So A Voice for Men, having lost or abandoned the original venue for their “Men’s Issues” conference in Detroit, has announced its new location: A VFW post some 18 miles away from the original hotel where, presumably, most of the conference’s attendees will be staying.
According to Paul Elam, they made the move in large part to spare conference-goers the terrible inconvenience of having to watch the no-doubt riveting presentations from an “overflow room.”
No, really.
In a post last night, Elam declared that all the media attention given to the conference
has produced is a hell of a lot more interest in the conference, and more ticket sales. So much so, as a matter of fact, that we have opted to move to a venue that will seat more people and provide more security than was available previously.
While we apologize for any inconvenience that the move is going to cause, it is nonetheless a positive move for the conference. Because seating capacity was misrepresented to us at the previous venue, we were forced to plan for an overflow room where we would pipe in live events to a monitor at reduced ticket prices.
With the change of venue we will be able to accommodate all attendees in the same space at the same time.
Naturally, the first thing some critics of Elam did when they saw this announcement was to look up the seating capacity of the largest rooms at both venues. The largest room at the Doubletree Fort Shelby, where the conference was originally scheduled to take place, seats 300, with a maximum capacity of 310. The largest room at the VFW post … also seats 300. Or maybe 350. The VFW website isn’t clear.
In other words, Elam expects us to believe that in order to avoid the inconvenience of having to resort to “overflow rooms,” AVFM moved its convention to a venue 18 miles away from the original hotel that might not even offer rooms any bigger than the original venue.
Meanwhile, in the comments to Elam’s post, one would-be conference attendee reports that the Doubletree has canceled his reservation. If Doubletree has decided to wash its hands of the conference attendees now that they are no longer hosting the conference, and Elam is telling the truth about the number of people planning to attend, this could mean hundreds of people scrambling for hotel rooms.
Still, Elam and his troops are eager to present this as a great victory.
It’s weird. You might think that this sort of reality distortion would be impossible in a democratic country in the internet age. Sure, back in Stalin’s day, the Soviet Union’s propaganda machine could present massive failure as success and get away with it – at least to some degree, at least within their own country.
In the wake of a disastrous program of “forced collectivization” of rural agriculture in 1929-30, which left many peasants dead or imprisoned and paved the way for future famines, Stalin famously announced in an article in Pravda that the program had been so amazingly successful that he needed to call a temporary halt so that everyone could catch their breath. The title of his article: “Dizzy With Success.”
The only way you can get away with bullshit this brazen is if you’re a dictator or the leader of a cult – something that A Voice for Men has increasingly come to resemble. AVFMers are expected not only to accept Elam’s leadership; they’re expected to accept his distinctly non-consensus reality – a world turned upside down in which men are the real victims of domestic violence and rape and pretty much everything else, a world in which the Southern Poverty Law Center is a collection of evil bigots and his motley collection of misogynists is the true human rights movement of the twenty-first century.
Like a lot of cult leaders, Elam keeps his troops too busy to think straight in a continual frenzy of pseudo-activism. AVFMers are forever brigading comment sections of newspaper articles and YouTube videos in little squads (AVFMers almost always travel in packs), all reciting the same few talking points.
Weirdly, the dynamics of internet discussions can actually reinforce this kind of intellectual conformity, much as Stalin’s control of the media did in his day. No, AVFMers can’t avoid being exposed to facts that contradict the shared (un)reality of their ideological bubble.
But in internet discussions you don’t have to be right in order to convince yourself you’ve won an argument. You just have to be loud and persistent and unwilling to ever give in. You don’t have to convince anyone else of your arguments so long as you convince yourself. MRAs don’t win many arguments on their merits, but they manage to convince themselves they win every one.
The trouble is that when they step outside of their regular stomping grounds on the internet, this strategy – so effective in generating ideological conformity amongst cult members – falls completely apart.
We’ve seen several spectacular examples in the past couple of weeks. First, we watched a concert organized by Canadian Men’s Rights group CAFE implode after musicians and sponsors realized what they’d been roped into; the pathetically unconvincing attempts by the group to explain away this failure were amazing to behold.
Then we saw AVFM’s Dean Esmay reduce himself to a caricature on Fox (local) news as he rapidly regurgitated standard AVFM talking points like some sort of fanatical ideological auctioneer, apparently unaware that to everyone outside of the Men’s Rights bubble everything he was saying was obviously utter nonsense.
And now we have Paul Elam trying to convince the world that AVFM changed its venue for its conference because, hey, we needed more room!
The trouble with having your head up your ass most of the time is that when you take it out, people tend to notice the smell.
But, hey, as long as the AVFMers are happy with their new venue, I’m happy for them. Janet Bloomfield, the official “social media director” for the conference, posted this triumphant tweet lat night:
https://twitter.com/JudgyBitch1/status/476822883881459712
She has assured me that this is an actual quote. The “Wayne State cunts” remark is apparently a reference to the Wayne State sociology professor who, er, debated AVFM’s Dean Esmay on the local Fox affiliate the other day. Esmay has also posted a slightly shorter version of the same quote in the AVFM comments section.
So, yes, both the official PR representative for the conference and AVFM’s “managing editor” both apparently think it’s a great idea to refer to women who disagree with them as “cunts.”
Oh, and Bloomfield also thinks it’s hilarious to joke about Elam scamming his supporters of the $29,000 raised for additional security:
https://twitter.com/BhasChat/status/476907717194702848
You can’t buy this kind of publicity, largely because as far as I know there are no PR firms that offer organizations help in destroying the last tiny shreds of their credibility.
@Fnoicby
I think Auntie Alias was responding to your first post, without having seen your correction. Unless I’m misreading.
Fnoicby, were you addressing that to JB? I thought you were criticizing David. I’m sorry!
@foxy
That’s a loaded question, given your assumption of a rights-based morality that not everyone accepts. But yes, feminists generally seek to bring about a non-oppressive state of society.
You’re saying that as if the misogyny and the talking points about custody and divorce are mutually exclusive. They aren’t. There is a ton of misogyny in father’s rights discourses, and also quite a bit of domestic abuse apologia and male entitlement.
Clearly you don’t know what sexism is, so you shouldn’t be lecturing us about it.
We’ve heard it all before, trust me. Nothing you say is new or important to us.
Of course. Unfortunately, it seems that anti-feminists are horrible at doing this. Far more than feminists ever have been.
@rudyrandy
Lol, that’s amusing to hear. This situation is just getting funnier and funnier.
That’s a bit of a non-sequitur, isn’t it?
In general, child custody decisions tend to be made in favor of the person who’s been doing most of the child care, provided that person doesn’t have a history of being abusive. If the people involved have been splitting the child care duties more-or-less equally, and nobody’s been abusive, and both of them want custody, then the courts will usually try to set up some kind of joint custody arrangement.
So, in theory, it would be possible for the MRM to take a positive role in helping men get custody more often. They could offer child-care seminars, anger management classes, and maybe the occasional refresher course on how to use a condom if you don’t want children.
But whenever anyone suggests something like that to the MRM, the response is invariably: “We don’t wanna learn how to better ourselves! We just wanna blame our problems on somebody else, and women are as good a target as any!” It’s gotten to the point where people have given up on trying to help them.
Yes Auntie Alias, I was most definitely addressing that to JB!
Fnoicby, again, my apologies for jumping to the wrong conclusion. I feel terrible.
Pauly jumps into the Muckraker comments section again wielding his usual charm.
Ack, blockquote error and sorry for leaving the AVFM link in there.
Wasn’t there a troll the other day acting like the lord high master of rationality, and just wanting us to understand and be friends?
No. If you see nothing wrong with the things avfm say and do that is not ok and you are little more than an enabler. It isn’t a difference of opinion, it isn’t playing devils advocate, its just dumb.
Men already have rights. They aren’t an oppressed class.
Are you assuming we’re all first time readers and commenters here? We have looked in the MRM. We’ve looked into plenty and there is plenty of misogyny in it. Can you give us an example of what on this page is sexist? Because we are not sexist. We oppose misogyny. Expecting men to not be misogynistic isn’t sexist.
I don’t buy it. We get MRAs pretending to be neutral here all the time. It’s boring. Even if you are sincere, it’s ridiculous to draw an equivalence between the MRM and feminism.
Kids? How very condescending of you. At least we know how to properly capitalize and punctuate when we type. I’m not so sure that someone who lacks basic writing skills is in a position to be so condescending.
Can you provide examples of any of us being irrational? Because I don’t see it. It’s almost like you’re a misogynist who dismisses the opinions of women on the basis of our hysterical lady brains.
What original 2 cents those were! I’ve never heard the you’re too angry and mean and doing feminism wrong from a so-called neutral observer before. Your mansplaining has changed all my opinions!
Oh wait. No. We get this kind of trolling practically every day.
As for facts and sources, feel free to search the MRA tag for examples of MRAs being misogynistic. David always includes sources.
@ foxy
Really? First, custody and divorce ‘battles’ are rare, separation terms and custody are usually settled outside of court, relatively amicably, in the US anyway. And when they do happen, men get the arrangement they ask for just as often than women get the arrangement they ask for. The key is that they have to ask for it (see below).
Also, the men affected by this have to be married, with children, and going through a divorce. Small percent of the population, no? Also, what about gay men? Or trans men? Do you support gay marriage, and would you fight for the rights of gay men to adopt children? Or trans men’s rights? I’m gonna guess no.
I thought it was MENS rights, but I guess #NotAllMen.
Where are all of the ‘neutral’ trolls coming from? Is there a factory? There’s a factory, isn’t there.
Tone troll, so original! And you can keep the change.
Oooh, doesn’t provide any evidence for assertions, insists we provide them though. Facts are misandry!
http://www.wlcmd.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Custody-and-Financial-Distribution-in-Maryland.pdf
I like this PDF cause it separates outcomes based on the decision making process.
When taken to court, the outcomes are as follows (numbers are requests as percentage of outcomes):
Father awarded sole custody per request: 87%
Mother awarded sole custody per request:83%
In short, when fathers request custody, they tend to get it. Same with mothers, really. In the end, the parent who ends up with custody, simply enough, tends to be the one who wants it.
Statistics can never hurt your argument? Might want to tell that to the MRM and there habitual misuse of stats, seeing how it makes them look like fools. On Al Jazeera no less.
And whatever stats you’re about to demand from us, use google yourself.
Thanks Auntie
Don’t feel too bad. Troll-pwning is awesome fun – didn’t realize you thought that’s what I was. 🙂
Ha, ha. Add us librarians to the things of which Pauly has no clue about what they actually do or stand for.
Straw librarians.
Fnoicby, thank you for forgiving my faux pas. 🙂
“I don’t buy that they’ve been threatened by feminists because I doubt everything AVfM claims and that behavior would be very out of character for feminists.”
But you have to understand that these are very sensitive manlings who are terrified of these mean, critical women who bruise their delicate egos and slash and burn their fragile manhood. (A shocking number of cases of Shriveled Testes Syndrome have been reported lately. Just one hatchet-faced glance can cause this terrible ailment.) In that context, even the slightest female questioning of their manly entitlement can seem like a vicious threat. MRAs are befuddled when women fail to treat them with the reverential respect which is the birthright of the male gender.
From JudgyBitch: “Paul wanted to keep all the donations for himself but I punched him in the face until he cried and agreed to give me half because he knew under VAWA he would get arrested because women never assault men so he gave in and now I get HALF bitches!”
If you take JudgyBitch seriously as an MRA supporter, she is (1) admitting that he is a con-man, (2) describing him as a wuss who can be bitch-slapped into forking over half his money, and (3) admitting to a felony (extortion). I have no difficulty believing that Paul Elam is a con-man who is in the MRA racket because the religion racket is overcrowded with much more competent and charismatic scoundrels. Moist men won’t buy his crap, but there enough soft-as-a sneaker-full-of-shit losers like Woody (synonym for “boner”, LOL) to give him enough money to pay his strip-club bills.
Foxy: get a clue.
I’m smelling socks.
Man, Mikey and Paul just love to issue challenges don’t they? I bet they wish they had gloves they could slap people with before they challenged them to pistols at dawn.
Faaaaaaaaaaaahck, I just saw someone say they love GWW and I wanna respond so badly with what a fucking idiot they are but I can’t expend my time and energy on that shit. I’m gong into conniptions trying not to correct every fucking thing they’ve said.
Straw librarians.
Very useful. You prop them up in the staff meetings wearing your id card while you bunk off and read the Internet.
GrumpyOldMan –
Love it. 😀
Did you get your Welcome Package, btw?
RE: brooked
They are pretty sketchy on details about the conference, they just list the twelve scheduled speakers which includes Elam and GWW.
Shit, y’all, the anarchist craft convention I was at last month, which was free, had eight fucking speakers and a couple dozen readers. FREE, for both attendees and vendors, was wedged into one room in a literacy center in Kentucky.
I’d ask where all this money was going, except I totally know the answer already.
RE: Howard Bannister
That sounds an awful lot like placing their own pet theories and the advancement of them over any consideration for you at all.
YUP. That’s exactly it. Like I said, I’m not a PERSON to them. I’m an amusing pet theory to experiment with, or some fluffy unicorn baby who needs to be broken. (I’ve discovered that nothing gets a certain subset of humanity angrier than a happy freak.)
RE: foxy
its all coming off just like you say people say feminists are, angry irrational and overly sensitive.
Not like them at all. The MRAs I’ve encountered have all been paragons of callous rationality.
RE: rudyrandy
That “300 seat” conference room is really just 2 conference rooms with a collapsible wall between them. Even with the walls down you could only realistically seat 200 people.
Then why didn’t they just say that? And why didn’t they figure this out EARLIER? Still shitty con management.
@pecunium, your comment is all speculation. None of us know exactly what happened at this point. It’s possible Paul and his administration did make some logistical errors. This doesn’t mean he is a scammer. Paul would never do that.
This doesn’t mean he is a scammer. Paul would never do that.
Okay, I refuse to believe Woody is for real. Which one of you be socking?
Woody: Paul’s not a scammer, he’s a grifter. You need to get your con-classifications straight.