Index

The Endgame for Bullies

Sometimes a quick answer reveals a bigger truth

I saw this on Mastodon:

I'm chaperoning for my 9 yo's field trip today. Not because I want to, but because she begged me to.

I have extreme anxiety whenever I am in a school environment. It comes from years of being bullied as a kid.

Yes, I'm a 43 year old dude.

Riding a school bus, walking into a classroom. Hearing kids laugh in the distance (even if not at me). It all makes my palms sweaty, but I'm pretty good at hiding it for a few hours, which is all this will be.

I immediately replied without thinking:

I am a couple of decades older than you, but I still feel the same way in many social situations. Being bullied when young leaves inescapable damage inside.

Bullying is the only way that weaker minds create and maintain any sort of influence. Without the fear they use, corporate management would have a far more human face, and business would not be so incredibly vicious. "Capitalism" (and GQP politics) as currently practiced is the victory of brutality and bullies over the smart, and everyone suffers because of it.

Good luck.

Then I thought about it

It is obvious that both the current GQP and all forms of so-called christianity rely on bullying for their existence. The christians say that their god is bigger and meaner than anyone else, and they have the flood story and Noah’s Ark to prove it, for whatever that fairy tale is worth. The whole thing is a cosplay, with the maturity level - and viciousness - of children.

The GQP is far more toxic and dangerous. They have taken that bullying to a new level by claiming governmental power while doing it. If you aren’t Male and WASP, you are going to be bullied by them. They are the new brownshirts, with an American party affiliation but Nazi morals.

My experience in business with so-called “management” lead me to the obvious inclusion of them in the bully category. That is the only way so many otherwise completely useless and incompetent idiots could hold power and make big money. They rise to the top on each others’ backs, not because of their results. Corporate management is also the gang of bullies that uses their numbers and money as clubs to keep the employees - the productive folks - in line. The only counter-weight I have seen to that is unions. It is no surprise that the wholly-owned corporate fascist GQP is anti-union. The worst of the bullies rise to the top in both places.

Likewise, corporations use their size and money to buy or bully their way into undeserved power, just as the bullies did in elementary school. The sad part is they get away with it, mostly.

Endgame?

I titled this piece that for a reason. The fact is that the power of religions and corporations is fading, as my mentor predicted back in the dark ages of Ronnie Raygun. All of their fascist political moves can’t stop the march of reality, and probably will worsen the backlash when they finally lose the war. Selling fantasies can’t make up for the body count that the fascists are leaving - people rarely forget murdered relatives.

Money is no longer the huge one-and-only power that made the original monopolies so fearsome. The more fluid availability of money - venture capital is an example - means that possession of large capital reserves is no longer the corporate and billionaire’s weapon it once was. That weapon has been increasingly neutralized by speedy electronic funds transfer, among other changes. Corporate power has fallen as the power of their wallets has lost sway.

The various christian cults are losing followers in droves as people realize that reality is a better place to be. “Spiritual” doesn’t just mean believing in fairy tales any more. As people realize that the fairy tales are just that, the whole point of a bullying “god” vanishes, and the people who use it as part of their scam lose their influence. Organized religion is only as powerful as its fairy tales.

And so, back to the original point that started this. Bullying has less and less power as the bullied learn that they don’t have to take it any more. Whether corporate, religious, political, or personal bullying, the bullied are learning what it is and how to deal with it. The person who learns early that bullies are only as powerful as the fear they create also stands up to the other kinds of bullies as an adult. That war is still in progress, but it is slowly crawling to an unstoppable conclusion.