'Everybody does it' a childish defense for bullying in life or politics

President Kennedy assassinated in 1963

"Everybody does it. It doesn't matter who they are, they just can't get along." This childish response to argument helps foster bullying and bad behavior in society and politics, including the Congress and other areas of government as well as in daily life.

Those of us who have raised or taught children know that when there is an altercation between two or three or more children, usually no one takes responsibility for it. The fingers point instead to one another, without anyone admitting or finding out who really started trouble. Often everyone gets punished when the culprit is unknown.  And if that culprit is discovered, then the children begin to talk about "everyone is doing it,"especially if that guilty person has a level of control and/or popularity within the group.

We respond to political figures just like we respond to children's arguments. We punish the group without acknowledging the source of trouble. Often we don't even try to find that source with the argument "everyone does it."

In the case of the episodes of gun violence, demonstrated by the high-profile shooting of Gabriel Gifford, Congresswoman from Arizona a few years ago, the school shooting at Sandy Hook, and most recently in Washington State, the atmosphere of hate has been festering for some time.

Clarence W. Dupnik, the sheriff of the county where Gabriel Gifford was killed, was reported to say shortly afterward in a news conference,about an  "atmosphere of hatred and bigotry,"helping to fuel violence.  He spoke strongly of that atmosphere as provoking those with serious mental health problems to act out their violent fantasies. An atmosphere of hate, he said, facilitates problems. He tells us we must all get at the source.

The source of that,according to the reporting of the Christian Science Monitor, is the extreme rhetoric, building up since 2006. Fox News fosters much of it with its news "commentators," hardly news at all. Whether that is Sean Hannity or Sarah Palin, the right remains central to this ugly speech in a very special way.

For example, as David Neiwart pointed out in Crooks and Liars, how Glenn Beck called for kicking California out of the Union, and also referred to Barack Obama as a Marxist, a communist, a socialist and later a fascist. Emails circulate these rumors, and the larger in bulk they become, the more people believe them before hearing the truth.

The argument 'everyone does it' while applauding the angry and sarcastic rhetoric, reinforces bullying and ugly arguments in places where there is vulnerability for that sort of thing. Folks hear aggressive commentators, and people using epithets in reference to public figures; and then its echoes by their political representatives, and then they believe what they hear. Louisiana is one of those vulnerable places where this takes place.  As an example, a few years ago, shortly after Representative John Fleming of Louisiana won his seat in the House, he encouraged separatism and referred to Obama as a socialist during one of his first meetings with constituents following the election. Senator David Vitter of Louisiana did the same during the health care debates. Both represent central and northern Louisiana where the Klan flourished and still has many members. Yet few in Louisiana in the press have pointed to this aggressive language as initiating political bullying and the lessons from history it undercuts in the process.

In fact that lack of admission of who starts what is the problem in politics now, just as it is with bullying in the classroom or the office. After the heat of the present discussions following the shooting of Gabrielle Gifford and the shooting at Sandy Hook and in Washington State, people will likely continue the same response. Fingers will point around the room, not getting at the source.  In fact after the recent midterm election there was a raft of pictures and political statements attacking not just President Obama's leadership but the character of his wife, Michelle, and elements of their private life.  This has been ongoing since Obama was first elected in 2008, but the increase in bullying continues in a climate where the free-for-all seems to be the accepted standard on social media as well as discourse among people everywhere. Strongly worded epithets are part of the verbal violence that psychologists underline as personally abusive.  On a broader scale, the same type of rhetoric creates a national atmosphere of verbal abuse that can lead to the perpetuation of violence.

The rhetoric has been so abusive that newspapers remind people to keep their comments moderate and to avoid angry, personal attacks on the President and others, especially in relationship to politics.

The concern about violent speech and abusive language was part of the discussion following the death of  President John F. Kennedy, who was shot in Dallas, Texas 61 years ago.  Kennedy, who had become identified with civil rights and social liberalism, was called socialist and Communist at the time by anti-Communist Protestant groups in particular, especially in the South where the angry rhetoric against integration was at its zenith.  In reflection of the events of that time, Forbes magazine writes that modern Democrats would see Kennedy as more like former President Reagan, however, as he was adamantly anti- Communist and although deeply religious, not a pawn of the Catholic Church.  As the images of mourners were shown on television, some folks wondered aloud whether or not the verbal violence created the atmosphere that allowed for the assassination of the President.

Talk show Stan Solomon offers the extreme speech recited in generalities by others not so extreme but who listen and believe that if it is said often enough, it must be true.  Solomon has observed that Obama is a Muslim, married to a transgender woman or a man whom Obama knew in college and that the aim of the President is to help impose Shariah law on America.  He and the Executive Director of Gun Owners of America then declared they were preparing themselves, and others should as well, to fight back.

The Southern Poverty Law Center wonders also about the present political atmosphere and the welfare of the current President, Barack Obama.

Experts at the Department of Justice and the Southern Poverty Law Center have for some time said hate speech has increased and hate groups as well. SPLC has been especially concerned about the hate speech from anti-immigrant groups, many of which exist in Arizona.

And psychologists in numerous citations continue to remind us of the hurtful nature of verbal abuse and its risks to individual welfare, abuse that can create a lifetime of trouble that can exceed physical abuse.  Could it also perpetuate physical violence on a wider scale?  Experts maintain it is possible that it has facilitated the aggressive nature of government and personal interaction as well as the type of school shootings that the socially deprived or emotionally disturbed commit in response.

Instead of countering this with a change of behavior, the defense is, "Well everyone does it." But the truth, in fact, is everyone doesn't. The problem of bullying and bad political and social behavior starts somewhere and has to be stopped. Those who refuse to examine the source, and instead say "everyone does it" allow the bullying and the violent speech to thrive.

It starts in childhood, continues on the playground, and never ends unless those who want bullying to end in all its forms tackle the source itself and will not be satisfied with pointing fingers.

John F. Kennedy assassination memorialized as 9/11

[caption id="attachment_11617" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Kennedy funeral procession, 1963"][/caption]

While young adults hearken back to 9/11 as the time when the United States changed abruptly, for the old folks today, November 22, 1963 marks the end of innocence with the Kennedy assassination that ushered in a time of uncertainty and change.

John F. Kennedy was a different kind of President for many people.  He came from the American Brahmin class, having been raised by his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, to be a titan following the death of brother   Joseph Jr., who had been killed in the war.  JFK, as John F. Kennedy came to be affectionately known, was the quintessential aristocrat of sorts, with the addition of his wife, Jacqueline.   It was a cemented status he occupied as a youth and eventually as President of the United States.  He was also younger than any other President elected before him and the first Catholic President as well.

Many people think of the 1950’s as that Eisenhower period of relative peace and social harmony,  and that type of life was true for many of the emerging middle class.  The war was over, the fellows marched home as victors from the “war to end all wars.”  But Korea’s war never ended, and Vietnam and Cuba were bubbling up when Kennedy was elected in 1960.

The time just before Kennedy became President, the United States was in many ways like it is today,  like A Tale of Two Cities in the best and worst of times,  one that represented the haves and those getting, and those who never got and likely never would.  In that sense things were as they are today, for many people who saw in Kennedy new hope, hope that was changed to despair that November in 1963.    The divisions between black and white remained part of Southern tradition, while women still hung out near the bottom of the career ladders in virtually every occupation except social work, teaching and nursing, as  the old knew when it was time to go and left the jobs to sons.  There were also the poor who worked in the backdoor areas of the economy: the restaurant kitchens, hotel bathrooms, farmers’ fields and highways.  They were the unseen, at the deeper levels of what we now call 99%ers.  In 1960 they were referred to by Michael Harrington as The Other America.

While the Middle Eastern nations of Syria, Egypt and Libya have been enmeshed in their peoples’ revolutions during the past few years,  new African nations were the 1950’s political debutantes, seeking membership in the official world body among the countries of the world.  Democracy for many of these new nations may have been the cry for freedom, as the Arabs proclaim these days.  Yet many African countries dissolved into military dictatorships and autocracies, with a series of minor wars here and there that rattled a continent other nations had regarded as holding democracy with hope.

Kennedy offered change as the decade turned from the 1950’s to the 60’s.    The new President borrowed pages from the scripts of his rivals, putting forth Hubert Humphrey’s poverty program as well as the Peace Corps, which had been the Senator from Minnesota’s original campaign ideas.  But Kennedy became the symbol for inclusion while he stood for the working man as well as the Brahmins he knew well.   He was caught between them, trying to serve the needs of both groups and in some cases being unable to serve any as they hoped.  He talked of integration while making deals with Southern folk he continued to court as well.  And he loved his women, literally for sure, and found them just as necessary in those roles of serving well the needs of men just as corporate chieftains who stood guard among the rafters near the glass ceiling to knock off any woman who hope to break right through.

Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.  A young reporter lingered on the fringes of the media, at a time when young women were offered the cubicles for typing,  the society pages for writing, or the obituaries for helping while hoping to write.  There was no anchor desk to look to, no seat at the table for girls without steno pads where men like Chet Huntley and David Brinkley and Walter Cronkite gave the news of Kennedy’s death in sad and somber tones.  But the witness to the events on November 22 and the early days afterward came for this reporter like it did for virtually everyone else that day.   It was television, black and white pictures of anguished people standing sobbing before the cameras while the government spokespeople from all over the world came forth to present their condolences for the death of a President too young and too soon.

A blogger encapsulates in simple terms the feelings on that day, the feelings that last with those who sat four days in front of television to watch the changing of the country, from the hope presented by a new President to an uncertain future.  It was two days before Thanksgiving 1963 when people talked about those “worst of times” described by the blogger as this:

“Four days of watching the flickering black-and-white images of death. It’s as if they extended beyond the screen, into the space at the foot of my parents’ bed. Black-and-white clouds merging into muted gray, a grayness that would return on many days of tragedy to follow. A gray that, right then and there, surrounded my innocence and dimmed it forever. “