Heavily Edited Videos and Propaganda Catch-All!

I'm seeing tons of discussion about Planned Parenthood / selling baby parts / altering procedures / etc. on facebook. Even presenting a neutral source with a good deconstruction of the video though doesn't seem to change some people's minds.

Its amazing how desperate Planned Parenthood's political opponents are for PP to a be a boogeyman. How does one even begin to deprogram the knee-jerk "I hate them so they must be doing something illegal" reaction?

First thing to understand: they are not desperate, they are cynical and ruthless. They are just using whatever they can to attack their opponents. Every politician does this, because it's how the game works - it's how they appeal to their base and motivate people to vote. Republicans are racist corporate shills, Democrats are baby-killing (and selling) communists.

Second thing: it is never about the facts. It's about emotion, pure and simple. The facts are simply a convenient skeleton to wrap the story around. Emotion dominates mass-market politics, because it's the easiest way to get people acting as a group. Fear is particularly effective, followed by loathing and disgust. A hat trick is just the thing to get your base fired up.

Third thing: there no such thing as a neutral source. If whoever it is supports your view, they are the Unimpeachable Voice of Logic and Reason. If they oppose your view, they are the Mercenary Amateur Quacks. If you pay close attention, you'll see the same source flip flop back and forth in the media based on their position du jour versus the media source. Politics cannot tolerate a neutral source, because that source might gain credibility, and eventually power.

Final thing: this is not about what's right and wrong. It's not about hate, or things that are illegal, or boogeymen. It's about power. Getting it, keeping it, and growing it. The individual issue is completely meaningless to them. A little historical research will help you understand how the parties have changed over time - their positions on individual issues are almost entirely reversed from a hundred years ago. This doesn't bother them in the slightest, because ... it's all about power.

In fact, the only reason this issue is even prominent as a propaganda point is a side effect of the growth of power - the federal funding of Planned Parenthood. If Planned Parenthood wasn't getting Some of My Taxpayer Dollars, the attackers would have a lot less of a leg to stand on, and the propaganda would be less emotionally effective.

This can't be good.

Late Sunday night, a group of hackers who oppose the healthcare nonprofit's abortion practices released Planned Parenthood's website databases as well as names and email addresses of the organization's employees.

The group provided the following rationale for its attack on Planned Parenthood:

We've noticed quite a lot of attention has been diverted to a supposedly malicious organization known as Planned Parenthood. The actions of this 'federation' are not seen as right in the eyes of the public. So here we are, the social justice warriors, seeking to reclaim some sort of lulz for the years and thousands of dollars that Planned Parenthood have wasted and made harvesting your babies.

Some folks really suck at humaning

OG_slinger wrote:

This can't be good.

Late Sunday night, a group of hackers who oppose the healthcare nonprofit's abortion practices released Planned Parenthood's website databases as well as names and email addresses of the organization's employees.

The group provided the following rationale for its attack on Planned Parenthood:

We've noticed quite a lot of attention has been diverted to a supposedly malicious organization known as Planned Parenthood. The actions of this 'federation' are not seen as right in the eyes of the public. So here we are, the social justice warriors, seeking to reclaim some sort of lulz for the years and thousands of dollars that Planned Parenthood have wasted and made harvesting your babies.

So the people that hacked Planned Parenthood are calling themselves social justice warriors? Could this be a worse attempt at a false flag?

Stengah wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

This can't be good.

Late Sunday night, a group of hackers who oppose the healthcare nonprofit's abortion practices released Planned Parenthood's website databases as well as names and email addresses of the organization's employees.

The group provided the following rationale for its attack on Planned Parenthood:

We've noticed quite a lot of attention has been diverted to a supposedly malicious organization known as Planned Parenthood. The actions of this 'federation' are not seen as right in the eyes of the public. So here we are, the social justice warriors, seeking to reclaim some sort of lulz for the years and thousands of dollars that Planned Parenthood have wasted and made harvesting your babies.

So the people that hacked Planned Parenthood are calling themselves social justice warriors? Could this be a worse attempt at a false flag?

Honestly, given the lulz, I have to wonder if words have any meaning to this person. But, reporting on a group saying they've got something when they've got zero proof of that is pretty weird for a news item. It's like all those news items on Emma Watson being hacked and someone having nudes of her and trying to blackmail her to stop her from talking with the UN on feminism... then she did, and... oh look, nothing happened.

Supposedly these hackers have a massive internal database that "just needs to be un-encrypted". Yeaaaaaaaaaaah, good luck with that.

This is all so depressing.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

This is all so depressing.

What's really depressing has been the systematic (and largely successful) maneuverings by conservative state legislatures to make a necessary and perfectly legal medical procedure all but impossible to get for far, far too many woman.

And, just for added kicks, the same state legislatures have made sure that the women who do go through said medical procedure are as shamed, violated, humiliated, and inconvenienced as possible.

OG_slinger wrote:
TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

This is all so depressing.

What's really depressing has been the systematic (and largely successful) maneuverings by conservative state legislatures to make a necessary and perfectly legal medical procedure all but impossible to get for far, far too many woman.

And, just for added kicks, the same state legislatures have made sure that the women who do go through said medical procedure are as shamed, violated, humiliated, and inconvenienced as possible.

Don't forget in those states where they've made it all but impossible, they've also started allowing rapists to sue for parental rights over children conceived during their sexual assaults, so the women are also being subjected to torture by the state by forcing them to interact with, or at the bare minimum, know that their kids are being forced to interact with their mother's rapist.

Demosthenes wrote:

Don't forget in those states where they've made it all but impossible, they've also started allowing rapists to sue for parental rights over children conceived during their sexual assaults, so the women are also being subjected to torture by the state by forcing them to interact with, or at the bare minimum, know that their kids are being forced to interact with their mother's rapist.

What? WHAT?!

MrDeVil909 wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

Don't forget in those states where they've made it all but impossible, they've also started allowing rapists to sue for parental rights over children conceived during their sexual assaults, so the women are also being subjected to torture by the state by forcing them to interact with, or at the bare minimum, know that their kids are being forced to interact with their mother's rapist.

What? WHAT?!

Yeah. Sadly, it is true.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

Don't forget in those states where they've made it all but impossible, they've also started allowing rapists to sue for parental rights over children conceived during their sexual assaults, so the women are also being subjected to torture by the state by forcing them to interact with, or at the bare minimum, know that their kids are being forced to interact with their mother's rapist.

What? WHAT?!

Yeah. Sadly, it is true.

"There are lots of solutions that are short of this (bill) and I think a lot of time when things come in this top-down fashion, based on one or two truly tragic stories, we end up making bad law," said attorney Aviva Orenstein.

...

Is... is there a legitimate fear of anyone other than the rapists calling this a bad law?

This article is a great dissection of the PP videos.

Hey, who cares if it's completely edited and misleading - let's just repeat the lie over and over to gain support for people rallying against the thing that didn't happen!

National pro-life group Students for Life of America (SFLA) and its partner organization Pro-Life Future have launched the #WomenBetrayed initiative which urges citizens across the nation to rally to demand their states investigate, prosecute and defund Planned Parenthood.

According to a press release, SFLA chose the title of the initiative, #WomenBetrayed, because “Planned Parenthood has betrayed the very patients – women and their children – who they claim to care about and have compassion for.”

Bonus points for another major data point in the long, exasperating line of how the GOP tries to sell itself as the ones who are "really protecting women".

It didn't occur to me until Rebecca Watson pointed it out in this video, but this is basically a straight up example of the blood libel. Ridiculous.

"People will believe the unbelievable if it mean they get what they want."

Um. Yeah. Like, every con since the dawn of time has always been based in some form or another to this very basic human thought process flaw.

That's a great video, thanks for sharing it, Hypatian.

So the accusations continue. I've heard everything from "PP steal baby parts" to "PP has abortion quotas!" Meanwhile, several states have investigated and come up with nothing. Planned Parenthood is in full compliance with the law.

This whole thing feels vaguely like GamerGate, only instead of a small amount of delusional people who aren't seeing the same planet everyone else is, it is a somewhat larger group of delusional people.

At this point I feel like someone could say "Planned Parenthood kidnaps puppies, injects them with toxic sludge, then feed them to sharks" and there's a group of people who would immediately believe it no questions asked.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

This whole thing feels vaguely like GamerGate, only instead of a small amount of delusional people who aren't seeing the same planet everyone else is, it is a somewhat larger group of delusional people.

Also, a lot of those delusional people are powerful political leaders. I know we're deep enough into the resurgent age of proud willful ignorance, but it still shocks me how eagerly these guys are elbowing each other out of the way to declare themselves the most gullible.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

I know we're deep enough into the resurgent age of proud willful ignorance, but it still shocks me how eagerly these guys are elbowing each other out of the way to declare themselves the most gullible.

It's an election year and this stuff is red meat to the social conservatives. Plus it already came out that the Center for Medical Progress, the creators of the videos, gave a pre-screening to select Republican Congressional representatives weeks before they went public.

What I'm hoping for is that the IRS finishes its investigation, determines the group purposefully tried to deceive Uncle Sam, and that there's some obscure federal law that mandates some serious jail time for all of CMP's officers.

OG_slinger wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:

I know we're deep enough into the resurgent age of proud willful ignorance, but it still shocks me how eagerly these guys are elbowing each other out of the way to declare themselves the most gullible.

It's an election year and this stuff is red meat to the social conservatives. Plus it already came out that the Center for Medical Progress, the creators of the videos, gave a pre-screening to select Republican Congressional representatives weeks before they went public.

Gov. Gary Herbert, as withered and evil and pea-brained and thus entrenched a Utah Republican as there ever was, doesn't face that joke until next year. I suppose the frothing base is the frothing base because it find ideology preferable to not being a dupe, but it's still a shock to witness.

A House of Representatives hearing into whether or not Planned Parenthood should be defunded in the wake of the videos brought about this exchange between Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Priscilla Smith, Director of Yale Law School’s Program for the Study of Reproductive Justice.

OH MY GOD. I WANT TO SCREAM AT THAT MAN.

At least he unequivocally got his rhetorical ass kicked in that clip.

These hearings are the ultimate waste of taxpayer money.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

OH MY GOD. I WANT TO SCREAM AT THAT MAN.

At least he unequivocally got his rhetorical ass kicked in that clip.

These hearings are the ultimate waste of taxpayer money.

Given they're about Planned Parenthood and guess who wasn't invited... yeah. They're about as stupid as possible... and it astounds me that politicians continue to do this dog and pony show when Planned Parenthood still has the public's support, even after these sh*t videos.

Wait wait wait - Planned Parenthood wasn't invited to these hearings?

Come on, Harpo... Would you invite an accused criminal to a trial? Pfft... That's no way to get justice done!

It's way worse than simple dog and pony shows.

Florida governor Rick Scott was caught red-handed mucking around with the results of the investigation he ordered the state's Agency for Health Care Administration to conduct into Planned Parenthood.

Even though the investigation found absolutely no evidence that Florida Planned Parenthood clinics broke the law by operating a fetal tissue donation program Scott's office stripped out the phrase "there is no evidence of the mishandling of fetal remains" from the press release the AHCA had written.

Even worse, both Scott's office and the AHCA tried to smear Planned Parenthood by claiming that the investigation found several Planned Parenthood clinics that were providing "unauthorized" and "unlicensed" second trimester abortions.

That, of course, was bullsh*t since AHCA's own rules say that first-trimester pregnancies are those within “the first 12 weeks of pregnancy (the first 14 completed weeks from the last normal menstrual period)” and all the abortions in question fell into that time frame. So the only way the AHCA could say that Planned Parenthood was doing something wrong was if they just arbitrarily changed the definition of what a first trimester was (a definition that would contradict what the broader medical community accepts).

The reporting of that information was attributed to unnamed AHCA sources though subsequent investigation found out that the statement was actually penned by John Tupps, Scott's deputy communications director.

So they're not just holding pointless hearings, they're straight up lying about Planned Parenthood.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

Wait wait wait - Planned Parenthood wasn't invited to these hearings?

Their Facebook post from two days ago suggested they were not... now I'm curious to see if that was true...

Guardian says that it is true. Planned Parenthood is missing from the hearings. They made sure to bring in a few women who have described themselves as "abortion survivors" though.

If I were only going from the soundbites I've been hearing from these proceedings I would be convinced that PP was a baby killing factory run by demons who seek only to annihilate all of the unborn, with or without the mother's consent, and that they do so dangerously and without remorse while selling tiny hands and feet from fetuses on the black market. To say a good number of the diatribes from the politicians have been over the top would be understatement.

OG_slinger wrote:

A House of Representatives hearing into whether or not Planned Parenthood should be defunded in the wake of the videos brought about this exchange between Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Priscilla Smith, Director of Yale Law School’s Program for the Study of Reproductive Justice.

Man, that guy tried so hard to make the argument "we should feed babies and not kill them" that he just followed his script even when it was clear he was having a conversation with himself and himself only.