Komen's Backpedaling and the Pink Ribbons Trailer [updated]

The great thing about this Komen disaster is that I learned a lot about what Komen is really about: Komen seems to be about Komen.  And while they are conveniently backpedaling (while talking out of both sides of their mouths), the pink cat is out of the bag with respect to their lobbying against breast-health, their “pinkwashing,” the millions spent to defend their trademark from use by other charities, and the lavish salaries the board members pay themselves.

(And that’s to say nothing of the anti-gay and anti-choice views held by Karen Handel, Komen’s VP of Public Policy.)

Notwithstanding their apparent quasi-relent to pressure, I’m still done with Komen.  No more pink shit or race donations for me.  As I noted in my post below, the weasel words used in the press release are troubling.  Certainly the Komen Foundation cannot guarantee that it will maintain funding levels in the next grant cycle:

I just got off the phone with a Komen board member, and he confirmed that the announcement does not mean that Planned Parenthood is guaranteed future grants — a demand he said would be “unfair” to impose on Komen. He also said the job of the group’s controversial director, Nancy Brinker, is safe, as far as the board is concerned.

– I doubt there’s a foundation in the world that could make such a guarantee.  But Komen certainly could (and should) provide some assurances that it won’t in the future concoct new and burdensome criteria that will disparately affect Planned Parenthood, and that they haven’t speaks volumes.

Ultimately, I agree (mostly) with John Cole:

But the important thing now is to not back down. Komen is backpeddling, which is good, but it doesn’t change who they are. All that has changed is that they realized they were just a tad too brazen this time around. The nature of the beast has not changed, the same people who cut stem cell funding to Hopkins and other universities are still there, the folks who attempted to play petty partisan games by attacking Planned Parenthood are still there, and they will do the same sorts of things in the future, only this time they will try to be more sophisticated in the PR efforts. Keep up the pressure. Keep calling companies and pressuring them to drop Komen. Don’t do what liberals always do and stop just because it appears we have won. Keep your foot on their neck, no matter how many times Nancy Brinker whimpers “uncle” through mealy-mouthed PR releases. We need this to be an object lesson in pain for anyone else who wants to try some bullshit like this in the future.

 

Basically, pretend you are a Republican and we are talking about ACORN.

Indeed. Except the right-wing freakout over ACORN was itself bullshit and this is not.

At the end of the day, the past two days demonstrates what people can accomplish when they come together and mobilize. Let’s remember that, yeah?

UPDATE: Planned Parenthood raised $3M in two days as a result of Komen-tastrophe.  That ought to send a clear message to Republicans and other Forced Birthers not to mess with Planned Parenthood and not to mess with women’s health.

(h/t @rollingingraves for the video clip)