Monthly Archives: December 2013

December 30, 2013 · 13:02

Hitting Home

Friends,

I find it difficult to give a shit about things that I can’t relate to, but sometimes my give-a-shit is stimulated in the most unexpected ways.

Bears & Turtles Teach me About Climate Change

As a product of the 80’s, I’ve heard about “global warming”/climate change for most of my life.  For example, the “greenhouse effect” was something I first remember reading about at around age six or seven.

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I actually read about it in this book so I knew it was a serious issue.

But even though my childhood heroes, the turtles mentioned such problems, they never seemed more than a background concern for me.

Then, at some point I saw a picture similar to this one:

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The polar bear has been, for as long as I can remember my favourite animal, and this emaciated, sickly-looking bear is one of the casualties of loss of habitat due to human activities.  Suddenly the importance of our actions crystallized for me.  And whether or not you put stock in concepts like climate change, global warming, etc., I want to illustrate that a picture like this one is what made such concepts real and tangible for me.

Jesus the Smoove Mack-Daddy

In September 2009 I resumed my university career after a three-year hiatus which included a stint in Afghanistan.  I wouldn’t say that the experience made me cynical, but I recognized a need for organized violence in the world as a reality of life.  When doing my course selection for that returning year I decided to take Theory and Practice of Non-Violence for giggles and to see what it was all about.  I found the readings and the lessons interesting but I just relegated it to the area of my brain reserved for fanciful notions like unicorns and the female anal orgasm.

Fast forward to late in the semester and I was still puzzling over what to write about for my final paper.  The idea of arguing for the necessity of violence in the world had fallen flat when I ran it by the prof and I wasn’t really sure what to do.  As I sat reading one of the class’ weekly readings, an idea started percolating.  The reading was a modern interpretation of Jesus’ actions and showed how he was the paragon of non-violence, but what it read like to me  was a guide on how to be an alpha male.  To me it smacked of pick-up literature,

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and Jesus was painted to be a master of social dynamics.  Something clicked in my head and I began to see the wisdom of non-violence, especially when viewed as just being cool and not being a dick.  I hadn’t completely accepted it as an ethos, but it had taken root in my head in this much more palatable permutation.

The Point of All This

There is a saying about leading horses to water but not being able to make them drink.  There is merit to this saying but I think it begs the question, “Why isn’t the horse drinking?”  Well, why didn’t I accept certain propositions until after their merit was seen in a more personal, relateable light?  Personally, I am fond of saying that “While it is the listeners duty to understand, it is the speaker’s duty to be understood.” The upshot is that whether you are talking or listening, the onus of understanding is always on you.

I guess I bring this us because I used to beat people over the head with (my) truth.  And while my convictions have remained the same I find that I am much more effective at communicating now because I realize how long even the most evident and truthful ideas can take to be accepted and take root.

Rest assured though that no matter how long it takes, the truth will always take root.

Best,

-Andre Guantanamo

ADDENDUM: I think there is a point here about the importance for a unified view of the planet.  We so often tend to try and remedy the injustices to disenfranchised groups through piecemeal actions which inevitably disenfranchise other groups. Whether you think its right or not, there is a very real feeling of alienation among males suspicious of feminism, among whites suspicious of affirmative action,  etc. As a result, people take on a tribalistic mentality and only care for those immediately around them or who are of a similar demographic (I think this is ultimately a problem of scarcity, but that’s another discussion). Taking a unified view and viewing ourselves as one species would make the imperative of treating each other well really hit home and force us to question a scarcity-based system which forces us to get ahead at the expense of our fellow human beings.

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December 27, 2013 · 14:07

…When Their Pride’s In Question

“Nggaz’ll rather die when their pride’s in question.”
Trife da God, Dogs of War (by: Ghostface Killah)

Friends,

Recently I wrote a post called “My Top 9 Rap Lyrics” where I discussed some lines that had really stuck with me over the years.  However, I opted to write about this lyric in a separate post because of how aptly it encapsulates and describes the mind-lock you see when when having discussions about things like human nature, the way forward, technological progress or, more broadly, when you discuss and question the taken-for-granted assumptions about people and society.
The specific example which comes to mind is when people acknowledge say, the problems with the world, humanity’s collision course with ecological disaster and the inhospitable environment we are creating for our future selves and our children; they acknowledge this  and rather than asking how we can change it, they just resignedly(almost smugly) assert that mankind will eventually go extinct and things will return to normal for the planet, almost as if they are looking forward to this eventuality. In the context of the argument/discussion/debate, this is akin to flipping the board when you’re losing; rather than acknowledge that the other party might be making some good points by questioning taken-for-granted assumptions and institutions, they would rather fall back on a nihilistic perspective to make it look as if the whole discussion is a pointless endeavour because we are all going to die anyway.

I see through your bullshit, board-flipper.

It’s not that they have trouble accepting the problems with society, its that they refuse to accept that society is changeable based on on our cumulative actions, often citing some unchangeable human nature as proof that the society we have now (headed inexorably toward extinction as they assert). is the only type of society that is possible.

Why?

Why this stubbornness in the face of so much evidence to the contrary?
Why the refusal to acknowledge that modern technology enables and necessitates newer societal designs?
Why assert that human beings are naturally ONE certain way when there are examples of ALL KINDS of behaviour in the world?

I’m no mathemortician but I think the reluctance to accept the changeability of society has to do with the vague awareness that if society is changeable, the onus might fall on everyday people to rethink their comfortable patterns of existence.

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God forbid!
Other than that I can only think that they don’t want to accept that they might be wrong in an argument.

Or perhaps they just have a death wish.
If that’s the case and things keep progressing they way they have thus far, aided by the cumulative apathy, intransigence and lack of imagination of these nihilistic death-wishers, then the degradation of our world and extinction of our species becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in the worst way possible.

Best
-Andre Guantanamo

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December 17, 2013 · 18:05

License to Ill

Friends,

Back in March of 2011 I went on what was to be my first and last jaunt across the pond in the “pre-9/11 world.”  It was a school trip to Italy and France (not in that order) and I was in grade eleven.  Like most (all?) school trips, a high premium was placed on student safety, and beyond an appropriate number of chaperones, what this translated to on the back end were room checks to curb fraternization, prohibitions on students buying alcohol (outside of beer or wine at mealtimes) and naturally, prohibitions on drug use.

Well, being forced to spend the better part of their childhoods indoors, confined to a desk and having to ask to go to the bathroom, it should come as no surprise that students are second only to prisoners when it comes to resourcefulness in flouting the rules.  This defiance was encouraged by the fact that the chaperones were mostly cool, recognizing that the trip was supposed to be fun, and their attempts to transplant Canadian high school rules to a bunch of young people in another continent were gestural.

That said, reinforced habits and the fear of punishment can be powerful deterrents as they were to me and the groups of fellow squares I hung out with throughout the trip.

IMG_4512L to R: Mike, Metro, Horesman, Scott and Me

We weren’t bad kids; we were nerds.  We were a low-priority when it came to students who should be supervised.  This became very clear to me on the second day of the trip when we were approached by my French teacher, Mr. Harper.  He told us that he had come by our room at lights-out the night before to make sure we were in bed and knocked a few times.  Figuring that we were just jet-lagged and in a deep sleep, he gave us the benefit of the doubt and went on with his room checks.  To give you a glimpse of just how goody-goody we were, he wasn’t even mad when he explained this to us but we still apologized and assured him we would be more attentive next time.

So on the trip went with us mostly staying in our lanes, taking pictures of the sights and removing our hats when entering cathedrals. However, a peculiar change began to happen.  As we observed all of the rule-breaking going on around us and the “out-of-sight, out-of-mind” attitude of the chaperones, we started to act out in our own measured way.

IMG_4511Here is us sitting on the base of a column in St. Peter’s Basilica when we were explicitly told not to.

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Here is me jumping into an empty fountain at Versailles and humping one of the statues.

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And here is me grabbing my junk in Rome.
I am a bad motherfucker, am I not?

Intoxicated with the thrill of being a rebel and wanting some token artifact as a memento of my flirtations with a life of crime, my degeneracy reached its apex in Rome on (fittingly) the Ides of March. Visiting the Coliseum I decided to make my move, climbing some decrepit wall while security was out of sight and posing for a picture while testing furiously for loose bricks which I could abscond with.

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The bastard love-child of Lara Croft and Indiana Jones clad in baggy dungarees.

JACKPOT!

I wiggled one such brick free and jumped down like the future traceur I would become years later.  I walked out of the coliseum as fast as I could, looking over my shoulder the whole time and feeling my heart furiously dry-humping my rib-cage.  I remembered one chick even asked me while I was up there if there was any bricks I could hand to her.  Bitch Please. I felt like that gangster in Training Day who, when Denzel demands someone shoot Ethan Hawke, places a .38 on the ground in front of him and is like,

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“You got us twisted, homie; you gotta put your own work in around here.“

After we had safely smuggled the brick out in someone’s cargo shorts pocket, me and the fellowship of the brick stood in a circle marveling at its plainness and lack of any special defining features.

“Guys, this is a billionth of the Coliseum we’re holding right here,” I said.

Then my long-time friend, Michael chimed in, “Yeah, but its OUR billionth.”

Yes it was.  Upon returning to Canada I took a hammer and chisel and broke each of my co-conspirators off a chip of the brick and hopefully those chips still serve as a reminder of the day we hit back against a system and took what was ours.

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Let’s re-cap.

Here are the transgressions I didn’t commit that others on the trip did and the potential punishments they held:

Hooking up with other students: Legal but might have gotten suspended or sent home early or both
Buying Booze: Same
Buying/Using/Possessing Marijuana:

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Note: These are current for 2013

Now here’s what I did:

Looting Artefacts from Roman Antiquity: “…those caught were left ‘highly embarrassed’ but were not arrested, instead they were cautioned and allowed to return home and their ancient souvenirs returned to Rome council…” -From Mail Online, 24 June 2012

I willingly put myself in a position where I could have been highly embarrassed and allowed to return home.  How gangster is that?

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I think the moral I was trying to get across initially was that a reputation for being a goody-two-shoes is a license to be a badass, but when I found out how casually my particular offense is actually treated by the Carabinieri, it kinda changed the way I viewed my own act of flagrant rebellion.  While that original moral still stands true, I think a more apt lesson to be taken from my pilfering of precious pebbles is that sometimes you gotta break the rules for good stories and souvenirs.

It’s probably why some of my best travel stories have to do with running from the police, surfing with sharks and trespassing.

To put it in an acronym, W.W.D.Q.D.?

Best,
-Andre Guantanamo

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December 15, 2013 · 18:37

When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong

“They don’t gotta burn the books; they just remove ’em”
-Rage Against the Machine, Bulls on Parade

Friends,

Today I lost someone dear to me.  After months of online back and forth he finally unfriended me on Facebook after countless appeals to me to censor myself proved ineffective. I am kind of ambivalent; on the one hand I no longer have to scroll through my newsfeed and see his posturing as an intellectual and the subsequent overpowering urge to question the logical flaws in his arguments, buuut, at the same time his world just became a little more insular and he has less people to challenge him.

To be clear, in my view there was nothing I said that was particularly insulting; rather there is a history of both IRL and OL animosity which made it difficult for our online interactions to be amicable.  Case in point, by this morning I literally could not even present a separate point of view (on the topic of placenta-eating of all things) without him deleting it (deletion being his common recourse to my comments as of late). However, I don’t want to talk about who was right and who was wrong and who said what because it would be impossible to sift through and really it doesn’t matter.

What I find to be infinitely more interesting are the broader implications for online conduct.  At what point do we delete comments?  At what point does a comment become so offensive that we must alter history to read the way we want it to?  I think the only empirical answer is that either all comments are okay or none are okay; any limit on conduct based on personal taste will only (can only) be arbitrary.  That said, there are politics involved in which comments and points of view we allow  to be visible in our online profiles, because like it or not, people will judge us based on what we allow.

Or will they?

To be sure, certain people might make assumptions about you based on the company you keep, but its folly to believe that any of us are so important that worlds will come crashing down if someone gets wind of the fact that some of our friends have fringe ideas. For example, I have some Islamophobic friends who occasionally (not recently) posts xenophobic anti-immigration stuff or pro-military jingoistic crap on my wall.  What does one do in a situation like this? Well, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that if its hate-speech of any kind there is usually a logical way to quickly point out that it is little more than bigotry and prejudice with no empirical value.  So I point out that lack of logic. Mind you I try not to do this in an antagonistic way, but I instead I ask them to substantiate their positions with well-reasoned arguments. This does two things: One, it lets anyone who might be paying attention know that I don’t co-sign hate; and Two, more importantly it shows that I am secure enough in my own position and online persona that I don’t need to block ideas that I feel might reflect negatively on me.

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Ultimately, if you conduct yourself well, someone posting bull-jive on your profile is making an ass of themselves, not you.  The court of public opinion will quickly correct the situation.

I think this idea should serve as an example of how we deal with the inevitable posts that we don’t like. I have never been a fan of censorship and I acknowledge that it starts in the most inoccuous ways.  For example, we would all feel justified in deleting comments that were racist in some way but when it comes down to it, that is censorship.  This is why I much prefer the upvote/downvote model adopted by Reddit; nobody can pretend to be an authority on what constitutes offensive comments as they are weeded out by the groupmind which might be moving in a different direction that the commenter or the would-be censor.

It’s not a perfect system, but until people stop being so easily offended by words on the internet, its about the best I’ve seen.

Best,
-Andre Guantanamo

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December 13, 2013 · 15:13

Twisted Pleasure

Friends,

I pulled an all-nighter last night on my sister’s couch and my nocturnal time was occupied by the usual wikipedia safaris, listening to comedy routines and reading articles on Cracked.com.  There was another thing that occupied an hour of my time though, and that was watching nature documentaries on youtube.

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Last night I focused on lions on the serengeti.

I don’t know why but I felt an overpowering urge to watch a lion run down animals, the more helpless the better, and tear their shit apart. Luckily for me there is no shortage of such videos on the tubes (although sometimes they try and get cute and cut away right as the lion is pouncing only to cut back when the lions are already eating…what the point of this is, I don’t pretend to know).
All in all I saw a baby elephant, a baby girafffe and a newborn wildebeest (replete with amniotic fluid) get their shit wrecked.  Great Job!
Still, as I watched I c0uldn’t help but be vaguely aware of a sense of shame for enjoying watching such violence.  I began wondering what separated watching footage like this from watching say…a snuff movie?

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Well, my reaction for one.

But seriously, I don’t go in for explanations like, “well animals aren’t people.”  Bitch, animals suffer and feel pain too.  They’re probably more similar to us than we would care to admit so where does the moral line draw when it comes to one animal preying on another versus one human being killing another?
You could make the case that if its for educational purposes it’s okay.  Like if you are watching videos or viewing photos of a horrible massacre to write a paper, or if a jury must watch grisly rape and murder videos to help them reach a verdict.  The only problem is that this has been seized upon by people busted with caches of child pornography, “I was just doing research.”
Similarly, claims of artistic merit have also been used to justify one’s predilection for looking at grisly or otherwise inappropriate images.

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It’s not perverted, its art.

I think the problem and incredulity from the general public comes from the fact that we are really having the wrong conversation here: Instead of forcing the artist, the snuff film connoisseur or the casual nature documentary enthusiast to justify their interest (or throwing them in jail), we should instead be asking why  that interest is there and acknowledging that the only difference between the three parties is the legal status of their interests, because arguments regarding morality are so much wasted air.  We like to distance ourselves from those on the wrong side of the law, especially when their crime carries a taboo sexual or violent taint, but I think if you dig deep enough you will find that interests in viewing lions killing gazelles, a group of guys gang-banging a single girl, torture porn movies, snuff films, and other exploitative materials showing (broadly speaking) one party doing violence to another, all stem from a common causality which binds us together at an uncomfortable  level.
Thankfully, my perversion has been deemed not only legal, but educational, so I can to continue on being a twisted fuck with impunity.
“Not guilty, y’all got to feel me!”

Best,
-Andre Guantanamo

 

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December 10, 2013 · 17:12

My Top 9 Rap Lyrics

Friends,
This post has been a long time coming.  As something of a hip-hop fan I have latched onto many lyrics over the years which I feel neatly encapsulate my own experiences.  They don’t have to be standout lines, or famous rhymes, but they are the ones which make the listener feel like he and the artist are in on the same joke that nobody else gets.  Here are my proverbial inside jokes with a smattering of rappers.

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“Aint no right or wrong in this game called survive”
Song: Keep Your Hands High ft. The Notorious B.I.G.
Arist: Tracey Lee

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You might have missed this song when it came out.  More likely you are familiar with Jay-Z’s recycling of parts of it on his song “What More Can I Say?” from 2003’s The Black Album.  (Or, if you’re only the most casual of fans you likely heard T.I. sample from “What More Can I Say?” for his 2004 hit, “Bring ’em Out“)
In any event, the line dispels the notion of the duality of right & wrong, or more to the point, good and evil.  These qualities are powerful myths which serve as expedient yet detrimental explanations for human behaviour. They don’t paint a true picture of why people (criminals in this case) do things.  What Tray-Lee is really saying here is that people in the game don’t do dirt because they’re evil; they do it out of necessity.  All of that murder, exploitation, theft and corruption, it’s all a natural outgrowth of the struggle for survival.

***

“And God made dirt, so this dirt won’t hurt.”
Song: Shook Ones: Part One (by: Mobb Deep)
Artist: Prodigy

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Obviously this is closely related to the last entry but it deserves mention because of the almost throw-away manner in which it is uttered. It’s a blink-and-you-miss-it type line which bears more truth than perhaps any other part of the song.  It also addresses the fallacy that certain behaviours are “unnatural” in any absolute sense; all behaviours are reinforced by the environment which the organism creates for itself.  It’s like Omar says in The Wire, “All in the game, yo…”

***

“We all gon’ die, we bleed through similar veins.”
Song: Thug Luv (by: Bone Thugz n’ Harmony)
Artist: 2-Pac

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2-Pac really spells out the unity and sameness of all human beings here in spite of the fact that he seems to be making a threat.  Still, there is profound existential awareness in his imagery; we all do, in fact, bleed through similar veins and if this shared mortality and vulnerability can’t bring us together, then what can?

***

“Ran through what we scared of; what was we afraid for?
Song: Awnaw (by: Nappy Roots)
Artist: Big V

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I love this line because it is a an expression of that feeling you get after going through adversity. It’s like, everything you haven’t done yet seems scary and impossible, while everything you have done seems not only do-able, but rather common and passe.  When it comes to the plausibility and possibility of any given endeavour, the biggest factor in determining your confidence is whether you have already done it or not.  That’s it.  So go out and do things. Then, doing more things will only seem more do-able.

***

“See things how they are, and not how you like ’em to be”
Song: Mistakes
Artist: Immortal Technique

filepicker-sTWoNkoJQCu9fbuaYhaS_immortal_technique

Who among us hasn’t told themselves a comforting lie at some point in their lives. I’ve been awake for five hours and I have probably already told myself ten.  But Tech is saying that wish-thinking, delusion, and all other forms of self-deception will only keep you in the invisible prison of ego because you are actually only lying to protect your ego.  The true self doesn’t need comfort, it doesn’t bruise and it wants the truth that will make the ego writhe and squirm.  Feed the ‘self’ with truth, and starve the ego of lies.

***

“Can I walk a righteous path holding a beer?”
Song: Resurrection (Large Pro Remix)
Artist: Common

common7

This is a big one for me. After all, I know there are things/vices I shouldn’t be doing as they serve as barriers for personal growth…but they’re so much fun.  Nobody seems more aware of this than Common, who, at this point in his career, was also probably puffing a blunt and grabbing an ass.  But does that mean he’s a bad dude?  Some would say ‘yes.’  I would say again what I said earlier, that good and bad are just myths. Still, every time I cloud my ability to think with a chemical I can’t help but think that perhaps I am mistreating my biological hardware.

***

“What you eat don’t make me shit.”
Song: Heart of the City (Ain’t No Love)
Artist: Jay-Z

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If you’ve ever worked in a job, a blue-collar one especially, you have probably had co-workers complain about how much/little work someone else is doing.  The irony is that their bitching is almost certainly taking up paid time that they should be using to work.  I get it if someone’s performance is directly making yours more difficult; definitely solve the problem at the lowest level possible without making too much of a stink about it.  However, live and let live; you don’t have to be the police for your co-workers, and by extension other human beings.  Don’t feel the need to expose someone who is getting to the same place you’re getting by taking a different route that isn’t hurting anyone. That’s hater bullshit.

***

“When I catch up to these fiends, Imma knock ’em on they ass.”
Song: Can I Live? II (by: Jay-Z)
Artist: Memphis Bleek

Memphis+Bleek

You gotta approach this world knowing (not thinking) that you’re already a star but that nobody knows it but you.  Bleek gets it, even if noone else does.  And while you could make the argument that he still hasn’t caught up with these “fiends” (read: mainstream superstardom) he is still certain that he would “knock them on their asses” (read: blow them away with his lyricism) if he did.  Prove him wrong!

***

“Too bad you couldn’t do good at marriage!”
Song: Renegades (by: Jay-Z)
Artist: Eminem

eminem1

Oh man, this song and this line specifically resonated with me like crazy when I was a teenager.  It seemed like my parents were only too willing to point out my shortcomings and failings when they were fucking up left, right and center.  Eminem cut through this bullshit in a way that struck a chord with white, teenage boys in step-families in the early 2000’s; we knew things were fucked up and that the idyllic veneer of perfection and tranquility that coated our suburban world was simply that, a veneer.  We saw the cracks, the flaws, the violence, and the fights behind closed doors, and then the smiles which were plastered over faces when there was company over.  We knew the truth and Em let us know we weren’t alone.

Best,
-Andre Guantanamo

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December 3, 2013 · 22:19

Shedding a Tear for Feminism

For Lil’ Keezy, who missed me when I was gone.

Friends,

In the last couple months I created an account on Reddit after hearing about how it was the best place in the internet; the internet of course being the best place in the world.  I have taken to it slowly, due mostly to the fact that I didn’t really appreciate that I could subscribe to niche “subreddits” that would cater to my particular, peculiar tastes (CHECK OUT r/SPACEDICKS … IT’S TERRIFIC!!!).  From a subreddit devoted to “The Wire” to r/supershibe, haven for doge worship…

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…there’s just about anything you could want.  At some point, probably while looking for a Matrix subreddit to post a wicked funny image I made…

AppMatrix
I KNOW IT’S PRETTY HILARIOUS, BUT DON’T LOL TOO HARD, GAIS!

…I happened across r/TheRedPill.  Naively, I assumed it would be a forum of like-minded dissidents who had “woken up” to the deep, structural injustice in society.

Well, I was half right, but only in the worst way possible.

You see, TRP is devoted to the disenfranchised male of the species taking back the power from oppressive women.  Still naive, I assumed this was a repackaging of the much-maligned Pick-Up Artist (PUA)/Seduction community popularized by Neil Strauss’ 2005 book, “The Game.”  I always felt the PUA/S community was unfairly demonized when it attained mainstream popularity because certain core principles were overlooked and it was derided as simply “manipulating women.”  Naturally, women took offense to the idea that men might be ninja’ing their brains and fledgling Pick-Up Artists who would quote material and routines verbatim were spotted, scorned and ostracized in the backlash.
However, if women took the time to look a little deeper, the core principles are actually self-improvement, taking charge of your life and gaining fulfillment in love and sex.  Nobody talks about that part but most savvy modern women are familiar with the “Neg.” Well bravo, that’s like reducing the profession of nurse simply to one who wipes the asses of bed-ridden patients.  It’s insulting, reductive and inaccurate.
I’m not gonna argue the relative merits of Pick-Up Artistry beyond saying that since my introduction to the community there has been a corresponding improvement in my dealings with the opposite sex and more importantly, a diversification and broadening of my own experiential base and character, vis a vis  life in general.  Notice, I said “corresponding,” not “causal,” meaning you can be like me, take the truth from a given source and use what works to your advantage.  Conversely, you can also take certain ideas and incorporate them into a philosophy of fear, revenge, subjugation and dehumanization.

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Like I said, I was a little naive exploring this sub, and more than a little excited to be among others like me.  After lurking for a time and getting some good leads on self-improvement material (Check out “The Black Phillip Show” from the late Patrice O’Neal) I was emboldened to make a post which posited a connection between the (perceived) necessity of PUA/S techniques among males and the unfortunate reality that we live in a competitive society whose operant mechanism is scarcity.  I inquired as to whether others thought that a more egalitarian society where we did not always have to game for advantage would bring an end to the commodity-status of female sexuality/women using sex as a bargaining chip, and men treating their time (time not having sex) the same way.*  A pretty straight-forward well-reasoned question if you ask me.  ASK ME!!!
What damned me was my good-natured, well-intended good-bye: “Til that day, game righteously and leave her better than you found her.”
Pardon my language, but on the strength of that insignificant addendum niggaz was wilin’ on me!

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“Yes. We most certainly were.”

Without even addressing my question most people simply attacked my farewell.  The amount of vitriol I received for supposing that you could enrich a woman’s life by being a part of it was a complete shock to me. It was made abundantly clear to me that a woman’s value diminished with every new interaction (i.e. sex partner) she had and that for a man to get what he wanted a woman would necessarily have to be diminished.  So I’m sorry to every girl I ever slept with, but you fucked up.
Amazed by this I took a closer look at some of the suggested reading the subreddit provided links to and was amazed that there was a movement of males who felt that the biggest threat to men today was rampant feminism and that misandry victims were really invisible victims.
Feminism?…really?

Now allow me to put my cards on the table real quick to dispel any notions of “white-knighting” on my part.

Ahem…fuck feminism.**  I got no use for it or any other ‘-ism’ notion.

That said, I don’t fear that the feminazis are coming to get me and in turn use that fear to justify mistreatment of women. It turns out however that a whole community of men do.  Call me old-fashioned (or a beta, liberal-fag, leftard, pussy) but I just think that relationships can be mutually beneficial and fulfilling.  Is it difficult?  Yes, especially in the context of a competitive socio-economic system where everyone, including a romantic partner, can be rightfully suspected of trying to take you for all you have, which really ties into the original question in my post.
But it is possible, and moreover, I would say its desirable.

You see when it comes down to it, I class both feminism and the TRP movement as outgrowths of inequality.  Every disenfranchised group is gonna find some ‘other’ to blame.  But sometimes “others” can be amorphous and hard to define.  Blaming the other gender is mad easy though; its an “other” as old as the species itself.  And, big surprise here, it doesn’t make your situation any better.

bat

If you think one of these pics represents worse violence than the other then you just might be part of the problem.

In closing I want to say that there is truth in everything if you have eyes to decode it and see it.  In the case of feminism, this is especially true; whatever the root causality, there are unique challenges that women go through that it is foolish to try and deny.  I think not acknowledging this is an affront to women.
Similarly, the Red Pill has a lot of good stuff in it but you gotta be willing to wade through a lot of hatred and antipathy.  Moreover, there are some guys who responded thoughtfully, if cynically, to my post, which shows that you can’t just broadly paint any group as good or bad based on the loudest members.

Best,
-Andre Guantanamo

*I realize this is an oversimplified expression of male/female relations but it is an expedient one for the point I was trying to make.

**When well-intentioned issues-based movements gain too much clout and become too established they become burdensome to anyone who isn’t championed explicitly by that cause.  Please read more about my thoughts on the subject here.

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