So in my email inbox yesterday, alongside a nagging reminder from my dentist to schedule a checkup and my latest marching orders from the Gynocrat Central Committee, I noticed an email from an unknown correspondent with the intriguing subject line “The Holy War against Feminism.”
Clicking on it, I found an angry little manifesto from someone calling himself Mortago Black. It started off with a bold all-caps claim:
THE MENS REIGHTS REVOLUTION IS AT HAND.
The revolution will not be spellchecked.
But apparently, if Mr. Black has any say over things, it will be “liked” on Facebook: our manifesto-writer followed his bold headline with a link to a Facebook page – which, by the time I got around to looking at his email, had been taken down, probably because it contained stuff like, well, the rest of his manifesto.
Mr. Black continued:
The dawn of men’s rights revolution is fast approaching. We are rising to destroy the evil of modern day feminism. The lies, the bigotry, and the hatred of feminism must be erased from the surface of our earth.
We are sworn to our lives to wage a holy war of men’s rights against feminism.
Huh. You know, before starting this blog, I probably would have dismissed something like this as obvious trollery. But too many Men’s Rightsers talk exactly like this for me to assume it’s not for real. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be a troll, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if it was 100% real.
You will see my profile picture is the flag of the men’s rights revolution.
Wait, they have a flag now?
The 3 colors represent the heart and soul of our holy struggle:
You haven’t even specified what the “evil of modern-day feminism” consists of, and you’ve already moved on to the flag-describing stage?
Black: The black represents the darkness that is the evil of feminism. The shadow the oppression of feminist bigotry casts over the land, and the blackening of hearts against that which is good and just.
Ok, black = evil. No points for originality here.
Blue: The blue representatives man as society expects him to be, the role we have written for us, the character society forces us to play.
So, the Blue Pill? The Blue Pill is bad, right? Why are you giving 2/3 of the real estate on your flag to things you don’t like?
Red: The red represents the blood shed by fathers, husbands and sons of the past. It reminds us of the struggle and sacrifice we must be willing to make to destroy feminism.
Oy. Now I’m seeing why Facebook tried to nip your little revolution in the bud.
We shall cast this flag over the United States, and one day, over the world. We shall unshackle ourselves from the chains of feminist hate. We shall cleanse the world of this cancer, of this filth, of this plague, of this DISEASE that is feminism. We shall DESTROY those who seek to hurt us simply by virtue of birth. We shall ERADICATE the hatred and enemies of men.
Dude, hate to break it to you, but when you start talking about “cleansing the world” of the “disease” that is your enemy, you don’t sound much like Thomas Jefferson. You sound a lot more like the guy who wrote this:
[T]he discovery of the Jewish virus is one of the greatest revolutions that has taken place in the world. The battle in which we are engaged today is of the same sort as the battle waged, during the last century, by Pasteur and Koch. How many diseases have their origin in the Jewish virus! … We shall regain our health only be eliminating the Jew.
Yes, it was indeed Hitler who wrote that. Yes, I just compared you to Hitler. But you can’t call Godwin on me because you are LITERALLY USING A FASCIST TROPE.
If you find yourself, consciously or unconsciously, spouting rhetoric that sounds like you plagiarized it from Mein Kampf, I think you might just have to consider the possibility that, well, you might be the baddies.
Also, would it kill you to proofread your hate manifestos before you send them out?
EDIT: Added a bit more on the question of whether or not this is real or a troll, since I can’t tell.
David Futrelle
This guy does sound like a literal Nazi. Just replace the word feminists with Jews.
Seriously, I couldn’t be more thankful that there’s practically no chance that Mr. Black’s “revolution” will ever be realized. “revolution” more like a “regression” if you ask me.
(Hmm – I thought I posted a parody of The Internationale (MRA edition) earlier…
@grumpycatisagirl
Thanks for the link!
@Robert : I remember the Gamer Console War. We went off as boys, and came home as dudebros.
Those days huddled against the barrage of Cheeto dust, the terrible smell of stale body odor wafting over the battlefield. All of our lost comrades, who stepped out to get more snacks, never to return. And always out there somewhere lurking in the jungle, all those women with their snarled warcries of “Get a life!”.
It was hell, man. If you haven’t been there, you just don’t know.
Phoenician, I was widowed twice in that conflict. I lost two good men to the horror of the trenches.One died of carpal tunnel, the other lost a buttock at the Battle of the Couch, and succumbed to septacemia. Too many good men lost to the bad decisions of console manufacturers and game developers, may the bastards burn in hell, and our lost ones be at peace. We must ensure peace; such tragedy must never happen again!
Now I kinda want to see a Ken Burns-style mockumentary about this, like Community did with “Pillows and Blankets”.
That’s what I thought, Auntie Alias. Given Facebook’s history (they refused to take down a pro-rape group’s page) I’m surprised they didn’t trot out some FREEZE PEACH bullshit.
Maybe they’re thinking they’ve had enough stuff-ups for one week.
ROFLMAO!
Black, Blue, Red? That’s the Donetsk People’s Republic, a region trying to secede from Ukraine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donetsk_People%27s_Republic
I could tell you what my reaction to this post is but I’ll let this video do it for me. So here it is teh brain bleach
http://youtu.be/DiiDetajhMI
How many did we lose in the Console Wars to terminal swamp ass alone?
Get the word out, people! Swamp ass could happen to you.
Phoenician, I was widowed twice in that conflict. I lost two good men to the horror of the trenches.One died of carpal tunnel, the other lost a buttock at the Battle of the Couch, and succumbed to septacemia.
Oh, God, I still remember Kevin. We were holed up in a basement at his parent’s place, and we could hear the sound of the vacuum cleaner circling, circling above our heads. And then it went silent and we looked at each other, knowing what would come next.
I can still see that bright terrible light as the basement door opened. I can still hear that screeching harpy voice telling him to go and clean his room. I can still see Kevin’s face, that pleading look as he turned to me. “Hold on, man!”, I said, “Hold on! Just one more round of Mario Kart and we’re there!”
But then that last awful screech – “Right now, young man!”, and I could see the life fade out of his eyes. Right in front of me. Kevin, the Kevin I knew, died that day – last time I heard he was a cost accountant in Kansas City.
Oh God, when will You let me forget the fallen?
*raises hand* Yes, but then my powers of filking failed me.
http://youtu.be/XSranciXOvs
I’m sorry you had a bad experience with 3DO. Heroes of Might & Magic III is one of the all-time favorite games at Chez Falcon.
You know, I bet people like Janet Bloomfield who come here and thank David for all the attention and think they’re going to be laughing all the way to the bank because of it, are thinking of Sarkeesian and how all the dudebro gamer hate backfired.
Unfortunately for JB et al., the public aren’t fools.
Steam has Heroes of Might and Magic V – is that good?
I like the turn-based RPGs, Baldur’s Gate being a particular one, along with Neverwinter Nights.
@Falconer, silly search thing, it also has VI. Are either V or VI any good – in particular, for single player or two player LAN?
@pallygirl – didn’t like the series. Steam recently had Baldur’s Gate 2 complete at a really low price, so I snaffled it.
Also check out “Sunless Sea” – looks interesting, but mayneed to register and update content regularly.
Hmm… the preview videos look interesting for Sunless Sea. I’m now umming and ahing over the full Dragon Age Origins option. I have the original on DVD, but no expansions.
I wish Blizzard would bring out vanilla World of Warcraft as a LAN game.
“See, when we go after people, it’s actual notable leaders and actual violent protesters and we TELL THE TRUTH. When you guys go after leaders and recognizable activists you always, always distort what really happened. The only time you don’t have to twist the facts to make someone look stupid or malicious it’s always some random commenter or some anonymous wackjob.”
QFT
Nick Reading left a pile of bullshit in a comment that I just let through.
Let me address a little of it:
How is quoting something I got sent, and noting that it could be a troll, the same as “painting an entire movement with it?” Where did I say that this guy represents all MRAs or even most of them? I simply suggested that this sort of extreme rhetoric does in fact exist amongst (real, identifiable) MRAs, which makes me think it’s probably real.
Do you actually believe this? Your own group chased women down the street and filmed them so you could figure out their names. Register-her went after women who did nothing
more than attend a protest. They weren’t violent. The woman you call “big red,” who’s been harassed continually, wasn’t violent. She yelled at a couple of dudes for a couple minutes. Elam targeted a woman for allegedly discriminating against white men in college admissions; he got the wrong woman, and was very slow to acknowlege his obvious mistake, even when other MRAs were pointing it out to him. He tried to have one commenter here fired from her job because she said something about him he didn’t like,
[citation needed]
He was one of the most visible in that there were only a tiny handful of MR sites in Australia, his being one of them.
Well, I apologize for getting two details wrong. Well, except thatI made clear I didn’t know for sure whether the posters had been posted illegally, just that I assumed they probably were. Given that your group and AVFM both referred to these women as “fascists” I’m not sure you really have much of a leg to stand on when talking about accuracy.
Also,you didn’t just leave these women when they didn’t answer you. You filmed them so you could identify them. This is what was posted in your video description:
So, in short, you’re full of shit, and fuck you.
Like your beloved Elam?
That was directed at Woody.
Oh bless, Woody’s back.
What notable leaders? Name them.
What actual violent protestors? Name them.
Provide evidence that we distort.
And we don’t have to do anything to make Paul Elam or JB or any of the rest look stupid or malicious, because they manage to do that all by themselves.
@pallygirl — I haven’t played VI, but V was pretty faithful to the formula after the major deviation that was IV.
I never did play Baldur’s Gate or Neverwinter Nights in turn-based very long. I set the auto-pause to pause at “End of Turn” and with six, six-second-long turns in the group, it was just too annoying. I do tend to play BG with auto-pause set to Enemy Spotted, Spell Cast, and Character Injured.
I found Neverwinter Nights* lonely and repetitive: I think it was meant as an MMO, really.
*There’s a bit of ambiguity here because I think there was a previous NWN game in the SVGA era. This one is the one released in the early Oughties, after BG.
I tend to get my games from Good Old Games more often than Steam. They have the complete run of Might & Magic the CRPG as well as Heroes I to V.