What's Happening? It? (TRIGGERS UPON TRIGGERS)

[Heaven Swan]

I'm very curious about why gay men become MRAs. Straight men have skin in the game. Why is beating down women so important to a gay man?

[slomo]

If you actually read through the stuff I posted when we had this conversation a year ago, you would know that I am not "beating down women", I am pointing out that there are in fact spheres of life where men typically have it rougher than women. Of course there are other spheres where women have it rougher. This universe is not a nice place.

But then again, there's every radical feminist I've ever met who is so much of a Victim that they can't be bothered to see another person's suffering if that person happens to be male.

Of course, from you I fully expect smears of the type "when did you stop beating your wife, slomo?"

OK, I'm going to put you on ignore again, for the good of both of us.

[Heaven Swan]

So we can't have a conversation about this? What led you to come to embrace the MRA ideology?

[slomo]

We can have a conversation about this as long as you recognize me as a human being with a different opinion and not a monster. To the extent that you can do that, I will make a concerted effort to do the same.

First, "MRA" is a term with a lot of baggage, so I'm not sure I can identify with it. Especially not if it includes the "wife-beater" baggage that seems heaped upon it from outside the blogs and subreddits with which I am familiar. If you are thinking of the "Red Pill" subreddit (which probably deserves its reputation for being toxic), think again, because self-described "Redpillers" hate self-described MRAs and vice-versa. To the extent that MRAs believe men and women deserve equal rights including in the family court system, I guess I am an MRA. Equal rights and responsibilities. No, I don't "hate women", I'm perfectly comfortable working with intelligent men and women in a professional setting. And of course I have family members who are women, and they seem to like me well enough (and vice-versa), even if they think I'm kind of nutty.

As for the underlying psychological motivation. In the simplest terms (because it might take pages to do the subject justice) I believe that for a child to achieve optimum psychological development, he/she needs both mother and father. The role of father has been denigrated in society in recent years, and this is profoundly damaging with far-reaching consequences. I experienced this personally, have seen it in others I know personally, and you can see it in sociology and public health statistics.

I don't deny that some fathers are abusive. That's part of a dynamic of an abusive society. You can call it "Patriarchy" if you must, but it is so deep, far-reaching, and gender non-specific (e.g. see your comment about women voting for Trump) that I think the term is a misnomer. Before this dynamic (whatever you want to call it) can be healed, it is necessary to accept the legitimacy of the nurturing father archetype, an archetype that is different, but no less important, than the nurturing mother.

Does this explain my position better? Can we not hate each other now?

[slomo]

I dunno, I think part of the reason people can be so mean to each other on this forum is that we know just enough about each other that we readily serve as screens on which to project various psychodramas, but not enough to see each other as full human beings.

For example, I hate what radical feminism represents. It's an emotional trigger for me because I feel deeply aggrieved by its consequences. Nevertheless, I have a family member or two who probably would self-describe as a radical feminist, and I get along with them just fine. That's because I know them as people, not as cartoons, I know their history as well as the good qualities that mitigate political positions with which I disagree.

I don't know that there is any way around this, except to try to be aware of it.

[Heaven Swan]

We can have a conversation about this as long as you recognize me as a human being with a different opinion and not a monster. To the extent that you can do that, I will make a concerted effort to do the same.

First, "MRA" is a term with a lot of baggage, so I'm not sure I can identify with it.

Happy to hear that.

Especially not if it includes the "wife-beater" baggage that seems heaped upon it from outside the blogs and subreddits with which I am familiar. If you are thinking of the "Red Pill" subreddit (which probably deserves its reputation for being toxic), think again, because self-described "Redpillers" hate self-described MRAs and vice-versa. To the extent that MRAs believe men and women deserve equal rights including in the family court system, I guess I am an MRA. Equal rights and responsibilities. No, I don't "hate women", I'm perfectly comfortable working with intelligent men and women in a professional setting. And of course I have family members who are women, and they seem to like me well enough (and vice-versa), even if they think I'm kind of nutty.

As for the underlying psychological motivation. In the simplest terms (because it might take pages to do the subject justice) I believe that for a child to achieve optimum psychological development, he/she needs both mother and father. The role of father has been denigrated in society in recent years, and this is profoundly damaging with far-reaching consequences. I experienced this personally, have seen it in others I know personally, and you can see it in sociology and public health statistics.

I don't deny that some fathers are abusive. That's part of a dynamic of an abusive society. You can call it "Patriarchy" if you must, but it is so deep, far-reaching, and gender non-specific (e.g. see your comment about women voting for Trump) that I think the term is a misnomer.

Where we disagree, or don't understand each other is on this point of whether are men a class which is positioned above women as a class in our society and under our current system. This is not an equal opportunity abusive society. The deck is stacked against women and most are harassed and abused mostly by men and brainwashed by movies, songs, etc so much growing up that they are living with varying levels of PTSD and in a form of Stockholm Syndrome.

I wish more men would make an effort to understand how different the experience of living as a woman and living as a man is in our world. So many instead of making an effort to understand us close their eyes and try to maintain the benefits they get from being a man (which often involves using and abusing women).

Before this dynamic (whatever you want to call it) can be healed, it is necessary to accept the legitimacy of the nurturing father archetype, an archetype that is different, but no less important, than the nurturing mother.

Does this explain my position better? Can we not hate each other now?

I don't hate you. One of the reasons I come here is to try to understand kinds of people I may not normally interact with. Besides I don't know you, I only know comments you write under your username.

Going to work know. I won't be able to answer for a while but I'm interested to hear any thoughtful, introspective thoughts you might have about why you're attracted to MRA type thinking and beliefs. (May be OT?)

[slomo]

Sounds good. It is OT for this thread, maybe take it up on another thread. I have a long day ahead that goes very late, so I won't be able to respond until tomorrow.

One thing that might be profitable to explore (though we will probably still disagree) is the extent to which "men a class which is positioned above women as a class in our society and under our current system". I think there is more complexity here than meets the eye. Your statement is certainly true in the professional world. But in the world of emotional interactions - a world I view as extremely important - I think the case can be made that women are actually positioned above men. We can talk about it later... Until then, hope you have a good day.

[divideandconquer]

I'm very curious about why gay men become MRAs. Straight men have skin in the game. Why is beating down women so important to a gay man?

Give me one example of Slomo "beating down women". If anything, Slomo is very fair to everyone. He makes every effort to consider all sides before drawing any conclusions no matter what the topic. And from my experience, gay men are very supportive of women.

I'm not beating down on women at all, but I think many hardcore feminists are somewhat insecure because instead of elevating traditional feminiecharacteristics or qualities, they embrace masculine qualities and hoist them up as the sine qua non of being fully female. The measure of a man is identical to the measure of a woman, when men and women are not ontologically identical.

For example, traditional females, those who want to stay home and raise their children, are looked down upon by feminists and as a consequence, today, no one has it harder than mothers, especially single mothers, who feel as if they have to take on the role of both male and female. It's because "feminism", instead of supporting the more traditional, nurturing role of females (very important), or working to elevate and support feminine qualities have instead decided to compete with men, push women to become like men.

Don't get me wrong. I believe in women's rights--equal pay and equal opportunity, etc.--but I believe feminists have neglected to fully support women who want to be women, especially mothers.

Sorry for going off topic but I couldn't help it.

[General Patton]

It also contains this poignantly hilarious gem:

I'm just going to wait until Jeff decides to clear this up now. I don't understand the wait.

Ah yeah that's the good stuff. One of the few benefits of lurking here since 2005 is you can remember all the good stuff, all the way back to Masonic Plot's misadventures.

[guruilla]

So we can't have a conversation about this? What led you to come to embrace the MRA ideology?

FFS

>>> "It's a Man's World" thread.

[Luther Blissett]

…

This is just simple defeatism. There is a difference between justice and social justice. Social justice is concerned with moulding behavior and altering culture. Justice, well, there is a system for it, and it deserves any number of critiques and adjustments, but it involves law based on empirical evidence for harm done. Sometimes the two overlap, sometimes not, but I find your usage of the term social justice rather disingenuous in this circumstance.

Moulding behavior and altering culture sounds like social engineering to me. Not interested, as I said at the start. I know enough not to trust my conscious intentions here, & that there's always an unconscious saboteur at work and that this is why we have the world we have; it's not good guys and bad guys, it's people trying to bring about good results without "doing the inner work" first, and so using do-goodery as a way to keep their own unconscious at bay. All the evil in the world is the result of people trying to make things better without first being willing to see how and why things are they way they are. IMO.

I disagree fundamentally that this is a case of social engineering. Most forms of social engineering describe a top-down functionality, a tactic of power-holders. Grassroots social engineering is like reverse racism: it doesn't exist because the system in which it is purported to exist precludes it. Your other distinct argument against social justice, while still incorrect, is more compelling.

I implore to try to trust people and try to see the good in them more often. All hopes for progress cannot be pinned on spirituality alone. It eventually became clear in one of my collectives that we were self-divided into two groups: those who were on an incorporeal quest for societal shifts in paradigms and those who were on a physical journey. We used the dichotomy to achieve greater results, and I think within any social justice movement you're going to find those who are mining consciousness first and foremost, but who are much less hostile against those who are physically trying to ease others' pain, suffering, cold, hunger, and anguish, including those who have already searched inward and found something. It's not as if this discovery is the final step.

I wonder what your long-form take on Standing Rock might be, if any.

[guruilla]

I take care of my own patch of the garden, so to speak; I have nothing against helping out within my own community as an organic continuum of daily living but/and I consider that my foremost spiritual practice, ironically, dealing with ordinary people and their problems.

My worldview is more or less in line with slomo's above: this world is a dissociated fantasy realm created via the systematized traumatization of child-bodies over millennia. I see nothing essentially redeemable about the nightmare chimera of aeons of (self-)brutalization. The only way out is within.

It would be all-but impossible for me to really know what is going on within my own (small) community and so judge what is really helpful in the long-term (spiritually); never mind Standing Rock or the World At Large which is all being mediated to us through the Brockian structures of spin to keep us spellbound by the many illusions of agency.

My interest is with the intersection between the temporal and the eternal, and again, the only locus for that is within each of us.

Hopefully that at least partially answers your "question."

[American Dream]

Those who are quickest to blur the line between speculation and fact regarding "crisis actors", mind-controlled mass-shooters and spurious paedophile rings tend to minimize (or downright ignore) the many, many abuses committed by those who who are influenced by such fantastic narratives. These horrible activities run the gamut from harassing those who are not at all proven to have commited the crimes that the confusionists accuse them of- and on through the easy hurling of cruel and false accusations against the surviving family members of innocents viciously slaughtered. The most extreme of all involves those who move towards the perpetration of mass murder based on unfounded claims and ludicrous ideas.

Those who promote such ideas when they "inform" hateful and/or non-reality-based violence should pay much more attention to the real world implications of what they are doing and be much more true to the goal of minimizing harm in the real world.

[Nordic]

Heaven Swan wrote:

The women that voted for Trump were acting from internalized misogyny (among other things) that even they don't understand.

But you do. Because you're a superior creature and they are cretins.

This claim is like telling me I'm racist because I disapprove of Obama. It only shows your own monomania.

[American Dream]

Michael Flynn’s son spars with Jake Tapper over fake 'pizzagate' story that led armed man to go to restaurant

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn's son sparred with CNN's Jake Tapper on Twitter over the "pizzagate" conspiracy that led an armed man into a Washington, DC, pizza shop Sunday.

Flynn's son, Michael Flynn Jr., vehemently defended the story, which baselessly alleged that a pedophilia ring involving high-level Democratic Party officials — including Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign chair, John Podesta — is operating out of a Washington pizzeria called Comet Ping Pong.

Flynn is President-elect Donald Trump's incoming national security adviser.

The conspiracy led a 28-year-old man to bring an assault rifle to the restaurant on Sunday, police said. They said the gunman was looking to investigate the story himself.

"Until #Pizzagate proven to be false, it'll remain a story," Flynn Jr. posted to Twitter. "The left seems to forget #PodestaEmails and the many 'coincidences' tied to it."

That's when Tapper apparently began to direct message Flynn Jr. on the app, asking for one piece of evidence proving that the pizza shop was "the site of a satanic pedophilia cult." Those direct messages were posted by another user.

"Michael — the police called pizza gate a fictitious conspiracy theory tonight," Tapper wrote. "Does someone have to die before you take this s--- seriously. Spreading this nonsense is dangerous."

"I want it to be false," Flynn Jr. responded.

"It is not the site of a satanic pedophilia cult," Tapper shot back. "It is a f------ pizzeria. Show me what you're talking about that proves a satanic pedophilia cult. Your tweet is wildly irresponsible. Listen to me. You are going to get someone killed. Maybe an innocent child. For what??????"

Flynn Jr. later posted another screenshot of a DM thread with Tapper with the caption, "Want evidence??? I must've really hit a nerve."

Flynn Jr. has a government transition email, as CNN reported. Flynn also shared a similar conspiracy theory on Twitter days before the November election that claimed Clinton was involved in sex crimes with children.


Michael Flynn.

http://www.businessinsider.com/jake-tap ... on-2016-12