U.S. Frames Bullying As Health Issue

[Khephra]

The federal government is planning a $3.4 million campaign to combat bullying, drawing support from more than 70 education, law enforcement, civic and religious groups. With an expected start next year, the effort will frame bullying as a public health concern, targeting kids and the adults who influence them.

The goal is to create a culture change in which bullying is not seen as cool, parents watch for warning signs, kids stand up for each other and teachers are trained to intervene.

Among the campaign's tools are a Web site, animated Web episodes, commercials and a network of nonprofit groups to help raise awareness and offer tips.

more..........

http://www.newsday.com/news/health/wire/sns-ap-bullying,0,2703320.story?coll=sns-ap-health-headlines

[Occulus]

1. Parenting is a big, big part of this.

When I was a kid, I got bullied by the kids that got bullied. My parents' response was twofold:

1) ignore it and it will go away (advice to me)
2) if I had been more interested in the things the other kids were interested in, I wouldn't have gotten picked on, so I either had to change my interests or learn how to deal with it. (also advice to me)

All through school I got walked on by nearly everyone around me. The only thing that saved my sanity was that I was a musician, and a damn good one by the time I graduated. Not that that mattered- it still took me years and years afterward to figure out how to respond to people making a jibe at me.

[saigon68]

6. The MF who is known as the Chimp is a BULLY and a Murdering Thug

And the families of the people he is killing, burning and shooting--

Have taken up wearing the middle eastern version of BLACK TRENCHCOATS--

- And they are taking their REVENGE

[undergroundpanther]

11. about time

a right of passage.
The "nature" of some kids
Anyone who says "ignore it",just shut up and go on,
fight back or just let it bounce off you
Is basicically keeping abuse alive and giving it a place
in this culture.These is nothing natural good or just about abuse.
Eventually it will come down to parents having to not beat thier kids to take the kid seriously when they are in pain.Kids don't lie as much as adults want to believe they do,because adults even squirm at the idea of confronting the behavior of of other adults.
I really think if we want to get better as a culture kids need to be seen as people and not parental/societies chattel so that they will not grow up with a master/servant mentality,

The thing I think that scares some people is how do you change?

Bullies fear Not being able to get self respecting people to go kill themselves in a war for criminal greed.They fear giving away more of thier wealth to bargain for self respecting people to work the xtra hours. Bullies wonder how do you sell people who already feel happy and secure in themselves cheap trinkets to impress nobody?
And bullies wonder how can you enforce societies sick "norms"on people when they have no peer or parental stick beating them into conforming to what you want? I mean it's scary for these social darwinist cheap labor rethuglicans to cope with gays not being hated wherever they go. Or a woman refusing to raise his kid when she feels incapable of it.These kind of bully people blame the victim first ask questions later ,care ionly f the victim is in thier clique.

Abuse is what keeps our culture so selfish ,cruel and apathetic.Abuse reinforces hieratachy.Our culture is all tops and bottoms,Social darwinism,elitism couched in everywhich way but the truth.. Workers with nose to the grindstone and exploiting CEO's in power over them.

People can't imagine a society modeled on true egalitarianism,when they never saw equality in thier relationships or in thier home growing up.

I think was the late 60's doctors finally figured out newborns can feel pain and sitting an incubator without human touch or thier mother hurts babies.

Now it's dawning on doctors that peer abuse in school and home makes people crazy.
But if they really want to get a5t the root causes of abuse,

Folks need to look at our deliberately and dnot so delibrerately culturally created inequality, chronic instability(when it comes to food shelter ect,(most divorces are over finances),our self-esteem consumerism, this glorification of competition as if itr's good in all things,and this social darwinism being excused or even invoked as solutions about serious problems that are there because we are inequal by cheap labor elitists..Abuse is good for elitists they call it "displine"which is basically domination one way or another.If an adult was treated like some kids in this country there would be outrage.Because it's kids,women animals dark skinned people,gays..i'ts easier for bullies and wannabe bullies or just plain enablers to look away at what people are.

Everyone has a right to get the sustenance of life.Food.clean water, a home,freinds,care of another.It is abuse to withold food,companionship,water,shelter from a kid or an adyult.None of us chose to be here.So why do we pretend some people deserve to lord over others by controlling who gets water or food and witholding the suystenance of life by bribes (wages)isn't that bullying?

If a kid doesen't get the sustenance of life it's a travesty too often ignored by the haves for saving adult face,or adult convienences. So when it is an adult or a whole familiy suffering they are scapegoated automatically by haves as if they don't struggle with this sick culture like we all do,as if they don't care,as if they are inferiors to the haves,who if they were born poor or got sick might be just like those"other" people..
When it is a wealthy or famous person hitting the skids for crimes they do like drunk driving,drugs or child abuse every excuse and support is given to them by society hellbent on pretending as if they could NEVER be weak,or do wrong.It's like how abused kids who are brutalized by thier parents will still speak well of them and want to go home until they get safety enough to get perspective on the situation..a glimpse life can be lived without abuse.

It's people who adore Bush dispite his connections to horrible things he does..It's a denial. Ever confront a bullies mother? Bush's mom acts like a bullies mother too. Confront a bully mom on how her child acts and you will get the same blame the victim game along with a really crazy defensiveness that amounts to a my kid can do no wrong mentality. This is the ugly face of Elitism overriding the fact a kid bullied and hurt another kid to dominate them.And society pretends the bully can do no wrong..

Our culture is so sick.
I feel it suffers from a weird form of stockholm syndrome.
Our whole society is authoritarian driven ,internecine competition,sado-masochistic and herarchical and this is a sickness. It looks "normal" because this is what we teach our kids because that is all we know because it's how our parents raised us.And it isn'rt good.It wasen't sane 100,500 2,000 10,00- years ago..and it isn't sane now.In fact it will eventually kill us all unless we really look at this entrenched problem honestly and see how bullting,enabling and domination has really corroded our judgements, dulled our empathy for each other,and that abuse shapes how we put people into positions of power to begin with.

It takes years of personal searching within to even see things another way. Most people don't have the money,time or social support network to encourage them or a social -financial safety net to catch them when it gets too painful to face healing and still go to work at two jobs to pay off another bully the landlord who is bullied in turn by others..And ironically that idea of egalitarianism and empathy over profit scares bullies and greedies of all kinds,because it is they who have a compulsion to dominate and seek power over others and take more than others and desire to teach that mentality as if it was'normal'.


What is a society who does not ape or idolize authoritarians or negate abused people or other's suffering? What kind of culture takes every person in it as worthy part of society? ~ Egalitarian.
Egalitarianism is something bullies fear and the bullied are afraid to trust can really happen.
Because inequality,competition and carrot and stick is all they know.

WE have a choice to make,a risk to take.
The road we are on now,where we just cope and compete with each other under the thumb of a powerful bully be it a boss mate,peer or society 'leader' just leads us to more pain.Maybe even species wide planetary suicide.You think that's nuts,I''s not,Just look at the results of unchecked Ceos and politicians and thier enabling followers who refuse to stop,embarass or hold"leaders accountable to the world for what is done in secret or what is kept a secret.Look at the damage bully loving cultures do to the world.. America still engages in colonialism.

[BiggJawn]

2. A good start, but what about the Bullies who grew up?

The ones who never "got it" and are now middle-managers terrorizing their employees?

Like the bitch who's making my girlfriend's life a living Hell?

[Dudley_DUright]

3. I was just about to post this

Irony abounds! I wonder if the first target will be Bully Bush and his treatment of the rest of the world?

[spanone]

4. We have a bully for a president, a good place to start? exit w*

[Mikimouse]

5. It will never happen

especially while we define competition as something that resembles war. Bullying is just a symptom of underlying problems with cultural definitions of "success". We can easily see where these things lead us, for example, these oft used statements: "kick their ass, take their gas"; "money talks, bullshit walks". There are others, but the point is this: Until such time as we undergo a redefinition of what is valued and what is not, nothing will change.

[saigon68]

8. Then the Down trodden obtain and wear Black TrenchCoats

And return their righteous anger on their tormenters.

[Mikimouse]

9. I have had a few of those types of dreams, but fortunately

not in many years (not in the last 35, at least).

[ithacan]

7. hard to fight when the top officials of the US are bullies

They see the US bullying the rest of the world in the news. They see Bush, CHeney and others bullying the Democrats, they see Fox News guys bullying anyone who does not agree with the right wing agenda. They see Repugs bullying any Repug who does not toe the line.

They are setting the example for bullying. I'd guess that bullying has gotten worse since Bush came into office because he's put his stamp of approval on it.

Bullying is their form of governance!

Maybe they can put the right wingers through the anti-bullying program and see if it works. :eyes:

[aquart]

10. Immune to irony, is BushCo.

Is Tom Delay getting behind this? Denny Hastert? Can we keep from giggling?

[undergroundpanther]

12. Pain

People don the black trenchcoat
becaue they feel powerless against others.
There are no negotiations with a popular bully.
Bullies want dominance and power.
There is a myth that vindication can be had through violence,It's on every superhero show.
Violence serves every dominator.When a victim of a bully loses it they are made into a monster by everyone who is afraidd to look at why they did what they did.The keepers of the staus quo.

Look at it this way,would these popular jocks,who everyone thinks are heros who can do no wrong,these popular monsters who go bully littler kids,different kids,SENSITIVE kids,
what would get people to see thier fun little jock hero is sick and making everyone else sick?

In the 70's I was tormented in school badly.I have PTSD from it.I almost set off a molitov coctail in my school.But I didn't do it. Why would I do something so awful? Because I was not being heard.No one gave a crap about me no one intervened.No one cared if I lived or died.I went to every adult around me_for YEARS_ asking for help.And they told me to ignore it,to tolerate it,to fightback,or take it.They did everything but step in to restrict or shame the bully for his actions twords me.They were saying the bully had a right to abuse while my heart screamed it was wrong to abuse people.

Eventually I could not take the pretending and the abuse,nobody gave a crap,No one empathized with me.The bullies were like gods in that school who could do no wrong.If I so much as moved my arms the wrong way or wear something they didn't like,or create art it would be turned into a cause for more abuse.There is no pleasing a power-freak. There is no eace from control freaks when they target you.
I was forced by law to face abuse and torment everyday for_YEARS_,and the only thing that kept me from blowing up my middle sschool cafeteria is a girl who faced torment like me laughed. Her laugh,(this girl never smiled) made me pause lighter in hand,bomb hidden in my backpack and realize she didn't desrve to get hurt.
I went outside in the woods and smashed the cocktail on the rocks.
Nobody was the wiser. I decided to try to kill myself instead.

What if I didn't hear that laugh?
What if my suicide wasen't caught in time?


Intervention on behalf of sensitive kids,different kids,artistic kids,suffering or intellegent kids must happen as soon as a bully opens his ugly mouth in day one of kindergarten.Dominance is wrong.
because domination if it is abusive and most of it is,brings on vindicative violence in people who are in pain who feel they have no way out and feel no one cares wghat happens to them.And feel no one has guts to call evil ~evil if it comes in a nice popular package.

It'sa easy to scapegoat trenchcoat wearers and ignore goods christian bully jocks who win in sports for the school isn't it.

I hate what the trenchcoat mafia did but in a bizzare way,that horror is exactly what it took to get callous ADULTS to take school bullying seriously as a social problem.
Every society needs it's scapegoats to point out its sick inhuman games,until society stops playing games that hurt.

[librechik]

13. Yeah--how is a mother supposed to teach her children

with this administration as a role model??!!!

"Mommy, I thought he had a knife hidden in his pocket, so I punched him in the face before he could use it! I can't help it that you can't find the knife now!"

Irony is indeed dead.

[Terwilliger]

14. wouldn't that eliminate the Republican party?

How nice of them.