Bullies

[Cyrano]

I was bullied as a kid. I fought back once and got my ass kicked. The same think happened every other time I tried to fight back. Life as a kid, sucked.

Now that I'm grown up, millions of us are being bullied by the Republcian Party. We get our asses kicked far too often, even when we ("kinda&quot fight back.

But thinking back to my childhood, I now know that I wasn't tenacious enough. I gave up too easily. I wasn't willing to fight it out to the death.

Now, I know that "fighting it out to the death" sounds rather dramatic. However, in light of today's politics, the Republicans are willing to fight to the death in order to lead us down their road to hell.

How willing are we to fight back? And just as importantly, how willing are our elected representatives willing to fight back? Even though we have the Senate and the Presidency, the bullies seem to win most of the fights.

There's something terribly wrong about this. Any suggestions of how to handle bullies?

[WingDinger]

1. The rethugs understand, that politics, is war by other means.

We think politics is highminded. We revere it. We get turned off by clods that abuse it.
In my childhood, I learned that I could clobber huge older bullies, and that they were really scared insecure dumdums.

All I needed to do, is show no hesitation.

[seabeyond]

2. the bully is only one. it is those that back the bully that feel their hands are clean

that bother me.

a bully cannot be successful unless the mass allow.

[slackmaster]

3. You should have joined or formed a gang, then fought back using unconventional tactics

That worked quite well for me.

[Cyrano]

5. As Groucho Marx said, "I wouldn't join any group that would have me as a member."

[bullwinkle428]

7. Sounds like the plotline from "Revenge of the Nerds"!

[slackmaster]

10. Pretty much, except with real weapons

[MineralMan]

4. Send the bullies home.

Seriously. Turn out 90%+ of registered Democrats in November, 2012, and send the Republican bullies home. Just expel them.

[Drale]

6. I was also bullied terribly from like 3rd grade untill I did fight back sophmore year of high school

There are now two types of people I will not deal with at all and thats lyers and bullies.

[Cyrano]

8. More easily said than done

Depending on your job:

Your boss may be a liar and/or a bully.

Your client may be a liar and/or a bully.

And there are many others that you may have to deal with that may be liars and/or bullies.

They never go away.

It's too bad we can't make the Republican Party go away.

[pansypoo53219]

9. nip it in the bud.

stand so tall + firmly, they never TRY. i was never bullied. i am pretty sure i never bullied myself. i was too lutheran by nature. tho, i was prone to hit back.
uncles + a brother helps.

[Kaleko]

11. How to handle bullies?

Check out the most comprehensive site on the web with excellent advice on how to recognize bullies and deal with them effectively:

Home page:
http://www.bullyonline.org/

I'm a psychologist by training, but I went "whoa!!" when I started reading the material on that site and came across statements like this:

"Half the population are bullied by a serial bully ... most only recognize it when they read this."
http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/serial.htm

"I estimate one person in thirty, male or female, is a serial bully."

One in 30?? And half the population of Great Britain? What about the population in the US or other countries? Most relevant for me, though, was to recognize the difference between bullying, harassment and assault as it pertains to spiritual/religious groups where this sort of behavior should be largely absent or immediately nipped in the bud, right?

Well, no. It only gets more sophisticated and subtle, even though it becomes grossly obvious once you've had your eyes opened to the patterns. We are all members of groups within groups within still larger groups, so it is very important to understand what makes us a target in the various configurations of group settings we find ourselves in: at school, in the workplace, family, hospitals, spiritual circles and so on.

http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/bully.htm#Why

Quote from bullyonline.org:

Why me?

1) How do bullies select their targets?

The bully selects their target using the following criteria:

* bullies are predatory and opportunistic - you just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time;
this is always the main reason - investigation will reveal a string of predecessors, and you will have a string of successors

* being good at what you do, often excelling

* being popular with people (colleagues, customers, clients, pupils, parents, patients, etc)

* more than anything else, the bully fears exposure of his/her inadequacy and incompetence;
your presence, popularity and competence unknowingly and unwittingly fuel that fear

* being the expert and the person to whom others come for advice, either personal or professional (i.e. you get more attention than the bully)

* having a well-defined set of values which you are unwilling to compromise

* having a strong sense of integrity (bullies despise integrity, for they have none, and seem compelled to destroy anyone who has integrity)

* having at least one vulnerability that can be exploited http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/vulnerab.htm

* refusing to join an established clique

* showing independence of thought or deed

* refusing to become a corporate (or in-crowd) clone and drone

• Jealousy and envy (of talents, abilities, circumstances or possessions) are strong motivators for bullying.

[sabrina 1]

20. 'Jealousy and envy ... are strong motives for bullying'.

I've never been bullied, but have many times even as a child, stood up for others who were. What is obvious to me about them is, 1) They generally are the least likely people to be popular and therefore turn to bullying out of anger and resentment against those who are. And 2) they should always be confronted, and generally when they are, they back down because bullies are cowards which is why they often need a group to give them courage.

* having a well-defined set of values which you are unwilling to compromise

Re the OP and why Republicans continue to bully Democrats, this is why. Democrats compromise which makes them look weak. The few times when Dems have refused to do so, look what happened, they run around whining but defeated.

Which is why we need to elect strong reps who will never compromise on principles and who are willing to lose an election if necessary, but use the time they are there to force bullies to back down as much as possible. And the funny thing is that people willing to do that, will most likely be re-elected anyhow. But they do need to not care much about the next election, but about the time we have given them and use it as effectively as possible.

[Kaleko]

23. Lordy, how I wish I'd been tapped to counsel Obama

before he took office on how to recognize the four main bully types and how to de-fang the least obvious and yet most toxic ones. Guess who that is.

Yes, the Guru/expert/sage type of bully, that's the most insidious kind. Though the psychopaths are giving them a run for the crown.

Ahem... Yeah, that's assuming Obama wasn't in on the Big Game long before the PTB actually offered him the role he would eventually play in their theater.

What's fascinating about the subject of bullying is that we can see it going on at every level of society, in every nation, from the highest circles of international power-mongering down to the lowest level of actual influence, such as two siblings trying to work out the power dynamics between themselves and their caretakers.

Everyone should be familiar with bullying tactics, whether they are targets or frequent perpetrators. And, luckily for us, this knowledge is slowly spreading across the globe. Accelerating lately cuz information spreads like a wildfire if it is timely and pertinent. One result: less and less of us lowly peons who constitute the 99% are willing to take the incessant gang-rape-bullying rackets perpetrated by our corpogovernments lying down anymore. I've seen the lame and blind in their wheelchairs stand up and shout! Not a moment too soon.

[Initech]

12. I always say today's bullies = tomorrow's republicans.

[tabbycat31]

13. case in point-- Chris Christie

[Initech]

17. You could say the same for:

Rick Santorum
Bill O'Reilly
Rush Limbaugh
Ann Coulter
Sean Hannity
Glenn Beck
Bryan Fischer
Pat Robertson
Michelle Bachmann
Sarah Palin
Marco Rubio
Rick Perry
The entire BFEE
Rick Warren
Newt Gingrich
Antonin Scalia

I could spend all day naming names. Just a party of small-minded bullies. The whole lot of 'em.

[tabbycat31]

19. I agree with most of your list

However, I would not call Rick Santorum a bully. He's the kid in school who could not get laid and was so desperate to that he made it his goal that if he was not going to get laid, than nobody would get laid.

And the guy still needs to get laid. Hopefully RentBoy.com will help him find someone.

[Initech]

21. Ha ha... Rentboy.

[Cyrano]

22. tabbycat31

I can't agree with your analysis of Santorum becaust I am not a psychologist and I know nothing about his childhood background. Nonetheless, it sure as hell sounds plausible to me.

[tabbycat31]

24. I am not a psychologist either, nor do I play one on the net

But most people who obsess about what goes on in someone else's bedroom are not getting any themselves.

[Cyrano]

25. You're probably right. And I loved the rentboy.com remark.

[Gormy Cuss]

14. Those being bullied often don't have the stamina in that moment to fight back

However, there are people all around those being bullied who do have that stamina and when we see bullying we need to push back for as long and as hard as it takes for the bully to stop.

Bullies are cowards after all. They won't bully unless they think they'll get away with it.

[quinnox]

15. Handle them like cowards

bullies usually are compensating for something, they think of themselves as inadequate, but rarely they are just assholes instead. I either ignore them completely or get right back in their face, depending on my mood. They almost always will back down when confronted with a strong personality.

[Zalatix]

16. Took a baseball bat to one bully, an iron bar to another. Faced the cops over it, too.

But they didn't mess with me after I told the police I'd rather go to juvie than let these SOB's come at me for no reason. Of course when that forced them to investigate and find that other victims had complained about these bullies, I got my get out of juvie free card. Nowadays what I did could get me (or anyone else who does it) shot, or ganged up on.

The only thing we Democrats can do is bring the system down, completely, flush the Plutocrats out. Destroy the total value of that which they hold dear: money.

That's a brutal and hard option but the consequences pale in comparison to what the Plutocrats have in store for us.

[EFerrari]

18. I have come to the conclusion that Americans love bullies.

They identify with them and that gets them off in a sadistic way they can't really own directly or honestly. Bullies are admired and celebrated -- Laptop Dad, Palin, Limbaugh.

Americans love them some bullies, the more shallow, stupid or ignorant, the better.