General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOk, I have been looking into this Girl Scout thing...
and I want to make sure I have this right...
Conservatives think the Girl Scouts of America 'promote' homosexuality, contraception and abortion because they don't take an official stand on any of that stuff other than to say it is up to parents to discuss it with their girls and happened to have a speaker at their rally that is a lesbian? Did the fact that she is also the mayor of HOUSTON, where the rally was held, and never mentioned homosexuality factor into anybody's thinking? I am guessing that as it does not appear that there is any thinking going on, that would be a big 'no' on that one.
You have got to give conservatives credit for creativity. They can whip up a controversy over absolutely NOTHING with a speed and vindictiveness that is just stunning.
Ratty
(2,100 posts)MadrasT
(7,237 posts)Because I was so impressed by that.
Ratty
(2,100 posts)So long to my diet.
That is mind blowing to me. Here is the ultimate teachable moment for tolerance and understanding and these parents respond with this. Way to raise your kids to be thoughtful and understanding.
Kinda makes you sick.
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,338 posts)that their website links (or used to link) to Media Matters for America.
HappyMe
(20,277 posts)or a suggestion box for future controversies. That would provide hours of entertainment.
elleng
(129,771 posts)Learned from origins of p.r./propaganda. Read all about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_public_relations
'Lee often engaged in one-way propagandizing on behalf of clients despised by the public, including Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller. Shortly before his death, the US Congress had been investigating Rockefeller's work on behalf of the controversial Nazi German company IG Farben.
Bernays was the profession's first theorist. Bernays drew many of his ideas from Sigmund Freud's theories about the irrational, unconscious motives that shape human behaviour. Bernays authored several books, including Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), Propaganda (1928), and The Engineering of Consent (1947). He saw public relations as an "applied social science" that uses insights from psychology, sociology, and other disciplines to scientifically manage and manipulate the thinking and behavior of an irrational and "herdlike" public. "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society," he wrote in Propaganda, "Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."
One of Bernays' early clients was the tobacco industry. In 1929, he orchestrated a now-legendary publicity stunt aimed at persuading women to take up cigarette smoking, an act that at the time was exclusively equated with men. It was considered unfeminine and inappropriate for women to smoke; besides the occasional prostitute, virtually no women participated in the act publicly. (Indeed, in some countries this is very much still the case.[citation needed])
Bernays initially consulted psychoanalyst A. A. Brill for advice, Brill told him: "Some women regard cigarettes as symbols of freedom... Smoking is a sublimation of oral eroticism; holding a cigarette in the mouth excites the oral zone. It is perfectly normal for women to want to smoke cigarettes. Further the first women who smoked probably had an excess of male components and adopted the habit as a masculine act. But today the emancipation of women has suppressed many feminine desires. More women now do the same work as men do.... Cigarettes, which are equated with men, become torches of freedom."[citation needed]
Upon hearing this analysis, Bernays dubbed his PR campaign the: "Torches of Liberty Contingent".'
The Blue Flower
(5,419 posts)I can't imagine how they could go any lower. But I'm sure they'll think of something. I'm just amazed at how fast they can whip up something so utterly ridiculous and how many of their brain-dead zombies believe it.
Johonny
(20,610 posts)seriously WTF is wrong when long standing children's organizations become popular political attack targets. First it was these nutbags going after Boy Scout members who were not Christian and anti-homosexual enough, now it's the girl scouts for empowering young women to looking at aspects of life beyond being a slave to men. From abortion to homosexuality, boys and girls don't give a crap about these peoples sick agenda's. They want a little fun with their friends and some cookies.
HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)her public school told us we couldn't hold GS meetings in the school anymore. A local church offered their basement to hold the meetings. Problem? The Jewish mothers did not want to go to a christian church to have Brownie meetings. As a former Catholic, I didn't want to go there either.
We settled the issue by holding the meetings on a rotational basis in each mother's home. It avoided the religion issue entirely.
Horrors!!!!! SECULAR GS meetings!!!!!!!!!
HappyMe
(20,277 posts)in the church basement. Nobody complained. They just had the usual meeting, doing the usual stuff.
Just because it was in the church basement doesn't make the meetings non-secular.
LiberalFighter
(50,343 posts)Or what is the setting for one to enter.
HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)You had to see crosses and statues of Jesus on the way. The Jewish women didn't like that. Yes, they had crosses on the walls in the basement meeting room also. I found it objectional, so I could see the point of the Jewish mothers. Why should anyone going to a Girl Scout meeting have to be bombarded with objects of religion?
HopeHoops
(47,675 posts)CTyankee
(63,708 posts)is quite a "liberating" organization. They encourage girls to be leaders. The women I know who were active Girl Scouts are all very accomplished and have careers. This is now suspect to the Right Wing. They sure don't want girls to feel "empowered"!
renie408
(9,854 posts)Kber
(5,043 posts)so they thought a War on Little Girls might be more their speed.
surrealAmerican
(11,332 posts)... to bully the Girl Scouts into adopting policies to discriminate against atheists and homosexuals, just like they Boy Scouts do.