July 21, 2008, - 3:33 pm

Immoral Support: My Underwire Bra Funded the America-Hating Far Left?

By Debbie Schlussel
One of my favorite things to read is the “Remembrances” column in the Saturday edition of the Wall Street Journal. It’s not really an obituary section. It’s usually a couple of articles about great or interesting American entrepreneurs and inventors, who recently died. Most of them are not well known names.
This past Saturday, one of the profiles–of the late Shirley Magidson–indicated that many women across America have been funding the Black Panthers, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and other far-left causes by virtue of what holds up their breasts.
Magidson and her late husband, Herbert Magidson–she an industrial designer and he a mechanical engineer–apparently invented or improved the construction of underwire bras and the molded cups that go with them. Through that and their company, Metric Products, Inc., they became fabulously wealthy.

underwirebra.jpg

Immoral Support: This Funded the America-Hating Far-Left

And they spent a lot of their money on the left. While they welcomed Martin Luther King Jr. as an overnight guest at their home and gave to charity, they spent underwire bra profits on some unsavory things:

In his memoir “Spock on Spock,” Dr. Benjamin Spock, a close family friend, wrote: “If anybody was in charge of the opposition to the war in Vietnam, it was Herb Magidson.”
The family held fund-raisers for the Black Panthers, the Berrigan brothers, Daniel Ellsberg and numerous activist causes. Herbert Magidson died in 1977.
Metric is still a leader in the bra-cup and underwire businesses, with clients including Vanity Fair Mills and Victoria’s Secret, says Rita Haft, Mrs. Magidson’s daughter. After the 2004 tsunami, her mother traveled to Sri Lanka, where the company’s manufacturing is centered, and donated funds to build 40 new houses for refugees, Ms. Haft says.
In 1980, Mrs. Magidson helped to found the Southern California branch of Physicians for Social Responsibility, the antinuclear group that shared a Nobel Prize for Peace in 1985. As a leader of the group, Mrs. Magidson journeyed to Stockholm for the awards ceremony. She also was part of a delegation to Peru to visit Lori Berenson, an American prisoner who became an international cause celebre.

Lori Berenson is a communist activist who hates America and tried to help communists take over Peru. She deserves to rot in Peruvian jail.
Given this list of awful causes, it’s sad to think that America’s women, including me, funded all of this by vurtue of their lingerie.
Know where your money is ultimately going and whom it is supporting. Sometimes the products you buy fund the movements you detest.






18 Responses

Show your patriotism and burn your bra, Deb. Let your puppies be free, be free of funding unAmerican activities.

Norman Blitzer on July 21, 2008 at 4:16 pm

Here’s their patent from 1973. http://www.google.com/patents?id=Djw2AAAAEBAJ&dq=Method+of+construction+of+bra+pad
They also filed patents in ’74, ’75, and ’78, ’97, ’98, ’00 and ’05.

dm60462 on July 21, 2008 at 4:52 pm

LOL, come on Debbie, don’t you dare burn your bra, at leastwise when it’s on.
Seriously though, it’s a shame a product that’s supposedly for good, can be used for something so bad. Thanks for bringing this info to every one’s attention.

Jackson Pearson on July 21, 2008 at 4:53 pm

In point of fact, only about 7% of Sri Lanka is Muslim. The great majority of Sri Lankans are Buddhist or Hindu; about 8% are Christians.

ibn Abu on July 21, 2008 at 5:06 pm

I think pretty much everything you do in life is going to fund stuff you don’t like indirectly, between 1-3 steps removed from your own economic activity. There’s no good way around it either. Just something you gotta live with.

LibertarianBulbasaur on July 21, 2008 at 7:42 pm

My honey Debbie and bra talk….my inner Beavis and Butthead is dying to come out.
I must resist.

Jeff_W on July 21, 2008 at 9:04 pm

I was horrified to find out about Krispy Kreme donuts and Caribou coffee products. I haven’t had either in at least two years. It just takes a little time to look into this stuff.

samurai on July 21, 2008 at 11:47 pm

I am not someone who believes that all you put into the economy will come back and bite you. IF you know better, you do better. Once I find out a certain org is for something kinda bad, I won’t help them out. It’s really not that hard to give to the bad guys if you keep your ears open and find out who contributes what.

diaphanous on July 22, 2008 at 2:12 am

samurai,
I knew Caribou was way moonbat leftist but what’s the deal with Krispy Kreme?
[GR: KRISPY KREME IS OWNED BY ISRAEL-BOYCOTTING, EXTREMIST KUWAIT:
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2007/06/kuwaiti_krispy.html
DS]

Gary Rosen on July 22, 2008 at 4:40 am

You and your readers will LOVE this:
http://www.xanga.com/blonde_apocalypse/666909428/row-row-row-your-boat.html
Cash fundamentalism at it’s best!!!

EminemsRevenge on July 22, 2008 at 6:23 am

Lori Berenson’s parents live in my building complex in NYC. They are as left wing as it comes.

Ripper on July 22, 2008 at 8:56 am

In many cases such as this, one never knows that profits from a product go to unworthy causes.
However, one thing we know for certain: Portions of the profits from gasoline fund a Saudi Arabian network to spread Wahabbism worldwide.
As you probably noticed from other comments, the wearing of a bra is argueably “optional”. However, if you want to get from one place to another in the United States, you’re going to use a petroleum product from Saudi Arabia somewhere along the way.

There is NO Santa Claus on July 22, 2008 at 9:22 am

    Convert your car to CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) or LONG (Liquefied Natural Gas). Since fracking has multiplied the natural gas production in America, almost all of it sold in the USA is produced from American wells.
    LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas: propane and butane) mostly comes from American oil and, like natural gas, is a superb motor fuel and is simpler to use than natural gas.
    Ethanol, while a domestic product, is produced by running farm equipment and transported by trucks fueled with diesel oil. If the equipment and trucks that are used for producing and hauling ethanol were instead fueled with ethanol, it would seem that ethanol would lower the use of imported petroleum.

    GraysonRVTech on June 22, 2017 at 3:20 pm

I have worked for Metric Products for 14 years. Shirley Magidson always treated all employees and business associates with dignity and never tried to influence their personal affiliations and beliefs.
As a result, the fine components made by Metric products are used by the finest Bra manufacturers, sold by and worn by conservatives liberals and everyone in between.

tyronneg on September 7, 2008 at 10:12 pm

I have known the Haft family & Shirley Magidson for many years. Shirley was a woman who created a business when the world was run by men. She was a supporter, no pun intended, of the arts and education. She treated people with respect. She never judged folks on the color of their skin or the money in their account. She simply wanted to make this world a better place for her kids and her grandkids. I’m proud to be a Victoria Secret Bra wearer and I will continue to wear my well supportive bra’s proudly.

HKM on August 7, 2010 at 2:58 am

If we don’t buy oil from the Saudis, where will the Clinton Foundation get its funding next year?

BobTrent on June 22, 2017 at 3:22 pm

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