Well, now you’ve gone and done it, you evil feminists: you’ve turned 0bvious_Atheist into a Nazi!
We first met the Men’s Rights subreddit regular the other day, when in a fit of ingenuity he blamed the Newtown school shootings on, er, Title IX. Well, his strange political journey has continued, and on his blog, on Boxing Day, the Canadian MRA officially announced his conversion to neo-Nazism. Literally. Let’s let him explain:
I have grown impatient
I have lost my desire for conventional activism. We live in an era where men like Warren Farrell are run off campus by mobs of Femistasi, men like Keenan Midgley get maligned for trying to start Men’s Centres, JohnTheOther gets harassed in the streets and others like him get assaulted, Mr. Heimbach a white students advocate in the United States, is constantly maligned by the media and the intellectual establishment, and Jared Taylor, a meek and mild Yale graduate, is harassed at every turn by the establishment.
Huh. I have to admit I’m not completely up-to-date on all the examples of anti-white, anti-male oppression he lists here, but I would like to point out that Warren Farrell did not, in fact, get run off the University of Toronto campus. A number of students protested his visit, some of them quite rudely, but the police interceded on his behalf, clearing away protesters so he could go ahead and make his speech.
I also looked up that vague reference to “Mr. Heinbach,” and discovered that Matthew Heimbach is a student at Maryland’s Towson University who wants to start a White Student Union there. As part of his campaign for tolerance on behalf of America’s beleaguered white majority, he recently posed in front of Martin Luther King Jr.’s church in Montgomery holding a Confederate flag.
Gosh, how terribly unfair it is that some people might have criticized him for this.
Mr. Atheist continues:
I’m a young man. I don’t have the patience to go around asking for permission to exercise my inalienable, natural right to freedom of association. As Harold Covington said, Whites feel they need a permission slip from quote “the Jews” unquote to advocate for them. I feel the same thing can be said of Men’s Rights Activism. We feel that we need permission from Feminists, the intellectual establishment, and the state to self-advocate. Our entire movement has become a quest for permission from the left to self-advocate.
I’m pretty sure that not even a single molecule of that is even remotely true. What color is the sky in Imaginary Backwards Land?
We want a Men’s Ministry in the government. We want Men’s organizations on campus. We want White student unions. All of those things are politically toxic to the establishment and out of reach, and furthermore, if you look at what the “Men’s Ministries” in the Northern European welfare states have done you will remain unimpressed, and perhaps even alarmed, at how little they have mitigated the total alienation of young men from the respective societies of those countries.
Of course, the young men who are most alienated from society in the Northern (and Southern) European welfare states today are the immigrants who are so despised by Mr. Atheist and his fellow White “Nationalist” racist assholes. And these young male immigrants aren’t feeling alienated because of a lack of White Student Unions or the unimpressive actions of Men’s Ministries; they’re feeling alienated because of racism and a lack of jobs.
With this in mind we must recognize that productive organizations simply are not going to become a reality. If you doubt me, you can go look at what they did to Dr Warren Farrell when he tried to speak at the University of Toronto. I have absolutely no desire to be screamed at, spit on, expelled, fired, ostracized, and made into a pariah for simply asking to exercise my right to freedom of association.
So the fact that a couple of dozen students protested against a speaker on a college campus, delaying his talk for half an hour or so, means that normal political activity on behalf of your ass-backwards faux “civil rights movement” is impossible? Mr. Atheist, do you have any fucking idea what real civil rights advocates went through in order to get the same basic rights as everyone else, like the right to fucking vote? Do you think that feminists weren’t ever “screamed at, spit on, expelled, fired, ostracized, and made into … pariah(s)?”
What sort of strange entitled bubble do you live in that you think political activism should be painless? Or that your political opponents should simply roll over once you express your opinions?
Congratulations intellectual establishment. After around 14 years of politically correct education at politically correct institutions run by politically correct professors you have alienated me, first as a White, and secondly as a male. I have got absolutely no patience for your goddamn processes, your forms, your organizational quotas and quorums required to get approval from the UVSS. I’m fed up, and I’m going elsewhere else to self-advocate.
If you’re really serious about going “elsewhere else,” might I suggest another planet?
As market Anarchists and Libertarians constantly must remind you crypto-Marxists, if you ban something the buyer will go elsewhere in the market to get it. That’s exactly what I plan to do. Rather than grovelling at the feet of professors, academics, pseudo-intellectual social justice warriors, and Femistasi, I’m just going to go join the Western Front, a quasi-Neo-Nazi, semi-illegal White Nationalist political organization that accepts me for what I am and understands my problems. You have driven a relatively well off, intelligent, middle class, White male, who used to vote NDP, into the arms of the very people you taught me to despise for the totality of my formative years.
Great. I guess the one upside of all this is that Mr. Atheist won’t be calling feminists “feminazis” from now on. Not that “femistasi” is much of an improvement.
Oh, and in case anyone needs visual evidence of how much of a racist fuck 0bvious_Atheist really is — not that there’s much doubt — here’s a link to a cartoon he stuck onto the end of one of his recent YouTube videos. But first, a TRIGGER WARNING for really really racist rape imagery. Link.
(Note: There doesn’t seem to be any information online about a neo-Nazi group called Western Front, at least not in Canada. There was evidently one by that name in Los Angeles at one point. Does this group, like the anti-white-male oppression he talks about, exist only in 0bvious_Atheist’s head? EDITED TO ADD: There is a group called Northwest Front; presumably that’s what he meant.)
Hey Kiki, actually there are other journalists who post here. I’m one, Cassandra is another, and there’s two or three more regulars…I can’t remember now, my apologies.
No, I’m saying that if your question is “Where does this list of tips originate?” and your answer is “A place of cynicism, maybe?,” the fact that the tips are geared toward changing one group’s (potential victims’/women’s) actions while accepting the inevitable nature of another’s (rapists) means that if the tips originate from cynicism, it would have to be a specific cynicism that looks very much like misogyny/patriarchy.
That was a very long sentence. I’m sorry.
“Oh fun, I just realized that both sets at once, plus Advil, is 7 and a half fucking pills. Some one just get me some of EA’s striped wallpaper or something.”
GET BAAAAACK IN LIIIIIIIINE!!!!
@Nathan: if your friend follows that advice, then she somehow is not-cynical and believing enough in something to think that doing so will make an appreciable change in her chance(s) of being raped (possibly again, from what you said).l
I don’t see how following the advice is cynical and thinking the worst of human nature.
But even with the limits you have set, I’m uneasy at you using your friend’s experience in a discussion of this nature.
Me, during the worst of my depression and lousy paying job period, I not only walked home at night after work, but did so in such a mood that my attitude was “I’m so fat and ugly and everybody hates me that I probably won’t get raped and if I do get raped, nobody will care, so what the fuck.”
Even being raised in a nice white middle class background did not leave me so naive as thinking that those tips mean anything–not when four out of five of my women friends had been raped (mostly by family members and friends).
Pillz. I take nine pills in the morning, and one at night, but some are supplements, not prescription meds.
Thyroid (first thing, before anything else), then after breakfast:
Anti-depressant (*clings to it like lifeline*)
Diuretic
Metformin (lower blood sugar–got diagnosis of diabetes in September)
2 Zyrtec (TEXAS!ALLERGIES!)
Icap, Vit B12, Vit C
Another dose of the blood sugar lowering med at night after dinner.
But the fun is pilling one of the cats, Luthien, who got diagnosed for inflammatory bowel condition and needs steroid. She’s one of the ones who is sweet and cuddly until you hold her to DOSOMETHINGEVILOMG whereupon she turns into a buzzsaw. Current strategy is to wait until she’s asleep in cat bed with fairly high sides, sneak up from behind, grab her head, tilt back, and drop pill down throat, then JUMP AWAY fast.
Also, I just want to go back to my lynching example to show that “human nature” (in terms of what is viewed as morally acceptable) in fact can change, through a combination of education and law enforcement, within a generation or two. I see no reason to believe that educational campaigns about rape combined with more aggressive law enforcement against rapists could not be similarly effective against the most common type of rapists — those who know their victims, and who don’t even self-identify as rapists.
If the early civil rights activists had told themselves,
well, the world would be a worse place for it. And that’s just one example.
I guess I’m arguing that cynicism is one of those self-fulfilling prophecies.
Ithiliana, your description of giving your cat a pill earned a loud laugh from me, followed by the side-eye from my cats who apparently sense that felines were the butt of the joke. XD
I don’t understand how following (or passing on) a list of tips for preventing rape that not only would fail to prevent the most common forms of rape, but also would fail quite often -if not most of the time-at preventing the more uncommon “stranger rape” is cynicism in any form. How is it cynical to follow a list ghat statistically won’t help? Wouldn’t being cynical lead to discounting the list in its entirety unless you were already planning on “following” one or more of the tips for your own separate set of reasons? (For example, I follow the advice on not walking alone at night because I am in too much pain to walk anywhere let alone by myself and let alone at night when my pain is normally worse. I don’t pretend it is about rape either, though…)
tl;dr: Isn’t magical thinking the opposite of cynicism?
Also: 4 to 7 pills (soon to be up to 8 if my insurance company decides to actually pay for a drug that more than 3 different doctors say I should take), 3 times a day for me plus trigger point injections every three weeks. Back when I was seeing my shouldn’t-be-a-psychiatrist psychiatrist, I was on double that. While I have a strong gag reflex for most things, I can swallow pills like I’m competing for a prize in it. 🙂
I’ve been out at night and I live in the inner city. I have two little kids and no car. I’m not a reverse vampire who is going to shut myself in the second the sun starts setting in the sky. No one should ever ask this of anyone. It’s far too inconvenient to one’s life to be considered a reasonable safety measure for anybody at all.
It has me thinking though, is it victim blaming to think it’s foolish not to always be aware of one’s surrounding when you are out and about? I must admit that I do often feel that way. I was always told as a kid that it was better to be safe than sorry and I think it really stuck with me over the years.
I think being aware of your surroundings can be used in a victim-blamey way, but also helps you avoid hurting other people and can be common sense/common decency. My boyfriend is careful when walking behind women on their own so he doesn’t accidentally sneak up and scare them. He also doesn’t walk out in front of cars (which is a safety tip, but also a common decency to the driver thing). He is really bad at dropping doors on people, which is a failure to be aware of his surroundings that makes him look like a douche. So… context matters?
I can’t find that thread where we discussed the ‘potential prostitutes’ thing, but Anonymous is calling out some other douchey dude:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20579728
I used to go out a lot after dark in the UK but since moving to the US I have come to conclusion it isn’t socially acceptable to be out after dark. I still occasionally walk home at 9pm but it makes my neighbour and students angry. I think, where I live victim blaming has become so common that being out and walking as a women is almost treated as a crime. Even our local police responded to a recent rape and kidnapping (at 10am) by saying they can’t be everywhere at once and people need to take more responsibility for their own actions.
One of you made a brilliant comment the other day about the way we women all come up with serious reasons to justify why we have to walk at night – coming home from work, going to school, whatever. And how it is a form of internalised misogyny. Because why do we need a reason? Men don’t justify being out after dark. They just do it.
And I’m being too lazy to track the comment down but that! Everyone should be able to go outside after dark for any reason or no reason at all! To look at the stars, to cool off, to think, to do whatever the fuck they like.
Amused
“When you tell women they better not go out at night without an escort because rapists might be lurking…”
That isn’t what I said. Quoting myself from a previous comment:
“I said that MY decision to walk in a particular place at a particular time was stupid. I did not generalise that to other women, or other places. I also reused a hypothetical statement from Kittehs (“you shouldn’t walk alone at night”) but look at the context and the comment I am responding to. I saying that potential victims of might listen to that because, unlike rapists, they are the ones who want rape to stop happening. It’s not my statement, nor is it a statement I endorse or ever have endorsed. Hence my use of QUOTE MARKS. My point in that bit of the discussion was that that rapists don’t want to change the situation…”
Amused: “Your argument that rapists are deaf to advice or admonishment is likewise without merit… there is a surprisingly great number of men — still a small minority of men, but not an insignificant one — who will admit to having raped repeatedly as long as you don’t call it “rape”. Rapists have a vested interest in narrowing the definition of rape — or “legitimate rape”, in Akin-speak — so they can rape with impunity. You are right that rapists like to rape; what you don’t seem to be getting is that rapists don’t like to be called “rapists”, so they go to great lengths to dissociate themselves from the label in order to have more freedom to rape.”
You’re right and I apologize for my misunderstanding and lack of insight. What you have said helps me to process my own experinces somewhat actually. Those two guys I mentioned didn’t physically attack me, but they did get me in a situation where I was alone and frightened and saying “no” was difficult. I said “no” inspite of my fear on both occasions; one of the two accepted that straight away and the situation was resolved; the other kept pestering me and repeatedly asking, but I kept saying “no” and eventually he gave up. What would have happened if I hadn’t been able to say “no” due to fear of being attacked? I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have thought of it as rape, but if I’d been saying yes because the situation was frightening, that wouldn’t really have counted as consent, would it?
Amused: “Finally, “advice” such as the one you offer illustrates that the threat of rape — just the threat — is an enduring form of social control over women. Don’t wanna get raped? Fine: don’t leave the house, stay under constant supervision of a male guardian, don’t go to school, don’t pursue a career, don’t attract men with your looks, don’t date, don’t go to parties, in other words don’t live as freely or enjoyably as men do. But rapists — they don’t have to limit their lives in any way, shape or form, because as reasonable people, we should just resign ourselves to the fact that they do what they want. Do you not see how this is a horribly unfair, sexist argument? The view that it is women, not men, who should limit their lives in significant ways in order to make rape not happen?”
Ok, I agree with you. Sorry. I didn’t give advise resembling that, but I agree with the principle of what you are saying..
“Even our local police responded to a recent rape and kidnapping (at 10am) by saying they can’t be everywhere at once and people need to take more responsibility for their own actions.”
Fuck., that’s messed up!
@Somegalnotboredatall: Thank YOU! That was what i was trying to get at, and you said it so much better!
@Cloudiah: The vet, who knows these cats (Luthien’s sister Arwen is even worse!), and who described them after their first visit as “bad for their size,” actually consulted with me on the various ways of delivering the steroid–including transderman (ointment to rub on ears, which I thought would be harder). I actually called to tell him the exact method I’d developed….and he congratulated me.
@Melissa
You keep saying that you were just talking about yourself, but without any other information, how do we know it isn’t general advice. What if it was me instead of you walking that night, would it have been stupid of me? Why or why not? How is something stupid for you to have done different than the generalized stupid for women to be alone at night? It sounds like you have simply internalized the misogynistic advice which you are repeating. Since you are adament it is not, please differentiate it. (And “I was just talking about myself” doesn’t do that.)
I see what y’all are saying. Fair enough.
And I’m not trying to deny that it’s victim blaming. It absolutely is, full stop. I guess I’m just wondering if cynicism/misanthropy could be used as a justification for it more than anything…
As far as wondering if it’s cynicism to trust the list of “how to avoid being raped”… I don’t think it’s so much that she’s putting any “faith” in it persay (she’s not much for faith of any kind… actually, she makes Christopher Hitchens look like an accommodationist, to be honest), as it is that she’d do anything to protect herself.
The “don’t get raped” advice was not so much the list she follows to protect herself as it was the specific subject of our conversation. She does go through some great lengths to protect herself, but it’s more a lack of faith in humanity than any faith in the stuff working that drives her to do it… I think.
It is the dishonesty, or disingenuousness if you will, that signals trollishness on the part of Melissa. That and the bullshit about how it is everyone else responsibility to understand what M means instead of what M says. There is more, but I am so repulsed by the manipulative shit M has brought that I will leave it at that.
Happy 2013 man boobians, sorry to come late to this thread. (damn inter web monthly limits!)
Anyway, I would be much happier if other atheist did scamper off and play with the nazis, that way all credibility is lost, just wish he’d take aetheist off his title first.
@ Melissa- You weren’t stupid to walk anywhere at any particular time. You were just walking. Those harassy people you came across were stupid to be walking anywhere at that hour- if they knew they were going to harass a woman, an illegal and hurtful act, they should have had the brains to stay at home. What a couple of idiots. Now, externalize that self-directed internalized misogyny and drop kick it into the sun.
@YoYo
Happy 2013!
I’d almost forgotten what the OP was about. 🙂 Atheists can be assholes (and Nazis too, I guess). We can be whatever we want to be. It is the assholes that judge us by the worst of us that are the problem!
I think I fixed it so wordpress will keep my capitalization and spaces every time, but I needed to check.