I haven’t got a real way in dealing better with bullies, but felt the need to write about them.

I suppose using the same methodology as ‘Dealing with Dickheads’ may work (click here to read my post Dealing with Dickheads) but bullies are a fairly different category – or are they.

The reason I was thinking about bullies, is that it is Easter Sunday and this is supposed to be a significant moment in the religious calendar – but why?  Is it significant because a man allegedly came back from the dead – or is it a better moment because bullies nailed him to a cross.  Or, is it a more significant moment because throughout history religions have been the biggest bullies.

What do bullies do – they pick on the weak.

What do religions do – they pick the weak and make them slaves….

I’m having problems deciding which is worse.  Is it better to get a quick punch in the face from a bully and hopefully move on – or get sent on a life long guilt trip and never move on.

I have been spending a few Sunday mornings with the Jehovahs Witnesses – they are very nice people.  I am fascinated by their contetion that the Bible is the ‘word’ of God and not the word of man.  I have read their stuff which apparently contains evidence.  Now being an old Detective, it would appear that their understanding of evidence differs from mine.  The evidence I see regarding the Bible is, that it is the worlds most popular book (I haven’t checked if the Harry Potter series knocked it off top spot – if it did, this would be a sadder indictment on humanity than slavery to the Bible) and it falls into a category of books that has changed humanity – for the better, sometimes I think not.

Is the Bible actually the greatest selling bully manual.  Thou shalt not, just about everything, and if thou doth do, thy arse will burn forever.  Not real up lifting stuff.  It has a few good bits and some reasonable instruction on how to get on with thy brother and thy sister (so long as thy brother doth not want to marry another brother) and about being kind to the little children.  But, aren’t these instructions the natural order of things, in that fundamentally, we want to look after each other.   Me, actually thinks not.

I recently read a book (not the Bible) called:

The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes – and Why

I read this book as I was having a discussion with a mate about the apocalypse…. as per usual.  I said I didn’t believe all these apocalypse movies where the warlords would take over the world and it would be everyman, woman and child for themselves.  So, they said read this book – and I did.

It works out that in a survival situation, if it is ‘everyman for themselves’ the majority of survivors, 90 to 100%, will die.  Yet, in a survival situation where everybody works together, they look after the weak and vulnerable and share resources, between 90 and 100% will survive (for a great example of this read about Shackleton and his arctic expedition).

However, in over 90% of survival situations, it is everyman for themselves – it is almost certain that most will die – yet this is what we choose.

Perhaps human nature is not inherently good…..?

I have been a bully most of my life – mainly because my enemies have been so insipid.  Were are the ‘men’ of today, where are the true Statesmen (read my take on this – click here) where are the ‘saviours’ that get us all to work together so that most of us survive – I think the majority of them get nailed to crosses…

We cut down tall poppies, the virtuous, the good and the generous because we can, because to stand with them is hard, but to run off and look after ourselves is easy – even though by doing so we are almost ensuring our own death.

But of course I’m not one of those people, you are not one of those people….. it is them, or they, or anybody but us.  After all we always give to charity, always let that driver cut in front of us in traffic, let that person in front of us in line, volunteer our time to those that need it, support local causes, world causes, feed the hungry and shelter the homeless – of course we do all of these things.  Bullshit.  It is me for me and don’t get in my way, I’ll get angry, I’ll actually get cross and then nail you to it.

All sounds a bit bleak doesn’t it…. yet, we celebrate the story of a guy getting nailed to a cross and then coming back to life.  We eat some chocolate eggs to celebrate this, we have a few days off work, eat fish on the Friday and chocolate on the Sunday and all drive back home in maddening traffic on the Monday where we don’t let people in and think everybody on the road is an idiot except me.

On Tuesday we don’t think of the guy on the cross anymore, we feel the weight of the chocolate we ate more than the pain of a few nails through the hands.  We listen to the media (the Merchants of Misery) and they tell us the world is the same as before.

The bullies drop bombs on civilians, push over small children in playgrounds and film the entire thing for loading up to Youtube.

So after all that, I haven’t found a way to deal with bullies.  I haven’t found a way to deal with the church or religion.  I haven’t found a way to convince and atheist there is a God or  the believers to relinquish their faith.

Maybe being a better man sometimes is not about finding ways to fix things, but just accepting them.  Maybe the best way to deal with bullies is to ensure that you are not one.

In 1973 an average house in Adelaide would cost you $16,250 – and the average wage was $111.80 a week ($5800 a year) – average rents were $10 a week – a new Holden Kingswood was $2730.00.

In 2014 the average house in Adelaide would cost about $450,000 – and the average wage was 1453.90 ($75,000 a year) per week – average rent are about $400.00 – a new
Holden Commodore was $35,000.

To put it simply, the price of houses have gone up 600%, rent about .25 % and cars about 40% in comparison to the money we were earning in 1973 and are now earning.

I have been thinking about this post for some time; not being an economist, accountant or financial advisor (as they are bullshit jobs!), I reckon, I’m pretty qualified to say, that something is really not quite right here.

Is it just that the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer and most of us are all just sitting in the middle struggling…?

At this point, I should point out that all of this doesn’t matter.  I have lamented in other posts about the futility of chasing wealth and power as ultimately, we firstly all end up sitting in a chair, pissing our pants, watching days of our lives and waiting for our relatives to visit who never come….. and, then we die, and take nothing with us (remember, you never see a trailer on a hearse!).

In truth the rent, the house, the car are all useless articles that cost a lot, but perhaps have no real value in our lives.  It is no use knowing the price of everything, if you don’t know the value of anything.

And considering that in recent years more and more people are filling their time doing bullshit jobs (see earlier post this week – click here) I ask myself constantly “Self, – Is there such a thing as an Aussie Battler anymore?”

I think the world changed for the Aussie Battler after a couple of wars, a few where we called the returned soldiers Heroes, and then a few smaller wars, or where they Police Actions, where we called the returned soldiers baby killers! (bearing in mind we now all celebrate the ‘heroes’ in all our wars, and Police actions, yet fail to live the values we celebrate in them – I had a spit about this last ANZAC Day and put a video up on my YouTube channel if you’d like to have a look – click here).

Then we had a sexual revolution and a stock market boom (and multiple crashes), the housing boom, there was a baby boom in there somewhere (I think around the time of the sexual revolution or one of the wars – it doesn’t matter, I think the baby boomers are actually the cause of everything!), and now a technological revolution (still going on – is it a boom, or just a series of small startup booms, which become bust – unless you sell porn or are Facebook) and then a global financial crisis (which had a cool, catchy and overused acronym – GFC!) and then….

What?  What are we now.  Are we Aussie Battlers, pulling ourselves up by our boot-straps, working hours in the hot sun, digging a hole somewhere, lifting some heavy stuff, to return home on dusk, having lamb and three veg for tea (not dinner) and watching the ABC News… do we see the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended…  I don’t think so!

Are we still the land of real opportunity, or are we a people governed by those who talk a lot about jobs, struggling Aussie families, ‘moving forward’ (fuck, I hate that phrase, almost as much as the hypocrisy of the person who said it with the ultimate lie of never having a carbon tax in a government that I…. you know the rest of that bullshit – if not just switch on the News now and listen to any politician from any party in THIS election!) … are we now not governed by an elite group of people who themselves couldn’t even define (not that I can?) an Aussie Battler let alone find one.

What really is in the future for these entitled, self obsessed, iphone, ipad, internet, snapchat addicted no hopers, we call a variety of labeled generations, who still live in OUR houses (that we worked bloody hard for as real Aussie Battlers!) and expect everything to be given to them…..

This younger, ungrateful generation who live in a world…… yeah, in a world that……. yeah, in a world that… oh, yeah, in a world that WE created for them!  Oh fuck, I think it’s our fault.  I know the good old days are gone, but is today just their good old days yet to be realised – sometimes I think not.  there are just a few things I know, and we all know if we look, that are real different from then and now:

• I know I got my free education (even Uni if you went – which wasn’t encouraged or expected) – and now to go to Uni means to have a HECS debt (the equivalent of my first house deposit) that may cripple you for a decade and beyond.
• I know I could walk the streets pretty safe at night – and now we have more Police and more laws and now about 90% of parents drop their kids off and pick them up from school through fear.
• I know it was a fair dream to own a home and a car and now the opening stats in this post say, perhaps this is not a dream, but a pipe dream.
• I know that if I really wanted a job I just had to go out and look for it – there were enough to go around and now even with a degree, and a HECS debt crippling any wage I earn, I may not get a job, ever.
• I knew if I had a career it would probably be for life and now a career is until the next Government reshuffle (or election where promises of jobs never materialise, but cut backs and redundancies do!), business insolvency or stock market crash. Bearing in mind always that the CEO get his payout and lives to start another company or better still get a Government advisory or consultancy role.
• I know that if I put a little bit away in superannuation I would be set up pretty good when I retire and now (even today) the retirement age is increasing and I can’t put enough away, even if I have a job, didn’t have to pay my HECS debt and found a secure investment that didn’t go bust or involve massive corporate corruption – if all these things did or didn’t happen I will still struggle to secure any future in retirement.
• I knew the local cop, the local bank manager, the local councillor, the local butcher the local milkman (he came to my house?) – and now I do my banking and shopping on line (if I do speak so someone it is in Mumbi!), the banks don’t want to know me except to take my money in fees and give me crippling credit debt – there is no local ‘friend’ or respected member of the community we all look up to and most of all trust.

I don’t think the Aussie Battler is a myth, but, I also don’t think it is our future.

The Merchants of Misery (the media) rule our lives, drive public opinion, topple governments (who needs the CIA when you have CNN), make us buy, buy, buy and most of all ensure that our lives never seem good enough and then provide us with a moral compass that worships possessions, destroys diversity through fear of … what is it now, political correctness gone mad, or racism, or sexism, or basically the fear of standing up like the real Aussie Battler to fight for values that nobody knows what they are…. we are a society of Aussie Battlers with nothing to battle for except our next outrage to Tweet about and our next must have possession (as directed by the Media).

I refuse.  I outright, and down right, fucking refuse to be a puppet, to be on mindless media autopilot!

My Dad was a real Aussie Battler, and each day I wonder what he would think, what he would do? (bearing in mind at the end of each day he was to buggered to do more than eat his tea, watch the news and fall into bed to do it all again the next day – and he died at 64 on the dole as he wasn’t old enough for the pension!)

I haven’t mentioned this in the last couple of posts, even though it is the point of my blog and my YouTube channel, and that is being a better man.  Maybe it is because, sometimes, just sometimes, to be a better man, you have to understand that not all those around you have the same aspirations – they are still on autopilot, living a life dictated by the Media and the only way to wake them up is to give them a good hard slap (figuratively of course!)  Plus, there are those who will tear you down for even getting up any speaking what everyone else is thinking – even though when you speak up and say ‘fuck’ it becomes about saying fuck and not about the subject – always remembering, outrage is the modern equivalent of hard work.

I haven’t also mentioned, the being a better man words, because, well, I felt my blog, with an average of 60 reads per post and my YouTube Channel with a similar average, was just to small, I was too small, I just wasn’t important enough.

Then I thought, fuck it, that’s what everyone thinks – that’s what we are supposed to think, or go shopping to stop thinking at all!

So, standing up, speaking up, even if no-one is listening, is the point of being a better man.

As I have quoted before, as Gandhi said:

First they ignore you,

then they laugh at you,

then they fight you,

then you win.