In the face of increasingly prevalent and disturbing teen bullying, Dr Phil McGraw is urging Americans to place the problem on our collective front burner.
E.g., here's one of his latest PSA's:
"Our kids are counting on us," implores Dr Phil on his blog, warning that bullying leads to hate, violence, and even death. "Bullies are nothing more than cowards. We have to answer the call to action. Let’s continue to sound the alarm that bullying is not OK."
He asks young people to sign a pledge that they will "report honestly and immediately all incidents of bullying."
Now, as I see it, we can't expect young people to behave with empathy if they don't see examples of healthy adults doing so. Unfortunately, in our conflict-driven (ratings-driven) media culture, such examples are all too rare.
So, in an effort to rise to Dr Phil's challenge, I am here to report just a few examples of bullying I've been seeing recently. Kids, no doubt, are exposed directly to a lot of this mediatized bullying -- or, at the very least, to their parents' parroting of such.
I don't know the proper authority to whom I should be making these reports. If I were a tweeter, perhaps I would send them directly to Dr Phil (@DrPhil). But, for now, I'll just start by reporting them here:
A Facebook page of millions praying for the death of President Obama
Tea Partiers screaming that our country has been taken over by an illegitimate regime
Lawmakers demanding that brown-skinned people produce citizenship papers on demand, or risk arrest
Michael Savage demanding a brown-skinned president re-document his citizenship to prove he's a loyal American
The guys on the golf course who say people without health insurance should simply stop being so lazy
Donald Trump ruthlessly firing exploited celebrities who don't properly reinforce his uber-competitive values by trashing and blaming their own teammates
Bill O'Reilly smugly telling "pinheads" they simply need to "shut up"
Frank Luntz writing instruction manuals for those with wealth and privilege on how to best brainwash the rabble into fearing calamity if government works to ensure basic human fairness
Dylan Ratigan cynically piggy-backing on populist anger by accusing the entire government of not caring about the people
Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham mocking all conciliation efforts by accusing our conciliator-in-chief of being a socialist liar who pals around with terrorists
Rush Limbaugh proclaiming that Bill Clinton -- not Timothy McVeigh -- was responsible for 168 deaths and countless more casualties in the 1995 Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing
Mitch McConnell teaching, by example, that all efforts of all adversaries should be thwarted with lies, division, demonization, and total obstruction
Glenn Beck...
In this environment, is it any wonder our children are learning that destructiveness and vilification trump empathy in today's America?