Man-hating

"Man-hating" is a common critique of radical feminists around the Western world --as is "lesbian bitch" but that's another rant- and quite honestly it's not true. I'll admit that male bodied people (including MtF who are pre-op, because they have male privilege and were raised with it.) do tend to irritate feminist, and thus we tend to rail against them most of the time. Can you really blame us when the rate of rape went from 1 in 4 in 2000 to 1 in 3 in 2007? I digress though.

My main problem with being labeled as a man hater isn't that it implies I hate men, honestly if making sure another of my friends wasn't forced in to prostitution, or another person never got raped meant I had to hate men, I would. Men deserve to have some of the hate they use on women returned to them anyway. No the reason I hate that people tell radical feminists that they hate men is that it's just not true. Most radical feminist bet on the fact that men will one day, somehow, wake up to realize that female bodied people are...*gasp* people. We believe men can realize that porn is wrong because it marginalizes and others women, and that it amounts to rape since real sex isn't bought it's something done between people that have something between each other, even if it's only for the 15 minutes before, and during sex, and that it's wrong to rape someone because they're people. Not because of laws, but because women and female-bodied people are people just like them.

A lot of radical feminism is based on men being smart, compassionate people, not mindless machines that must get laid at random intervals or they'll rape someone. Radical feminist also don't believe that men have to have porn because they're visual creatures who can only get off when someone else is being hurt, because they're that sluggish and brutish. Another thing that radical feminist believe is that men are very capable creatures that can love their community enough to help take care of everyone there, including their own children, along side women instead of needing a woman to take care of these things.

The people who call radical feminist man-haters though tend to believe that men can't see women as equal because they're not smart enough to see past the differences in genitals, and that they need porn because they don't have enough emotions to be aroused and get off with an actual sexual partner. These people also believe that women are the only ones who can properly take care of hearth and home, because men can't work out the mechanics of the almighty broom and diaper. They refuse to see that men have just been conditioned to hate women in our society and force their views of themselves as men to be based on what isn't feminine.

Radical feminists want to eradicate the gender binary so we can all be people, those who claim we're man haters want the gender binary so they can say men are violent and horrible people. Radical feminists believe that all people, non-humans and non-whites included, are equal and deserve to be able to live with each other without having to fear rape culture and each other, those who claim we're man-haters want to "other" everyone from men because they don't think men are capable of compassion or personhood.

So really now, who are the real man haters here?

Burn!!!

Just a random thought here, but why does everyone misunderstand Andra Dworkin and say she thinks all sex is rape? She doesn't think all sex is rape, only 98% of it which is proven true every day by men and the society we live in.

Yeah I went there. Watcha' gonna do, prove me right?

Life and revolution

You know I love books, I really love to read and randomly recite poetry out of books I'm reading while sitting atop the little wall encasing the "pit" at the student activities building. I love sharing ideas through writing, and seeing how we can take pretty little drawings and make them in to things that when stringed together have a meaning.

Books however cannot make a revolution, nor can they rally people together. Books cannot replace love and contact with living beings. Books cannot give us a life full of experiences and replace camaraderie. We need to live life to get these things and see our world around us. You can read a book to give a name to your thoughts, but you can't care about the environment just because you read a book on it, you have to see how polluted a city is and how the people are miserable being packed together so tightly and in such high numbers. The book can't be what gave you the idea and the passion you have or else it's just someone else's thoughts and ideas, and there's nothing educational or passionate about that. What is educational is getting out there with people and other living beings and making real experiences.

A community garden can be what sets a community up to start their own rebellion against the police. Filling a warehouse with dancing people may be the thing to change a mass of receptive people in to vegans. A couple of friends getting covered in pastels and paint making fliers that they put up when no one is looking could bring a community together that didn't exist beforehand. Talking to someone you don't know could give you experiences you can never find in a blog, or article, or book. So before asking for book recommendations talk to the person you're asking, go out and do something that opens your mind to newer possibilities, enjoy yourself and live for a while in a different way, and than come back for the books. Otherwise it's all just boring politics that you would be better off going to college and listening to old white men for.

slight hiatus

The Rabid (vegan) Raccoon has been on a small unplanned hiatus as of late. This fuzzy, overworked raccoon wannabe is sorry for that. With everything from me attending pro-capitalist feminist meetings, the tragedy and resulting justified riots over Alexandros Grigoropoulos, and the horrendous incident in Gaza there's a lot to write about. There's also a lot to do in solidarity and in just plain old helpand correction of peoples ideas, thus the Rabid Vega Raccoon has been sitting on the back burner.

This little raccoon wannabe will try to get the blog up and running again within the next couple of days. Thanks for still reading (if I do get any readership anyhow).

But we've made so many advances...

Upon listening to Dead Prez and talking to friends about racial and feminist issues I realized that there's a lie spreading among the masses. The lie is that there has been wondrous amounts of "progress" for racial and womens rights. This makes my whisker twitch, and I shall say why in a handy little list, since I'm just that kind of raccoon.

The advancement of slavery abolition: Sorry to tell all the "open-minded" capitalist this, but slavery has just gone from the cotton fields with the whip to the laborious jobs with the dollar bill. The average non-Caucasian person will be paid less than that of their caucasian co-workers (Census release on poverty and race), though if the white man decides to give the "ethnic minority"-ignoring the fact that globally white people are the minority, we just have the big bombs - a break he may be paid somewhere close to a white womans wage (75 cents to every dollar a man makes). Than of course there's the fact that the greater majority of Hispanic and black men will spend almost 1/3 of their life in jail, and of course the greater majority of people in prison are non-white.

Womens wage: While we're on the topic of wage slavery I would really like to know how the hell it's a great leap in "progress" for a women to get paid 75 cents to every dollar a man makes. Also how are we "freeing" anyone by forcing them in to the capitalist slavery system.

Voting: Than of course we have voting. Everyone uses this as an achievement, since of course picking your own master is the best way to give someone freedom. There's also the fact that everyone is completely ignoring the fact that this is a privilege given to the minority's by the false majority out of pity and because they were bored and needed a new game to play. Sorry but if these things were really the "rights" people claim them to be than they wouldn't be pity gifts, they would be revolution that destroyed the system that stopped people from accessing their rights. Oh sorry is my anarchy showing?

Obama and Hillary: While we're being honest here, let's just admit it; Hillary being the first female nominee does not mean that our society sees women as anywhere near equal to men, and that Obama being the first black president does not mean our society has made any movement towards eradicating racism. All this simply means is that the white man has decided to placate the masses by letting them think they have a chance of being equal. It's worked pretty well since everyone has recently forgotten the statistics; woman are the most likely victims of sexual crimes -and black women are more likely to be victims than white women-, a black man is more likely to go to prison multiple times than a white man is to even see family in prison, women and racial minorities get paid less than white men, that you can get pulled over for "walking while black" but not for being white, that the police won't question if you say a "black/hispanic man did it" but to say a white man did it is worth investigation, and that society as a whole is so racist that no one gets out without a little bit of racism, sexism and homphobia.

If you ignore all of this than we've made a lot of advances...or maybe not.

But it's so hard!

There are very few things that get my whiskers in a knot like people who use the titles phrase. Most people use this when they know the right thing to do, and want to appear like they care, but don't actually want to do anything about it. These are the same people who will say they're against slavery, but will go to the local Starbucks and will ask for a vinte mocha-go-fuck-yourself drink and than complain about how other people are selfish and should buy fair trade coffee. I don't like these types of people if you can't tell.

Most of these people also whine about how hard veganism is. I just want to set the record straight and say no, no it's not. Veganism is easier than learning how to tie your shoes. Here's how you do it, first check out some non-Peta (or PETA affileated) sites on veganism. Some good sites are actually on my blog roll. The next step is to go to Vegweb and check out some recipes you like. Than after that you throw away your non-vegan food and live a yummy, happy life, and also visit the Vegan freak forums.

That wasn't that hard now was it?

Fatal insomnia

I've had insomnia for years now, so maybe this is a little morbid of me, but I love reading about fatal familial insomnia. It's an awful way to die that takes 7 to 36 months and happens when the thalamus, which controls sleep, deteriorates. The person first starts to have increasing episodes of insomnia and starts to have panic attacks and bizarre phobias, all of this lasts for about four months and is the first out of four stages leading to death. The next stage lasts about five months and includes hallucinations, sweating, agitation and panic, this leads to the next stage which is total insomnia and includes dramatic weight loss, this last about three months and the affected person may experience incontinence. The last stage is dementia and muteness followed by sudden death. Other symptoms include inability to feel pain or produce tears and even coma which can actually be hastened by taking sleeping pills. It's been found in 28 families world wide and there's no cure, though gene therapy does hold some promise for future generations.

Like I said, it's an awful way to die and very much a morbid curiosity on my part, but it does make for some very interesting stories and ideas.