So, that tempest in a teacup involving MRA London, A Voice for Men’s British satellite group, that I wrote about last night? Well, it’s gotten even sillier.
The tl;dr is that MRA London has split up, with accusations and counter-accusations flying. AVFM staffer Andy Thomas has appointed himself CEO of the group after apparently tossing out most of its members. (Or “accepting their resignations,” or something; who knows?) As far as I can tell, this means that the group may now be down to literally two people.
Now AVFM’s Maximum Leader Paul Elam has posted a very long statement on the subject, saying very little indeed. The gist of it? He really doesn’t know what happened in the “very British coup” or who was right, but he’s sticking with Thomas because he knows the dude better than the dudes who are no longer part of the group. No, really, that’s his explanation.
Not only that, but Elam admits flatly that doesn’t really even care who was right, at least not enough to bother to try to figure out the basic facts of the case:
I am not in the least interested in trying to ascertain who was more or less at fault in MRA London’s internal conflicts. It is not that I am indifferent to right and wrong in this case, but simply as a pragmatic matter I cannot and won’t try to wade through several weeks/months of infighting, insinuation and accusations between people in conflict 8,000 miles from here and even pretend that I can come up with an informed judgment.
Really? Because most political organizations, when faced with issues like this, like to at least pretend to gather the facts before making their decisions.
Elam also alludes vaguely to
other factors, having to do with the best interests of AVFM and the MHRM, that lend more support to our decision to maintain the historical relationship we have had with Andy Thomas of MRA London. I am not at liberty to discuss them, but they are compelling.
Oh, so there were some SUPER SEEEKRET reasons too! Having to do with the “best interests” of the world historical force that is the Men’s Human Rights Human Movement of Men (But Not Those Dudes We Just Threw Under The Bus for Super SEEEKRET Reasons).
Come to think of it, no one has actually explained straightforwardly the non-super seekret reasons either. Ah well.
Elam also makes clear that any dissent to this decision will be confined to the comments of this one thread.
ALL HAIL ELAM AND HIS INFALLIBLE WISDOM OF MAKING DECISIONS BASED ON NOT KNOWING SHIT ABOUT WHAT HE’S MAKING DECISIONS ABOUT.
PS In my haste to write this post I neglected to include my regular reminder that AVFM, while claiming to be a “human rights” group, continues to post a literal call to firebomb courthouses and police stations in its activism section.
There is a cricket presence in my apartment! As in, there was one who somehow got in once, and I think the cat killed it because by the time I found it it was already dead.
Given the number of people my apartment contains versus the number of people London contains, the cricket presence in my apartment is officially more significant than the MRA presence in London.
That’s like the cricket presence in the upstairs loo at work! One dead cricket in the bath, and I’ve no idea where it came from, unless it fell through the skylight.
That, or your cat is not only killing crickets but has a transporter beam to get rid of ’em as well.
I wouldn’t put it past her. Cats, after all.
LOL the perfect audience for MRA hissy fits!
Feminist Lie. There was a larger group.
I usually click through and read the original whatever the OP is talking about, but I think I might have to quit doing this for things on AVfM. It’s just too toxic, and I feel that I’m doing myself concrete mental harm by reading that stuff. Not the misogyny, the writing.
Normal humans would approach a problem like this by relating their version of events and providing supporting evidence. MRAs settle internal disputes by having a strained-meaningless-metaphor-off.
@WeeBoy, I would just straight out ask them. Anyone who’s going to be offended by the question is probably not well-suited to be a flatmate anyway.
As someone said on the other thread, these guys have such a hard time organizing because they’re too full of rage and ego to work together for very long. I hope they keep trying, though, because I love me some drama.
Kakanian:
That’s weird–I’ve read it on Firefox on two different machines, now, with no difficulties (and one of those machines is, frankly, a PoS that has difficulty keeping up with modern flash games at times).
That’s also Stephen Colbert’s preferred method of conflict resolution.
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/85568/april-19-2007/meta-free-phor-all–shall-i-nail-thee-to-a-summer-s-day-
Aww, are you hungry, little troll? I’ll feed you.
How many people actually did show up?
Evidence or GTFO.
It was six people, I tell you. Six!
(Which conveniently rhymes with sex, the not getting of which is the core MRA issue.)
Feminist Lie/Libel. MRAs are concerned with pervasive misandry, violence against men, and the human rights of men.
Showing us that you don’t know what libel is, while admittedly funny, doesn’t actually answer my question.
Oh, does someone need a dictionary?
libel 1) n. to publish in print (including pictures), writing or broadcast through radio, television or film, an untruth about another which will do harm to that person or his/her reputation, by tending to bring the target into ridicule, hatred, scorn or contempt of others.
Stop spending some much time rambling about things like making friend zoning illegal and maybe you could convince someone that your concern being your lack of sex is actually not true.
“Proof of malice, however, does allow a party defamed to sue for “general damages” for damage to reputation, while an inadvertent libel limits the damages to actual harm (such as loss of business) called “special damages.” “Libel per se” involves statements so vicious that malice is assumed and does not require a proof of intent to get an award of general damages.”
Seeing how we have reason aplenty to assume your boners are central to MRM discussion, yeah, what are your actual harms?
Also, PECUNIUM PECUNIUM PECUNIUM!! *attempts to invoke Sir Pecunium*
Hi, socky! Still haven’t found the washing machine, huh?
So what’s your area of expertise? Feminist academic theory? Prof of gender studies?
“(Which conveniently rhymes with sex, the not getting of which is the core MRA issue.)”
Especially in a New Zealand accent. 😉
It might be a lie (but you’ll some proof that it’s a lie). But even if it’s untrue, it’s not libel.
Libel (in the US) is a complicated thing. First, it’s a civil tort, not a criminal complaint. That means the burden of proof is lower. But it’s also hemmed by a lot of court cases.
The most important is Times v Sullivan which says that a public figure can’t be libeled merely by the printing of an untruth, but that the untruth much be maliciously intended.
The reason this matters is that the nature of “public figure” was defined in Sullivan to mean any person who has thrust themself into a public debate (for some public figures, e.g. the president of the US this means that it’s pretty much impossible to commit an act of libel; because the idea that anything said about the president could actually cause harm to his reputation, even if false, is pretty much null and void).
So the people who attempted to stage the rally were putting themselves into a public role, which means there is no way any statement about how many people showed up is going to be libelous. If someone said no one showed up because they had heard the Paul Elam likes to blow syphilitic goats, then it might be possible to argue a libel had taken place.
But even in that case getting an attorney to accept the case (given that it might be hard to show that such a statement would actually harm Elam’s reputation; what with him touting terrorism), would be hard. It would require a substantial outlay of money on the part of the plaintiff; enough to make Mr. “Penguins are Whores” Martin’s £36,000 investment in suing against misandry look both a reasonable, and moderate, expense.
Yeah, pretty much no-one in London or the UK gives a shit about this^ storm in a teacup.
This is what’s bothering people here right now:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22630303
The terror attack itself, and concern about a possible violent backlash / fear it’ll lead to the kind of tit-for-tat violence that plagued N.Ireland (and the rest of the UK) for decades.
Which presumably is what these evil murdering fuckbags were aiming for by butchering a man in broad daylight – and then getting people to film them making a statement while they still held knives in their bloody hands.
Thank you,Joe, for your report from Obviousville.
Oh go away, Joe. Don’t grandstand over that poor man’s ghastly murder.
@Futrelle – You’re an American chosing to talk about my country – just trying to bring a sense of perspective to your obsession.
@cloudiah – Yeah, shoot the messenger why don’t you.
While we have the dictionary out:
hy·per·bo·le
[ hī púrbəlee ]
1.exaggeration: deliberate and obvious exaggeration used for effect, e.g. “I could eat a million of these”
They’re not mutually exclusive; plenty of MRAs seem to define men’s human rights as “women not being able to say no to men”, and regard women actually saying no to them as misandry.