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.
Argenti:
IIRC, there’s this claim (urban legend?) that pacus sometimes try to accidentally chomp human body parts, specifically testicles.
A year ago someone’s abandoned pet pacu was caught off the coast of Sweden*, and the tabloid media tried to whip up panic as if there was an established population in Baltic Sea. More likely you’ll be bitten by a pike, or even a swimming moose.
*The coastal waters of Baltic Sea have very low salinity, and can be quite warm in late summer. Still, fish cruelty.
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28!
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Over the hump! I’m finally making an actual contribution to this thread!
31 and off to bed
Arctic Ape — looks like a joke about them crushing nuts got taken way too seriously. They do crush nuts, but, you know, tree nuts that go PLOP above them.
They make really bad pets, and yet fish stores sell them. They get waaaaay too big for most home aquariums. Honestly, if you just like the look, a piranha is a better bet, they may be downright cruel to their food, but they stay small.
And yeah, no dumping aquarium fish into the wild. It’s bad for fish, bad for where they get dumped, and just badness all around.
Just woke up!
32!
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Whoever posted that pic of the baby ray, like, 5000 pages ago – I think it was Argenti? – I’ve seen that pic before, and all I can think of when I see it is “moisturize me”. Creeps me the hell out, is what I’m saying.
But I finally got to go to the ray/shark petting tank at the Aquarium a few months ago, and it was everything I dreamed it would be. I could stay there for hours!
oh, and 34
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Wasn’t me that posted it, was me that went all WIDDLE RAY first.
http://i2.cdnds.net/12/40/618×411/odd_stingray_photobomb.jpg
I are joining in?
36! And the ray wants to give them a hug! Why are they scared?
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What happened to Steve Irwin has meant I am more nervous about rays than sharks. However, I also have a policy of not annoying animals.
This is a good policy…though I still point at squirrels to tell them they are squirrels, and then they run away from me.
You know (and this is not directed at the poster of the pic but the guy who staged it), I hate that pic. I really really hate it. There are two layers of whatthefuckery, the first where you grab an animal (and I’m assuming the guy was not an animal care expert who knew how to handle the ray without injuring or agitating/frightening it) and hoist it out of its environment for shits and giggles, and the second where you use an animal as a tool to scare/embarrass/annoy a group of women.
Blargh.
You know, today with the deer post, I am really glad that WordPress is all farked up and allowing photos, because it allows me to post this
?oh=d41236522a218e6ba46be01c569723e1&oe=5463694F&__gda__=1415657897_4272ab3dde67c32268f0430dc321f659
because there hasn’t been enough brain bleach for all the crap that’s been getting flung about.
Aaaaaaaaand it didn’t post. That’s okay. Clicky on the blue there, you won’t be sorry. Totally SFW, unless you go “aaawwwwww” too loudly or the cute makes your brains liquefy or something.
Oh shit, I didn’t realise the photo was set up that way. I had – up to this point – been assuming it was photoshopped and the expressions were due to something else entirely.
The kitten pic, on the other hand, is completely adorable.
@Alex: I tell my cats they are cats, but it’s a last ditch effort on my part to try to convince them they’re not human and so don’t get an equal say in decisions about them. Like going to the vet, or how often they are treated to wet food, or the fact that it’s pouring with rain outside and really windy is a completely valid reason to not open the cat door to the outside.
Nope, pallygirl, it was live and actual. I saw a facebook post that had the other photos that came immediately before and after (because chucklefuck no 1 kept snapping pix while chucklefuck no 2 kept trying to push the ray onto the women. You can see a bit of chucklefuck no 2’s head over the, um, wing? shoulder? of the ray.
Again, though, I don’t want daintydougal to think that I’m aiming any of my sideeye her way.
Found an article!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/01/stingray-photobomb-the-st_n_1928570.html