Empty Cereal Box

Views From Inside an Adoptee

April 27, 2006

Bullies

This Just In: Read about how bloggers may have pay fees because of hostile takeover!

The bitch that bore Hitler is still in heat.
-Berthold Brecht

If you don't want to deal with me venting my rage this morning, then click out now.

If you're still reading, don't say I didn't warn you.

Look, I'm no psychologist, sociologist, anthropologist or philosopher. Not by any stretch of imagination. But like you I have eyes, ears, and feelings and certain subjects really piss me off. Like bullies.

It's my conjecture that, adopted or not, we are all run by a snakepit of bullies that have always had their way and it's time we exposed them for what they are. I'm not talking about the obvious high-profile government suspects here. No, that's too easy.

What I'm talking about are those countless personal experiences of adoptees like Peter's blog Acts of Resistance that details the torture he underwent by the brutal bulldozer of a woman who adopted him. Or the outrage of caged adoptees that has recently made the headlines.

I'm talking about my own past replete with its share of overlords of control including my own control-freak amother with her bulk of power and her bullhorn voice that terrified me into obedience. She was queen of psycho- torture with all her silent treatments and double speak. But she also got off whaling me with belts and wooden spoons. When I was an infant she used to tie my tiny hands in handkerchiefs which she pinned to the sheet of my crib so I wouldn't suck my thumb. She used to administer those enemas I already went on about. Like a prison guard, she had me on 24/7 surveillance. She would go through all my bedroom drawers and closet when I was at school and toss out clothes she didn't like, clothes I liked, but she disapproved of. I'm not talking slut gear here. I'm talking plain wool sweaters and ordinary cotton dresses, for example.

And at school I encountered bullies who liked nothing better than to strip whatever was left of my self-esteem by taunting me and excluding me and calling me derogatory names. They were, in fact, my teacher's daughter and her friend. My teacher, of course, always sided with her daughter any time I brought up my unhappy experiences. I was, in effect, non-existent except as a kickball. It still hurts to recall. Now I realize that they were themselves victims of bullying at home. They all had their own share of misery and found a weakling, me, to take it out on.

I'm certainly also talking about the thousands of innocent detainees in prisons all over the world, both the few we hear about and the many that have yet to be exposed, whose victims even now undergoing unspeakable suffering at the hands of ignorant psychopathic bullies coddled from the top down. And the $385 million detention camp contract given to Halliburton's subsidiary, Kellog Brown and Root, that is being built here in America as I write these words. And I'm talking about the vast prison system in this nation called America that models itself on various CIA models of dehumanization, torture, and sanctioned murder.

I'm talking about all the women and children who are regularly beaten, terrorized, tortured, and murdered by men (and women) with severe psychological problems who are allowed to live among others free to do as they please because bullies are also smooth-talking psychopaths who tend to get their way.

I'm especially talking about the massive silent network of bullying that goes on every day in institutions of learning called schools where torture is allowed to continue by principals and teachers and parents by an unwritten contract of complacency, apathy, and therefore by pathololgical collusion. Outside the home, school is the training ground where little bullies learn to become big bullies.

If you haven't heard of John Taylor Gatto, let me introduce you. Gatto exposes the myths of modern schooling in his book The Underground History of American Education. excerpts from the book can be found here and here.

Did you think that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the students who caused a blood bath at Columbine high school seven years ago were poster boys of bullying? Well let me gently redirect your thinking. They were in fact reacting to the real, unpublicized bullying that continues to this day at that school and at schools all over America. Check out Columbines Most Wanted and see a big fault (pun intended) begin to gape open for all to see.

Whew. If you made it this far and your blood isn't boiling, please do me a favor and check your wrist for a pulse.

6 Comments:

Blogger HeatherRainbow said...

It totally pisses me off too that all of this is happening.

Also... in regards to school... it is a post industrial system within a system, to get people to be complacent slaves, so that we don't start a revolution, mainly because, we've been beaten out of our revolutionary ideas and ways. And, the cycle continues...

27.4.06  
Blogger Mia said...

Oh my. Well I can understand wanting to look into school reform. I experienced first hand what it feels like to be discriminated against by school officials who voted on the side of the popular superstar students in favor of truth. But it didn't result in massive bloodshed.

I put flowers on the unmanned cars of those children who would never again drive to school, for a carefree visit to the mall, go to their prom, marry or have children of their own some day. I saw the utter chaos, devastation and confusion first hand. I am hard pressed to remove blame from Dylan and Eric. I believe that no matter our circumstances we still have free will.

Although I agree to a certain extent that they were victims themselves these two boys have no excuses in my eyes for taking the lives of innocent children and I don't think we should give them one. They made their choice and should have to "live" with that legacy for eternity.

It's a sensitive subject for me Marie. I understand what you are saying but I could never suspend my beliefs that we should all be held accountable for our actions.

28.4.06  
Blogger Rhonda said...

Outside the home, school is the training ground where little bullies learn to become big bullies.

So true. My daughter is still traumatized by memories of a group of female bullies from elementary school.

And their parents were just as bad.

28.4.06  
Blogger Marie said...

(i forgot that i'm moderating comments now, so there was a delay in publishing them...sorry!)

Heatherrainbow-you are so right. the question is, are we just going to continue like we are, and our kids too, and our kids' kids?

Mia-it's true, we are responsible for our actions, and so were Dylan and Eric. no excuses. i'm not discounting that they did a horrible thing. my point was rather what bullying can bring some people, albeit unstable people, to do. i agree that what they did was way over the top, but i thought it illustrated an extreme example.

Rhonda-yeah, and look who's in control of things today? a bunch of little bullies who grew into big bullies, and we're all paying for it.

28.4.06  
Blogger Mia said...

Yes I agree. Bullying can be extremely detrimental and have lasting effects. No doubt about it.
You want to hear something "funny"? The girl that bullied me in High School ended up working for her daddy's company in later years. Out of sheer coincidence my husband got a job at that same company! When she found out who his wife was she had him "laid off". Couldn't fire him because he did nothing wrong! I told him after I found out who she was he would be gone within the week and he was.
I think you're right, bullies rarely change, they just become grown up bullies.

29.4.06  
Blogger Marie said...

Mia-Wow. your poor husband. yours is a good example of how bullies are bullies their whole lives. what's delicious is that sometimes these bullies get eaten by bigger bullies. but usually they have loads of protection in the form of money, hit-men, power, whatever, so they get away with murder. there has to be SOME justice somewhere in the universe. {yeah right}.

29.4.06  

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