STFU Hippie, Vol. 2: Anti-Bullying Campaigns

In the era of Bieber Fever and the tween controlled media, every major national organization has somehow simultaneously decided that our nation’s greatest civil rights cause is bullying. Organizations ranging from the American Bar Association to the WWE Universe have set up their own anti-bullying campaigns with the goal of, well, stopping bullying, I suppose. Every time I hear about an anti-bullying campaign, I ponder two very practical questions that I have not been able to answer: first, what exactly are these campaigns trying to eliminate? Second, is the stuff they oppose really a net-loss for society, or are adults so conflict averse that they would rather spend billions of dollars on these campaigns than tell kids that big chunks of life suck and they are going to have to deal with it? Wow, that was a run-on question. I’m proud that I remembered to put a question-mark at the end.

To answer my first question, I decided to consult the experts. I figured that StopBullying.gov would lay out what behavior they wanted to stop. When I click on “What is Bullying?” they tell me that “Bullying can happen anywhere: face-to-face, by text messages or on the web. It is not limited by age, gender, or education level. It is not a phase and it is not a joke. Bullying can cause lasting harm.” Hmm, that doesn’t answer my question. Those are places that bullying can happen and some characteristics that are not part of bullying. I’ll try clicking through to see if they’re a little more specific… “Bullying is a widespread and serious problem that can happen anywhere. It is not a phase children have to go through, it is not "just messing around", and it is not something to grow out of.” Once again, not particularly helpful, though I’ll be sure to remember not to grow out of it.

[RIGHT: Don't worry, little girl, it builds character.]

A-Ha! Dow the page, they tell me that bullying includes name-calling, spreading rumors, leaving people out, and various types of physical force. Wait a minute, that’s not a national epidemic, that’s any 10-minute segment of Fox News. Seriously, short of physical assault- which is illegal on its own- all of these things happen to everyone. All of the time. If you cannot deal with someone teasing you or spreading rumors that involve you, then you are woefully ill-equipped to deal with the stresses of everyday life and failure in general. If you are intrinsically unable to brush off insults, then you have deeper psychological self-esteem issues than David Schwimmer is going to solve in a 15-second “The More You Know” PSA.

I have a sneaking suspicion that everyone behind the anti-bullying campaigns knows that the people who are deeply affected by teasing or name-calling need much more help than they can give, so why waste all of that money on what amounts to a band-aide on a gaping chest wound? I think part of the explanation is that it’s such an amorphous PR campaign that it could never piss anyone off. So many people are constantly looking for a cause or something to be irate about that you can only really oppose something that can’t be pinned down. “Bullying” sounds like a real thing, but saying “hey, don’t bully anyone” is about as heroic as saying that you don’t like things that are evil. Instead, most bullying is a rite of passage that teaches you to laugh at yourself. Somebody steals your lunch money, gives you a wedgie, or calls you a pussy, and you feel embarrassed at first, but learn that life goes on.

Plus, think of all of the great achievements that are inspired by people trying to prove their bullies wrong. Martin Luther was bullied by the Catholic Church so he invented a little thing called Protestantism. Everyone made fun of Columbus for saying that the Earth was round. Imagine if he hadn’t been inspired by those bullies- we’d all be stuck in Europe watching soccer. Probably the best example of a great achievement inspired by bullying is when Daniel Larusso won the All-Valley Karate Tournament as retribution against the bullies from the Cobra Kai. Every hero needs a great foil to reach his fullest potential: Ali needed Frazier, Superman needed General Zod, and Larusso needed Zabka.

What’s getting lost in all of this is the real victims in all of the anti-bullying nonsense: the bullies. Imagine how badly the bullies’ feelings must be hurt by all of those anti-bullying bullies hurting the bullies’ feelings for hurting people’s feelings. Before you know it, we’re going to have to have an anti-anti-bullying campaign bully campaign, then another campaign about that campaign, and on to infinity like those Russian nesting dolls. Before this situation gets out of hand, I think we need to nip the anti-bullying campaigns in the bud and tell those hippies to shut the fuck up.

Dear Seattle Police Department,

I often hear people say that you cannot fully understand someone’s suffering until you have walked a mile in their shoes. I think this saying is true, because it is almost impossible to grasp the intensity of a situation until you are thrust into the middle of it with no way out.

I am writing this letter to tell you that I finally had my moment of true realization, my epiphany. The Seattle Police Department has faced massive amounts of criticism for the last few months due to uses of excessive force and possible police brutality. Communities of color have been especially angry that the police have seemingly targeted them with their use of excessive force. From the very beginning, I felt a sense of solidarity with the marginalized populations who had been victimized by overzealous law enforcement, but it wasn’t until this week that I felt fully motivated.

After passing through Tuesday’s protest outside of police headquarters, I finally “got it.” I finally felt true sympathy over the police situation. When I saw those protestors with their raw emotion, their feeling of betrayal by the system, and their blind rage against a government that did not do for them what they wanted, I knew that I had no choice but to throw my support behind the Seattle Police Department.

Look, I’m not one to condone police brutality. But my visceral reaction to the situation has almost nothing to do with the police and almost everything to do with the filthy street urchins protesting outside police headquarters. It’s like the Seattle WTO protests from 1999 swept all of its rejects under a rock and they have been waiting to come out, only they are 12 years dirtier, crazier, and angrier now than they were then.

[RIGHT- Stopping people from getting to Northgate via Greenwood is not going to end police brutality. Now get down from there.]

The protest itself was an unapologetic assault on all five senses. As I innocently walked to the bus stop, people brushed by me, coating my jacket with a combination of putrid sweat and grimy filth layered from weeks without bathing. I could feel the threads on my cloth gloves turning into dreadlocks as I hurried past. Their stench wafted over the block like a hovering cloud. Although the smell of urine and stale cigarettes wasn’t visible, you could smell it like the dust cloud that follows Pigpen around in Peanuts cartoons. The stench was so intense that anyone who hadn’t been incrementally acclimated to it beforehand immediately gagged violently or vomited slightly. Needless to say, I had not spent time at disgusting protest boot camp, so I suffered the latter fate. As if the stench wasn’t painful enough on its own, it combined with the taste of partially-digested falafel in the back of my throat in a medley that made me want to find the nearest shotgun for quick relief.

If this situation sounds oppressive to you so far, you may want to avert your eyes, because it became even more torturous. I had almost made it through the fray when my attention was diverted by a 5-foot tall woman of some Hispanic descent. She was possibly the most foul-smelling beast in this whole circus, like a bear that had shit on itself but didn’t know enough to clean it off. Being around this many people must have been a new experience for her. She was coated with a thick layer of grease that was either sweat that she had worked up during her frothing fervor or a dusting of Crisco left over from breakfast that morning. Either one would be realistic considering that she weighed at least 250 pounds. She had the center of gravity of a paperweight.

Now, I would simply look away, but she apparently thought that the protest uniform was an undersized black tank top with spaghetti straps and not enough fabric to cover the stretch marks on her stomach or chest. I hate to be shallow, but the sight was so appalling that I couldn’t help but become transfixed. She was a human car wreck, and I was not immune to rubbernecking. Unfortunately, she caught my gaze and unleashed a fury upon me that made me wonder if she was actually part dragon. The fire she spewed at me was consistent with my dragon hypothesis, and it came out as shouts of “FUCK YOU WHITE BOY!” over and over, like some bizarre eastern religion mantra. I tried to walk away, but I was stunned- I had gone into a stupor as my senses were not prepared to deal with this enormous dose of the anti-culture (I hesitate to call it the counter-culture when the orienting principle of these monsters appeared to be entropy, destruction, or some hybrid of the two).

Luckily, I came to my senses before she got the crowd to turn on me. I speed-walked past my bus stop and caught the next available cab before things got really sideways. What’s $10 when your life is on the line? I narrowly escaped that morass of humanity, and my life will never be the same again.

I understand that police brutality can be a problem, but there are sociopaths in every line of work. I guess you should probably try to figure out which ones are crazy before you hand out the guns. While this disgusting mob treated a reputable city block as a cross between a mosh pit and a public latrine, dozens of cops stood around calmly and prevented anyone from getting hurt. Of course some cops are bad. And those cops should be punished. But the people who are so disaffected with society that they show up to a pointless, all-day protest instead of going to work or doing something productive are, on balance, more messed up than the police who they are protesting. That’s why the police protest moved me off the fence and squarely on the side of the law.

Sincerely,

Terrance Verona

Obama Apologizes After Landmark Legislative Victories

By Talia Applegate

THE ROSE GARDEN- President Obama celebrated Congressional victories on financial market regulation and unemployment insurance this week by issuing a blanket apology today. Many pundits believed that his afternoon press conference would be a celebration, but it quickly turned into a cathartic expression of shame and remorse by a beaten man.

“I’d like to apologize, first of all, to all of the Americans who will be touched by this new legislation we have passed. I think of unemployment insurance in difficult economic times as a good thing for the American people, but my time as president has taught me that everyone is probably going to be pissed off, so I figured I would get the apology out of the way at the beginning,” Obama told reporters gathered in the Rose Garden. “Also, let me say that I am sincerely sorry to all of the reporters here today that we had to perform the press conference outdoors in this sweltering Washington heat. I considered using the press briefing room, but thought it was a little stuffy, so we moved out here, and now that I see how much you are sweating, I realize that I made a grave mistake. I assure you that my administration will not let it happen again.”

Obama took a somber tone when he addressed the state of his administration and its achievements. “Many analysts point to my first year and a half in office and say that it has been a great success. We passed a record economic stimulus package that saved millions of jobs, an overhaul of the healthcare system, and a financial industry reform bill that will help prevent meltdowns like the one that landed us in this recession, all while responding to the cataclysmic oil spill in the Gulf. But I have seen my poll numbers, and I want to express my deep regret to the American public that I have not been what they wanted me to be. On the campaign trail, I believed that Americans wanted me to work through the political process to repair a broken system so everyone’s voice could be heard. Extensive focus group work, though, has taught me what Americans really want: a morning show host with a Justin Bieber haircut who complains about what a terrible person Mel Gibson is and signs off with ‘Obama out.’ Finally, I would like to conclude my remarks by addressing those who have said that my administration has been too apologetic. I am very sorry that I have apologized for so many of my achievements. I will not let it happen again, but please accept my heartfelt apology for doing so.”

[LEFT- Obama's approval ratings have apparently caused to his head, causing irreparable brain damage.]

Academics have pointed out that Obama has been highly successful in many facets of his presidency so far, but that his triumphs have not translated into popularity or improved quality of life for most Americans. For instance, Obama has historically high marks in logical consistency. Logicians who study presidential speeches and press releases say that Obama’s claims achieve valid and sound logical status 83% of the time, which compares favorably to Bill Clinton, who was logical 71% of the time. Newt Gingerich has the highest marks for a modern republican at 73% logical, while Ronald Reagan’s statements achieved logical soundness only 11% of the time. George W. Bush brought up the rear of the study at negative eleventy billion% logical. Similarly, Obama has done a remarkable job at managing the news cycle. Even when he receives negative publicity, he plays damage control to make sure he has control over the message. In fact, he has come out ahead in a larger proportion of news cycles than any politician since John Kerry, who was about as well-liked as Obama is now. John Edwards previously held the record until he cheated on his cancer-stricken wife with a slutty publicist then paid her to keep the relationship and resulting child secret.

Meanwhile, Americans at large have become disinterested in political battles in Washington as their circumstances remain uncertain. As the unemployment rates stays high and out of work citizens struggle to pay their bills, an increasing number of Americans tune out national politics. In a recent Harris Interactive poll that asked if respondents felt hat President Obama was doing a good job of accomplishing his policy goals, 4% said yes, 3% said no, while 91% frantically asked which response would look better on a resume, because they haven’t worked in 18 months and they can no longer get a line of credit from the bank to buy diapers for their toddler, and they are about to have to hock grandma’s diamond earrings at a pawn shop even though they have been in the family for 3 generations because the mortgage rate keeps going up and Timmy needs new glasses and they’re really expensive because they no longer have health insurance since Cobra ran out six months ago. The remaining 2% were undecided.

Republicans have taken flack for refusing to use their legislative authority to address the nation’s struggling economy. For their part, most republicans say that the economy seems to be improving, as there are no signs of poverty or struggle in their gated communities.

Some policy analysts believe that the situation is hopeless for Obama because there is no way for the economy to improve. Ira Rosenthal of the New Republic believes that America has shot itself in the foot by using its ingenuity to invent more and more ways to avoid doing work. “America came to prominence in the middle part of the 20th century as a manufacturing power. When companies realized that they could build the same goods overseas with lower labor costs, they were intrigued, but faced too much uncertainty. Then, in the 1980s, Americans started developing computers that enhanced productivity and allowed companies to replace workers with machines to cut labor costs at home. In the 1990s, they innovated new software and the internet that opened up world markets through globalization and took away any advantage companies had to keeping their operations in America. In the 2000s, complicated financial tools were used to make it look like the inventions of the 80s and 90s had not completely crippled the American economy, so we were 10 years behind in responding to the fact that we have an economy where people demand a great deal, but produce nothing of actual value. America’s only real hope for economic growth is outpacing China at developing green technology to establish the economies of scale that could make electric cars, wind turbines, solar panels, and nuclear generators viable for the whole world, but we have collectively decided that green technology is kinda gay, so we’re going to let the emerging Asian economies do the heavy lifting.”

Meanwhile, other analysts believe that Obama’s constant capitulation is part of a larger strategy of hitting rock bottom. Appearing incompetent, paying no attention to the faltering economy, and getting crushed in the midterm elections, they argue, will make people feel sorry for the President. And since Americans love a reclamation project, he can pretend to develop a drinking problem, join the cast of Celebrity Rehab, appoint Dr. Drew as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and revamp his administration with a Celebreality vibe. Firing USDA official Shirley Sherrod for a quotation that was taken out of context was part of this plan, according to many of these same experts, because there is no other semi-reasonable explanation for why Obama would follow the requests of a right-wing polemicist-blogger without investigating the details.

Another source who is well-connected to the inner-dealings of the White House says the strategy has been laid out from the start. Obama has spent the last year stalling on the economy so he can start passing policies that will help improve it just in time to lose the 2012 election, get a cushy consulting job and hit the speaking tours, then rake in the tax cuts that Sarah Palin will inevitably give to him and all of the other displaced CEOs from the last decade.

Justin Bieber indicted on charges of drug trafficking, murder

By Nia Momopopolous

BUFFALO- Fourteen year old pop sensation Justin Bieber was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury yesterday on fourteen charges of heinous crimes, ranging from witness tampering and torture, to drug trafficking and murder. The Canadian-born teeny bopper’s lawyer said that the government had presented mountains of persuasive evidence, but that he will be interested to see how many of the witnesses dare to testify against his client at trial.

Bieber, who has thus far kept up a squeaky clean public image, has allegedly led a double life: sugary-sweet pop star by day, and sadistic, demented criminal by night. Since his indictment, a flood of stories have washed up describing Bieber’s animalistic tendencies. His reign of terror supposedly began in 2005 when he beheaded his two month old sister with a straightedge razor, and grew to be more heinous over time. Before long, Bieber had laid waste to most of his home province of Ontario, where he created a killing field of every important drug dealer, crime boss, and thug in order to assert his undeniable dominance in the area.



Fritz McKenzie of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police claims that his agency has been aware of Bieber’s malfeasance for years, but has been unable to do anything to curb his law breaking. “We learned aboot Justin in 2006 when he made his power grab in Eastern Ontario. We believe that he murdered at least 17 people that year with his bare hands, which is especially impressive considering that he was 11 years old at the time. The boy is a highly volatile killing machine. Late that year, we sent three of our top Mounties to politely ask him to slow the pace at which he was kidnapping women and young girls into depraved sex slavery, and before they could even voice the request, he had killed all three of them with a single bullet in the driveway, and he left them to bleed out the phrase ‘STAY THE FUCK AWAY’ in perfect script on the pavement. Needless to say, the Mounties did not get their man, and we never went after him a-gain.”

By the following year, Bieber’s activity had carried into Northern New York, and he even had gained a foothold as a heroin trafficker in New York City. Bronx drug dealer and gangster DeAndre Caldwell, recently sentenced to 20 years at Sing Sing, gave a sobering account of Bieber’s sociopathic tendencies. “When El Muerto Blanco- that’s what he made everyone call him- came to New York, he wanted to make an example out of the biggest, toughest guy he could find, so he targeted me,” Caldwell recounted. “After I told him that I ain’t nobody’s bitch, he sodomized me with his head. He shoved his entire head up my ass. And it wasn’t like he did it one time. He installed a computer chip up there so he could record music from inside my rectum. We had a weekly appointment at 8:30 on Wednesdays, and I kept coming back and letting this kid stick his head up my ass as a show of dominance, just because I was afraid of what he would do if I didn’t show up. Think about how fucked up that is- I let him rape me with his face because I was afraid of what he would do if I didn’t let him. I always said that I only fear God and fear my mother. But I learned the hard way to fear Justin Bieber.”

[RIGHT- Bieber flashing a peace sign, a virtue which he has ritualistically eviscerated.]

Perhaps the most disturbing story about Bieber’s descent into the criminal underworld came after he became aware that the FBI was investigating him. Bieber abducted the husband of the secretary of New York’s FBI office, then gouged out his eyes, cut his tongue in half down the middle, cauterized the wounds, the pulled the two strands of his bifurcated tongue out through his empty eye sockets and tied them in a knot. Since he stopped the bleeding, the victim survived, and Bieber kept him alive on an IV drip for 13 days while he stumbled around like a slightly more functional Helen Keller.

There have also been rumors that Bieber’s dominance has stretched around the globe. Certain documents obtained from the CIA indicate that Bieber has purchased enough highly enriched uranium from the Iranian government to make at least three nuclear bombs. While it is unclear as to whether Bieber has the technology to attach these bombs to missiles, the possibility of a suitcase nuke remains terrifying, and his close friendship with Kim Jong-Il raises the question of how long it could be until he would be able to blow up half of the eastern seaboard just to see it burn. When asked about his association with Bieber, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad curled up in the fetal position and began sobbing uncontrollably. Between gasps, he could be heard to say, “Anything but Bieber! Don’t make me revisit that nightmare! I will renounce my faith! Anything, just don’t mention that name!”

At a preliminary hearing, the federal court set bail for Bieber at $250,000, and he was released on bond. He has since rejoined Taylor Swift as the opening act for her Fearless tour in the United Kingdom.