F4J: Fighting The Culture of Violence

MND Blogwonks ^ | 1/28/06 | Mike Shubov

[TerryGale]

In the light of the recent alleged plot by some extremists from Fathers4Justice to kidnap Prime Minister Tony Blair's 5-year-old son Leo, I would like to discuss the issues of men’s rights activism and problems inherent in the culture of violence. First I would like to counter the myth that men’s rights ideology favors violence. Prior to the existence of the Internet such myth such myth may have been believable, but as of 2006 anyone can look up men’s rights groups online and find that almost all of us support nothing more then equal rights. A major men’s rights discussion forum standyourground.com has a policy of banning anyone who advocates violence.

Nevertheless, we can not ignore the fact that some extremist members Fathers 4 Justice believe in using violence as a tool of social activism. Given that men’s movement is still in its infancy and rapidly growing, we should look for ways to prevent violent ideology from gaining any ground among us in the future.

Even though men’s movement does not support violence in any form the sad fact is that many of us are contaminated by the immoral and violent society in which we live. For centuries, violence against anyone was considered immoral, but unfortunately with the advent of misandry violence (against men) became both acceptable and applauded. Given that an average American watches TV 1950 hours a year, it should not be surprising that the message of misandry and celebration of violence reaches them much faster then any moral teaching by their religious leaders and/or parents.

Since the 1990s, countless movies celebrating violence against men appeared..

..What are we doing to stop the culture of cruelty and violence? As I mentioned only, men’s organizations preach legality and nonviolence. Most men’s rights message boards ban anyone advocating violence. But that is not enough. Just like everyone else in our society, the growing number of men in men’s and fathers movement has access to the media which preaches violence. The only way to restore human decency to current generation would be for us to ridicule and eventually ostracize those who advocate violence – including violence against men. When we ridicule advocates of violence and hatred rather then debate them we bring forth a very important message – that hate-mongers and extremists deserve no respect. However, the strategy on countering misandry is a topic for a separate article.

[TerryGale]

Other recommended readings:

KRights Radio looks at F4J-UK's story - Fathers4Justice: Reform or Collapse (podcast interview of F4J members who feel 'left out' of Matt's plans)

Holy smoke! The Fathers 4 Justice film

Something smells very fishy about the 'Leo kidnap plot'

F4J "Kidnap Plot": Is The Sun Exposed in Bribery Scam?

Fathers4Justice closes protest group, Starts political party..

Kidnapping Plot Robs Father's Rights Group of Credibility

[TerryGale]

Click to see the 'big' picture..

I really think "the plot" was about creating an ending for Matt's movie and book. F4J-UK's ending was "collateral damage" in Matt's plan.

[TerryGale]

http://img137.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc146ℑ=31f00_sunsetmag2.JPG

I don't understand what went wrong with the link from the picture thumbnail. It still works at my blog and I copied the coding.. grrr. Oh well...

[TerryGale]

For some reason, ImageVenue is not cooperating with going to the larger picture from here. It works fine from my blog

http://img137.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc146ℑ=31f00_sunsetmag2.JPG

OK, in the link, following the "loc=146" is supposed to be "& image=31f00_sunsetmag2.JPG" (no space between "&" and "image=31f00_sunsetmag2.JPG"). The posting software keeps changing it to that weird symbol which ImageVenue does not compute... If you want to see that picture enlarged you're going to have to type that URL in yourself, making the substitution - or visit my blog.