UPDATE: See the update at the end of the post.
By David Futrelle
So I took a quick peek into the Men’s Rights subreddit — the leading Men’s Rights forum on the internet, with 156,000 subscribers — to see what the fellas were saying about the disaster in Texas.
I thought, best case scenario, that maybe some of them would have managed to arouse themselves from their torpor long enough to organize some sort of fundraiser. Worst case scenario, they’d be saying some really dumb things.
What I didn’t expect is that no one on the subreddit would be saying anything about it. I did searches to see if any topics from the past 24 hours had mentioned “houston,” “texas,” or “harvey.” I found this one post:
4 points, ZERO comments, after being up on the subreddit for ten hours.
By contrast, here are some of the topics from the past 24 hours that have been getting attention on the Men’s Rights subreddit.
![1052 Edu./Occu.Female founder hires women using affirmative action and then fires them after realizing her mistake. [Link to full article in comments] (i.redd.it) submitted 9 hours ago by SlightlyCyborg 150 comments](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/mrr1-e1503871213657.png?ssl=1)
This post, with its 3686 upvotes, was dedicated to making fun of a feminist on Twitter for this:
Even this HUGELY IMPORTANT TOPIC got more attention than the plight of millions in Texas.
Maybe somewhere in some random topic in the subreddit at the moment someone has managed to say a few words about the humanitarian catastrophe in Texas. But in terms of dedicated topics, aside from a single topic that has gotten literally no responses, there really doesn’t seem to be anything there.
UPDATE: A day after this post and another Harvey related topic has gone up!
The question in the title is sarcastic; the post is basically a bunch of pictures of men rescuing women in Houston.
There’s also a bit of movement in the original post — in the form of three whole comments, one of them from the OP. A dude has shown up to complain that teh Red Cross prioritizes women in disaster relief (though this is because in truly desperate situations it increases the chance that resources will go to everyone rather than being hoarded by men).
Well looking at the vile comments on a youtube live-feed from the beach, they mostly think Hurricane Harvey is “FAKE NEWS”, a punishment from god for not being evil enough or that the blacks, Hillary and Obama made it happen with HARP to discredit their god emperor.
Though it’s probably be useful to have a feminist space that focuses its disaster relief help on some specific feminine issues, like asking for donations of pads and tampons (though, of course, this also helps trans man and non-binary folk). Sadly, these things often get overlooked.
(on another note, I also learned today that there is such a thing as a Diaper Bank, and the need for diapers in a crisis situation is something I completely forgot, seeing as I am not a parent.)
Rain has backed off again this morning, though I caught Mr. Parasol watching traffic cams from Houston and remembering when he used to drive through various places.
My contacts in Texas seem to be alright for the most part, thank goodness. It’s too bad there’s not much else that I can do right now–I don’t have a proper means of donation of funds, and I wouldn’t know where to deposit supplies.
I am so overwhelmed by Harvey. I feel anger against the republicans for stealing funds from FEMA, against trump and the administration for keeping ICE detaining people and effectively using Harvey as a hostage situation for civilians in its path, against Trump for using this horrible disaster as cover for his explicit message to white nationalists that the law does not apply to them, and against Trump for attempting to deconstruct the government entirely.
I feel for the people on the ground. A friend of mine told me that “Category 4s are city-destroyers”, and while I knew she was correct intellectually, I was not prepared for seeing it on the news.
It reminded me of Hurricane Irene, which came through Virginia years ago. There used to be a low-income community, a trailer park, down on a beach called Sunken Meadow (Swamp on one side, river on the other). After Irene, it was a scrapyard. We lost power for two weeks, and all three ways out of my home town were destroyed by the storm – bridges washed away, sinkholes swallowing roads. The community still hasn’t recovered, and Irene was a category 3.
This same friend is an awesome organizer and put together information on responding to Harvey. If you can help, people need it.
Where are all of the religious right types to “explain” this hurricane? Usually they’re quick to blame the gays, leftists, or whoever, but now we have the following clear pattern:
[2005] AFTER IRAQ, THOU SHOULDST NOT HAVE RE-ELECTED BUSH! [blasts New Orleans]
[2017] THOU SHOULDST NOT HAVE ELECTED TRUMP EVEN ONCE! [blasts Houston]
but there’s nothing but crickets from the usual suspects. I wonder why? I mean, isn’t it obvious now that God is punishing red states in the former Confederacy whenever Republicans get elected president? /s
Highways 12 feet under water. TWELVE FEET. I can’t even wrap my brain around some of the images I’ve seen.
Evacuating a city of 1m+ is tricky, even with a couple days’ notice. Not everyone can take a week off work, and the roads simply can’t handle that type of capacity. During the Rita evacuation, people sat on the highway for upwards of 23 hours. They would have been sitting ducks in this situation.
Stay safe, any Mammotheers in the vicinity.
If anything positive comes out of the aftermath of this hurricane, I hope it reminds Texans (and Americans in general) that government is not the enemy, and they shouldn’t be cheering on Trump as he hollows out one agency after another. Republicans never think FEMA is necessary, until they need it. I hope all those Texas reps who voted against aid for Sandy get booted out. It’s despicable to use natural disasters to “punish” areas of the country you disagree with.
@Alan
UGH.
Apparently the law was *too* specific…the girl would have to have been engaging in “sexual conduct” for it to apply, and she wasn’t. She was just innocently shopping. And apparently it’s really hard to prove that the photos were being taken for salacious purposes, because then you get into policing thoughts vs. behaviors. Sounds kind of mealy-mouthed to me.
I used to be amazed by the way these sleazeballs always knew how to skirt juuuuuust around the edges of harassment and privacy laws, but then I realized that the laws themselves have lots of leeway to allow misogyny and racism to go unchecked.
And manospherians think the laws are too draconian.
… hmmm….
No, no, G-d is punishing Texas, because the Democrats stopped the Bathroom Bill from passing. It’s vitally important people use the “right” bathroom during a flood. (/s)
Can any Canadians verify the following?
Austin Mayor Adler asked Canadians to help by texting REDCROSS to 90999, but I think that only works for Canadians with American phone plans.
I think it’s pretty obvious that God is punishing us for tearing down the confederate monuments.
Now we have pictures of people getting stuck on their boats…
People: During floods, use light and shallow draft boats only. The water levels are changing very rapidly. Flat bottom boats preferred.
Jet skis towing cheap flat fishing boats look like they’d work well, too.
re: god’s judgement…
back in the fundie church I grew up in, the rules were simple… do what the church said, or god would punish you…. Then, when the 1970s got there and the “jesus movement” came along, it got a little more complex. The philosophy appeared which said you could gauge the righteousness of your actions by the reward or punishment you were receiving, e.g., if shit was going well, it was god rewarding you for righteousness… if shit was going south in your life, it was god punishing you for unrighteousness. Still simple!! HOWEVER… you always had to be on guard, because if shit was going well, it COULD be satan rewarding you for living UNrighteously, and if shit was going poorly, it COULD be satan punishing you for living righteously!!! 🙁 🙁
think of a truth table…
1) shit going good — gods reward: your behavior is good
2) shit going good — satans reward: your behavior is bad
3) shit going bad — gods punishment; your behavior is bad
4) shit going bad — satans punishment; your behavior is good
The point being, it’s really not rational to try to discern right and wrong from an analysis of shit….
But then, you knew that already. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
But, but don’t FEMA stockpile coffins for the coming depopulation agenda?!!!
Trump is the prophet of the lord!! According to this piss wombat!!!
@ Virgin Mary…
aaiieeee… two faces I did NOT need to see on a Monday!!
Bad words, bad words, bad words.
I have someone telling me that Texas deserves hurricane damage because Cruz and Cornyn voted against hurricane aid. Cruz and Cornyn aren’t suffering in this. The people of Texas are, no matter who they voted for.
@ vicky p
There was a bit in that article I linked to in the other thread that made me think of you.
I also love the implication that the worst thing that can happen in a fight is the sudden realisation of “Oh no, I’ve left my parasol at home!”
Hey Axe
I’m embarrassed to say I was unaware of this statue before today. You’ve got Bajan roots if I recall correctly so I’m guessing you’re familiar with it. Now just need to consider the logistics of overnight swapping of copies of this (and/or similar ones) for Confederate generals.
http://justbajan.com/entertain/games/guess/placething/01-102601/bussa.jpg
@ Alan
Ha! Shades of Amelia Peabody Emerson and Alexia Tarabotti Macon.
I just remind people that, “I voted against Cornyn and Cruz, and live in Texa, so please don’t be an ass about hurricane aid”. Cruz did eventually vote in favor of aid during Sandy, I think.
It’s kinda like, why do we have a national government, if it can’t help out with big disasters like this one.
I also enjoyed Mexico’s “We think your president tweets dumb stuff, but we’ll help anyway as neighbors should” letter.
waaayyy off topic….
I was doing some back story reading on Wonder Woman and stumbled across this gem… William Moulton Marston, creator of the comic character:
jeez, no wonder the miggy-toes go all “we bein’ genocided”….
I reported a page and a picture on Facebook for promoting hate speech, it was a promoted page which targeted me as a customer for some reason. It’s called Politically Cracked T Shirts, and they sell a t shirt which says ‘Kill a Commie for Mommy’. Facebook doesn’t consider this hate speech promoting violence and says it doesn’t violate their community standards. If you all report it, maybe it’s going to get taken down.
My sister lives in Houston. They were fine for a while but now the water is coming in. Having lived in Houston myself some of the pictures are hard to believe. I didn’t think the flood would be THAT disastrous.
EDIT: Is there a code to post pics?
@Alan
I was back in the old country over the summer. Didn’t get to see that one 🙁 Did see the Sobers (cricket player, national hero) statue and mom saw the one of Barrow (Barbados’ Mandela essentially) 😀
This one in Curaçao is also pretty badass
