Help Is Here For Your Tormented World

Prime Ministers and Presidents can be bullies too.

As easily as governors, regents, ambassadors, adjudicators, religious leaders, educators, civil servants, supervisors, directors, CEOs, and more.

Power can be insidious when metabolized. It affects each individual in a different way and one only need look through history to see a record of the results.

But 20th and 21st-century bullying transformed and transmuted the concept to the degree that it’s often never the term that first comes to mind. Instead, there are inequitable business practices. Statutory regulations with ingrained legislative loopholes. Public relations campaigns. Bureaucracy and red tape to bury the most robust legitimate claim. Gone are the days when a show of brute force was necessary for dominance. The sad reality is that it’s happened underneath our very noses in guises such as 'political correctness,' 'professionalism,' and 'diplomacy.' Words that bore no agenda until closet powermongers bent them to their will, distracting the masses with all the entertaining flair of a magician’s show.

Watered down language. Acronyms and euphemisms thrown around. Then actions don’t sound as incendiary. What threat? Where? No need for union or legal team involvement when the employee was made redundant, not fired. A family deported, not disenfranchised. The target neutralized, not a person assassinated.

Societal inhabitants become the analogue of the frog in boiling water, except that science tells us frogs are in fact responsive enough to notice a water temperature increase and escape. People are supposed to be smarter. Many are. But when I look at global dynamics over my short lifespan, I see the same patterns and stories of school bully playground posturing from childhood on repeat.

Civil conflict, transcontinental bickering, and exploitation in all of its devastating forms. A planet, no matter its tremendous size, that is not nearly big enough for all the bullies that are now redefining turf so that their status is protected. The result: Earth and its inhabitants imploding under the weight of what are essentially variant border wars because somebody wants to show somebody else who’s in charge here.

Gandalf the Grey from Lord of the Rings: Ahh, I wager life went swimmingly after that. So…how long have things been not alright?

Me: *Gut-wrenching sobs*

Refugees fleeing war, persecution, and death designated a problem to be managed, contained.

Unlawful arrest, torture, and killing eclipsed because a nation sites internal affairs as justification for noses kept out of its sovereignty.

Dissolution of treaty, terms, contract, statute, or policy for annexation of land, home, property of Native Americans/Aborigines/Palestinians/East Timorese/Check any historical timeline, pick a people.

Solitary individuals stand against injustice while regulatory bodies, government agencies, or big businesses flex their muscles to obliterating effect.

Trauma, tragedy, and tears in spades.

I’ve seen two-year-olds behave better.

I don’t recognize this world as the one I signed up for.

I want some modifications.

Of course, the bullies won’t like it one bit.

I am guaranteed not to care.

Start with net-zero carbon emissions now so the atmosphere can recover sans the constant human pollutant input.

There’s enough food, water, clothing, and shelter for everybody. EVERYBODY! Except maybe the greedy stockpiling people (selfishness uncool and intolerable.)

Gandalf the Grey from Lord of the Rings: The folly of man must be forfeit. This madness steals the air itself and would choke all who dare to breathe.

*Me with my mega magic wand*

ZA-AAAP!

All the weapons are gone. ALL. OF. THEM.

Aaaaand the materials and facilities for constructing/storing them.

Determined to poach endangered wildlife? Now it’s a fair fight where they can tear you a new one.

Got a problem with another nation and wanna use force? Throw a rock or stick 150,000+ miles.

Does it feel pointless and ineffective?

Yay, you’re doing it right!

Mad at a person/entity/jurisdiction in another part of the world? Use solution-focused approaches to problem-solving and keep at it until resolved. Or you can always just sit there in silence (or screaming) and stew about it with stink face. But when the wind changes direction, your face is gonna stay that way.

There are those who would say there are no easy answers, but there have to be some easy ones, at least. Mathematical probabilities can't be denied forever.

We’ve got one planet, no time, with a 7.8 billion and rising population. There are no sides. No dibs on the sandbox. It is still within the sphere of possibility that we can get it right. We don’t have to die trying.

*Inserts world’s biggest suggestion box*

We are the help we’ve been looking for.

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