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sibelian

(7,804 posts)
Fri Aug 14, 2015, 01:13 AM Aug 2015

"Of COURSE we're allowed to scream at you. You're the GOOD GUY."


"If we screamed at the bad guys, they'd SCREAM BACK.

Where else are we going to unload all the emotional backwash from our previous lost battles with the bad guys except on the good guys?

By the way, you're all bad guys.

Except, you know, well, you're the GOOD bad guys."
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"Of COURSE we're allowed to scream at you. You're the GOOD GUY." (Original Post) sibelian Aug 2015 OP
So....I've been giving this a lot of consideration JackInGreen Aug 2015 #1
If there is anything I have learned, JackinGreen, about bullying sibelian Aug 2015 #3
"You can't solve dysfunctionality... by allowing the sceamer to set the boundaries" winter is coming Aug 2015 #4
Point #2 is spot on! NaturalHigh Aug 2015 #5
Love hurts Uncle Joe Aug 2015 #2

JackInGreen

(2,975 posts)
1. So....I've been giving this a lot of consideration
Fri Aug 14, 2015, 04:23 AM
Aug 2015

Last edited Fri Aug 14, 2015, 04:59 AM - Edit history (1)

YES, I think that the good guys HAVE TO be allowed to scream at the good guys. (though I don't think this voids them from criticism)
The badguys tend to shoot when you scream at them.
Yes, there's has to be SOMEWAY to let go the damage done in the fight for justice. We scream at each other because the others have stopped listening, that scream is someone crying looking for help, looking for healing. People in pain lash out, they might be so wound up that they've got no other way TO act, and as much as it looks and sounds terrible, forces them into what a lot would call outrageous attacks and name calling, outrageous attacks and name calling only mean anything if they're true, otherwise we're just holding onto butthurt for no reason. It's hard to accept when your cheek is still stinging from the slap, but that lashing that hit you, being told you're a bad guy too, isn't FOR you in this context, even in your face and up your nose.
I'm not saying let that change your personal judgement on the people screaming, I won't change mine without a lot more consideration (assholes are assholes, and some of the people we love are assholes, and sometimes an asshole is the only one that can get anything done) ,but do understand that anyone behaving like that is in traumatic urgency and likely to act irrationally (and say as much too boot) if only because they have tried every other option every other time whether we know or recognize it or not.

We scream at our families. Often the rage is pain.
We scream at our friends, in celebration, in grief, in unbelieving and aghast shock at what we've heard, true or not.
We can stop screaming after we've cried that out though, can't we?
We can let go of the butthurt, take hands and stand together, get about what we were doing in the first place?

Fighting the Bad Guys.

sibelian

(7,804 posts)
3. If there is anything I have learned, JackinGreen, about bullying
Fri Aug 14, 2015, 05:57 AM
Aug 2015

Last edited Fri Aug 14, 2015, 08:26 AM - Edit history (2)

(and, take it from me, I know a LOT about bullying...)

... the two things that stand out are:

1. The bully is very often being bullied

2. Allowing someone to exploit one's capacity for forgiveness eventually destroys that capacity for forgiveness.

"We scream at our families. Often the rage is pain."

hoooo

Boy Howdy, have you ever said that to the wrong guy. I'm gay and I still have cracked teeth from family altercations that happened decades ago.

You can't solve dysfunctionality in a family, or any other social structure, by allowing the screamer to set the boundaries of acceptable behaviour, JackInGreen. You can only solve dysfunctionality by the screamed-at ending the screaming story by leaving and returning only when it is understood by all that the way things are done is civilised behaviour or nothing. (It's interesting that you use family as a metaphor for this, I've often wondered to what exent people use non-family members as lightning conductors for lost family battles). Using one's pain as an excuse for abusing blameless people is not some morally coherent response to abuse, it is in fact the source of abuse, all abuse.

I'd go so far as to call that whole emotional process the primary driving force behind the bloody Holocaust, mate. And quite a lot of behaviour on DU. Although DU is clearly quite a bit less problematic... mostly...

Oh sure, it's LOADS of adventurously emotional fun to let it all hang and knock each other off our pedestals and get all soggy and emotional and give each other cuddles until it begins to dawn on one of the protagonists that that's all we ever seem to be fucking doing. How come the most recent round of cuddles never seems to stop the next punch?

One of the two guys that used to follow me home every day so they could wrestle me to the ground, twist my arm behind my back, rub my face in the dirt and try to get me to admit that I was a "poof" (UK version of "faggot&quot was, I later discovered, being beaten by his father. Should I have gone round to his house after finding that out and asked him to come and twist my arm some more because I felt sorry for him? I did feel sorry for him. Could I do anything about his father?

Ideas don't come in simple blocks, like lego. They come with shadows, sisters and brothers. After knocking the appropriately powerless guy off his pedestal, even if he feels bad about it, the bully may well be thinking "shit I fucked that guy over, was that right, we got over it, didn't we, I guess he gets it now, asshole..." on the surface of his mind, but underneath, slithering about in the dark, unspoken, wordless, only felt is the cousin of that wave of feeling on the surface, which, if it was in words, would sound like this: "heeeey....hey, hey, ya know, that kinda worked...cooooool...."

It's the cousin that lasts. The surface comes and goes with the wind. The unspoken thoughts are never brought into the light to be found wholesome or otherwise. So they just hang around.

Anyway, that's far more than necessary for my position on your proposition.

There is no question in my mind a substantial driver behind the police abuse of black people is the of individual police officers to use black people as lightning conductors for their own pain. It's exactly the same story every bloody time, every one of these useless, sadistic, twisted, emotionally stunted bastards has some dumb movie playing in their heads of what they SHOULD be to replace their hidden fear of NOT being something else. I am certain of this. The story has to be real so black people are drafted into the supporting cast. It's FOUL, and no fricken wonder black people are furious about it, they don't get to just walk away until it's understood by stupid cops that civilised behaviour is the solution, not getting all soggy and emotional, because its the fucking POLICE and NOBODY gets to walk away from the police. You think I don't get it? If I was black I'd want to burn the damn thing down too, damn straight I would. But, ya know, burning things down doesn't actually fix them.

I've seen hundreds of police videos on Youtube. I'm constantly staring at them thinking: "What the FUCK is this guy you're arresting actually supposed to DO? Mr Cop, you clearly have no concept of being cooperated with that doesn't involve your wrangling the cooperation out of your new playmate despite themselves. Why is that, then, sir? Maybe you're just a coward? Ohhhhhh, hang on. You're unpopular back at the station, hm? Does your boss think you're a dick?"

Copying the bully doesn't stop you being bullied.

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