR. Yesterday they were talking about the guy that got strip searched when taken in for the fine, and didn’t even cover that he had given the arresting officer the exculpating document showing payment of the fine, on the scene. Nina Totendouche, nowhere near the whole facts.
WayneL
No doubt there are many who will look askance at me, but why would we want to emulate the right if we believe they are wrong? I am extremely opposed to the cruelty of right wingers. That is their worst attribute, among many others like selfishness and hate. So why does the left want to be like them and “take scalps”? I’m a Buddhist who believes in love and compassion. I would rather them be like me, even if they choose not to do so. Wouldn’t you rather practice loving kindness than hate and bitterness?
Origuy
My sister lives in central Indiana, and had breast cancer a couple of years ago. Since then, she was very active with SGK, at least until the PP thing broke. I haven’t talked to her about it, but I don’t see her mentioning anything on Facebook about any SGK activities. I think she’s quietly dropped out of it.
I’d just like to point out that “collecting scalps” is perhaps not the best metaphor when talking about cancer, given the effects of chemotherapy and radiation.
Onihanzo
@WayneL: There is a difference between compassion and idiot compassion, between passivity in the world and passivity which results in acquiescence to harm and falsehoods.
Nancy Irving
As a woman who’s had breast cancer I’ve learned that these races don’t raise any significant amount of money, and are really just PR stunts.
In fact, most of the big-name anti-cancer groups are largely self-perpetuating PR machines, where most of the money raised goes to raising more money (aka “raising awareness”), the balance going to huge administrative bureaucracies with executives earning hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.
And since a big chunk of the money comes from corporate donors, these groups devote very little money to research on environmental causes of cancer, since that might indict pollution, plastics, food additives or other corporate products.
See Barbara Ehrenreich on this subject, with her usual brio:
http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/cancerland.htm