Forum Bullies - Page 3

Jon Luc, I'm too smart for my own good. Come on over.

OH WAIT, now I'm a stalker. 

 
I understand that someone has alleged that the bazza here is the same person as Graham etc. etc. and again I say: POPPYCOCK.

I know the PDB bazza, and while no one can ever be certain who someone else is on the internet, I know details about him that make it HIGHLY improbable that he is the person being talked about.



Peter Steiner, The New Yorker, July 5, 1993

I too, cannot believe they are the same person.....no way.

This is all so bizarre. I just lost my appetite for goulash.

I dunno about what's going on here.

But, I'd like to spend about 3 minutes with all the parents of those teens who were involved with that Phoebe Prince deal. I have a thing or two to tell them. I hope this case goes to the house floor for public opinion. I wrote a letter.

Bee Tree,

 I am being good, I swear. Tiger told me today  in group
 that beacause of me he feels he can make it. The News
said sex makes you dumber today I swear.

OK.. I just read about Phoebe Prince. I don't think that name helped her any.. old fashioned name. I think it's pretty, but kids look for anything different. They are looking for a target for harrassment. It's like a sport to them. It's all the more fun when it's group sport, because these kids are basically looking to belong to a group.. gang behavior. They don't think for themselves, they only want the approval and admiration of the group.

The sad, pathetic thing is that chimpanzees do this same sort of thing, ganging up on individuals in mobs, hunting them down and when they catch them alone or maybe with one other and they are in superior numbers, they just destroy that poor little chimp, beating it, biting it and breaking bones, mauling it and leaving it to die. This is very, very primal behavior, but humans have the same behavior.. make no mistake. Read the book, "Lord of the Flies". It's an allegorical tale of the barbarity just below the surface.. and it is never nearer to the skin than it is in young people who are inducted into mobs and gangs. Kids as young as 8 to 13 can be very malicious, efficient killers.

I just bought a book tonight about the memoirs of a woman who grew up on a farm in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.. that impoverished wreck of a country. Believe it or not, at one time I was communicating by email with the Right Honorable Ian Smith, former President of Rhodesia. Somewhat relevant, here, because Oli hosts this database / blog from Iceland, and this is where the Rhodesian gov't and Ian Smith went into exile, driven out by violence perpetrated by mobs of youth, moblized by "His Excellency" Robert Mugabe, an avowed communist. The point being that mobs of youth can be a force to be reckoned with, and an instrument of evil and anarchy. Youth in Zimbabwe assaulted old white farmers and drove them off of their farms, giving the best land to the top administrators of the new government.. which is horribly inefficient, brutal and corrupt. Rhodesa had a solid currency.. pound silver.. and exported food to other African nations and abroad. It is now in shambles, but the administrators still cling to power and rule with an iron fist.

You can't be too surprised that this poor girl was overwhelmed and beaten down so badly. Adults can't withstand this sort of thing.. Remember the episode of South Park that had the show about kicking a redhead on a certain day? A lot of kids were actually doing that... all over the US! There were many such episodes..

It may surprise some people, but I had to endure quite a bit of this sort of taunting and rejection when I was young.. from the time I was little. I think I had only two or three friends in school all during my elementary school years. One was an angel.. I will never forget her. The other two or three kids were also social outcasts, just looking for a friend. I tried to be nice to them, but can't remember being really interested in their friendship, per se.

For a long time, I only wanted to be "normal"..whatever that was. I just wanted to be accepted, as all kids do. But, the rejection and hostility would not let off, so I finally learned to be by myself. I'd go to the dirt lot and poke around, watching ants, collecting rocks and such. I would watch the other kids, sometimes, playing.. and, little by little, it occurred to me that they were not really so happy, after all. I saw that they were fighting and having a lot of issues between them.. constant strife, broken by periods of happiness, but generally speaking, they were very competitive and there was a lot of hostility. So, I developed my own interests and started to read books, put in the time at school and after school I was free, so that was the time I lived for. I took up drawing and got pretty good at it.

Basically, I just learned to be myself and to enjoy my own company. That's not an easy skill to master, but once you've got it, it sure comes in handy! I was shy, too.. VERY shy! But, you can learn the social skills you need in life, and I did. I eventually worked with the public and interacted with really tens of thousands of people over a quarter of a century, working for a major corporation. In hindsight, the growing up years were really the most difficult.

I think that a lot of children have trouble, growing up. It's a confusing time. I do remember realizing that a few teachers and adults really seemed to care very genuinely about me, and this was a great encouragement. The love and acceptance of an adult can be such a saving grace..

I can well undersrtand the kids that did the Columbine thing.. I understand it, but I don't approve, of course. I doubt that they really went through the kind of rejection and deep, deep emotional pain that I remember going through. But, who knows? Only they know what they felt, inside themselves. I do know that anger is another way of reacting to bullying. Bullying is one of the most destructive and terrible things that kids can experience in their young lives, and they are so often alone.

The parent or parents should have pulled her out of that school. No one was listening. We really must listen closely to our kids. To not listen is simply to say, " No one cares". When no one cares, kids give up. Some do drugs, some get into bad relationships, and others just kill themselves.. Sad..