What Can YOU Do To Make Change Happen?
When we think about the men's movement many of us wonder, quite rightly, what the men's movement can do for us. Typically, we get badly hurt by the anti male system currently in place and we quickly find that there is no real help out there when we look for justice. Eventually, we search the Internet looking for help and support. We get excited to see that there are hundreds of groups out there in cyber space, filled with good men and women who reallydo want to help us. We begin writing e-mail's looking for advice and support. The advice we get is often of a very high quality and the support can be wonderful. However, It soon becomes apparent that these groups lack real political teeth. Many of them are trying very, very hard to change laws in their various countries and have been for many years. People are working hugely long hours studying documents, writing letters and e-mail's to their political representatives and running up huge phone bills trying to talk to officials who, frankly, do not want to listen. Others organise demonstrations, often alone, but sometimes in huge numbers. The media is largely deaf. TV stations are all terrified to rock the politically correct boat. It seems that no one with the power to change things wants to change things.
Some of the people running these groups become exhausted and either run out of money or emotional energy. Others plod gamely on, year after year for decades, without any real breakthrough. A little victory here and there but nothing that can honestly be said to turn back the tide of prejudice and bigotry males everywhere in the western world are facing. A bigotry and prejudice that underpins every thing, from family law and domestic abuse legislation, to school room propaganda and denial of services or justice for men in our divorce and other courts.
As these things dawn on those of us who need help and some hope for the future of our children, we become disconsolate and depressed. The future looks very bleak and we often just give up and walk away. I wonder how many of us have thought, as I have, “There must be another way!” I believe there is a another way, but it will take a lot of good men to work together to make it happen.
Within the men's movement there are many types of men. If you try to categorise them all you find it’s nearly impossible. However, it is possible to break them down into two broad churches. There are, it seems to me, big men, with big hearts and little men with big mouths. The latter shout the loudest but get the least done. The former take giant steps to change things.
If you accept my crude analysis, then it quickly becomes clear what kind of man we need to take the men's movement forwards into the next decade. It occurred to me, that if we were to collect mature, clever and wise men together into one organisation and put these men in charge of it, maybe it would be possible to create something that has real political, practical and educational teeth.
Of course, it is not as simple as getting a whole bunch of very smart men to work together. If it were, it would have been done by now. These men need a structured plan to work with. Clear aims and goals to head for. Practical solutions to difficult problems have to be found. Whatever is created has to be attractive enough to pull in all those other groups currently working alone, or in loose alliances. It would have to operate with a system of discipline to keep the whole thing in order. It would need a lot of funding and equipment. It would have to be capable of working in many countries and different cultures around the world. It would have to have a good clean public image and maintain the highest standards of financial, moral and social paradigms, without becoming a wussy organisation of compromise and political betrayal. It would need fine men with fine minds and a ruthless determination to succeed, who also have the capacity to be humble enough to allow others to lead the way if they find they do not have the skills to be leaders themselves. It would mean finding, trapping and removing radical feminist sympathisers who will almost certain try to worm their way in.
It seems a mammoth task and it is. But then, so was building America. So was building vessels capable of taking passengers in safety across the high seas. So was inventing, testing, refining and building aircraft that fly the worlds airways. So was getting to the moon and beyond. Men did all those things and men can do this too. If, they put their minds to it. What it takes, is men with big hearts and the courage to make it happen. Real men, with a total commitment to seeing a better world for our sons and daughters and families to live in.
Are there enough such men out there? I have no idea. Would they be prepared to sacrifice and work hard to create such a movement? I have no idea. Would they be willing to risk their time, money and energy on something that may fail? I have no idea. The only way to find out is to ask them.
Whatever happens next, I for one, will never regret having asked these questions of men and women. They are questions that needed to be asked and ideas that needed to be expressed. If there are enough real men and women left out there who still want to fight for their families, then they will come forwards. If not, then there is no hope for the family and we might as well get used to the idea that the future for our society, under the rule of men hating radical feminists, is a bleak and cold one. A future that will be filled forever with gender hatred and suspicion and based upon a foundation of wicked and disgusting lies.
Someone has to take a stand in a way that has a chance of actually working. After all, we are not fighting against all women. We are fighting against a political idea that is destroying families and is carried forwards by radical feminism. We are fighting for those woman who love their kids and don’t want to see them filled with gender based hate or shame. We are fighting for those thousands of men who have died or been wounded in this battle already. Above all, we are fighting for our children and their right to live in a secure, just and stable society. A society in which the love filled, two parent family is once again central to their hopes and dreams.
In the next few days I will be publishing a discussion document that outlines my ideas for this new organisation. It contains the basis of a structure and is little more than a skeleton that needs flesh, sinew, muscle and brains to make it come to life. That will be the job of those who read it and want to change the system for helping men and families that we have now. After people with greater minds than mine have looked it over, changed it here and there and shaped it into something that can be done, I have little doubt that the final plan will look nothing like the original. That does not worry me one little bit. Once it has been knocked into shape, then it’s up to all of us to build it. If the will to make it happen is out there and the plan is acceptable, it need not take too much time, but it does mean a lot of work.
I began this article with these words, “When we think about the men's movement many of us wonder, quite rightly, what the men's movement can do for us.” I want to finish it by paraphrasing the words used by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 on the occasion of his inaugural address:
Ask not what the men’s movement can do for you;
ask what YOU can do for the men’s movement.
George Rolph
London 2005
8 Comments:
For the men's movement to work we must be hard -headed ,tough minded and factual realists. We must be able to see all the difficulties, we must have definite goals and we need to never take no for an answer . We need optism -which is positive thinking lighted up - and we all must be possibilitarians who can see posibilities rather than impossibilities. And if we don't win our noble objective - then maybe - we win something even more precious i.e. our own manhood and our own soul.
I am in this for the long haul and I know how hard this miserable war is going to be to win -however we have no chioce as enough is enough .We must attack the hateful bias systems that are destroying men & children worldwide!! Kids need Dads too.
In solidarity -dad4justice
I am just one man just as any other but for those of you that doubt what one man can do, one idea can change the world and many men have done much good as individuals, imagine what many man working together can do.
Here is just one example;
In 1927, at the age of 32, R Buckminster Fuller stood on the shores of Lake Michigan, prepared to throw himself into the freezing waters. His first child had died. He was bankrupt, discredited and jobless, and he had a wife and new-born daughter. On the verge of suicide, it suddenly struck him that his life belonged, not to himself, but to the universe. He chose at that moment to embark on what he called “an experiment to discover what the little, penniless, unknown individual might be able to do effectively on behalf of all humanity.” Over the next fifty-four years, he proved, time and again, that his most controversial ideas were practical and workable.
the men are there but how to unite them?
People unite through common interest, purpose, ideas and good leadership. The common interest is there, all that is needed is simple ideas to create the common purpose and leaders.
I believe that is what George is initiating/acting as a catalyst for.
This is a good and actionable idea. What we need now is the action part. Office space somewhere in a major, western city that is accessable to Americans (all the Americas) and Europeans. Once the office is in, and the organisation is chartered, things could start happening.
By jumping in with both feet right away, there is a risk of failure, but Theodore Rooseveldt said it best.
"It is not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, if he wins, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."
There is no success worth being called a success, without the element of risk. In this endeavor there are big risks along every front, but the stakes are equally big.
If the mens movement can manage to group together under one umbrella orgaziation and hang together, the potential to finally make some sort of measureable advances increase greatly (as the writer pointed out). But that organization must exist before any other organizations can join it.
Many times, in starting a big undertaking, the hardest part is taking the first steps. The decision must be made to just start already, even if we aren't fully prepared. Otherwise, I fear this idea will end like most ideas, unrealized because it wasn't really tried.
Let's do this thing. Office space and supplies, a couple of computers, internet service, toll-free telephone/fax numbers, and the first steps are taken. How hard could it be to scrape together a few hundred (thousand?) dollars, pounds, or euros? That's all it takes to get the ball rolling...
I understand but we all have most of that, we can work virtualy, however the travel and need for meeting is vital and will cost money.
Lets start with the 1st steps of I can do.....
Can I suggest the excellent (and free) Pal Talk program as a great place to kick start discussion and ideas? If you have not heard of this program please check it out. Paltalk.com
Well George,
Here is your chance to get the ball rolling. Set up a Paltalk time. Post it on this blog. Start getting lists of e-mails. Set up an agenda and do not waver from it. Have a question period at the <END of the discussion. Questions e-mailed to the moderator during the conference. Just a few suggestions. Alas. I am an indian. But. It starts now and it is time for someone to take the proverbial bull by the horns. Why not you?
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