gandhi and kasturba's death (another reddit comment saved)

reddit user bertrand seems to have had problems with the atheism sub-reddit moderators, who keep deleting his post about how gandhi killed his wife by refusing her penicillin. in case the moderators decide unfairly to delete his post again, i've saved my comment here, because i spent a decent amount of time researching it and writing it, and i don't want that work to vanish because of some moderator's whim.

also, i think bertrand's post demonstrates a double standard of a kind which is common to all people, but which is most obnoxious among certain atheists, because these certain atheists believe that they are beyond such human failings, merely by virtue of the fact that they have recognized that a god, in all likelihood, does not exist.

on with the comment:

ugh. one sentence in an opinion piece somehow constitutes the truth?

of course it does. so long as the person in question could be considered in any way religious, he is fair game for people who have a beef with religions and their practitioners. no need for research, for delving deeper to find out what really happened. no need to examine or understand or sympathize with the emotional motivations behind the decision. rather, it is preferable to simply use this one writer's opinion to reinforce one's own prejudices.

here's what really happened:

1. gandhi's wife was 74 years old.
2. she had chronic bronchitis.
3. she had two heart attacks as a result of this illness, which left her bed-ridden for the remainder of her life.
4. she contracted pneumonia, which complicated her illness, at which point doctors told gandhi and his son that she was beyond medical help.
5. gandhi's son nevertheless wanted to try the relatively new miracle drug, penicillin, in hopes of curing her.
6. on her death bed, gandhi's wife acknowledged that her "time was up."
7. the penicillin would need to be injected every four to six hours.
8. in an argument with his son, gandhi said ""why do you want to prolong your mother's agonies after all the suffering she has been through? you can't cure her now, no matter what miracle drug you may muster. but if you insist, i will not stand in your way."

hmmm. so, here we have a situation in which

1. an elderly woman with a chronic disease complicated by an infection known to kill the elderly,
2. who was clearly on her death bed,
3. who was in constant pain,
4. who was ready to die,
5. who was told by doctors that she was beyond help,

is now propped up by the OP as some sort of cause célèbre to smear the reputation of a man who, in large measure, was responsible for the liberation of his people from the oppression of the british through non-violent means, and who is rightly revered by millions, if not billions, of people around the world for doing so.

in this scenario, gandhi is a monster, a deluded fool. he did not extend to his own wife the same compassion and mercy that he extended to all other people, because he was a religious man who did not believe in the healing power of scientific medicine.

nevermind that his religion did not actually factor into his decision to refuse treatment for his wife. no, gandhi allowed his wife to die, when she could have been saved by western medicine. it had nothing to do with her age, the progression of the disease, the opinions of doctors, or his love for his wife and his wish not to prolong her suffering.

she would have died, in any case. the administration of penicillin, by frequent, painful injections, if it had worked at all, would not have reversed the course of her illness, but merely slowed it down. that gandhi recognized all of this is irrelevant to the person with an agenda. such humanist considerations made by a man of faith simply will not do. no, it must be that gandhi did not trust science, because his religion told him not to.

of course, this situation is not that far removed from another, more recent controversy, in which a woman named terry schiavo, who was also beyond help, was used as a prop by a different group of ideologues who likewise aimed to vilify those who are on the side of compassion and mercy.

way to go, bertrand.

the humane society, grrls, and trrrism

i originally posted this blog entry as a reply to a link posted on reddit by grrlscientist to her blog entry titled "The Humane Society University Now Offers 4-year Degrees". i didn't expect that my first contribution to this blog, which i made and promptly neglected 3 years ago, would have anything at all to do with animal rights, as i am little more than an occasional sympathizer with that cause. but grrlscientist's blog post was so obnoxious and contrary to fact (as i discovered in the process of researching this reply), that i feel compelled to republish it in a place where it may receive slightly more exposure than in the comments section of a reddit post that currently sits at 0 upvotes, thanks to my solitary down vote.

anyway, enough of that, and on to the reply:

what an asinine blog post.

grrlscientist claims that this "fringe animal rights group", who are apparently bomb-making trrists, "does not own any shelters in this country". this is funny, because there's a humane society shelter and vaccination clinic right here in houston. they own actual offices, and have employees, volunteers, and facilities to shelter animals! crazy, i know. they also work hand-in-glove with another terrorist organization, the houston SPCA, to nurse animals in my area back to health and to find homes for as many of them as possible.

maybe the humane society doesn't own shelters at the national level, where it functions purely as an administrative body*, but its local adjuncts do. having driven by this humane society shelter before, i was intrigued as to how it happened that an organization which owns no animal shelters could come to have its name on the signage of an animal shelter. so i decided to look into it.

while googling grrlscientist's claims, i discovered the website humanewatch.org, which is apparently the original source of the misleading information grrlscientist passes off as fact in her blog post. whether she received her information directly from that website, or through secondhand sources, i cannot say.

regardless, it turns out that humanewatch.org is run by the "center for consumer freedom". sounded like doublespeak, to me. and after 2 minutes of research, i discover that -- ta-da! -- like so many other corporate-funded "astroturf organizations" with deliberately misleading names (think "the national wetlands coalition", which is funded by oil lobbyists like exxon), the CCF is funded by corporations and industries that have a vested interest in the very thing that the humane society deplores, which is animal research, of the kind that is very often cruel.

funny, that.

humanewatch.org, and its parent organization, the CCF, have been rightly criticized for being a front for corporate lobbyists, who not only sit on the board of that organization, but also comprise its principle leadership. From wikipedia:

Berman runs several industry-funded non-profit organizations such as the Center for Consumer Freedom[1] and the Center for Union Facts.[2] Berman's companies have run numerous media campaigns criticizing and even ridiculing advocacy groups concerned with the dangers of obesity, smoking, mad cow disease, drunk driving, the minimum wage and other issues.[3][4]

60 Minutes has called him "the booze and food industries' weapon of mass destruction,"[4] and his nickname (from both friends and enemies) is "Dr. Evil",[4][3] an alias in which he takes pride.[4]

some of CCF's funders include: philip morris (provided the seed money to start the organization), coca-cola, wendy's, cargill processed meat products, and tyson foods. because the CCF are a "non-profit" private organization, they don't have to fully disclose who funds them. one could speculate that full disclosure of the donor list might prove to be even more revealing.

here is the wikipedia entry on the center for consumer freedom.

it's disheartening to see a scientist passing off received corporate propaganda as fact, but there you have it.

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*EDIT: curious to know more, i visited humanesociety.org, where i discovered that the national organization itself does, in fact, operate a handful of prominent shelters and wildlife centers in california, massachusetts, and texas, including the black beauty ranch. so humanewatch.org's claim that the humane society "does not operate a single shelter in the united states" is beyond misleading. it is an actual lie.

needless to say, humanewatch.org doesn't cite its sources. i also find it telling that humanewatch.org accuses the humane society of being a "wealthy lobbying organization." oh really, dr. evil? fascinating.