If the Men’s Rights movement is looking for a celebrity endorser, I think I’ve found just the guy for them: the mixed martial arts fighter, and erstwhile porn actor, War Machine, currently sitting in jail on charges of brutally beating and attempting to kill his ex-girlfriend, porn star Christy Mack.
Men’s Rights activists should be able to look past these criminal charges; after all, as they remind us all the time, women are forever falsely accusing innocent men of all sorts of terrible things.
And in so many ways War Machine is perfect for them. An MMA fighter, he’s already only one letter away from being an MRA. A misogynistic asshole with rage issues, he’ll have no trouble fitting in with the Men’s Rights crowd. And, especialy important for a movement that has a lot of trouble getting any good PR, he’s a bit more comfortable on camera than the Paul Elams and Dean Esmays of the world, with experience on television (on the reality show The Ultimate Fighter: Team Hughes vs. Team Serra), and in seven films (albeit pornographic ones).
Best of all: he’ll need no ideological education from what A Voice for Men likes to call Fuck Shit Up University. War Machine – real name Jonathan Koppenhaver – is already an outspoken proponent of many of the Men’s Rights Movement’s core beliefs.
Consider these selections from a little Men’s Rights manifesto War Machine wrote a few years ago during a previous stint behind bars, serving time for felony assault after two bloody bar fights. His rant, which a friend posted to the internet, would fit right in with the sort of stuff we’ve seen regularly posted on the Men’s Rights subreddit, or The Spearhead, or A Voice for Men. I’ve bolded some of the Men’s Rightsiest bits:
The oppression of MEN is worse than oppression of Jews in Nazi germany, worse than the slavery of Blacks in early America…
There has always been the oppressor and always the oppressed. Before, it was blatant … NOW the oppressor has learned to disguise his evil. You can see man, but you can not see MEN. How easy it is to oppress a minority that is invisible to the eye! How genius of the oppressor! And what a better target too! …
Men challenge injustice from Government, MEN fight for their Constitutional rights, that are slowly being taken away every year. …
And they don’t just oppress us by making more laws and taking away more freedom, they are far more clever than that! Ask yourself what your REAL dream was?? If you gave up on this dream, why? Because of the brainwashing of the Government, that’s why! They taught you to “play it safe.” They told us a responsible man has ONE wife, a house, good credit, good job, and kids. How are you supposed to chase your dreams while maintaining all of that!?
Men are supposed to take risks and be aggressive! What accomplishments have ever come of a man scared to risk it all!? None!? Where would the world be? Still ‘flat!’ Still ‘Earth at the center of the universe!’
If any of you have your Men’s Rights Bingo cards out, I’m guessing you might already be close to scoring a bingo. We’ve got a comparison to slavery that could have come straight from the pages of A Voice for Men, a marriage-is-death-to-male-dreams rant that could have been borrowed from any MGTOW forum, and an evo-psych-esque argument that men are the true risk-takers and the world’s real innovators.
And I don’t think War Machine would have much trouble with Paul Elam’s “Bash a Violent Bitch Month,” either.
[I]t’s Christmas day and I’m laying in my bunk wondering “Why in the hell do American men get married!?” … If your wife is being a bitch you can’t slap her, if your wife is yelling at you, God forbid you yell back … Next thing you know it will be illegal to fuck your wife! LMAO! Maybe then, MEN in this country will get the fucking hint and MOVE! This country forces you to be a bitch!
In another online posting, War Machine touched on another Men’s Rights hobbyhorse, the notion that the justice system is stacked against men:
[L]ook at the prisons, they are FULL of MEN, not women. Are men “evil” and women not? Or do the laws target and attempt to restrict NATURAL MEN’S BEHAVIOR? How many of the HEROES in American history would avoid prison if they lived today? Davey Crockett? Thomas Jefferson? David Bowie? General Grant & General Lee? Shit, George Washington. … Laws target MEN and men’s behavior. Women want to bitch and cry about their rights and equality… LMAO! MEN are the ones locked away like animals, while women run free!
Someone might have to explain to War Machine that David Bowie is not actually a famous American HERO but a famously androgynous British musician who once recorded an album called “Heroes.” (Mr. Machine may be thinking of James Bowie, a well-known 19th century American frontiersman and slave trader, and the guy the Bowie Knife is named after.)
But other than that, he seems ready to go.
There is, of course, that whole attempted murder charge to deal with.
It’s true the Men’s Rights Movement has had few problems in the past rallying behind men with histories of violence. But War Machine might be a harder sell as a Men’s Rights hero. His alleged attack on Mack left her with a cracked rib, a ruptured liver, numerous broken bones, missing teeth and her eyes swollen shut. (See here for photos of her injuries; obviously this link is NSFW and could be triggering.)
While Mr. Machine denies attacking Mack, he joked to a TV host last year that if she were to leave him “I would just kill her” and get a tattoo saying “Rest In Peace” above the tattoo of her name he has on his neck.
And several hours after allegedly trying to murder her, War Machine tweeted this lovely message about his ex:
https://twitter.com/WarMachine170/statuses/497663075831787521
War Machine does seem to be at a low point in his life. Even aside from the charges he faces, and the time he seems likely to serve, his career in porn is almost certainly over. The “Alpha Male” clothing line he helped start wants nothing to do with him. Nobody but the prison system seems to want this guy.
In other words: Men’s Rights activists, this is your chance! War Machine may not be the, er, hero you want. But he’s certainly the hero you deserve.
Marinerachel, you’ve still got my email;
My inbox is always open for you.
I have also not been reading the board of late. Pretty much all I want to say – apart from the personal threat level, which I don’t have – has been covered by cassandrakitty, hellkell and marinerachel. I don’t know if I’m going to leave or just take a break, but right now I don’t feel at all welcome here. It’s become a place where it seems one person’s ideas and claims are sacrosanct (and treated as if they represent everyone in that person’s group, which they don’t).
I’m no brand of feminist, and I’ve been speaking up for trans people for decades, but this stuff makes my skin crawl.
marinerachel: thank you, from me and from cassandrakitty.
Unimaginative: cassandrakitty sends heartfelt thanks. She said she teared up reading your comment.
Well, good luck to all of you (Hellkell and cassandrakitty and marinerachel ). It’s been fun, you go on and have fun elsewhere now 🙂
I’ve been back and forth around here lately, for entirely unrelated reasons, and I kinda wanted to just stay out of these entirely, but kitteh hit the nail on the head with this —
“It’s become a place where it seems one person’s ideas and claims are sacrosanct (and treated as if they represent everyone in that person’s group, which they don’t).”
Anyone who wants to share emails is welcome to use me as an intermediary, just clicky my nym and use the Borg contact form (please keep it brief though, that is the official Borg contact form after all!)
Cassandra, hellkell, marinerachel, you’ll be sorely missed. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet, I hate it when shit like this happens, I’m the conflict avoidant sort sometimes.
Oh, I guess I’ll second that – my email is fibinaut at gmail. Although i couldn’t tell you why on Earth you’d want to have my e-mail, there it is.
And I’m no good with saying clever goodbyes in relation to the presumed future activities of other people.
But it’s sort of annoyingly bitter, in a way, to me?
Because I was going to make a post, on the Open thread, in a few hours once I’d thought it all out, about things and stuff and the last two years and this and that and knicker knack and how I would like to thank all of you for the fact that I’m not exactly depressed, starting a bachelor in a few days and have my life more or less on track. To which no mean share is actually owned to people here, who, however indirectly, rather taught me a lot and provided more than a fair share of laughter when I was in positions that rather sorely required that.
huh
And now off you all go to do other things.
And I have no words, just gratitude I now can’t express correctly.
Damn. This isn’t right. I’m still relatively new here but from what I’ve observed, I agree with marinerachel, hellkell, cassandrakitty, kittehserf and Argenti. And there’s no way to talk it out without violating one of contrapangloss’ suggested rules.
A little too tired and heartsick to write good emails right now. I’ll have to write them in the morning…
Even then…
I really love you all. Knowing you seriously made my life better. Going to run back to the personal thread and drown in animal hugs, because I kind of need them, and maybe some other folks need them too.
I hope no one feels personally slighted by my choice to take a time-out. I actually really respect the desire some people here have to prevent specific harm. That’s admirable. I think though, by allowing specific individuals to hold the place hostage with their emotions, valid as they may be, a lot of discussion is being silenced and people who are less open about their challenges are being hurt. Ideas are going unchallenged that I believe are potentiallly harmful. They’re not super prevalent right now but the fact they can’t be robustly criticised based on who they come from worries me. I am concerned that they’ll permeate. The inability to dissect them makes me think they’ll ultimately poison the board. That scares me.
Like kittehserf, my inability to express my feels based on the desire of others not to “rock the boat” has me and others feeling pretty unwelcome. I’m not upset with anyone though, just sad to see the board choosing a path that will ultimately harm it.
I love so many of you and I certainly hope to be back. I’m terribly concerned I sound ungrateful but I’m not at all. This crew has given me so much when I’ve needed it most. I have concerns though which I don’t believe can be addressed without making myself a target at this time. The things that concern me are the same things that are preventing important discussion from occurring. I’m not in a good enough place to be doing any revolutionary shit.
I do love you guys for everything you’ve done for me and hope you’ll reach out. Maybe hellkell will act as an intermediary for me too? Or David?
…starting to feel like I might be a huge part of the problem…
If I ever made anyone feel unsafe, massive apologies. Huge, huge, ginormous apologies.
I should just go to bed.
@contrapangloss
Not from my perspective.
No, you’re not.
OK, I probably shouldn’t still be lurking, but..I second everything marinerachel just wrote. I thought for a while that maybe I could help fix some of this, but I think in fact my efforts thus far have either been useless or actively harmful. In either case, nothing is getting better, and I’ve hit the point where I’m too emotionally drained and frustrated to try any more, and some of this most recent stuff has crossed the line from frustrating to scary and dangerous (and it’s not just here that that’s happening).
And yes, I know that when a bunch of people who aren’t here right now come back everything I just wrote will probably be reframed as me being the evil witch who’s persecuting a vulnerable child. Which is the other reason that I’m choosing to leave now. This dynamic is toxic, I can’t fix it, if I try to do so the tension will just keep escalating.
Marinerachel, Fibi, Aunty Alias, Shadow, Cloudiah and so on (if I’m not mentioning you by name it doesn’t mean I don’t want to talk to you, I’m just tired)- if you still want to talk to me, feel free to get in touch with me, but I’m getting out of this mess now before I just make things worse.
I hope things get better, everyone, I really do. This used to be such a fun place, and to whatever extent I may have helped make it less fun, I’m sorry.
This whole situation is very saddening to me, and I don’t want to see all (or any) of you go. I want this to be a place where people like you all feel they can speak freely. I will happily set up another thread to discuss this if that’s what people want.
I’m still trying to sort through all of the issues people have raised.
If any of you want to email with any concerns you don’t feel comfortable posting, please feel free. Some of you have been doing that already.
I think the more we stick around, Cassandra, the more potential for improvement but I also think the reason we’ve been able to calmly express frustration over the last few hours is due to certain individuals who think we’re nasty persons not being present and when they area back potential for meaningful discussion will go to shit because they think the harm from having the discussion is more important than the harm from not having it. It comes from a place of kindness and that’s admirable but I wholly disagree.
I feel like I should just take a photo of my face and paste it over a still of Maleficent in dragon form, honestly. It would be nicely symbolic, no?
Well……….. fuck. I’m absolutely gutted to see you guys go. Cassandra and hellkell, you guys have been on this blog for so long and I honestly can’t imagine this community without y’all. Even though we’ve never interacted outside of this blog, you guys have been a big part of my life for so many years now, and you’ve both made huge impacts in my life during a lot of low points that you didn’t know about, just by small kindnesses that came naturally to y’all. You’re both huge reasons why I’ve been a part of this community for so long, and why WHTM has been an exception for me as an internet community in which I am comfortable to be myself and actively participate in. I want to second Unimaginative, you both are two of the major reasons that WHTM has been a haven for me and I’m so sorry that the time has come when it no longer feels that way for you guys. I hope that I haven’t contributed to that, and if I have then I wholeheartedly apologize to you both. Selfishly, I hope that a time will come when the blog feels like a safe space for you guys again, and should that ever happen I would be ecstatic if I see you guys here again. I hope that the rivers overflow with awesome for you guys and wish you both, and Mr. HK and Mr. C, everything good in the world.
Kitteh’s, Argenti and marinerachel
I really hope that you guys don’t leave permanently. Kitteh’s and Argenti, although I haven’t known you guys as long as hellkell and Cassandra, you are both as synonymous with WHTM as they are AFAIC, and I cannot imagine coming to this blog without reading something by one of y’all. you’ve both been my friends for years and I really, really hope we don’t lose you.
marinerachel, we haven’t interacted much but I love having you in this community and I sincerely hope we don’t lose you, either.
Argenti you have my email. hellkell, I’ll definitely drop you a line and maybe you could pass on my email if anyone’s interested. I know it won’t be the same, especially because I’m absolutely horrific when it comes to replying to mails, but I know you guys will pop in my head and it’d drive me nuts not being able to check in on you guys.
Shadow, it’s not you, not even a little bit. In fact if you lived closer I’d happily buy you a drink (in a non-creepy, big sisterly kind of way – I know, I’m already officially on Team Evil Bitch here, so can we not add any misunderstandings about that to the list?).
I’m gonna miss you, dude. Feel free to keep in touch.
@cassandrakitty
I don’t know how to reach you or I would. 🙁
I wish everyone would just take a break and come back later. Emotions are running high but maybe it will seem different in a few weeks or months. I’m still really not sure what happened and why it can’t be hashed out so maybe it’s not my place to make a plea for people not to leave though.
David, thank you, but even with a dedicated thread those of us who wish to air our concerns can’t because others want to police our expression for fear someone will be triggered. The board is held hostage by those emotions and many other people’s fear they’ll be triggered so this discussion can’t happen.
We all have a duty to self-care which goodness knows I’ve failed to uphold in the past so I get it. If the functioning of a discussion board is predicated on your potential for being triggered though and a chunk of that board’s membership has discouraged you from engaging in self-care by holding everyone else responsible for managing your mood, you’ve really neglected your responsibility to yourself, others have enabled you to and it’s made a lot of people feel devalued and shoved aside. If your presence in a discussion board requires so much babysitting that many people feel shoved aside, it’s probably in your best interests to remove yourself from the environment and build a coping toolkit. Of course we want you back but we want you better so you’re not as likely to incur harm and preventing harm to you doesn’t involve silencing and hurting others.
We can have this discussion in private. Let’s get a group e-mail going.
If I’m not one of the one’s who has upset people – and I sure I’m not- I’ll email Hellkell and give her my email. It’s my full name so I’m not leaving it publicly.
@ AuntyAlias
If nobody else who has it is around David can pass my email address on to you.
I’ll be honest, while I’ve been very uncomfortable with the idea of certain conversations being off topic, I haven’t pushed for them because they’ve all been topics that are outside my experience and things that I have no business opining about. I felt like it would be kind of dickish and cowardly to push for something that I won’t be participating in.
I know I’m very conflict avoidant, and I know I’m not the only one. I also feel like some of us (myself included in this) have spent so many years investing so much love into this community that we’re scared to lose members. And unlike AFK relationships, if we have a misunderstanding with someone here, they could just decide to disappear and we’ll never get the chance to clear it up or make up with them, which can be a scary thought.
That being said, I’m very genuine in my interactions with this community. I treat y’all the way I do because I genuinely like and respect y’all because of the things that you say and the way you treat each other and myself. I personally feel like if we keep treading around these heated conversations we’re going to lose the genuinity of this community.
I think David or hellkell would give you either Cassandra’s or my e-mail addresses. Feel free to reach out. I think a group discussion would be a great way to hash the issue out but it’s been decided here that we can’t do exactly what it is we need to in order to resolve the matter lest someone be triggered. If individuals are not going to prevent the triggering by removing themselves from necessary discussions I guess we just have to have the discussion elsewhere which I’m not sure will accomplish anything but I’m happy to give it a try.
cassandra, if people have put you (or me, or hellkell, or anyone) on Team Evil Bitch, it’s because they’re not comprehending, or ignoring, what we’re saying – you in particular because you’ve a damn sight more knowledge of this than a lot of people here, I suspect.
marinerachel, thirding everything you said there. There’s an effective silencing of women who aren’t toeing a particular line on this subject.
If anyone wants to talk to me, you can pass a message to me via David or the mods.
Shadow, I really hope I don’t have to leave permanently. I don’t want to. I wish your trip Downunder had given you time for that coffee! If you visit again, I’d love to catch up.
cloudiah, if you see this, I hope you don’t want to cut contact. That day in LA was the best fun. I’m the same person I was then.