School bullying. Always with us, not acknowledged as a pressing problem needing attention — until now.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. If you’re like me, the first time you heard this bouncy tune, you laughed… then laughed some more. It’s called the “Too fat polka”, with its immediately recognizable opening, “You can have her, I don’t want her, she’s too fat for me.”
It came from the mind of Arthur Godfrey, a nationally known personality from television’s earliest days. Go now to any search engine to find and play it. You will probably laugh, too… until, that is, you really perceive the meaning of the words. Then if you have brain and heart, you’ll have the necessary pause that precedes recognition of what you have been doing… and why you can do it no longer.
Godfrey, you see, was a bully; he evinced his tendencies openly and on national television, most famously the day he canned singer Julius La Rosa on air… not merely removing La Rosa but humiliating him… something that’s cat nip to a bully who lives to torment others, in ways both vulgar and exquisite.
And thus we came to see this not as a cute little ditty, but a tune designed to hurt good people and kind struggling with fat and needing support not insult. And so as Godfrey’s hurtful tendencies and disposition became known, as we grew appalled, not amused; his fame was tarnished and his high star waned. In such ways do we make progress, one person at a time. But this is often too little too late, especially in our wired age where in an instant a vicious sentiment and attack will be universal, thereby magnifying its impact and pain.
The Internet changes everything.
In the first days of the Internet, it was said with pride by the early netizens that “the Internet changes everything.” We had little idea of just how right we were… and how the instant availability of information, easily accessed, easily transmitted, would radically alter the world and human interaction. Nowhere was this more true than in the matter of bullying… both for those doing the bullying and for the people being bullied. The Internet fostered a climate of anonymous insult and malice, a place where, so it was thought, one could with impunity say anything about anyone… garden-variety bullies morphing (with a few keystrokes) into super-bullies, pain, retribution, cosmic comeuppance theirs to summon and command — without care, concern, accountability, responsibility. And so the greatest age in the history of bullying began and prospered.
Understanding bullies.
This is an article with the particular object of understanding school yard bullies, the better to take effective action for their diminishment and eradication. Bullies have existed in every culture and society since the beginning of human history. Bullies have been tolerated, condoned, even encouraged because they represent the prevailing power structure and elites and mirror their attitudes.
Bullies rarely are the representatives of the poor, the dispossessed, the politically isolated, the misunderstood and “different”… although bullies’ usual victims ordinarily are found in these categories. In other words, bullies get away with their anti-social behaviors because they are representatives of prevailing prejudices, hatreds, fears, and anxieties. Scratch a bully, and you will find an entire network of people (often including his parents) who not only do not condemn such activities, but consciously or unconsciously assist in their realization and defense. As such bullying goes well beyond one bully and one victim to being instead one cultural tradition attempting to contain, control, intimidate and even destroy another culture and its “unacceptable” views.
As such the problem of bullies quickly becomes a problem about the cultural wars which so distinguish our times. These wars, like all wars, are brutal, inhumane, boundless in their cruelties and, worst of all, in their point of view which is that they epitomize good; their opponents the very principle of evil amongst us. It is with this background in mind that we take up the labor of understanding, identifying, curtailing, controlling and (for we must keep this high goal before us) eliminating bullying. And so we go to Ground Zero, the schools of the Great Republic, where the internecine cultural wars are fought every day, every single day.
The extent of the problem. Thanks to the sustained work of organizations like how-to-stop-bullying.com we now have, for the first time, hard statistics on such matters as who bullies, who is bullied, why, how, how often, etc. The advent of such data indicates that progress is being made in understanding and effectively confronting and handling this matter. Remember, bullying has always existed… but because it was not regarded as a “problem”, much less a problem that school personnel must deal with, no progress towards the ultimate goal of eradication was made or could be made. These are the early days of a reversal of this invidious, ostrich-head-in-the-sand “policy” which has endured for centuries, where bullying was anecdotal, insignificant, never regarded, never mattered, never solved.
Thankfully our way, indeed our entire approach to this subject, is increasingly different from what has unacceptably gone before. Pro-active, we see the seeds not merely of significant but of pervasive, fundamental, beneficial change. Yes, things are changing, though these are but its early days.
What you can do.
Obviously, this is a problem of most immediate relevance to affected students, their parents, and their schools. This is where the bullying war, in all its aspects, is fought daily.
Parents must be aware that bullying is a daily feature in most schools.
They must therefore maintain open and productive conversations with children to discern what may be happening… and with school authorities who should be glad for your active concern and willingness to help.
Parents should ask school committees and other responsible educational officers just what they are doing both to preclude the problem and handle individual instances once they arise.
In this way, school by school, principal by principal, teacher by teacher, parent by parent, student by student progress must, can and will be made, for one thing is certain: if we as a people, with our full panoply of resources intellectual and organizational, confront this problem with a will, progress will be made and the schools of the Great Republic cleansed of an outrage swept under the rug by nations and peoples before us who were less committed to students and schools than we are. This will not, cannot, be the work of a single school or single term, and we must be so prepared. But it is important work, empowering legions of afflicted students who can now grow to full potential, enriching and enhancing the Great Republic which is sore in need of their skills and services, many and timely.
**** We invite you to post your comments to this article below.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today.
Republished with Authors permission
By Brian Armstrong
http://smarthomebusinesssolutions.info
‘You are the one…’ An Open Letter to the Honorable Barrack Obama, President of the United States… the subject: the need for immediate, thorough, empowering action against computer hackers.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s Program Note: It is time for me to again address the President of the Great Republic, as I do from time to time as the pressing significance of a given subject makes such contact necessary, proper, and my duty. Today I address the growing problem of computer hacking… and again I call upon an eminent artist for assistance. Today that is Cole Porter (1891-1964), a genius for music, lyrics and style, an American original, the man who breathed sophistication and a cosmopolitan attitude into all of us… and so changed the world.
In 1932 he wrote a tune that became the signature song for every yearning lover on this planet… “Night and Day”… featuring four words that justified every action, every deed of derring-do, an avalanche of execrable but heart felt poesy and above all constant ingenuity and substantive action. These four words, of course, are “you are the one…” the words a man or woman in love keeps in mind at all times and which justify everything they may do in pursuit of bliss.
Now I am addressing these words to you, sir, because you are the one, the right and necessary person to take the leadership role in what is now a daily, indeed hourly event on the most important method of communication ever invented… the Internet.
So, in a nutshell, I shall today present for your immediate consideration and action a problem of global significance… a problem already causing often baffling difficulties to governments, businesses, non-profit organizations and simple citizens. That is the problem of computer hacking and unauthorized access to and unauthorized use of private documentation, often of the most sensitive and important kind.
This problem has never existed before… no precedents exist for solving it… and no one, not even the most gifted Internet authorities, can be certain which means for curtailing this menace, this clear and present danger to so many good people, may work to solve the problem, or not.
But because it is essential to approach this draining, frustrating, demanding problem in the right state of mind, you, like every other reader, should search for Cole Porter’s masterpiece in any search engine. It will do at least two things: remind you that this is a problem that is with us “night and day”, and it will put a song in your heart, the better for a productive, cheerful day and useful deliberation on the problem overall and my point of view on what is happening… and what must be done to turn the tide… and solve a problem which should never have been allowed to grow to its current unsatisfactory, worrying, expensive, dismaying, infuriating and dangerous level.
We shall not solve this problem in one day with one document… but in one day with one document we can and must begin… and here we shall do so.
Hacking cases proliferate.
Hacking is not an occasional, ephemeral, casual problem; it is not limited to one industry, one country, or one kind of information. As even the most cursory glance at all newspapers will attest, we are seeing daily hacking events. Here is just one, one which must serve for the unlimited number of such events taking place on a continuing basis.
Item: On January 20, 2012, The Boston Globe, the most important newspaper in one of the two most important technology development areas of the Great Republic, reported that the online activist group Anonymous took responsibility the day before for a series of network attacks on government and entertainment industry websites. As a result, service disruptions were reported by the Justice Department, Universal Music Group, and BMI, which collects copyright royalties for composers. In addition the US Copyright Office and the Recording Industry Association of America were attacked.
It is important to note the apparent reason for these attacks, since they illustrate a key aspect of this problem: electronic vigilantes taking the law into their hands, deciding what is appropriate and necessary for any perceived outrage to their affiliations and interests. In this case the digital assault was launched in retaliation for the indictments of seven individuals and two Hong Kong companies accused of distributing illicit content worth more than $500 million. In other words, the alleged guilty parties launched the hacking to hurt the reputable authorities who had hurt them… and Anonymous activists cheered the culprits on, an alarming and frequent situation in these matters where those with privileged and private records are automatically fingered as the villains by hackers who are as close to Anarchists as history can find.
First steps.
The first thing the Great Republic must do to begin the counteroffensive against hackers who have, until now, lead the attacks is to create a department of government under the Justice Department with a name that makes crystal clear what this office is in business to do: The Anti Computer Hacking Division. This agency must be launched in a White House Rose Garden ceremony which will at once indicate the importance of the endeavor and enable you, sir, to announce the formation of the Presidential Task Force Against Computer Hacking.
This ceremony will feature the members of this Commission, senior officials from Congress and the computer and Internet industry, as well as representatives from particularly affected groups such as the federal government itself, the military, banks, universities. etc. It must be the bluest blue-ribbon panel ever picked, and deservedly so given the importance of the subject. The Chairperson of the panel must have national and global recognition and clout, someone like Bill Gates immediately comes to mind. The appointment of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (himself once a hacker of note) would be clever and appropriate, for he will be a power in the industry for life.
Everything you ever wanted to know about hacking.
With the development of this structure, the overall objective must be made clear to all: viz, that EVERYTHING related to hacking and its promptest eradication must be gathered under one umbrella. Of course this will affront offices already involved in the matter, territorial to a person. But that is where you come in, sir, for yours is the job of visualizing this crucial enterprise and using the “bully-pulpit” of your office to sell it to all. But your job does not end with selling all this to those in the Great Republic, no indeed; for this is a global problem and must be solved globally.
Urbi et orbi.
When the Pope offers an encyclical, he speaks to the people of Rome (“urbi”) and the people of the world (“orbi”), and so it must be now, for every poor hamlet on earth has computers and hackers with animus against authority. Their governments must take their place in the war against hacking… assisting in the identification, detention, trial and imprisonment of hackers. And if such governments do not assist this necessary cause? Well, then, that is what economic and other sanctions are for, and most deservedly here.
Take action now.
As I have rightly and often pointed out, the repute and standing of the Great Republic have rarely been lower in the world than now. Whole generations now look upon us and our endeavors as the problem, not the solution. Launching assertive war against hackers and clearing the world’s e-lanes, as we once did for the world’s sea-lanes, cannot but help change such deleterious perceptions.
And so it falls to you, Mr. President, to begin this endeavor, long overdue, a credit to yourself, your Administration and a relief to our citizens and every law abiding regime on Earth. So much to be gained, at such a trifling cost. Do this, Mr. President, do this now… and reap the grateful thanks of all but hackers, selfish, disrupters, arrogant, malevolent, malcontents all who should never have had this weapon, much less so long.
Do this, Mr. President, because it is the right thing to do, and because you are the one who can do it.
*** We invite readers to comment on this article below.
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About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is a business author and consultant. He has over 18 books with hundreds of articles in syndication.
http://worldprofit.com
Republished with author’s permission.
By Brian Armstrong
http://smarthomebusinesssolutions.info
I don’t want to hurt anymore…’ An appreciation for the life of Whitney Houston, dead at 48, February 11, 2012
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. To understand this story you must have been in love, wildly, passionately, “have to have it, have to keep it, can’t live without it” love… what’s more you must have loved the Wrong Person… the person everyone and his brother said was calamitous for you, hurtful, damaging, completely baffling to the world…. but completely clear to you.
Have you loved this way? With abject submission, with a focus on the beloved so intense that even you cannot explain it? Have you experienced the heights of ecstasy, wondering how you had ever lived without this person… then plumbed the depths with this same person, the person who did to you what you never imagined… and you were grateful, yes grateful, for every indignation, humiliation, sordid revelation?
If you have never had such love, then you will never understand Whitney Houston… and must never presume to judge her.
And so today, for the incidental music for this article, I have selected “I Have Nothing”. Go now to any search engine and find it. Now make it a point to concentrate on the music, the lyrics, the inimitable soaring presentation that takes you into the inexplicable recesses of love in all its manifestations, to a place only known by real lovers, mindless of anything but the love that is consuming them minute by minute, hurtfully, painfully, known only to them… and joyfully.
If you have never had such love, then you will never understand Whitney Houston… and must never presume to judge her.
The girl next door, born August 9, 1963.
Whitney Houston arrived on this planet in Newark, New Jersey, the daughter of gospel singer Cissy Houston, the cousin of 1960s pop diva Dionne Warwick, the goddaughter of Aretha Franklin. She could hardly have had a better passport into the world of music. She started with the blessings of a revered sisterhood, with their belief in her and assistance… but all that would have been so much dross without The Voice, the voice that gave her the world and all its glittering prizes.
And right from the start The Voice was there, pristine, piercing, pure, thrilling, able to touch the hearts of others because it came straight from her heart. As such she had everything…. even when she sang about having nothing.
Her career was simply a matter of letting others hear The Voice, for once they had done so they instantly became adherents, supporters, believers. And so the girl with the perfect freshly scrubbed looks, the perfect name, and The Voice that was beyond perfection, started her almost effortless journey to the top of the world… for to hear her was to want her and the riches of her uplifting sound.
“Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah.”
Her ascent started at age 11, as a soloist in the junior gospel choir in the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, where she also learned how to play the piano. Her first solo performance in the church was “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah,” a song she should have kept with her and sung often in the turbulent days to come.
But Whitney’s destiny was not in gospel music, though she always insisted that she had never forsworn her gospel roots; some in the black community thought otherwise and were quick to say so and condemn.
The first song she released was “Someone For Me”. It foreshadowed every song that followed: it was an unchallenging combination of slow tempo, smooth sound, and vocals that didn’t take her to her limits… or make any demands whatsoever on her listeners. But it did the job… it launched her; it signalled the arrival of a new talent… and it sold reasonably well. Thus she sashayed through the door to success and the attention of a world glad to hear her…
Her two next releases, her two next hits “You Give Good Love” and “Saving All My Love For You“, took her — and each of us — higher… though we knew there was much higher to go… and so with each record, each hit we went up, up, always up; carried by The Voice which was always greater than the tunes she sang of love, longing, desire, and the promise of sublime eros and total fulfillment.
She knew what we wanted… knew what we needed… and she delivered it to us with a dance beat that took us beyond care and worry, to a divine moment with the one we cared for and in whose eyes we glimpsed forever. And so it should have gone on… until she met the quintessential bad boy, every mother’s nightmare, every good girl’s secret dream, the man who asked for everything, demanded everything… and with each thrilling step changed everything to the point of devastation, despair, degradation. And at last she understood what fulfillment meant… and its terrible costs.
Bobby Brown was his name.
He entered her well-managed, richly endowed, picture-postcard-perfect life in 1989 at the Soul Train Music Awards. And all the known verities died….and if you believe in fate, then you must believe that it was Nemesis who threw them together, to the detriment — and profound fulfillment — of both, for there must have been such fulfillment, or else the costs can never be understood.
Six years younger than Houston, he was a man of unrivalled passion, insistence, rage, violence, selfishness, cruelty…… and it was this man, with a kit full of chaos — who changed Whitney Houston forever and took her down the dark alleys of love, for make no mistake that even with each declension this remained a love story…
And so from this moment she sang for him such songs of such fierce longing that we knew we were hearing the truths on which she now based her life:
“Don’t make me close one more door I don’t wanna hurt anymore Stay in my arms if you dare Don’t walk away from me Or must I imagine you there I have nothing, nothing, nothing If I don’t have you, you, you, you, you.”
“I never knew love like I’ve known it with you.”
And so the best years of her life were the worst years of her life. And she lived them in all their squalor, horrifying reality, disgust, addiction, abashment and confusion. Yet she stayed… Why? Because as she stated with adamance, “I can’t run from myself, there’s nowhere to hide.”
Others gave advice, an ocean of advice, to get up, get out, get ahold of yourself, girl; but they were not in love with Bobby Brown and never understood his primal magic.
And so they married… and divorced… fought in private and in public… and loved each other to the exhaustion of both, the end the disgrace of one, the death of the other.
Now her pain is over… but The Voice, her great gift from God, abides… leaving us the best of her, every soaring note a eulogy for the lady who loved not wisely, but too well.
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About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today.
Republished with author’s permission.
By Brian Armstrong
http://smarthomebusinesssolutions.info
Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow!’ The end of the Great Recession, success, more success, admonitions.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. A funny thing happened while you were at your office bemoaning the demise of America and its Great Republic: they didn’t die after all. Quite the reverse. See for yourself. Skim the business pages of your local newspaper today, and you’ll see one piece of cheery economic news after another. Admittedly, some of these pieces are like the first signs of the plucky springtime crocus… you see only the very tip… but even that’s a very good sign; where there’s a shoot, there’s a flower on the way… And that’s what we’re seeing now… one zestful harbinger after another.
This is a moment for the kind of jubilation that sent the God-selected Pilgrims to their knees, penitential arms upward and wide spread, head down, fervent hallelujahs on their prayerful lips.
You are still here…. older, wiser, nicked a bit, but a survivor.
You were, we all were, sore tested in recent years. So you learned to hunker down…. you mastered the art of making do with less… you kept business, hearth and home together… and, most of all, you did it with faith, fortitude, and a smile that never wavered despite great provocations.
You said you’d live to fight another day… and now you have.
This is that day!
This is the very dawn of that epochal date when unhappy past gives way to all the bounty of tomorrow… “now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer…”
And because that day has dawned, you face the promise of the future with joy in your heart and a bounce in your step. It is good to be alive!
Sales up! Confidence up!
This kind of budding jubilation is occurring now; it’s happening across America as the Great Republic recalls that it is eternal… whilst the bad times that assail us are mere interruptions, no matter how bad. We all knew this, of course, but we were made distracted by the unceasing jeremiads of the nay-sayers. The pity parties they sponsored for the nation are over, de trop… and the Chicken Littles are roosting now until their next inevitable appearance. As we lock these wet hens away for the duration our motto is this,
Laissez les bon temps rouler.
And as we pined for them, scanned the horizon for them, hoped and prayed for them, never ceasing to believe in them, so shall we enjoy with adolescent zest and gratitude every such day that follows.
Our song for such high glee is none other than Fleetwood Mac‘s 1977 release… a defiant anthem, not merely a tune but a guillotine for the bad times, a declaration of our grit and where we are going; “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow“, a tune about perseverance, a soaring statement about who we are… and why we are here today triumphant, grateful, the stronger for having surmounted every imp in Pandora’s box, for this is what we live for…..success, pure, simple, thrilling, sweeter than any posy ever grown.
There’s only one thing worse than losing… and that’s winning.
This is also, of course, the most perilous place for you to be, for it is undoubtedly true that there is only one thing worse than the arduous vicissitudes of failure… and that is high-flying success. And so, dear friend, with the incipience and advent of the next bout of Good New Days we must well and truly take note and prepare for the best… for it can distract, deter, discombobulate, and after so much patience and endurance that would never do.
Success does not dribble, it surges… and this is the problem.
There is nothing like turbulent times, the times that test our resolve, to draw us together, one for all, all for one. It is one of our most admirable human characteristics, that we work together, to stand or fall together. Talk to any British person of World War II vintage and they will, without an instant’s delay, tell you about, and proudly too, what life was like during the great Blitz of London… and words pour out — of unity, community, togetherness, of teamwork and selflessness. They treasure such moments, as you should, for they show us what we are capable of when the going gets rough, demanding, anxious and daunting.
But when the bad times lift and morph from present unease and concern to mere history, no more alarming, this is when the Bitch-Goddess Success delights in turning the tables upon our grand expectations. For the unity, coherence, and grit of bad days begins to give way to chaos, confusion, and selfishness, and so you must be careful, thoughtful, prepared to skillfully negotiate the hot potato of success. Here are some recommendations for doing so:
1) Your success did not come about just by you alone. Many people helped you. Now is the time to recognize their contribution and to thank them. You got through the bad times, ready to tend and fructify the good times relying on many others; now is the time to show your decency and integrity by saying so and showing your gratitude in ways meaningful to those who eased your way.
2) Launch a debt reduction project. After your daring, electrifying escape from the bad times, the natural inclination will be to let ‘er rip, plunking down coin of the realm to acquire long- deferred luxuries. In a word, DON’T.
The first thing to do is take a long, cool, dispassionate look at your financial position with particular reference to the debt you are carrying. While the tendency once the yoke is off is to spend, spend, spend your reality must be focused on aggressive debt reduction, not more debt “justified” by the newly minted good times.
3) Review your life and circumstances. What of your infrastructure needs to be reviewed, restored, replaced to ensure that your personal and business environments are safe, secure, in tiptop shape? Remember, those roofing repairs you put off until “better times”‘? They should now at the top of your list. This is what is important… not to binge or make up for lost time.
4) Use cheap money. As I write, the cost of borrowing money is just about 3 percent. By historical standards this is dirt cheap. Take advantage of this situation; it is mutable, short- lived and tailor-made for the upwardly mobile. Use such money to dramatically improve your asset position, for as every Yuppie knows, he who has the most toys, wins; with this caveat: the toys you acquire must have the likelihood of increasing your wealth, not siphoning much needed capital to sustain your too expensive, too indulgent personal foibles.
5) Buy equities. For the last several years, Wall Street and all the other great exchanges of the world have been on sale, offering often mind boggling price discounts. This sale is now in the early stages of winding up. Wait no longer to benefit. If you buy quality at discount prices, you quite simply cannot lose, for all that the markets are very various, as always.
6) Start a meaningful investment program at once. Each person, all families need a challenging investment program. Why? Because you’re growing older and will not relish being old without the comfort and security of revenue from your investments. Of course you should have started earlier; of course you shouldn’t have liquidated such investments during the Great Recession. But all that is water under the bridge. Make it a point to start investing now; investing at least 10% of your gross salary. Tomorrow will come; only by such means will it be the tomorrow you desire and have always dreamed of.
“Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.”
Now it’s time for my final piece of advice for today: dance! You’ve been a wall flower at the ball long enough. Now it’s time to dust off your iconic moves and dazzle. To begin, go to any search engine and capture the Fleetwood Mac song. Then move that body and sing along to a recipe for success that never fails:
“Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here It’ll be better than before Yesterday’s gone, yesterday’s gone.”
Amen.
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About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today. Details at worldprofit.com
Republished with Authors permission
By Brian Armstrong
http://smarthomebusinesssolutions.info
So, in the end what did they accomplish? The millennial, the mud, the movement that didn’t move and never danced.
No dancing, no fun, no results.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. You know what was wrong with the great millennial movement now receding worldwide? They never looked like they were having a good time… these denizens of our grim day made a statement all right, but it was dour, unsmiling, without a provocative get-down dance move to be seen. But since this generation not only doesn’t read but probably can’t read, they don’t know the secret to a successful revolution is fun. Because if you can’t have fun overturning the powers of the world, what’s the point! Woodstock Occupy America never was… and so this movement never had legs, much less any tangible success.
That’s why I’ve selected a famous dance number for today’s incidental music. It’s “We are family” by Sister Sledge. Written by Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers, it was released in 1979 and immediately set the world dancing… and why not? There has never been a culture anywhere that didn’t embrace the ecstasies of dance… not least because it’s a superb way for young ‘uns to show off their bods, unceasing energies and the hot moves that cause old folks who have forgotten their own younger days to tsk, tsk.
What did they want? Everything. What did they get? Nothing.
One day in September, a lazy young man who got irritated and surly every time his mother asked him to clean his room, decided “enough was enough”. He didn’t know what that meant, but, to his unclean and untutored ear, it sounded… well it sounded ominous, important, something that would surely get him something. And so he called a couple of his worthless buddies, the kind of schlemiels who are always hanging out, hoping to pick up a few scraps from the table; the kind of kids you feel sorry for and who are later arrested for stealing your silver ware. “Come on ovah,” he says, “we’ll hang out.”
Let’s call this kid Zeke, because surly young men with turbulent rooms always have names like Zeke, as young parents expecting their first born should know. A bad name can wreek havoc at any time or place.
Anyway, Zeke sends his first text message to the authorities that be, namely Mom. It says “I have enuff… No clean room ever again. When’s dinner? Can Bobbie stay ovah 2nite?”
Despite a lifetime of irritations from her kid, outrages big and small, thoughtlessness of every kind, Mom still loves her Zekie and so indulges the bathless brat, by delivering his dinner rather than the slap on the back of his head he well and truly deserves. Yes, Mom’s love protects him — again.
Zeke’s mooching friends arrive.
Zeke has no job… no ambition… no objectives… no goals… and a world of time. His useless friends are the same… no where to go, no way to get there, scroungers each and every one of them. And so, inevitably, they gather in Zeke’s ever more filthy and disgusting room to… complain about his Mom, their own Moms, and the entire business of Moms in general. It’s unfair… unjust… and they just don’t like it, so there.
Next text to Mom reads, “Mom we r hngry. Can you feed us? P.S. We hate you.”
Mom’s Response.
First off, you must never forget Mom loves Zeke… she knows he needs a swift kick, knows she’s coddled him for life, knows that he’ll probably be living with her the rest of her life… and that he picks up scum in the street faster than gum to a shoe… but she loves him… and so indulges him. So, she calls all her fellow Moms and arranges a meeting to determine what to do… she also buys a dozen boxes of Arm & Hammer baking soda and hides them in his room… because, not to put too fine a point on it, Zeke stinks, his buddies stink, the room stinks, and one of the neighbors has sent a letter to the board of health.
Now this is a problem.
Next text message received: “We hate all Moms. Plze get me warm clothes NOW?”
What they do all day.
In the past, Zeke, always near the bottom of his class, was going nowhere fast. But now, he’s got buddies… a world of buddies… all useless, all just hanging out… all with text messaging, masters of short, misspelled messages, filled with incoherent demands. Thus, Zeke and his buddies besides eating Mom’s free food and clogging the overused and under scrubbed facilities (to Mom’s shame and disgust) spend every waking minute texting their buddies worldwide.
First, they text this “Meet at Zeke’s. Bring lyrics to Kumbaya. Also lice killer.” Zeke’s new (itching, scratching) friends start arriving. “Hey, man, got any video games?”
Then folks who can’t come, decide they want to do what Zeke’s doing but in their own neighborhoods… ’cause sitting around the house, doing nothing, going nowhere fast is “wicked cool”… and all their equally worthless friends agree. They have never had more fun in their lives… although they smell something fierce.
The Moms gather.
By now Zeke and his feckless friends have taken over all the rooms in his house… including basement and attic… and they’re all over the front yard, the back yard… and… the neighbors’ yards. This is now a Real Problem. And so the Moms gather… the loving Moms, the angry Moms, the Moms who want to bash in Zeke’s head and every other head, too… every Mom present, accounted for, with an Opinion On The Matter. They decide on Action… and so… they put Zeke’s Mom in a hotel along with the heirloom china she’s afraid they’ll break or steal… and start Retaliating…
… they shut off the heat… they turn off the water… they turn the already obnoxious “necessaries” into truly noisome middens… they put saltpetre in the food.. and end all Charmin deliveries. They mean business…. and the kids gets grossed out… Moms know their business… and are a lot smarter than Zeke and his friends ever knew; although one Mom with a Social Conscience smuggled in some “Moist Wipes” thus earning the contempt of every other Mom. “I couldn’t help it,” she said, “Cathilynn has never been unclean before.”
The media discover a “story”.
Folks in the media spend a lot of time waiting for Something to Happen; sometimes they get so bored waiting that they speed up the process; this is especially true if you work for Rupert Murdoch, a guy who hates waiting. Anyway, it didn’t take long before Zeke and his unwashed buddies were on Fox News being asked probing questions like this:
“What are you here for? ” They didn’t know.
“Who’s your leader?” Don’t have one.
“How long will you stay?” As long as necessary until we find out what we want, and get it.
And so a Huge Story was uncovered… and dutifully reported by news media even more clueless, if possible, than Zeke and the unwashed.
Then one day it happened…
The Moms stormed the Bastille, grabbing the occupiers by the back of their necks, pulverizing the sinks, the toilettes, and the unexpected cache of cusinarts and blenders, literally sending the kids to the showers. It was thorough, effective, well organized and it did the job.
Besides, it was getting close to Christmas, and Zeke and his buddies wanted to see what Santa brought them, for each and every one of them believe in Santa, you can bet on that, as they rely on so many like Santa, people who gave them everything and asked for nothing.
And now the grand summary for the would-be levelers of the world. Not having leaders didn’t work. Not having objectives didn’t work. Not getting off your privileged posteriors didn’t work. What worked was the system that you belittled, affronted, inconvenienced, and outraged. It gave you the hearing you wanted… even though you had nothing of any worth to say and forced us to indulge you to hear and pay for it.
### We invite your comments on this article below.
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Author: Jeffrey Lant
Dr. Jeffrey Lant is the CEO of Worldprofit Inc., and also an American historian and
expert on the British Royal family. He has authored 18 best-selling books and
writes daily articles on world events and interesting people.
Republished with authors permission
By Brian Armstrong
http://smarthomebusinesssolutions.info
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