As I’ve pointed out before, the vast majority of Men’s Rights Activists aren’t really activists at all, if by “activists” you mean people who occasionally get off their asses and try to engage in political activity in the real world. As I put in in my piece for the Good Men Project on misogyny in the Men’s Rights movement,
Men’s rights activists aren’t much like any other activists I’ve ever run across. For one thing, for supposed activists they are almost completely inactive. Sure, they complain endlessly about things they see as terrible injustices against men. They just don’t do anything about them. While some of those who consider themselves fathers’ rights activists—a slightly different breed from your garden-variety MRAs—try to influence laws and legislatures, MRAs do little more than cultivate their resentments.
MRAs seem to be good at one thing, and one thing only: posting angry comments on websites, whether their own or on those of their many enemies – whether that’s on blogs like this one or in the comments section on various mainstream media sites they consider “misandrist.” (Actually: that’s not entirely fair – on a few occasions, MRAs have been moved to make threatening phone calls as well.) They don’t raise money for anything but their own web sites and their pet projects. They don’t organize demonstrations that involve more than a tiny handful of people. Like, for example, this one, involving one dude dressed like Batman who climbed up onto a highway sign:
Or this one, which involved a dude dressed up as Batman and a dude dressed up as Robin, climbing up on a bridge.
If your protests typically involve fewer people than, say, the line of people waiting to use the Redbox video rental kiosk outside your local supermarket on a Friday night, I think it’s safe to say that yours is not a mass movement, at least not yet.
Am I being unfair in demanding MRAs actually, literally,get off their asses before I consider them to be activists? Perhaps.
But, as it turns out, MRAs aren’t much good at sitting-on-your-ass activism either. Case in point: For quite some time – weeks? months? — MRA elder Paul Elam has been urging readers of his blog A Voice For Men to sign a petition to disbar a District Attorney he and other MRAs have decided is corrupt. But despite his repeated pleas to his readers to sign the thing, it has not yet garnered the required 1000 signatures, even though at least a few of his readers have talked about signing it more than once. [Edited to add: it has now gotten more than 1000 signaturesd.]
Today, this particular example of internet inactivism prompted Elam to lash out at his non-signing readers. Declaring himself “tired and frustrated” and “sick of this shit,” he once again begged his readers to sign. Then he went a step further, suggesting that he might limit commenting on his site to “activists that are contributing to this site in one way or another” as a way of encouraging activism and discouraging those who are “sucking up air and doing little else.”
I don’t think further exhortation on his part – or limiting the comments there to “real” activists only – is likely to make much difference. [Edited to add: Nagging a few more people to spend two minutes signing an online petition is one thing. Actually transforming them into real activists is another.] Elam is running up against the inherent paradox of Men’s Rights “activism” – the fact that most of those complaining the most about alleged injustices against men are not in fact interested in changing anything. Their “activism,” as it were, is little more than an excuse to wallow in their own bitterness, and to blame others for their own problems.
If MRAs really cared about domestic violence against men – as opposed to using the issue as a rhetorical weapon against feminists – they would be raising money and devoting their time to actually building shelters, like the (mostly) women who built the first shelters decades ago, and the (mostly) women who keep these shelters going today. If MRAs were really interested in stopping prison rape, instead of simply complaining about it, they’d be donating money to or working with the advocacy group Just Detention or other groups concerned about the treatment of prisoners. If they were really interested in helping those falsely accused of rape or other crimes, they’d be working with The Innocence Project or some other group fighting for the falsely accused or convicted. Or they would be starting real organizations of their own.
But that’s not, at heart, what the MRM is about. For all but a tiny handful of real activists, it’s not about changing the world. It’s about creating a space where men can kvetch and blame and cultivate their own sense of martyrdom. Actually trying to change the real world would involve , well, going out into the real world, a place where their assertions about the alleged oppression of men are seen as the nonsense they are, a place where their bitterness and hatred of women is seen as bitterness and hatred rather than the righteous anger they like to imagine that it is.
When MRAs do venture out of their self-created bubble they tend to either make fools of themselves – like Batman on the highway sign in the video above – or to reveal themselves to be the angry fanatics they are. Elam, for his part, sometimes even has trouble making his case in the relatively sympathetic environment of the Men’s Rights subreddit on Reddit, and is quickly reduced to sputtering rage when anyone disagrees with him. In the end, sputtering rage seems to be what the MRM is really all about.
Fiat currency leads to inflation, therefore JEWS. I see.
NWO: The case was appealed to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court and on Sept. 9, 2010 the Court ordered a new trial, concluding that Keller had engaged in prosecutorial misconduct because she had: ” improperly encouraged the jury to use the absence of evidence” etc.
Actually, you and your ilk have repeatedly libeled Ms. Keller — she has a case against you, so I’d cool it, if I were you. You have lied about her, even in that post above. The court did not find that she committed “prosecutorial misconduct”. Making a statement to a jury that is improper (for example, characterizing absence of evidence as evidence of absence) is corrected with an appropriate instruction or a new trial, but it does not amount to “prosecutorial misconduct”. A prosecutor who loses on appeal isn’t automatically guilty of prosecutorial misconduct any more than a plaintiff who loses a civil case is guilty of frivolous litigation. Prosecutorial misconduct would include things like falsifying evidence, withholding evidence, or suborning perjury; it would NOT include making an improperly argumentative statement to a jury, especially a statement of the kind that ordinary people — including MRA’S — CONSTANTLY use in their arguments. Similarly, you lied when you claimed that the wife’s claims were found to be false — just because the prosecutor chooses not to go ahead with a certain charge does not mean the complainant’s allegations were fabricated.
I read the actual decision of the appellate court in that case. I suggest you do too, before you make an ass of yourself (as if you need to demonstrate that again). The court actually specifically found that there was sufficient evidence to establish a prima facie case against the defendant, and DENIED defendant’s motion to order outright dismissal. You do realize that ordering a new trial isn’t tantamount to finding the defendant not guilty, right? If anything, it vindicates the prosecutor’s position that there was sufficient evidence for her to prosecute the case in the first place. There goes your pontificatin’ about “prosecutorial misconduct” right there. Jesus, do MRA’s ever use their brains? Do they even HAVE brains?
Also, let’s look at some other facts in this case, that aren’t filtered through MRA websites. The defendant one day announced to his wife (they live in Maine) and he was taking the kids and moving with them to Georgia. You know, it’s funny how MRA’s always kvetch about evil wommynz taking men’s children away and refusing them access, while lionizing a guy who did exactly that to his wife. The guy’s justification? His wife was supposedly crazy and he “tried” to deal with that for a long time. The only “proof” of this is his own self-serving testimony. Again, funny how MRA’s always kvetch about evil wommynz making gratuitous accusations of abuse against men in order to gain the upper hand in custody proceedings, while siding with a guy who did exactly that to his wife.
Anyway, bottom line, NWO: You HAVE in fact lied about women. You still do so. Blatantly.
@Captain Bathrobe: Yeah, it’s hard to find information about the case that’s not coming from Filler’s attorney or Elam. Here’s the story about the original verdict. And here’s an interesting although one-sided blog post about the case. Note the comment from someone who (I think?) is Filler’s wife’s friend, and someone else who claims to have been on the jury.
Of course neither of those is conclusive. They just present a different point of view, from people who aren’t men’s rights activists. Plus of course you’ve got 12 people from a jury who thought the guy was guilty even though they had some knowledge of the custody issue (though not as much as they should have, says Maine’s appellate courts), and a trial judge who made some mistakes in the case (is anyone calling for his disbarment? Or does he get a pass from Elam?) — so you gotta think that maybe this isn’t as totally clear cut as NWOslave says.
Ah, and here’s the Maine Supreme Court’s decision, which goes through all the mistakes the trial court made.
Which, if the trial court made mistakes and now the guy’s case is remanded for retrial, that’s a good thing, right? But no … just more evidence of feminist jurisprudence. Everyone’s always out to get the poor man.
before the federal reserve was signed into existence in 1913 there was NO inflation for 150 years of record keeping in the US.
I wonder if we’d return to the same inflation/non-inflation levels if we regressed to a turn of the century level of technology, as well? I imagine that the rapid progression and development of entirely new types of technology (everything from automobiles to improved agricultural technique to genetic sciences to the freaking Internet) probably has more to do with increasing inflation than the Rothschilds. New supply, new demand, new markets, new jobs, new industry…
Er, newsflash, inflation is not actually a bad thing. Runaway inflation is a bad thing. Moderate inflation encourages people to invest their money instead of keeping it under a mattress.
http://www.investorguide.com/igu-article-926-economic-trends-is-inflation-really-good-for-the-economy.html
(note: not a feminist source)
@Holly…My best friend is a JEW, I have another good friend who is a muslim from morrocco.
If the Rothchilds are Jews and control the money system, its not the Jews, its the fucking Rothchilds are their stranglehold on the world who are the problem. Or does that make me instantly anti-semetic? Also the likelyhood of any of the Rothchilds of having a drop of semetic blood is miniscule. Unless of course those asian muslims are all Arabs and all christians are of one nationality as well.
@Plymouth…If inflation isn’t bad in everyway then put $500.00 in you matress and in 30 years see what you can buy. Will it be the same as today? If not you lost wealth, therefore bad.
Inflation runs about 7% a pear over the last 40 years. Therefore you need to double your earnings every 10 years in order to maintain the same level of wealth. So if you make $10.00 an hour today in 10 years you need $20,00 an hour, in 20 years you need $40.00 an hour in 30 years you need $80.00 an hour, in 40 years you need 160.00 and hour to maintain your same level of wealth as your original $10.00 an hour. Does this sound good to you. Wake up!
So, re: the Filler case,
Prosecutor and judge made mistakes and the appeal court ordered a new trial. See, that doesn’t sound like injustice. That sounds more like, I don’t know, justice. You know, the way the system is supposed to work.
Thanks to Amused and Bee. I think I’ll be letting the judicial process take its course before coming to any conclusions.
I see what you did there.
And yes, that is a basenji.
@Lady Victoria von Syrus…It has nothing what so ever to due with any technology. The system is set up so you lose money evey year.
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” -Woodrow Wilson, after signing the Federal Reserve into existence
And a quick note on economics: if you owe somebody money, inflation is good, because the money you pay back this year is worth less than the money you borrowed last year. If somebody owes you money, inflation is bad, because the money you get back this year is worth less than the money you lent out last year.
Now watch Slavey try to explain why bankers, who are in the business of lending out money, are responsible for inflation.
I’m not saying that the bankers aren’t a detriment to the social order – the stock market crash and shenanigans perpetrated by Wall Street certainly demonstrate that. I’m not saying that the Rothschilds and Rockefellers aren’t some wealthy-ass sons of bitches.
I just am dubious that they are linked, and then linked to feminism as a way to keep the working man down.
Good for you Captain Bathrobe, maybe soon the day will come where you’re on trial. I’ll just let “justice” roll over you.
Re: inflation,
If I owe $10,000 now, that means in 10 years I only owe half as much! Cool! Sign me up for some inflation!
If you knew anything about monetary policy, you would know that the Fed does everything in it’s power to curb inflation, including raising interest rates when unemployment gets too low, in order to suppress wage inflation. Working people lose under a low-inflation policy; investors win. The push for paper money in the 19th century in the US came from rural populists, mostly farmers groaning under post-Civil War deflation, which meant that their crops didn’t sell for as much and their debts were worth ever more.
A certain amount of inflation is necessary in an expanding economy. The gold standard is the exclusive province of crackpots and Ron Paul–which is, or course, redundant.
@Lady Victoria von Syrus…Of course there linked. Do you want to know where your right of abortion comes from and planned parenthood and codoms in every school?
http://www.population-security.org/rockefeller/001_population_growth_and_the_american_future.htm
Go to chapter 11 and scroll down to the underlined sections. And see what the Rockefeller Foundation dictated to the Government. All the laws that you call “good.” You, feminism, fights for the rockefeller foundation.
NWO, love, you know why the UN and the US and apparently the Rothschilds have organizations for women?
Women fought for them.
For almost two hundred years, women (and some awesome men) have fought, bled, been imprisoned, marched, given money, written endless reams of books and pamphlets and letters and argued and argued and argued for women’s rights. It’s not perfect now but it’s better, and that is because we sacrificed.
If the MRM does the same, it will get the same.
By the way that was in 1972.
No ozymandias, they use you as they have always used women against men.
“There is no way of influencing men so powerfully as by means of the women. These should therefore be our chief study; we should insinuate ourselves into their good opinion, give them hints of emancipation from the tyranny of public opinion, and of standing up for themselves; it will be an immense relief to their enslaved minds to be freed from any one bond of restraint, and it will fire them the more, and cause them to work for us with zeal, without knowing that they do so, for they will only be indulging their own desire of personal admiration.”….Adam Weishaupt 1787.
“Women’s incipient social life and activities must be promoted, so that they can outgrow the narrowness of their philistine, individualistic psychology centred on home and family … In the sphere of sexual relations and marriage, a revolution is approaching … There can be no real mass movement without the women … We cannot exercise the dictatorship of the proletariat without having millions of women on our side. Nor can we engage in communist construction without them.”….Lenin 1920
Both, were even, then funded by the Rothchilds. Communism was funded wholly by the Rothchilds.
Feminism today is funded by the Rothchilds and Rockefellers.
Also, too: Andrew Leonard at Salon.com talks about Slavey’s Woodrow Wilson quote. The money quote:
So it turns out Slavey is full of shit. Again. What a surprise.
NWOSlave – I clearly said that inflation is good because it encourages people NOT TO KEEP THEIR MONEY UNDER A MATTRESS. Now you’re telling me to keep my money under a mattress to prove that inflation is bad?? WTF? It’s KEEPING MONEY UNDER A MATTRESS that is bad for the economy. God, you really do live in opposite world, don’t you?
“Teach those impudent Americans a lesson. Bring them back to colonial status.”
– Nathan Mayer Rothschild 1811
Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves.
The Great Andrew Jackson.
You see the war has always been between the bankers and the rest of us. Rest assured anything the Rothchilds/Rockefellers support is detrimental to society.
No, Slavey, you’re not going to trick me into trying to debunk every bullshit quote you squat down and spatter this blog with. I don’t have to, because everything you post is bullshit.
In fact, you’re so full of shit I bet you cry brown tears.
Theres nothing you can debunk Johnny Pez, what is written is the memiors of woodrow wilson. Just because you can’t accept the facts changes nothing. Do you want to know how much of a slave you really are? In the bottom right hand corner of your birth certificate is a number, take that number to a stock broker and ask what its worth. YOU have a value on the stock exchange, YOU are a commodity. YOU are a slave.
This is fricking awesome:
In the bottom right hand corner of your birth certificate is a number, take that number to a stock broker and ask what its worth. YOU have a value on the stock exchange, YOU are a commodity. YOU are a slave.
We don’t even need to make fun of him. It’s like he makes fun of himself!
Johnny Pez: I love basenjis. Such little cuties.