U Not Gonna Like This

Again from the archives of the Backlash.com:

Work
by Rod Van Mechelen

Rivalry, not cooperation, is the spirit among most women in today's corporate world. They undermine one another and go as far as lying, character assassination, back stabbing, and sabotage.

-- Tara Roth Madden, Women Vs. Women

Factories turned women and men into cogs, and children into the grease and oil of the Industrial Revolution. The Feminine Mystique removed women from these factories and boarded them up in better homes and gardens. From there, the Women's Movement moved them into the offices of commerce where, in the name of liberation, they posted the Seal of Good Housekeeping and, thereby achieved little true liberation, but infected men with their own fifties feminine malaise:

One senior executive woman may decorate her office with a stuffed animal collection; another may enjoy including others in her afternoon ritual of "high tea" served on china. Consider the executive who keeps Alice-in-Wonderland curls and frills, the earth mother who brings her backpack and baby to work on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Soon the executive wing resembles a circus. -- Women Vs. Women, Tara Roth Madden, p 49

In the highly feminized work place, there is little masculine passion left. The gusto is gone, the inspiration swept into neat little piles and discarded like so much unwanted dust. In its place are cute little cubbyholes, some cluttered as a knitting room, others neat as a pin, all quiet and essentially the same. And feminine.

Most men are, by nature, passionate. Not with, as pop-feminists would have us believe, the simple passion of sex -- sex is only one small wave length in the spectrum of "powerful or compelling emotions or feelings" (Random House College Dictionary) that passionately involve men in life.

Men thrive on solving problems and finding new ways to do things. Visions of inventions, team work, exploration and accomplishment inspire boys and motivate men. But, in the muted surroundings of the feminized factories and boutique bureaucracies, women expect men to curb their passions, speak gently, walk softly, avert their eyes to avoid accusations of sexual harassment, and demur to every misandristic dismissal of masculinity.

Like the public school classrooms, such daintiness begs escape. Hence, men run to the fields, forests and stadiums where, with golf clubs and pigskins, or rifles and shotguns, they affirm their masculinity like rams butting heads in contests to prove themselves rams, still.

This is not progress, but discrimination against men. Progress means bringing women and men together in a spirit of harmony, and should the discordant cacophony of our present evolution result in anything less, our society will be no better off than we were 25 years before.

Feminists frequently note women's careers generally don't advance as quickly as men's. A fact some of the more realistic explain without blaming men: "If women generally disappear midmatch, who would seriously bet on them to emerge as corporate champs?" (Women Vs. Women, Tara Roth Madden, p 93) In response, many demand special treatment for women: "They need job protected maternity leave, child care, flextime, and specially tailored career ladders." (A Lesser, Life, Sylvia Ann Hewlett, p 78)

Should we put women back up on the pedestal and give them special treatment? Would it be fair to men? And if we do, will that solve women's problems? Maybe not, because another aspect of female employment is that it's creating a bottleneck: "Qualified women poured into the economy faster than they could be absorbed, adding to the glut in the middle." (Women Vs. Women, Tara Roth Madden, p 101)

Consequently, at a time when no one can afford to concede anything other than gender neutrality, pop-feminists are demanding preferential status for women. Essentially, they are demanding total feminization of the workplace, and the relegation of men to the status of second class citizens. While the increasing employment and leadership of women are, I believe, inevitable and good, oppressing men is not the way to make it happen.

This from This Is London:

Men face rape charge threat unless they can show consent of drunk women
15.10.06


A man may need his partner's explicit consent to sex if she has been drinkingMen who have sex with women who are not fully sober risk being found guilty of rape unless they have their consent, under controversial new proposals.

Ministers want to close a legal loophole which means that thousands of cases fail to reach the courts because victims have been drinking.

At present, women are deemed to be capable of consenting to sex as long as they are not so drunk that they are unconscious.

But under the new plans, which could be unveiled as early as next month, juries will be given the power to decide whether a woman was sober enough to know what she was doing.

The initiative follows concerns about a link between the growing problem of binge drinking and allegations of rape.

Solicitor General Mike O'Brien believes the law needs to be changed to make it easier to jail rapists who deliberately get their victims drunk.

The Metropolitan Police say one in three women who claim they have been raped have been drinking. In many case, police advise women to drop the complaint because they stand little chance of being believed in court.

Fewer than six per cent of rape allegations end in successful convictions.

Under the new plans, the legal definition of consent could be rewritten to make clear that women who are drunk could not have agreed to sex.

It raises the possibility that even if a woman agreed to sex while drunk, a jury could decide she was too inebriated to give meaningful consent.

This places a heavy burden of responsibility on men to ensure that a woman is fully conscious of her actions and has agreed to make love.

Earlier this year, a judge threw throw out a rape case in which the alleged victim was too drunk to remember what happened.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Mr O'Brien said: "In non-stranger rapes, the issue is usually one of consent. There are usually two people involved, one of whom will deny consent and the other who will insist that consent was given.

"The issue becomes particularly difficult when there is alcohol involved. What we have to do is to find ways of ensuring that when a rape occurs, the rapist is convicted, but that we don't create miscarriages of justice."

Mr O'Brien is also looking at plans to show juries video footage of victims giving their first interview to police often hours after the alleged attack has taken place.

It follows concern that some juries have been taken by surprise by the lack of emotion shown by women in the witness box when the give evidence.

He said: "Women are individuals and react in different ways."

Police recorded 14,449 allegations of rape last year, one of the highest figures so far. Only one in 19 men were convicted.

Earlier this year, a rape trial collapsed when a female student from Aberystwyth University admitted she had been so drunk that she could not remember if she had refused or given consent for sex.

In the case at Swansea Crown Court, the judge ruled that 'drunken consent is still consent' - and instructed the jury to return a 'not guilty' verdict, even if they did not agree.

Opponents of the new proposals fear that they will create a legal minefield and may encourage some women to make allegations of rape when they regret having had sex while drunk.

George McAuley, chairman of the UK Men's Movement, said men may have to resort to obtaining written 'contracts' or using their mobile phones to film their partners consenting to sex.

He said: "Radical feminists within the Labour party have made consensual heterosexual sex a dangerous minefield. The changes in legislation will increase the number of innocent men convicted of rape.

"It means men will have to get a consent form signed, dated and countersigned in triplicate before they make love.

"This legislation is deliberately designed to put more men behind bars."

This from Yahoo! Business Section found at the Don't Marry Forums:

The Cost of Being Married Versus Being Single

Tom Van Riper
Forbes.com

Marriage has a way of making people grow up and think about the future. Nights out with friends and crawling stores for clothes are replaced by eating in together and saving for a house. But while that priority shift eventually creates more stable finances, in the short term, it puts a squeeze on your wallet.

On a month-to-month basis, marriage just doesn't pay. At least not far beyond the honeymoon phase, after which the happy couple invariably decides to leverage its new status into better living quarters, nicer cars and more "mature" spending priorities like insurance and church donations.

Getting hitched does have financial benefits at first. We looked at the monthly expenses of three New York City households; a single person earning $90,000 a year, a childless couple earning $170,000 a year and a family of five whose annual income is just over $500,000, courtesy of New York-based Chestnut Financial. A peek at their actual household expenditures shows, not surprisingly, that a married couple pays substantially less proportionally toward basic living costs than a single person.

Go to Forbes.com to view the slideshow

For example, only 9.3% of the couples' $14,200 monthly gross income goes for rent, compared with 23% of the single person's $7,500 monthly pay. The couple also pays less for food (5.6% vs. 8.3%), cable television (1% vs. 1.8%) and the telephone bill (1.2% vs. 2.8%). And auto insurers place married people in a lower risk class, saving them money on car insurance.

The married couple also gets some relief on both federal and Social Security taxes, thanks to the slightly lower tax rates associated with joint filing. They pay out a combined 29% of their salaries, compared with the 35% the single person pays.

"The Republicans have mostly eliminated the marriage penalty, and a higher-earning spouse can effectively shield his or her income from higher taxes," says Chris Edwards, tax policy director at the Cato Institute.

A few other costs also tend to dwindle once a person has succeeded in snagging a spouse.

"Singles tend to spend a lot on gyms, fitness and clothes," says Chestnut Financial's Valerie Adelman, who counsels individuals and families on financial planning.

But once a couple settles into married life, new expenses aren't far behind.

Married couples tend to start saving for retirement early on, while singles generally wait until their 40s. So while wedding bells usually lead to a smoother path to retirement, they produce a more expensive month-to-month life--and they mean less free cash in your pocket.

Newly married couples also tend to purchase a house or condo within a couple of years. This allows them to accrue equity--a positive thing--but also forces them to incur big expenses, like household maintenance, homeowners and life insurance, and furniture. While there are plenty of renting couples and home-owning singles, married people account for 77% of all homeowners, according to the Center for Politics.

Despite the expenses, single people actually do well when they buy a house. Even though affording a down payment is tough for most singles, they stand to benefit more than married people from the tax code. With a standard deduction of $4,750 annually, a single person sees the benefits of itemized deductions like mortgage interest and property taxes before a married couple filing jointly, for whom the standard deduction is $7,950.

There's no doubt singles who make an effort to do financially prudent things--buying homes and opening up retirement accounts early--wind up better off than their married friends.

Add it all up, and Chestnut's married clients shell out practically all of their monthly income on living expenses, scraping to save anything beyond a retirement plan contribution. The single earner, by contrast, socks away more than $300 per month, nearly 5% of his or her pay.

Once children enter the picture, married couples are really in financial trouble: The costs to raise and educate children are staggering.

A third Chestnut client, a married couple with three children, spends $2,400 a month on food and basic household items, triple what the childless couple spends.

The total cost of camps, day care, books, toys and after-school programs? Try $4,000 a month. And that bill more than doubles if the kids go to private school. Families living in areas less expensive than New York City will pay less, of course, but they'll also earn less and pay a similar percentage of their income for those expenses. And all the "family discounts" in the world at ballgames, amusement parks and museums won't put much of a dent in those bills.

It's not all bad news for married couples. A saving grace for the institution is the fact that that two heads are better than one. Like most any issue, finances are more easily worked out with a partner.

"Singles have no one to bounce things off of, while married people tend to work things out together," Adelman says.

More on Sexual Harassment from the archives of Rod Van Mechelen's Backlash.com:


Sexual Harassment
by Rod Van Mechelen
Copyright 1991, 1992 by Rod Van Mechelen

Masculine desire is as much an offence as it is a compliment; in so far as she feels herself responsible for her charm, or feels she is exerting it of her own accord, she is much pleased with her conquests, but to the extent that her face, her figure, her flesh are facts she must bear with, she wants to hide them from this independent stranger who lusts after them.
-- Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

The issue of sexual harassment gained prominence during the Thomas-Hill hearings late in 1991. At that time, it became very clear to men they still need to treat female co-workers neither as women nor as equals, but as a specially protected class of sexless work-objects.

On television, in the newspapers and magazines, and in hundreds of "men just don't get it" debates and conversations, women have told men they don't want men using the workplace as a meat market. Yet, most women still consider work the best place to meet and mate men. (True-life Stories about Meeting Men, Lesley Dormen, New Woman, March 1992, p 64) Consequently, despite that men can lose their jobs for making the slightest reference to a woman's sexual identity, women focus on, think about, learn about, and plan how they use makeup, perfume, and clothing to attract the attention of their male co-workers.

With impunity, women still play the dating game where, with a single complaint, they can have the men who displease them fired for sexual harassment. Why the double standard? The most obvious answer is, most women want it both ways. They want to be wild and irresponsible, and if things get out of hand, blame men:

Sometimes charges of sexual harassment are shrouded in shades of gray. One story making the rounds occurred at an out-of-state aerospace company where a woman employee allegedly photocopied her bare breasts and then handed out copies to select co-workers in her department.

One male co-worker, who had not been given a copy of the picture, later walked up to the woman and asked if he could see her breasts (not the photocopy). The woman refused and then filed a sexual harassment complaint against the man, who was later fired from the company. The woman is still employed at the firm. -- No Laughing Matter, Connie Day, Washington CEO, October 1992, p 19

Where only women are allowed to express their sexual nature, all men are vulnerable to biased charges of sexual harassment.

According to the Northwest Women's Law Center in Washington state, the "courts have recognized two types of unlawful sexual harassment: 'quid pro quo' harassment (which is Latin for 'something for something') and 'hostile work environment' harassment."

The courts have held that "a hostile environment exists when an employee can show (1) that he or she was subjected to sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, (2) that this conduct was unwelcome, and (3) that the conduct was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim's employment and create an abusive working environment." (Ellison v. Brady, 924 Federal Reporter 2d Series, pp 875 - 876) Further, "EEOC guidelines describe hostile environment harassment as 'conduct [which] has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.'" (Ellison v. Brady, 924 Federal Reporter 2d Series, p 876)

This seems fairly straight forward. But the issues cloud when it comes time to define terms like "unreasonable interference" and "intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment." To deal with this, the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a hostile environment is in the eye of the beholder. For that reason, it is determined according to a subjective standard known as the "reasonable woman" standard.

The "Reasonable Woman" Standard

The precedent setting case of Ellison v. Brady established the "reasonable woman" as the new standard for determining whether or not men have committed sexual harassment: "In order to shield employers from having to accommodate the idiosyncratic concerns of the rare hyper-sensitive employee, we hold that a female plaintiff states a prima facie case of hostile environment sexual harassment when she alleges conduct which a reasonable woman would consider sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive working environment."

The reason: "We realize that there is a broad range of viewpoints among women as a group, but we believe that many women share common concerns which men do not necessarily share. For example, because women are disproportionately victims of rape and sexual assault, women have a stronger incentive to be concerned with sexual behavior. Women who are victims of mild forms of sexual harassment may understandably worry whether a harasser's conduct is merely a prelude to violent sexual assault. Men, who are rarely victims of sexual assault, may view sexual conduct in a vacuum without a full appreciation of the social setting or the underlying threat of violence that a woman may perceive."

Given the predilection of the popular press to sensationalize male violence against women, we may wonder just how sensitive a reasonable woman might be to male behaviors. Oddly, however, the facts do not support the Court's contention. As Tara Roth Madden notes, half of both "men and women in the workplace feel they have been sexually harassed." (Women Vs. Women, Tara Roth Madden, p 166)

Men feel just as victimized as women do. What's more, men feel far more threatened within the context of affiliation and intimacy, whereas women feel more at risk within the context of impersonality and "competitive success." (In A Different Voice, by Carol Gilligan, p 42) Hence, there must be some other reason for such hypersensitivity. Particularly since so many women see the workplace as the best place to meet men. (True-life Stories about Meeting Men, Lesley Dormen, New Woman, March 1992, p 64)

Perhaps women feel threatened by men's "sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature" not because they perceive any danger of rape or sexual assault, but because attention from "unattractive" men is both common and a nuisance: "(T)he average young woman has so many men with a sexual interest in her that she may feel overwhelmed." (The Other Side of the Coin, by Roy Schenk, p 72 - 73)

Hostile environment sexual harassment provides a convenient way for women to control inconvenient men. Portraying even the kindest comments from men as threats dripping like blood-drenched blades with malicious lasciviousness and a vile carnality requiring the imposition of harsh penalties, they have codified into law the means for socially castrating men who get in their way:

Well-intentioned compliments by co-workers or supervisors can form the basis of a sexual harassment cause of action if a reasonable victim of the same sex as the plaintiff would consider the comments sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter a condition of employment and create an abusive working environment. -- Ellison v. Brady, 924 Federal Reporter 2d Series, p 875
Compliment or ask a female co-worker out, and you risk a charge of sexual harassment.

Sexual harassment is a crime and we should treat it as such. But how are men to know what it is? What's the objective standard? "In determining whether sexual harassment is sufficiently severe to be actionable, court focuses on perspective of victim." Civil Rights Act of 1964, Sections 703(a)(1), 42 USCA Section 2000e- 2(a)(1).

That is, the "objective standard" is: it's subjective. What was the perspective of the "victim"? How would a "reasonable woman" feel about it?

General legal standards are necessary because it is impossible for the courts and legislatures to foresee every situation possible and pass laws to address them all. But such standards must be universal. A law or legal standard that depends on gender is no different from a standard that depends on race: a "reasonable white person" standard, to define unlawful behaviors on the basis of race would clearly be prejudicial, and so is the reasonable woman standard. It's not universal, but discriminates on the basis of sex.

Pop-feminists have persuaded judges, legal scholars, politicians, professors and corporate executives to judge men by anti-male standards. By this cause, the only standard men can rely upon is fear -- their fear of women -- because the segregation of these standards institutionalizes the pop-feminist promulgated fears of men into law, thereby putting all men legally at risk for doing what most women expect and demand that men do -- take the initiative in creating relationships.

Despite all the chatter about equality, most women still expect men to take the initiative. This means men are now caught in a catch-22. Play it legally safe and risk permanent sexual solitude, or risk charges of sexual harassment in their quest for love. Consequently, so long as women don't share the burden of asking for dates or making the first move, some men will continue to engage in behaviors some will call "sexual harassment."

How should men deal with this? Maybe the time has come for men to boycott the initiative, refuse to initiate relationships and sexual-advances until women demand an objective standard, so men can know ahead of time, with certainty, what is legal and what is not. [That's already happening. It's called the Marriage Strike!] Or perhaps men should begin filing sexual harassment suits of their own under the reasonable victim standard.

How can you sexually harass sex-starved men? The same way you harass a person dying of hunger or thirst: by holding they need just out of reach. Essentially, that is what every woman who wears makeup and sexy outfits does. She flaunts her sexuality, then snatches it away when the wrong men respond.

If a "reasonable man" would find that women's provocative dress, makeup and suggestive or flirtatious behaviors are "sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive working environment," then by the reasonable victim standard, those things would be sexual harassment. Does a woman who wears a short skirt to work make it hard for her male co-workers to concentrate? Then she's guilty of sexual harassment. When she shows a little cleavage, is she tantalizing them with her sensuality? Then she's guilty of sexual harassment.
Most women will almost certainly reject this. But they have no say in determining what sexually harasses men because when the court established a uniquely female reasonable woman standard, it created a uniquely male reasonable man standard, too:

Of course, where male employees allege that co-workers engage in conduct which creates a hostile environment, the appropriate victim's perspective would be that of a reasonable man. -- Ellison v. Brady, 924 Federal Reporter 2d Series, p 879

It is important for men to know this because sexual harassment will not remain just a workplace issue for long. Soon, women will doubtless be able to sue men for sexual harassment for asking them out for dates because pop-feminists are working to move this issue beyond the confines of the work place, to place men at risk in the public domain, too.

In the Public Domain

Until recently, sexual harassment has been an employment issue. But not anymore. Friday evening, October 11, 1991, on NBC news with Tom Brokaw, Catherine MacKinnon, a Legal Scholar from the University of Michigan Law School and author of Feminism Unmodified and Toward a Feminist Theory of the State, briefly noted that, with Clarence Thomas, we have a case of sexual harassment extending beyond the work-place, beyond the term of Anita Hill's employment as his subordinate.

In this mold, those who would see men bound in all contexts by the hyper- sensitivities of some women are attempting to make specious charges of sexual harassment a risk in all places and times where and when men and women interact.

Could this extend even to a singles' bar or a party? It already includes office parties:

Sexual harassment laws may extend beyond the office situation if the offending behavior on the part of a supervisor or coworker (even though occurring away from the office) contributes to a hostile working environment for the affected employee. -- The Microsoft employee newsletter, Micronews, Vol. XI, issue 26, June 26, 1992, p 8

And pop-feminist organizations, like the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center, are working to persuade jurists, politicians, and the public that women should be able to charge and sue a flirtatious or inconvenient man for sexual harassment anywhere:

Over the phone

On the street

At school

At home

At work

At a party or a meeting

Anywhere

How long until men dare not even to look into the eyes of women: "(L)ooking directly at a woman might seem sexual, a display of flirting." (You Just Don't Understand, Ballantine Books Edition: June 1991, by Deborah Tannen, p 269)

Ironically, because "women, far more than men, consider the workplace a social setting" (Women Vs. Women, Tara Roth Madden, p 170), they are as victimized by this pop-feminist created hostility as men are. As is already happening, women are beginning to complain about a new kind of "hostile environment" because their male co-workers will no longer talk to them about anything except business? Hostile, because a growing number of men no longer feel safe around their female co-workers.

This is insane. The time for women to end this nonsense is now, while men are still listening. Tomorrow might be too late.

This Microsoft Word Document from International Men's Network:

In modern Europe, we don’t quite have Bedouin storming in from the desert (merely millions of depressed migrants trying to slip through the gates), but the tendency towards barbarism is an active force all around us. Hence the formula for overthrowing a Western society must be not “storm the walls” but “organize your own barbarians” within the walls. Those who hate European civilization know that it cannot be taken by direct assault. It must thus be captured from within. This was the plan adopted by many revolutionaries, most notably, of course, by Marx who constructed a new and hostile tribe within the West called “the proletariat.” They could be made into a revolutionary tribe by equipping suitable people (industrial workers for example) with a unified consciousness, so that in every transaction they understood themselves as a collective. They were being victimized by the oppressive bourgeois. Like the guardians in Plato’s Republic, these revolutionary insurgents had to be taught to be docile within the movement while snarling at those without.

Marx provided the model for all subsequent movements aiming to take power. His “make your own tribe” kit was found useful by nationalists, anarchists, and many brands of socialist. Hitler made the most creative use of it by playing down victimization and representing every Aryan as a superior type of person. It took the world in arms to get rid of him. But before long, revolutionaries discovered that a revolution based on the proletarian tribe only really worked if you were dealing with pretty unsophisticated peoples—preferably non-Europeans who lacked all experience of freedom and genuine political life. In socially mobile European states, the workers mostly found better things to do with their time than waste it on revolutionary committees and the baby talk of political demonstrations. Something new was needed.

It was provided by such socialists as Mussolini and Lenin who adopted the principle of the Praetorian Guard: a tightly knit vanguard party, which could use the masses as ventriloquial dummies and seek power on its own terms. This development was part of a wider tendency towards the emergence of oligarchies ruling through democratic slogans.

In the course of the 1960s, a new tribe was established that also sought to overthrow the Western citadel from within and had notably greater success. This was Betty Friedan’s radical feminists. It was a tribe constructed out of women who had taken some sort of degree and were living domestic lives. Technology had largely liberated them from the rigors of beating, sweeping, and cleaning, while pharmacology had released them from excessive procreation. In tactical terms, radical feminists made one innovation that has turned out to be crucial to the destiny of the West over the last half century. They suppressed almost completely the idea that their project involved a transfer of power and operated entirely on the moralistic principle that their demands corresponded to justice.

What lay behind this momentous development? It is a complicated question, but I think that Diana Schaub understood the essence of it in her essay “On the Character of Generation X”

This from Minute Men Founder Jim Gilchrist:

The United States of America has been the beacon of freedom throughout the world, empowering people whether great or common, rich or poor, strong or weak, to speak up with confidence, expressing views and vocalizing their beliefs.

When priceless free speech is suppressed by force, threats of violence, or intimidation, then the cornerstone of our Constitution begins to crumble and eventually the entire foundation of our nation, long coveted as a nation governed under the rule of law, comes tumbling down.

When such a freedom is replaced with tyrannical bellowing and "mob rule", then only the demons of disorder are allowed to speak and the voice of a nation is muted. It is my greatest fear that in the market place of ideas the voice of free Americans will be stifled by the disease of "politically correct paralysis".

The abolition of freedom of speech carried out against The Minuteman Project speakers and Columbia University's Republican Club at Roone Auditorium on October 4 is but a symptom of a deeper national infection; an infection of complacency that numbs the American people into the belief that freedom, especially freedom of speech, is reserved only for the meanest thugs wielding the biggest clubs.

This from Men's News Daily:

Worshippers of the communist principle (Cultural Marxists and secular humanists) are the enemy combatants who, while posing as patriotic Americans, are by deed waging a second civil war against the America of our Founders and traditional values Americans. With their disguises removed and their contemptible goals revealed it becomes clear as to why traditional marriage and Christianity are under a brutally relentless assault. It likewise focuses the light of truth upon the underlying motivation of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit who lashed out at parents on Nov. 2, 2005. In the ruling handed down by these black-robed totalitarians, it was declared that the upbringing of children, “does not extend beyond the threshold of the school door…There is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children (and) parents have no due process or privacy right to override determinations of public schools…” These despots, who view children as chattel of the State and parents as sperm/egg donors, emphasized that the parents, “fundamental right to control the education of their children is…substantially diminished.” (Judicial Supremacists Lash Out at Parents, Phyllis Schlafly Report, Eagleforum, 2005)

America’s bastard children—Cultural Marxists and progressive secular humanists—are following the strategic plan for the overthrow of America that was designed by Marxist theoreticians such as George Lukacs and Antonio Gramsci of the Frankfurt Institute, a Marxist think-tank. According to plan, revolutionaries are dechristianizing America and sexualizing and dumbing-down her children while simultaneously encouraging kids to rebel against their parents. They are subverting the Rule of Law and Constitution, undermining national security and weapons-defense systems, working to erase our borders, preventing the US from drilling for much needed oil, colluding with Islamofascists, and provoking unassimilated immigrants into open rebellion. Additionally, they have created the abomination of special rights groups whose ‘special rights’ are enforced by quota systems, psychopolitical ‘sensitivity and diversity training’, Stalinist speech codes and fascist hate-crime laws. All of the aforementioned lend themselves to the disintegration of society and the unleashing of chaos…necessary prerequisites for revolution.

This from Cool Tools 4 Men:

A man recently emailed AngryHarry.com to say how the boy scouts now have to admit girls, but the girl scouts don't admit boys, and indeed boast that they are a "female only space".

Utterly unbelievable!

Indeed, if you look at the boy scouts page you will see that the page is dominated by a series of photos which run down the centre. Now, in those photos there are actually MORE girls than boys!

Its the same in sports: the male sports teams are often now admitting women, and women are allowed into the men's changing rooms, but not vice versa.

And when you think about it, that is evidence that men do NOT resist women's goals to move into any particular area of activity. Women claim that men stop them from doing things, and that there is a glass ceiling. But that shows that basically anything women ask for from men, they get almost immediately.

Women are always claiming that for years they have had to "fight hard" in order to be allowed to do things. But where is the evidence?

Where is the evidence of the tough battles they've had?

As Belfort E Bax said, the claim of *female oppression* has NEVER been proven by the scholars, nor has it been verified by historians.

In fact, I would say that the march of girls and women into the domains of boys and men has been characterized more by the LACK of male resistance.

(Also see my old article: The destruction of male space )

here is the article that is being referred to:

The destruction of Male space

By Darren Blacksmith

Toiling away in my little corner of Southern England you might think that listening to the radio would be a harmless experience, free from the evils of the feminist agenda.

Think again.

My local radio station is cram-packed with 24/7 man-bashing, and while a lot of it is subtle, it is powerful in its consistent repetitiveness. Example - the ads. All advertisements, no matter what the product or service, seem to follow the same basic template. A stupid, ignorant, lazy or laughable man says something which is then corrected or sneered at by a competent, professional, intelligent sounding female. The pattern works one way only, the women are always the smart and confident sounding one, but never dumb and laughable.

This simple pattern repeats itself over and over in a million different permutations for each and every product and service.

Here's an example of an ad currently doing the rounds -

Stupid male voice: "Hi, I’m Jim! D’ya come here often?"

Strong, competent female voice: "This is Jim, Jim Bore. He hangs around fitness centres chatting you up and being sweaty."

Stupid male voice: "Feel those abs!"

Strong, competent female voice: "But now you don’t have to worry about Jim Bore because there's a new fitness centre just for ladies, etc, etc..."

The message is clear and simple - men are so idiotic and repulsive that you wouldn’t even want to go to a fitness centre where they are allowed to be members, so you can now join a female-only one in order to escape their vile presence.

This little ad showcases not only the dumb male/competent female theme but also another trend in British (and Western) society - the growth of female-only places at the same time as the destruction of male-only places.

There is a growing number and variety of female-only services, not just gyms and fitness centres, but female-only colleges, insurance companies, clubs and societies and a vast array of female-only funding and prize-giving schemes to support women in every field of work and endeavour where they are trying to muster the energy and commitment to work as hard as men.

At the same time as this growth of female-only places and services, we are seeing the frenzied and unfair destruction of every place that men and boys have traditionally gone to spend time being themselves and not worrying about females. Boys-only schools are a proven method for improving the education of boys (which is currently at a low, thanks to the feminist controlled teaching profession which usually gets very annoyed at any suggestion that they should actually be educating boys), yet there is no move to promote them.

The cub-scouts must now admit girls as well as boys to its ranks, completely changing the very nature of this once innocent and character-building organisation. And God forbid any male social or sports club that allows its members to relax without women around. Nothing seems to arouse the hysterical indignation of the feminist lobby more than the idea that men might wish to practice a few games of golf in peace without a bunch of women fannying about the course. Just imagine if the female-only fitness centre radio ad had been for a male-only golf-club. Like this -

Dumb female voice: "Hi, I’m Jane. D’ya come here often?"

Strong, competent male voice: "This is Jane, Jane Bore. She hangs around golf clubs trying to chat you up and being annoying."

Dumb female voice: "Check out my butt!"

Strong, competent male voice: "But gentlemen, now you don’t have to worry about Jane Bore because there's a new golf club for men only! Etc, etc..."

I think such an ad would be ripped off the airwaves in about an hour. Single-sex places and services are now fine, but only for women. It is totally incomprehensible to women that straight, ordinary men might wish to relax and enjoy male-interests (such as competitive sports) without women around. Just because they bitch and gossip and scheme when they form together in women-only groups they assume men do the same.

Women may feel smug that they have succeeded - as they always do - in getting what they want by destroying the male-only places, and developing the female-only ones, but their evil schemes are about to backfire on them. Men have to go somewhere.

Increasingly less likely to spend time in social and sports clubs, and turned off by bland, female-controlled TV that portrays us as imbeciles, we are spending more and more time online. We are finding information and entertainment more to our tastes via the computer screen. And here, free from feminine control, we are networking, sharing information and slowly and quietly underground, the men’s movement is growing powerful and deep roots.

Found this post at the Don't Marry Forums it's a story from MSN Money:




Harvard study paints bleak picture of ethnic diversity

A bleak picture of the corrosive effects of ethnic diversity has been revealed in research by Harvard University's Robert Putnam, one of the world's most influential political scientists.

His research shows that the more diverse a community is, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone – from their next-door neighbour to the mayor.

This is a contentious finding in the current climate of concern about the benefits of immigration. Professor Putnam told the Financial Times he had delayed publishing his research until he could develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity, saying it "would have been irresponsible to publish without that".

The core message of the research was that, "in the presence of diversity, we hunker down", he said. "We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it's not just that we don't trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don't trust people who do look like us."

Prof Putnam found trust was lowest in Los Angeles, "the most diverse human habitation in human history", but his findings also held for rural South Dakota, where "diversity means inviting Swedes to a Norwegians' picnic".

When the data were adjusted for class, income and other factors, they showed that the more people of different races lived in the same community, the greater the loss of trust. "They don't trust the local mayor, they don't trust the local paper, they don't trust other people and they don't trust institutions," said Prof Putnam. "The only thing there's more of is protest marches and TV watching."

British Home Office research has pointed in the same direction and Prof Putnam, now working with social scientists at Manchester University, said other European countries would be likely to have similar trends.

His 2000 book, Bowling Alone, on the increasing atomisation of contemporary society, made him an academic celebrity. Though some scholars questioned how well its findings applied outside the US, policymakers were impressed and he was invited to speak at Camp David, Downing Street and Buckingham Palace.

Prof Putnam stressed, however, that immigration materially benefited both the "importing" and "exporting" societies, and that trends "have been socially constructed, and can be socially reconstructed".

In an oblique criticism of Jack Straw, leader of the House of Commons, who revealed last week he prefers Muslim women not to wear a full veil, Prof Putnam said: "What we shouldn't do is to say that they [immigrants] should be more like us. We should construct a new us."

here's a follow up comment on this story:

kris
« Reply #1 on Today at 7:46pm »

Toronto, Ontario Canada is testament to what this professor is implying.

Walk down the streets of Downtown Toronto on any given day and you see all sorts of ethnics on the streets.

Although Los Angeles is mentioned as the largest ethnic city, I believe the ethnical make-up of that city to be limited mainly to Afro-American, and Hispanic.

In Toronto Canada, although the population is not as large as Los Angeles, our ethnical make-up consists of Chinese, Jamaicans, Afro-Canadians, East/West Indians, Pakistani's, and Somalians.

Each year, 250,000 more immigrants come into this country, most of which come from shitty 3rd World piss-holes. Of those, 65-70% will settle in Toronto.

The variety of ethnicities are so grand that each one of these cultures has it's own ethinic "enclave" set up within the Downtown core. Most span a radius of at least 10 city blocks, the largest being the Chinese population which is just HUGE!!!!!

Such enclaves have allowed immigrants to move into Canada and not have to assimilate with the rest of the citizenry. It's been documented that in some cases, there are people who've been living in these enclaves since they came to this country over 20 years ago and still don't speak a lick of english!!!!!

Over the past 15 years, the politicians have noticed a phenomenon that's been dubbed "WHITE-FLIGHT". There's been a huge outflux of white people from the city's core moving out to the suburbs. The influx is more ethnicities to the city from crappy countries ::) The result is a devaluation of property prices in some areas of the city as the neighbourhoods are no longer desirable due to increased reports of gun-crime, prostitution, and drug dealing.

Some of the Government set-up social programs started taking notice that there are no more white people left living in the city. On one television program, one of these groups decided to venture out of the city and canvas one of the neighbouring suburbs located about 60km north of the city of Toronto. The purpose of the trip was to knock on the doors of homes in various areas of this particular suburb and try and get the inhabitants to come out to the local highy-school and take part in an "ethnic" food-fare and meet people of different cultures. The group was SHOCKED (to put it mildly), from some of the responses they received when they approached some of the owners of these homes. Most of the neighbours wanted nothing to do with multiculturalism. They were quoted as sayin they were "Generally fed-up with having multiculturalism shoved down their throats every day, and that they escaped the city to get away from multiculturalism all together"!!! Some people went so far as to say they would do whatever they could to discourage what was happening in Toronto, to start happening in their quiet little town.

It's also true about people of the same culture not trusting each other. Most who've come here had a tough time adjusting to Canada so when a new-comer from their own culture enters the community, the older generation tends to screw over the newcomer's. The mentality is "I came here 10 years ago, got screwed over and had to adjust, so why should YOU be any different!"

The kind of support you'd thought would exist by living in your own cultures enclave does not infact exist. It's quite the opposite.

At my company, I work in a department that is dividend into 10 smaller groups of anywhere between 7-9 employees. In my group there are 8 people. In my group there are 2 white people (including myself), 2 orientals, 2 Somali's, and 2 East Indians. I get along and socialize with my ethnic co-workers, however, in no way would I go out and socialize with them outside of the workplace. One of the Somali employees who's generally not happy with her job has gone as far as to tell me that the reason she isn't going anywhere in this company is because of her skin colour! I've had other enthnicities at this company say stuff like this to me in private in varying degrees. I always wondered why they'd say this to a "white" boy such as myself. I've discovered that for the most part, they say it because they can as they know that as I am white, that any contridiction I would have to what they were saying would be viewed as being racist or bigotted, so they have free-range to say all sorts of disparaging bullshit to me in subtle ways as I can't give them a fair response or else I could risk offending one of these piss-ants and get fired!

One time, one of these fuckers took it too far. This one ex-employee who worked in my group a couple years back was having a conversation with an oriental female co-worker who sat next to me at the time. He was a Paki-Muslim. He was telling her about a History course about Adolf Hitler that he took in University. This chick came from Hong Kong and only studied a couple years in Canada, so she really didn't have much historical knowledge about WW2. She asked him what was Hitlers main goal in WW2. He gave her a brief run-down and mentioned that Hitler was exterminating Jews. She then asked why he was killing the Jews. He responded that Hilter didn't trust Jews and that he was trying to create a pure Arian race. When she asked what "Arian" was, his response was "A race of white people with the characteristics of blonde hair, and blue eyes" Then he just totally blew me away when he then turned and pointed at me and told the oriental girl "People that look like Kris"!!!!!!!!

Since that time, I can give a flying fuck about multiculturalism. What ever feelings of indifference I had before that point, was replaced with shear utter disgust. The fact that my supervisor was within ear-shot of this conversation and said nothing spoke volumes about what my "rights" were.

Fuck these people! They have no sympathy from me.

Orginally posted at ZachEverson.com:

December 2, 2003
Diamonds are for suckers: How De Beers transformed diamonds into a symbol of love
By Rita Beauregard
Guest columnist

“I’m continually amazed at the high price of diamonds, essentially rocks. So I looked into it…. Basically, ever since the late 1930s, people have been beautifully fucked by De Beers into thinking marriage = diamond.”
— David Ray Carson, a graphic designer from Minnesota

In 1938 the De Beers mining cartel signed an exclusive agreement with N.W. Ayer, an American advertising firm — and one of the most brilliant advertising and public relations campaigns was born. De Beers, N.W. Ayer, and J. Walter Thompson (an advertising and public relations firm that joined the team in the 1960s) transformed diamonds from marketable gems into symbols of love, glamour, and success — while forever linking them to courtship and married life.

The truth about diamonds

Contrary to popular opinion, diamonds can shatter, crack, discolor, and lose value. And they are not rare. In fact, diamonds have been plentiful since 1870, when huge deposits were discovered near the Orange River, in South Africa. 3 Diamonds are now mined in several African countries, as well as in Russia, Australia, and Canada. At first, De Beers controlled 90 percent of the diamond market and, by controlling supply, was able to maintain the illusion of scarcity — and keep prices high. Now De Beers controls about 66 percent of the market. The newer players have not challenged De Beers’s artificially inflated prices, however, as they benefit from them too.

The initial strategy

How did De Beers create the diamond brand? And, more importantly, how did it sustain it? De Beers controlled supply and used research-based behavior-change strategies to build demand. And it sustained demand by monitoring its business goals and objectives, as well as market trends, and adjusting its strategies accordingly.

Ayer’s initial strategy was to strengthen the association between diamonds and romance. For young men, they set out to instill the idea that diamonds were a gift of love: the larger and finer the diamond, the greater the expression of love. Similarly, young women were encouraged to view diamonds as an integral element of courtship.

Tactics under this strategy included:

writing (or re-writing) scenes for Hollywood movies that injected diamonds into romantic relationships between men and women

giving diamonds to movie stars to use as symbols of indestructible love

placing celebrity stories and photographs in magazines and newspapers to reinforce the link between diamonds and romance

using fashion designers to talk on radio programs about the “trend towards diamonds”

asking the British royal family to foster the romantic allure of diamonds (Britain had a large interest in the diamond industry)

commissioning artists like Picasso, Dali, and Dufy to paint pictures for advertisements, conveying the idea that diamonds were unique works of art.

Within three years of the launch of the first De Beers campaign, diamond sales in the United States increased by 55 percent and an estimated 80 percent of wedding engagements in the country were consecrated with diamond rings. Looking back, Ayer noted that the campaign marked “a new form of advertising which has been widely imitated ever since. There was no direct sale to be made. There was no brand name to be impressed on the public mind. There was simply an idea — the eternal emotional value surrounding the diamond.”


Maintaining demand

Each year, De Beers and Ayer refined their approach, conducting research to explore consumer attitudes and identify psychological determinants and barriers to diamond sales. In 1947, Frances Gerety, a copywriter at Ayer, came up with “A diamond is forever” — a message that is still fresh 56 years later. “Forever” also implied that diamonds should never be sold, but rather handed down to a female descendant. This perception prevents large portions of the public from selling its diamonds, which maintains De Beers’s hold over pricing. In subsequent years, campaign tactics expanded to include:

arranging for lecturers to visit high schools across the country, reaching thousands of girls in assemblies, classes, and informal meetings with messages about diamond engagement rings

developing “Hollywood Personalities,” a weekly service that provided key newspapers with descriptions of the diamonds worn by movie stars

commissioning a series of portraits of “engaged socialites” to create prestigious role models for middle- and lower-class women.

Advertising and PR turn problems into profit

De Beers consistently used advertising and public relations to transform challenges into opportunities. For example, in the 1960s the company was overwhelmed with a huge supply of small Russian diamonds. The problem: all of its advertisements pushed rings with large solitary stones. So De Beers came up with the “eternity ring” — an equally expensive ring made up of many small diamonds — and launched a campaign based on the theme of recaptured love, targeting older, married women. The campaign was a great success.

Or take the example of “conflict diamonds,” smuggled from war-torn countries like Sierra Leone and Liberia. De Beers dealt with this issue by positioning itself as a clearinghouse for “conflict-free” diamonds. And even a “60 Minutes” report on conflict diamonds in February 2001, did not dampen consumer enthusiasm. The day after the episode aired, J. Walter Thompson conducted a survey to assess its impact on consumer attitudes toward De Beers and the diamond industry as a whole. The study revealed that the report negatively affected consumer attitudes toward De Beers, but not its diamonds: Among those surveyed, only about one-third agreed with the statement “De Beers is a reputable company.” But 70 percent agreed with the statement “De Beers is a company whose products I wouldn’t hesitate to buy.” In fact, De Beers fared better than the diamond industry as a whole — only 63 percent of respondents agreed with the statement “the diamond industry has products I wouldn’t hesitate to buy.” Joan Parker, director of the Diamond Information Center, concluded that the negative effects of the report would diminish over time.

De Beers still dominates a changing market

The diamond market is changing rapidly, but De Beers still dominates. In 2001, its ADiamondIsForever.com website got 200,000 visitors a month. Visitors spent about 20 minutes browsing the site, and most were from the target market: women, 18 to 34 years old. And although the U.S. Department of Justice has challenged De Beers’s business practices — there is an outstanding indictment against the company from a 1994 price-fixing case — it is difficult to challenge its approach to communications.

This from the AP and Yahoo News:

Lower standards help Army recruit more
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer
Mon Oct 9, 7:34 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Army recruited more than 2,600 soldiers under new lower aptitude standards this year, helping the service beat its goal of 80,000 recruits in the throes of an unpopular war and mounting casualties.


The recruiting mark comes a year after the Army missed its recruitment target by the widest margin since 1979, which had triggered a boost in the number of recruiters, increased bonuses, and changes in standards.

The Army recruited 80,635 soldiers, roughly 7,000 more than last year. Of those, about 70,000 were first-time recruits who had never served before.

According to statistics obtained by The Associated Press, 3.8 percent of the first-time recruits scored below certain aptitude levels. In previous years, the Army had allowed only 2 percent of its recruits to have low aptitude scores. That limit was increased last year to 4 percent, the maximum allowed by the Defense Department.

The Army said all the recruits with low scores had received high school diplomas. In a written statement, the Army said good test scores do not necessarily equate to quality soldiers.

Test-taking ability, the Army said, does not measure loyalty, duty, honor, integrity or courage.
Daniel Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, a private research group, said there is a "fine balance between the need for a certain number of recruits and the standards you set."

"Tests don't tell you the answer to the most critical question for the Army, how will you do in combat?" Goure said. But, he added, accepting too many recruits with low test scores could increase training costs and leave technical jobs unfilled.

"The absolute key for the Army is a high-school diploma," Goure said.

About 17 percent of the first-time recruits, or about 13,600, were accepted under waivers for various medical, moral or criminal problems, including misdemeanor arrests or drunk driving.

That is a slight increase from last year, the Army said.

Of those accepted under waivers, more than half were for "moral" reasons, mostly misdemeanor arrests. Thirty-eight percent were for medical reasons and 7 percent were drug and alcohol problems, including those who may have failed a drug test or acknowledged they had used drugs.

The Army said the waiver process recognizes that people can overcome past mistakes and become law abiding citizens.

Army Brig. Gen. Anthony A. Cucolo said that adding more recruiters enabled the Army to identify more recruits. "We got the right people in the field in the right places in the right numbers," said Cucolo, the chief spokesman for the Army.

Army Tones Down Drill Sergeants
Oct 10, 4:56 PM (ET)
By PAULINE JELINEK

WASHINGTON (AP) - Hollywood may have to tone down its portrayal of the military's screaming, in-your-face boot camp drill sergeant. In today's Army, shouting is out and a calmer approach to molding young minds is in, says the head of Pentagon personnel. The Army says it has reduced by nearly 7 percent the number of recruits who wash out in the first six to 12 months of military life.

"Part of it is changing the nature of how it treats people in basic training," David S. Chu, undersecretary for personnel and readiness, said Tuesday.

That means "less shouting at everyone, in essence, which some of you may remember from an earlier generation as being the modus operandi," he said.

The changes started about a year ago, as defense officials looked for ways to make drillmasters more effective, said Lt. Col. Mike Jones, head of Army National Guard recruiting.

He said the old way was to "talk loud, talk often, get their attention" - shock treatment to teach discipline and mold the newly recruited civilian into a soldier.

But trainers found today's generation responded better to instructors who took "a more counseling" type role, Jones said, using strong tactics when needed but keeping them the exception instead of the rule.

The approach has had two positive results, he said: It has lowered attrition among those who go through training each year and has eased one of the greatest fears of recruits - their fear over whether they can make it through basic training.

Other changes aimed at improving graduation rates include such things as letting recruits with injuries or minor medical problems remain in the service, heal, and then go back to training. Before, an injury would have meant discharge, training officials said.

and that has laed to THIS:
We take gangstas
May 1, 2006
BY FRANK MAIN Crime Reporter

The Gangster Disciples, Latin Kings and Vice Lords were born decades ago in Chicago's most violent neighborhoods. Now, their gang graffiti is showing up 6,400 miles away in one of the world's most dangerous neighborhoods -- Iraq.

Armored vehicles, concrete barricades and bathroom walls all have served as canvasses for their spray-painted gang art. At Camp Cedar II, about 185 miles southeast of Baghdad, a guard shack was recently defaced with "GDN" for Gangster Disciple Nation, along with the gang's six-pointed star and the word "Chitown," a soldier who photographed it said.

The graffiti, captured on film by an Army Reservist and provided to the Chicago Sun-Times, highlights increasing gang activity in the Army in the United States and overseas, some experts say.

Military and civilian police investigators familiar with three major Army bases in the United States -- Fort Lewis, Fort Hood and Fort Bragg -- said they have been focusing recently on soldiers with gang affiliations. These bases ship out many of the soldiers fighting in Iraq.

"I have identified 320 soldiers as gang members from April 2002 to present," said Scott Barfield, a Defense Department gang detective at Fort Lewis in Washington state. "I think that's the tip of the iceberg."

Of paramount concern is whether gang-affiliated soldiers' training will make them deadly urban warriors when they return to civilian life and if some are using their access to military equipment to supply gangs at home, said Barfield and other experts.

'They don't try to hide it'

Jeffrey Stoleson, an Army Reserve sergeant in Iraq for almost a year, said he has taken hundreds of photos of gang graffiti there.

In a storage yard in Taji, about 18 miles north of Baghdad, dozens of tanks were vandalized with painted gang symbols, Stoleson said in a phone interview from Iraq. He said he also took pictures of graffiti at Camp Scania, about 108 miles southeast of Baghdad, and Camp Anaconda, about 40 miles north of Baghdad. Much of the graffiti was by Chicago-based gangs, he said.

In civilian life, Stoleson is a correctional officer and co-founder of the gang interdiction team at a Wisconsin maximum-security prison. Now he is a truck commander for security escorts in Iraq. He said he watched two fellow soldiers in the Wisconsin Army National Guard 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry, die Sept. 26 when a roadside bomb exploded. Five of Stoleson's friends have been wounded.

Because of the extreme danger of his mission in Iraq, Stoleson said he does not relish the idea of working alongside gang members, whom he does not trust. Stoleson said he once reported to a supervisor that he suspected a company of soldiers in Iraq was rife with gang members.

"My E-8 [supervising sergeant] told me not to ruffle their feathers because they were doing a good job," he said.

Stoleson said he has spotted soldiers in Iraq with tattoos signifying their allegiance to the Vice Lords and the Simon City Royals, another street gang spawned in Chicago.

"They don't try to hide it," Stoleson said.

Army doesn't see significant trend

Christopher Grey, spokesman for the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, did not deny the existence of gang members in the military, but he disputed that the problem is rampant -- or even significant.

In the last year, the Criminal Investigation Command has looked into 10 cases in which there was credible evidence of gang-related criminal activity in the Army, Grey said. He would not discuss specific cases.

"We recently conducted an Army-wide study, and we don't see a significant trend in this kind of activity, especially when you compare this with a million-man Army," Grey said.

'Lowering our standards'

"Sometimes there is a definition issue here on what constitutes gang activity. If someone wears baggy pants and a scarf, that does not make them a gang member unless there is evidence to show that person is involved in violent or criminal activity," Grey said.

Barfield said Army recruiters eager to meet their goals have been overlooking applicants' gang tattoos and getting waivers for criminal backgrounds.

"We're lowering our standards," Barfield said.