First, the story, at HuffPo.
The White House Conference on Bullying Prevention is bringing together educators, experts, politicians and more to shed light on how the issue affects American communities and present strategies for reducing instances of bullying.
Bullying has gained increasing media attention in recent years with a spurt of highly publicized suicides of young people who took their own lives to escape the torment of their peers. The growth of technology has also played a role in the spreading of bullying.
Who is Barack Obama to come out against bullying? His entire career is based on bullying.
First, take a look at what community organizers really do. They stir up resentment, organize the resenters into groups, and then use those groups to demand concessions by using street protests, which often threaten violence or actually become violent. Rev. Al Sharpton is a prime example of this tactic. And in his pre-politics career, this kind of bullying was exactly what Barack Obama did. Stanley Kurtz’s book, Radical in Chief, goes into great detail both about the role of community organizers in far left politics, and about a couple of Obama’s bullying tactics.
Now, fast forward to his time in the White House. How did Obama treat the situation in Honduras? When that country’s president tried remaining in office in express violation of their constitution, Obama ordered aid to Honduras cut off. He tried bullying Honduras into keeping Zelaya in office, and is apparently still working against the Honduran constitution behind the scenes. That’s no way to treat a friend like our historical ally Honduras, but it is how a bully behaves.
What happened when Arizona passed its immigration law that mirrored existing federal law? Obama sent out his attorney general to sue that state, both to stop the law and to warn other states against passing similar laws. Organizing for America sent that line down through state Democratic parties; I encountered it when I was working for the Texas GOP. It was a dumb line to take from a tactical point of view, but it was and is the behavior of a bully.
What’s happening in Wisconsin right now? Organizing for America, Obama’s personal political army, is working behind the scenes to help stir up the protests. Now, protesters are taking over the capitol to block the vote. They’re behaving as bullies, threatening the Republicans involved with recall and even death, and halting the democratic process in its tracks at every turn. And not just in Wisconsin, of course: Democrats in Indiana ran off too. Obama himself called the Wisconsin budget repair bill an “assault on the unions.” What’s happening in these states is nothing less than organized bullying, and Obama supports it. He has tried to distance himself from it, but he can’t wipe off the radical fingerprints he had already left.
When Obama called on Hispanics to “punish our enemies”: Bullying. The way Obama’s minions intimidated voters during the 2008 caucuses in Iowa and Texas: Bullying. The way he treated Republicans at the very beginning of his term, declaring “I won” when they objected to his policies: Bullying. What are Alinsky tactics and the “Chicago Way,” if not bullying to gain political advantage?
This president is the Bully in Chief. He has no standing to call anyone else out for doing the same thing he does, especially when as President of the United States, he bullies on a grander scale than any schoolyard bully ever can.
Crack shot, Mr. Preston, I think you’ve nailed it.
But perhaps Mr. Preston’s lavish number of examples given above are just the introduction to another move by Obama, coming sooner than you think.
He called a while back for a ‘national domestic security force, to be funded at parity with the US military’. Take a close look at the organized thuggery now occuring in Madison, preventing the functioning of a whole State legislature. Surely, with the national scope of the ‘labor’ movement, and its fears of other State legislative restraints like Governor Walker’s, it’s predictable that we have in all 50 different locations for riots on the same scale, plus one for the District of Columbia.
What better for our ‘protection’ (used in the Chicago sense) than the unleashing of a corps of domestic security lovers to ‘keep order’? Not to mention massively interfering with the working of legislatures as their ‘hasty decisions’ are put on hold due to convenient bused-in riots, while the MSM and the Democratic Party offer infinite reconsiderations and second-guessing and 20/20 hindsight to nitpick their democratic processes?
And then what happens when we, the patriotic citizens of this country, decline this “protection”, and organize our own community groups?
You get the Weimar Republic circa 1929.
Obama is also a complete hypocrite. He’s also, not really as black as he looks, nor as intelligent as his tele-prompter makes him sound.
In other words, he’s a complete fake. But, many, many, have been saying this for years. So, who is really amazed?
“Who is Barack Obama to come out against bullying? His entire career is based on bullying.”
Exactly. A bully and, like all bullies, a coward.
Mr Preston could write a book on this one topic.
I think he knows all about bullying right at home….Michelle done got that boy givin her his lunch money…
Why doesn’t he hold a form like Congressman Peter King did? Wouldn’t this have been a productive thing to do? Congressman Peter King has ‘courage’ Obama does not. Obama is a empty suit.
Obama should ‘speak’ only for “his base” which in light of Wisconsin is an embarrassment. Obama ‘protects’ and encourages bully’s! So who will he be speaking of? Himself?
He will go down in the History Books as a divider of people, certainly not a uniter! Obama likes to stir the pot, especially when he feels he is loosing…
Bullying is one of those words that you can apply within an infinite number of contexts. Bullying has, for many decades, become a critical component of geopolitical strategy globally…AND domestically. Bullying, in example, is used as a means of weights and measure to validate ones vulnerablity and or weakness. In the latter example, the health Care bill passing through the congressional processes by the democrats, implemented a great degree of bullying strategy to measure vulernability and weakness of the opponents. The resistance to the bullying tactics was nationally minimal thus, it was rammed through the congressional processes to enactment. In another classic example the U.S. and others have a long record of the same bullying tactic against other sovereign nations in attempts to bring them into some demanded compliance standards such as the old USSR, North Korea, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Iran, etc.
The word family of manipulate, intimidate, coerce, threaten, bully, etc., are all operatives of power and control tactics. They are also basic to the laws of human nature, utilized from the most simple to the most complex forms of implementation.
Obama comes from a long line of ‘thugery’ (socialist activist, community extortionist, legal extortionist, and political extortionist) and the entire power and control word family is second nature to him. The more important discussion is why such a majority of folks [submit] to his and the democrats extortionist power and control tactics.
This man resides in another universe. He is an ACOLYTE OF SAUL ALINSKY, who elevated bullying into a political art form. Who the hell is he kidding????????
So! Does this mean we will see a bill in the Senate making “bullying” a federal crime?
Wouldn’t surprise me, with the incompetence of this Congress.
Good observation. It fits the president and it fits the thuggish mentality of the Left, as we’ve seen on display most recently in Madison.
Can only agree, you nailed it.
Do you think he confused the Bully Pulpit with the Bully’s Pulpit?
(We all recall how overused “bully pulpit” was when The ObiWon first sashayed into office.)
The more I think about Mr. Preston’s excellent observation, the more I think it may be the reason so many of us find Obama and the current administration so disgusting.
It’s not enough that they win the election by deceiving the American public about who they are, then they have to JAM the agenda in against the loud and articulate complaints of the vast majority of the country, who quickly realized the disastrous con that had be perpetrated.
It wasn’t enough to save the UAW with the taxpayers money, he had to bust the bondholders, and then lord it over them.
It wasn’t enough to defeat the half-hearted John McCain, he had to attempt to embarras him in public: “the election is over John”, a man whose boots Obama isn’t qualified to shine.
It isn’t enough to get his way on everything, given the overwhelming majorities the country was deceived into electing, he had to kneecap the Supreme Court in the most public setting of the year.
Everything the dirtbag does is bullying, either agressively or passively. He makes any rational person’s skin crawl.
“…the election is over, John….”
For Obama, the election is NEVER over. He is in constant campaign mode, never in “decider” mode.
Most telling Obama quote after the Sarah Palin took the stage and knocked the air out of the Dems’ sails: “They have no idea what they are up against….”
Truly the words of a bully.
Humorous cartoon at http://drawfortruth.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/keeping-busy/ on Obama, bullying, and the other things he does to keep busy
“Organizing for America, Obama’s personal political army, is working behind the scenes to help stir up the protests.”
The right should not let Obama get away with this. They should make every attempt to draw the links between Obama and the actions of his minions.
Bullying, affirmative action, and white guilt = President Obama.
TOTUS and the wife are Poster children for the Pro Bully Society…
It was laughable watching these two during this ridiculous Photo Op. meeting (of the minds?)
These two remind me of watching children playing School..
I only pray when can remove them in 2 years and try to clean up the
mess they will leave behind.
God Bless America
Well – OK – Bullying is bad and all that and school officials should try to curb it. The White House Conference on Bullying Prevention doews raise two questions:
1) What the hell can be done to actually stop it? I don’t mean the usual song-and-dance of forming student/teacher committees and having “open dialogue” and appointing “peer counselors” and all the other feel-good dreck that school administrators churn out with depressing regularity. I mean what are they REALLY going to do to ACTUALLY stop it! Contrary to popular belief bullies generally do not announce themselves as such to the student body and public at large. Bullying takes place in the darkest recesses of school life and also (surprise!) after school. It is a world that, as far as school administrators are concerned, may as well be on Mars. And if a bully is identified he or she usually has the fall-back positions of family abuse, learning disabilities, “lack of self-estem” and all of the other bromides that we use to excuse sociolpathic behavior in the young.
2) Why is the President of the United States worrying about this particular problem at this time? With the Mid-East ready to go up in a fireball and with public sector unions literally declaring war on their own state governments, doesn’t the Pres have a few more serious things on his plate then worrying about Nelson Muntz? Isn’t this something that the Secretary of Education or Secretary of Health and Human Services or the White House Deputy Assistant Director of the Office of Make-Work Peripheral Issues should be worrying about?
YEs this essay says the truth – It is OBAMA and Co who are the bullies- Their treatment of Israel and FOx News were the examples that came to my mind.
It should be noted that Organizing for America is running a summer program (yuou can work for Obama for money -a a slave) while earning experience to land yourslef a job as …wait for it…. community organizer.
so they are training as generation of professional accusers, rabble-rousers and whiners. Yeah just what America needs a few more people demanding something for nothing. UGH
Wouldn’t a conference on bullying — assuming it has any merit whatsoever at a national level — be Michelle’s pervue, and not the President’s?
The man’s a typical ditherer, filling his time with small stuff to avoid dealing with the huge problems of the nation and the world that come across his desk.
And as to the issue of bullying and how to deal with it: Isn’t this 1) another example of fighting the kids’ battles for them? Making them more dependent and softer than ever? And 2) hasn’t the issue escalated to this level because of the institutional cowardice of modern school administrators?
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Please. Did you ever go to high school, Bryan? If you did, it was probably to some snooty private place with no real bullies. I went to a real school, and I can still look at any yearbook and tell you who the bullies are.
Obama? Schmoozer, yes; toker out behind the backboard, absolutely; bully, no way. He’s nothing like any bully I ever met, and I met way too many of them. You’re just twisting the word around to score a few easy points there.
The only pols I can see as credible bullies would be Boehner, or maybe in a pinch de Lay. But even then, De Lay is the kind who could maybe bully other guys in suits, but would be toast if he went to Frick High, like me. Boehner’s the only one who could reallly make it there.
And can’t Obama’s foreign policy tendency to ‘diss friends and suck up to our enemies be explained by the same psychology? Friends will just be dismayed but won’t hit back. But our enemies? Gee. They might actually do something if we interfere. (Of course they do a lot when we don’t, too, but that doesn’t occur to our bully in chief, or he doesn’t care if it does.)
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Let’s see what happens to the biggest bully of all…. Khadafi of Libya. Stay tuned, anti-bullying fans!