The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Feminism: The Demonization of Males

Posted on | March 2, 2017 | 1 Comment

She is a 28-year-old feminist witch with a Tumblr blog, and she also has another Tumblr blog in Swedish, from which I quote:

When women are exposed to sexual violence and exploitation [and] are encouraged to not call themselves “victims” or talk about their vulnerability, [it] becomes clear how a stigma around being just a victim . . . [is] cemented. But it is when misogynistic men say women who talk about men’s violence and patriarchal structures “just put on their victims cardigan” it becomes quite clear how this performance is a tool for the patriarchal forces to silence women, and to prevent us from [naming offenses] against us and who the perpetrators are.

The cardigan of victimhood is a term I’ve never encountered, but maybe the Google translation from Swedish was a bit sketchy. She says her witchcraft is “the opposition, a force to thwart the current system, the oppressing power,” yada yada yada. And oh, she’s got her theory:

To its nature, patriarchy is such that it normalizes, renders invisible like a chameleon the ways in which it is upheld, and the ways in which misogyny and male exploitation of women and male domination is reinforced. It renders invisible that certain things are expressions of male supremacy and misogyny, so that people won’t question it. It makes misogyny and male domination the default. That is its nature.
Prostitution (specifically, the act of buying sex) exists because male exploitation of women and men’s imagined entitlement to sex is normalized by patriarchy, to such an extent that many people can’t even see it for what it really is.
Porn exists because male objectification of women and male violence (both physical, mental and existential) is normalized by patriarchy, to such an extent that people can’t see that it isn’t a healthy and equal expression of sexuality and don’t care that women are exploited and hurt in the making of porn.
Femininity exists because female subordination and women’s submission to men is normalized by patriarchy to such an extent that people turn it into norms and ideals and believe this is what makes “a real woman” or makes a woman pleasing and gives her value.
Many norms and acts surrounding sex exist because male control over female bodies and the degradation of women is normalized by patriarchy, to such an extent that many people believe it to be nothing but their free choices, their own preferences unaffected by the surrounding environment — even when men themselves express how they see these norms and acts as ways of humiliating women.
The list of examples could go on. Maybe it should: because we need to put it into words, what the things we do and the norms we follow really stem from, how they have their roots in patriarchy, and how they reinforce female subordination and male domination. Questions need to be asked, questions such as “why?” and “who gains from this?”. Patriarchal forces want us to believe things must be as they are. We must show that they really mustn’t.

The point I wish to make here is not that this woman is crazy — although, obviously, she is — but rather that this kind of paranoid madness is a logical consequence of the core beliefs of feminism.

Most people in this world are just doing whatever it takes to survive. Get up in the morning, go to work, come home at the end of the day, eat supper, watch TV a while and go to sleep, then get up the next morning and do it again. Our lives are basically about paying the bills. Do men exploit, dominate, objectify and degrade women? Perhaps some do, but most guys are just working and paying bills. They don’t have spare time to do all that patriarchal oppression stuff. So what is she complaining about?

Consider, for example, the feminist witch’s denunciation of “norms and ideals” about what “makes a woman pleasing and gives her value.” While she is not specific as to what she means by this, we may assume that she is referring to “norms and ideals” of female appearance and behavior, especially as they are esteemed by men. In other words, what kind of women do men generally like best? It is ordinary male preferences which are being denounced in this diatribe about objectification, etc.

This demonization of males — the claim that women are victims of “mental and existential” violence, simply as a consequence of living in the same world with men — is inherent to feminist theory. This isn’t just what some random Tumblrina is spewing on the Internet, it’s what is being taught in university Women’s Studies courses. If any man objects to this insulting rhetoric, he is accused of being a misogynist. The only enlightened men, according to feminists, are men who hate themselves, who enthusiastically agree with this anti-male ideology. If men say that feminists are engaged in exaggeration when they “talk about men’s violence and patriarchal structures,” this criticism is rejected as a “tool for the patriarchal forces to silence women.” Far from seeking to “silence” feminists, of course, my purpose is to quote them at length, so that everybody can see how crazy they are. The craziness is self-evident.

Furthermore, as I say, this craziness isn’t just the province of a few fringe kooks, but is the essential core of feminist belief. Here, let me quote an eminent academic feminist:

Lesbian feminist politics is a political critique of the institution and ideology of heterosexuality as a cornerstone of male supremacy. . . .
Therefore, women interested in destroying male supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism must, equally with lesbians, fight heterosexual domination — or we will never end female oppression. . . .
We need to discover what lesbian consciousness means for any woman, just as we struggle to understand what class or race consciousness means for women of any race or class. And we must develop strategies that will destroy the political institutions that oppress us.
It is particularly important for those at this conference to understand that heterosexuality — as an ideology and an institution — upholds all those aspects of female oppression discussed here.

So said Charlotte Bunch in a 1975 speech at the Socialist Feminist Conference at Antioch College in Ohio. Professor Bunch is not a marginal “fringe” figure in the history of feminism. That speech was included in a 1981 anthology Building Feminist Theory, a collection of essays from Quest, a feminist journal founded by Professor Bunch, and the foreword to that book was written by none other than Gloria Steinem. Notice that the goal of Professor Bunch’s movement is “destroying male supremacy” by the destruction of heterosexuality “as an ideology and an institution.”

Charlotte Bunch speaks at Antioch College, July 1975.

The first paragraph of Charlotte Bunch’s 1972 manifesto, ‘Lesbians in Revolt.’

Notice again Professor Bunch’s destructive goal — “destroying our sexist, racist, capitalist, imperialist system.” Was the “system” of American society in 1971 so atrocious that it deserved destruction? Whether you think so or not, the point is that the entire feminist movement agreed with this assessment. This was why Gloria Steinem wrote the foreword of that 1981 anthology, as an endorsement of these beliefs.

 

Charlotte Bunch became one of the most influential feminists in America. She is the founding director and senior scholar at the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University, where she is a distinguished professor in Women’s and Gender Studies. Professor Bunch has many powerful admirers. In 2013, at a sold-out New York gala for the Global Women’s Fund, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton introduced Professor Bunch, who was the guest of honor at the event.

 

In her introductory speech, Secretary Clinton praised Professor Bunch as an “activist and organizer” and an “extraordinary leader” whose “tireless work and her brilliant vision” placed this radical lesbian on “the front lines of the struggle” to promote feminism internationally.

 

Professor Bunch “was one of a small group of women” chosen by Secretary Clinton to direct the State Department’s feminist agenda, she told the audience at the April 2013 gala. While Secretary Clinton did not mention Professor Bunch’s decades-long commitment “to destroying our sexist, racist, capitalist, imperialist system,” certainly her praise for the world-famous lesbian feminist leader could be considered an endorsement of Professor Bunch’s anti-heterosexual ideology.

When we encounter a self-described feminist witch on Tumblr ranting about “men’s violence and patriarchal structures,” you see, we cannot dismiss such a woman as a lone kook, because the feminist movement’s most eminent intellectuals share the same basic beliefs as the kook.

Now consider the fact that Hillary Clinton, who offered such effusive praise for Charlotte Bunch, came within about 70,000 votes of becoming President of the United State. Doesn’t this suggest that our society is teetering on the brink of utter madness? And shouldn’t we do all we can to alert Americans to this threat? March is Women’s History Month, and maybe it’s time to wake people up to the real history of feminism.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!



 

Category: Sex Trouble

Violence Against Women

Posted on | March 2, 2017 | Comments Off on Violence Against Women

Don’t expect feminists to notice this crime story from Cleveland:

Three teens are facing a total of 133 charges. Prosecutors say they were involved in dozens of aggravated robberies and carjackings.
“In one case they robbed a mother in front of her three young children,” said Assistant County Prosecutor Brian Kraft. “They wanted to steal her car, they held her there at gun point, they pulled her from the vehicle, they pistol whipped her in front of her children. A 7-year-old child then got out of the vehicle and told the young offender don’t kill my mother. The young offender pulled the weapon on the 7-year-old and held him there at gun point.”
The crimes were committed in just about a month. Prosecutors say the crime spree started January 18th and ended February 20th, when arrests were made. . . .
“It’s shocking but it also demonstrates that we have a serous problem with the juvenile justice system that needs to be fixed,” Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Mike O’Malley said.

Worse than an Ivy League frat party . . .

UPDATE: More violence against women:

Two known MS-13 gang members, formerly of El Salvador, appeared in Houston court Wednesday to hear charges against them in the kidnapping and torture of one victim and the “satanic” killing of a second.
Diego Hernandez-Rivera, 18, and leader of the group Miguel Alvarez-Flores, 22, also known as “Diabolico,” were arrested Monday on charges of aggravated kidnapping in one case and murder in a second in the shooting death of an unidentified woman’s body earlier this month on a Houston road. . . .
Both are immigrants in the country illegally, according to court records. . . .
In the kidnapping case, the female victim allegedly ran away from school around Feb. 2, to an apartment on Glenmont. There she tried to leave and was held against her will for four days and sexually assaulted by one of the gang members.
The victim was then held for around 14 days at a different location on Gessner. . . .
On Feb. 16, the body of another young woman was found in west Houston, lying along the curb at the 9900 block of Sharpcrest Street. The victim in the aggravated kidnapping was able to identify her only as “Genesis,” another girl also at the apartment on Gessner.
According to the court hearing, Genesis allegedly made an outburst against the gang members’ satanic rituals and shrine, which wound up leading Flores to declare the “Beast” required a soul sacrifice.
When the kidnapping victim woke up the day after the incident, Genesis was gone. . . .
When police found her, she had been shot once in the head and chest. Investigators believe she was shot by Hernandez-Rivera and Alvarez-Flores at another location and dumped on Sharpcrest.

Just illegal immigrants with a satanic shrine, kidnapping, raping and murdering women. Nothing for feminists to worry about . . .

 

Category: Crime, Violence Against Women

#BlackLivesMatter Activist Missed the Memo From Democrat Party HQ

Posted on | March 2, 2017 | 1 Comment

 

Trevor Ferguson doesn’t seem to realize that the election is over, and that the Soros-funded “movement” #BlackLivesMatter has passed its expiration date. Since the Ferguson riots of 2014, it has been obvious that these made-for-CNN protests were about mobilizing black voters for the Democrat Party, in the same way the “rape culture” discourse on university campuses was about mobilizing college girls for Democrats.

Well, Hillary lost, and now the liberal propaganda message is Trump scandals 24/7 — “Russians! Russians! Russians!” — but some idiotic activist types haven’t figured this out yet:

A judge has granted a restraining order against a Black Lives Matter activist who took his racially charged rhetoric to the law office and home of Los Angeles Police Commission President Matt Johnson.
The intrusion of the activist, Trevor Ferguson, into the commissioner’s private life marked an escalation of a conflict that had previously been confined to public meetings.
Ferguson is part of a group that regularly disrupts the Police Commission’s weekly meetings by chanting and speaking out of turn to express outrage at Los Angeles Police Department shootings of black and Latino people.
Johnson, one of two African American police commissioners, is sometimes singled out by Ferguson and others, who call him a “houseboy” — a derogatory term for a black person who is subservient to whites — amid demands that LAPD Chief Charlie Beck resign and the entire department be disbanded. . . .
After hearing more than an hour of testimony Wednesday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carol Boas Goodson concluded that Ferguson’s intent was not only to protest but to “incite fear.” The restraining order requires Ferguson to stay away from Johnson and his family. Ferguson can continue to speak at Police Commission meetings but must keep a five-yard distance from Johnson.
In granting the restraining order, Goodson said that “any parent would be concerned,” because Ferguson mentioned Johnson’s son at a Police Commission meeting and subsequently visited Johnson’s home.

Blame CNN for this. In 2014, the network promoted false claims about the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson. CNN spent months hyping the #BlackLivesMatter movement and its hateful lies, which have been exposed by Heather Mac Donald in her book The War on Cops.

#BlackLivesMatt represents the kind of “activist” mentality in which identity-group politics is the entire meaning of existence.

This toxic ideology, a political poison that destroys civil society, is a lingering after-effect of the Obama era. American culture is unraveling after eight years of a “community organizer” in the White House.

 

Category: Crime, Racism

Liberal Feminism, Radical Feminism and the Ultimate Failure of All Feminism

Posted on | March 2, 2017 | 1 Comment

“We want to end gender inequality — and to do that we need everyone to be involved. This is the first campaign of its kind at the UN: we want to try and galvanize as many men and boys as possible to be advocates for gender equality. . . . I was appointed six months ago and the more I have spoken about feminism the more I have realized that fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop.”
— Emma Watson, Sept. 20, 2014

In the fall of 2014, actress Emma Watson went to the United Nations to announce the “He for She” campaign, aimed at encouraging men to support feminism. The timing of this event was not coincidental, nor was it a coincidence that Ms. Watson was chosen to lead this initiative.

From age 10 to 21, Ms. Watson portrayed the heroic Hermione Granger in the film adaptations of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter children’s fantasy novels. Tens of millions of young people grew up cheering for Ms. Watson in movie theaters, and if anyone could mobilize youth in favor of feminism, she was the one who could do it. However, almost no one at the time asked the obvious question: Why? Or rather, why now?

Why had the United Nations decided to launch this project? Why was it considered necessary, in 2014, to “rebrand” feminism as a movement that men should support, with Ms. Watson as the spokeswoman? Why was the U.N. leadership concerned that feminism was considered “man-hating”? Why did six months elapse between Ms. Watson’s appointment as “ambassador” for this U.N. project and her September 2014 speech? Ms. Watson asserted that this was her own idea, because “my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word,” because feminists “are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, anti-men and, unattractive,” leading her to ask, “Why is the word such an uncomfortable one?” Had anyone ever said any such thing about Ms. Watson? Or did she have in mind someone else who might be affected by this negative perception of feminism? And if so, who? Read more

Category: Abortion, Celebrities, Planned Parenthood, Sex Trouble

Pelosi Explained

Posted on | March 1, 2017 | Comments Off on Pelosi Explained

by Smitty

So, Trump’s speech was a blast. But has anybody figured out how we pay for being all things to all people?

Category: Uncategorized

Trump: ‘A New Chapter of American Greatness Is Now Beginning’

Posted on | March 1, 2017 | Comments Off on Trump: ‘A New Chapter of American Greatness Is Now Beginning’

 

In President Trump’s first address to Congress, he was full of optimism and confidence in America’s future:

Each American generation passes the torch of truth, liberty and justice –- in an unbroken chain all the way down to the present. That torch is now in our hands. And we will use it to light up the world. I am here tonight to deliver a message of unity and strength, and it is a message deeply delivered from my heart.
A new chapter of American greatness is now beginning. A new national pride is sweeping across our nation. And a new surge of optimism is placing impossible dreams firmly within our grasp. What we are witnessing today is the Renewal of the American spirit. Our allies will find that America is once again ready to lead.

Trump’s remarks on immigration drew sustained applause:

“By finally enforcing our immigration laws, we will raise wages, help the unemployed, save billions and billions of dollars, and make our communities safer for everyone,” he said.
Putting some policy meat on the bones, he proposed introducing an Australian-style merit-based system to reduce the flow of unskilled workers — and held out the prospect of a bipartisan compromise with Democrats on root-and-branch immigration reform.
But he also stood by his plan to subject travelers from certain countries to extreme vetting, insisting: “We cannot allow a beachhead of terrorism to form inside America.”

Trump’s speech was interrupted by applause more than 90 times, and there was an extended ovation for Carryn Owens, the widow of Ryan Owens, the Navy SEAL killed during a January raid in Yemen.

 

Category: Donald Trump

Thugs Kill Thug Pardoned by Obama

Posted on | February 28, 2017 | Comments Off on Thugs Kill Thug Pardoned by Obama

One of the “social justice” projects of the Democrat Party is to reduce federal sentences for dope dealers, and President Obama turned loose hundreds of them during his term in office, either through “reform” of sentencing guidelines or by executive orders. As anyone but a fool might have expected, this hasn’t worked out very well:

A man whose drug-related prison sentence was commuted in November by President Barack Obama has been fatally shot at a federal halfway house in Michigan after two men with assault-style rifles sought him out, police said.
Two men wearing masks went into Bannum Place in Saginaw [Jan. 23] with plans to kill 31-year-old Damarlon Thomas, a former Saginaw gang member. Lt. David Kaiser said Thomas was shot several times by one of the men as some of the roughly two dozen people at the home were held at gunpoint. . . .
“This was a very targeted individual, for whatever reason,” said Kaiser. “The people that shot this man knew who they were looking for and wanted him deceased.”
Thomas had been sentenced to 19 years in prison in 2008 on a cocaine charge, but with the commutation the sentence was to expire in March. He was arrested as part of “Operation Sunset,” a federal investigation that effectively dismantled the “Sunny Side Gang” in Saginaw.
Thomas’ commutation, which was among a group of 79 announced Nov. 22, was part of Obama’s second-term effort to try to remedy the consequences of decades of onerous sentencing requirements that Obama said had imprisoned thousands of drug offenders for too long.

How long is “too long” in prison for a cocaine dealer? And to whom were the sentencing requirements “onerous”? Do we want to put drug dealers out of business, or don’t we? If the feds are going to spend time and money on major investigations aimed at eradicating drug gangs, wouldn’t it make sense to keep the gangsters locked up a while after they’re convicted? These are common-sense questions, but common sense has nothing to do with the Democrat Party agenda, which is based on a combination of (a) radical ideology, (b) identity-politics groupthink, and (c) plain old stupidity. Speaking of stupidity:

The man charged with killing an ex-girlfriend and two of her children in a North Side stabbing rampage [in January 2016] likely would have been deep into a 12 1/2-year federal prison sentence if sentencing guidelines for convicted crack dealers had remained unchanged.
Wendell L. Callahan, 35, twice benefited from changes in federal sentencing guidelines, which reduced his sentence by a total of more than four years, from the 150 months he was first given in 2007, to 110 months in 2008 including time served, and 100 months in 2011.
Columbus police charged Callahan on Tuesday with three counts of murder in the deaths of ex-girlfriend Erveena Hammonds, 32, and her daughters, Breya Hammonds, 7, and Anaesia Green, 10.
Police said he went to Hammonds’ apartment in the 900 block of Atlantic Avenue and killed all three people with a knife. He was still in the apartment when Hammonds’ current boyfriend, Curtis C. Miller, arrived unexpectedly, police said.
Miller and Callahan fought, and both were stabbed in the ensuing struggle.
A wounded Callahan ran from the apartment building and was found in the Continent Village Apartments off Busch Boulevard by officers who responded to the 1:19 a.m. call about the stabbings, police said.
Miller, 38, was treated at a local hospital and released. Callahan remained hospitalized on Tuesday night.
His mother told The Dispatch that he was unconscious and hasn’t talked with anyone about what occurred.
“They haven’t heard his side of the story,” said Elaine Beard, 54.

See? This Obama policy, which trimmed five years off Callahan’s sentence, was based on the idea that drug dealers aren’t really bad people. According to Democrats, drug dealers are victims of poverty, racism and social injustice. We can just turn ’em loose on the streets because, hey, what could possibly go wrong? OK, the crack dealer stabs his ex-girlfriend and her two kids to death, but the real cause of their death was — wait for it — poverty, racism and social injustice. Or at least that’s what you’re expected to believe if you’re a Democrat. Crime is never the criminal’s fault, according to Democrats. There’s always some larger problem to blame, and therefore we must address the “root causes” of crime. Three people are dead because of social injustice and Wendell Callahan’s knife, but mainly I think it was the knife. Is it racist to say that?

 

Category: Crime

In The Mailbox: 02.28.17

Posted on | February 28, 2017 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 02.28.17

— compiled by Wombat-socho


I’m going to be in Massachusetts for the next few days on account of my godfather’s funeral.
Linkagery will resume Sunday.


OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: KNEEGATE – Kellyanne Conway, How Could You!
Twitchy: Conservative Artist Matt Dawson Creates Hilarious Memes Of Kellyanne Conway “Sitting On The Couch”
Louder With Crowder: TX Governor Greg Abbott Puts “Sanctuary Cities” On Notice – Enforce The Law Or Get Out!


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Your Feelings Mean Nothing
American Power: Higher Education’s Prejudice Problem
American Thinker: The Day The New York Times Lost All Credibility
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Armed And Fabulous News
BLACKFIVE: Clare Mackintosh, I See You
Da Tech Guy: Christopher Harper – Corruption In Journalism
Don Surber: Trump, The Anti-Federalist
Dustbury: Missing In Action
The Geller Report: Army Names Muslim Chaplain Spiritual Leader Of 14,000 Christian Soldiers
Hogewash: Defending The Humanities, also, Yours Truly, Johnny Atsign
Jammie Wearing Fools: Dopey Dems Bringing Illegal Aliens To Joint Session of Congress; Trump Invites Families of Those Killed By Illegals
Joe For America: Farmer Sprays Poop On Trespassing Actress Emma Thompson And Greenpeace
JustOneMinute: Hostage Situation At The Times?
Power Line: Trump Unbound, At Dinner, also, Fake News – A Case Study
Shark Tank: Mnuchin Should Replace IRS Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olsen For Dereliction of Duty
Shot In The Dark: Tradition!
STUMP: Introducing This Week’s State Pension Example – Nevada
The Jawa Report: Hostage Jurgen Kantner Murdered By Abu Sayyaf
This Ain’t Hell: T/SGT Anthony Lizana Gets His Wrist Slapped, also, Leland Yee, Anti-Gun Gun Trafficker, Sentenced
War Is Boring: America Needs A U.S. Space Corps
Weasel Zippers: Trump To Propose Historic Defense Increases, Cut EPA, also, Trump Supporters Organize Own Rallies To Counter Astroturf Town Hall Protests
Mark Steyn: Ah, Sweet Mystery Of Steyn


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