Over the past month and a half Joe Mendez, Murray Pearson, and myself
have been publicly vilified and cast as criminals by AVFM’s Dean Esmay,
Paul Elam, and some of their more ardent followers. They have put forth
many accusations based on zero evidence and have instructed
their minions to file false criminal reports against me in particular in
an attempt to manipulate us into handing over control of the money we
raised for the Earl Silverman Center earlier in the year.
I personally know how AVFM works, and Paul Elam has publicly said he has no interest in helping anyone he cannot exploit. When I was part of AVFM it was all well and good for them to support my project for the creation of the Earl Silverman Center (ESC) because they could claim partial credit for all the hard work that Joe, Murray and myself were doing for male victims of domestic violence. But once I completely separated from AVFM and publicly came out to say I no longer wanted anything to do with the MRM because of people like those involved at AVFM, they decided I was no longer of any value to them, or men in general, nor was the ESC, which is why they have done what they have done which is nothing short of a literal witch hunt.
Their lies and false accusations worked on some of you. The ESC is now in a position where it may not be able to move forward because of what they have done. They have systematically tried to destroy the very idea of the ESC by casting me, and the others involved in the ESC, as criminals. There is little chance the ESC can move forward now and we have been pushed into a position where we now have to decide in which direction to proceed so that men can still benefit from what is left of our efforts to do something good for the men in our community. We have decided that one feasible solution would be to take the money we raised for the ESC and donate it to Maison Oxygene in Earl Silverman’s memory. We are still not fully decided if this is what we will do, but moving forward with the ESC at this point is most likely no longer a possibility thanks to AVFM.
AVFM has asked for ‘accountability’ of the funds we raised on several occasions, and wrote two articles casting us as criminals in an attempt to force us to reveal information to them about our finances for the ESC. We refused to play their game because we know that AVFM has less than admirable reasons for wanting this information. They have a history of screwing people over for their own personal gain, and we do not trust them in any way. This is why no information was ever given to them. They are not, nor ever were, part of the ESC and therefore they have no right to any of that information. Their sense of entitlement goes far beyond anything reasonable, and just as governments refuse to deal with terrorists and hostage takers, we refused to provide them with anything because they simply do not have the right to anything above and beyond what the law requires us to divulge. However, we did agree to mediation, but AVFM has refused to discuss anything – because claiming we refused to a mediated discussion is something their loyal supporters would believe – since evidence is not an issue for these true believers. Moreover, we offered to discuss the issue with them, but that offer was ignored.
It’s time people stood up to these self-appointed ‘leaders’ of the MRM and said ‘no’ to them when they demand information they have no legal right to. It’s time you, as MRA’s, demand to know why you were led to believe something sinister was afoot, without any evidence. It’s time MRA’s of good conscience to demand accountability from people who level false accusations and besmirch the reputation of those of you who deal in good faith and of those who are willing to actually put themselves out there in order to help men in real life.
The simple fact is that AVFM never wanted the ESC to succeed. They do not want people outside AVFM to help men and the proof is obvious when you look at Earl Silverman and how AVFM did nothing to help him when he worked tirelessly for years. If they can raise 6k in 3 days after the man died, how much were they able to raise while he was alive? Hint: it’s a round number, less than 1. The reason, they claim? Earl did not know how to use Skype and Paul said that he will only use SKYPE to contact people. The fault for Earl’s failure lies with Earl according to Paul, and once again not with AVFM – par for the course in their refusal to accept any responsibility.
Earl was in dire need of financial support, and AVFM never ran a donation drive for him. They never supported Earl except in paltry words sprinkled here and there. It was only when he killed himself that AVFM sat up and began talking about him and casting blame on all kinds of people and the government, but never did they blame themselves for not stepping up to the plate and helping him – that is, until one of Earl’s personal friends pwned them and the MRM on their own podcast. As far as AVFM is concerned, they were never part of the reason Earl became as hopeless as he did. It was everyone else’s fault as far as AVFM was concerned – does that sound familiar?
The truth is, if someone is trying to help men without being somehow connected to AVFM, so that they can claim some of the glory, then they want nothing to do with you. That is the sad truth. They have no interest in helping men in any real way. If they did they would stop complaining about the lack of men’s shelters and do something about it. They would be raising money in order to build their own shelters if they truly cared. AVFM is big enough to actually accomplish some real world change for men, yet they refuse to do so. Why is that? Why is it that AVFM can easily raise over 100K a year and yet nothing has ever been built or put in place for men in the real world? It’s simple. Paul Elam does not want to help men. His only concerns are his own publicity, pockets and profit. He has zero compassion for men, or anyone in general, and his actions and words clearly demonstrate that fact – to anyone looking at the evidence that is.
When a movement claims to be about human rights, as AVFM has by putting the ‘H’ in the MHRM, they are saying they are concerned with all men regardless of gender, age, color, sexual orientation, etc… furthermore, a human rights movement cannot exist if that movement is against the rights of certain groups of people or individuals, as AVFM clearly is.
The most recent disregard for someone’s rights has been with the doxxing of the Femetheist and AVfM’s rationale that she poses a “real life threat” to men by having advocated for a reduction in the male population to 10% globally, even though she has never harmed a single person in real life and is only guilty of being young and a bit stupid and making outrageous blog posts and videos. If such concern were legitimate, the solution would hardly be to doxx her, would it?
While I do not approve of the Femetheist’s views, and think that she is probably in need of some serious therapy, this does not mean that I approve of the vigilante ‘justice’ that AVfM promotes by sharing some of her personal information on their site, regardless of how ‘easy’ it was for them to find it.
The fact that it is all now in one place which is easily accessible is the problem. This now makes it possible for her to be found in real life by some crazy person, or people, who wish to do her serious harm. And she also has a child which AVFM has callously disregarded as a reason not to do what they did. Not only have they put the Femetheist in danger, but they have also put her child in danger.
Is it illegal to doxx someone? The jury is out on that subject as far as the law is currently concerned, but whether it is illegal or not is not the question. The question is, is it morally or ethically right to take it upon oneself to expose someone they ‘feel‘ is a threat to others? Is it right to disregard the safety of others around that person and possibly expose them to real harm just because one feels that person should be accountable for something? Should it not be up to the authorities to decide if that person poses any real threat to the public, or if they have committed any crime? Should the correct course of action not be to call the proper authorities and let them handle it instead of promoting vigilante justice where people can get hurt? This is, after all, the claim that Dean Esmay has made regarding the public lynching of myself, Joe Mendez, and Murray Pearson – he felt a responsibility to AVFMs readers and donors and that we were criminals based on zero evidence:
If there is a serious risk to the public the correct action is to call the authorities. Anyone with half a brain cell could tell you that is what responsible people do. They do not go onto their blog and give out any personal information on that person, hand their readers pitchforks and torches, and then expect any real justice to be served. The only thing that will come out of that course of action is the very real risk that someone will get hurt, or worse.
Could it be that AVFM never reported the Femetheist to the authorities because they know the authorities would not see her as any sort of risk to the public? Of course they did, and that is why they doxxed her so that their form of ‘justice’ can be exacted since the real world would never take their concerns seriously – because the cornerstone of western jurisprudence is that a person is innocent until proven guilty – in a court of law – not on the internets.
AVFM has appointed itself judge, jury, and executioner. They feel they are above, and even better than the law and that is a very dangerous mindset/position for anyone to have. Think this is just us? Ask Danny Boy (DannyboyCdnMRA) how he feels about AVFM:
Dean Esmay did the same thing to me, in regards to doxxing, in his article on AVFM where he calls for his readers to criminalize me, even though there never was any evidence to support his false claims (which he later admitted to).
He put personal information out there for people to easily locate me – the name of the small town in which I live was put out there for all to see, which I had been very careful to never reveal on-line. His claim is that I did put that information out there, but putting the name of the nearest city to me is not the same thing in any way as naming the small suburban town I live in. The town in which I live is not in or close to Montreal, and he knew that, yet did not care that by naming the town I live in, he has now put me and my family, at real risk of harm. How did he know that my home town is not in or near Montreal? Ask him about the Christmas present he sent to our home via parcel post last year.
Since Dean Esmay’s article I have had 3 real threats to myself and my family. Two of those threats came from men in Montreal. I have reported all of them to the proper authorities and now have to live with the very real concern that someone could harm me or my children at any time.
I have had to stop running the Men’s Rights Montreal Meetup Group I had started in the beginning of this year because it is no longer safe for me to do so. I have also had to locate a new place for us to live and a new school for my children. They will lose their friends, their proximity to their father and their grandmother. These are the real victims of Dean Esmay’s and AVFM’s irresponsible actions, and do they care? No. To them anyone caught in the crossfire is a justified casualty if they can exact revenge on the one they ‘feel‘ should be punished.Vigilante justice at its finest and a complete disregard for anyone’s safety. Is this how a supposed human rights movement acts?
The deplorable actions taken by AVFM should be a wake-up call to the rest of the MRM worldwide. The fact that AVFM is the self-proclaimed ‘head’ of the MRM, and that they are using tactics similar to the feminists they purport to fight against is not only hypocritical, but quite telling on where AVFM’s ethical and moral standards are. It is also quite obvious that AVFM will not hesitate to stoop to any level for their own sick amusement and financial benefit, and lest we forget, they claim to represent the whole of the MRM. Is this the face that the MRM wants to promote to the world?
The MRM needs to clean up its own backyard if it wants to do any real good for men and men’s rights. There are good, decent people in the MRM who do great work and who are genuinely interested in helping men. But when the so-called ‘head’ of the MRM is as dangerous and detrimental to the movement as a whole as Paul Elam, Dean Esmay, and the rest of AVFM is, then people need to stand up and start condemning them publicly. The only way for there to be any real change for men is to get rid of the garbage within its own ranks. AVFM is not helping the MRM in any way. It is only an anchor that will drag everyone down with it if they are allowed to do so while they happily pay John Hembling and Paul Elam a full salary from AVFM donors to do it.
So where will the MRM go from here? Only those within the MRM will be able to decide whether it is genuinely concerned with men’s rights or if it is only concerned with being a mirror image of the radical feminists that it purports to fight against.
It’s time men stood up for themselves and demanded better, especially within their own ranks. The only ones harming men now are men themselves. Are you ready for a change, or will you continue to sit by and allow AVFM and their like to maul you just a little bit more? The choice is yours.
Source: Menticulture
I personally know how AVFM works, and Paul Elam has publicly said he has no interest in helping anyone he cannot exploit. When I was part of AVFM it was all well and good for them to support my project for the creation of the Earl Silverman Center (ESC) because they could claim partial credit for all the hard work that Joe, Murray and myself were doing for male victims of domestic violence. But once I completely separated from AVFM and publicly came out to say I no longer wanted anything to do with the MRM because of people like those involved at AVFM, they decided I was no longer of any value to them, or men in general, nor was the ESC, which is why they have done what they have done which is nothing short of a literal witch hunt.
Their lies and false accusations worked on some of you. The ESC is now in a position where it may not be able to move forward because of what they have done. They have systematically tried to destroy the very idea of the ESC by casting me, and the others involved in the ESC, as criminals. There is little chance the ESC can move forward now and we have been pushed into a position where we now have to decide in which direction to proceed so that men can still benefit from what is left of our efforts to do something good for the men in our community. We have decided that one feasible solution would be to take the money we raised for the ESC and donate it to Maison Oxygene in Earl Silverman’s memory. We are still not fully decided if this is what we will do, but moving forward with the ESC at this point is most likely no longer a possibility thanks to AVFM.
AVFM has asked for ‘accountability’ of the funds we raised on several occasions, and wrote two articles casting us as criminals in an attempt to force us to reveal information to them about our finances for the ESC. We refused to play their game because we know that AVFM has less than admirable reasons for wanting this information. They have a history of screwing people over for their own personal gain, and we do not trust them in any way. This is why no information was ever given to them. They are not, nor ever were, part of the ESC and therefore they have no right to any of that information. Their sense of entitlement goes far beyond anything reasonable, and just as governments refuse to deal with terrorists and hostage takers, we refused to provide them with anything because they simply do not have the right to anything above and beyond what the law requires us to divulge. However, we did agree to mediation, but AVFM has refused to discuss anything – because claiming we refused to a mediated discussion is something their loyal supporters would believe – since evidence is not an issue for these true believers. Moreover, we offered to discuss the issue with them, but that offer was ignored.
It’s time people stood up to these self-appointed ‘leaders’ of the MRM and said ‘no’ to them when they demand information they have no legal right to. It’s time you, as MRA’s, demand to know why you were led to believe something sinister was afoot, without any evidence. It’s time MRA’s of good conscience to demand accountability from people who level false accusations and besmirch the reputation of those of you who deal in good faith and of those who are willing to actually put themselves out there in order to help men in real life.
The simple fact is that AVFM never wanted the ESC to succeed. They do not want people outside AVFM to help men and the proof is obvious when you look at Earl Silverman and how AVFM did nothing to help him when he worked tirelessly for years. If they can raise 6k in 3 days after the man died, how much were they able to raise while he was alive? Hint: it’s a round number, less than 1. The reason, they claim? Earl did not know how to use Skype and Paul said that he will only use SKYPE to contact people. The fault for Earl’s failure lies with Earl according to Paul, and once again not with AVFM – par for the course in their refusal to accept any responsibility.
Earl was in dire need of financial support, and AVFM never ran a donation drive for him. They never supported Earl except in paltry words sprinkled here and there. It was only when he killed himself that AVFM sat up and began talking about him and casting blame on all kinds of people and the government, but never did they blame themselves for not stepping up to the plate and helping him – that is, until one of Earl’s personal friends pwned them and the MRM on their own podcast. As far as AVFM is concerned, they were never part of the reason Earl became as hopeless as he did. It was everyone else’s fault as far as AVFM was concerned – does that sound familiar?
The truth is, if someone is trying to help men without being somehow connected to AVFM, so that they can claim some of the glory, then they want nothing to do with you. That is the sad truth. They have no interest in helping men in any real way. If they did they would stop complaining about the lack of men’s shelters and do something about it. They would be raising money in order to build their own shelters if they truly cared. AVFM is big enough to actually accomplish some real world change for men, yet they refuse to do so. Why is that? Why is it that AVFM can easily raise over 100K a year and yet nothing has ever been built or put in place for men in the real world? It’s simple. Paul Elam does not want to help men. His only concerns are his own publicity, pockets and profit. He has zero compassion for men, or anyone in general, and his actions and words clearly demonstrate that fact – to anyone looking at the evidence that is.
When a movement claims to be about human rights, as AVFM has by putting the ‘H’ in the MHRM, they are saying they are concerned with all men regardless of gender, age, color, sexual orientation, etc… furthermore, a human rights movement cannot exist if that movement is against the rights of certain groups of people or individuals, as AVFM clearly is.
The most recent disregard for someone’s rights has been with the doxxing of the Femetheist and AVfM’s rationale that she poses a “real life threat” to men by having advocated for a reduction in the male population to 10% globally, even though she has never harmed a single person in real life and is only guilty of being young and a bit stupid and making outrageous blog posts and videos. If such concern were legitimate, the solution would hardly be to doxx her, would it?
While I do not approve of the Femetheist’s views, and think that she is probably in need of some serious therapy, this does not mean that I approve of the vigilante ‘justice’ that AVfM promotes by sharing some of her personal information on their site, regardless of how ‘easy’ it was for them to find it.
The fact that it is all now in one place which is easily accessible is the problem. This now makes it possible for her to be found in real life by some crazy person, or people, who wish to do her serious harm. And she also has a child which AVFM has callously disregarded as a reason not to do what they did. Not only have they put the Femetheist in danger, but they have also put her child in danger.
Is it illegal to doxx someone? The jury is out on that subject as far as the law is currently concerned, but whether it is illegal or not is not the question. The question is, is it morally or ethically right to take it upon oneself to expose someone they ‘feel‘ is a threat to others? Is it right to disregard the safety of others around that person and possibly expose them to real harm just because one feels that person should be accountable for something? Should it not be up to the authorities to decide if that person poses any real threat to the public, or if they have committed any crime? Should the correct course of action not be to call the proper authorities and let them handle it instead of promoting vigilante justice where people can get hurt? This is, after all, the claim that Dean Esmay has made regarding the public lynching of myself, Joe Mendez, and Murray Pearson – he felt a responsibility to AVFMs readers and donors and that we were criminals based on zero evidence:
If there is a serious risk to the public the correct action is to call the authorities. Anyone with half a brain cell could tell you that is what responsible people do. They do not go onto their blog and give out any personal information on that person, hand their readers pitchforks and torches, and then expect any real justice to be served. The only thing that will come out of that course of action is the very real risk that someone will get hurt, or worse.
Could it be that AVFM never reported the Femetheist to the authorities because they know the authorities would not see her as any sort of risk to the public? Of course they did, and that is why they doxxed her so that their form of ‘justice’ can be exacted since the real world would never take their concerns seriously – because the cornerstone of western jurisprudence is that a person is innocent until proven guilty – in a court of law – not on the internets.
AVFM has appointed itself judge, jury, and executioner. They feel they are above, and even better than the law and that is a very dangerous mindset/position for anyone to have. Think this is just us? Ask Danny Boy (DannyboyCdnMRA) how he feels about AVFM:
Dean Esmay did the same thing to me, in regards to doxxing, in his article on AVFM where he calls for his readers to criminalize me, even though there never was any evidence to support his false claims (which he later admitted to).
He put personal information out there for people to easily locate me – the name of the small town in which I live was put out there for all to see, which I had been very careful to never reveal on-line. His claim is that I did put that information out there, but putting the name of the nearest city to me is not the same thing in any way as naming the small suburban town I live in. The town in which I live is not in or close to Montreal, and he knew that, yet did not care that by naming the town I live in, he has now put me and my family, at real risk of harm. How did he know that my home town is not in or near Montreal? Ask him about the Christmas present he sent to our home via parcel post last year.
Since Dean Esmay’s article I have had 3 real threats to myself and my family. Two of those threats came from men in Montreal. I have reported all of them to the proper authorities and now have to live with the very real concern that someone could harm me or my children at any time.
I have had to stop running the Men’s Rights Montreal Meetup Group I had started in the beginning of this year because it is no longer safe for me to do so. I have also had to locate a new place for us to live and a new school for my children. They will lose their friends, their proximity to their father and their grandmother. These are the real victims of Dean Esmay’s and AVFM’s irresponsible actions, and do they care? No. To them anyone caught in the crossfire is a justified casualty if they can exact revenge on the one they ‘feel‘ should be punished.Vigilante justice at its finest and a complete disregard for anyone’s safety. Is this how a supposed human rights movement acts?
The deplorable actions taken by AVFM should be a wake-up call to the rest of the MRM worldwide. The fact that AVFM is the self-proclaimed ‘head’ of the MRM, and that they are using tactics similar to the feminists they purport to fight against is not only hypocritical, but quite telling on where AVFM’s ethical and moral standards are. It is also quite obvious that AVFM will not hesitate to stoop to any level for their own sick amusement and financial benefit, and lest we forget, they claim to represent the whole of the MRM. Is this the face that the MRM wants to promote to the world?
The MRM needs to clean up its own backyard if it wants to do any real good for men and men’s rights. There are good, decent people in the MRM who do great work and who are genuinely interested in helping men. But when the so-called ‘head’ of the MRM is as dangerous and detrimental to the movement as a whole as Paul Elam, Dean Esmay, and the rest of AVFM is, then people need to stand up and start condemning them publicly. The only way for there to be any real change for men is to get rid of the garbage within its own ranks. AVFM is not helping the MRM in any way. It is only an anchor that will drag everyone down with it if they are allowed to do so while they happily pay John Hembling and Paul Elam a full salary from AVFM donors to do it.
So where will the MRM go from here? Only those within the MRM will be able to decide whether it is genuinely concerned with men’s rights or if it is only concerned with being a mirror image of the radical feminists that it purports to fight against.
It’s time men stood up for themselves and demanded better, especially within their own ranks. The only ones harming men now are men themselves. Are you ready for a change, or will you continue to sit by and allow AVFM and their like to maul you just a little bit more? The choice is yours.
Source: Menticulture
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