Heh. I’m on my annual semi-vacation this week, and was planning on keeping my postings here fairly light. But the news waits for no one. And by “news” I mean the daily parade of ridiculousness coming from the Men’s “Human Rights” camp. So here’s a quick report on the latest bit of high irony involving A Voice for Men.
Well, I was wrong. I’ve often noted that the Men’s Rights movement in general, and A Voice for Men in particular, doesn’t actually provide any real help for any real men. Sure, as far as I can tell, precisely zero of the hundreds of thousands of dollars A Voice for Men has raised from donors over the years has gone into providing actual services for men — say, funding a hotline for troubled men or some other practical program that doesn’t primarily involve yelling at women online. But never let it be said that none of this money gods to help men.
Because, it turns out, that money has been going to help men. Or at least that subset of men that consists of one Paul Elam of Houston Texas.
After being pressed for details about A Voice for Men’s finances by anonymous commenters on Reddit, a certain Twitterer named @DavidFutrelle and a journalist from MSNBC, Elam has finally fessed up and admitted that all the money donated to his website goes directly to him. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what Elam had to say in a post from yesterday:
Every dollar donated goes right into my pocket. I spend that money on this website and on activist efforts at my own discretion, considering the opinions of the AVFM management team that volunteers to help run this place. … I depend on the site for my living, and to do as much FTSU as possible while I am at it.
In the past, of course, Elam was a bit more, well, elusive about where the money was going, talking about the costs of paying for web hosting and stock images rather than, say, the costs of paying the mortgage of one Paul Elam. Maybe “elusive” isn’t the correct word. “Deceptive” might be more like it.
You may also recall this pitch he once made for donations (I’ve put the best parts in bold):
I am tired of seeing a comparative handful of men and women cough up the lion’s share of financial assistance when most, even some who come here every day to read and cheer on FTSU, won’t cough up five fucking dollars to help us out; who are just fine as long as none of the burden, even a trivial part of it, is on them. …
[T]he longer I am at this, the less patience I have with dead weight, those who think AVFM is a fucking source of entertainment, or a life preserver for when the tables finally, inevitably turn against them.
In a way, I feel even worse now for most of the men who will make contact with AVfM looking for that lifeline. Unless their story is one that has the potential for me to exploit and gain media attention to THE CAUSE, then all I will have for them is a link to this article.
Well, and perhaps this piece of advice.
If the system has ruined your life, join the club. You are now in the ranks of men you have ignored your whole life. My advice to you is simple. Take your fucking quietly and with grace. Expect the same compassion you have always extended to those men who wore the shoes you are now wearing.
If you want things to change, then stock up on Ramen, get cozy in your studio apartment and join us in the fight to fix this shit. Don’t ask us to help you, but rather give your life the only meaning it may have left, as someone ready and willing to turn your meager existence into helping others who have been similarly screwed over.
In other words, Elam told troubled men turning to his site for help that they should stock up on Ramen noodles — and pay his bills. Oh, and on several occasions he’s boasted about taking donations from people taking the money from their unemployment checks.
As for the other people who put in so much time and energy at his site? As far as I can figure it from Elam’s evasive post yesterday, they earn nothing but a “thanks.”
At the end of each day, even with the incredible levels of help I get from people like Dean Esmay, David King, Al Martin and every one of the incredible people who work at AVFM, I am still target number one. I am a target for feminists posing as concerned MHRAs, yellow hacks like David Futrelle, and a target for many in the media who would love nothing better than to publish my personal financial information after putting their disgusting spin on it.
As you might have gathered from that quote, Elam remains indignant that anyone would even ask where the money goes.
And that goes for the money he recently raised that was supposedly earmarked to pay the security costs of AVFM’s conference. About that, he says only:
we hired four police officials (three officers and one supervisor) for coverage of the entire event and also hired a local attorney, paying his retainer in advance. We also had to engage our regular attorney, and have not yet been billed for their services.
In effect, we spent the money raised on precisely what we said we would spend it on, and have set aside what little remained for the next conference.
Really? According to costhelper.com, off-duty police officers generally cost $40-60 an hour; this Sheriff’s department puts the costs at $27-$31 an hour for each of its officers, including administrative fees. Even assuming that AVFM paid at the top of this range — $60 an hour — it would have cost them only $7200 to pay for four officers working ten hours each of the three days of the conference.
The amount that AVFM might have paid for legal fees depends on how much their lawyers charge per hour, and how many hours they worked. Assuming each lawyer charged $200 per hour and worked thirty hours over the three days of the conference — which I highly doubt — the cost for their legal assistance would have added up to $12,000. If AVFM actually paid even half that for legal fees I will eat my cats.
Even with these extremely generous assumptions, AVFM would have paid out only a little over $19,000 for security and legal fees. AVFM raised more than $30,000 for “security.”
In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I also ask readers for donations. But I’ve always made clear that aside from donations specifically earmarked for other things the money goes to me. (And the cats.) And I don’t demand that donors pay me $20,000 per quarter — $80,000 a year — on top of whatever donations come in between the quarterly fundraisers, not to mention special “security” fundraisers.
I’m very grateful to those who donate to me — and indeed to everyone who’s contributed time and effort and knowledge and artistic skills to help the site — but I take in only a fraction of what Elam evidently takes in. And I don’t ask for money from those who are themselves broke.
In the comments on AVFM, the regulars are of course rallying around Elam. Then again, I can’t imagine anyone critical of what he does with the money would remain unbanned there for long.
And the reason we need to bring Elam’s weight into this is ..?
Yo, CVC, drop the fat-shaming. It’s real and it hurts. Please don’t do it.
CVC: his “girth” is immaterial to anything.
As to those asking after children, yes we want to have some, no there are none presently pending.
“And the reason we need to bring Elam’s weight into this is ..?”
If he’s living solely on the donations people make to AVFM, then he should be accountable to how that money is spent, including his grocery choices. And he sure as hell should not be eating out at restaurants on their dime.
This is all part of what needs to come out. How and where is all that money being spent.
We don’t know how often he eats at restaurants. What does that have to with his weight? There’s plenty of mocking material. We don’t need to fat shame.
Is this some sort of performance art designed to prove that one can be broadly supportive of leftist ideas and yet still be an awful person or what?
Oh dear, we’ve veered into “if you get your money from source X, you can’t spend it on Y” territory. Are you also against food stamps, CVC?
FWIW, mods, my troll senses have been tingling for a while. Could be wrong, but perhaps worth considering.
No. When you give something away, it’s not yours anymore. If you give someone clothes that you don’t wear anymore, you don’t get a say in how the new owner wears them. If you give someone a vase, you don’t get a say in what they put in it. If you give someone money, you don’t get a say in how they spend it. It’s not yours anymore.
I gave a friend some pants I didn’t want any more a few years ago. If only I’d realized that entitled me to be her personal stylist!
Also, policing the groceries people buy so that you can judge whether they’re eating appropriately for their degree of fatness is an asshole move. And fuck you for deciding whether somebody else is ALLOWED to eat out.
Y’all rock my socks off.
🙂
TCVC,
Not cool. Don’t do the double down thing. You’ll only regret it later.
The flip side is that if you do want your money spent on something specific, you’d better give it to an organization, not an individual.
“Oh dear, we’ve veered into “if you get your money from source X, you can’t spend it on Y”
Most certainly! He’s taking donations in the name of AVFM. There are things that he should not be spending his money on then and he knows it. That’s why he was so reluctant to answer questions about where the money goes. Finally he coughs up “directly to me and what I deem fit to spend it on.” Well, every penny should be accounted for.
“Are you also against food stamps, CVC?”
No. There’s absolutely no connection to anything I wrote and being “against food stamps” and I fail to see how you could draw a connection by any stretch of the imagination.
Au contraire, I said I would expect Elam to be on them instead of fleecing his naive readers for food (and new clothes and home accessories, etc) in the name of A Voice For Men.
Some serious fraud appears to be going down in the name of “Mens’ Rights” and the Southern Poverty Law Center should check that out, since they are about learning what creates poverty and finding solutions to it.
Under one of Molyneux’s videos a poor young man says as soon as he gets some money he’s going to donate to Molyneux!!! Molyneux has a professionally employed wife and is not hurting for cash by any stretch of the imagination. He is living a more than comfortable middle class to upper middle class lifestyle. Meanwhile this admittedly poor kid (who was also a minority) was vowing to “donate” to him once he “got settled and got a job”.
What the hell?
These guys have absolutely no gumption in asking for donations from people who are poor!
Why is the white, middle to upper-middle class husband of a professionally employed doctor even asking for donations at all? His website and youtube channel are more a benefit to him than they are to anyone else. He gets name and fame through these media.
It reminds me of this other libertarian (successful real estate investor) guy who wrote this long diatribe on his blog about how “if you are reading what I write, you should be paying me”. As if his blogs were contributing to the “quality of life” of the readers, more than they were to his own life! Funny thing is NOBODY was reading his blog. I, being one of a total of about 3 commenters, pointed this out and got deleted.
Obviously these people get something out of expressing themselves online and they reap pleasure from reading sycophantic comments so why should I or any other reader “have” to pay them?
Its one thing to ask humbly if you are not a well off career person, real estate magnate, or spouse of a doctor. But to expect, in the pompous manner these guys do, people who are in financial straights to donate to you because you are on the assumption that a shit ton of value is being added to their life from your blog or videos, is just ridiculous and arrogant beyond belief.
I think they should be paying US just to listen to their crap.
I’m pretty sure that in terms of how much donated money one could misspend food is fairly low on the list. If he was spending the money on coke binges you might almost have a point, but even then that point would still be missing the actual point by several miles.
(Still pondering the “trolling or just asshole” question.)
CVC: If he’s living solely on the donations people make to AVFM, then he should be accountable to how that money is spent, including his grocery choices. And he sure as hell should not be eating out at restaurants on their dime.
Bullshit. If they choose to pay him money, it’s his. If they choose to pay him enough to dine on foie gras and truffles, that’s their fault.
Moreover, quite apart from the stupidity (and petty minded cruelty) of the idea that money paid must have strings (which is part of the problem of food stamps), unless you have donated, you don’t have a moral leg to stand on with that facile argument.
No. There’s absolutely no connection to anything I wrote and being “against food stamps” and I fail to see how you could draw a connection by any stretch of the imagination.
This is because you have the moral compass of a millstone.
Food stamps are a constrained benefit. They are means tested, and cannot be used for anything other than approved foods. They are used to impose a sense of burden and shame on people by making it impossible to eat “nice” food, nor to have more than the bare minimum they need to survive.
That you think Elam is a crook is no reason to pretend an immoral system of imposed values on donated moneys should somehow be the law of the land; that way lies your boss getting to tell you what to do with your paycheck.
You don’t like it… too bad.
You want him to not spend the money as he sees fit, convince people to stop donating.
In any case it’s none of your business what he does with it.
You will notice the complaints here haven’t been about how he spends the money, but about the justifications he gives for collecting it. That’s an important distinction. It’s the one which keeps us from falling (as you have) into the pit of hypocrisy.
If Elam were found guilty of fraud and imprisoned, the guy would still be entitled to eat.
“Moreover, quite apart from the stupidity (and petty minded cruelty) of the idea that money paid must have strings (which is part of the problem of food stamps)”
– Bull. Where is the “strings” with what you call “food stamps”?
” I fail to see how you could draw a connection by any stretch of the imagination.”
“This is because you have the moral compass of a millstone.”
– Er, NO. Its because I’m on what you refer to as “food stamps”.
“Food stamps are a constrained benefit. They are means tested, and cannot be used for anything other than approved foods.”
– Bull!. What “approved” foods?
“They are used to impose a sense of burden and shame on people by making it impossible to eat “nice” food”
– More clueless b.s.
First, its called an EBT card. That is, Electronics Benefit Transfer Card. And while they cannot be used in restaurants, they can be used on any food in any grocery store that accepts them. That means Whole Foods and plenty of stores with what you call “nice food”.
“nor to have more than the bare minimum they need to survive.”
The bull just keeps on sh*tting!. Humans need very little food to actually “survive”. I’m eating quite well, and organically at that, on my EBT budget. Why, my BMI even puts me in the “over weight” category.
Survive, my ass.
Now excuse me while I go throw up a little at your pompous lecturing at me about what you call “food stamps”.
Sheesh!
Electronics Benefit Transfer Card
Correction: Electronic Benefits
So if it doesn’t take a lot of money to put someone in the ‘overweight’ category, why does Elam’s waistline lead you to believe that he’s spending an unconscionable amount on food?
How about you clear off, Vegan Chartreuse Capsule. You haven’t sounded like you’re posting in good faith for a while, and now you’re trolling and abusing regulars. You’ll end up banned at this rate.
CVC,
You’re still not addressing the fat shaming which is what people were objecting to.
The most tragicomic part of CVCs rant is the fact that in the US obesity correlates rather strongly with poverty.
“You haven’t sounded like you’re posting in good faith for a while”
Sounded to who? You can copy and paste the comments here that you think are not in good faith. I don’t know how to prove “good faith” to kittehserf, but everything I’ve posted thus far as been sincere from my side.
“and now you’re trolling and abusing regulars”
Trolling? How?
Abusing? Pecunium was the one who said of me, “This is because you have the moral compass of a millstone.”
Simply because I believe Elam should be held accountable for the donations he receives in the name of AVFM and because I could not see a connection between my statements and anything to do with what he or she calls “food stamps”.
If someone should be taken to task for “abuse” then it would be her/him.
To make a negative judgement about someone’s “moral compass” (really my moral character) because I disagree with her/him, that is really, I don’t even have a word for it. Help me out?
The words I’m hoping to hear soon are “moderation challenge”, because this is getting tiresome.