Mark Potok, Senior Fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, was recently interviewed on the David Pakman show. This was uploaded to YouTube, and I encourage you to watch it, here:
Potok’s agenda, during the interview, was to counterblast against threats to the feminist narrative and the feminist worldview. Almost everything Potok said was a regurgitation of old tropes about “angry men”, “woman-hating” and all the rest of it. Apart from that, Potok’s discourse was riddled with all manner of weasel language, misrepresentation, and false shading.
For starters, Mark Potok refuses to declare his political stance. In a discussion of this nature, you might reasonably think it is common courtesy to identify yourself as either feminist or non-feminist — so that we all know where we stand, right? It is just plain arrogant to pass over this point in silence, especially in politically-charged times like these, yet that is precisely what Potok does in the interview. Nowhere does he lay his cards on the table, and he clearly doesn’t give a fig for either protocol or common courtesy.
Nowhere does Potok say “for the record, I consider myself a feminist.” That statement is conspicuously lacking, for he inserts it neither at the beginning of the talk (as is proper), nor anywhere else in the talk. He is presumptuously mute upon this point, and the silence is telling. In his mind, feminism simply “is the world”, and nobody needs to say any more about it.
Well, since Mark Potok will not declare himself, I reckon it falls upon me to do this in his stead. So I say it now:
Mark Potok is a feminist.
Okay, we cleared that up. If I am wrong, I hope Mr. Potok will get back to me so I can issue a correction and an apology.
Potok knows his audience; he knows how to jerk their strings and make them dance. Certainly, he knows what will keep the donational shekels ringing in the SPLC coffers, and the hysterical, demagogic drumbeat of “hatred toward women” was a recurrent theme throughout the interview. As “the Duke” said in Huckleberry Finn, “if that don’t fetch ’em, I don’t know Arkansas!”
Furthermore, Potok clearly meant to conflate “misogyny” with opposition to feminism — a standard feminist trick. This is where things get interesting. As we all know, anti-feminism is going mainstream in a big way. It threatens to bust out all across the cultural landscape and become ambient, in a manner that can no longer be ignored. I have referred to this elsewhere as the non-feminist breakout, and I have unpacked the feminist strategy in regard to that breakout.
The strategy is simple: containment.
To hear this SPLC feminist talk, you’d think that 75% of the world consists of angry male woman-haters, rape apologists, and other nasty critters of that ilk. Well that is a poisonous imputation to make about three-quarters of the human race. Does Mark Potok seriously believe that everybody who speaks a sharp word about feminism, or quietly disaffiliates from it, is a borderline criminal who must be “watched”? I mean, is Potok just pulling our leg? Is he just “trolling”?
And what’s with that meaningless, outdated word “manosphere”, anyhow? Talk about containing the non-feminist breakout! I, the present writer, certainly do not operate under any such construct. In reality, there is no such thing as “the manosphere”, so I am bound to wonder if Mark is deceiving his listeners on purpose by planting a bogeyman image in their brains? Or is he just too intellectually lazy and arrogant to do his homework? You would think that as a journalist of sorts he would have higher standards than that, but what do I know?
At any rate, Potok, with a posse of SPLC lawyers at his disposal, undoubtedly knows that he doesn’t risk any legal action for defamation of character. After all, he hasn’t targeted any clearly defined individual. He has followed the safe-but-cowardly weasel path of making unsupported allegations against unnamed people. He knows full well that whoever “fits the profile” will be indirectly tarred, slandered and compromised. He also believes that nobody will ever call him to account for such behavior. However, he is wrong. I’m calling him to account right now. I’m calling him a scumbag for his behavior, but mind you that’s only my opinion. Others are free to make up their own minds.
And if the feminist Mark Potok wants to look me, Fidelbogen, in my non-feminist eye and call me a rape apologist or woman-hater, he is welcome to do so. But I frankly doubt that he’s got the yarbles for it.
I’ll say it again: Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center is a feminist and he is manning the bucket brigade for the feminist narrative (which is now coming under fire). He is using the classic tricknology that feminists have always used: lying, conflating, spinning, smearing, narrative-building, and character assassination. His rhetorical sop that “men do have serious issues” isn’t fooling anybody. Nor does his avuncular “old hippie” personna fool anybody. We non-feminist men and women aren’t as stupid as he apparently believes, and we can see through his act like we can see through a sparkling pane of glass into a dirty house.
Mark, the funny law of the world is this: that when people finally dish back at you what you have dished out to them in the first place, you will have no moral ground from which to whine about it. After all, the aggressor sets the terms of engagement. Realistically then, all you can do is quietly suck it up, or else come clean and “face the music.”
So please come clean, admit to the world that you are a feminist, and stop spreading false narratives in order to foment moral hysteria and raise money for the SPLC.
Non-feminist men and women will not exactly “thank” you for this, but I’m pretty sure they will get off your case.
