Roses are red, women are shrews, here’s a men’s rights poem for youse

@ Valentin

Cargo cults are fascinating, and as a concept applicable to many things.

For instance, a pretend doctor (with, actually, no qualifications, in spite of being referred to as “Dr”) who had a TV show a few years ago in which she inspected people’s poo and shouted at them about their diet, alway wore a white lab coat.

Because that’s what, in imagination, all scientists do! Even in a TV studio. Even in someone’s kitchen, going through their food cupboards.

A lot of MRA “sciencey” stuff seems cargo cult.

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I’ve got a Vogon
Troll for you.

@PeeVee
I figured it was a Gert sock.

Welcome back, Samantha and this

Maybe, and I may be way off base here, we would meekly accept our “roles” if there was even a grain of truth in their assertions. Perhaps we would never even want to fight them if our natures really were what they say. In fact, they wouldn’t have had, for millennia, to erase us and our accomplishments from history nor would they have had to burn us, prevent us from getting educations or owning property, shut our voices out of governance…The list goes on. In other words, you don’t have to make laws about flying in order to get birds to be what they are and live their own natures.

is not off base at all. I think you’re spot on. I’ve always been baffled at how reactionaries and traditionalists have always had to fight so hard, to the point of brutal oppression at times to keep everyone in their natural place. There’s no way I’m naturally submissive and compliant just because I’m a woman. No frikkin way. My mom said the second I was born I had my eyes wide open and a defiant look on my face. My opinionated personality was not brainwashed into me by feminism or the communists or the Jews or anyone else.

Also, welcome back to Bina, dslucia and everyone else who’s been drifting back!

Not Gert. Probably MRAL/Seagull Eater again.

In Response to a Misandrist Post Made by One Futrelle

How is the post misandrist? Pretty much all he did was copy+paste the poem.

You cretinous gonzo, are you lacking in shame?
Do you think that Men’s Rights is some kind of game?
I’ll bet that your response wouldn’t be so tame,
If of feminism and gynocrats I said the same.

The MRM isn’t so much a game as it is a bad joke. And people have been mocking feminism for much longer than the MRM has even existed, so I’m not sure the last line is quite effective. I’m also not sure what the difference between feminists and gynocrats is. Plz explain?

You’d call me a sexist, send flying monkeys,
Summon six soy boys, awaken the chunkies,
Enlist the white knight, pugilistic punk, he’s
numbered amongst your army of flunkies.

There’s way more misandry here than in David’s post. You’ve mocked men in a lot of different ways here.

Vaginocrats alive! There’s a mighty upsurge
Of women consolidating power to submerge
The order of men, through a ballot-box purge,
The west now quakes, for it hears its own dirge.

Blue wave 2018! Unless you know, the patriarchal, capitalistic, authoritarian Republicans with the help of gerrymandering, voter suppression and Putin manage to suppress it. But sure, reactionary white men are sooooo oppressed these days.

Tis but our last hope, the end is nigh.
To undo the damage, we may as well try.
Don’t bother with details, it matters not why;
But if you ignore me, don’t come to me and cry.

It matters not why? That doesn’t seem like a very effective call to arms. People aren’t going to fight for something for no reason other than because you said so.

Support men and boys, it’s the only way
To keep our world from going astray.
From the hills on the horizon, I hear them all bray,
In powerful unison, for that wonderful day.

The hills are alive with the sound of… braying donkeys?

Shelters for men, play time for boys,
Meat on the grill, tools making noise,
Male contraceptives, masculine toys
Worthy accomplishments, red-blooded joys.

I somehow missed when the gynocracy outlawed grilling meat. How tragic! The power tool ban must be recent too. Because I saw a lot of commercials featuring dads receiving tools as presents during the Christmas season.

All of these things are things which may be
If you support men’s rights, you just might see.

A steak on every grill, a sexbot in every bed? Really, if you think men are oppressed because they aren’t burdened with the responsibilities of birth control because men, unlike women shouldn’t have to suffer side effects and because men aren’t allowed to grill meat even though they are, I don’t think you quite have a handle on what oppression is.

Re: old poetry vs. new(er) poetry:

I think part of the reason older poems are more studied and better remembered than newer stuff is because they’re more accessible to the casual or beginning poetry reader. Especially for people who believe that things were better in the olden days when men were men, paintings approached photorealism, poetry rhymed, and everything had a clear and obvious meaning. Every artwork that draws from newer traditions bears the taint of post-modernism, which means nuance and ambiguity – which these people hate. They hate it because they can’t handle a world where you can’t just say “Thing good!” or “Thing bad!” and have that be the end of the debate. A world where you can say “Thing complicated!” is a scary and confusing one to them, because that’s a world where they can’t be obviously right. So that’s why right-wing reactionaries have to draw from pre-postmodern traditions when they’re making their own “art.”

Shelters for men, play time for boys,
Meat on the grill, tools making noise,
Male contraceptives, masculine toys
Worthy accomplishments, red-blooded joys.

Oh look, it’s the Sound of Dipshit Music!

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my most hated things
And then I get really mad

@WWTH

Also, welcome back to Bina, dslucia and everyone else who’s been drifting back!

Thanks! I’ve been periodically checking in between the bustle of all my classes, but I never really felt like I had anything to contribute to the open threads, aside from the general well-wishes to David and everyone else that other people were already offering. (Not that it often hurts to contribute to that.)

Did everybody get a gander at the latest paint-vomit that Jon “The Cthulu Version of My Jesus Constitution Painting Was Less Horrifying” McNaughton has unleashed?

The best analysis was linked in the Wonkette comments, an article from Dave Holmes writing in Esquire:

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a18750306/respect-the-flag-painting-sean-hannity/

Honestly, that News of the World comparison is probably the greatest analogy I’ve ever seen in regards to Trump. Blinkered bewilderment that his quest for self-glorification is wreaking havoc on everyone around him. While you can feel some sympathy for that robot, he didn’t have legions of enablers cheering his every destructive action. Trump does.

Just as a side note, as crap a show as Family Guy is 95% of the time, the bit where Stewie is terrified of that album cover might as well have been right out of my childhood:

https://youtu.be/s16cRi22kNQ

ETA: The Wonkette article captures some great Hannity trolling, too.

https://wonkette.com/630529/americas-greatest-artist-jon-mcnaughton-proudly-presents-donald-trumps-sad-wrinkled-flag

You women had best sit and listen awhile,
I’m a man and I can’t say I like what I see.
We’ve tried to be nice, let you out of the house
and go out for awhile, even gave you the key.

But look what you’ve done now, balls’d it all up.
Ovaried? Can’t say I know the more feminine word.
It’s clear you’re not cut out for having control,
that’s the job of a man, in case you haven’t heard.

We built this dang place, built it up from the dirt,
all civilization’s a manly domain.
and we did it for you, you ungrateful girl-types,
we built it and all you can do is complain.

We’re the fucking explorers! Inventors! The kings!
We ploughed over the meadows and we tore down the trees
to sow fields of wheat as bright gold as your hair,
to build navies, to sail out and conquer the seas.

Pyramids, towers, cathedrals, and tors!
Cannons and rockets and lasers and guns!
Whole species, extinct, in our civilized wars;
In destructive potential we’re second to none!

There’s nowhere forbidden from man’s reaching grasp,
our boot-heels have tramped on the moon’s Tranquil Sea.
No women involved in Apollo 13,
(Poppy Northcutt and Dixon might here diagree.)

We lay mountains low, grind them down into dust!
to scavenge and moil for a coppery sheen!
to lace the whole world in electrical coil,
so I can shout at you through this glowing screen!

All this for you, yet you whine and complain
is your pedestal not well appointed in gold?
these mouldering carcasses laid at your feet,
we killed them for you, here, they’re not even cold!

Don’t you like your ensconcement at head of the pile?
You’re the glimmering jewel at the top of our crown!
We let you take *one step* away from our horde,
And now look at you! Why, you’re letting us down.

Just one taste of freedom, that’s all that it took
to turn your hearts cold to our gentle dictates.
We should have known more than to trust a female,
We should chain you back up ’till your longing abates

for the cold mountain air, for we ground them all flat,
for the forested green, they’re now lumber in rows,
for the meadow plains fair, we ploughed over all that,
for the face of the moon, even there we impose.

We’re the kings of the land of eternal war,
we’re the masters of steel and the lords of decay.
You’re the prettiest gem in our throneroom, my dears,
and we’ve very much like it to keep you that way.

Awaken the Chunkies sounds like a slogan for a failed candy bar.. Gerg.
Roses are Red
Mras whine a lot,
I feel really sad,
For your future sexbot

Breaking that one verse down, in no particular order:

1) I love cooking meat on a grill, aye, and eating it. Tick.
2) I played rugby (pretty much the epitome of red blooded activity) for years until I got old and crocked. Tickety tick.
3) I have a son who gets plenty of play time (when the little git has done his homework! And occasionally when he hasn’t). I got tonnes of play time as a kid. Tick again.
4) I have used condoms. Hell, I’ve used cling film and a Jubilee clip. Roll your own, boys, roll your own). [This last bit: Not true. Ouch!] Tick tick tick.
5) I love a bit of DIY with power tools. It’s a great lark. Tick tock.
6) I’m not sure what the hell a masculine toy is. I’m worried it might be a fleshlight. But let’s pretend it’s probably something like toy soldiers or guns. Perfectly okay by me. Maybe it’s Minecraft or Lego, not sure why any of these are particularly masculine, but hey, these are all good toys. Tickety boo.
7) Worthy accomplishments? Not even sure what those could be. I mean, an Olympic gold medalist has done something worthy (women do get these too) but they’re not usually top level surgeons as well. So by which standard do we judge them? Surgeon super athletes are not great composers very often. So by that standard are they worthy? What about being a great dad? Worthy? What abut being a great mum? Worthy? I’m gonna need a lot more information. Ive done the odd thing, but are they worthy? Who knows? Tick.
8) Lastly, shelters for men. Great idea. So who is putting them up? Are the MRAs organising and doing so? If so, kudos. Good work, lads. I admit, I haven’t heard of this actually happening though…

..anyway, men and boys need support and help too. It’s not a zero sum game. We can help everyone who needs it. It’s a matter of priorities. Maybe, oh I don’t know, cash spent on missiles and guns could be redirected to shelters. I know, I know, crazy utopian. Tick tick and thrice tick. (Oh no, Mrs [/Frankie])

The strange thing, and this is really weird because I am obviously such a Manly Man (TM), is that I’m nice to women and think that their liberation is not opposed to my own. Hmmm. Make you think.

Why it’s like supporting causes that aren’t immediately and directly supporting me is something easy to do and takes nothing away from me. Crazy wildness.

It’s like, by being part of the fight against oppression of all people, fighting the oppression of specific classes of people that aren’t identical to me is also, perhaps indirectly in some cases, fighting for my own liberation. I mean, if I have to be selfish about it.

Nah. Can’t be that. That would mean that the bulk of the MRA ideologies and ideas are misogynist horseshit.

Wait a minute! {sound of lightbulb turning on}

I’m worried I have been insufficiently sarcastic.

As a poetry fan, I have to say–Y’all are really talented!