OMG CSPAN2 on margaret Sanger -- Eugenicist

[seventhson]

promoted segregation, forced sterilization, concentration camps, etc.

Ths guy is scary. So was Sanger

[ikojo]

1. Looking at the Book TV schedule for today it

appears to be one long Bush campaign commercial. 'David Flynn is on right now shredding Noam Chomsky. Later Michael Moore is on but right after him is someone who wrote the book, Michael Moore is a big fat stupid white man.

Daniel Flynn, Intellectual Morons: How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall for Stupid Ideas

8:00
William Kristol & Joseph Nye, The War Over Iraq & Soft Power

9:30
George Marlin, The American Catholic Voter: 200 Years of Political Impact

10:50
Encore Booknotes: Arthur Grace, Choose Me: Portraits of a Presidential Race

12:00 pm
Featured Program: 2004 Political Books Roundtable featuring James Wolcott and Jay Nordlinger

1:30
Jon Stewart, Ben Karlin, & David Javerbaum, America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction

3:00
Stephen Moore, Bullish on Bush: How George W. Bush's Ownership Society Will Make America Stronger

4:00
Interview with Douglas Brinkley, Author of "Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War" followed by segment featuring John O'Neill, author of "Unfit for Command"

[MUSTANG_2004]

2. What are you talking about?

John Stewart, Douglas Brinkley and Michael Moore won't be doing a Bush commercial. While I don't recognize all the names, I suspect that at least some of the authors will be non-partisan in their discussions.

[ikojo]

3. Bill Kristol and his ilk have no problem getting air time

on other media outlets.

I don't think Book TV should lend legitimacy to the Unfit for Command guys. If anyone is unfit for command it is the shrub.

It's like they bend over backwards to appease conservatives..if there is a "liberal" book show then it MUST be followed by a conservative book program regardless how outrageous the hypothesis.

[AG78]

12. Don't become

what you hate. If you don't want to listen to it, change the channel.

And oddly enough, Bill Kristol is on BookTV right now.

[Rich Hunt]

13. that's the policy

Those are the rules at C-SPAN. They're not 'bending over to please conservatives' - if it weren't for that rule, we probably wouldn't be seeing as many of our people. It's fine with me.

[MUSTANG_2004]

4. With Margaret Sanger, just take the good and ignore the other

She supported her share of unpleasant ideas, but in her defense, the eugenics movement had wide popular support at the time.

[ikojo]

5. The SAT test was born out of the eugenics movement

http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~rgibson/SATFascistOrigins.htm

The genealogy of the SAT is far more authentic than the importance attached to the test's scores. The SAT was born from the initial IQ tests, written by French psychologist Alfred Binet. In the US, Lewis Terman and Robert Yerkes promoted the IQ test and made it a popular instrument to determine who should be an officer, in a segregated military, during WWI . Their IQ test was designed to prove the genetic advantage of races they had already identified as superior. Terman and Yerkes were executives in the American Eugenics Society (Mehler).

[seventhson]

10. Thanks for posting this important info

Scary

[seventhson]

7. Yeah - it can't be all badL The Bushes, Rockefellers and Hitler

all promoted it.

[kayell]

6. You are not getting the whole story

"Sanger's disagreement with the eugenicists of her day is clear from her remarks in The Birth Control Review of February 1919:

Eugenists imply or insist that a woman's first duty is to the state; we contend that her duty to herself is her first duty to the state. We maintain that a woman possessing an adequate knowledge of her reproductive functions is the best judge of the time and conditions under which her child should be brought into the world. We further maintain that it is her right, regardless of all other considerations, to determine whether she shall bear children or not, and how many children she shall bear if she chooses to become a mother (1919a).

Margaret Sanger clearly identified with the issues of health and fitness that concerned the early 20th-century eugenics movement, which was enormously popular and well-respected during the 1920s and '30s, when treatments for many hereditary and disabling conditions were unknown. However, Sanger always believed that reproductive decisions should be made on an individual and not a social or cultural basis, and she consistently repudiated any racial application of eugenics principles. For example, Sanger vocally opposed the racial stereotyping that effected passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, on the grounds that intelligence and other inherited traits vary by individual and not by group."

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about/thisispp/sanger.html
There is a lot more here on Sangers views on race and many other issues. Although we would consider some of her attitudes objectionable, she was still FAR ahead of her time.

[seventhson]

8. Frankly - I don't buy it.

I need to see the documents cited, but she looked like a raging racist to me based on what this guy SAID was in the archived documents that SHE wrote on slave labor camps and sterilization of minorities.

I admit the guy could be lying but I doubt it. I have seen this from the left as well.

[kayell]

9. Have you read the entire article? Come back when you have.

They lay out what she said, and what she didn't very clearly. They don't gloss over Sangers flaws, but also put some of her words that have been misquoted in context. They correct misattributions that are commonly repeated.

I repeat, YOU ARE NOT GETTING THE FULL STORY. While one article, even a long one, can not cover everything either, it will be far more complete and accurate than what you are seeing.

There is reason that some attack Sanger, rather than honestly evaluate her actions in the context of her time. The usual reason is that by discrediting Sanger, they seek to discredit birth control and women's control of their own bodies. The same people who oppose abortion have far, FAR more ambitious plans. Don't be duped.

Incidentally, if you read the whole article, you will see the references at the bottom.

[seventhson]

11. Okay

But I have a low tolerance for such thinkers.


The Eugenics movement led directly to the Holocaust and no amount of perspective can really change that.

I am staunchly prochoice because I believe it is a natural right --- but that does not make Sanger any better in my eyes.

I will keep an open mind, however, thanks to your persistence.

[kayell]

15. Thanks for looking further. Sanger wasn't a saint by any means, but

in the context of her times she was pretty far ahead.

It just seems that the people who attack her by presenting a one-sided distortion of who she was have an agenda that goes far beyond criticizing her actual actions and words.

[seventhson]

17. I agree - I DID say that the author on CSPAN was scary

But I have seen this info from other non-rightwing sources so I feel that it is important not to accept disinformation either way.

[MUSTANG_2004]

14. I did read the whole article

And I think Planned Parenthood was being selective in how they represented her. I don't think she was a eugenicist, but I think she was sympathetic to many of their views. Do a google on sanger and eugenics and you'll see she had links to many of the prominent eugenics proponents and spouted her share of their nonsense.

It doesn't take away from the Planned Parenthood of today, and I don't think Sanger's views (which were much more mainstream at the time) should be a referendum on Planned Parenthood.

[kayell]

16. Well, I suspect they are trying to counter the other sides propaganda, and

they do also present her faults in the article and in this little summary.

"Although Sanger uniformly repudiated the racist exploitation of eugenics principles, she agreed with the "progressives" of her day who favored

* incentives for the voluntary hospitalization and/or sterilization of people with untreatable, disabling, hereditary conditions
* the adoption and enforcement of stringent regulations to prevent the immigration of the diseased and "feebleminded" into the U.S.
* placing so-called illiterates, paupers, unemployables, criminals, prostitutes, and dope-fiends on farms and open spaces as long as necessary for the strengthening and development of moral conduct

Planned Parenthood Federation of America finds these views objectionable and outmoded. "

Often when looking at the past and actions of people then, we have to approach it in the same way that we would in looking at another culture. In the context of Sangers culture, she was unquestionably progressive. In modern terms, her ties to some people were questionable at best, and heinous without context.

We should also consider how we and our progressive leaders will be judged in later years. How will history judge the people who say that they do not approve of gay marriage, only civil unions, because marriage is between a man and a woman? How will people of the future judge the torturous conditions that we raise food animals under? How will they judge our devotion to the automobile?

How should we judge Thomas Jefferson for owning slaves? Should we toss out everything else he did as worthless, because he owned other people, a thoroughly reprehensible practice, but normal in his time?

Do you want all your actions judged solely in the context of the world a hundred years from now?