Posts authored by The Pigman
Why David Bowie Mattered
As everyone knows by now, poor old David Jones has died a somewhat untimely death thanks to that bastard thing called cancer. As has become de rigeur on such occasions, everyone has taken to social media to bemoan the passing of someone whose work they probably haven’t given a shit about in years. Hell, I would be willing to bet a lot of the younger attention seekers didn’t even know who Bowie was until the news hit, or simply thought of him as “Some old guy that my dad likes.” As usual, everyone loves you once you are dead…
I am not about to eulogize Bowie. I am not going to go on about how remarkable it is that he managed to turn out so many good songs over so many decades, or how big an influence he was on today’s rather inferior crop of singer-“song-writers.” Like most people, I didn’t even pay any real attention to his last album release – but unlike so many of those people I am not about to pretend I bought it soon as it hit the stores. Hell, I just looked it up and “Blackstar,” the single, peaked at only 129 in the UK! Yet, now that the poor bastard has kicked the bucket, everyone is acting like he was Jesus in order to horn in on the nigh-pornographic thrill of yet another celebrity death. Like I said, everyone loves you once you are dead…
What I will do is go on about how Bowie mattered as a human male. To me, and I am far from alone in this, Bowie was an icon of two things – male creativity and male rebellion against gender roles. In a world in which most of the creative people are male, yet in which, paradoxically, being creative is seen as not such a male thing to do, Bowie was one of the few male figures known primarily for his creativity. Not his popularity, or his good looks, or his ability to take a lot of drugs and then die young, but primarily for being one incredibly creative bastard. The willfully eccentric music; the wild costumes; the makeup; the use of different personas at a time when such things could still be called creativity rather than mere cheap ploys for attention; even the unexpectedly skillful acting, especially notable in pieces like The Man Who Fell To Earth, all these things labeled David Bowie as “an artist” and a male one at that. This then, is the first reason why Bowie mattered – his full-on commitment to creativity made it more okay for a man to be “artsy” in a world where most people would still prefer that we played football instead.
Then there’s that gender rebellion thing. Eccentric even for an Englishman, Bowie gave the impression that he didn’t care in the slightest if you thought he was some poofy weirdo. He dressed different, acted different, and he was even – Shock! Horror! – a bit on the effeminate and delicate side! Other than what appears to have been a very brief flirtation with bisexuality, Bowie seems to have been basically heterosexual – all those wives and kids, you know – and this made his somewhat delicate ways much more subversive than those of gay stars. For gay males to be rather…er…gay means little – for a man with a wife and kids to be acting a bit “fruity” is a real kick in the teeth of those who would prefer men to stay in their place. That is true even today, but even more so in the old days when a teenage Bowie set up the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired Men because he was sick of people calling him “darling”! Nowadays, nobody gives a shit if a man has long hair, in part because men like Bowie have made it a bit more acceptable for men to express themselves and their individuality in a variety of ways. The gender cage is still there, but thanks to Bowie and others like him, it is a bit bigger than it used to be.
And that folks, is why I think Bowie mattered – not because of his great music, but because he made the lives of men and boys a bit better, a bit freer, a bit happier, in a society that really couldn’t care less about the happiness of men and boys. For that, we owe old Dave a nod of respect and the wish that, if the religious people are right and there is life after death, he ends up in the right place!
Why I Support Donald Trump
When writing that headline I almost wrote “Duck” instead of “Trump.” I guess it’s because they are both bad-tempered cartoon characters with barely intelligible speech! But you have to play the team you have, not the team you would like to have.
As I see it, whoever gets into the White House is going to be a plutocratic piece of scum. That is just as true of Mr. Duck as it is of everyone else. Clinton has made it clear that the 1% has nothing to fear from her, and we can take her word for it because, given that she and her husband have tens of millions of dollars in assets, she is one of the 1%. Trump and the other Republicans are also members of the plutocracy to varying degrees, so on this matter they are all bastards and bitches.
Here’s where the differences arise, though. While Hillary is clearly a neo-conservative Amerikan Imperialist who supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and would probably launch one or two more if she could have her way, Trump has for years been saying the war in Iraq was a big mistake. He only said it after it was well underway, of course, but that’s better than we have gotten out of Clinton. The other Republicans who stand a chance of getting the nomination are about as bad as Clinton. Jeb Bush is actually one of the signatories of the Project For The New American Century’s statement of principles! It’s no longer online, but it basically said, “Let’s take over the world! Yeeeharr!” Marco Rubio seems to be a full-on neo-conservative who would have signed the Statement of Principles if he had been of consequence at the time. Ted Cruz doesn’t seem too bad when it comes to Amerikan imperialism, but having been born in Beaver Land, he may or may not be eligible for the US presidency, and that uncertainty alone will probably stop him from getting the nomination. So, the way things look right now, that leaves the fight for the White House as a Clinton v Trump, Clinton v Rubio, or Clinton v Bush proposition. And that means, alas, that a certain hamster-haired idiot is the lesser of the available evils.
And sure, I would prefer someone with a proven left wing record like Bernie Sanders, but we all know the old guy has no chance of winning the Dem nomination. Why? Because he’s a guy! And the Dems are hell-bent on putting a woman in the Oval Office no matter how big a piece of shit she is. So Bernie stands no chance of doing anything except forcing Clinton to pretend to be a lefty during the primaries. Once she wins the nomination, it’ll be a swing to the center to get enough votes, then, once in the WH, she will show her true colors – just as Obama did. Elizabeth Warren might be able to beat Clinton, either as Batman or as Robin to Sanders’ Batman, but she has made it clear she wants no part of this particular comic book. Therefore, unless footage surfaces that shows Hillary was the second gunman on the grassy knoll, it will be Clinton who gets the nomination.
So, the choices for President seem to come down to a rabid, plutocratic, Neo-con Democrat piece of shit, a Neo-con Republican, another Neo-con Republican, or a retarded baboon with a dead hamster on his head – I’m going with the retarded baboon!
4 Ways To Become A Better Feminist in 2016
1 – Stop lying like a bitch. Stop going on about a campus rape epidemic that does not exist. Stop claiming only men commit domestic violence. Stop claiming the West is composed of patriarchies – it makes you look about as credible as that guy who’s always going on about the lizard people.
2 – Start supporting actual equality. Stop whining about STEM and start campaigning to bring the proportion of degrees going to women back down to 51% — as opposed to 60%. Stop whining about air conditioning and start focusing on all those men living in cardboard boxes over a heating grate. In short, stop trying to widen the many gaps that already run in your favor.
3 – Shut the fuck up. Really. Nobody needs a bunch of over-privileged bigots taking part in a debate about equality. It’s like asking David Duke to weigh in on Black Lives Matter. It’s like asking Westboro Baptist to turn up at a Gay Pride parade. It’s pointless, it’s useless, and can only lead to jerks trying to further their privilege by sabotaging the attempts of those actually trying to change things for the better.
4 – Kill yourself. If you can’t start behaving like a decent human being, or at least shut the fuck up, you should do the human race a favor and take yourself out. I suggest jumping under a moving train, or into a wood chipping machine. The latter would be better as your remains could then be used as mulch – which is more than you will have done for anyone while alive.
Why Do People Believe Stereotypes About Feminists?
Let’s start with what these stereotypes actually are.
Generally, it all comes down to these three…
Feminists are all a bunch of lesbians
Feminists are physically unattractive
Feminists hate men
Let’s tackle these stereotypes about feminists one at a time…
Feminists are all a bunch of lesbians
This one is clearly bullshit. Most feminists, alas, are all-too-straight. They spend waaaay too much time whining about not being able to get a man to not be straight. They also spend way too much time going on about how they don’t need a man, which is just a weird psychological flipping around of the fact that they do need a man! You see, actual lesbians don’t waste time going on about how little they need a man, they just go out and get themselves a woman! I suppose the reason so many people believe that feminism is some sort of lesbian plot is the same reason so many right wingers believe Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 and so many left wingers believe the Islamic Invasion is a good thing – most people are idiots, and idiots believe what their leaders tell them to.
Feminists are physically unattractive
This one is, for the most part, true. Which helps to explain why they can’t get a man that doesn’t need to be inflated. Sure, Naomi Wolf is pretty – a cow, but a pretty cow – and Steinem wasn’t too bad when she was young, but most feminists look like something out of a 1950s EC horror comic. Let’s face it, all you have to do is look at the profile pictures these people post on Facebook to realize that they are about as attractive as a moldering zombie or a tentacled alien from outer space. So the answer to our question when it comes to this one, is that people believe the stereotype because it is usually true.
Feminists hate men
People believe this particular stereotype for the same reason they believe shit is smelly and brown – they have seen, and smelled it, with their own senses and it makes them want to heave. For a couple of decades now, even people who don’t pay that much attention to gender politics have turned on their TVs to see cackling feminist hyenas blithering about how wonderful women are and how worthless men are. They have seen the joyous reactions to hate crimes like those committed by Lorena Bobbit and Catherine Kieu Becker. They have seen a torrent of newspaper and magazine articles celebrating the fact that boys are falling further and further behind girls in just about every way. They have seen feminists claim there is a rape epidemic going on when the evidence in their own lives tells them that rape is, thankfully, nowhere near as common as feminists would like it to be. They have seen feminists claim that virtually all victims of domestic violence are women, while also seeing men and children in their own lives victimized by…er… women. They have seen young men’s lives ruined by feminist witch-hunts fuelled by nothing more than a few malicious lies and rape hysteria, and then they have seen the false accusers let off the hook because feminists claim that prosecuting them somehow stops actual victims from coming forward!
And that’s just the people who aren’t paying much attention! The ones who really look into these matters find even more horrific evidence of feminism’s rabid man-hating. They see feminists calling for the abolition of women’s prisons in the UK! They see feminists setting up the White House Council on Women and Girls to improve female outcomes in education and health – areas in which females are already doing better than males! They see feminists opposing shared custody, making sure that rape continues to be defined as something a man does to a woman, having men fired for insulting them on social media, and even trying to jail them over mere disagreements!
So, overall, the answer to the question posed in the title is that people believe the stereotypes because at least two of them are true. Sure, feminists aren’t mostly lesbians – but they are hideous hags whose very existence seems to be all about shitting on men in every way they can.