What Ails Jessica Today? Or: A Recipe for Boiled Frog

As many of you know, the repulsive Jessica Valenti has gotten a righteous taste of full frontal anti-feminism, having been denounced, in a BIG way, as a hate-mongering female supremacist bigot. Mind you, that is no surprise to any of us. But this time, the exposure happened on a website which threatens to develop serious clout in the near future, and Jessica knows it. This was no longer the customary harassing arrows from the bushes of MRA blog-land. No, this time the feminist sector got more than it ever bargained for when a 155mm howitzer shell landed absolutely without warning in the heart of their citadel, placing them on notice that their enemy has carried the war to a new level. And I make NO apologies for my war rhetoric! For make no mistake, this is a war. Why the hell did they start a war if they didn't want a war?

So, Jessica Valenti heard about this within, oh, two or three hours. Indeed, she was promptly apprised. And then she logged onto Twitter, and tweeted what you see in the second item below:

This combines, I would say, two emotions: fear and guilt. Jessica doesn't want her physical whereabouts to be known -- that is the "fear" part, and it seems pretty straightforward. The "guilt" part is not so hard to comprehend either, when you reflect upon the grievous transgressions for which she has been held sternly accountable.

But no, as I reflect further, shame would be a better word than guilt -- even though Jessica Valenti is in fact guilty of certain things. But shame means specifically embarrassment at getting caught, whereas guilt goes a stage beyond shame, implying as it does at least a nascent feeling of repentence, a dawning conviction that you have done something morally wrong. Now, I cannot hope to entirely fathom the complex skein of emotions (evidenced in her Twitter statement) that Jessica Valenti must be experiencing at this time. But from reading her words and watching her videos, I sense that her capacity for moral introspection is not a whit deeper than your average street puddle. That, I am bound to say, is how Jessica Valenti comes across in her publicly visible personna. So I cannot choose to believe that she is driven by anything like repentence or a personal sense of wrongdoing. No, I think that Jessica is driven by the paramount need to cover her ass and get out of this thing gracefully.

But to be perfectly honest, there is not much she can do to get out of this thing gracefully. Think this through with me: Jessica wants to keep her physical whereabouts foggy, but what does she fear? That some MRA "wingnut" with dangerous intentions will arrive in quest of her? And why ought she fear this? What does SHE think she has done, to provoke somebody in that way? She must be perfectly aware that she has made a lot of people very, very angry -- or at least she must believe that she has done so. Otherwise, she would not need to fear anything -- would she?

Interestingly, Jessica has made no special effort in the past to keep such information off the internet. But suddenly, she feels it is urgent that all of this be blotted post haste from cyberspace. We could well wonder at her lack of foresight, but then again this speaks tons about the naïve state of mind she must have been living in for some years, that she took no precaution in such matters. Clearly, she never saw this coming. She never dreamed that such a day would steal upon her "like a thief in the night". Yet that is precisely what happened

Jessica had no idea of the storm that was brewing. She had underestimated the nature of the enemies she was making, and their capacity to strike, and now at last the rude awakening and reckoning has come upon her.

So, does Jessica Valenti feel that her enemies are right to feel the way they do? Or does she feel that her enemies are wrong to feel the way they do? Which is it? Let us consider each case in turn.

In the first case, if Jessica feels that her enemies are right, then she is feeling either shame or guilt in addition to fear. So I can understand the priority of getting her personal data off the web. And as a practical matter, I can also understand why it would be to her advantage to "play possum" for a while.

In the second case, if Jessica feels that her enemies are wrong, then she is only feeling fear -- and that of a physical kind. So under the circumstance, it would be to her advantage to make a public proclamation about this matter, confronting her tormentors as one with truth on her side and nothing to conceal. In this way, if she were to operate with bold self-assurance, she might just turn the tables against them and get the world on her side. But on the other hand, this would draw wide public attention to the accusations on register-her.com, and such focus could incite freewheeling discourse upon those matters. Mind you, if Jessica felt she was genuinely not guilty in the points alleged, then she ought not have anything to fear from such discourse . . . ought she not? So, it will be a matter of interest in the short and middle-term to see if Jessica Valenti takes the initiative against her enemies by grabbing the pulpit on her own account. If she fails to do this, it will tell us something important. . . don't you think so?

I recommend monitoring Jessica Valenti's future books, articles and speeches to see if she takes a more subdued and circumspect tone -- a less saucy tone -- in all matters henceforth.

Furthermore, if everything goes as I believe it ought to go, then Jessica Valenti's little predicament will send a ripple of angst through all the feminist community -- and especially among those who have a more public profile. Every "radical" feminist out there will know in her heart that she, too, might theoretically take a turn at the whipping post.

All in all, this could generate intriguing stress-cracks and striations. Don't you think so?

In conclusion, I will quote myself. The following passage, written in early 2007, has applications to what we have talked about today:

I say it is time to turn the heat up; it is time to play the boiling frog game!

Simply put, this means escalating the level of criticism and general disrespect for feminism, floating it into the culture little by little, but with such finesse that they can't creditably call it hate speech. Still, it will ratchet up their mental tension—finally to the point where they will snap, do something rash and, as it were, draw first blood. After that, we've GOT them!

But even if they keep their cool and don't do anything unseemly, we've still got them, because we will continue to grow in point of audacity. And they, having no alternative, will continue to suck it up—which will drive perpetual revolution into retreat. . . .

At least until they finally can't take it any more, and finally snap, and finally do something rash. At which point, as aforesaid, we've got them. Or more to the point, we've got them where we want them. Counter-feministically speaking, your motto is that you've always got them where you want them! And if you are doing counter-feminism correctly, that is how it should be. Always.

Finally, a word to Jessica Valenti herself:

Confession, so they say, is good for the soul. Therefore, Jessica, if you wish to "come clean" and get anything out of your system, feel free to contact me by e-mail: fidelbogen@earthling.net

This Will Speak For Itself

The following was posted on A Voice for Men earlier today. Some of you will 'capisch' immediately what is going on here . . . ;)

Jessica Valenti is a Registered Offender

That's right! What, you don't believe me? Well check it out:

register-her.com/index.php?title=Jessica_Valenti_--_Bigot

By the way, I knew about this project almost a month before the official unveiling because I was part of the "construction crew" that made entries in the database. I was sworn to secrecy during all of that time, but it looks like the cat is out of the bag at last...eh?

Here's to the future growth and above all NOTORIETY of Register-her.Com.

Snark Says Things About Marcotte

I refer you to the following because I think the current posture of events dictates that it ought to get plenty of exposure:

http://mens-rights.blogspot.com/2011/06/those-in-crass-houses.html

To repeat the obvious: Amanda Marcotte has shown us time and again exactly what kind of person she is. For example, she is morally capable of making such astounding statements as the following. Bear in mind while you are reading this, that it is a little thing which speaks large, for it clearly diagrams how Amanda Marcotte's mind operates. The mental "tool kit" that she employs in this paragraph is the same stock-in-trade that she brings to bear upon any job large or small:

"I had to listen to how the poor dear lacrosse players at Duke are being persecuted just because they held someone down and fucked her against her will—not rape, of course, because the charges have been thrown out. Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair."

All right Amanda: front and center! I'm talking to YOU, kiddo!

Here's what I want you to do: Open up a Pandagon editing window right NOW... and make clear to the entire non-feminist world exactly why you feel that the above-quoted statement is morally acceptable and cool!! Diagram the alien logic of it, if you please, for the benefit of us earthlings! Get busy, Amanda! If you have anything to say for yourself -- anything at all! -- then I am willing to listen. Explicate to us in hard, cold, precise terms why you are not a moral idiot -- because that is what a lot of people truly think you are! So make it sound believable. Get to work!

And let's not forget the following luscious bonbon, which Amanda posted on Slate.com and was later shamed (by me!) into removing. I reckon she was counting on an audience of her "peers", there at Slate.com, eh? She didn't think anybody but her peers would be peering at her -- but the eyes of the world are everywhere!











So . . . what's up with this, Amanda? Eh? Who the hell are you calling a rapist? Are you ready to stand behind your own words? Well, are you? Speak up for yourself, princess! And tell us why only a "tiny, inconsequential fraction" of rape accusations are false. What do you stake that claim upon? What is your fountain of knowledge on that subject? And what the hell is "inconsequential" about it, when a lying woman destroys an innocent man's life???

Amanda Marcotte, you don't give a rip-snort about the suffering of the innocent if the innocent happen to be male. DO you??

One more thing: not everybody thinks that you are "evil". Snark, for example, does not think this -- and I think you will benefit from his nuanced analysis of you, here:

http://mens-rights.blogspot.com/2011/06/amanda-marcotte-is-not-evil.html

Cheers.

New Video - Two Feminist Fallacies

Two Feminist Fallacies

This concerns two common errors of thinking which most feminists stumble into while they are scrambling to decipher what is happening to their world, why things are slipping out of their control, and how they might regain that control.

I call these two errors the crosshairs fallacy, and the moral perfection fallacy.

When I call them fallacies, I do not mean they are strictly logical fallacies in the academic way. That is, I do not pretend to add them to the likes of ad hominem, circular argument, strawman, and so on. No, for my purpose, these new items are fallacious simply because they are mistaken; because they initialize thinking upon a foundation of error and trigger downstream error in conjoined regions of understanding. I am keen to call attention to them because they so strongly mark the behavior of feminists in particular -- especially those who are describing or attacking the non-feminist revolution. So my motivation to write is political.

I will speak first of the crosshairs fallacy. Feminists fall into this mistaken thoughtway owing to their confusion and consequent desire to simplify. In a word, they oversimplify. Beset by hostile forces which they cannot fathom, they try to align a narrow target, as it were, in the crosshairs of a sniper scope. Their deluded hope is, that the sum and substance of what threatens them lies within that constricted radius, and that if only they neutralize the target area, their troubles will go away and perpetual revolution will resume its course unhindered.

Among feminists, the crosshairs target of choice is the cyberspace group known as "MRAs", or Male Renaissance Agitators. Feminists are obsessed with MRAs as a kind of "red menace." They sense, quite rightly, that larger social forces are mobilizing against feminism and what feminism has inflicted on the world, and with utmost naïveté they have undertaken a shorthand analysis that would make these things mentally easier to cope with.

The crosshairs fallacy springs from a childish belief that the vital force of the non-feminist revolution concentrates in a point source -- for example, a certain community of websites -- and that if you neutralize this particular "head", then the "snake" will expire. But that is a gross misunderstanding -- akin to attacking a prominent mushroom in complete ignorance of the underlying mycelium which spreads for miles. For even if you kill, imprison, or pinklist every suspected "MRA" on the planet, you will not have made a dent in the cultural forces which generated MRAs in the first place. Furthermore, you will have overlooked a host of other threats to feminism from other directions.

Accordingly, it will not do to sit around in feminist echo chambers mocking the bizarrities of presumptive MRAs who have posted comments on the internet. For such words are not spoken in a vacuum, nor do they enter the universe through a side door from nowhere. It should go without saying that such unsavoriness is the consequence of something -- even a feminist could agree on that much. But what a feminist cannot hope to fathom without ceasing to be a feminist, is that these things originate from a source in the objective world which the feminist narrative is not competent to explain.

So the feminists have arrived at a false simplicity. The problem is not that the facts of the case are unduly difficult to comprehend, but that they are difficult for a specifically feminist mindset to process without a prerequisite self-knowledge and the sense of guilt this knowledge would instill. It is to avoid guilty self-knowledge, then, that the feminists project their anxieties onto an abstracted and quasi-mythical group of people -- as onto a lightning rod.

To be sure, MRAs do exist in various forms. But "the MRA" as an archetypal construct, is largely a figment of the feminist imagination. And MRAs, whether concretely or archetypally, are only one piece of a much larger jigsaw puzzle. The more advanced non-feminist philosophers, by the way, do not make the equivalent error in their thinking about feminism or feminists. Rather, they have evolved a sophisticated conceptual model of feminism as a sociopolitical organism -- a subject which I have treated elsewhere.


I will speak next of the moral perfection fallacy. The feminists wish to discredit their enemies as simply as possible, and so they look for anything that is morally amiss about their enemies in order to expedite that project. This is fallacious mainly because it is shallow. For there is no way that any sizeable demographic sector can be a vessel of moral purity straight through, and the non-feminist sector is no exception. You will find the complete moral spectrum of human nature among those who oppose feminism, because we are talking about humanity en masse -- and when did humanity en masse ever include less than a complete moral spectrum?

Furthermore, you should understand that feminism is a utopian worldview. It upholds the abstract ideal of "progress" and holds the rest of the world accountable to a certain programme which it dictates in the service of this ideal. So when the rest of the world is slow to measure up, it counts as proof (in the feminist mind) that the rest of the world is morally invalid and, thus invalidated, without warrant to challenge feminist claims. This mode of thinking is entirely circular and self-referential.

In practice, all feminist assessment of human fallibility is made according to a feminist yardstick, meaning that no case of moral dysfunction is permitted to operate within its own frame of reference. Things are never "bad" for independent local reasons, but for reasons which feminism arrogates sole authority to enunciate. And in the feminist utopian worldview, all things are either progressing toward a projected feminist future, or rebelling against that future in some way. No alterity is admitted, and by default, any possible theory of "sin" or "transgression" can only be a feminist theory, imposed by feminists and for feminists, upon the rest of the world.

And so the feminists cannot see the world as it exists in itself, but only as it appears through the lens of feminist theory. In consequence, feminist dealings with the non-feminist sector amount to a coercive falsification of reality injuriously imposed on others. For it ought to be obvious that all manner of folk may be aggrieved at feminism for all manner of reasons. It is not a bit obvious, however, that ALL of these reasons are invalid merely because SOME of them are proffered on questionable grounds by questionable people. Coercive falsification is therefore a cardinal sin upon feminism's doorstep; it is first imposed, reacted against by an aggrieved world, and imposed once more in rejoinder to that aggrieved reaction -- which to the feminist mind is deemed a transgression. But with each round the falsification grows -- always at the expense of any feminist claim to moral authority. This claim -- or rather pretention -- crumbles relentlessly.

In sum, feminism has a toxic moral agency within the social ecology. And so the moral perfection fallacy should inspire us to quote the Gospel verse which advises plucking the beam out of thine own eye before thou pluckest the mote out of thy neighbor's eye!

A concluding word: The crosshairs fallacy and the moral perfection fallacy are interrelated; they intertwine; they have territory in common; they illuminate each other. But I will leave it to the reader to work this out for himself or herself.

In Memoriam: Thomas James Ball

You will want to take a look at the following website, recently sprung to life:

http://thomasjamesball.com/

A Fire That Will Not Be Contained

If anybody has not yet heard of Thomas James Ball, the embattled father who became a human torch in front of the Cheshire County Courthouse in Keene, New Hampshire, the following video will get you up to speed:



Now, I'm afraid that I have zero time or energy to write anything hard-hitting about this undoubtedly hard-hitting story. So in lieu of anything new, I repost verbatim this item from the CF archives, whose bearing on the case speaks for itself:

To the right is a photograph of Vasilica Iulian Grosu, a Romanian father who has chosen self-immolation as a way of protesting the loss of his son. This picture was taken at Victoria Square in Bucharest on 12 July, 2005, in front of the Romanian government building. Mr. Grosu is protesting the fact that although a Romanian court had awarded him the custody of his son, the son remained with the mother in Spain where a Spanish court had taken the boy away from him. And it seems that the Romanian government had taken NO steps to expedite the boy back to Romania. Nor could Mr. Grosu get any satisfaction from the International Court in The Hague. Mr. Grosu had exhausted all conventional measures when he finally hit upon this incendiary method. In the end, the police stepped in and doused the flames, but Mr. Grosu's body was burned over 55% of its surface. So he took an enormous risk of killing himself even though it isn't clear if he actually intended to do so. But whatever his intentions, Vasilica Iulian Grosu died of his burn trauma 8 days later on 20 July, 2005. Read more about it here, and here.
In our next photo, we meet a very different man with a very different mission. This is the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc who, like Mr. Grosu, chose self-immolation as a form of protest. On 11 June, 1963, Quang Duc set himself ablaze while seated in the Buddhist posture of meditation. His aim was to protest the brutality of the Diem government which amongst other barbarities practiced genocidal repression against Buddhists and Buddhism - and concerning which, President Diem responded with the kind of pompous official stonewalling arrogance that we know too well. Quang Duc did not have the benefit of timely rescuers - no doubt he wanted it that way. So unlike Mr. Grosu, Quang Duc endured no 8-day lingering agonies in the hospital - the inferno did its work and toasted him to a crisp within a few short minutes! And according to witnesses, he sat through it with all the unflappable composure of a Sakyamunic sage. Afterwards, his friends reverently removed what was left of him.

What on earth could drive a man to set fire to himself? One thing is for certain: setting fire to yourself is no joke. I don't intend to try it, and I would not encourage you to try it either! To do such an horrific thing, you must be feeling very, very strongly about something, and you must feel that nothing else any longer avails you. It is clear to me that both Vasilica Iulian Grosu and Thich Quang Duc had no further care for this life at all, and chose to express this in a way which they thought might make a difference.

Such is the power of martydom. And this (pointing to myself) is not the stuff of which martyrs are made!

So I shall have done with these morbid fooleries that weigh so heavily upon mine heart! It is time now to "lighten up".

Perhaps I will go to amuse myself with a silly computer game about throwing rocks at boys. . . .

And here is another story, of a father who at least wanted to set himself on fire -- but was prevented. To some it might seem comical, but there was not a damned thing funny about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tueehyrZ1Sg&feature=related

So, WHY has the story of Thomas James Ball been ignored and hushed up? I would say, two reasons:

The first reason: social indifference. The story did not register, in the crania of most people, as significant. When a man in Tunisia sets himself ablaze and sets a vast region of the world politically ablaze, that strikes most people as significant. And indeed, those events were very, very significant. But when Thomas Ball decided to "light up", this did not ignite street rioting throughout New Hampshire which threatened to topple the state government and spread to all of New England. And so to most people, Thomas Ball's story was the stuff of tabloids, a pitiful tale of a fellow who went over the edge -- and there an end. The kind of story that inspires people to shake their heads in wonder, and discharge sentiments of the "wow!" and "oh my god!" and "boy-oh-boy!" variety. A nine-minutes wonder to be shared with co-workers on the following day and immediately forgotten but briefly resurrected three years after that, when somebody remarks "hey, do you remember that guy who set himself on fire in . . uh . . Vermont I think it was?" And that's it. That's all it means to them. Finito!

And the second reason: that a comparatively small group of people DO comprehend the enormity of Thomas Ball's story -- and they'd rather such comprehension be confined to channels and not shared by the public at large. They fear a domino effect in the public mind, a linking of the dots, a leading of one conclusion to the next in a direction that would menace their position in the scheme of things. And something else: they fear a copycat effect. When men in similar circumstances learn what Thomas Ball has done, they could be driven by their own desperation and inspired by the symbolism of the gesture to follow his lead and add to an accumulating martyrology. And trust me, the last thing that certain people on a certain side in a certain war wish to see, is the other side racking up martyr points by such a blistering method of operation.

And so it is clear how the passive forgetfulness of the first group plays into the conniving hands of the second, which seeks willfully to suppress knowledge of current political realities. Call this a "conspiracy" if you insist, but most so-called conspiracies are easily explained as the natural effect of individuals and groups falling into step with each other, in a manner that promotes a particular outcome.

The Thomas Ball story may yet become the flashpoint in a grassroots revolution when you consider the impressively large web traffic which the story has generated outside the mainstream media. Yes, people in the activated non-feminist community are talking about this all over the world. Bear that in mind.

New Video - The Root of the Present Evil

Radio Interview With Monica Ebeling

Do you remember Monika Ebeling, the Equality Commissioner in Germany who got herself in a bit of a sling because she thought thought equality was also for men? Well, it seems that she is getting politically cozy with René Kuhn and the IGAF organization, and will be attending the IGAF conference in Zurich this weekend. But here she is on Swiss radio, sounding stubbornly down-to-earth and levelheaded in the classic German manner:

worldradio.ch/wrs/news/switzerland/anti-feminist-zurich-conference-set-to-stir-contro.shtml

By the way, this year's IGAF conference will be held at a secret location, with a private security force hired for the occasion. Violent feminist reaction, it seems, is still a possibility.

The Root of the Present Evil in the Death of the Social Contract

In today's sermon, I would like to say a few things about the social contract, and why we haven't got one.

Briefly then. . . the anti-male nature of the state voids any social contract binding upon men. In consequence, feminism has no ground of moral authority. As a man, you presently have zero political obligation toward women as a group, and your transaction with any individual woman issues only from a moral law within yourself. I will now enlarge upon these profoundly consequential points.

Consider this question: by what objective law or principle are you even obligated to treat other people decently in the first place?

The answer is, that there is zero law or principle which compels you to be anything but a cutthroat. None. What. So. Ever. True, there are some clever philosophical arguments to that purpose, but finally, these all come down to some form of instrumentalism, based on a hypothetical imperative, where people jointly agree to maximize their advantage and minimize their disadvantage so that they can all get along and go on propagating the species. This ideal condition of life is what we may loosely term a social contract.

Now, that is all good and dandy until EVIL SUPERMAN comes along. Evil Superman, you see, doesn't care a fig about your social contract because, being a superman, he can do whatever the hell he wants, and being evil, he has no scruples about doing whatever the hell he wants -- which includes rolling you into the tarmac if you try to stop him.

To say "that is not nice, Evil Superman," is not a philosophical argument that cuts any ice at all, for Evil Superman is more of a philosopher than you are, when he bounces back with "so what?" You can even admonish Evil Superman that God will punish him, but you cannot force him to either believe this, or to give a snap about it if he did. "Why should I care?", he might very logically rejoin. And you cannot answer his "why". You will never answer it because he will always flip it back at you!

You can never prove that morality has any other value than an instrumental value inside a particular social contract, or meta-contract. And the idea of so-called "conscience" is pure delusion wrapped around mere artifact; it is not independently real. In the end, the only thing keeping people morally in line, is the deeply implanted conviction that it will benefit them, for instrumental reasons, to play by the rules. And in theory, Evil Superman is always free to smash those rules because he has either the power or the will to do so.

Now, any social contract -- in other words, any society -- can only remain effective if enough people feel that their gains either balance or outweigh their losses. Correctly understood, a social contract is naught but a precarious web of superstition, a magical balance of poise against counter-poise, of give against take -- a binding miracle that holds people spellbound by a kind of psychic juggling trick.

All in all, a social contract is a structure which an architect or engineer could figuratively understand because, like a physical structure, it needs the right configuration of stress-forces in order not to collapse. So to make a social contract fail, and bring about the collapse of its accompanying social order, it is needful only that the amassing of grievance gain a critical threshhold among certain social cohorts. Such an accumulation of stress in key sectors will eventually rip the fabric and jeopardize the integrity of the whole structure.

Yes, when critical numbers of people within a social order think they are getting a raw deal, it erodes their sense of political obligation toward that social order, and puts them in a mind to tear up the social contract and scatter it to the wind. You would say that the spell is broken, that the binding miracle no longer binds them. And when matters reach that stage, it is predictable that freaky consequences will ripple through the social ecology.

Understand, that Evil Superman is not a person, but a primordial force embodied in persons. This primordial force is "super" because it is superior or super-positioned -- meaning above or beyond. Evil Superman is not God. He cannot literally do anything, but can do many things that you cannot or would not do, because he is unbound by certain constraints which bind you. He is above or beyond those constraints.

Evil Superman is "evil" because he is not bound by the social contract which configures your morality. He may or may not chose to do anything "bad", yet the sheer possibility of this is ever-present, as a shadow, from one moment to the next. So in the end, there is but a whisper of difference between Evil Superman and an independent moral contractor.

Let us now speak of feminism. Feminism is Evil Superwoman. And as an independent moral contractor feminism has created -- in the name of women! -- a zone of moral privilege called womanspace. And true to form, feminism has plowed its own furrow at cross-angles to what others have plowed, obliterating this and plowing it under. Such is the super-positionality of womanspace, which presumes to be above and beyond. Feminism, the Evil Superwoman, has created womanspace -- in the name of women! -- in order to place women above and beyond.

Womanspace -- as the product of Evil Superwoman -- is above and beyond moral accountability, and specifically, moral accountability toward men. And by that fact alone it fatally compromises any social contract involving men that you might care to postulate.

All of this is interesting enough, I daresay. But it gets better. For Evil Superwoman has not only created womanspace -- in the name of women! -- but furthermore harnessed the instrumentality of state power in the service of womanspace. This effectively taints the apparatus of government with moral unaccountability toward men, and so negates the entire state order as a postulated ground of moral authority. By this I mean specifically that if you are a man, you are perfectly right not only to disrespect the state order, but to repudiate the entire social contract which underpins and is underpinned by it.

Such has been the course of feminist innovation: to dissolve any social contract binding upon men, and turn every man into an independent moral contractor -- particularly in his dealings with women. It is ironic that feminism's effort to "collectify" men in the name of a certain politics, has ended by radically freeing men as individuals, and opening our future horizon to a politics that we can scarcely begin to imagine.

But the future is apt to be scary. For the objective course of feminist innovation has resulted in the accumulation of grievance, among men, to dangerous levels. Worst of all, is that so many of these men, especially the young ones, have no idea what is happening. They are aware that they are being shoved into a hole -- but they cannot articulate these feelings. And they are oblivious to the larger picture: they are politically naive, lacking the needful analysis that would make the operative forces apparent. Consequently they are stumbling in the dark, in the grip of unbridled emotions, rightly sensing that they ought to be hitting at something, but unaware what the correct target might be. It is a frightful thing for all concerned, when Evil Superman, as a primordial force untethered from any social contract, embodies himself in the benighted flesh of feral masses.

When the binding miracle of the social contract has ceased to bind us, all hell breaks loose until a new contract settles into place. In the interim, independent moral contractors hold sway. They may be "evil" or otherwise, as their nature or circumstance inclines them. But they are governed by a moral law within themselves, and their behavior toward the world is governed by instrumentality or by form. Find the ones you can work with, and make friends with them. And finally, understand where the true battle line is drawn: between feminism, and the rest of the world. I, the present writer, know which side I am on. And I hope that you, the present reader, are likewise informed about your own position.


http://www.4shared.com/document/FlctSAFM/_2__CFtheoryOfState.html

New Video - The Spiritual Foundation of Rhetorical Discipline

Hello. Fidelbogen here. To my fellow workers in the vineyard, worldwide, greetings.

Today's talk is about the Art of Rhetorical Discipline.

I will address the spiritual foundation of our discipline.

Rhetoric is, if nothing else, a matter of presentation. And in the art of rhetorical discipline, the self-presentation of the operator becomes a business of paramount importance -- verily, a disciplined craft unto itself.

Yes, it all begins with you. Your self-presentation grows organically from your foundational pattern of engagement with the world. Understand therefore, that if your foundational pattern of engagement is an overmastering desire for self-expression, then your rhetorical posture at the outset will be one of weakness -- as a house built on crumbling sand.

Self-expression, so-called, is both pernicious and unnecessary. Mind you, we understand that self is an excellent thing, and worthy of enhancement. We encourage self. We likewise understand that expression is an excellent thing, and worthy of considered attention to its finer principles. We encourage expression. Yet we understand as a precondition to all of this, that "self" can never truly be "expressed" at all, but rather. . . comes into being precisely as a co-product of expression. The reason that "self" cannot be expressed, is that it does not even exist in the first place until "expression" makes it exist.

So in the course of your expression, it is not "self", but something entirely ELSE that you should hope to personify -- namely, a matured and efficacious engagement with the business at hand, whatever that business might be. And from precisely this matured engagement, your "self" at last emerges, as a consequence of such engagement. But when you try to express "self" beforehand, as a willed project, then you hitch the ass-end of the horse wrongways to the wagon, my friend! This overmastering urge for self-expression both triggers, and is triggered by, a defective engagement with the business at hand -- it is a chicken-and-egg feedback loop which stokes itself continually, generating, finally, a very paltry kind of "self".

Conclusion: let the governing purpose behind all your speech be, that you wish to facilitate the business at hand. Frame your communication with that thought uppermost. This is LIFE advice, good for rhetorical discipline and a host of other things.

The present teaching distills itself into a practical maxim, namely, that you must kill the babble reflex. By babble reflex, I mean the urge to talk a lot, and talk mindlessly, under the prompting of the most wayward, trivial or disordered impulses. When you do this, you are putting random stuff out into the world -- as it were untucked shirttails, or untied shoelaces -- which gives your enemy a handhold for hoisting and hauling you around. In sum, you are projecting grappling points for your enemy's convenience. You oughtn't be so obliging.

The babble reflex arises when 'self-expression' is paramount. And the unbridled urge for self-expression is the mother-lode of all grappling points because, not being entirely controlled by the operator, it soon betrays the operator into the controlling hands of others -- and what else is a grappling point if not a locus of control by others? The maxim to control yourself or be controlled, might equally be stated as control yourself or don't have a self. For "self-expression" relentlessly undermines the bare possibility of having any self to express in the first place. It saps and weakens the self. It empties the vessel. It is a pernicious addiction, a disease of our age, a false god if ever there was, and surely not worthy of your reverence.

Yes, the world is bulging at the seams with people who are almost literally bursting to sing their little song every chance they get, to make their little voice heard by an indifferent universe, above the witless cacophony of others so essentially similar to themselves -- and I can only wonder why they all bother to do this! Entire industries and economic sectors have sprung into existence for the purpose of sucking their blood. But their babble reflex, I conclude, is a flimsy stratagem to outwit death or, at the very least, to anesthetize the dark and chill foreboding of it. But then of course, I don't think they actually think about this at all.

In sum, you need not "express" yourself, but only BE yourself, by your mindfulness of the business at hand, and by your way of communicating that business and that mindfulness. Adhere to this method, and the particular something which is you shall be plainly evident to all in the vicinity. This is not "self-expression". It is rather expression pure and simple-- or self pure and simple -- and it fends for itself. It is not your job to see to that, so why make extra work for yourself?

There is more which bears consideration. Consider, for example, that expression of any kind -- that is to say, transmission -- makes it more difficult to gather information. When you are talking, you are not listening. When you are putting out, you are not taking in. Hence, you are not gaining knowledge. The royal road to ignorance, accordingly, is the seductive music of your own voice. Enjoy that music by all means, since you will need to cultivate virtuosity on your instrument in order to fine-tune the art of persuasion. But know when to give it a rest and let "George" take over. That is to say, let the other guy be seduced by the music of HIS voice. As the celebrated maxim of Jesus Christ teaches us, it is more blessed to give than to receive. So let the other guy -- especially if he happens to be your enemy! -- reap the blessing of giving you more information than he is recieving.

Rhetorical discipline means crafting your communication with conscious will and purpose . . . yes? And crafting your communication includes crafting your silence . . yes?

All of this will develop in you the vital faculty of intuition -- to wit: compiled observation. I mean, that the accumulated force of all you have taken in, stored as a reservoir in your subconscious mind, will arrive in a flash of instantaneous seeing-and-knowing, just when the moment requires it. This might take the form of a nameless "insight" to guide you silently toward a correct judgment, or then again it might arrive as a pearl of wisdom that rolls casually from your lips during a mundane conversation. But none of this comes to the babbling fool, so . . . don't be a babbling fool!

In conclusion, please be aware that the present teaching is intended as a meditation-practice exercise for continual application in the realm of daily life. . . . . . In the end, you will come to know what it means to drive your own car. And what is equally important, this teaching will force you to understand that you have BRAKES!

Nothing in the present treatise should be understood as moral instruction, or moralism of any kind. It is not moralism, but pragmatism. Purely and simply, it is power. Moreover, it is scalable power, with application to both macrocosm and microcosm.

Fidelbogen . . . . . out.

A Video

It looks like I might have posted this a day early for Father's Day:



More Father's Day sentiments, from the archives, HERE:

counterfem.blogspot.com/2007/06/berk-breatheds-despicable-comic-strip.html

Female Supremacism in Popular Culture -- "Who Run the World (Girls!)"

Even if you despise the stuff, popular culture is good for at least one thing: it monitors the state of the zeitgeist and provides a core sample of the mass psychology. And it can even, just maybe, foretell the future as a barometer can foretell the weather.

The following music video by the popular singer Beyonce Knowles bears witness to the existence and present thriving condition of female supremacism in our society. Stuff like this doesn't simply appear out of a vacuum for no reason. No, stuff like this tells you that "something's cookin'." Watch it closely several times and make note of the embedded narratives, metanarratives, messages and symbols. I will not host the video here, but send you over to YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBmMU_iwe6U

This little movie makes fine ammunition against earnest nitwits who twitter oh-so-earnestly that "feminism is not a zero sum game." I don't know about you, but I don't take it kindly when people insult my intelligence. Seriously, how the hell could female supremacism ever NOT be a zero sum game??

After you have digested the video, go and download the following:

http://www.4shared.com/document/ummK0jwB/CFintell.html

"136 pages of conversation about Female Supremacy, and the future of men in society. Most of the women believe in the "natural superiority of women", and that women have a natural right to dominate men. Many of the men AGREE, and look forward to this."

How Many Pebbles Will Finally "Prove" That There is a Landslide?

Here is a man who has probably never heard the word "MRA", but he is doing MRA work whether he knows it or not. Yes, by putting himself in front of the media, he is doing MRA work. As for the mother of his children: she is a woman, and thanks to feminism, women are not held accountable for much of anything. But that's okay, women have been oppressed for 5,326 years, so they get to take a moral holiday now in order to rebalance the scales of karma, back to "equality".

A Quick Thought for the Day

Feminism has won "equality" for women. And hurrah for that, I say! I believe that women should obtain every last drop of "equality" that their hearts could possibly hope for. Women are grown-up people who can look out for themselves, and I wouldn't dream of interfering with their "equality". Yes, women are on their own now!

I truly, genuinely, sincerely believe with all of my heart that women are fully competent to stuff their guts with "equality" until they explode -- and that is a decision I pledge to honor and respect at all times. I have no doubt they are capable of this, and don't need one single crumb of help from me to make this happen. So I will never, ever assist them in making this happen.

At the same time, I truly, genuinely, sincerely believe with all of my heart that a considerable heap of women would rather not explode their guts with "equality"-- and that too is a decision I pledge to honor and respect at all times. Yes, I believe it is "their guts, their choice."

I also believe it is social-darwinian survival of the fittest. But most of all I believe that I have offered only weak grappling points here, because I am confident the great middle mass of men and women will get nothing but a good chuckle from what I have written.

As for the feminists: it will raise their blood pressure. And you know what else? I think that is fine. I want to raise their blood pressure! ;)

New Video - The Bright Line

Feminism does not hold women morally accountable. This fact may be used as a bright line test to separate feminism, and all that pertains to it, from the rest of the world.

A Video You Must Watch -- The State of Male Reproductive Rights

On my growing YouTube channel (and I'm not even watering it!) I recently got a "friend request" (immediately approved) from a person who has featured the following video among various offerings:

A Teachable Moment - But Not for Feminists

No. There is no such thing as a teachable moment for a feminist. If you could "teach" a feminist anything at all, that feminist would not, and could not, remain a feminist.

So, have a look at the following:

jonathanturley.org/2011/06/06/florida-boy-attacked-stripped-naked-in-public-and-videotaped-by-three-girls-resulting-in-no-charges/

And if the first paragraph in that story didn't grab your attention like a blazing red highway emergency flare, here it is again:

"There is a sharp disconnect between two prank stories this morning. When Tyrell Morton put an inflatable girl in the girl’s bathroom at his high school, he ended up with a felony charge and a potential jail sentence of eight years. However, when three eighth-grade girls from Dunbar Middle school in Florida tackled an 11-year-old boy and stripped him naked (and proceeded to videotape him and taunt him), they were let go as a simple prank in bad taste."

Guess what? Not only do "women do it too", but they are permitted to do it! Gotta love how that bad old patriarchy oppresses women, eh? So, any guesses why we have more men in prison than women?

"Oh. . but. . but . . but. . what's that got to do with feminism??"

I give up. As I say, there is no teachable moment for a feminist. You will never teach these people a goddamned thing, so you might as well kick them clear the hell out of school! But the question is...how? Where precisely is "out"? I wish I knew the answer.

But now (drumrollllll) here is the real coup de grâce:



What more can I say? But, I hope that some of you will head over to this promising young man's YouTube channel and offer him some good MRA coaching.

Finally, here is another video on the same story, this time from a TV news program:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeadI7jieDY

....

A Field Manual of Rhetorical Discipline - Part 1

Read the full and final version of this article at the following link:

http://thedamnedoldeman.com/?page_id=5338

(You might as well skip what follows and go straight to the address provided above! )

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. And since persuasion is a matter of prime importance, rhetoric must on no account be neglected, but rather subjected to the requirements of a discipline. We are engaged in a contest for hearts and minds, a serious business which oughtn't be left to the hazards of a random crapshoot. The way we go about saying, or not saying, what we choose to say, or not say, will either float us or sink us.

In the present talk I purposely exclude the topic of fallacious argument. That topic has been worked over by so many writers already that I feel I can be of more service if I limit myself to fields not so thoroughly plowed.

Very well. The sum of rhetorical discipline may be condensed into a single short phrase: minimize grappling points. What follows will be a gloss upon this precept.

A grappling point is anything in the form or content of your communication that gives your enemy an edge, an angle, or an opening. You might say that a grappling point gives your enemy a handhold so he can swing you around, or a foothold so he can climb over you. This sets you in a position of weakness or passivity, and negates you as an obstacle, so that your enemy advances in a tactical or strategic way.

The opponents of feminism are famous for speaking their minds "not wisely but too well". In this way they offer grappling points to their enemy and make their own work needlessly difficult. Their ineptitude may be arrayed under a four-fold heading.

Firstly, that they will say indiscreet things which are bound to excite the wrong kind of controversy at the wrong moment. In this, they fail to establish politics by being politic.

Secondly, that they will use an unseemly or undignified tone. In this, they fail to establish tonal mastery.

Thirdly, that they will neglect to uphold a consistent narrative of non-feminist sovereignty that would cast the opposition in the role of an aggressor power. In this, they fail to establish the necessary political frame.

Fourthly, that they lack focus, meaning that they neglect structural unity of message. They speak heterogenously on a ragbag of topics with little thought to the strategic implications of what they choose to talk about, and why, and when. In this, they fail to establish message discipline. Consequently, they waste time and energy and bog down the movement.

Under all of these headings, the failure in question may be understood as a failure to minimize grappling points. I will now enlarge upon each case in turn.

In the first case, the impolitic non-feminist behaves as a "loose cannon-mouth" and makes impeachable utterances. An impeachable utterance may be defined as any saying which at least arguably transgresses the norms of morality or decency. I say arguably, because evaluative criteria and subtext will differ from one social group to the next. Different groups argue things differently, and to different conclusions.

And so, a statement that would throw a feminist into a tizzy might produce nary a ripple amongst the great middle mass of non-feminist men and women. Any utterance which is arguably impeachable is at least arguably a grappling point, but if the "argument" is unpersuasive to most people, then it will gain no political traction outside the feminist cultural space. And so it makes a weak grappling point: the worst the feminists can do is dangle you in front of other feminists and cluck about what a horrid specimen you are -- but nobody else will give a rip! This bottles up the feminists within their communal psychology and isolates them from the rest of the world. Such an effect, for our purpose, is desirable.

But if you say something universally impeachable, something that would disturb nearly anybody, it makes a strong grappling point: the feminists can use it for political traction in the larger world. It does not bottle them up in their group psychology; it empowers them to "reach out and touch someone" other than themselves. Such an effect, for our purpose, is undesireable.

So don't be a loose cannon-mouth. You should frame your communication in a way that offers no universal grappling points -- alternately stated, a non-objectionable surface. We call this the common gaze standard because it plays to the psychic consensus of the great middle mass.

One point remains to be considered. You might ask: "How if I discipline my rhetoric to where even the feminists can find nothing impeachable about it? Is it worth my trouble to attempt this?" And I would reply: possibly. It depends how hard you want to work, so it is for you to weigh the advantage or disadvantage in a given case.

To highlight just the advantage, note that mastery in this field could be a method of psychological warfare. A universally non-objectionable surface would leave the luckless feminist with almost nothing to use against you even in her own mind. That would cut off retreat into communal psychology; each feminist would stand alone as a solitary individual, if you will, before the judgment seat. For many of them, any desperate escape would be preferable to such a desperate hell, and in many cases criminal behavior, driven by rationalization, seems a likely outcome. But until the feminists are ready to "come clean", I would spare them no empathy. Empathy is for your friends.

I turn now to the second case, which addresses the commonly-seen failure to establish tonal mastery. An unseemly or undignified tone does not, in itself, entail either fallacious argument or impeachable utterance of any kind -- although it might occur in tandem with these. But I call it a grappling point because, in the ad hominem rough-and-tumble of real-world polemic, contestants will frankly use it against you in that way. And which is more, they will do so to pragmatic effect -- a point which bears consideration.

A further consideration is, that the way you say things often weighs a lot more than what you say. A discourse of considerable audacity may, if couched in a dry, nonchalant diction, pass altogether unremarked by the great middle mass -- and even by quite a few feminists! What many people find objectionable in a given speaker or writer might be nothing more than, for example, that he sounds angry and disagreeable -- and it's a turn-off! So, by the right combination of knowing what the target audience will bear hearing, and intoning this suitably, you can make great headway and speak your mind at a surprising level of candor.

There is, of course, an art of sounding angry. It can be done. However, you need to maintain "artistic control" and to apply the right effect knowingly, bending or breaking the rules in a calculated way with the proper sense of timing. Such is tonal mastery. But you are wiser to follow the rules until confident of breaking them masterfully.

counterfem.blogspot.com/2010/06/amanda-marcotte-says-that-you-want-to.html

Whining is another unseemly and undignified tone. Indeed, it is arguably the worst of the lot, and ought to be eschewed. Whining may best be described as complaint for its own sake, accompanied by a keening vocal affect with a descending pitch. And although vocal affect is not present in writing, it is possible to achieve a written whine -- perceived as such by others -- if you do little else than complain endlessly.

In order that you will not seem to be whining -- in either speech or writing -- you should forbear to make emotionally-fraught inventories of self-evident things. Thus, you ought simply to recite the bare facts in their bare factuality, and let that bare factuality paint the required picture by virtue of its intrinsic poignancy. This is akin to the advice given to writers, to "show but don't tell." Facts are weighty witnesses that will testify with overwhelming precision if you let them. A bare factual narrative packs the needful cargo on its own account, and needn't be lumbered with pathos.

I should add, that feminists love to accuse their enemies of whining. I mean, they are keen to use that indictment for a grappling point in order to make mileage by mockery. But when you stop whining, they should start worrying, for it hints that you have gone to the next level of insurgency in your thoughts, and are incubating serious plans.

The subject of women often crops up in conjunction with both anger and whining, and when it does, the talk morphs into what some might loosely call "misogyny". This is not strictly a matter of tone, but rather topic. Still, it is important to note the connection between women as a focus of discussion, and the emotion that goes in step with this. I say it is important, because the ramifications are politically consequential and relate to our study of grappling points. But I shall advert to this theme further along.

[To be continued. . .]*
----------------------------

*This work has been sitting on my hard drive for months. I decided to post it even though it is uncompleted. That might motivate me to finish it in further installments.

Snark is Back

I direct your attention to the following blog, recently swung into action. It is off to a very auspicious start and I think you will find that it repays your reading time:

http://mens-rights.blogspot.com/

Feminism Wants a Karmic Makeover?

Today, I will tell you a story about a story about a story.

Yes. Four days ago, I informed you of the story that Kayleen Schafer wrote for Details magazine, detailing Kevin Driscoll's harrowing journey through the criminal justice meat grinder. But two days after that, a Feministing contributor named Lori Adelman posted her own story about this story. Which, see below:

feministing.com/2011/06/10/details-magazine-publishes-story-of-man-acquitted-of-rape/

So my own story today, is about Lori Adelman's story about Kayleen Schafer's story. Are you with me?

If you read Lori Adelman's short piece in Feministing, you will notice something verrry interesting: Lori, as a feminist writer for a premier feminist website, is trying to co-opt the moral high ground on the issue of false rape accusation.

But first, she tries to get feminism off the hook:

"As it stands, I am sort of disturbed by some of the unspoken but ever-present implications of the story: that since this particular man was found not guilty of rape, everything he says about his accuser is to be believed and everything she says is to be discredited; that since one woman lied or had her version of events disproven, there must be many more with similarly bunk accounts; that the outcome of individual rape cases should play into our bigger political and cultural attitudes towards sexual assault."

I can understand why Lori Adelman might be disturbed, given the shape of recent political developments in the non-feminist sector, and what these developments portend for the future of feminism. But Lori herself never talks about that. Instead, she spins off into pure spin control. Everything she says completely misses the point, but that hardly matters since only her fellow feminist travellers are expected to be reading this. None of the "implications" that she pretends to draw from the story are actually implicit to the story at all. But she is hoping you are either a feminist who won't call her out for that, or a casual reader who isn't keen enough to register what she is doing.

For example, Lori lists the following as an "implication" of the story -- meaning that she wants us to believe that somebody or something implies this:

". . . that since this particular man was found not guilty of rape, everything he says about his accuser is to be believed and everything she says is to be discredited. . ."

Trouble is, that nothing in the story hints at any such conclusion. And the implication that the story implies this, is a purely feminist reading imposed upon a narrative trajectory that has little or nothing to do with feminism at all. Lori is merely "disturbed" that a journalist has neglected to raise specifically feminist issues at a politically sensitive moment when the feminist narrative needed to be shored up. The story is patently not about whether "everything" Kevin Driscoll says must be believed or "everything" Melissa Leahy-Rossow says discredited. No, it is about whether enough of what Kevin says is believable enough -- in light of the evidence -- to discredit enough of what Melissa says, to preclude finding Kevin guilty and sending him to prison. The story is about nothing more than this -- but that is a nuance which evidently escaped the feminist writer Lori Adelman.

Next, Lori cites the following as another "implication" of the story:

". . . that since one woman lied or had her version of events disproven, there must be many more with similarly bunk accounts . . ."

Again, the story does not demonstrably imply this. But whether it does or doesn't do so, is less important here than what Lori herself very clearly adds to the mix. She hasn't the hardihood to openly state as much, but she rather strongly implies that the existence of "many more similarly bunk accounts" is at the very least dubious. Or to phrase that more usefully, Lori seems unwilling to confront the possibility of such a thing. To her credit, Lori is no screaming bigot of the Amanda Marcotte model, so she doesn't bluntly ridicule the idea. And yet. . . we sense an unmistakeable leaning in that direction. Lori quite clearly does not want to grapple with the political hot potato of our time: that by abundantly stockpiled evidence, false accusation of rape is appallingly common. Has nobody informed her of this?

Then Lori cites the third and final "implication" which she claims to draw from Kayleen Schafer's article:

". . . that the outcome of individual rape cases should play into our bigger political and cultural attitudes towards sexual assault . . ."

It is here that my patience, like a rubber band, arrives dangerously close to the snapping point. Not to mince words, but yes, you are goddamned right the outcome of individual rape cases should play into our bigger political and cultural attitude toward sexual assault! Rape cases happen one at a time, don't they? And they pile up one by one, am I right? So, will somebody please explain why the hell "individual" rape cases, piling up and up, should not play into our bigger political and cultural attitude about such things? I think I've made my point.

In the following short paragraph, Lori Adelman tries to morally isolate the MRA groups:

"I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that so many men’s rights groups take up the cause of false rape accusations with great gusto, but that their enthusiasm for seeking justice through the law rarely extends to victims of sexual assault."

I disagree. I think it is pure coincidence and nothing more. There is absolutely no "post hoc ergo propter hoc" happening here. The MRAs who agitate about false accusation have their own political focus, which is not a feminist focus. They are unfocused on sexual assault victims for a very simple reason: because those people are not the ones getting falsely accused of rape. The MRA political focus is on false accusation as a feminist crime against men specifically, so it is quite reasonable that they would recognize no "duty" to go to bat for sexual assault victims. It is not relevant to their political focus.

MRAs, you see, are frankly not in the business of looking out for women's interests, and most of them will candidly admit this. The way they see it, that's feminism's job because feminism is mainly responsible for this mess anyway. Feminism has brought this trouble upon men, and now some feminist has the hypocritical nerve to lecture us about our duty toward sexual assault victims. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way.

So, having (as she believes) morally isolated the MRAs, Lori Adelman next undertakes to morally reposition feminism to advantage:

"And it’s frustrating to me that there’s such a strong relationship between false rape activists and anti-feminists, because in reality feminists and those trying to reduce instances of false rape accusations have a lot of overlap and a lot in common. We both want a fair and effective justice system. We both want to reduce stigma and discrimination around cases of sexual assault. We both want to find ways to facilitate more honest and truthful dialogue around rape, sexual assault, and violence in our communities and justice systems."

This "frustration" that Lori feels sounds like a personal issue that she needs to address on her own time. The rest of the world doesn't need to hear about it. If she can't see why false rape activists and anti-feminists are so strongly mapped to each other, to the point of indistinguishability, then I honestly don't know what to tell her. Is she being willfully obtuse here? Of course, I understand her rhetorical strategy perfectly well: she is trying to carve out a feminist homestead on the moral high ground of the false rape crisis. But unfortunately, all that property is taken; feminism has no title there, and certainly no squatter's rights.

The following paragraph is my favorite bit in the whole article, for reasons you will see:

"Alas, we find ourselves too often in opposition. Take, for example, the blog called “The Counter-Feminist”. Tagline: “The female-supremacist hate movement called ‘feminism’ must be opened to the disinfecting sunlight of the world’s gaze and held to a stern accounting for its grievous transgressions.” How poetic. They gleefully posted links to contact the author of the Details story in a call to contribute thoughts to the piece. "

Oh heavens, now THIS . . is priceless! First, Lori splits "false rape activists" away from "anti-feminists" in order to stake a feminist claim upon false rape activism. And then, she makes it clear that she counts me and my blog among those entities with which they regrettably find themselves too often in opposition. In case that isn't clear, let me run the short version past you: Lori Adelman, feminist writer for the feminist blog Feministing, evidently believes that Fidelbogen the Counter-Feminist is really a feminist!

That is the only construction I can draw from her words. Yes, the implication is impossible to mistake! But seriously, how the hell can she quote my tagline about feminism's grievous transgressions and possibly think any such thing about me? I am scratching my head here because I am well and truly stumped -- I cannot make heads or tails of this. But since I now know for a fact that Lori Adelman the Feministing writer reads here occasionally, then maybe she will de-lurk and enlighten us about this?

But here is how the article ends:

"Insofar as it’s true that the tale of the falsely accused rapist is a man’s worst nightmare, it’s also a feminist’s worst nightmare. False rape accusations- and false accusations of any kind, really, aren’t good for anyone. They shouldn’t be framed as an anti-feminist issue any more than sexual assault should be framed as solely a feminist issue. It’s when the quest for justice becomes an anti-woman bashing session that feminists have to step in."

I gather that Lori Adelman still cannot, or will not, learn to see anti-feminist as different from anti-female. Take a hard look at the final sentence in that muddled paragraph above. She is really saying that whenever the quest for justice holds feminism accountable, it becomes an "anti-woman bashing session" by definition -- and for that reason, feminists have to step in and put a stop to such games. Her reasoning is utterly circular, so don't feel bad if it escapes you on the first ten or twelve tries.

I'm not sure how a man can be a "falsely accused rapist". Either he is falsely accused or he is a rapist; he cannot be both. But yes, it is a feminist's worst nightmare because in the fullness of time it will draw down a train of vengeful consequences upon feminism and feminists everywhere. False accusations of rape are not good for feminism because feminism is so deeply responsible for making these things a living reality.

It is too late for the feminists to pretend that they are not feminists, as we see one feminist doing here. The growing power of the non-feminist revolution clearly worries them, and they are scrambling to reinvent themselves and to sweep the dirt of their own legacy under the carpet of history. But we can see through every last one of their shabby tricks and vain deceits, and we shall make these known to the world as fast as they can launch them, and in the end we shall drive the feminists into a corner where they can no longer wiggle free. And that will be all for them.

Oh Those Guilty, Guilty Dogs!

Here is a sweet little goody I photoshopped about 3 years ago. I thought I would drag this out of the dusty archives, where it would moulder unseen, and stick it on top of the stack where somebody can get a chuckle and steal it for nefarious uses elsewhere.

Now, I realize that such productions as these might seem a tad bit juvenile and sophomoric to some people -- but not to ALL people! And from our point of view, the important thing is to saturate the cultural ecosystem with counter-feminist nose-tweakings of every description. It's all part of a widespread, orchestrated socio-political "beatdown" of feminism which needs to run for at least the next fifty years. The idea is to exhaust them to the point where they can only suck it up, pretending not to notice while such memes and messages trickle unpityingly into social spaces everywhere, in a rising groundwater effect.

The method is: iteration and re-iteration of the message, like a psychic drumbeat in the social background that never goes away. It will of course be made gradually clear to the general public exactly WHY the feminists are guilty dogs -- there is no law that requires explanation to come first.

Have fun.

Germaine Greer Puts Her Foot In It

She stepped in WHAT??

Germaine Greer, for the record, is a Real Feminist who dwells smack in the middle of feminism's radical core -- quite unlike those friendly, earnest feminists outliers you might know, who inhabit the "fluffy fringe" in the the Oort cloud of the feminist solar system. Now, you would need to run at least fifty earnest feminists through your garlic press to extract the quantity of anti-male venom concentrated in a feminist like Greer, so you might think that the earnest feminists aren't worth much in the feminist scheme of things. Yet they play a vital role in providing camouflage. For while it is true that feminism would amount to very little if the radical man-haters didn't exist, it is equally true that feminism couldn't survive for long at all if those legions of fluffy earnest ones were not hanging around confusing the issue in the popular mind.

Anyhow, Germaine Greer has made a bloody jackass of herself. See here:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2002083/Germaine-Greer-claims-British-troops-turn-rapists.html

Ahhh. . . the grande olde dame is still the focus for attention, eh? Mind you, back in her brash young revolutionary days she was the focus for spread-legged porno shots, but heavens . . . let us now make proper allowance for what is due to her dignified time of life, yes?

Another Idiot Feminist to Poke Sticks At

Certain things irritate me. I probably shouldn't allow this, but still, it occasionally happens. Today, I got a comment on an old post from a very obvious feminist, who treated me to the following boilerplate rhetoric as opposed to saying anything meaningful. This person signs him/her self as "questioning":

questioning said...

"There is no social or legal obstacle to women who would exploit the system we now enjoy; the system where all men are bad, and all women are good."

Did you ever consider that women are looking for equality and not domination? Women are seeking the oppertunity to be on an equal playing field, which clearly is still tipped in men's favor (women make 77 cents to every dollar a man makes):

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/statement-president-anniversary-equal-pay-act

If men are in positions of power because they are the more competant sex, why are you so concerned with protecting those postions? If men are indeed the more competent sex, then they will continue to stay in those postions. It seems as though you see "empowered women" as a threat, rather than an asset. Don't you think your wife/girlfriend/lover, sisters, friends, and/or daughters deserve the chance to succeed in life based on her ability and not gender? Further, doesn't she deserve a relationship where she is seen as an equal and not as an inferior being? Fighting against systems of inequality (sexism, racism, classism, etc.) seems to be a much more productive way to ensure men's (and women's) rights, rather than fighting to maintain systems of inequality.

1:35 PM

And I posted the following, extremely acid rejoinder:

Fidelbogen said...

@questioning:

Come back when you can offer something better than old, regurgitated tripe.

Come back when you can address what is actually being talked about here.

Come back when you learn to read and pay attention.

Come back when you learn to stop derailing and ducking the issue.

Come back when you learn that it's bloody bad manners to read thoughts into other people's minds without asking their permission first.

In other words, come back when you stop behaving like a feminist.


Oh...and if you are up to it: explain exactly why the hell men can reasonably trust women in today's legal climate, and also, what the hell you mean to do about it.

Here is the old post from which the foregoing was taken:

counterfem.blogspot.com/2011/05/men-cannot-reasonably-trust-women-what.html

A parting thought. Some people would insist that the attitude expressed in the present post title (about poking sticks) has no place in a civilized society. Well I absolutely concur that it has no place in a civilized society. And if we lived in a civilized society, I wouldn't be saying it.

Magazine Article on the Kevin Driscoll Case

I have gotten the following e-mail from Kayleen Schafer of Details magazine, in New York City. Long-time readers with a long memory might recall that I corresponded with Kayleen way back in early 2010, when she was working on an article about Kevin Driscoll's false rape accusation. Anyway, as you will see, the article has been published and is available for online reading. I would highly recommend reading it.

"I wrote a story about Kevin Driscoll for Details that I hope you will consider posting about -- I know you were a close follower and supporter of his case and trial while it was in progress. It’s about the stigma of being falsely accused of rape. As you know, Driscoll's one-night stand that lead to charges that cost him his home, his job, and his wife-to-be. And even though a jury found him not guilty, he now knows he’ll never truly be seen as innocent. Thanks for considering the post. The link to the story is below and I hope all is well.

http://www.details.com/culture-trends/critical-eye/201106/kevin-driscoll-rape-charges-jail-assault-stigma-reputation

"Kayleen"

When you read the story, you will learn that the assistant D.A. Jody Vaughan, who was prosecuting Kevin's case, has been dismissed from her post. She was reportedly not available for comment.

Jody Vaughan, just for the record, was an Oregon version of Mary Kellett. The criminal justice system in this country is chock-full of rogue prosecutors like Mary Kellet, Jody Vaughan, and Mike Nifong.

By the way, a little-known detail about the Driscoll case is that no rape-kit testing was done at the time of the alleged rape -- they waited until several months later! Now, that's what I call stellar police work.