So, it finally happened. The men’s rights lecture and rally in Toronto that A Voice for Men have been breathlessly promoting for weeks — in no less than 17 separate posts — have both come to pass. Men’s Rights celebrities flew in from across the continent to attend the exciting events. Paul Elam was there! So was Karen Straughan! Even Dan Perrins made an appearance! (Oh, wait, I think he lives around there.)
In a post-rally post, AVFM’s Robert O’Hara declared the “Historic MHRA rally in Toronto” to have been a “huge success.”
Well, you can be the judge of that. Go here to watch some actual footage of the event. (Sorry, I can’t get it to embed here.) So far I’ve only watched the final 8-minute video at the top of the page, but it’s pretty revealing in and of itself. The event organizers almost outnumber the sparse crowd. And one of the speakers calls for MRAs to take up arms against their “communist” opponents. No, really, just watch.
In case the video gets pulled, or censored, I’ve taken the liberty of transcribing his remarks: :
There’s an organization out there called communism, and the communist manifesto says that the first thing they have to do is take over power. And they’ll never get elected. And they know that they’ll never get elected. So what they do is they say “we have to take power by violent methods,” right, so if you want to crack back against these people, I hate to say it, but you’ve gotta be prepared to pick up a gun and put down the books.
Emphasis mine.
Someone in the audience responds to this with a hearty “yep!” There’s a smattering of applause, mixed with boos. AVFM’s Dean Esmay hurridly ushers the speaker away from the microphone.
The speaker who follows Esmay — I didn’t catch his name — describes the counterprotesters (who held their own rally nearby) as being of “the hammer and sickle” and denigrates them as “queers.”
This isn’t so much history being made as history repeating itself. I suspect the rhetoric was similar at a lot of White Citizen Council rallies in the sixties.
Oh, and the HISTORIC LECTURE that so many MRAs were hoping and dreaming that feminists would disrupt? Feminists ignored it. Apparently, according to one MRA on Reddit who claimed to have been there, a little more than a hundred people showed up.
Congratulations, A Voice for Men, on your FLAWLESS VICTORY!
I’ll watch as much of the rest of the rally as I can force myself to sit through, and add anything else worth adding.
EDITED TO ADD: I watched the video that covered the rest of the rally. It was pretty uneventful: a low energy, sparsely attended rally with a bunch of half-assed speeches. Apparently no one at A Voice for Men or CAFE, the co-host of the rally, bothered to prepare anything to say — perhaps because they were all expecting some sort of feminist riot? The “pick up a gun” speaker wasn’t one of the scheduled speakers, just someone they gave the microphone to when he raised his hand after the scheduled speakers were done.
One moment that did stand out: a trans man — apparently a member of CAFE — briefly took the mic, taking offense at the chants from the counterprotestors calling MRA’s “anti-gay.” I would suggest he take a look at AVFM’s not-so-proud history of homophobia and transphobia.
EDITED TO ADD AGAIN: Here’s a picture of the event from Civilian Media. You can almost taste the excitement! From left, Nick Reading of Men’s Rights Edmonton, Dean Esmay of AVFM, the legendary Paul Elam (looking a little bewildered), and two other dudes. Paul evidently HEARTS Fucking Their Shit Up. Oh, Paul, we HEART U!
I think I may have been forbidden to have Goosebumps books…I feel like it might not have been the material so much as that my parents just thought those kids’ series that cranked out tons of books were kinda stupid. Did manage to acquire an Animorphs book, though.
Alice Sanguinaria – Yea, I’m barely an adult and already feel old and burnt out, but at the same time feel really unexperienced and immature… And being online is just a thing everyone does now, it used to be so fun and interesting, now it just adds more things to feel crappy about.
Early 20’s are a weird time.
@ katz
Not the Beatles, but I did once have a coworker who didn’t know who The Ramones were. The rest of us all sat around in the break room staring at her in bemused wonder.
Early twenties are a shitty time for a lot of people, honestly, even if there’s no specific reason for it. I got a lot happier and more positive after I hit about 28 or so.
Re
that David linked and seeing the whole poster here https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=171424136381856&set=a.171423116381958.1073741859.153783111479292&type=3&theater (you should be able to see that without having a Facebook account), have the evil communist-feminists put some spell on the child that 1 Willpower and 1 Intelligence can’t get past?
Just noticed the poster here, peering at my screen trying to read the text: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=171423353048601&set=a.171423116381958.1073741859.153783111479292&type=3&theater and finding it intriguing that under the man side abstinence is asterisked as “N/A because of paternity fraud”. TBH I thought abstinence was viewed as N/A because MRAs think they should have sex any time they like, with whoever they like, and there’s no such thing as rape (unless the survivor is a manly man). Have given up trying to work out the “logic” behind bits on the man side such as bankruptcy and prison.
Also: not 100 people evidence:
Exhibit A: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=171423556381914&set=a.171423116381958.1073741859.153783111479292&type=3&theater
Exhibit B: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=171423709715232&set=a.171423116381958.1073741859.153783111479292&type=3&theater
I found the text for the Men and Boys in Crisis poster here (note AVFM site): http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/activism/posters-needed-for-toronto-protest/ and I hadn’t noticed much discrimination going on in the places listed on the poster. Not sure what the Canadian Maltese Charitable Trust is doing associated with this, but it seems to hinge on Attila Vinczer and his association with the Trust is given here: http://donate2charities.ca/en/THE.CANADIAN.MALTESE.CHARITABLE.SERVICE.TRUST._.0_891450561RR0001 So would it be a case that Vinczer is the support, rather than the Trust itself?
It was totally like that! It was even worse when it was a good thing, or the gateway to the longest/most interesting path in the book, and every time you’d reread it you’d be going “What do I have to do to make the magic fairy appear?”
Oh, I’m nowhere near that age, grandma!
<>
27.
Vampire the Masquerade. It’s an RPG. :B is that, but with Bloodlines on the end. It’s an RPG on computatoes.
Okay, so 7 links trigger moderation? 🙁
Athywren – It just makes me sad. Every time I read/hear the text of the Pale Blue Dot, I just get sadder and cry. The picture is just so beautiful…
I feel nihilistic.
baileyrenee – I hate this burnt out feeling. I want to do something about it, but I can’t. Whatever I do feels useless and meaningless. Then I wonder whether I’m better than the MRAs that we’re all criticizing, because I don’t feel like I’m doing anything either.
Kiwi girl – Yep.
Source: experience from me debunking some troll’s post in the same way I’d debunk said post on a forum. Slight pain in the ass, since posting links and sources are the way I do debate, but still.
But you see the whole inherent issue with writing a strong CYOA: It has to be a very linear story completely driven by a single character and/or by highly predictable reactions to that character. You can have other characters do static things that will happen in every pathway (unless the reader alters them), but you can’t have other people acting much like real, motive characters, or it undermines the usefulness of the choices.
Alice – thanks, the funny thing is that one of think is just a link to a comment David made earlier on this page. But maybe 6 links would also have put the post into moderation. Time for dinner, anyways. 🙂
*offers hugs*
I… may be weird. That feeling of being a speck on a speck around a glint in a smudge in amongst all of existence… I like it. I like being made to feel stupid, too. I think it’s because I’m a genius of tremendous universal importance or something. 😛
LOL!
Re: CYOA
I myself never really read them. Huge Goosebumps fan though! probably triggered my interest in horror stuff as an adult now that I think about it.
Anyway, I think I’ll go watch a movie. Goodnight everyone!
G’night, Quackers. Enjoy movie time.
Athywren – I don’t know if the tears are happy or sad. In the grand scheme of things, what we do doesn’t really matter, and yet to us they’re a really big deal.
It just makes you remember that in the end, some things just really don’t matter.
I can get that. It can be really frustrating to hear it all the time.
Yeah, but y’all mention it so much, it sounds cool and I feel like I ought to check it out.
I have a theory about that. I suspect that many people view what they’re “going to be when they grow up” in their teens as being completely different – and way more epic – than what they are in their 20s and when they figure that out it is very disappointing and they feel really depressed by how it is. And as they make their way through their 20s they tend to find what they have that’s good in their life and start to come to terms with the lack of “I am going to be a 1%/Unique World-Changer!” and find that there are other things in their life that they can be happy about. So by the time they get close to 30 they learn to let go of that teenage dream and feel comfortable with who they are. That’s just my theory, and obviously it’s super simple, but I think it’s a really good place to start.
Oh lordy, these guys may not be the victims of anything but imaginary feminist conspiracy but they ARE major fashion victims. I mean black socks, shorts and crocs! What. The. Fuck. I would feel sorry for them if they weren’t such assholes.
The way the dude in the shorts is dressed keeps making me think that he’s Evil Mario Batali.
Alice – Uggh, I know exactly what you mean. I wish I could be out making a difference, but have barely enough resources to take care of myself. I wonder if I’m any better too sometimes. I guess, at the very least, we’re not trying to attack the wrong things and people like the MRM do though. Hopefully CassandraSays is right.
*Keyboard is being weird and I can’t type those little blockquote arrows
That feeling of being a speck on a speck around a glint in a smudge in amongst all of existence… I like it.
I do too actually, it takes me away from everything I worry about… I just don’t like feeling like a waste of a speck, if that makes any sense. I can handle being a speck just fine, just not a worthless one in relation to all the other specks.
Now I’ve typed speck too many times, and I’m worried I’m not spelling it right…
Athywren — you liked Redemption?! Did you manage to beat it? Cuz I always got stuck so frikken early (you know the locked cell you have to escape from during daylight hours? Cue sizzling)
Anyone who wants VtM:B…email me, this nym at gmail.
And yeah, I like that feeling of being but a speck in the universe. I can fuck up royally and the rest of the universe won’t even know the difference (now, this gets weird with people who do actually have the power to royally screw things, but I’m not feeling like this is a good time to go on an environmentalist rant)
True, but the grand scheme of things doesn’t really matter, at least not in that regard. Why should we expect to be important on a universal scale? Compress all the sound of history into ten minutes, and Beethoven’s symphonies are just a beep. Zoom out far enough, and all of Van Gogh’s paintings are just a pixel… anything out if it’s proper context will appear small and meaningless. If we look at ourselves next to the universe itself we’ll obviously look insignificant, but that doesn’t mean we are.
…and that’s why I always end up giggling when creationists try to induce existential dread in me with the idea that nobody will remember me in 15 million years “if there’s no god.” (Because it would be totally different if there was one!)
Now now, let’s not mock questionable fashion choices. I’ve seen a certain regular in a striped shirt and traditional plaid kilt (yes I commented on that faux pas)
Of course, he wasn’t out in public. Otoh, I’m thinking of wearing my costume jacket down there next weekend, floor length in back, vest like in front, very steampunk if I put the chains and such on it. Which reminds me that I need a new pocket watch…
Why would there being a god mean that people 15 million years from now would remember random people? I mean, if humans are still around at that point I doubt we’ll even remember people who were Michael Jackson-level famous. Famous rulers, maybe.
Are you talking about Prague? The place with those ginormous knight dudes? (It’s about a decade since I played it :P) From what I remember, the trick is just keeping to the shadows as much as possible, though I also remember that whole city being a massive fuckweasel…