i grew up in a culture in rural nova scotia that didn't exactly prepare me for the nig bad world. there wasn't much bullying at the time. and people challenged nasty gossip and roughing others. regularily. so making my way beyond the ottawa river to anglo canada i was astonished by the reluctance to challenged natsy gossip--usually the kind of things that were obviously made up, and the tencdency to say thast anyone being pushed around physically must have done something.

so i am not surprised that the cops in the uk tend to ignore the attacker and go after those who react. i think there are long term social cultural reasons for this. the british empire and its philosophy of laissez faire capitalism and the american continuance of that attempt at worl dominance has militarizedthe angloworld. this is reflected in the extreme class discrimination and in the obeidence to authority. franco gaelic culture doesn't generally trust authority having grown up on the wrong end of the gun.

the issue i am trying to bring to the attention of all here is that there is a definate tendence among anglos to attack any diffderence and demonize it--this rarely happens in the non anglo communites i live in. here on mudcat my poor tyoing haqs been attacked--i have a couple of major handicaps and have a couple of languages. that bullying. an obvious difference must be attacked.

now as to the folk world i found the socail structure of the folk scene in canada beyond the ottawa river to be totally based on bullying. in the vancouver folk song society--the folk ss(some people have no self awareness), i spent years being harrassed for every little diference. they took my differences--which didn't seem a big deal to me--as a personal insult. i eventually got yhe message and gave up. they rigged the performance schedules so only the in crowd got to perform, they bad mouithed me and any other non anglo german(they have a germaic element--not too different on these issues from anglos), they used to attack any workinng class guy as obviously sexist--they were very well healled middle clas who had never struggled for a meal in their lives. they even organized movenment to expell people--a friend calls it the urge to purge, bulimia on the left. and waht a happy coincidence that all the people they drove out were jews or gaels!and working class jews or gaels at that!

so don't kid yourself. if you are criticizing some one in your folk group ask a few questions of your self as to whayt harm would occur if you left them alone.

in toronto i couldn't get in the front door of the folk groups. i was good enough to get an auditioned busking licence for twelve years but those who failed those same auditions kept the door of their folk get togethers shut. the anglo buskers were routinely threwtening and making homophobic remarks. if i had a dollar for every time i was called a frog fag by in crowd folkies out busking i'd have a hun dred bucks! (i have fench last name) . and they never belive the non anglo victims. in fact it is one of the ever present hallmarks of anglo society that they do not accept the experiences of non anglos, don't believe a word they say.

again bullying is the product of cultures. anglo cutlure is one of the most agressive and violent in history. they have made war in every corner of the globe. they do posture at being moral and ethical, but thats horse manure. look a little deeper.