By comparison, Baskerville is a bit of a rhetorical bomb-thrower, which I think will prove to be a superior positioning. In the past I think there was too big of a gaping hole between the "respectable" fathers' rights organizations like ACFC, and the people like John Knight and Robert Sides, who were out playing the fanatic's role in history. I think to effect change, you need both. Martin Luther King works best when there are a few Black Panthers around shaking the trees. In that sense I think that Knight, Sides, et. al. were too far ahead of their time. There was no one in the middle between them and the outfits that didn't want to offend anyone. People who wanted to move their way -- but wouldn't go as far -- really had nowhere to go. What's interesting is that if you go back and look at some of John Knight's "bomb-throwing rhetoric" from the mid-nineties, a lot of it is mainstream stuff now. That is a huge cultural shift. If John is still out there, he should take credit for some of this, because he took a lot of Hell for what he was saying, back when it was considered "over the line" to suggest that fathers were actual parents, with natural, God-given rights to their children. This society still does not really accept that idea, but saying it out loud will no longer get you banished and censored. Perhaps the next development will be the adoption of Sides' idea that men need to get rowdy. Not violent, but rowdy. We're starting to see some of that in the UK, and it appears to be effective. I wish Baskerville well in his new role. He just might be the right guy in the right place at the right time. I hope so. |
This is an interesting and positive development. The ACFC has historically been about as effective for fathers as the Urban League was in advancing the rights of Black People... which is to say hardly at all. They were just too damned nice about it.