From M Ted:

"Bullies don't act alone--they act with the tacet approval of authority figures, managers, teachers, etc, and with the complicity of the "uninvolved" onlooker, co-workers, students,etc.
This is why it seldom helps to complain to higher-ups about bullies.

If you are in a workplace that is dominated by a bully, whether the garden variety, or the psycho type, take a good, hard, look around--the bully may just be the tip of the iceberg-"



Absolutely!

School Bullying Policies are total CRAP. I know, both my children were bullied, my daughter almost to the point of wishing for death to swallow her up, and in both cases, the words on their charters were utterly hollow and meaningless.

More than that though, as M Ted so wisely says, it is the apathy of all those around the situation which allows the bullies to exist, and thrive.

Society these days now 'celebrates' the bullies, with the TV programmes and the culture that surround us all. It needs to be changed. It is being ingrained into our children that spitefulness unkindness and ritual humiliation, is quite normal and what life is about. Geez! WHERE are we going with that???????

If you see bullying going on and you keep quiet about it, then you are NO better than the bully themselves. It matters not if that bullying is taking place in the workplace, the school, the home...or..on messageboards.

It is no good coming up to people in private, telling them that you're on their side, or how 'terrible' you think it is, how what is happening to them should NOT be happening, because your SILENCE is the very thing that is ALLOWING it to happen and to continue to happen.

There is one person who has stood beside me, and I have the utmost respect for that person, because they have spoken out, both publicly and privately, regardless of how others may view them. It takes strength to do that, but it also proves that those speak out, have not only strength, but kindness, compassion, empathy, honour and integrity.

We have come so far away from those values in modern life.

We need to return to them.


Lizzie