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.
A couple other notes: He was fired by the UFC six years ago and by Bellator as soon as this news broke. The MMA world doesn’t want anything to do with him.
And here’s an example of his writing from prison. Real Martin Luther King Jr. and Mumia Abu Jamal-level philosophy:
“Me and a couple other guys have been waging war on these 2 loud, obnoxious *ssholes who love to yell and bang their door all day and night,” War Machine wrote. “Our weapon of choice by default, is of course sh*t bombs… LMAO! We have been bombing their cells twice/day for 4 days straight and since the Deps hate them too, they don’t even clean it out, they let them sit in sh*t for HOURS at a time.”
Um, are you aware that this blog is written by a MAN? And that many of the commenters here are MEN also? Because you seem to be fresh off the turnip truck when you just drop a totally irrelevant turd like that here.
You also sound like you’re trying to silence the legitimate criticisms everyone, including WOMEN, should be making of bullshit like the shit that gets mocked here on the regular. A fine “Humanist” YOU are if you can’t see that women are also human, and have a perfect right to use their free speech against woman-haters and abusers.
Newsflash: Men have a perfect right to criticize and mock misogyny. In fact, I would say that for any decent man, it ought to be seen as a duty.
And just to keep this on topic, criticizing a man who “does Alpha Male shit”, as this one’s shirt proudly proclaims, is most definitely a man’s issue. And any man who doesn’t take issue with such a thing is one whose humanism I’d definitely question.
Also, the use of phraseology like “politically correct” is a dead giveaway of a right-wing troll. Or, at the very least, someone who is not a humanist for real, and not worth taking seriously in any case.
Now fuck off.
Alpha Male Shit!
Dawkins’ whole thing now is to tweet something terrible once a week or so to drum up controversy. Then, when his legion of fanboys find out that someone dare disagree with the great and powerful Dawkins, they troll about the internet for him, stroking his delicate ego. He seems to be getting worse. He really, really needs ego strokes these days.
Then he channels his inner Sarah Palin and claims he is the victim of “Orwellian Thought PoliceTM” and the “Spanish Inquisition” because someone dared to point out he was wrong, and his fans eat it up.
Hi, man here.
Fuck off.
I’ve seen so many awful “reasons” why this assholes violence was supposedly okay, including that lovely chestnut about “she cheated” as if betraying someone’s trust is equivalent to attempting to kill someone.
But the ones that really skeeve me out are the dudebros in Twitter who responded to the breaking news – including Mack’s account of events and photos – with “lol she’s a porn star man, what did you expect, shouldn’t have wasted your time with a [misogynistic slur]”. So much wrong with that I am even having trouble breaking it down.
>Men rights issues should be addressed by men themselves, NOT by females.
Yes, go and get at least some Equalists/Humanists to stop trying to co-opt feminist organizations and plattforms for their own interests with the most childish tactics ever. The folks who claim to speak for the “movement” act like goddamn kids telling mommy feminism that they won’t love her anymore if she doesn’t get them that shiny toy. It’s dumb and embarassing and you should really get them to change their ways.
Cassie’s Major Domo – Would it be impertinent to say that I think I love you?
@GrumpyOldNurse
Nope. Always room for more love in the world!
“War Machine”?? – Does he actually have a real name? or is he the offspring of someone named “Machine”?
I’m assuming he took it from the comic book character in the Iron Man series. (War Machine was already around before the movies, had his own comic back in the ’90s.) Very insulting to Don Cheadle.
Humanist is just as predictable as the rest of his lot. FEEEEEMALES is their go to word to describe women (aside from some more “colorful” terms) Men are men but women are females and ONLY FEMALES because we’re not human. Fuck off, humanist. You’re not worthy of being called a humanist, either. Since you seem to believe a good chunk of humanity aren’t people.
Also, fuck Kevin Sorbo. His asshole behavior is of….herculean proportions! 😀 😀 😀
Dawkins’ eugenics thing strikes a chord with me; my youngest had a very high score on the prenatal screening for Downs. My GP asked me if I wanted to have amniocentesis to confirm either way (it carries about a 2% chance of inducing miscarriage, if my memory serves correctly) and, in what was rapidly becoming a high risk pregnancy, my partner and I did some soul searching and decided not to screen, as we were not going to abort solely for DS. We were very lucky and little miss grump is fine. Young master grump, however, is on the autism spectrum. Should I be thanking my lucky stars that Prof. Dawkins hasn’t yet magically produced a fool-proof test for that, and urged everyone to pre-screen their pregnancies?
Nicely played, redpoppy!
I LOVE bad jokes!
The badder, the better!
Bad puns, double meanings, play on words…. nothing but the best of the worst!
It takes some interesting mental gymnastics — or more likely, total lack of self-awareness — for MRAs and their toadies to claim that women should not be commenting on men’s rights issues, when the primary right that the MRAs seem to claim is to blame everything that’s wrong in their lives on women.
No matter how hard you try you’ll never be able to beat MRAs for complete, humiliating Joke Fail. Can’t be done.
I guess that would make him a dehumanist?
…Yes, but not exactly. It’s more that a man enacts manliness.
Women are regarded as necessary props to a subset of men in enacting that manliness.
Manliness is a done thing, why guys can become “unmanned,” or “less of a man.” It’s a social thing.
This ex-MMA guy is really, REALLY fixated on enacting some weird caricature of manliness.
His bloated ego couldn’t take getting dumped, so he was going to her place to do exactly as he did, if she would not return to his “loving embrace.” *barf*
In other news…
…I refer to myself as female, though. Not for reasons schmuckley does, though.
…Physically I’m female.
Genderly, I’m androgyne. Socially I’m stuck in a sort of limbo.
(limbo-limbo-limbo!)
I’d prefer to be taken as myself, but then again I think everyone would like to avoid being stuffed in a box of preconceptions.
Their joke fails are just awful. I, personally, don’t consider them jokes. As I feel that jokes can be (but not always) a positive thing. Still, I get what you mean. Their movement certainly is a “joke.” But it sure as hell ain’t a funny one.
blahlistic- Dehumanist is a great term. Female isn’t a bad term in and of itself, I agree. I just dislike the way they use it. It just seems loaded with a lot of bad intentions. Female can be used for a lot of things that are not insulting. Identifying physically as one, female officer, female soldier, etc.
They do try to be funny sometimes, but appalled silence isn’t really the response that a “joke” should generate.
cassandrakitty, yeah. I never find a damn thing they say as funny. I might find one of their weird terms ironically funny but it’s not really a laugh that’s mirthful.
Yeah, that whole “men/females” thing is usually a big red flag for me that someone’s a horrible misogynist. It’s not so much the use of “female” as its use as a contradistinct category from “man”. Somehow for me it always calls to mind discussion of livestock, like the men have gone out back to herd all the females into the next paddock.