Until now, I haven't approached the problem from the perspective of offering advice to victims for several reasons:
First and most obvious, I think more like a terrorist than a counselor. Bullies and their enablers are vermin.
Second and almost as obvious, if I offer advice to a victim, it doesn't work, and the victim decides to take his/her own life, you can bet there will be a lawsuit. Vast legions of scum sucking bottom feeders will demand to know what my qualifications are. Do I have a graduate university degree in psychology or some similar discipline?! Who do I think I am offering advice to a teenager who may be contemplating suicide?! You get the idea. Lawyers operate under the assumption that problems are best addressed by suing the party that offers the greatest cost/benefit ratio. It won't occur to them to go after the bully or its enablers. That would be too much work with too little cash to be had.
Third...and this should also be obvious...bullies and their enablers are criminals. They won't magically transform into civilized people if a few of their victims receive good advice. The problem will be solved when the public places bullies and their enablers in the same category of hate mongering vermin as skinheads, wife beaters, and child molesters.
With that in mind...I saw a public service ad just last night involving a website called Stomp Out Bullying. I looked over their site a bit but I haven't contacted them and therefore cannot say whether or not they are effective at solving the problem. Since they spent money to advertise on television, I feel relatively safe passing the information on.
Best of luck.
It is interesting that you would be considered as unqualified to give advice. It would be nice if you could share more about the legal troubles about fighting bullying, starting with the laws that prohibit you to freely direct abuse victims to help (although you did to an extent by linking to the Stomp Out Bullying Website). I do not want you to be sued but it just seems like you care about this problem and would do all you can to help victims; it seems more productive to find practical solutions than saying that bullying victims are in a helpless situation and should tough it out as if they are in jail or captured and then becoming a terrorist because this puts the victims in a war against society but I would like to think that most people are not bullies or on the side of bullies and bullying victims need a way to fight the criminals with the help of society, just as a rape victim should, with the combination of punishing the criminals with providing shelter for the victims at the same time. I am not trying to lecture someone who I feel has his heart in the right place but I am simply confused, don't we (those against bullying)have an obligation to help bullying victims and any other victim by directing them to safety. The subject of bullying is a taboo one and that is why I am so very happy to find anyone else who understands and does these types of blogs, I just thought your fight would be more effective if you apply all of the tools available and join ideas with the main anti-bullying organizations (the website you provided included) to give a full account on the situation, not only the anger and disillusionment of a survivor. It is true what you wrote about catching up on social skills after escaping captivity; I have no understanding of the world because of being persecuted and ostracized, that is why I try to find anti-bullying websites for constructive and precise suggestions.
ReplyDeleteI can safely direct victims to people who are considered "qualified" to help them. What I cannot do is give advice as if I were a professional counselor.
DeleteVictims are not in a "helpless situation" to the same extent that they once were. Help of varying quality and effectiveness has become more available in recent years. But don't be fooled. Bullying persists because our culture overwhelmingly still accepts it as normal, legitimate behavior. It is only due to the homicidal behavior of a relatively small number of school yard killers that the problem is being taken more seriously than ever before. Once again, don't let that fool you into believing that the welfare of victims is the prime mover. We now have websites like the one I mentioned in the post because victims are beginning to cause trouble for people and institutions that matter. Such websites and the personnel to maintain them, answer telephones, etc. costs money. That money is no doubt coming from an institution that feels threatened by the future expectation of more incidents like Columbine. The anti-bullying movement is being driven by the expected cost of liability insurance and by concern about possible lawsuits. I don't believe that public concern for the victim is yet a significant factor.
I would prefer that victims avoid becoming terrorists, but terrorism is thus far the only course of action that has successfully convinced the public to at least pretend to care about victims.
Bullies rely on physical and psychological intimidation. One most be able to fight and defend yourself both physically and mentally, they cannot be turned into cowards. Lots of people hate when I say this, but it's just like prison- you gotta be willing to fight or just accept being a perpetual victim of abuse, you can't rely on the authorities to protect you or give a crap about your well-being.
ReplyDeleteI guess my heart cannot comprehend how any culture can accept bullying as normal. American, as well as other societies, have laws against behaviors that constitute bullying, which typically includes threats, assault, rape, etc. Why is it that criminals have been punished by the law for these behaviors for as long as societies existed? My naivety, I guess, makes me think that the difference between a criminal hated by the majority of people and bully is because victims (due to their isolation and lack of knowledge) do not know how to reports these crimes. I know that some people support bullying, many Izzy Kalman types in the world, of course in addition to bullies themselves, but why would the portion of people who do sympathize with victims have double standards against some victims of crimes that have been illegal for as long as society has upheld any sort of human rights. It is unfortunate when bullying victims like Eric Harris become terrorists (a monster along with his bullies) against their schools or Joel Rifkin, the serial killer, express hatred toward society as a whole and are known and vilified notoriously as examples of terrible monsters (which they are) when their bullies, even though they do not shoot guns openly in public commit atrocities at least as horrible. Why should bullying victims align themselves with the likes of school shooters who are vilified or go to war against the world as serial killers do instead of expecting society to arrest and imprison the original terrorist, their bullies? The many examples this blog mentions of jock type bullies are not on the same level of evil as school shooters because they are far worse (committing acts that are and have been always recognized by society as torture). Bullying victims should never have been deprived of human rights where they in turn become part of the category of criminals of society; most bullying victims are the kindest and gentlest of people, usually targeted by bullies for that reason. I would like to see, and do not understand why it is not so, that the bullies are viewed as the epitome of evil, they have far more in common with the worst serial killers and mass murderers than people who are pushed over the edge (like Dylan Klebold) or the victims who are forced to defend themselves against their attacker (but their self-defense is judged as aggression). In this world exists a correct vilification of true monsters (for example: Jerry Sandusky) and we know that these types of criminals do get brought to justice. So, why should a bully victim snap and become a criminal alongside their bullies (e.g. Jerry Sandusky) when there should be ways of bringing justice to the bullies. It is not as if what bullies do cannot be considered a crime (actually, many cases of bullying are the worst crimes against humanity imaginable), when people get justice brought upon them far far far less significant crimes, constantly. I do not understand why you were ridiculing my description of victims’ environment as a helpless situation when it is you who all throughout your blog entries have insisted that bullying victims are treated in such a way that they have no option but to act as vigilantes (terrorist soul) in a lawless culture and it is you who insist that the victims situation is so hopeless that they need to rationalize the behavior their oppressors by explaining that it is their place to be abused by their more masculine bullies. I do not believe in this nihilistic outlook, if it were the case that being less masculine gives permission to be abused, there would be no such concept of victims in society because the justice system is set in place to protect the weak (those vulnerable at the moment of the attack) against sociopathic brutes; on the contrary, society generally promotes civility and welcomes peaceful people not barbaric apes. I do not have the answers for the true explanation behind the double standard but I when I find out I hope it is more optimistic than the grim world you have depicted.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/connecticut-teen-committed-suicide-bullied-years-friends-article-1.1444213 Fuck em all...
ReplyDeleteI can tell that you're referring to those bullies who made that guy commit suicide. And so, I side with you just as I side with Fowl Ideas.
DeleteBesides contacting that the makers of that Stomp Out Bullying, I also suggest contacting Senor Ben Leichtling for he's easier to handle than Izzy Kalman in that he's more effective at countering bullying than that bully-enabling baboso (retard).
ReplyDeleteAssholes reproduce.
ReplyDeleteThat they do. Not that I like to point out the obvious though.
Deletehttp://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000WCQY9W/ref=atv_feed_catalog?tag=imdb-amazonvideo-20
ReplyDeleteFowl Ideas, if you get a chance then you should totally watch this episode.
It came out 4 years prior to Columbine- it's amazing how well it predicted it, and how much it portrays the so-called "murderous monster" in a sympathetic light.
Predicting the exact when, where, who, and how of an event like Columbine is impossible. But predicting it in a general sense is very easy. About 18 months prior to Columbine I wrote the following letter to President Clinton:
ReplyDelete"Your pro-child stance is commendable, but it is meaningless to a child who cannot visit the bathroom or ride the school bus without receiving a legal, adult sanctioned beating. Such a child, upon reaching early adulthood, has little reason to place any faith in social institutions or any value on human life. Is this a problem worth solving?"
I also courtesy copied a fairly long list of other politicians, journalists, etc. over the years with absolutely no feedback.
Columbine was not a surprise. It was an embarrassment.