Andrew Tate does offer something that many men need

Sadly. And going easy on the feminist hate speech about men would help to moderate his appeal. Nobody likes to feel hated and despised, including men. Tate is a response to anti-man hate. He throws the contempt back. And those who see themselves as victims of a feminized society like that. Because he does answer a need, he is very influential among many young males

Unless you’ve been hiding under a pile of unrecycled pizza boxes for the past month, you’ll no doubt be wearily familiar with the name Andrew Tate. At the time of writing, the 36-year-old former kickboxer remains in custody in Romania, after being arrested alongside his brother as part of an investigation into human trafficking, rape and organised crime. But despite the horror of his alleged offences, it’s Tate’s public position as an influencer and internet personality that has sparked concern across the UK.

As far as both sexists and grifters go, Tate is audaciously honest about his game: as well as describing himself as “absolutely a misogynist”, he can also be found on camera admitting that the brothers’ webcam business – in which models take calls from fans in exchange for money – is a “total scam”. He claims that victims of sexual assault should “bear responsibility” for their attacks, that women are men’s property, and so on; views that are becoming so popular among boys that many schools are now hosting special assemblies to try and tackle them. In some ways this can be viewed as the endgame of the Trump era, where traditional right-wing dog whistles have been replaced with explicit calls to bigotry and violence.

Where Tate’s philosophy is more insidious – and where he arguably shares an allyship with other lifestyle influencers who might publicly baulk at the comparison – is in what it claims to offer the young men who encounter it. You know the one: the capitalist wet dream that tells men that they too can amass a collection of sports cars, supermodels and tedious podcast appearances if they just follow the advice of the magic bald man – at a price, naturally.

Ali Ross is an existential psychotherapist who often speaks to men struggling to find their place in the world. Despite the aggressive language of such influencers, he believes that what makes them so appealing to men isn’t just the invective, but the comforting message that sits at the heart of their narratives: it’s not your fault. “The reason why men connect with what people like Tate are saying is because they’re feeling disenfranchised and misunderstood,” he explains. “But like many men, they don’t know how to be vulnerable, how to review their choices or take responsibility for their lives.”

Even weapons-grade shade like Greta Thunberg’s isn’t likely to change the minds of their acolytes, but instead often reinforces the idea that the other side – in this case, essentially, left-wing women – are hostile and threatening. Whether the promise is money, fame or happiness, self-appointed “alpha male” influencers like Tate offer vulnerable young men a hand on the shoulder (“no homo, obviously”) when they perceive the Thunbergs of the world to be offering a barrage of slaps to the face.

When the thing you need most in the world is to hear someone say that they feel your pain, that becomes an addictive drug that influencers are keen to peddle. In fact, it’s essential for the scam to work. Ross explains: “When you have somebody saying, ‘It’s not your fault, it’s the system, men need to go back to their true primitive role,’ it invites the suggestion that there is certainty; that there’s something men are supposed to be and supposed to do.”

Being understood takes away some of that rage

Generational divide is a key storytelling facet of almost every corner of the “manosphere”, the loose web of right-wing, acronym-obsessed groups who oppose feminism and claim to advocate for men – these include MRAs (Men’s Rights Activists), MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way), PUAs (Pick-Up Artists), and incels (involuntary celibates). As they tell it, men were once “real men”, who stalked the earth in an unspecified halcyon era of masculine dominance, chain-smoking cigars and coming home to subservient, family-oriented wives who also understood their place in the world.

While many men may feel confused about how to express their identity within the complex framework of masculinity today, the conservative fantasy that older generations were happy and secure in their roles remains a potent myth. “In fact, if you ask men of a generation or two further back who are willing to be open and honest, a lot of them didn’t actually have very happy relationships being in that clear fixed role,” Ross says. He cites Willy Loman, the protagonist in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, as an example of the lives that frequently played out behind closed doors: “He’s utterly miserable, but determined to be the provider, this embodiment of the American dream. And it’s killing him.”

Part of what can make MRA narratives so appealing is that they acknowledge the rates of depression, suicide and incarceration in men – figures which are real and terrifying – but then weave a fictitious global conspiracy around them. Tate occasionally talks, in paranoid terms, of “the matrix” coming to get him, implying an Illuminati-style conspiracy in which the world is neatly divided into heroic truth-tellers (such as the ones who throw money at bored-looking women in bizarrely low-budget rap videos) and the shady liberal elite who want to silence them.

With that in mind, the most powerful weapon in our arsenal remains our compassion. “That’s where therapy can come in so well: to help people recognise that uncertainty is a part of being alive,” Ross says. “You don’t have a role, and even if someone does prescribe a role to you, there’s nothing to say that’s going to fit you just because of your sex or gender. It is actually down to you, so let’s look at what you actually want for yourself.”

It’s also going to require men speaking to other men about their feelings, as daunting as that prospect may be. School interventions are a great idea, but maybe we need to be taking a more proactive approach to offer that hand on the shoulder from our educators – before the millionaire grifters get to them first. Let’s shout it louder, for the people at the back, that the patriarchy hurts men too, and the twin goals of feminism and men’s mental health can and should be working to uplift each other. They’re not in competition.

The battle won’t be won on the soft liberal platform of hugs and therapy alone. It’s vital that misogyny is called out and fought wherever it’s encountered, and not always in polite, hand-wringing niceties. But if there’s to be any hope of pulling young men back from the brink of perpetually viewing women as the enemy of their wealth and happiness, it’s going to take earlier and kinder interventions too.

“In being vulnerable with men as another man, it helps to show them that it’s possible to be emotional, and that there is something beautiful and courageous about being vulnerable, rather than believing you’ve got it all figured out and it’s just the system that’s not giving you the space to flourish,” Ross says. “Being understood takes away some of that rage; it makes them feel connected and even loved. I would like to think that when people experience love in the face of feeling overlooked or misunderstood, their venom dissipates.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/andrew-tate-manosphere-influencers-b2261515.html

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From Gender Gingerbread Persons to ‘Privilege Bingo,’ Feds Squander Millions on Cult of Diversity Training

Taxpayer dollars are being spent to conduct widespread, woke diversity training sessions across numerous prominent federal agencies.

That’s what a Wall Street Journal report on a Freedom of Information Act request revealed Dec. 30. The information gathered comes from 2021.

At this point, it’s difficult to be surprised by the findings, but it’s still notable. When someone says “trust the experts” in government, just think of the following:

“The Department of Veterans Affairs has a gender gingerbread person,” the Journal’s editorial board wrote. “NASA says beware of micro-inequities. And if U.S. Army servicewomen express ‘discomfort showering with a female who has male genitalia,’ what’s the brass’s reply? Talk to your commanding officer, but toughen up.”

The report highlights how the cult of diversity, equity, and inclusion has been established and codified in our federal government during President Joe Biden’s tenure. One of Biden’s early efforts was a DEI executive order to establish a “government-wide initiative to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in all parts of the federal workforce.”

The agencies jumped into action.

Unlike under Republican administrations, when bureaucrats refuse to comply with even the simplest demands of the apostate executive, the bureaucracy springs into action for Democratic presidents of the true faith.

What’s striking is that even the most serious parts of our federal government, like the Department of Homeland Security, NASA, and the military, now have programs to comply with this “great awokening.”

“The U.S. Army offered three modules on transgender policy, one for ‘Commanders at all levels,’ another for ‘Special Staff,’ and a third for ‘Units and Soldiers.’” the Journal reported. “Notable is a series of vignettes that cover pronoun usage, urinalysis observation, and a serviceman who wants ‘to discuss his newly confirmed pregnancy.’”

This is the kind of nonsense that even our military now devotes time to.

The Department of Veteran Affairs really does use a gender gingerbread person in a training program about managing gender diversity. There’s more, per the Journal:

The VA’s “Managing Gender Diversity” training has sections on pronouns and embracing “gender-expansiveness.” One slide lists terms, including “gender fluid” and “pansexual,” while instructing: “List your personal ‘biases’ in the BIAS box.” A game of “PRIVILEGE BINGO” includes such items as “NO CRIMINAL RECORD,” “MILITARY EXPERIENCE,” and “MARRIED.”

Remember when people thought all the college campus “microaggressions” nonsense would stop when kids grew up and got a real job? Well, they got real jobs in business and government, and are using their power to ensure that every aspect of our society reflects their warped ethos.

NASA literally has a tipsheet devoted to microaggressions.

Here are some examples: “‘Asking an Asian person to help with a math or science problem,’ as well as saying, ‘America is a melting pot.’ A slide deck on inclusive language suggests nixing ‘the poor’ and substituting ‘people dealing with economic hardship.’”

Stargazing has been replaced by navel-gazing at NASA, it seems.

No wonder Elon Musk’s SpaceX is making most of the interesting advancements in space exploration these days.

The lesson from this trove of absurdities, the Journal’s editorial board noted, “is that there is now a conveyor belt from academia to the diversity-industrial complex. The portmanteau ‘misogynoir’ was coined in 2010 on a blog called Crunk Feminist Collective. Eleven years later it’s in a training (sic) for government workers.”

This investigation brings up a serious question for America in 2023. Are we so rich, so powerful, and so secure in our position in the world that we can devote a large share of our resources—economic, financial, and human—to this nonsense?

Our government now operates more like a secular theocracy, with an emphasis on rooting out heresy and reinforcing its ideology in every way, large and small. Again, how long can we get away with this? Saying “diversity is our strength” over and over again doesn’t make it so.

The United States, by geography, by government tradition, and by the culture of a great people went from a small group of sparsely populated colonies on the edge of civilization to the world’s first global superpower in just a few centuries. We’ve amassed almost unfathomable wealth for a vast middle class. Our accomplishments in the 20th century alone are staggering and place us at the pinnacle of the world’s greatest civilizations.

Imagine if things had been reversed, if all the men whose statues activists and our modern institutions tore down and melted down were replaced by the new man—or “womyn” or whatever—of today raised in a culture of grievance and coddled minds. The privilege of our country’s past success has afforded us the luxury to obsess over privilege.

This can’t last forever, though. Even in just the past few years, as vast parts of our society became comfortable with mediocrity, and as our economy groans under the weight of debt and inflation, the cracks have begun to show.

Perhaps this is a sign that we will slip into a new dark age of our own making, where hard times are made by weak men. Then again, maybe the overwhelming and uncompromising nature of this threat will further spark opposition by Americans who see this movement for what it is and know that the hour is late to save the republic.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/01/06/from-gender-gingerbread-persons-to-privilege-bingo-feds-squander-millions-on-cult-of-diversity-training/

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The Death of Merit

America has always been a land of opportunity. That’s because our nation was founded as a meritocracy, the wellspring of excellence. This concept is central to American exceptionalism.

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written in a time when almost the entire world was governed by systems of monarchy, absolutism or outright dictatorships that rarely, if ever, recognized individual merit. In this regard, America’s founding was indeed exceptional.

Leftists detest America’s meritocracy. The reason is simple: recognizing merit means there will be winners and losers, a fact that motivates all of us to try harder with a belief in and reliance upon oneself.

Those who exhibit greater merit - through hard work, resourcefulness, perseverance, innate aptitude and so forth - usually enjoy more success. Meritocracy motivates us to individualism and excellence, and is hardwired into the DNA of the human race.

The polar opposite of meritocracy is equality of outcome, which requires the entire society, save for political and cultural elites, to exist at the lowest common denominator. It is the foundation of socialist and communist dictatorships, enforced through violence, because totalitarians know that living life at the lowest common denominator is contrary to human nature and natural law.

It is no secret that merit is not now, nor has it ever been, universally recognized. The first lesson my father taught me as a very young child was “life isn’t fair,” and time has proved him correct. But the periodic unfairness of life doesn’t mean meritocracies are bad. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, meritocracies are the worst form of society except for all the others that have been tried.

In making the case against merit, some conflate it with nepotism and fraud, both of which are antithetical to merit. The Harvard Gazette exemplifies this philosophical sleight of hand through this excerpt from Michael Sandel’s book The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?

A recent article in The Atlantic by Xochitl Gonzales is more to the point, if not more eloquent, in its condemnation of merit. She simply declares it cow manure, only in less polished language.

In recent days, we’ve learned that schools in Virginia have deliberately withheld notification that certain students achieved recognition as National Merit Scholars, which is a very big deal for teenagers applying to college.

Medical schools are diluting their curricula by diverting attention away from medicine and towards ideology in pursuit of identity politics. Merit in the healing arts is being replaced by the appearance and opinions of students.

Nobody wants to be operated on by a surgeon who has not demonstrated merit. Nobody wants paperboys or lawyers or plumbers or auto mechanics who do not demonstrate merit. If you want to see what America would look like without merit, look no farther than academia. It’s littered with maladroit people who are not burdened by excellence.

Authoritarians need to attack merit. It is a means of defiling individual effort and reducing society to a collective level that nobody would want to live in. That’s because merit is natural and equality of outcome is entirely unnatural. Supplanting merit with equality of outcome invariably results in a culture that resides somewhere between tragic and deadly.

The destruction of merit is more than an attack on natural law and American society. It’s also an attack on the biblical precepts of human behavior. The Bible has plenty to say about how to live our lives through effort and merit, going back as far as the time of King Solomon.

The book of Ecclesiastes establishes the link between hard work and happiness. “Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart,” writes the author. He goes on to tell us to enjoy our lives, “because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might.”

The Old Testament provides a millennia-old endorsement of effort and merit, older than Christianity. Yes, the concept of merit is natural and biblical, but it is also indispensable to a free and well-functioning society.

Rational people celebrate merit because it is good. Those who demean it are perverse and seek only to deprive us of our dignity. To American Leftists, the collective is more important than the individual who seeks excellence by demonstrating merit, so merit must be killed.

One remaining bastion of merit in America is professional sports. Team owners and fans will not tolerate meritless people playing in the NFL, the NBA or any other league. That is why I am a writer and not a receiver for the Minnesota Vikings; I lack the merit for that role. We do not tolerate equality of outcome in professional sports and it should not be tolerated anywhere else in society.

We are witnessing the slow death of merit in America, and it’s being done for degenerate political purposes. The fight is engaged by totalitarians and normal Americans need to join that fight if we’re going to preserve it.

https://townhall.com/columnists/scotthogenson/2023/01/14/the-death-of-merit-n2618106?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&recip=6139244

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Mainstream media now totally woke

We are living through arguably one of the greatest divides the Western world has ever experienced and on the night of December 2, 2022, this divide went nuclear, courtesy of Elon Musk. It’s the great Mainstream Media (MSM) divide and it consists of a disconnect between those who consume news from MSM exclusively and those who consume news from both mainstream and so-called ‘alternative’ news sources.

Those who consume MSM exclusively remain oblivious to a plethora of important news stories; at the tip of the iceberg are the Hunter Biden Laptop scandal in America and the Rotherham grooming scandal in the UK. This lack of knowledge of these two stories alone is appalling and indeed unprecedented in living memory.

Speak to an average Australian who consumes only MSM news and they will not have heard of Rotherham. Nor would they be remotely aware that Hunter Biden has a long history of business dealings in Ukraine. Rotherham and Hunter Biden are vital news stories Australians have a right to be made aware of as they navigate child safety and the cost-of-living crises – the latter being widely attributed to the war in Ukraine.

Knowledge is power; if your only source of information is from MSM in 2022, you are disempowering yourself and your family, essentially voting in an information void. A revolution is currently taking place in the Fourth Estate and to their detriment, the majority of people are unaware of it.

In his address at the Claremont Institute on October 13, 2020, Tom Klingenstein argued that the Democratic Party had been taken over by its radical wing and that ‘Republicans are not doing a good job explaining the stakes’.

Given MSM openly flaunts its left-wing bias and Woke ideology, it is impossible for Republicans (or any similar Conservative party) to explain anything at all to the public through that source. Klingenstein’s speech itself was not widely heard by Republicans, let alone swing voters or the many Democrat party members who had become frustrated with the current radical left trend of their party. One had to be on the ever-moving Twitter, following the right accounts at specific moments in time, to catch a glimpse of a speech that deserved a worldwide audience. This is virtually impossible for the average person to do.

Klingenstein and others of that year created political and cultural waves – but these waves could only be felt online. The real world and MSM remained untouched. What should have been a tsunami petered out in the MSM world of ‘do not amplify’.

Investigative journalism, meaning the facts, has been erased Soviet-style by MSM, resulting in Westerners living in a society of haves-and-have-nots regarding what is happening in the world. This divide can be seen between party members, family members, and friends alike, throwing people into parallel world views, dictated by whether or not they consume news via MSM exclusively. At least when they built the Berlin wall we had the physical evidence in front of our eyes that we were divided. Nowadays, it would be Photoshopped out.

Traditionally in the West, we have placed an almost sacred trust in the Fourth Estate – that it will unbiasedly report to the public news they need to know in order to hold their governments accountable. Due to this long-held trust in the Fourth Estate and reliance on MSM, large portions of the public don’t even have the advantage Donald Rumsfeld described in 2002 of being aware that there are ‘… unknown unknowns-the ones we don’t know we don’t know’.

And so it goes, seemingly forever, an almost pointless void between people on the MSM/alternative news parallels, and like all parallel lines in Euclidean geometry, never the two shall meet. It feels like a big bang, in the same metaphor, with the MSM and alternate news sources growing further apart. Fortunately, it’s the latter that seems to be expanding at a faster rate.

On December 2, 2022, Musk decided to give the voting public a hint of what they don’t know they don’t know, if you follow my drift. Laura Ingraham summarised: ‘Musk had bought Twitter not realising he was in fact buying the largest Democratic Party Super Pac.’ Once he did realise this, he decided to share this revelation with the world, tweeting American journalist Matt Taibbi’s expose of the Democratic Party’s communications with Twitter staff in 2020 regarding censoring the New York Post’s story on Hunter Biden’s laptop. In doing so, Musk exposed the chasm between MSM and alternate news reporting, the former’s sins of omission particularly.

Westerners are accustomed to journalists using MSM as their credentials. However in 2022, the credentials are found in the content of the news itself. Primary sources are king, and indeed king makers amongst the new breed of citizen journalists, Andy Ngo being the perfect example of this.

Edmund Burke first coined the phrase ‘Fourth Estate’ in 1787 to highlight the power journalists and news media held.

Thomas Carlyle quotes Burke in stating there were ‘three estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporter’s Gallery yonder, there sits a Fourth Estate more important far than they all’. Power corrupts and as Musk has shown the world, the MSM that has for decades dominated the Fourth Estate has no interest in serving anything but its masters. Journalism, as formerly understood, ceased to be. There is not even the pretence of impartiality anymore in the MSM. As it stands, the Second and Fourth Estates are in collusion to such a degree that authoritarian regimes and their tactics come to mind, actually, throw in the First and Third Estates as well.

Ignorance is currently bliss, but the longer this media exclusion zone with its selective censorship continues, the worse the clean-up will be. If not addressed, this chasm will drive a potentially insurmountable wedge through society and dictate geopolitics for the next decade. It has the potential to be as, if not, more dangerous than Woke ideology

Forget occupying Mars, Musk needs to occupy the Fourth Estate with citizen journalists who will challenge the stranglehold the elites have over the media, by bringing them to a mainstream audience. The digital world can provide a printing press for anyone. Citizen journalists can challenge the status quo, we just need to tune our antennas in their direction and accept that the MSM is gone with the wind.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/01/msm-gone-with-the-wind/

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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