Every day I learn something. Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, I get answers to any question I have. You know who I learn the most from? Wingnuts. They reference a ton of bullshit that requires further analysis.
I’m about to pick on Ben Carson again. I know, I risk going to the well so often, but he’s so full of shit I can’t help examining the dumbfuckery he traffics in. Planned Parenthood is in conservative crosshairs after an undercover sting that showed a PP representative dispassionately talk about the donating and acquisition of fetal tissue. Now the liberal media is all over this story, calling it a hoax, but the fact is that rep didn’t exactly do PP any favors. The discussion, even when edited, is kinda gruesome. The only thing that can be said that is bullshit about that video is the “sale” of the tissue-the price quoted is absurdly lowball for acquiring it. Most likely these are costs to cover for processing. Otherwise, the rep fucked up, got caught being matter-of-fact about the procedures and there is no denying that.
No doubt that all the conservative candidates would like to be the man or woman to shutter Planned Parenthood and clamp down on the right to abort a pregnancy. Ben wants to be the first out of the gate by giving a history lesson about the organization(I will not link to the wingnut site I got the quote from):
Republican 2016 presidential candidate Ben Carson recently asserted on a Des Moines, Iowa conservative radio show that the purpose behind Margaret Sanger’s founding of…Planned Parenthood was to “eliminate black people.”
Carson was asked by a WHO Radio host to comment on an Obama speech from last year in which the president defended Planned Parenthood and even said “Thank you, Planned Parenthood. God bless you.” Carson replied:
“You wonder if he actually knows the history of Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger, who was trying to eliminate black people. That was the whole purpose of it.”
So I had to go see for myself if this crazy claim had any validity to it. It is definitely true that Sanger was something of a Darwinist in the style of Herbert Spencer. But she was not a racist. Furthermore,she didn’t even believe in abortion. Her whole cause celebre was to prevent it by providing birth control to as many people as possible. The whole racist thing comes from a letter to a doctor:
“We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”
Well now, that looks awful on its face, doesn’t it? But Ben Carson is in the bubble. He just isn’t interested in context or facts. What Sanger was worried about is the suspicions of blacks that whites were trying to control and destroy them. In its time, that was a real concern for black leaders. Above all, Sanger wanted to work with blacks to help its women(and its men indirectly) choose life in a liberated fashion-exactly what she was counseling to everyone she could reach with her message. Unwanted pregnancies were the societal ill that Sanger devoted her life to. Birth control was the panacea. And today birth control is still with us, helping women to enjoy sexuality and choose motherhood when they want to, if they want to at all. And there are motherfuckers like Ben Carson who want to close off this avenue of choice because they are obsessed with the contents of women’s bodies below their waistline.
He really thinks he has a truffle, a cudgel against Hillary Clinton, who extolled the work of Sanger:
“I am delighted to have her saying that on tape because if I am a nominee and we are in the race, believe me, that quotation that she just said will come back and it will be in a context that people can understand. She has done us a great favor right there… That is a ticking time bomb and of course, her whole relationship with Saul Alinsky.”
Fucking Saul Alinsky again. The god-damned media needs to do its job and ask him what the fuck he finds objectionable about him, or grill him about what he knows about the guy. I would be delighted if he could tell me who he is and what he pioneered, which is the art of mass resistance, nothing more. “Saul Alinsky” is not going to be an effective dog-whistle to a large section of the populace. It may play with other ignoramuses, and I guess that’s the game he’s gotta play because he is hurting in the polls. But fuck him for tying an outrageous false narrative to the president and the soon-to-be president.
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