Bullying, School Shootings and the Right

Bullying is a huge problem for LGBT youth both inside and outside of the nation's schools, but the problem extends far beyond just LGBT youth. And as a piece in Salon reports, bullying ties directly to the alarming rise of school shootings. As does the growing economic and social viciousness supported by conservative elements in society and, of course, the Republican Party where the poor, the immigrant, the gay, and all those deemed as the "other" are viewed as discardable and unworthy of the rights of citizenship. What makes this picture all the more disgusting is the way in which far right Christians want a free pass to denigrate and bully anyone who doesn't conform to their religious/world view. Here are some article highlights,

As the details of this week’s Chardon, Ohio, school shooting emerged, they seemed eerily familiar. . . . Once again, the alleged shooter, T.J. Lane, a 17-year-old fellow student, was described as a “loner” with a “troubled” family history. And, once again, other students described him as the victim of “bullying.” And so Chardon joins the long list of violent school incidents with a connection to America’s rampant bullying problem.

According to Jessie Klein, the author of the new book “The Bully Society,” it’s a problem that’s only getting worse. In her excellent examination of the school bullying epidemic, Klein, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at Adelphi University, takes a broad approach to the subject. She first lays out the scope of the problem, before explaining how kids’ changing attitudes towards masculinity, the birth of child-targeted consumerism and the erosion of our compassionate society have all helped to create a culture in which children are increasingly feeling overwhelmed and helpless, and, in some cases, prone to violence. Most provocatively, she ties the rise of bullying behavior to America’s economic move to the right.

Between 1979 and 1988 there were 27 school shootings. From 1989 to 1998 there were 55 and then they continued to increase from 1999 to 2008 to 66, so there were 148 shootings in the three decades from 1979 to 2008. What’s most disturbing is that in the three years since 2008 there have been 43 shootings, and that’s almost two-thirds of the number of shootings that occurred in the preceding decade.

I started studying the school shootings when I first heard about a school shooting in 1997. I was really struck by why he said he committed the shooting. He talked about how he had been picked on, and called gay, and harassed for being fat.

We have an increasingly high depression rate, anxiety has increased among children. There are so many different ways that the children are acting out their despair — suicides, self cutting, substance abuse — and so much of it relates to school bullying. So, what I try to show in the book is that school shootings are the most horrific response to school bullying but they’re not the only response at all, and mostly they magnify what’s happening at schools. You know, most of the kids who committed shootings really wanted to tell the world that they were so miserable and they were treated so badly and this is what they felt forced to do.

When school shootings occur people like to say, “Oh that person was a psychopath.” And it’s a way of personalizing the issue and not taking responsibility as a society. As Durkheim, a classic sociologist, said in his seminal work called “Suicide,” when you see the same thing happening over and over and over again, you can’t keep blaming the individual. You have to look at the social environment and say, why is this happening over and over again?

These kids really were willing to do anything to increase their respect in the school. They’d been so harassed and so degraded. It was such a miserable experience that they thought if they picked up guns they would finally feel powerful and gain some respect. And I think that is a very sad statement in our society that kids get that message: To get respect they need to be dominate and aggressive and violent.

[W]hat I show in the book is that masculine values of aggression, violence, dominance are not specific to men. Girls and women are increasingly pressured to demonstrate those values as well.

[W]hat’s fascinating is that social isolation has increased. It’s tripled since the ’80s, and depression and anxiety statistics are extremely high. These are, I think, indicators of what’s going on in our society more generally.

There are many people who do believe that the more you help people, the less they will work, the more lazy they will become. . . . society has gotten more and more harsh in that way and I think people feel strongly in our country that that’s the way to get ahead. We’re the only country in the industrial world that doesn’t have a paid leave for women who have children, whereas other countries in Europe go out of their way to make sure there’s a long paternity leave.

[P]eople here believe that if you make money you’ll get support but if you don’t make money, you’re pretty much on your own. And I think that’s what kids in schools feel. A lot of the school shooters said, “The principal wasn’t doing anything, the guidance counselors weren’t doing anything, so I had to take things into my own hands.” And that’s pretty much the message that people get, whether you’re an adult or a kid.

The cultural dialogue around school shootings seems to have shifted in the last decade and a half. When Columbine happened, video games and violent movies were really being blamed. This doesn’t really seem to be the case anymore. It’s more about bullying.

We’re going through this election cycle in which, once again, welfare recipients are being demonized, and the GOP primary has become a race to out right-wing Mitt Romney. . . . Right now kids are trained to be heartless and pursue success at any cost.

I suspect that it's not lost on teens and youths that the least compassionate and most bullying prone are conservative Christians who, in my view, are well on their way towards killing the Christian brand all together.

More Sunday Male Beauty

Joe Scarborough Chides Rick Santorum - and the GOP

As I will write in a future post, part of me would love to see Rick Santorum get the GOP presidential nomination because it might represent the best chance to see the party get hit with a crushing electoral defeat under a standard bearer that best personifies the extremism and insanity that are now the hallmarks of the party base. Even if "Frothy Mix" doesn't get the nomination, which increasingly looks to be the case, the GOP would be well advised to listen to the criticism of former GOP Congressman Joe Scarborough. But to do so would mean standing up to the Christianist/Tea Party base - something no one in the GOP seems willing to do. As a result, expect even more extremism as the base gets increasingly hysterical over changes in American society and that scary thing known as modernity. Here are some column highlights from Politico:

The story of Santorum’s implosion sheds light on an important political and cultural truth: Americans are in the market for someone to expand prosperity and opportunity, not indulge in moral meddling. It’s a key lesson for Republicans who want to attract sufficient numbers of independent voters to win nationally: remember that this is the 21st century, not the 19th.

When Santorum should have been talking about his grandfather’s working-class roots, he was talking instead about your wife’s birth control pills. When he should have been connecting with blue-collar Catholics, he was instead insulting their martyred president. And when Mr. Santorum should have been talking about how the grandson of a coal miner graduated college with two advanced degrees, he instead mocked the aspirational idea that we should send more of our kids to college.

[A]s he has shown on the campaign trail all year, Rick Santorum has absolutely no discipline when it comes to tempering his message.

Perhaps a political party that promotes state-ordered vaginal probes, re-litigates contraception, mocks higher education, attacks JFK and runs down rabbit trails irrelevant to most Americans’ lives is best suited to win back the White House. But I doubt it.

The Catholic Hierarchy, Not Gay Marriage, Is "Grotesque"

My Google search agent today turned up many articles in which various members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy ranting against same sex marriage initiatives in both America and the United Kingdom. Illustrative of the anti-gay batshitery is this from the BBC:

Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, said the plans were a "grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right".

He said the idea of redefining marriage, which David Cameron has said he supports, would "shame the United Kingdom in the eyes of the world". He said it was wrong to deliberately deprive a child of a mother or father.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Cardinal O'Brien said: "Since all the legal rights of marriage are already available to homosexual couples, it is clear that this proposal is not about rights, but rather is an attempt to redefine marriage for the whole of society at the behest of a small minority of activists.

"Same-sex marriage would eliminate entirely in law the basic idea of a mother and a father for every child. It would create a society which deliberately chooses to deprive a child of either a mother or a father."

He added: "Imagine for a moment that the government had decided to legalise slavery but assured us that 'no one will be forced to keep a slave'.

Excuse me, but what is really grotesque is the world wide conspiracy by men like Cardinal O'Brien to enable and cover up for child rapists within the Catholic clergy. Oh, and the good cardinal might want to avoid the topic of slavery entirely since for many hundreds of years the Church supported the institution of slavery.

More details of the grotesque conduct of "princes of the Church" continues to come out in the trial of a Catholic monsignor in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Bombshells include a memo that documents that former Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua ordered the destruction of a memo that identified 35 sexual predators with the archdiocese ranks. Also implicated in the conspiracy to obstruct justice is current bishop of Allentown, Pennsylvania Edward Cullen. The Morning Call has details on the grotesque and twisted morality morally of the Church leadership. Here are highlights:

Nearly two decades ago, Allentown Bishop Edward Cullen was one of two or three high-ranking clergy present when the head of the Philadelphia Archdiocese ordered the shredding of a list of 35 priests suspected of sexually abusing children, according to a recent court filing in Philadelphia.

A copy of that list and a 1994 memo recording Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua's instructions to destroy it has turned up in the case of Monsignor William Lynn, a former archdiocesan official charged with endangering the welfare of children and conspiracy for allegedly enabling priests to molest children.

Lynn's attorneys have claimed the documents are proof of a conspiracy by Bevilacqua; Cullen, who was then the cardinal's top aide; Cullen's then assistant, Monsignor James Molloy; and Lynn's then assistant, the Rev. Joseph Cistone, to hide sexual abuse allegations.

"This startling revelation raises clear issues as to whether Cardinal Bevilacqua, Bishops Cullen and Cistone and Monsignor Molloy obstructed justice in connection with grand jury I," Lynn's lawyers Jeff Lindy and Thomas Bergstrom wrote in a motion to dismiss the case.

Cullen, 78, is likely to land on the witness stand because he and Cistone, who now is bishop of Saginaw, Mich., are the only two living church officials named in the newly disclosed documents. Bevilacqua died in January and Molloy died in 2006.

It proves what a lot of people have been saying all along, that the cardinal and hierarchy of the archdiocese had knowledge that at least 35 of its priests, and probably more, were sexually abusing minors," said Kenneth Millman, a Berks County attorney who represents a victim of one of the priests Lynn allegedly protected.

Lynn's trial threatens to shake the church to its core, said Rocco Palmo, a commentator for the National Catholic Reporter magazine. "Every person who has survived from the senior administration of the Philadelphia diocese is fair game in this one," Palmo said. "It's going to be unlike any trial that the Catholic Church has ever had. We've never been here before and no one really knows what to expect."

The list shows Lynn knew in 1994 that one of his co-defendants, the Rev. Edward Avery, had a record of sexual misconduct, and Lynn still recommended him for positions where he had contact with children, the prosecution's response says.

The sad reality is that a great number of "prices of the Church" ought to be under criminal prosecution for their roles in the sexual molestation of children and youths and active conspiracies to obstruct justice. If I or readers engaged in such behavior, we'd be prosecuted so fast that out heads would spin. It's time for the special rights and deference given to the Church hierarchy to end and to treat many of these men as the criminal co-conspirators that they were/are in fact..

State and National GOP War on Women Not Playing Well in Virginia

I can't help but wonder "WTF are they thinking?" as I watch the Republican Party at both the national level and in states across the country waging a war against women. For example, the video above of a group of peaceful protesters opposed to the Republican Party of Virginia's war on women who were surrounded by riot police and dragged away under the guns of a SWAT team doesn't exactly make for good marketing materials for the GOP brand. Or for Bob McDonnell were he to secure a nod for the VP slot this year.

But then I remember that today's GOP is in reality a religious party controlled by far right Christianist extremists. Therefore, logic, common sense, and even paying attention to public opinion don't matter so long as the extremists like Victoria Cobb, Tony Perkins, and other Christianist leaders are happy. Or at least such things don't matter until the war on women and ambitious politicians become the nightly butt of The Daily Show, Saturday Night Live and other programs as happened with Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell. And even then, the Kool-Aid drinkers went berserk when Taliban Bob realized he was destroying his political career and moved to block the state sanctioned rape bill so beloved by The Family Foundation and theocracy loving lunatics like Del. Bob Marshall.

A new NBC/Marist Poll suggests that in Virginia, the GOP may be committing political suicide - especially if voters are constantly reminded of the anti-woman and anti-modernity party agenda. Here's how Blue Virginia describes the latest poll results:

[I]t looks like the Republicans' war on women isn't playing too well with Virginia registered voters. Nor is the extended Republican presidential nominating contest, in which utterly-out-of-touch-with-normal-humans Willard "Mitt" Romney, Ayatollah Rick Santorum, and Egomaniac Newton Leroy "Newt" Gingrich spend 24/7 (and tens of millions of dollars) trying desperately to out-crazy and out-extreme each other. Meanwhile, President Obama continues on his steady, sane, moderate way, as the economy recovers and Americans feel increasingly optimistic about where we're heading. The results?

*51% of Virginian registered voters (RVs) approve of the job President Obama is doing, while just 39% disapprove.

*If the election were held today, Obama would crush Romney by 17 points (52%-35%), Ron Paul by 21 points (53%-32%), and Rick Santorum by 22 points (54%-32%).

*Tim Kaine leads George Allen by 9 points, 48%-39%.

*In terms of party ID, 50% of Virginia RVs call themselves Democrats or Independents who lean Democratic. That compares to just 35% of Virginia RVs calling themselves Republicans or Republican-leaning Independents.

*71% of Virginia RVs say they are NOT Tea Party supporters, versus just 21% who say they are (only 6% of Virginia RVs say they "strongly support" the Tea Party).

We can only hope that the GOP continues to pander to its Christofascist masters and insures that the GOP goes down to defeat in November, 2012 and November 2013.

Sunday Morning Male Beauty

The Hypocrisy of the "Pro-Life" Crowd

I've often noted the hypocrisy of the pro-life crowd and their puppets in the GOP. Once a fetus is born they cease to give a damn about it and strive to end programs for poor children and their families and fight funding for health care assess for poor children. By the hypocrisy extends in other directions as well as illustrated by the image above. Am I anti-Christianist? You bet. They are a scourge on the nation and humanity.

When States Abuse Women

Nicholas Kristof - with whom I frequently disagree - has a timely and on point column in the New York Times that looks at the new anti-women agenda that is sweeping Republican controlled state legislatures such as Virginia's General Assembly. It's as if these white male dominated controlled legislatures want to take women's rights back to the 1950's and one can only wonder how strongly they yearn for a society like that depicted in the recent hit movie "The Help." Running parallel with the anti-woman agenda, of course, is an anti-gay agenda that similarly aims to keep some citizens in second class and subservient places in society. As I have noted before, it's mind boggling to me that the black pastor crowd that time and time again gets recruited to help support the GOP's reactionary social agenda cannot recognize that they are being used and that they and their congregations are actually hated by white Christianists. Here are highlights from Kristof's column:

HERE’S what a woman in Texas now faces if she seeks an abortion. Under a new law that took effect three weeks ago with the strong backing of Gov. Rick Perry, she first must typically endure an ultrasound probe inserted into her vagina. Then she listens to the audio thumping of the fetal heartbeat and watches the fetus on an ultrasound screen. . . . . Finally, she goes home and must wait 24 hours before returning to get the abortion.

“It’s state-sanctioned abuse,” said Dr. Curtis Boyd, a Texas physician who provides abortions. “It borders on a definition of rape. Many states describe rape as putting any object into an orifice against a person’s will. Well, that’s what this is. A woman is coerced to do this, just as I’m coerced.”

That law is part of a war over women’s health being fought around the country — and in much of the country, women are losing. State by state, legislatures are creating new obstacles to abortions and are treating women in ways that are patronizing and humiliating.

The new Texas law is the most extreme to take effect so far, but similar laws have been passed in North Carolina and Oklahoma and are on hold pending legal battles. Alabama, Kentucky, Rhode Island and Mississippi are also considering Texas-style legislation bordering on state-sanctioned rape. And what else do you call it when states mandate invasive probes in women’s bodies?

“If you look up the term rape, that’s what it is: the penetration of the vagina without the woman’s consent,” said Linda Coleman, an Alabama state senator who is fighting the proposal in her state. “As a woman, I am livid and outraged.”

[O]ver all, the pattern has been retrograde: humiliating obstacles to abortions, cuts in family-planning programs, and limits on comprehensive sex education in schools.

If Texas legislators wanted to reduce abortions, the obvious approach would be to reduce unwanted pregnancies. The small proportion of women and girls who aren’t using contraceptives account for half of all abortions in America, according to Guttmacher. Yet Texas has some of the weakest sex-education programs in the nation, and last year it cut spending for family planning by 66 percent.

The best formulation on this topic was Bill Clinton’s, that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” Achieving that isn’t easy, and there is no silver bullet to reduce unwanted pregnancies. But family planning and comprehensive sex education are a surer path than demeaning vulnerable women with state-sanctioned abuse and humiliation.

Would that more conservative could grasp the simple truth of Kristof's argument. But then again, these policies aren't aimed at truly stopping abortions, but instead aimed at punishing those the Christianists - or should I say modern day Pharisees - deem sinful and unworthy. If not stopped, the Christianists are going to drag this nation back into the Middle Ages.

Anti-Gay Rantings of Another Hollywood Has Been

It seems to be a growing phenomenon that when one's Hollywood career has tanked, some former so-called celebrities who are desperately seeking to stay in the media eye turn to homophobia as their ticket back into the lime light - or at least the lime light of the far right and Christiansit noise machine. As Joe Jervis notes, GLAAD is taking on Kirk Cameron who is the latest to try to jump on the anti-gay bandwagon since apparently feels he hasn't received enough attention playing the professional Christian role:

Kirk Cameron joins former TV stars Victoria Jackson and Chuck Norris in desperately trying to remain in the public eye by using anti-LGBT rhetoric. Last year, Jackson described a kiss between ‘Glee’ characters Kurt and Blaine as ‘sickening’ and Norris wrote on anti-LGBT site WorldNet Daily that the public education system has devolved into "progressive indoctrination camps” that train students to “forcefully defend issues like abortion and homosexuality, as well as become cultural advocates for political correctness, relativism, globalization, green agendas and tolerance for all.” Let’s remember that while these once relevant celebrities try to regain notoriety through advancing ignorance, Hollywood’s elite including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Kevin Bacon, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jane Lynch, and Martin Sheen are using their voices and popularity to move America closer to equality for everyone.

On its website GLAAD has more as well as a petition asking that Cameron wake up and grow up. Here's a sampling:

[O]n CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight,” anti-gay actor and former teen idol Kirk Cameron spoke out against marriage equality as well as gay Americans.

Cameron described his personal bias against gay people by saying:

"I think that it's - it's - it's unnatural. I think that it's - it's detrimental, and ultimately destructive to so many of the foundations of civilization."

“In this interview, Kirk Cameron sounds even more dated than his 1980s TV character,” said Herndon Graddick, Senior Director of Programs at GLAAD. “Cameron is out of step with a growing majority of Americans, particularly people of faith who believe that their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters should be loved and accepted based on their character and not condemned because of their sexual orientation.”

Piers Morgan disagreed with Cameron when asked what he would do if one of his kids came out. Morgan said: "If one of my sons [came out], I'd say 'that's great son, as long as you're happy.'"

Has anyone told Cameron that clinical research has shown that the loudest homophobes are the ones most aroused by gay porn? Doth Cameron protest too much?

Meanwhile, Andy Towle has these telling comments about Kirk Cameron on his blog:

It's unclear how Kirk Cameron keeps scoring TV appearances. Cameron, a not-especially-noteworthy star of B-movies who was once worked in a middling sitcom, spends his days running a ministry called "Living Waters" with his guru, a man named Ray Comfort. This ministry has no discernible purpose other than making science-literate people look good in public debates. (Ray Comfort's a creationist, and one of his best "arguments" against evolution goes like this: Mammals reproduce sexually, a process requiring both a male and a female. Therefore, the first, freshly-evolved elephant/hyena/human/whathaveyou wouldn't have anything to mate with. Bet Stephen Jay Gould never thought of that!) For a price, Living Waters dispatches preachers to deliver sermons on demand. It doesn't do much else. Nevertheless, Cameron was on Piers Morgan last night, saying not-nice things about gays and lesbians.

A Swing Voter Microcosm of Unhappiness

Elections are won by swing voters and in a general election, these are the folks who need to be won over. A concept that seems lost on the GOP presidential nominee candidates who appear to be striving to out do each other in pandering to the most lunatic elements of the GOP Christianist/Tea Party base. While Obama isn't overly popular with swing voters, he may have an opening if the GOP continues down the road to extremism. Time will tell if his campaign wakes up to the potential opportunity. The Washington Post looks at the political leanings of one Washington, D.C., suburban neighborhood which has by chance or otherwise voted for the winner in numerous elections. The angst and unhappiness sends a message that the candidates ought to consider. Here are highlights:

The voters on the single, long, twisting block of Deerwatch Drive in western Fairfax County are almost never wrong. Since their Walney Village development was built in 1999, their neighborhood just south of Dulles airport has picked almost all winners, regardless of political party.

This year, many of those who live in the alternating brick and siding townhouses, each with a tiny patch of grass out back, are frustrated and confused as another election looms. They’ve watched as one Washington standoff after another injected needless uncertainty into their lives, especially since many of them work for the federal government or for defense, medical and high-tech contractors in the Dulles corridor.

The families here reflect Virginia’s — and the nation’s — new demographics compressed into a single block: white and black, Hispanic and Asian, Kims and Les, Vargases and Sims, Millers and Kashanis. They are at the core of this fall’s presidential battleground — a suburb made up of exactly the kind of sporadic voters who put Barack Obama over the top last time.

Erbe says the party most responsible for the nation’s budget mess is his own — and Republican bashing of federal workers grates at him: “Look, we’re trying to do a decent job, and nobody’s getting rich off this work.” The GOP candidates leave him cold. “Mitt Romney acts like he’s going to fly over my house in a Learjet,” says Erbe, who voted for John McCain four years ago. Bottom line: He’s leaning toward Obama.

Virginia Democrats, Republicans and independents alike look at Tuesday’s Republican primary in the state and ask what’s gone wrong with a political system that leaves only Romney and Ron Paul on the ballot (Virginia’s tough rules kept Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum from qualifying.) On Deerwatch Drive, there’s precious little excitement about those choices, even among those who regret their 2008 vote for Obama.

“Whether Obama wins will depend on whether he can reenergize those people who came out for him in ’08 — people who hadn’t been seen at the polls before and haven’t come out since,” says Ted Velkoff, a Chantilly Democrat who is on the county school board.

Thanks in large part to developments like Walney Village, once-solidly Republican Virginia has morphed into the quintessential swing state. Its U.S. Senate race features two legendary vote-winners, Kaine and Republican George Allen, both former governors, vying for the seat being vacated by Sen. James Webb, a conservative Democrat who ousted Allen six years ago.

Virginia’s journey from red to purple has been led by explosive growth in the Washington suburbs; three counties — Loudoun, Prince William and Fairfax — accounted for 40 percent of the state’s growth in this century’s first decade. Most of that growth has come from immigrants, Hispanics and Asians. . .

This time, Rashid plans to cast his ballot for the president, even though business has slowed a bit at the construction company where he works, even though his house is underwater, even though he thinks Obama hasn’t done much for the economy. Rashid will vote to reelect Obama because “I get an anti-immigrant feeling from Republicans. They don’t like foreigners. And it’s just not logical to vote for somebody who hates you.”

Stirring memories of Obama’s first campaign remain powerful, especially among black families on Deerwatch. They refuse to blame Obama for an economic mess he inherited or for a stalemate they say Republicans in Congress created.

he waits and watches, like the bartender a couple of doors up and the sign maker across the way. They don’t know each other, but they speak almost in unison about what they want from this campaign: someone who will break the deadlock in Washington, taking on the hard task of paying the bills and digging out of trouble, just like the people on Deerwatch Drive.

One has to wonder if any of the candidates are truly listening.