The Stupidity of Bullies.

[vaberella]

I was reading the Romney thing and I remember watching some young overweight dude with what seemed to be a tupee defending Romney's actions as a bully on Andrea Mitchell's show today.

People don't really seem to get the impact of bullies on our nation. This was one of the things I had a problem with in Bowling for Columbine. It talked about guns and evening mentioning the stupidity of how rock music could have been related. Guns are a problem. But bullying is such a serious issue and I think people don't get the magnitude of it.

I think that's because American culture is a series of hazings and survival of the fittest that bullying was never seen as something really major until the suicides happened. Even when kids are shooting up schools. Let me explain something, as someone who was bullied in High School--keep in mind this is all girls. I was the Black girl that didn't sound Black. I was the Black girl that sounded like she came from the valley, although I lived in NYC and Washington Heights area all my life. I'm the Black girl that loved ACDC and wanted to marry Jim Morrison but didn't know a single R&B or Rap band excluding Wu Tang Klan. And I went to a predominantly Black and Hispanic all girls school in Washington Heights---just by saying that I'm sure you all know what H.S. I'm talking about. Not to mention I was the ONLY Black girl in a Catholic School that did not believe in God and had a big ass afro. When asked why I did not relax my hair. My response was..."So you say you believe in God?" Response..."Of course, why would you ask me that." "Well if you believe in God. Then I would say your God created me this way...why would I change it's will." <---Normally that shut them up.

In any event...I was the oddball and I was treated as a freak. The weird one. The one that followed their own tune. Unique. I hated those words. I really fuckin' hated it. Why am I the freak because I'm Black and think Back In Black was one of the greatest albums of all time. I mean why can't I be Black and like rock. Black music freakin' influenced it. Well I wasn't the only one who was harassed or mistreated in my school.

When started hanging out with the other outsiders I found out they had kill lists. Yeah. This was over 15 years ago and nothing happened. But they had people they wanted to off and they had fantasies of how they would do it. Shit like this lives on.

Being bullied in school is like being verbally abused or physically abused. You are traumatized. No fuckin' apology 2 minutes or 30 years later will mean shit. It is not even stupid. That is an apologist thing to say...oh we all did stupid things in our youths. Maybe saying something I will give a pass. But acting out in a violent way to hurt someone else is not human. Don't be surprised when these victims get tired of being the victim. When they get tired of being on the shit side of the fence. In some cases they take their own lives, in other cases they fuckin' snap and take out any life so everyone can feel their pain. The people who stood by and did nothing. The people who watched and were too afraid to speak up. They turn into accomplices, not passersby or past victims themselves.

Bullying can make someone lose their common sense and lose their bloody humanity. When you are treated like an insignificant long enough, you start to think you're insignificant and you then act out for attention. Sadly the bullies don't get it. To them it was funny, in adult hood a simplistic "prank" like putting a whoopie cushion on a chair.

It unnerves me. It really does that people still wash it away. When I saw that Luke Russert not take that guy to task over the action itself I had to wonder what is going on about our news. People are oversimplifying things that shouldn't be skimmed over. So what it happened 30, 40, 100 years ago---the victim lived with it all their lives. Like I live with the racist comments that was hauled at me, like I live with the name calling in High School. These things have never left me, they stay with me.

America needs to realize that we live in a culture of hazings. To be an American you need to be hazed in all aspects of your life. Until we tamp that down bullies will be around for ever. Shit, Romney to this day is a bully with the firings of his workers. But people in our society call it an economic downturn. The man is a bastard and bullies are bastards too.

[iemitsu]

1. hear, hear.

well said. i agree with your perspective on this behavior and its roll in american society.

[annm4peace]

2. What happens when Bullies grow up to be Presidents or their lawyers

here are so many kids who are being bullied.. but how can we get the kids to stop it if we don't ask our Government to stop bullying, torturing, and false imprisonment? Our Universities have law professors who educate their law students that torture, the ultimate bullying, is ok.

This weekend we are once again protesting at the Graduation of St Thomas Law School. We are there to continue the pressure on St Thomas to fire Law Professor Robert Delahunty who was legal council for President Bush and wrote a memo with John Yoo that the US could ignore the Geneva Convention and that the US has every right to "Bully".. whether they do it to innocents or not.

And as we stand there handing out a flyer of why we are there and what we are asking of St Thomas.. we get to hear from St Thomas Law students tell us that U.S. didn't do anything wrong. ... Professor Delahunty teaches the lawyers that it is ok to go to give legal reasoning for memos that say it is ok to torture and to call it by different names.

Here is out press release of our protest on Saturday. (we have wrote letters, ask to have Delahunty debate other lawyers, had panel discussions, and other protests in these last 9 years... some of our members are lawyers, alumni of St Thomas, Veterans)

Until we investigate, and prosecute those who authored and ordered and participated in torture.. then the kids won't listen or respect what the adults are asking.

PRESS RELEASE

Tackling Torture at the Top, a Committee of WAMM (Women Against Military Madness, www.worldwidewamm.org) will demonstrate outside the University of St Thomas Law School’s spring commencement on Saturday, May 12, 2012 from 11:30am - 1pm. The anti-torture group has consistently protested and questioned the school’s hiring and promotion of Professor Robert Delahunty, who prior to joining the St. Thomas law faculty, worked in the Office of Legal Counsel during the George W. Bush Administration. In January 2002, Delahunty co-authored with John Yoo the infamous memo stating that the Geneva Conventions don't apply to captured Al Qaeda, Taliban or other "non-State actors". This cornerstone memo set the stage for subsequent memos by John Yoo and other Bush lawyers attempting to create a “golden shield” of legal immunity for those in the Bush Administration who ordered or conducted waterboarding and other cruel tactics and abuse. Authors and researchers now link the widespread abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as at CIA black sites around the world, with troops and government interrogators being told they did not have to abide by the Geneva Conventions.

The protest takes place on Peavey Plaza, Nicollet Avenue and 11th St in Minneapolis, next to Orchestra Hall where the University of St Thomas Law School commencement exercises are held.

We will be distributing copies of a letter (the second in three years) signed by over 120 concerned citizens and organizations questioning the members of the Law School's Board of Governors and reminding them of their oversight responsibilities with regard to the law school’s hiring and promotion of Mr. Delahunty, especially based on the law school’s stated mission of “morality and social justice”. More than a month later, the Board of Governors still has not responded to the questions in the letter.

The United States has a long history of publicly supporting human rights and condemning torture, from George Washington telling his soldiers to treat their prisoners with respect to World War II and beyond. Until now, that is. Following the attack of September 11, 2001, the Administration worked quickly to establish ways to avoid accountability for prisoner abuse, including the Delahunty-Yoo and the Yoo-Bybee memos, establishing black sites and a program of shipping prisoners to foreign countries known to use torture tactics. Shortsightedly, President Obama declared his administration is "looking forward, not backward" regarding torture accountability, so former officials remain uninvestigated for this heinous crime, other nations use our example as an excuse for misbehavior, and people and groups against the US are emboldened to advocate for and plan aggression against the US.

[Edweird]

3. I was the 'weird kid' too.