The School Bully Stripped Naked
The School Bully Stripped Naked
Along with the study of history to avoid repeating the tragic displays of the human race are the lessons we receive from good parents or mentors. When I was in Middle School in New Jersey, my small town of Leonia began importing kids from nearby Edgewater. Edgewater, where many dockworkers lived, had a poor school system.
One day an Edgewater kid started picking on me. He wasn’t particularly big or tough but I was not into machismo or fighting of any kind… not fist fights, not even quarreling. This fellow used to come up to me in gym class and punch me in the stomach and laugh. For him, it was fun; and for me it was a nightmare.
One day my father asked me: “Son, are you ok?” He could sense I had something going on even though I tried to hide my problems from him. At his insistence, I eventually told him everything. In response, my father gave me some profound and critical instructions.
“Son," he said, did you know that all bullies are actually cowards?”
“No, I didn’t know that” I replied
“It’s true” he continued. "A bully always picks on someone he is completely certain will not or cannot fight back. He chooses those that they think are vulnerable.”
“And?” I inquired
“And so they are not expecting you to fight back. Not only that, if you do fight back, they will never pick on you again.”
“But he is stronger than I am,” I proposed.
“No, he is not stronger than you are. He just seems that way in your mind. The next time he comes after you, just give him everything you have, and he’ll never see it coming. I promise you, Son. This is your father’s promise”
I wanted to believe him so much. But his advice alone did not solve my problem. I didn’t really know how to fight. I was scared of this guy. He hung out with lots of big dumb, tough and mean kids that would certainly back him up. It took me several more days to build up my resolve.
Then, one day, this fellow came at me in the locker room while I was putting on my sweat pants for gym. I didn’t even have time to tie my pants. He came to punch me and before I even knew it, I had put him into a head lock and started putting his lights out. His face turned a bright red. He was punching me in my face, but I didn’t feel anything. My sweat pants fell down to my ankles as I chocked him. His so-called friends formed a circle around us and cheered the fight. They didn’t help him at all. I asked him: “How does it feel? Do you like it?” He couldn’t reply since I had his jaw locked shut under the crux of my elbow. His airflow was constricted. I asked him again: “Do you like it? I can’t hear you. If you don’t answer soon that’ll be it for you. After seeing him really giving up I let up enough for him to breath and reply. He said: “I didn’t know you didn’t like it.” After making him promise never to do anything again to me or anyone else, and making sure he knew he was no longer in control, I let him go. Of course, he was relieved to be released. He smiled a nervous smile, and his friends all laughed at him knowingly. It turns out he had picked the wrong guy to mess with.
No other language would have worked with this guy. Of this I am 100% certain. He was likely a child abused by an alcoholic father. He would do whatever he felt would bring him into his club of so called friends only if there were no consequences. Each day I took the abuse from him made him feel more confident. But from the day I defeated him, out of fear, or maybe some kind of respect he always said “Hi” to me in the hallway, pretending we were friends.
Fast forward forty-five years. Today our country is being bullied by a punk. Until now, we have only made fun of him. He crushed an impeachment bid and his sycophantic bully coward friends rallied around him and enabled his terror. We didn’t even slap him on the wrist. The entire exercise simply proved his boast that he could kill someone on 5th Avenue and nobody would do anything. Now, he has killed hundreds of thousands and has caused untold suffering for countless Americans and others across the globe. Our judicial system has unequivocally demonstrated that it is for sale. Portland’s mayor’s call to force the administration to stop sending forces into Oregon was met with a court denial. He is now already waging a coup / civil war and few even have the guts to call it by name. He is the titular head of several white supremacist domestic terrorist groups, and he is attacking the constitution he has sworn to protect. He knows he cannot win in November so he is planning to do what all tin pot dictators do….seize power by illegal force. If he is successful, he will turn our country into one of his failed private sector ventures supported by his nepotistic family of distorted sub-humans. He is nothing more than a coward / bully and he doesn’t care that we don’t like it. Ironically, his false marketing includes the cover of his wife’s anti-bullying “Be Best” campaign. A campaign launched by a Woman who condones stopping immigrants like herself, from enjoying the same opportunities she so blatantly cheated herself into.
Words and sentiments will not stop Trump. Only physical limits and isolation from his circle of parasites can work. We who oppose this aberration have assured neither. Unfortunately, there is a sucker born every minute and suckers R us. You can be sure that although my father taught me how to recognize a coward, his father taught him how to recognize suckers. He probably added, “you are either a sucker or a winner.” Trump can lose one person from his team every minute because there is another sucker born every minute. These are special suckers who will take advantage of his false promises in order to line up to pick at the carcass of our government agencies including the Judiciary. Our neighborhood garbage collectors will run the EPA, and healthcare will not be run at all because our leader has brain stem syphilis and his circle has caught it.
This fellow may well attempt to foment street rebellions and then do his best to declare martial law saying it is unsafe to hold elections. He will attempt to hold us in that limbo pattern while he continues his slash and burn until he is able to reinstate the Divine Right of Kings, bring Church and State together again, and declare himself the Pope. Sure, he will fall one day, it is only a question of when. But this timeline question can make the difference between being able to walk your dog in your neighborhood, or be shot for it.
Why am I writing this blog? One: Here, at my stage of life, to remain silent would be to ignore the great sacrifices of so many Americans who gave their lives to maintain democracy for today’s and future generations. If I did not speak out now, I would be complicit in a repeat of an unnecessary carnage that killed six million of my own people and far more than double that of ordinary people from every race, color and walk of life who faced and defeated fascism for us once before. Moreover, I would be failing as a practitioner of the Mantrayana while failing the memory of my own father who fought in WWII.
And second, I bring you an important message. Although these mal-nourished hominoids who call themselves militia can and will cause a stir around the time of the election, it is more critical than ever to understand who they really are and to understand their true colors. These are the men-babies who dwell in the basements of their hard working mothers, abandoned by their fathers. Have no illusions, they are just like Trump: cowards to the core. Their ability to discriminate between reality TV and real life is as good as the old ladies who used to send In wedding presents to the TV studios when actors in soap operas such as The Days of Our Lives, or AS the World Turns got married. These emasculated men have confused gun and knife porno mags for the noble masculine qualities they so badly lack, the ability to protect vulnerable populations, while offering care and wisdom. They are lonely over aged adolescents who live in isolation from the very humanity that requires truly brave magnanimous women and men to lead with sincerely cultivated and inherited noble qualities, something our current president will never be able to comprehend.
These so-called militia are babies who collect hundreds of guns and play paint ball, while hiding behind straw bails set up in shopping malls. They will, without any doubt, abandon the buddies they are trying to impress the moment they realize that the rounds of ammunition are actually real, and aimed at them by real police who can in fact kill them. They will see only one dead body of their fellow man-babies and run home humiliated to their mommy’s basements to cower under the protection of the only humanity they have ever known, their mothers. They are nothing more than undisciplined children, abandoned by irresponsible fathers. These are not patriotic heroes defending our flag. They have no idea what the flag actually stands for. They do not even recognize that the flag they fly and destroy is the very blanket that gave them the freedom of speech they enjoy.
Our judiciary has already been purchased. Our legislative branch has been slipped a roofie and our executive branch is riddled with a real disease they have downplayed and called fake regardless of its obvious trail of carnage.
For those who think voting is a joke, or are afraid of showing up at the voting locations, just ask yourself if you want to be able to walk your dog on January 1, 2012. Although I wrote this a week ago ago, today we can clearly see I am correct to report my late father’s assessment. Just like my own personal bully was abandoned by his close circle of friends, so will these political rats abandon this sinking Titanic. They will propose that they had a sudden turn of heart like COVID seemed to catalyze for Chris Christie when in fact, they all knew better all along. They were driven by greed and opportunism and were ready to kill us all to seize power. My message is singular, fear not and vote. Here is my promise from a father who cares: Face this bully, he is none other than a coward. He and his followers will reveal their coward natures once they realize this is not a TV show. Be that as it may, the same goes for the fears within us. Face them in your meditation for the way out is through the fears.