"They got us by the dreams". A dominant culture and movie review by Malik Diamond titled "The Gladiator Kid"

 [this graphic is by Malik Diamond]

What follows is a cross-post from my pal. This makes me happy. Men who "get it" make me happy. I've never been a bitter person. Because I've known enough really wonderful people to help me keep the faith in humanity. I've never been a misanthrope. I've always loved people: way more women than men, among those two populations. But there are a few men, and Malik is one of them.

The Gladiator Kid

Posted on July 16, 2010 by DZAtal

 

Sometimes a Neo Ascetic like myself has to take a break from all that monkishness and dive into the festering pool of pop culture. I do it rarely and with great caution. Is it to keep a finger on the pulse? Or perhaps to give the old plugs a quick charge, indulging in the remnants of my MegaMediaMind?

Metaphors and metaphysics are the language of machines that can’t be seen. The Powers That Be we can call them, or whatever, you get what I mean. Symbolic resonance mind control. They got us by the dreams!

So what dreams are they giving? Let’s take a peak at a recent one from the Hollywood Hole: The Karate Kid. Starring Jayden Smith, boy of mediocre acting talent, arrogant offspring of white media’s favorite safe-yet-macho black boy, Will Smith. Featuring Jackie Chan, king of comedic masochism, abuser of women and stuntmen. Including various bullies, caricatures, racial program invader codes, and an 11-year-old Chinese trophy stripper girl (more on this in a bit).

Scene:
Boy asks Girl to do something.
Girl says “no,” and turns around.
Boy grabs Girl by the arm, spins her around, and attempts to drag her to do what he demands.

If you saw the movie, did you catch this? Is there a shine of fire in your golden eyes? Perhaps you were lost in the tee-hees, the giggles, you can almost hear the polo-shirted executives chuckling to themselves about one of the few scenes in the script they bothered to read, almost see the cowardly and un-credited re-writers laugh and nod their heads obediently.

“This is hilarious! She’s bigger than him and he can’t move her!” Har, har.

Well, here’s another scene, and this one is from the Temple of DZA, which means it happened in front of my eyes:

Man and Woman argue hot, with subdued voices.
Woman spins around and walks away.
Man seizes Woman by the arm and spins her around to face him.

In this scene, there wasn’t any fucking giggling. Only the spine-tingling crackle of Violence.

Quick question: How does a system of oppression normalize oppression?
Spoon feeder: By putting a smile on the victim’s face.

Moving on to the subtleties. Those of you with knowledge may have caught the above scene. If you have knowledge and an interest in the technical aspects of filmmaking, you may have caught another Jewel:

Montage:
Boy trains in kung fu.
Boy looks at Girl (the same one he grabbed earlier, if you recall).
Girl turns away.
Boy beats on a pad as hard as he can.

Just like that, we go from Training to Rejection to Violence. DID YOU NOTICE?

The truth is between the lines, the values and vibrations are behind the words, at the bottom of the well. What are they telling US about US?

What do the human women do in this movie? Well, there’s Mom, another real human black woman put into a fictionsuit of a powerless, shrill irritant life support to the Hero of the film. There’s also Girl, who is:

• Safely powerless—why doesn’t she have any kung fu?
• Safely feminine—plenty of shy smiles, plenty of giggles, mouth covered with the hand of course
• Safely available to celebrate the Boy in his victory
• Safely… a stripper-dancer?

Pole dancing on Oprah! Miley Cyrus writhing on stage! Jenna Jameson on the O’Reiley Factor! Porno goes mainstream! Rape culture live on primetime!

See, I understand that the matrix would have me believe that it’s a Good Thing for women to be transmuted by media magic into sex toys for men. I grasp that I’m supposed to think this represents freedom for women, just as I know that the sexual abuse, humiliation, and violence done to women in film is supposed to be free speech, protected by government documents.

I hear all the names, the slang, pieces of ass and bitches and what have you, and I know the pass codes that grant access permission to your mind: it’s just a joke, what’s the big deal, some women are that way, some women deserve it. I know cult-speak when I hear it.

Here’s the scene:
Boy shows off dance moves on videogame while Girl watches, delighted.
Boy requests demonstration of dancing from Girl.
Girl gets onto videogame and does a Sexy Dance for the Boy.
Boy stares up at Girl in awe and reverence.

Now go back and read all the scenes again, this time adding a few more details: “Black Boy” and “Chinese Girl.”

I ask once again, what are they saying to US about US?

Barely pubescent children get viciously beaten up. The movie delights in the slow-motion torture of flesh pounding against flesh, digital sound systems booming out the sound of the impact, faces twisted in pain.

The Man teaches the boy respect and discipline. Is this a Confucian Man, who has regarded women as property since time immemorial, who worships at the pyramid altar of domination and submission and calls it morality, who says oppression is virtue?

And the climax, a cheering circus spectacle of a tournament, in Chinese pay-per-view style, complete with digital fight cards— put your kids in the Gladiator pit so they can learn what life’s all about. We’re a long way from the hometown championship of Daniel-san. Do we all need a Mr. Miyagi? When do we get to grow up?

Patriarchy, I say thee nay.

Is Paul Nathanson a Christian WHM and a Homophobic Bigot, a Pro-heteropatriarchy Activist, and an Author Promoting the Misogynistic Myth of "Misandry", along with the antifeminist author Warren Farrell and the super-wealthy WHM supremacist and media mogul Glenn Beck?

 

[image of Paul Nathanson is from here]

MAJOR UPDATE (6 April 2013):

On 26 March 2013, Garrett left this comment:

This is extrremely [sic] misleading Nathanson and Paul [sic] were [sic] used as witnesses FOR marriage equality: http://www.afer.org/news/katherine-young-deposition-transcript/

I didn't publish it because the commenter referred to the person as "Nathanson and Paul"--as two distinct people. This didn't indicate to me he knew Paul Nathanson, or his work, at all. 

Then on 5 April 2013, this comment came in from ceruleanblue:

Paul Nathanson is an openly gay man. You might want to do some actual research before calling someone a WHM.

Given that, I've changed the title of this post, from a declarative statement to a question. The answer to that question appears to be this: Paul Nathanson is a white gay man who has very actively promoted, in writing and speaking, the anti-feminist idea that there is such a thing as misandry (meaning, the systematic oppression of men by women). I apologise to Paul Nathanson for mislabeling him as heterosexual. I also call him out for being part of a North American group of white male supremacists--male and female--who promote that ridiculous idea--as reality--that women structurally and systematically oppress men based on gender.

From Wikipedia:

Paul Nathanson is a Canadian religious studies academic. He has a BA in art history (1968); an MLS (library service, 1971); a BTh (Christianity, 1978); an MA in religious studies (Judaism and Islam); and a PhD (1989). He began his academic career by writing Over the Rainbow: The Wizard of Oz as a Secular Myth of America, "about the convergence of sacred and profane patterns in popular culture."^[1]
Together with Katherine K. Young Nathanson has published a series of works on the subject of misandry, which the authors assert is a form of prejudice and discrimination against men and boys that has become institutionalized in North American society.

Publications

• Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture (2001)
• Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination Against Men (2006)
• Sanctifying Misandry: Goddess Ideology and the Fall of Man [1] (2010)
• Transcending Misandry: From Feminist Ideology to Intersexual Dialogue [2] (upcoming)

What follows is a revision of what I wrote in the original post on this blog:

Here is a site with a list of some of WHM Supremacy's co-conspirators. Paul Nathanson is among them, promoting the myth of "misandry" with co-author of their books, Katherine K. Young. They spoke together at a conference. That conference was premised on an anti-feminist idea that "true [gender] equality" requires accepting this myth of "misandry" against white het men. (I accept that there's a kind of man-hating of men of color by white men. And a kind of man-hating of white gay men--and all gay men--by white het men. But nowhere is there systematic discrimination, degradation, violation, and subjugation of white het men, or any other men, by women. The conference's agenda pretends that the radical feminist agenda of eradicating patriarchy wouldn't sufficiently result in "true equality". This demonstrates a willful miscomprehension of the radical feminist project. Typically, radical feminism is portrayed by white het patriarchy-protectors as both pro-female supremacy and misandrist. The radical feminist project, as I understand it, calls on all men to be humane, responsible, non-misogynistic, and supportive of radically transformative, justice-delivering, social change.

This is an earlier version of a Wikipedia page about him:

Paul Nathanson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paul Nathanson is a Canadian religious studies academic and professional expert witness. He has a BA in art history (1968); an MLS (library service, 1971); a BTh (Christianity, 1978); an MA in religious studies (Judaism and Islam); and a PhD (1989). He began his academic career by writing Over the Rainbow: The Wizard of Oz as a Secular Myth of America, "about the convergence of sacred and profane patterns in popular culture." Nathanson is currently working as a senior researcher in the McGill University department of Religious Studies, while testifying as a paid expert on behalf of social conservatives opposing legal recognition of same-sex marriages. In Varnum v. Brien Nathanson's testimony concerning purported social effects of recognizing same-sex marriages was stricken by the trial court, which explained that the opinions Nathanson expressed were "not based on observation supported by scientific methodology or . . . on empirical research in any sense." Since then, Nathanson has been proferred as an expert in Perry v. Schwarzenegger by litigants who intervened in the case to defend a California constitutional amendment stripping same-sex couples of the right to marry. Just before the trial, the defendant intervenors against gay marriage removed him as a witness, but the trial court judge allowed his prior videotaped deposition to be entered into evidence by the marriage-equality plaintiffs. At trial, plaintiff's expert witness Professor Gary Segura testified that some of Nathanson's claims were "misleading", "bizarre in the extreme", and "almost nonsensical to respond to".

As for the others, there's plenty of evidence of their pro-white, pro-het, pro-male supremacist activities.

Warren Farrell used to be profeminist, until he realised he could sell more books putting down feminism than promoting it. He has been writing anti-feminist books and books distorting what feminism has been, is, and seeks to achieve. For more on him, see *here*.
 

^{[image of Warren Farrell is from here]}

For more on Glenn Sacks, please see this, from here @ CounterPunch:

 ^{[image of Glenn Beck is from here]}

An Open Letter to Glenn Beck

Why Are You So Afraid of Us?

By AK PRESS COLLECTIVE

Dear readers: We here at AK Press were both shocked and (we’ll admit it) thrilled when right-wing media mogul Glenn Beck held up our new book on the Greek Insurrection of December 2008 on his FOX News program a couple of weeks ago, and compared it to The Coming Insurrection, saying that this book was the next “playbook” that radicals in this country would be taking a page from. (We wish.) But we were also kind of confused, because Beck seemed eager to interpret the book as a yet another installment in the “communist” conspiracy … only, well, we’re anarchists, we’re damn proud of that fact, and we’re frankly a little hard pressed to understand why Beck went out of his way to say explicitly that this wasn’t an anarchist book. And then we watched hours and hours of Beck blabbing on YouTube, and we started to notice a more general pattern: Beck tends to avoid directly confronting “anarchism” as a system of political actions and ideals. So we started thinking about why that might be, and the result of our deep deliberations follows in an open letter to Mr. Beck. -- Kate Khatib, AK Press

Hi Glenn.

How’s it going? Since Forbes magazine says your annual earnings are in the ballpark of $32 million, we’re guessing that it’s going pretty well. You can’t put a price on defending the little guy, right?

We are the AK Press collective. In case the word “collective” throws you, it means people who work together toward a shared goal in a democratic manner, without bosses or leaders, and with everyone having an equal say in each decision. For us, that shared goal is publishing and distributing books. If you want, you can learn more about us here.

We’re thrilled that you featured our book We Are an Image of the Future: The Greek Revolts of 2008 on your May 3rd show. We were, however, a little confused by your description of the book, and the way that it fit into the overall argument you made.

Okay, to be honest, we weren’t sure what your argument was. We watched the clip on YouTube a dozen times, but it was beyond us. Of course, you’re the guy with television, radio, publishing, and Internet empires. We probably spend too much time thinking about rent, food, and health insurance to fully understand the big picture you’re painting.

We do, however, know a few things. We’re anarchists and we publish books about anarchism. We Are an Image from the Future is one of them. Now, we assume that you actually read the books you talk about on your show. Yet you somehow managed to claim that a book written by and about anarchists was “written by communist revolutionaries.” “They are not anarchists,” you claimed, “but they will use anarchy to their favor.”

As you made clear earlier in your show, you know the difference between Communism and Anarchism. We don’t want to split hairs by bringing up the complex history of communism (with a small “c”), which includes both democratic and nasty authoritarian versions. So we’ll stay on your page here and say, yes, when Communists take state power it’s always ugly. But, as you must know, anarchism has always opposed state Communism. State Communism is the ultimate “big government.” You won’t find an anarchist on this planet in favor of that. Not to mention that, historically, when Communists get in the driver’s seat, anarchists are usually the first to face the firing squad. The capitalists usually get cushy managerial positions.

So we asked ourselves: What could account for this guy waving around a book written and published by anarchists, while never quoting a single word from it, and then going on to associate the book with political groups—like the Revolutionary Communist Party and the Workers World Party—that no one in the book, or associated with the book, would endorse? How could he miss something so obvious?

Then it dawned on us: you’re afraid of anarchists. You’re not afraid of the fake media portrayal of anarchists as bomb-throwing maniacs: that’s your bread and butter. You’re afraid of real anarchists, the actual ideas they espouse, the real work they do.

We don’t blame you, Glenn. When we sift through your rants, we realize that there’s a lot of overlap between you and anarchists. The difference is that anarchists are more honest, aren’t part of the same elites they criticize, and they make a lot more sense. They see you, and raise you one.

Like you, we believe that people’s lives would be much better off without government intervention. Centralized power suppresses individual and community initiative and keeps people from achieving their full potential. Like you, we don’t think the solution to our current economic crisis lies in socialized industry or new layers of well-paid government bureaucrats. And, like you and many of your tea party pals, we agree that bankers and fat-cat corporate elites aren’t exactly concerned with our best interests. As you put it, it’s time to take down the folks who “line their pockets with wealth gained from enslaving a whole group of people.” And, although you seemed a bit confused on this point, that means putting “people before profits,” which is pretty much the central concern of the protesters in Greece right now. And we mean all people, regardless of income, race, gender, sexuality, or immigration status.

You’re right: we’re revolutionaries. But aren’t you? Remember the part of the Declaration of Independence that says that when a government starts screwing with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it”? As anarchists, we’re dedicated to the idea of abolishing the state and capitalism altogether. We believe that without the coercive relations and competition imposed by governments and markets, people would be free to create a more just society in which resources are controlled collectively and decisions are made by the people who are affected by them. We don’t want a government (revolutionary or otherwise); we want a society based on cooperation and common sense instead of arbitrary power and exploitation.

From what sense we can make of your show, you seem happy with “altering” rather than “abolishing” a screwed-up system. For you, replacing the old boss with a new one (Sarah Palin?) is good enough. We understand that you’re confused–these are confusing times. But, deep down, you and the tea partiers know that you can’t trust any politician, or banker, or corporate hack, or union bureaucrat…or anyone who makes their living sucking power and profit from ordinary people. Which, unfortunately, probably includes multi-millionaires like you.

So, Glenn, we’re guessing that’s why you’re so afraid of us. We don’t fit neatly into your black-and-white formula. You simply borrow some of the best ideas from our 150-year-old anti-authoritarian tradition. We take those same ideas and not only run with them, but improve on them. We follow the logic to its ethical conclusion. And we include corporate media moguls like you in our Hall of Infamy.

But we’re reasonable folk. We understand that you find it scary to think about what will happen when ordinary people realize that they actually have the power to make their own decisions and take control of their own lives. So, here’s what we suggest:

Just admit you’re afraid of us. Admit that your passionate and convoluted rants are a nervous dance around your inability to support real freedom (anarchism) over unbridled power (Communism and capitalism). And then use your massive wealth and power for the forces of good.

Yours,

The AK Press Collective

Philosophies of the P.P.P.: and the Problem of Experts

There may be a few seconds of extra stuff here at the beginning. Please pay attention to the woman performing.



From the A.R.P. Glossary:

P.P.P. or PPP: the Patriarchal Palian Paradigm. The pro-gynocidal, anti-Indigenist, white supremacist dominant culture and cult of war-worship (warship) and rape-rule wherein palien science or religion, not activist Indigenous women and other women of color, have "the answers" to social-political problems.

*          *          *

The one's who are allowed to propose and pretend to implement solutions to our problems are called "experts". Check what Laurie Anderson is saying, people. She's allowed to say it because she's a performance artist, not the leader of an organised social activist movement. If she were both the former and the latter, she wouldn't be allowed on commercial television.

The self-proclaimed experts--when regarded as such by white het men in large measure because they are white het men, are the people who we need to take the microphone away from, while booing the mutherfuckers off the damn stage. Tomatoes may be hurled if they don't get the hint their show-time is up. Western white heterosexual men have had their fifteen centuries of fame, have fucked everything up and it's time we stopped listening to them. Seriously.

There's communism, white men's leftist radicalism, socialism, progressivism, humanism, modernism, post-modernism, libertarianism, neo-liberalism, global and regional capitalism and militarism, neo-conservatism, and fascism. All of them serve WHM supremacy, especially white het men with class-privilege. Some makes claims that, with them, freedom for women from patriarchal men and systems can be achieved, or freedom for people of color from white domination and white supremacy, or freedom for those of us who are living according to the dominant gender hierarchy's mandates and practices, who reject heterosexism as unnatural and inhumane, for those of us seeking liberation from the tyranny of the Global North, the West, and for those in the Fourth World seeking liberation from the anti-Indigenist First Last World.

Why it is that anyone other than WHM value these philosophies is often because they aren't identified as being racist, misogynist, heterosexist, and/or anti-Indigenist and ecocidal. Not a one of 'em have any plan or means of attaining liberation of the oppressed (humans, non-human animals, and non-animal life) from WHM supremacy, from the P.P.P.

It thrives on us not knowing how it works, even while it works on us every day. It's supposed to be like water to a fish--never seen from the outside, analysed while we are not dependent on it. The dependency is the important part, along with the destruction, desperation, and degradation of Life into a Cult of Death-worship.

Ask yourself: Can a white het man in the West be determined by a government to be a hero without having killed at least one person of color? Can a man be considered "a real man" if he thinks rape is an atrocious, heinous form of political terrorism that men must end, that men ought not have access to pornography or pimped women, and that men who beat women are both cowardly and sadistic and deserve to be killed, legally, by anyone they beat up and terrorise? Can white het men be considered terrorists, as a group, the way most other groups can be considered delusional and dangerous by organised groups of white het men, such as MRAs and neo-Nazis?

Will you concede that no white het man is qualified to lead anyone anywhere, except into intensifying concentric circles of hell-on-Earth?

Can you look to women of all colors, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to lead us out of our investments in death-culture and into the possibility of generations of sustainable, sustaining Life on Earth?

Stop looking to The Man who beats you down to save you. It's not his job. If he's made it his job, fire him.