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Another good article by Cathy Young. I like the way she reverses the genders to point out hypocrisy and double standards. She's very sharp and articulate but maintains a moderate tone.
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by Anonymous User on Tuesday June 17, @09:14AM EST (#7)
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Yes, it was a very good article. What is generally not recognised is the devastating effect of verbal violence. Women are far more adept at this form of violence than men. The wounds inflicted by verbal violence are often far worse than those inflicted by physical violence.
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by Anonymous User on Monday June 16, @10:38PM EST (#2)
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Cathy writes:
"The domestic violence establishment still clings to an ideology that denies or minimizes violence against men. Some advocates are vehemently hostile to any attempt to even raise the issue."
From a "liberal" California paper (The Daily Breeze) today. Can you say biased?
http://www.signonla.com/content/news/nmshelters10. html
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by Anonymous User on Monday June 16, @10:41PM EST (#3)
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No spaces in the web address please
http://www.signonla.com/content/news/nmshelters10. html
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by Anonymous User on Monday June 16, @10:51PM EST (#4)
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This thing still puts a space between the period after the 10 and html. There should be no space there: 10.html
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I like how they think the solution to the problem is for the guy to start his own shelter, instead of demanding that a house that has 18 beds have 9 of them for men, or at least two or three. Women can lock the doors, and leave the hall lights on, have someone traipse the halls every so often.
I'm sorry, I don't freak out because I'm the only female in my apartment building, I don't think that male presence is beyond comprehension thing should really fly. If you have an empty bed, and a guy in need applies for it, you shouldn't refuse him.
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Here's a link to the article
It's interesting to see them backpeddle and the directions they choose.
First they claim that the lawsuit will be harmful to women and children. Then they focus about half the article on insulting and discrediting the attorney for the case.
See how they runnnnnn? (to the tune of lady madonna)
Fukuroda and the shelters’ directors say they don’t want to minimize the need for services for men battered by their intimate partners, but note that there are not nearly enough programs for women, who make up 85 percent of the nation’s domestic violence victims. “The demand is clearly skewed toward women and their children,” Schirmer said.
Even if the percentage is only 15% which of course is BS, it is still true that 15% of the victims get 0% of the help, while 85% of the victims get 100% of the help. They call this fair?? Sheesh.
Let's look at it in a different way. Imagine there is a hospital for heart disease in your area. It only takes men and boys. It has never accepted women. There is no facility for heart disease in your area. This is it. The women sue for lack of services and the hospital responds that the lawsuit will be hurtful to men. Oh how could they be so hurtful to men. LOL!
These people are going down. Thank goodness for this suit. Bring it out in the open. I hope every locale starts suing the shelters. They are sexist bigots who need to be rooted out of their positions of power and get a whole new crew in there who are willing to treat everyone with dignity and respect.
Stand Your Ground Forum
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by Anonymous User on Tuesday June 17, @12:22PM EST (#9)
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Well it used to be that it was 95% of victims were women, now its 85%. That's a difference of of 10% by the typical admissions.
Maybe one day they will honestly speak up and say it is not a 'gender' issue after all.
That having both places house male and female victims will undermine their anti-male indoctrination methods, which is what most of the shelter's seem to be doing anyways.
Dan Lynch
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Can anyone from NCFM-LA give us an update on what happened today with the suit against the shelters? I see this as critical and will be a telling sign how the court decides. I've been thinking about it and hoping for the best all day today. This could be landmark. What's up?
Stand Your Ground Forum
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by Anonymous User on Thursday June 19, @09:37PM EST (#18)
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We can't talk about it. There are usually long periods when little or nothing is happening. I would love to say more, but can't. It really just has to proceed at it's own pace. We will let Mensact. know anything as soon as we know, and are at liberty to say.
Lately, NCFMLA has been doing quite a few things of note, but has been less effective at getting the word out to other men's sites. Some new opportunities are presenting themselves to us and we hope to "morph" into some new forms of activism as we continue on. Yes, we have other looks. We are trying very hard not to be so one or two dimensional in our activities. It certainly makes things more interesting.
I love this country. It offers so many opportunities for free people to participate in their government, that we have things planned for the future, that are like jets backed up at LAX waiting for take off. It's great to be a free man. Own it, and wear it with pride.
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Thanks for this response. My biggest concern was that it would be thrown out of court on Tuesday due to the opposing lawyers claim that women were exempt from discrimination laws. Sounds from your note that things are moving ahead. Excellent! If this case is won it sets a precedent and will inspire others around the country to do the same. If enough suits around the country are won the bogus system of DV will fall.
Stand Your Ground Forum
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It's not a secret that my politics are largely libertarian, though I tend to reject the utopianist anarchs within the Libertarian movement. I reject the cult of Ayn Rand, objectivism and a score of other icons of neo-libertarians.
What can't be escaped in the movement for Men's Rights is the idea of politics; while a dirty game, it's the game we have to play. Fact is, regardless of one's politics elsewise, we'd be well advised to take a page from the pheminists book. They learned to play the game, and play it well, and their success in the political arena can't be argued against as it is self evident. The lesson they learned is to view their politics through the lens of what they were trying to achieve.
I'm not saying that Men's Rights is the only issue that faces society today, but in order for the men's movement to gain a seat at the table, it has to be the sole determiner of what a view is. I myself, though I disagree with several things that I call for, call for them nonetheless as an overall strategy. For example, I'd like to see more government pro-activity in support of educating fathers. This isn't because I find it desireable, or that I think the government would be particularly effective, but the reasons are threefold, first it might tend to over-extend the government and render all such services impotent, second, it diverts funds away from anti-male programs, and lastly, it's been a frequent practice of the pheminutz to shut down women's programs in a fit of pique rather than provide equal service for men. Any of the three are desireable, as they all achieve the true end, to stop disparate treatment of men de jure.
Now, in the interests of equal time, a fellow libertarian, Wendy McElroy, has recently written an article called "Conscientious Objector to the Gender War" which can be found at http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/m-n/mcelroy/03/mc elroy061703.htm.
(There's no spaces in there, folks, so remove them if they show up.)
I have several issues with it.
Future feminists will look back in disbelief at today’s false notion of a built-in Gender War between men and women, in much the same way we regard past theories of a flat Earth.
Only, flat-Earthers were generally harmless people. Politically correct feminists can be vicious.
To understand the Gender War, it is necessary to examine each word separately.
Wendy here makes the same mistake of hubris that is so common in many libertarians, that their concept of the "way things ought to be" is so self evident that its adoption as a societal meme is inevitable. She also seems to imply that her views are a lot more widely held than the evidence would indicate, just because they are so damn obvious.
While a crumb of praise for a more balanced view is due, Ms. McElroy doesn't quite grasp that her brand of "IFeminism" is a fringe movement of the Feminists. At best they are regarded as sometimes useful deviants by them, at worst she is considered a sell-out and traitor to her sex.
Don't believe it? Get you a feminine handle, and go spouting iFeminist rhetoric on the Ms. Boards (Damn right I frequently lurk there, I always want to know what the enemies of God and Man are up to) and Quoting Wendy Mac and see where it gets you.
What Is Gender?
Politically correct feminists consider "sex" to be a matter of biology; that is, you are physically male or female. By contrast, they believe "gender" is a social construct; that is, your sexuality is defined by society, not biology. By this definition of gender, there are currently about 20 different categories of gender, from heterosexual to lesbian, from transvestite to transgendered.
"Socially constructed" means that everything about your sexuality -- short of the brute biology -- can be transformed by changing your environment. PC feminists claim that everything from the urge to procreate to male-female attraction is created by society. This is different from merely claiming that your environment influences you.
Transforming the environment, therefore, is a political matter. PC feminists contend that the institutions of society -- such as the legal system, churches and the family -- must be deconstructed and rebuilt according to "correct" principles.
A necessary definition of terms, and a succinct though oversimplified definition, but covering the essential facts.
What Is the War About?
The current principles are said to be incorrect and anti-woman because men, acting as a class, constructed them. Men define "woman" by her biology -- for example, as a sex partner or mother -- and they force a male definition of gender upon her through their institutions.
In short, PC feminists see the Gender War as a tugging contest between two classes, men and women, for control of "woman." The political interest of men is called "patriarchy (search)," or white male culture. The political interest of women is PC or gender feminism (search).
See above, so saith the feminists.
However, many assumptions of the Gender War are absurdly false, beginning with the rejection of biology's crucial role in human nature. Perhaps the most destructive assumption is that men and women are separate and antagonistic political classes.
And in a perfect world they wouldn't be. But such a division has been made by the feminists, and the lines drawn. What reality should be, and what reality is are two different things. Women's issues, Wendy, have been defined, and that definition accepted within the political arena as being atagonistic, mutually exclusive, and a zero sum game. To pretend otherwise would be like sitting down at a poker table and starting to play euchre. After some consternation, you at best wind up ignored and get dealt no cards.
There can be valid reasons for dividing women and men into separate classes. For example, doctors often medically separate the sexes to apply different treatments. Women are examined for breast cancer; men for prostrate problems. But medicine does not claim that the basic health interests of men and women as human beings are separate and in conflict. Indeed, the interests of both do not widely diverge. Because of a common biology, the sexes share the same basic approach to nutrition, exercise and common sense lifestyle choices. Health for men and women is roughly defined and pursued in the same manner.
A statement of the obvious, and it's prostate, not prostrate. The trouble is that funds for medical research are first allocated in bulk, and then divided up, and what winds up is a de facto zero sum game. If condition "A" gets funds, other conditions B through Z lose them.
Choose your tactics from there as you will, but accept the reality of the present game we are playing; the pheminists have set the rules up so that in order to be pro-man you must be anti-woman. Yes the game is rigged. Deal with it.
By contrast, politically correct feminism separates men and women into political classes and claims that their common humanity is less important than their genders. Accordingly, men and women not only have no shared political interests -- their interests directly conflict.
Which may be a wrong thing morally, but they pheminazis have defined the terms of the political dialogue. Again, deal.
Consider freedom of speech. You might assume that all human beings benefit from the uninhibited flow of words and ideas, even offensive ones. But that would be a "male" assumption, coming from male institutions. Freedom of speech is simply a guise by which men "control the dialogue" to oppress women. Thus, PC feminists often dismiss the U.S. Constitution -- including the First Amendment (search) -- as a document written by dead white men and of no importance.
Which is why the old asage of "The Personal is the Political" is so important to pheminist ideology. The group (women) is intertwined and indistiguishable from the individual so much that the needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. This is where socialism and "feminism" are married to each other, the concept of community, communalism, and communism is the vehicle by which pheminists advance their agenda. It must be so, how could you advance the cause of a group under a system that valued the individual over the group?
This is a lesson here for the "moderate socialists." Like "feminism" your political movement has been hijacked by extremists. Extremists are driving the train. You are a fringe of the movement, so small that your views are just given a statistical nod by the leaders of your movement, the only consideration of you being "How many of them are Yellow-Dog socialists that will vote our way anyway?"
If you wish to complain that people are saying feminism and socialism are connected, you're just shooting a messenger that is pointing out an obvious truth. Your leaders could long ago have rejected "feminism" as an undesirable association to have. They didn't, and more so, they gave them significant voice. Now the train is going to where you don't want to go.
Your call is to stay on the train or not. I know building your own railroad at this stage of the game is a rough job. You have to decide for yourself is socialism is more important to you than masculism. The Pheminut/socialists have given you an ultimatum on this, if you want to be socialist, you have to be "feminist." That's their doing.
Again, your call.
To counter male control of the dialogue, such feminists seek to suppress politically incorrect words and ideas. In the workplace, laws such as those against verbal sexual harassment (search) control words. In academia, ideas are regulated by language codes which categorize criticism or "attacks" on categories of human beings -- other than white males -- as hate speech (search). Even children's textbooks are edited to remove politically incorrect references.
To PC feminists, such censorship is not a violation of freedom of speech. In essence, they claim there is no such freedom; there is only social control through social construction. The real question is: Whose hands will be on the helm? Men's or women's?
This isn't the sole property of either pheminists or socialists. Totalitarians from time immemorial have gone to great pains to define disagreement with them as a crime.
And before Lorriane even chimes in here, I didn't say your disagreement was criminal, merely stupid. I fully support your right to be both wrong and stupid, and will fight with my last breath to give you a platform to speak so that there can be no doubt.
This is the key to understanding the cult of victimhood surrounding PC feminism. As long as "male institutions" remain, women are -- by definition and everywhere -- oppressed. In their worldview, the only way to cease being victims is for feminists to grab the helm. Whenever feminists do grab the helm, men cry out: We have become second-class citizens! We are legally disadvantaged in the workplace by affirmative action , ignored as victims of domestic violence in the home, discriminated against in funding for health care, oppressed by family courts that favor a mother's claim to custody ... the list scrolls on.
But protesting men miss the point. Until the "utopian" day when the institutions of society have been reconstructed, gender feminists claim no equality is possible. It is men against us; men win only if women lose, and vice versa. That's the class conflict known as the Gender War.
And here's where Wendy Mac misses the point herself: We have become second-class citizens! We are legally disadvantaged in the workplace by affirmative action , ignored as victims of domestic violence in the home, discriminated against in funding for health care, oppressed by family courts that favor a mother's claim to custody ... the list scrolls on.
Our choice is - shut up and take it. Accept the status quo? Oh, there's another choice? What, pray tell? Change it?
Okay - Yoohoo! Anti-male pheminists! Um - Would it be alright if we called a truce for a while until we change the battlefield of the war you've forced on us, so it's more advantageous to us? It's only sporting, right?
(Insert moment of stunned and defeaning silence followed by the usual pheminazi hoots, jeers, and catcalls.)
Well ... There. You. Go. That certainly was a waste of time, wasn't it?
She goes on:
The only way out of the quagmire is to abandon convoluted social theory and return to common sense. Men and women are first and foremost human beings. Biology is a controlling factor of human nature, albeit not the only one. Men and women act as individuals, not as cogs in some vast class struggle. And, as individuals, we all share the same political interest: freedom.
And here is the crux of the matter, in classic utopianist libertarian rhetoric: Open your eyes! See the obvious! And everything will magically change!
I'm reminded when dealing with many of my fellow libertarians of an old cartoon. Two scientists stand before a blackboard. Scientist number one is writing; on the first third of the blackboard is a complex formula, as is the last third. In the middle, there is a great big circle with the words "And here, a miracle occurs!" Scientist two is pointing to that spot and saying "I think we need a little more detail here."
I'd love to change the political reality. I'd love it if the terms of the dialogue were change to be founded on common sense. Hang on. Concentrating ... visualizing ... trying real hard ...HUNH!
Did it work? Hmmm. Nope, not this time either. Darn the luck. Maybe some new age "Think in?" Sure worked real good for "Visualizing World Peace" didn't it?
That's the trouble with idealism, is the tendancy to ignore reality. We men need to get a political voice BEFORE we can begin to effect a change on the political process. If we want to play Euchre, first we have to sit in on a few hands of Poker until we get the cards passed to us so we can deal them and call the game.
"I don't like poker! Poker is a feminist game! We don't want to be like them!" Such is the whine and cry of the idealists and purists when this reality is pointed out. Fine. Go build a house, build a table, and buy a deck of cards. (The real-world analogy would be secession, civil war, and the founding af a government that isn't anti-male) Lot of trouble? True. For now, this is the house, the table, and the only deck of cards at hand.
Deal with it.
We're not sitting at the table, gents, metaphorically we're standing beside it reading the rules for Euchre, and at best we are an annoyance. They don't care. They are playing poker. Don't want to play? Don't. Stand alongside the table, impotent, and continue to waste your breath kibbitzing. Who is making advances for men?
Hey, they're the folks sitting down, playing poker, and doing the dirty work that "purists" don't want to soil their hands with. They're filing lawsuits even though they have contempt for the courts. They're maneuvering in the public arena to make pheminist-friendly legislators look bad when they vote Pheminazi - dirty tricks? Maybe, but with the singular distinction of being fucking effective. They are swallowing their pride to sit down with hostile legislators, and executives, and taking incremental success - which is a bad thing only if you stop at an incremental success.
Guys, you have to decide whether your politics or Masculism is more important to you. As for me, if I'm eventually going to be edged out from having a political voice, my politics don't mean squat, do they?
Think about it.
---- Burn, Baby, Burn ----
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A fine post, Gonzo.
The group (women) is intertwined and indistiguishable from the individual so much that the needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. This is where socialism and "feminism" are married to each other, the concept of community, communalism, and communism is the vehicle by which pheminists advance their agenda. It must be so, how could you advance the cause of a group under a system that valued the individual over the group?
You hit the nail square on the head here. As I've stated elsewhere on this board, there are some socialist policies with which I agree, such as universal, state-supported education at least through high school. (If the percentage of men in college drops any further, I'm starting to think that perhaps all state support of colleges and universities should be eliminated. Such support is becoming clearly discriminatory.)
There is no doubt, however, that totalitarian socialism is a tool of anti-male feminism. Pretending that this isn't true may seem helpful to some men in the very short term, but ultimately it will prove disastrous. We need to rely on the truth.
As for Wendy's article...
I generally think a lot of Wendy, but the piece that you cited really had me wondering. In particular the part, about protesting men missing the point, made no sense to me. What does she think she's doing when she speaks and writes about unfair treatment of men? She's protesting. Does she expect men to just be silent and wait for a miracle to occur? I doubt it. Perhaps she's referring to men who respond to anti-male discrimination and hatred with anti-female discrimination and hatred. That would make some sense, but it's not what she said. I hope that at least the most questionable parts of her article are more an expression of a tight deadline than of what she really believes.
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referring to men who respond to anti-male discrimination and hatred with anti-female discrimination and hatred.
There's a question of what exactly is "anti-female discrimination and hatred?"
A lot of time is wasted by self-styled moderates in the Men's movement protesting... well, protesting. Don't be a whiner, they say. Don't be like feminists, they say.
They fail to realize that what they really are saying is "Shut up, suck it up, take it like a man, and it will go away one day - once everyone wakes up and suddenly and magically realizes that it's wrong."
Hmm. I think we need a little more detail here, what say?
Protesting - pointing out the disparities, the bias, the prejudice is the foundation of any movement for the liberation of the oppressed. Point me to one effective movement for freedom and equality that didn't start out by someone saying, "This is bullshit."
The whole trouble is that *ANY* criticism of the status quo as regards pheminist policies is tarred and labeled with the charge of being "Anti-Woman."
If you say that "Women are as violent as men, and should recieve equal treatment" you're a misogynist. Hogwash. If I said they should recieve harsher treatment, I'd be hateful of women. There's two ways to even this up, to make things gender blind - support the same "understanding" for men as women get, or throw the book at women just like men get. BTW, WHO is it that advocates harsher treatment for one gender over the other? Hm? Beuller, Beuller? Heh. Yeah. Who is it that is "hateful?"
I don't hate women because they are women. I fear what my government does to men at the behest of women, and frankly, until those women who subscribe to a "feminist" worldview turn green or are otherwise recognizable on sight, I'd be a bloomin' idiot to take my chances. How do I know that any given woman isn't a litigious pheminazi that is going to sue me for sexual harassment? Only way to be sure is to keep them at arm's length.
How do I know I won't be falsely accused of some sex crime? I'll keep our interactions public, then. With witnesses around that *I* trust, if you don't mind.
How do I know I won't be chased after legally for some alimony or something? No marriage for me. Child support? A vasectomy does it for sure. Palimony? Why do you think I am a proud commitmentphobe?
I'd be happy to give a woman a chance; in fact I do, but the whole lot of them, except for a few on the internet (Hardly an in depth knowledge) even pass a casual test. Snickering at man-bashing cards, posting of man-bashing materials, passing around of man-bashing emails, expressions of "you go girl!" when some other woman is talking about getting back at her ex via legal bullying - these are the little things that destroy trust that might have taken months or years to build. Imagine being black and walking in on the pucnh line of a "nigger" joke.
Kind of shows true colors, eh?
I've personally known one woman who walked the walk and talked the talk in full measure. Pity she was married, but she told her daughter when her daughter started to bring in "Boys Suck" posters that both her father and brothers were boys, as well as her grandfathers, and if she hated boys, she hated them. And I mean, went off on her, but calling it for what it is. She told her to replace the word "Boy" with nigger, and told her she'd send her to boarding school than have that crap in her house.
Oddly enough, her marriage is long-term and stable. Strange how that is, you look at long-term and stable marriages and they are marked by respect for the other partner. Of course, I guess that's merely ancedotal, as we haven't done a multimillion dollar rigged study to determine it, and *some people* (We won't name names, but their initials are "Brian" and "Lorriane") can't be bother to "do our work in supporting our point of view" by opening their goddamn eyes for themselves.
You don't see this with women. The same ones that will jump up if you even tell an Irishman joke at best sit mutely when it's just a man joke. How can I have a relationship with that? Even if it's 99% - you can be sure if push comes to shove, that top 1% will win out when it comes to protecting her upper hand.
That crap that went on so recently at Wendy's board just still staggers me that so many self-professed "independent thinkers" fall lockstep in to some ideological parroting. That's where I think the "iFeminists" can't see the forest for the trees, is that they are so fixated with the idea that "Not ALL" feminists are like the extremists, and so you can't criticize and lump feminism as a whole, the only thing it does is lend credence to the extremists. The extremists who giggle as those who oppose their agenda are driven by a single issue to DEFEND that agenda.
There's your lack of philosophical consistancy. You can be an individualist or a pheminist - put the two together and it's an oxymoron.
---- Burn, Baby, Burn ----
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Again, a good post, Gonzo. As for your caution regarding your dealings with women, they in no way represent discrimination or hatred. I don't believe I'm racist and I won't discriminate against blacks, but I'd sure as hell be nervous walking around parts of inner city L.A. at night. In fact, I won't do it.
As for your question, "what exactly is "anti-female discrimination and hatred?" I would point out, as an example of discrimination, proposals to rescind women's right to vote. (A proposal that is silly at best, given the fact that the majority [women] is more likely to elect a government that will rescind the right to vote of the minority [men], even if most of the majority-elected lackeys in government, who are almost always thinking of re-election, are men.) Also, I would point out, as an example of anti-female hatred, statements that women are by nature intellectually and/or morally inferior to men.
As for your statement "You can be an individualist or a pheminist - put the two together and it's an oxymoron," I agree. In practice the statement "the personal is the political" is fundamental to feminism. The individual and the group are locked together to such an extent, within feminism as it truly exists, that they cannot be separated. Hence the reliance on big-government, totalitarian socialism to achieve the goals of anti-male hatred.
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by Anonymous User on Tuesday June 17, @01:07PM EST (#11)
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Seems to me they are playing a game of eucre and convincing everyone that they are not playing eucre. That if you speak out and criticize them by telling them and everyone else they are playing eucre its now going to be considered a "hate crime".
Their stalinistic methods don't go missed by me my friend.
They've convinced women that they will be sent back into the kitchen if they don't fight for censorship or anything else these alleged feminists want.
Feminism has nothing to do with women, women are merely the vehicle to the end.
BTW it was DEAD White Men who wrote the Communist Manifesto, Mein Keimpf, Fascism and whatever else you want to add.
Whoever is behind the curtain of feminism please speak up.
Dan Lynch
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by Anonymous User on Wednesday June 18, @11:17PM EST (#15)
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And speaking of Wendy McElroy's psuedo anarchism---
"To my mind a right-wing anarchist is just a minarchist who'd abolish the state to his own satisfaction by calling it something else. But this incestuous family (libertarians and so-called right "anarchists") squabble is no affair of mine. Both camps call for partial or complete privatization of state functions but neither questions the functions themselves. They don't denounce what the state does, they just object to who's doing it. This is why the people most victimized by the state display the least interest in libertarianism. Those on the receiving end of coercion don't quibble over their coercers' credentials. If you can't pay or don't want to, you don't much care if your deprivation is called larceny or taxation or restitution or rent. If you like to control your own time, you distinguish employment from enslavement only in degree and duration. An ideology which outdoes all others (with the possible exception of Marxism) in its exaltation of the work ethic can only be a brake on anti-authoritarian orientations, even if it does make the trains run on time."
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5065/libcon.h tml
The only way to get away from the state is to stop using the state. The states primary purpose is to enforce the property "rights" of some, over the right to be from authority (the boss) for the many>the property less who must prostitute themselves on the labor market to those who own property.
Until the primary purpose of the state is abolished, people will keep going to the state for welfare and help for problems the state causes, or to become a political boss for the power hungry.
You guys can whine about the state all you want, but until you guys decide to do away with the coercive parts of the state, the state will still exist in it's present form or worse. Those who create and need these parts of the state shant complain about those who need welfare from the conditions that the state creates.
Remember that the taxes that the lower classes are forced to pay has the primary purpose of paying for a gerdame to enforce property rights. It also isn't for those who need the forces to complain about other people wanting the state to enforce their own particular brand of "rights" that their political philosphy guarantees them.
It also isn't for those who complain about totalitarianism not to see the authortarianism in the employer/employee reltionship as well.
"The liberals and conservatives and Libertarians who lament totalitarianism are phoneys and hypocrites. . . You find the same sort of hierarchy and discipline in an office or factory as you do in a prison or a monastery. . . A worker is a part-time slave. The boss says when to show up, when to leave, and what to do in the meantime. He tells you how much work to do and how fast. He is free to carry his control to humiliating extremes, regulating, if he feels like it, the clothes you wear or how often you go to the bathroom. With a few exceptions he can fire you for any reason, or no reason. He has you spied on by snitches and supervisors, he amasses a dossier on every employee. Talking back is called 'insubordination,' just as if a worker is a naughty child, and it not only gets you fired, it disqualifies you for unemployment compensation. . .The demeaning system of domination I've described rules over half the waking hours of a majority of women and the vast majority of men for decades, for most of their lifespans. For certain purposes it's not too misleading to call our system democracy or capitalism or -- better still -- industrialism, but its real names are factory fascism and office oligarchy. Anybody who says these people are 'free' is lying or stupid.""
From Bob Black's "THE ABOLITION OF WORK"
To quote my references===
"The protection of property is fundamentally the means of assuring the social domination of owners over non-owners, both in society as a whole and in the particular case of a specific boss over a specific group of workers. Class domination is the authority of property owners over those who use that property and it is the primary function of the state to uphold that domination (and the social relationships that generate it). In Kropotkin's words, "the rich perfectly well know that if the machinery of the State ceased to protect them, their power over the labouring classes would be gone immediately." [Evolution and Environment, p. 98]"
This last sentence from the above quote is quite telling and explains why both the libertarian and the so-called right anarchist do not wish to do away with the coercive parts of the state. It isn't the state that libertarians and "right anarchists are against, they just argue about whose doing it.
"what is the main function of the state"
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB2.html#secb21
"the role of the state is to repress the individual and the working class as a whole in the interests of the capitalist class and in its own interests. This means that "the State organisation . . . [is] the force to which minorities resorted for establishing and organising their power over the masses." Little wonder, then, that Kropotkin argued that "[i]n the struggle between the individual and the State, anarchism . . . takes the side of the individual as against the State, of society against the authority which oppresses it." While the state is a "superstructure in the interests of capitalism," it is a "power which was created for the purpose of welding together the interests of the landlord, the judge, the warrior, and the priest" and, we must add, cannot be considered purely as being a tool for the capitalist/landlord class. The state structure ("the judge, the warrior" etc.) has interests of its own. [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 170 and pp. 192-3"
And next debunking the so-called "anarcho=capitalists" that Wendy McELroy is or at least politically related to.
"Is individualist anarchism capitalistic?"
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secGcon.html
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I don't know where this came from, but I will tell you what for damn sure.
I have run into two kinds of "anarchists:" Milquetoasts who are so pacifistic they are cowards, (These are the kind who would not ponluy not defend themselves, they'd sure as hell not defend the helpless)and latent bullies who want zero accountability. (It's the latter kind who, when push comes to shove, say "Mess with me, and I'd kill you in an anarchist society.") Either kind is an utterly useless human being.
You want to know who I was referring to with my little "Then a miracle occurs" story elsewhere? Anarchists. If just one can tell me just exactly how they'd change the hearts of the whole of humanity, and keep them that way, so the utopian society they propose could work, I'll be happy to listen. But in such a society, all you need is a few - just a few - people willing to exercise their freedom to organize a government, and the whole pipe-dream of an anarchist paradise goes straight to hell before the sun sets.
It doesn't work in reality. You'd have slackards and sluggards willing to let everyone else die to defend their freedom. Or what? They'd let the statist throwbacks only take over bits and pieces of their country? Oh, I'd like to see the negotiations on that. It'd keep me in mirth for months. What would be done about them? COERCE them into contributing? Drive them away? At gunpoint?
The whole concept of anarchy is absolutely absurd, because it is based on everyone following the same rules for it, and any enforcement of those rules is a 180 degree contradiction of the whole foundational principles of "libertarian anarchy." It's patently self-defeating. It requires some "magical" gestalt of the whole human race to come into play in order for it to even be viable.
Sorry, I stopped believing in wish-granting fairies when I was in the third grade.
---- Burn, Baby, Burn ----
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by Anonymous User on Thursday June 19, @01:09PM EST (#17)
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"I have run into two kinds of "anarchists:" Milquetoasts who are so pacifistic they are cowards, (These are the kind who would not ponluy not defend themselves, they'd sure as hell not defend the helpless)and latent bullies who want zero accountability. (It's the latter kind who, when push comes to shove, say "Mess with me, and I'd kill you in an anarchist society.") Either kind is an utterly useless human being."
Ahh yes, some would surmise that you haven't met one anarchist from this statement. The 'authority' on anarchism is before me!
"If just one can tell me just exactly how they'd change the hearts of the whole of humanity, and keep them that way, so the utopian society they propose could work, I'll be happy to listen"
We don't want to change hearts we want people to ignore authority and we show how it is in their best interests to do so. It is an enlightened egoism. Our main aim is to abolish authority since authority is the anti-thesis to liberty.
"But in such a society, all you need is a few - just a few - people willing to exercise their freedom to organize a government, and the whole pipe-dream of an anarchist paradise goes straight to hell before the sun sets."
You have interesting concept of freedom. To call setting up a state to rule over the many as an excerise in liberty is an amazing "libertarian" mindset that proves "libertarianism" is not truly about liberty, but something else entirely. Setting up a state has nothing to do with ones freedom, it infringes on the rights of others to not be ruled over. Do you think Feminists have the freedom to set up their state over you? If not why?
"It doesn't work in reality. You'd have slackards and sluggards willing to let everyone else die to defend their freedom. Or what? They'd let the statist throwbacks only take over bits and pieces of their country? Oh, I'd like to see the negotiations on that."
Well there wouldn't negotiations, the statists along with the "libertarians" would try and set up a fascist state before letting anyone else be away from their authority. That's fascism in a nutshell, it's an emergency button.
"What would be done about them? COERCE them into contributing? Drive them away? At gunpoint?"
What drive away the statists at gunpoint? Sure why not? If someone is trying to put themselves in authority over you, you defend yourself. Anarchists aren't pacifists
Or are you saying to drive away the slackards and sluggards? Anarchists who would abolish capitalism because they are sick and tired of supporting capitalists aren't going to be wanting to support any other slackards either. Anarchist's want to abolish work by the way, the dehumanizing alientaing work that we have to drag ourselves to and obey masters orders. You can also "The Abolition Of Work" for an entertaining read also by Bob Black. It's free on the net.
"The whole concept of anarchy is absolutely absurd, because it is based on everyone following the same rules for it, and any enforcement of those rules is a 180 degree contradiction of the whole foundational principles of "libertarian anarchy."
Actually there would be no enforcement of anything in anarchy. Those who don't want to work together won't, those who do will. THose who don't want to cooperate won't, those who want to cooperate will cooperate with others of like mind. It's called free association. You might want to read Errico Mallatesta's "anarchy" for starters. I was explaining why the state exists, and it's foundation is based on private property for the few over the many. This has nothing to do with creating "order" but privelige, and we don't need a small priveliged class to keep us rabble in line.
Back to your fist statement---"I don't know where this came from, but I will tell you what for damn sure."
I posted this because I thought it would be fair game considering how some on this board continually lament state socialisms statism but neglect the fact that capitalism is by it's very nature statist. In fact private property is the state writ small in which the owners control those who are on it.
It isn't the state you guys are against at all. In fact it has been argued that "libertarians" are some very big statists. And it isn't totalitarianism that you guys are against either, for when I show how capitalism is totalitarian no one cares much at all. And it isn't freedom you guys are waxing about. It's just a matter of what form of totalitarianism that you are arguing over. I guess it's a form of "libertarian" masturbation. Read Bob Black's "the libertarian as conservative".
You havn't really provided an argument against anarchy because it is obvious that you are arguing against something you don't understand.
You or anyone else can cut and paste the above URL's or go to this one.
www.anarchyfaq.org
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You haven't provided the answers to two basic questions;
1) How are you going to remove governments without coercive force?
2) How are you going to keep them from coming back without the use of coercive force?
I understand it perfectly, which is why I say it's an idealistic, unrealistic, ivory-tower, utopianist pipe-dream.
I'd like it to be true. Such a society would be a paradise, an Eden. Doesn't erase the fact that your chances of having this fairy-tale come true without magic are slim and fat. And I still don't believe in the Good Fairy.
---- Burn, Baby, Burn ----
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by Anonymous User on Friday June 20, @02:38PM EST (#21)
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"1) How are you going to remove governments without coercive force?"
Again anarchists aren't pacifists. To remove tyranny by force is called liberating yourself. Although there are better ways to going about this.
"2) How are you going to keep them from coming back without the use of coercive force?"
Again Anarchists aren't pacifists. To stop someone from from being a despot over you by using force is called liberating yourself, or ensuring your freedom from tyranny.
"I understand it perfectly, which is why I say it's an idealistic, unrealistic, ivory-tower, utopianist pipe-dream."
I can tell you don't even understand the basic elemenatry ideas behind anarchism so forgive for seeing through your BS.
"I'd like it to be true"
No you don't because you want to keep a small state that only ensures property "rights" for the property owners. This is why the state exists and this is what is called classist. Workers are and will be taught how the state works and why it exists. Once they understand this the state will fall. Just like how monarchy's have fallen to give rise to what we call democracy. We don't need to worry about a monarchy rising in the US because people know longer believe in the myth of nobility sanctioned by God. Just as people no longer believe in that anymore someday people will stop believeing in the tyranical myth of property and the God sanctioned gift of private property to a special class.
"Doesn't erase the fact that your chances of having this fairy-tale come true without magic are slim and fat. And I still don't believe in the Good Fairy."
Own who believe in God and the miracles that god doesn't shouldn't preach to others about supstitions of magic. Anarchism is actually quite practical. We want workers to get rid of the state by creating unions for their community to take back control over it from the state, to create tenants unions to take back control of their shelters from property holders who get their "rights" from the state, and many more things that help out in both the short and long terms. Please do some more reasearch on anarchism instead of reading ignorant right wing propaganda about anarchism to see what anarchism really means, and then come back to me and debate.
You haven't answered me why you can have "property rights". You haven';t given a defense of the existence of the state. Or answered my question on if you'd think feminists have a right to have a state over you. You haven't really responded to any thing. Al you have done is proven your ignorance of what anarchism actually is.
You go these link if you want to know more.
www.anarchyarchives.org
www.anarchyfaq.org
www.IWW.org
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by Anonymous User on Friday June 20, @02:51PM EST (#22)
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oh yeah I forgot that workers will use unions to take over the work place.
and I'll fix this sentence
"Own who believes in God and the miracles that god does shouldn't preach to others about not believeing in superstitions or magic. Anarchism is actually quite practical."
Anarchists are against coercive authority, we do not think it "coercive" in the commonly used term, to get someone off your back! If you knew so much about anarchism you wouldn't ask ignorant questions.
I have more solidarity with feminists, or actually "anarcha-feminists", even with some of my dissagreements with them then this group of classists.
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"1) How are you going to remove governments without coercive force?"
Again anarchists aren't pacifists. To remove tyranny by force is called liberating yourself. Although there are better ways to going about this.
"2) How are you going to keep them from coming back without the use of coercive force?"
Again Anarchists aren't pacifists. To stop someone from from being a despot over you by using force is called liberating yourself, or ensuring your freedom from tyranny.
With, of course, yourself as the only definers of what is legitimate and illegitimate. How convenient. It means whatever you say it means, eh? Oh, that line is from a Fairy Tale, called "Through the Looking Glass."
Own who believe in God and the miracles that god doesn't shouldn't preach to others about supstitions of magic.
Ah, and I guess you'd get rid of religion as the opiate of the masses. Why does THAT sound so familiar?
Anarchism is actually quite practical.
If, and only if, EVERYONE agrees with it. Otherwise you'd be forced into the contradictory position of enforcing rules that don't exist.
We want workers to get rid of the state by creating unions for their community to take back control over it from the state, to create tenants unions to take back control of their shelters from property holders who get their "rights" from the state, and many more things that help out in both the short and long terms.
Abolition of private property, worker control of business and industry, community ownership - NOW I remember where I heard that before - Marx and Engels!
Please do some more reasearch on anarchism instead of reading ignorant right wing propaganda about anarchism to see what anarchism really means, and then come back to me and debate.
How strange that you point to ignorant "right-wing" propaganda, when anarchism is an extreme right wing position, strongly opposed by left-leaning groups.
You haven't answered me why you can have "property rights". You haven';t given a defense of the existence of the state. Or answered my question on if you'd think feminists have a right to have a state over you. You haven't really responded to any thing. Al you have done is proven your ignorance of what anarchism actually is
You came in here making the assertations - it's yours to prove, or slink off like a whipped cur. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. I'm not ADVOCATING anything, just debunking your fantasies.
---- Burn, Baby, Burn ----
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No other religion, ideology, philosophy, etc. etc. ad nauseum, ad infinitum has ever been able to capture even a working majority of the hearts and minds of the world. What makes yours so special, so persuasive, that it will do so? What compelling arguments will be used? Please, demonstrate them.
Oh, yeah. "..And here a miracle will occur..." I forgot. Silly of me.
Your last sentence, "I have more solidarity with feminists, or actually "anarcha-feminists", even with some of my dissagreements with them then this group of classists." is very telling. Rather than come up with something solid or practical, like most pie-in-the-sky anarchs, the true colors of name calling and spluttering come out.
It's curious how your type usually comes from over-privileged snotty rich kids in a university, or the painfully trendy, because most of you have never had to live for the moment in the real world; you remind me of a six year old bleating out "Nobody's the boss of ME!"
Boy, you ever even been overseas, out of your suburban white-bread neighborhood, on the brutality tour? It makes me laugh when I hear rich white kids talking about how "oppressed" they are - son, you don't even know the meaning of the word oppressed. Even this shithead government we have here can't match for thuggish cruelty what happens in a place where there suddenly is no law, and a vacuum of power.
Go ahead. Watch how quick you learn that the strong will do as they will, and the weak will suffer what they must. I'm sure your ivory-tower psuedo-intellectual posturing will be real imp[ressive and entertaining for your new master Bubba while he's tattooing nipples on your shoulderblades.
You dingleberries camn't even come up with a conherent and consistant definition of what "anarchism" is, and you're going to convert everyone to it? Shit, man. You're just a common Zealot.
---- Burn, Baby, Burn ----
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