Today I am going to introduce a new word: ENABLEMENT
Now what does this word have to do with the word bully? Short answer is PLENTY.
Bullies are normally people who are allowed to continue to behave in a certain way. I have tried to show how there is a progression from the toddler through to the school bullies. The bully gets kicks out of the power that comes from bullying others, whether it is in the home, at school, in the workplace or in public. Bullies would get nowhere if they were not being enabled to continue with their practices.
For a moment I am going to divert into yet another life story, please bear with me over this story because the story itself has some bearing on how bullies are enabled. This story concerns my middle son who was bullied during the first 4 years of his high school experience (we moved so he spent the last two years at a different school). At this particular school there was a woman who was headmistress (I am not against women as school principals but am against women who have no damned common sense and are appointed as school principals. At High School level in a mixed school it is better to have the cooler reasoning of a man, especially where boys are concerned). In the end my son began to retaliate and that got him into trouble, not the bully. I think that someone even called the police because of how my son decided to retaliate to the situation. The school did nothing about the bullying except to give my son counselling about responding. In my mind, what the schoold did was in effect to enable the bully to continue what he was doing. That was only one situation and the form of bullying got worse. This was when the phone calls began in the middle of the night. It was a total nightmare. We tried to do something about the situation but again we were up against parents who were enablers of their son’s activities. It was a tricky situation and only ended because we moved from Canberra to Sydney at the time.
There are at least two more stories from the same period. The first of these happened in a different school. I was waiting for my children and caught another boy bullying a small boy. I intervened and stopped what was happening. I complained to the headmistress but she did nothing about the bullying. The reason for the lack of action? The boys had a parent who was involved in the PTA at the school. This meant that the boy was not being disciplined because of the position of the parent at the school. This is a classic case of enabling.
Now to the other situation, also involving a boy at the same school, but by this time my sons were attending another local primary school. This boy was a neighbour and he was a bad one. When my son had been at the same school with this boy, that boy had punched my son in the stomach, and again the teachers took action against my son, not the troublemaker. This boy lived a few houses away from us. At the time I was working and had a girl in to mind my children until I came home from work. My sons had gone riding on their bicycles, and this is where that story gets interesting because the boy in question had been seen throwing stones at the windows of his house. He smashed one of the windows and then blamed my sons for his own actions. What I can tell you is that there was a confrontation and a ding dong row in the middle of the street as I gave it right back to the mother of that particular boy. You will be pleased to hear that there were no fisticuffs :). Yet this is another example of a bully being enabled, this time by his mother.
So, what happens when bullies leave school and enter the workforce? Some of them become unionists and union leaders. Bullying has always given them a sense of power and dominance over others. They use this power against employers by means of threats to stop production or take other action.
This is not the only means by which these bullies throw around their weight, please note I have not mentioned either Facebook or Twitter at this point in time because bullies have been turning to social media to continue their bad behaviour. Instead I will look at some other glaring examples of bullies in various situations.
Let’s start with the club bouncer because some of them are real mean pieces of work. I have seen footage of how club bouncers treat some of their clients. Sometimes people have been killed as a result of the bouncers going overboard.
However, there are better examples and those people have names: Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Barry Soetoro, Ben Jealous, Nasty Natalie Jackson, Nasty Natalie’s mother… and the list goes on. These people throw tantrums when they do not get their own way. Look at how they have behaved because a court of law found George Zimmerman not guilty of second degree murder. The tantrum that has been thrown is quite disgusting. The media has acted as the enabler in this situation. The media has been fanning the flames of disconent. The media has been spreading lies about George, and they have been caught not once but at least twice for manipulating the editing of an interview or material that they have been given.
Yes, in the case of George Zimmerman it has been the media, NBC, ABC, CNN and others that have been acting as the enablers that have allowed the bullies to get to work and throw their tantrums.