Though I’m not involved in the abortion debate, I do raise money for my own non-profit — can I also start a hate campaign when a donor decides to stop giving money? It happens all the time — the next generation of a family takes over and changes the focus of the foundation’s giving, for instance. Who do the Planned Parenthood people think they are? It takes real chutzpah to think, and announce, that you’re entitled to someone else’s money. (But then, they are Democrats, after all.)
Taranto at the WSJ made a good point today:
Planned Parenthood’s bitter campaign against Komen — aided by left-liberal activists and media — is analogous to a protection racket: Nice charity you’ve got there. It’d be a shame if anything happened to it. The message to other Planned Parenthood donors is that if they don’t play nice and keep coughing up the cash, they’ll get the Komen treatment.
There’s one crucial difference, however. In a real-life protection racket, the victim never pays voluntarily. The threat is present from the get-go. By contrast, Komen presumably was not under any duress when it made its grants — and it could have avoided all this nasty publicity by never dealing with Planned Parenthood in the first place.
Thus smart prospective donors — especially ones that are apolitical, like Komen — are getting the message that supporting Planned Parenthood is a trap. Give once, and you will give again — or else you will pay.
In other words, don’t ever start giving money to PP, so they can’t wage a jihad against you for cutting them off.
As for me, I promise that if you give me money, I won’t go to the newspapers if you stop!
Mark, you and so many others here are totally missing the point. PP did not engineer this backlash—they couldn't have, even if they wanted to (and they probably did want to). The media didn't do it either, regardless of what you think of how this was covered. This was a pure, grassroots social media backlash, passed from friend to friend via Facebook and Twitter. Anybody who logged onto social media in the last few days knows this without any question. Trying to pin the "blame" on PP or the media is silly. As you rightfully say, they don't have the power to "demand" who Komen gives its money to. But the thousands of people who give their own money to Komen, wear its pink ribbons, run in its races, etc, they have the power to speak out when they disagree—and more importantly, speak with their wallets by refusing to support Komen in favor of PP or other groups. THAT is what caused this reversal, such as it is, not anything nefarious, much as everyone on NR seems to want to believe.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRe: this Washington Post entry:
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This is a common, insidious practice of the Congress, (especially the Senate) of using implied intimidation to coerce the behavior of a private organization.
The Left is more pathologically adept at this practice. But it is bi-partisan. Recall Orin Hatch's recent attempts to hold hearings on the college football Bowl Championship Series (BCS). As if the Football National Championship is a Federal issue.
This is the kind of vulgar excess of Federal arrogance that drives people to Ron Paul (who would never put his signature on documents like those.)
Contempt of Congress is often a good thing...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo as a non-profit manager you are saying if your donors disapproved of a funding decision you made you think they should just shut their mouths and not complain about it? Did it ever occur to you that many of the people who criticized Komen are public members who gave to the charity or volunteered their time? Since when do non-profits live in a world where their funding decision should not be scrutinized? I'm sorry you guys lost out on this one, but it is pretty sad to see you whining about it and trying to some how make Komen the victim here. The bottom line is that if you are a very public non-profit your decisions will be closely scrutinized and possibly criticized if the public does not like it. That is a good thing in general, even if in this case it was an unfortunate loss for conservatives.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis might all work if the campaign was a moderate protest against Komen for ceasing to fund Planned Parenthood.
It wasn't. It was a crazed stream of hysterical misrepresentations about both the breast-health related work that Planned Parenthood doesn't really do much of, and the likely effect of Komen's giving someone else the money (as opposed to flushing it down the drain or giving it to cigarette manufacturers to promote more cancer, I was never sure which was envisioned by the screamers.)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJust like Islam, the Mafia and the IRA--once in, never out.
To say it was grass roots, social networking is so disingenuous it makes me want to barf. On the planet I live on (the one where the sun rises in the east) it is one pressure group's grotesquely above board thuggish behavior. Maybe the Feds can direct their RICO fanaticism against PP and the abortionists for a change?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"grotesquely above board" - amazing
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Can I also start a hate campaign when a donor decides to stop giving money?"
Yes. You can. Does that clear things up for you? I don't understand why you would think it is illegal or who exactly yout think would stop you. Now, it might turn out that no one cares about your "hate campaign," but it turns out that a lot of people did care about Komen's decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood. That's how these things work. Asking stupid rhetorical questions as if it proves something is another thing that you can do. Maybe people will even find it convincing. Good luck with that.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOr else....what? Unlike the actual protection racket, no one is going to get kneecapped. When millions of people across the country let Komen know in no uncertain terms their displeasure with the PP decision, it's apparently a "jihad." As Karen Handel might say, cry me a freaking river.
It's funny watching the right wingers heads explode as they now blast Komen, the same group they just yesterday were praising. And believe me, the semi reversal won't buy back them back into the good graces of the "left-liberal activists and media." Komen has already proven what they are, now it's just a matter of haggling over the price.
Also funny is that K Lo felt the need to revise her own earlier posting about Lance Armstrong. I guess her original implied "Stop giving to Livestrong, or else," didn't fit with the party line.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOr else....what? Unlike the actual protection racket, no one is going to get kneecapped.
Yes, because when people are hacked, viciously slandered in public, and threatened with financial ruin, they should just shut up and take it, because after all, no one's actually going to put a barrel to their knees and pull the trigger. Especially when they're just a worthless wh[o]re haggling over pennies for doing what they did in the first place, right?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThat's the difference between you and me. I don't want you to shut up and take anything. Go ahead and threaten Planned Parenthood with financial ruin. After all, that's what Krikorian and K Lo and Taranto and your ilk have been pushing all along, and were all cheering about when Komen said it was pulling its grants. Looks like the free market won, since Komen realized millions of its "customers" were unhappy with its position when they made their displeasure known. So by all means continue to push your position, just don't get all whiney when the other side pushes back.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLOL! You do realize that you just proved everyone's point about this matter, don't you?
Since, presumably, K Lo, Taranto and my ilk have never received money from PP, we cannot "threaten it with financial ruin" by expropriating continued donations from it. Therefore logic dictates that the only way we could be "threatening it with financial ruin" is by calling for an end of taxpayer funding of PP, which of course we have done. In spades.
In order for calling for an end to taxpayer funding of PP to be "threatening it with financial ruin" you must live in an alternative universe where PP has an inalienable right to taxpayer money. Just like PP apparently has an inalienable right to Komen's money.
Thanks for proving the point!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWrongo. If you ilksters were only calling for ending of taxpayer funding of PP, you wouldn't have any dog in the PP/Komen fight. But no, you were all rah rah when Komen said it was ending grants to PP that help women's health. Now you cry a freaking river when Komen listens to its actual customers and reverses course. So like I said, you wingers can go ahead and keep raising a stink about PP, keep calling for boycotts of JC Penney because they use Ellen Degeneres in their ads, keep demanding that shariah law be banned but the Christian 10 Commandments be codified into law. Just stop being shocked, shocked, when you are called on your hypocrisy.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseA lot of the critics here miss the point - it doesn't matter who initiated the anti-Komen hate campaign, whether it was PP's leaders or just a social media backlash. The point is that it happened.
Komen began giving to PP, and t damaged it's reputation among pro-lifers. It decided to end the contributions, and it damaged its reputation among pro-abortionists. Now it's doubled back, and neither side is really happy. Komen lost the minute it chose to give to Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood has temporarily gained from the spat, but in the long run both organizations stand to lose. Pro-lifers are more aware of Komen's support for Planned Parenthood. I have conservative, pro-life family members who participate in Race for the Cure every year. I'll bet they won't this year.
And no organization with any concern for its public image will give to Planned Parenthood, knowing the risks involved.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou're suffering from Moonbat Logic. (True fact: It happens on the right just as much as on the left.)
Many of K's own donors objected to chopping off PP. Now many of them will be donating directly to PP. That's their right. Got a problem with that?
The whole pro-life/pro-choice part is irrelevant. PP used the money from K for their breast-cancer screening program. Got a problem with that too?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis is missing an important point. Komen backtracked not because it gave in to a media campaign or twitter campaign or "jihad", but because they ticked off their OWN donors.
Komen's primary function is to raise money and distribute it. The people who donate to Komen are the real owners of Komen, they're the shareholders. If they stop donating, Komen stops functioning. Komen has to do what their donors demand.
It doesn't matter what people on twitter think of Komen, it matters what people who write checks to Komen think of Komen.
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