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UPDATE: AVFM has taken the post down.
Men’s Rights Activists have had a serious hate-on for the Southern Poverty Law Center ever since the hate-group-monitoring watchdog wrote about the misogyny in the Men’s Rights movement last spring.
Since the SPLC devotes its time to ferreting out bigots and exposing them to the world, this has put SPLC-hating MRAs in some interesting company. While not everyone who’s criticized the SPLC is a bigot – both Harper’s magazine and the Nation have been critical of the group and its fundraising methods – many of the most virulent critics of the SPLC are far-right racists. On Reddit, for example, the anti-SPLC subreddit, called simply SPLC, is dominated by white nationalists; indeed, at the moment, one of the top links on its front page is titled “Interest for White Student Union grows.”
You would think that MRAs trying to portray their movement as something other than a hate movement would try to disassociate themselves from those blatantly preaching racism. But some MRAs seem unperturbed to find themselves in the company of allies like this.
A case in point: A Voice for Men, which has just republished an anti-SPLC post by Pamela Geller, a far-right racist whose virulent Islamophobia made her Norwegian terrorist mass murderer Anders Breivik’s favorite English-language blogger, and whose latest provocation involves subway ads implying that Muslims are “savages.”
The opening sentences of her post (which can also be found on her blog) will give you some idea of Geller’s style:
The communists over at the Southern Poverty Law Center are among the gravest threats to freedom in the United States … The enemedia eagerly laps up and repeats their designation of pro-freedom groups as “hate groups,” and uses this designation as a propaganda tool to demonize and discredit us.
You may also recall the weasel-worded not-quite-justification for Breivik’s rampage she published on her blog shortly after the murders, describing the victims as
the future leaders of the party responsible for flooding Norway with Muslims who refuse to assimilate, who commit major violence against Norwegian natives, including violent gang rapes, with impunity, and who live on the dole… all done without the consent of the Norwegians.
Next to a picture of camp attendees taken before the massacre, she wrote
Note the faces which are more Middle Eastern or mixed than pure Norwegian
She later removed this bit, but you can see it screencapped here.
For more on Geller and her odious ideas and actions, see this profile from, yep, the SPLC and this piece in Slate. Heck, in the wake of her “savage” ad campaign, even Fox News is beginning to distance itself from her.
Geller’s post is getting a similarly chilly reception in the Men’s Rights subreddit – and even some of the AVFM regulars are put off by her extreme Islamophobia.
But for AVFM head honcho Paul Elam, it looks like any enemy of his enemy is a friend, so long as they’re angry enough about it.
Indeed, it seems as though Elam read Geller’s post so carelessly that he didn’t even notice that the bulk of it was actually a quotation of an SPLC “expose” by James Simpson of the right-wing Capital Research Center. Apparently a quick skim of a blog post and a glance at the rest of her blog was all the “due diligence” AVFM did before climbing into bed with this particular political bedfellow.
Ruby, extremist Christianity is still a threat to women.
Jesus christ, Ruby, that is like saying you are only scared of the jews who are out to steal your money.
Ruby, there are Christians in this country who would rather have a woman die than abort a dangerous pregnancy, who believe that contraceptives are “immoral,” and who believe that a woman who is raped should be forced to carry a child to term if she is impregnated by her rapist. And not only that, they get laws passed to reflect these beliefs. And let’s not even get started on how overzealous Christians treat homosexuals in this country.
Similarly, when people make comments about how “Christians don’t kill people,” I kindly remind them of the fact that our presence in Iraq has resulted in the deaths of anywhere from 250,000 to 1 million people. And Iraq DID NOT ATTACK US. Christians do fucking kill people, they just do it through the “legitimate” process of “war,” and worse, they do it to make money.
I’m a caninephobic* because I’m scared that a pack of wolves might break into my flat and maul me to death.
Don’t look at me like that, it’s totes rational to hate on all dogs because of that! What do you mean lions could maul me to death too? Shut up, cats are nice.
(*dear classical language scholars, I’m sorry but I’m too lazy to look this up)
@falconer Yeah, that’s pretty much it, especially combined with poor sleep, stress, poor diet and excessive alcohol consumption. In the UK they specifically warn you about it when you start uni. Here’s the Wiki page on it.
@thenatfantastic
You made me curious so I looked it up. Fear of dogs is cynophobia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynophobia
blitzgal: Not to mention there’s plenty of actual Christian terrorists (they just don’t often get called that). Abortion clinic/doctor bombings/murders, and such.
(Which are technically more of a risk, at least in America, than “foreign” terrorists).
@aworld, just want to echo everyone else and say that yes, definitely take care of yourself but keep in contact with your profs.
A lot of your posts remind me of myself when I was younger (and even now, to some degree) when you talk about feeling isolated and depressed and how you further isolate yourself which leads to worse depression and it becomes this vicious circle. I have so been there! So I know, for me, to just drop off the face of the earth for a week might exacerbate the cycle, especially when you’re feeling shitty. Keeping contact and doing a bit of work while you rest up (and making up the rest later) might be good.
Of course, take with a grain of salt, as I am just an Internet stranger. 😉
I wish you speedy recovery!
Islamophobia: it does not mean what you think it means.
I find the “phobia” part to be problematic. One could be, literally, Islamophobic i.e., having an irrational, debilitating fear of Muslims. But what most people who get labeled “Islamophobic” are is Islamo-bigoted.
They’re making judgments about people based on mix of race, national origin, and religion. So, I can see why we don’t just say “racist” in this case, because it is more complicated.
You don’t get to be bigoted and then blame it on fear, since “fear isn’t rational.” Don’t mock people who have serious issues with fear. Don’t mock everyone else’s intelligence by thinking you’ve find an iron-clad excuse for being a bigot.
I have a bit of cynophobia after an unfortunate dog bite incident a few years back. Now, big dogs make me feel cautious. I realize that, unlike cats and small dogs, big dogs can actually kill me if they have a mind to!
On topic, the fact that the word “terrorist” is only used to describe foreign terrorists and never our own has always smacked of the most insidious emotional manipulation. Anyone who think America doesn’t have its own dangerous terrorists is deluding themselves.
@Shade
This is true. Still gets me that Scott Roeder is in prison for murder and not terrorism. But it also bugs me that people refuse to acknowledge the destruction caused by the United States and its military industrial complex. And we do this as a supposedly “Christian” nation. Fuck, George Bush even called the War on Terror a “crusade” at one point! Slip of the tongue that was actually very revealing.
If the SPLC were legit, they’d have to list the number one hate group as the government. After all, who kills and extorts more than our corporate controlled government? Number two would have to be the media for being decidedly pro government reguardless of their supposed stance on any issue. Yet the SPLC is 100% pro government and 100 % pro mass media indoctrination.
Who funds the massive wealth of the SPLC? Always follow the money trail to find out the true intentions of any organization. If the money trail leads to the same corporations that control your government, than you’ll have your answer.
Oh cats would probably give it a go, but they like to plan for the long term.
http://theoatmeal.com/misc/frame/cat_kill
@Tosca Not to derail, but don’t forget left-wing activists who sabotage big business are labelled ‘eco-terrorists‘. The US government has used agent provocateurs to infiltrate the groups, try to escalate the tactics then jail the members for up to 20 years.
So causing damage to property to save human or animal lives is ‘terrorism’, shooting/blowing up abortion providers… meh.
If you’re interested in Christianity’s relationship with terrorism, I suggest you look into the Troubles in Northern Ireland. I’m by no means an expert, but my understanding is that there’s a hefty religious side to the Troubles (Catholic/Protestant as well as Republican/Unionist), and there have been unequivocally terrorist acts, both in Ireland and in mainland Britain, as part of the conflict.
Aaaand Ruby’s back with her bullshit. Seriously, last I knew it wasn’t Muslims who were passing laws in the States to rob uterus-owning people of their reproductive rights.
Well, according to Chick tracts, the Vatican somehow invented Islam to destroy all the “true” Christians, so i guess if we go by that nonsensical logic, you could say that Islam is behind the US war on women–no, no you still couldn’t. Yeah, I’ve got nothing.
@blitzgal
“Similarly, when people make comments about how “Christians don’t kill people,” I kindly remind them of the fact that our presence in Iraq has resulted in the deaths of anywhere from 250,000 to 1 million people. And Iraq DID NOT ATTACK US. Christians do fucking kill people, they just do it through the “legitimate” process of “war,” and worse, they do it to make money.”
I agree they do it to make money, but are they Christians? Why would you blame Christians as a whole unless you’ve been indoctrinated? The same corporation that runs this country runs every country in the western world. The owners of the IMF, world bank and every so called state bank of every country are the mass murderers of the world.
The corporation is the only beneficiary of war. Does war serve any individual person on the planet? Of course not. The people at the top are the enemies of the world. Since all wealth is borrowed from them, they make the rules. It’s in their best interest to promote war. The more people that die from war, the richer they get and the poorer you get.
The international bankers own your wealth, media, education, governments, industries, oil companies, medical, food, property. All the wealth of the government is borrowed from the federal reserve, the international bankers. The government is a subsidy of the corporation.
Obama may have even had good intentions when he took office, however, he quickly fell in line. A quick video of his wife and children surrounded by security forces, (assassins), would make even the most stalwart, wither and play along. Wars, wars and more wars over the last four years. The NDAA, codex alimentarius, LOST which is part of agenda 21, just to name a few were all signed into law under Obama. All of these are extremely bad news.
It doesn’t matter who is in charge of the government, since the government isn’t the upper echelon of power in the world. There is only one enemy in the world today. Either they die or we do.
@Morka
Catholic/Protestant is a fairly easy way to talk about the two groups and to divide ‘sides’, (Catholics tend to be Republican, Protestants are usually Unionists) but it’s not about religion at all, it’s about sovereignty. It’s just that a) the people on both sides tend to be excessively religious as well and b) the Queen of England is head of the Protestant church. But no one was blowing up bins for Jesus.
So the idea here is to attack the speaker and not the arugument, then? Because I see a lot of bashing and very little… actually no refutation of the claims made.
I take it then, that you agree that the SPLC has sadly become a shakedown group and has engaged in false accusations which have triggered violence?
I imagine you’re thinking of something like this.
“Someguy, I challenge you to do your same schtick over there — pretend to be someone bored by Elam but yet deeply, deeply concerned about his journalistic integrity — and see how long you last.”
Actually I do, but differently. His shtick doesn’t bore me, it saddens me. Since I align with his efforts I try to give him positive feedback when it applies and be frank and harsh with him when I think he’s gone off the rails.
I admire this about him, he has always thanked me for the feedback, and he has explained his very free speech policies, which, damn I admire even though I think free speech and EDITING and a bit of focus can work together.
I am saddened because while I definitely get his frustration, I think certain decisions have hurt his efforts (and therefore my interests.)
I am annoyed with you because you seem intelligent enough and are a journalist with platforms the rest of us don’t have that you could actually make reasonable criticisms of his site and others instead of going for the low hanging fruit and cheap shots.
Evidence of your schlockiness is when you were banned from /r/mensrights and THEN you admitted that /r/mensrights was actually pretty moderate. You should tell that to Goldwag and make that clear in your posts.
If instead of always hanging out with SRS and aligning with againstmensrights you were to act like a journalist, you could run a few journalistic experiments on /r/mr: in any thread where you find noxious comments, how often are those comments voted down rather than up? How many okay comments are made in comparison to the noxious comments?
What do you make of the /r/mr polls that show the /r/mr subscribers are significantly if not majority liberal, and are overrepresented with LGBTQIA members than the general public?
There is satire, parody, and mocking. Mocking doesn’t have to be lying, but you seem to think mocking is repeated cherry picking and exaggeration. That speaks terribly for you as a person and worse for you as a journalist.
There is shit tons wrong with /r/mr and with /r/srs and with the mens movement and with contemporary feminism and you’re doing nothing as a journalist to accurately report on that or to fix it.
I honestly think one day you’ll look back and regret that.
@ Sharon- Oh, you wanted us to entertain whatever the white supremacist rep had to say? Because every idea, no matter how odious the source, is automatically deserved careful consideration by absolutely everyone? And not entertaining seething hate-mongers is akin to tacitly agreeing with them? That is just laughable. And utter bullshit. Listening to a hate group rant on about what’s wrong with the civil rights group that got them labelled as a hate group in the first place is about as ginormous a waste of time as listening to a convicted felon describe why the man who got him convicted is a big meanie who smells bad.
Oh my god, why does it seem like every time some Mrm dude compares the mrm to feminism it’s like some villain telling the hero ‘you know, we are a lot alike, you and I’.
@lauralot:
Continuing his sterling record of being 100% wrong about everything ever.
I mean, I’ve been playing D&D for years and I have yet to learn how to cast fireball, let alone fight the zombie (panel 8). Fight many zombies, yes. Fight the zombie, no.
Nor have I even been taught the mind bondage spell, or how to make my face scrunch up like the young woman’s in panel 6.
“Everyone loves Chick tracts!” the banner says, those poor deluded souls.