There is a new development in the abortion fight. If you remember the ACORN video during Obama's presidential campaign, you might feel a sense of deja vu.
Before we get into the controversy, let me say that this war on Planned Parenthood (as you know, this is not the first attempt to defund or shut it down) makes no sense to me. Besides the whole problem I have with others being involved in your choices affecting your family, sexuality, and body and NO ONE ELSE'S, there are other absurdities. Planned Parenthood offers many services to low income people as well as sex education, birth control, and treatment and aid when women are raped. Why would you want to block other people's access to these, in some cases, life saving services?? Sure, you may have a great health care plan and insurance, low co-pay, first rate doctors you can call as soon as you get the sniffles, but many people don't. Supporting movements to block access to that is heartless and hypocritical, especially since many who support this are SUPPOSED TO BE CHRISTIANS and should want to 'do unto others' and love their neighbors, love the adults as much as the fetuses.
The sources on the right, predictably led by Fox News, have cast this as 'OMG Planned Parenthood is selling babies!!!' But of course the truth is quite a bit less sensational. They want us to believe Planned Parenthood is either pressuring women to have abortions or pressuring women to sell fetal tissue so either they or the organization can make money. So instead of examining the sketchy video and submitting the rookie sting to any kind of scrutiny, Republicans want Planned Parenthood shut down (big shocker, as they have been trying to do this for ages) and a massive investigation be conducted. Makes sense, right? No.
Here is Planned Parenthood's statement:
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/planned-parenthood-statement-hoax-campaign
So if you want to see the slant and the videos, you can probably find some here:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/07/21/new-planned-parenthood-video-shows-top-doc-haggling-over-price-fetal-body-parts/
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/op-ed-women-betrayed/article/2568758
There were highly edited clips released (making the employee sound cavalier, making it sound as though something illegal might be going on) then the full versions were released, where it was made clear there is no trafficking in fetal tissue and in which some jokes in bad taste were made. Probably not the best way to talk about it, but not illegal. Also, when you are talking about something difficult, you sometimes make jokes, so this could have been the case. Doctors and professionals who deal with these things on a daily basis have a much greater ease in talking about them than the general public and this could be interpreted as callousness to the uninitiated. And not to mention, if we broke down every medical procedure to this level, we can make any of it sound extremely gruesome.
So of course what follows is that there is a rally in a few days in support of defunding Planned Parenthood, a long fight, not specific to this new video hoax or all new.
http://studentsforlife.org/womenbetrayed-rallies-happening-july-28th/
Now here are some sources that can shed some light on the situation, or tell the other side of the story, if you want to look at it like that. Apparently, Planned Parenthood is reimbursed for travel and transport of the tissue donations and this was cast as "illegal sale" and trafficking, which would be quite the scandal. If it had any basis in fact.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/29/planned-parenthood-video_n_1552672.html
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2011/02/its_hard_out_here_for_a_pimp.html
http://www.salon.com/2015/07/16/what_the_planned_parenthood_hoax_really_proves_right_wing_extremists_have_no_qualms_about_destroying_peoples_lives/
I’ve been trying to put my list of books to read online so I can stop carrying around 100s of tiny bits of paper with titles or authors scribbled on them. I decided to see which ones I could find at my little local library. I found 2 or 3 of the 40 or so. I did find 2 others on the Middle East and The Conflict that sounded interesting. Prisoners was one. Should have left that one on the shelf. So, that brings me to Finkelstein’s book. I searched and found no Pappe, Findley, Segev, etc, but Dershowitz aplenty. Naturally I was pretty surprised to see Finkelstein come up in the search results.
"The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering" by Norman Finkelstein discusses some of these works (of fiction, as it turns out) below and the implications and or possible causes.
I would feel a little sad to read a great memoir of someone who overcomes such tragedy only to find out its a fake. Maybe it wouldn't make much difference, though. A good story is a good story. But there is just something about it being a true account. Maybe, as suggested elsewhere, the story became their own in the course of the writing such that they couldn't separate themselves from it. Creative genius?
Holocaust Memoirs Subsequently Found to be Fictional:
"The Painted Bird" by Jerzy Kosinsky
"Hitler's Willing Executioners" by Goldhagen (Finkelstein calls it “Fragments with footnotes”)
"Fragments" by Binjamin Wilkomirski
"Angel at the Fence" by Herman Rosenblat- outed ~ Dec 2008
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"In A Nation on Trial" by Ruth Bettina Birn- an exposee on one or more of these frauds
FYI-- Raul Hilberg is thought by Finkelstein to be a Holocaust scholar, in contrast to the above collection
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The Holocaust isn't unique in its hoax production...
Another Hoax:
A Hoax and Honor Lost for Norma Khouri
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/7966
Book: Forbidden Love/ Honor Lost
The Real Deal:
Rana Husseini: Jordanian Journalist Who Exposed 'Honor Killings' Tells Story In New Book
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/28/rana-husseini-jordanian-j_n_246534.html
Book: "Murder in the Name of Honor"
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Around the time of the last Holocaust memoir hoax, the BBC discussed Holocaust denial or the taboo of questioning the Holocaust on WHYS. Finkelstein's book also reminded me of this. He comments on this taboo of how it is considered sacreligious to question details or to compare this tragedy with others or its victims with other victims. Both the book and the BBC make interesting points and raise interesting questions probably in a way that no one else can without being labeled anti-Semitic.
Here's the email with the show topic info:
Hi Chloe here,
He was ordered to leave Argentina after the inflammatory comments he made about the holocaust, now the Roman Catholic Bishop Richard Williamson has returned to Britain. Now let's be clear in an interview with Swedish television he didn't deny the holocaust took place, but he did deny the extent of it. He said
"I believe that the historical evidence is strongly against -- is hugely against -- 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler.....I believe there were no gas chambers."
More here: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/02/25/holocaust.bishop.britain/index.html
ON AIR: WHAT'S WRONG WITH QUESTIONING THE HOLOCAUST?
Bishop Williamson isn't the first person to step into this area. British historian David Irving was sentenced to a prison term for denying the holocaust
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4733820.stm
Richard Williamson has even been in contact with David Irving about how to present his views
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/02/25/13327/
We're not debating whether the holocaust took place. But is this the one event in history that can't be questioned? Some people would argue that questioning the holocaust is just an opinion, and a minority one at that, so does it matter? Isn't the right to free speech important to protect, even if we find certain views offensive? Have laws outlawing holocaust denial in Germany stopped people having those views?
Or is there a danger that people who question or deny that the holocaust took place are actually legitimising the views of Neo- Nazis.
If you're to question someone's religious faith, you wouldn't be shunned by people or lose your job. But you could be if you questioned holocaust ....Why?
There is a debate taking place already....
http://atheonews.blogspot.com/2009/02/debating-holocaust-new-look-at-both.html
More here: http://hdot.org/
Speak later,
Chloe
SUGGEST A DEBATE FOR WHYS: http://worldhaveyoursay.wordpress.com/suggest-a-debate/
SUBSCRIBE TO THE WHYS PODCAST: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/whys/
