I'm pleased to report that my petition to Amnesty International to end or reform its sexist "Troll Patrol" program, which I back-burnered while I was working on a GoFundMe, has started picking up new signatures again.
I have also added some additional information and a link to the explanatory text: https://www.change.org/p/amnesty-international-usa-end-or-reform-amnesty-international-s-sexist-troll-patrol-program
Friday, May 25, 2018
More People Are Signing for Amnesty to End Its Sexist "Troll Patrol" Program
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Wednesday, May 23, 2018
The Canadian Association for Equality Announces Its Annual Conference
You're invited to a landmark event bringing together Canadian leaders in suicide prevention, domestic abuse, and parenting - all to improve services and advocacy for boys, men and families. Plus, you'll be with us for this lynchpin event in CAFE's expansion plans. Calgary is where we plan to open our third Canadian Centre for Men and Families!
REGISTER NOW FOR OUR FULL-DAY CONFERENCE AT THE REDUCED RATE OF $80.00. VISIT https://
This year's theme: Dads, Moms and Kids: Maximizing a Family's Mental Health and Well-Being
Join us for an all-star packed event!
Master of Ceremonies is Karen Straughan, Canada's leading men's issues youtuber and blogger
Visit Karen Straughan's YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/
Keynote Speaker: Mara Grunau, Executive Director of the Centre for Suicide Prevention
Featuring Presentations from a Distinguished Line Up of Guests:
Christine Berry, Director of Family Violence Prevention Initiatives, Calgary Counselling Centre
Christine Giancarlo, Mount Royal University Professor, Parental Alienation researcher and Member, Leading Women for Shared Parenting
David Shackleton, author, Daughters of Feminism and formerly publisher of Everyman: A Men's Journal
Workshop Presentations by:
David Shackleton, Branch Director of the Canadian Centre for Men & Families - Ottawa.
Topic: Opening a Centre for Men and Families - the Ottawa Experience.
Dr. Terry Singh, Registered Psychologist, expert in family counselling, divorce and separation, and family law/forensic psychology.
Topic: How to Predict Divorce: Families do not break up as a result of parents' arguments--they break up because of how parents argue.
Christine Hart, expert in relationship communications and gender intelligence.
Topic: Men and Women: How to bring out the best in each other to maximize the well-being of your family.
Dr. Ganz Ferrance, Registered Psychologist, TV and radio personality, expert in family psychology and men's counselling.
Topic: 7 Ways to Keep Your Family “Sane” in Crazy Situations
Our Special Panel Theme: The Unique Challenges of Providing Services for Men & Boys
David Shackleton, Branch Director of the Canadian Centre for Men & Families - Ottawa
Dr. Christine Giancarlo, Mount Royal University Professor and Parental Alienation Expert
Lyndsay Chaban, Edmonton Counsellor specializing in men, boys & families
Christine Berry, Director of Family Violence Prevention Initiatives at Calgary Counselling Centre
About Our Speakers
Christine Berry is director of the Family Violence Prevention Initiatives Program at Calgary Counselling Centre. Christine has a Masters in Science in Counselling Psychology from the University of Calgary and is a Registered Psychologist who has spent over a decade specializing in the area of Family Violence. When she’s not cruising in her convertible through the mountains she is addressing the impact of domestic abuse in the lives of adults and children within our ever-changing community. She plays an active role working with other community agencies to collaboratively stop domestic abuse at its root causes and has won awards for her efforts including the 2008 Selinger Award through Homefront and the Canadian Group Psychotherapy Association 2008 Group Therapy Appreciation Award for Creative Programming.
Lyndsay Chaban is a Registered Provisional Psychologist working with clients within Edmonton and the surrounding area and specializing in supporting men and their families. She believe strongly that all individuals have the power to create change in their lives. For several years, she has spent her time working with children, teens, adults and families in a number of community settings. For many of those years, she has= spent my time studying and practicing animal assisted therapy. While not an appropriate approach for everyone, counselling with animals can provide an alternative to traditional talk therapy.
Dr. Ganz Ferrance holds a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology and an M.A. in Developmental and Educational Psychology from Andrews University in Michigan. He is the former Public Education Coordinator as well as the former Vice-President of the Psychologist's Association of Alberta. Dr. Ganz enjoys sharing how people can get more "mileage" from their lives. He is a frequent guest on CTV News, 630AM CHED radio and other networks.
Christine Giancarlo is one of the Leading Women for Shared Parenting (LW4SP), and an active member of The Great Ape Project, Orangutan Foundation International, Nature Conservancy and the David Suzuki Foundation. She also holds memberships with the Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA) and the American Anthropological Association (AAA). As an applied anthropologist, Chris applies these lessons from nonhuman society to human culture in such areas as human sustainability, global population growth, the environment and marginalized populations. Her research projects and special expertise lie in social and environmental impact assessment, child welfare and parental alienation, gender, multiculturalism, and cross-cultural and cross-species relations.
Mara Grunau, BEd, MPA, is Executive Director of the Centre for Suicide Prevention.
Christine Hart has successfully built three of her own businesses. Her first was in Film + Television. Her second was in the event space and after 3 and 6 years respectively, she sold both companies in order to build her third. Her third business was a coaching service for singles and couples, focusing on effective communication. She was the expert for a full season on CosmoTV and developed an online program to train and certify coaches through Hart Coaching Academy. Christine combines her entrepreneurial background with her passion for effective communication and marketing to help businesses reach their growth targets. As a professional speaker, Christine specializes in Gender Intelligence in the Workplace + The Art of Feminine Leadership. Christine has a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies and is a graduate of the Mastery + Leadership program through PAX Programs (Alison Armstrong).
David Shackleton is a thinker and writer on gender and personal growth, and president of the Ottawa chapter of CAFE. He is the author of Daughters of Feminism: Women Supporting Men's Equality, The Hand That Rocks the World; An Inquiry Into Truth, Power and Gender, and before that was editor and publisher for 12 years of Canada's magazine off men's issues, "Everyman; A Men's Journal."
Terry Singh is a Registered Psychologist. He holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with post-graduate specialization in Child and Family Forensics, and joined Taylor Clark after more than a decade of clinical experience in Canada and the USA. He is a member of the College of Alberta Psychologists, the Psychologists’ Association of Alberta, the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, Alberta Family Mediation Society, and the Canadian Association of Threat Assessment Professionals. Dr. Singh’s primary work involves assisting individuals, couples, and families of divorce and separation during and after the transition. Evaluative intervention services offered include: High-conflict Child Custody Evaluations; Risk Assessments; Independent Psychological Evaluations; Voice of the Child and Triage Interventions, and Litigation Support. Therapeutic intervention services offered include: Parenting Coordination-Arbitration, Mediation, Reunification Therapy, Parenting Counselling, Consultation and Litigation Support. Dr. Singh is also the lead developer and facilitator of the Anger Management program offered at Taylor Clark Psychological Services.
Karen Straughan is a renowned Canadian human rights activist, blogger and broadcaster focusing on gender and sexual politics. Her YouTube channel, girlwriteswhat, has over 180,000 subscribers, and more than 16 million video views, and her work has been presented in high school and university classrooms in the US, Canada and Ireland. A mother of three, Karen speaks out fearlessly on gender and equality with passion and clarity, refusing to back down when intimidated.
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Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Identitarians Vs. Jeremy Corbyn
https://orientxxi.info/magazine/anti-semitism-orchestrated-offensive-against-jeremy-corbyn-in-the-uk,2446
In this excellent analysis of the establishment campaign to smear UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as an anti-Semite, it's remarkable how it's using tactics more often associated with the identitarian cultural left -- for instance, Ruth Smeeth's crybullying tactics that are reminiscent of Anita Sarkeesian or Cathy Newman. Or these points:
At the heart of the dispute between the JLM and JVL were efforts by the former to broaden the definition of anti-semitism to include “the holding of beliefs” that might be “perceived” as offensive. Corbyn supporters and others warned that the move would create “thought crimes”.and:
Jonathan Freedland, a senior columnist at the Guardian, waded in to support the JLM, arguing that the traditional definition of anti-semitism—that it was a hatred of Jews for being Jews—was too limited. Instead, he claimed, it was a mood that could be perceived only by its victims, even if there was no tangible evidence that outsiders could detect.
-- a claim reminiscent of "microaggressions" pseudoscience.
And then there's the selective speaking in the name of a minority group only when its members support a preferred narrative:
Though it is rarely mentioned, a significant proportion of those who were summarily suspended,or expelled, for anti-semitism by a Labour party bureaucracy still dominated by anti-Corbyn Blairites were Jewish or had Jewish ancestry, such as Jackie Walker, Tony Greenstein, Cyril Chilson and Glyn Secker.
In one case, a respected Israeli Jewish academic based in the UK, Moshe Machover, found himself expelled until an outcry forced party leaders to grudgingly reinstate him.
The thread connecting these high-profile cases was that all of them were vocal critics of Israel....
In reaction to the unchallenged dominance of the JLM as the voice of Jews in the Labour Party, a new breakaway group, one that was pro-Corbyn, launched at the Labour party conference last October called Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL). The new group quickly found itself tarred with claims of promoting hate speech at the conference.
All of which simply goes to show that the Right is just as susceptible to this sort of irrationalism as the Left is.
Thanks to Alexandra Stein for posting the link to this article on her Twitter timeline.
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Reforming Muslim Maajid Nawaz is suing the Southern Poverty Law Center for libeling him as an anti-Muslim extremist. Learn more about his case and maybe make a donation at http://maajidnawaz.com/. You can order his book at http://www.powells.com/partner/35751/biblio/9781493000616
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Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Pauley Perrette Is Acting Out Her Munchausen's Syndrome Again
This from Yahoo! News: https://www.yahoo.com/news/pauley-perrette-reveals-apos-multiple-103934839.html
Perrette has a long history of seeking attention with dubious claims of victimization. Here's one example: https://www.avoiceformen.com/featured/star-crazy-star-pauley-perrette-accuses-yet-another-homeless-man-of-attacking-her/ She's also been called a "poster child for restraining order abuse," repeatedly getting restraining orders against people on dubious pretexts, then deliberately going out of her way to places where they'll be so she can have them nabbed for a "violation." She did this kind of thing not only with her former husband Coyote Shivers, but also with the wife of a previous husband.
Remarkably, she actually wrote an outline of an idea for a TV show about a woman who... wait for it... develops cozy relationships with cops, then uses these to entrap people with phony restraining order violations! Talk about writing about yourself! You can verify this by searching the Web for "Star Crazy."
I'm not a psychologist, but I bet she'd be diagnosed with Munchausen's syndrome among other things.
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Monday, May 07, 2018
"No, Gamergate is Not Right Wing"
http://www.gameobjective.com/2016/11/21/no-gamergate-is-not-right-wing/
This is a timely discovery as just the other day I made a sign for an anti-occupation demonstration on which I put the GG logo, linking the issues with the slogans "Zionism, this Jew is #NotYourShield" and "NO to authoritarian identity politics!"
One small point: the author writes that "Gamergate, which adores gaming culture and the consumption of gaming products, is in direct conflict" with an anti-capitalist philosophy. I think that only applies to a certain puritanical variety of anti-capitalism. I'm a socialist and I don't see any contradiction between that and gaming (although it isn't my main fandom -- I'm mostly into literary sf).
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Wednesday, April 25, 2018
Thanks for a Great Campaign!
Greetings!
I again want to thank everyone who's contributed to my GoFundMe campaign.
https://www.gofundme.com/SGAworkshop
Unfortunately, I started later on it than I really should have -- just last Thursday, in fact. This is partly a consequence of my past cult experience itself -- people affected by involvement in high-demand groups tend to have difficulty asking for help, because they've been conditioned to see themselves as having only obligations and not rights.
Because of how late I started the campaign, even though we've raised enough money to pay for both registration and transportation, it likely wouldn't start arriving in my bank account until after the workshop is over. And because of their own constraints, the workshop organizers can't be that flexible about when they receive payment.
Fortunately, however, the same group that is organizing the workshop -- the International Cultic Studies Association -- is holding its annual conference in my home town of Philadelphia this July. Though not as intensive as the workshop in Connecticut this weekend, this will provide me with some of the same sort of psycho-educational help.
ICSA's executive director says they can provide with scholarship for the conference to the extent the funds raised in this campaign aren't sufficient to pay for my attendance. If the funds come to more that the cost of registration, I'll simply turn them into an extra donation to ICSA to further its work.
I want to again express my deepest thanks for all those who've helped either by contributing or spreading the word about this campaign, which will now close.
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Comments on Michael Kimmel's "Rebuttal" to Men's Rights Activists
The latest episode of "Red Pill: Raw Files" features portions of Cassie Jaye's interviews with feminist sociologist Michael Kimmel that didn't make it into the film. My comments follow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebhe7wEyygk&index=40&list=PL7HeX2SUI9v84DMIawkSBzLRANIc9RQ7t
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Monday, April 23, 2018
Nearing the Finish Line!
Huge thanks to my cousin Susanne, who with her generous donation
has brought me a lot closer to the goal of my GoFundMe campaign to get me to
the Second Generation Adult workshop!
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Sunday, April 22, 2018
Almost Halfway There!
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Saturday, April 21, 2018
Donations Are Coming In!
I'm excited to report that donations have started coming in to make it possible for me to attend the workshop next weekend for Second Generation Adult survivors of high-demand groups. The first was from someone I met yesterday while selling One Step Away -- she actually made the donation from her phone while we were talking -- and more have been made since as a result of her passing the word to her friends. It's very gratifying to see that people are willing to help me address the ongoing issues affecting me as a result past cultic involvement.
I should mention that not too long ago I couldn't even have imagined doing something like this -- reaching out and asking others to help me get help for myself. For instance, in 2002, when I decided to go to Palestine to take part in the International Solidarity Movement, I read in a booklet for volunteers that one could raise funds for one's trip by holding a house party for friends. I thought it was lucky I had enough in the bank at the time, since I wouldn't even have thought of asking others to give me money personally, even though it was for a worthwhile purpose. But with the help both of talk therapy I've been receiving recently, and psycho-education in recent years under the auspices of the International Cultic Studies Association (of which the upcoming workshop would be a new installment, more specifically tailored to my background than the earlier ones), I've finally arrived at the point where I can see and present myself to others as having needs worthy of other people's support. In fact, yesterday I even started mentioning my being a cult survivor while selling the newspaper. Although I know there are still some people who lack understanding or sympathy on this issue, I felt ready to make myself vulnerable by talking about it, and thereby prove to myself that I can now handle the unpredictability of people's reactions.
I'm reminded of Albert Ellis's famous exercise in which he helped himself overcome social anxiety by approaching strangers and telling them he'd just been released from a mental institution and needed directions. I'd known about this for years but generally lacked the nerve to do anything similar. Now I can.
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Thursday, April 19, 2018
Help get me to the SGA Workshop
Dear friends,
I plan to attend a workshop April 27-29 in Chester, CT for Second Generation Adult survivors of high-demand groups, but I need some help raising the necessary funds. I've been given a discount based on my financial need, but I'm still required to pay $100 for it, plus I'll need at least about $125 for transportation costs. So I've created a GoFundMe where people can help me raise the necessary $$ to do this.
Pictured below are the facilitators of last year's workshop (from the website of the International Cultic Studies Association).
I've previously written (for instance here: http://stripey7.blogspot.com/2008/09/too-much-like-old-times.html) about how involvement in a high-demand group (or "cult") in my adolescence has affected me. I suspect that aspects of my childhood were also influenced by my parents' involvement in the group and its effect on their parenting style.
I attended a workshop two years ago for ex-members of high-demand groups, but it wasn't especially for Second Generation Adults. Nonetheless I found it powerfully helpful, and anticipate that the upcoming workshop may help even more.
Visit the GoFundMe page here: https://www.gofundme.com/SGAworkshop Please give and share!
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Wednesday, April 18, 2018
Free Speech Groups Fight Internet Censorship; Breitbart Pretends to While Actually Doing the Opposite
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Tuesday, April 17, 2018
Man Banned from Twitter for Commenting on Rape Case Acquitted in 90 Minutes
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Friday, April 13, 2018
"A Manifesto Against the Enemies of Modernity": Preliminary Thoughts
https://areomagazine.com/2017/08/22/a-manifesto-against-the-enemies-of-modernity/
This is a very interesting document which I think has a lot of merit. I'll try to write a more detailed commentary later, but for right now a couple points.
The authors don't spend much time examining the reasons for the rise of what they describe as anti-modernism of both "Left" and "Right" varieties. I would propose this Marxist gloss: The increased hostility toward modernity, and tail-ending thereof even by those who passively agree with it, reflects the fact that capitalism increasingly fails to to provide a satisfactory existence for large numbers of people, above all in moral terms. Since capitalism itself is largely taken for granted, however -- following a period in which any discourse challenging it was marginalized -- most of the reaction to this demoralization takes the form not of rejecting capitalism itself as a system that has outlived its usefulness, but instead rejecting modernity, the permanently valuable historical by-product of capitalism's emergence. The fact that the capitalist interests dominating both major parties find this reaction a very convenient way of mobilizing an electoral base without threatening their class interests has facilitated the increasing dominance of the anti-modernists among activists of both parties.
Concerning the swipe at the Green Party: there's no denying that anti-modernists of the postmodern variety hold considerable sway there, but I'm not sure that's any more true for Greens than it is for Democrats, especially where Republicans aren't competitive. In the latter areas especially, strongly left-leaning people might modify the authors' proposals concerning political action by working to support pro-modernity elements within the GP rather than the Democrats. (Of course, to a degree they could do both at once.)
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Sunday, April 08, 2018
Support Grows for Petition to Amnesty International USA
As of today, ten people on four continents have signed my petition calling on Amnesty International USA to either make its "Troll Patrol" program concerning online abuse nonsexist and transparent, or else end it. I've added a pertinent video to attract further interest and signers.
You can view the video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=322&v=Rm8nBt9rQBo
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Friday, April 06, 2018
Amnesty International Joins the Fainting-Couch Feminists
Amnesty International USA has launched a new campaign called Troll
Patrol, which is described as a crowd-sourced program for tracking
online abuse of women. This is evidently their top campaign now since
it's the first thing you see when you go to their Web site. Yet nowhere
do they explain why they think only women deserve protection from online
abuse. Nor do they even claim that women experience more such abuse
than men, either in the email announcing the campaign or in the page to
which it links.
I wrote them:
Why are you only compiling data on abuse against women? Don't men have human rights too? The page you link to doesn't even claim that women experience more abuse than men -- it just ignores the question as if abuse of men doesn't matter.
Further, you don't explain on what basis you intend to differentiate real abuse, such as credible physical threats, from statements that can at most hurt someone's feelings. It seems very odd that an organization that has always been supposed to stand for human rights now seems intent on limiting freedom of expression, and in a way that infantilizes women at the same time.
Can we say "sexism"?
Thank you for taking the time to write to us. We fight for the rights for all people in all places, including when women can't express themselves freely and suffer harassment, abuse, and violence -- psychological violence is one of those. Threatening to rape someone is not covered in free speech and we have seen that this is especially dangerous in places where there are fewer protections for human rights defenders.To read the full report on this issue, please visit: https://www.amnestyusa.org/reports/online-abuse-of-women-thrives-as-twitter-fails-to-respect-womens-rights/.Best,Samantha PutriMember Services Assistant
Amnesty International USA
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