An autumn morning in the arse end of Manchester sometime near the arse end of the Industrial Revolution - the early 1960s. Young Gummo Trotsky is walking to school along an unpaved street of black earth and gravel. Three storeys of cotton mill to the left, a patch of waste ground - a play ground for the kids of the neighbourhood, by courtesy of the Luftwaffe's urban renewal program of the early 1940s - to his right. He sees a couple of other kids approaching and quickens his step. Too little, too late.
"Where you going."
"School."
"Don't like your hair. Don't like redheads."
That's pretty much how it started, the little game the three of us played over the following months. Two boys whose friendship was incomplete without someone to really hate, found that person in me. On that day they showed a great inventiveness when it came to finding faults - besides the colour of my hair, there was the size of my freckles (too small to be proper freckles) and the fact that I went to the recently built "posh" school with all mod cons instead of the crumbling Victorian heap they'd been sentenced to. So the vicious little buggers made it their personal crusade to rid their part of Manchester of the scourge of red-headed kids with inadequate freckles who went to posh schools and were therefore snobs.
My part in the game was to force them to find me - I found about five different routes to and from school. Sooner or later, they would always work out which route I was using and confront me. Then they'd play their part; spit out some choice taunts and insults, with the implied threat of violence always present until they were in the right mood to face the school day. It was all done in private, a humiliating little secret for me, a satisfying one for them. Foggy days in November were a mixed blessing. It might have been hard for them to spot me on my way to school when you could hardly see from the front door to the edge of the pavement but there was also the risk that I might blunder into them unawares.
The game ended after they decided to pick me in front of my friends - as a private humiliation, the game was tolerable. It had to be. I'd received the traditional parental advice about standing up to bullies because they were all cowards at heart, but it didn't seem too useful when they made damn sure that they got me on my own, when there were just me, the two of them and no-one else - especially no adults - around. But doing it when I was walking home with a couple of friends along my latest "safe" route was taking things too far. I went for one of them - not the one who was always two steps back, providing the colour commentary, the other one. I had him on the pavement pretty damn quickly. A stranger, a woman, ran out of the greengrocer's across the road and started shouting "Stop it! Stop it!" That broke up the fight. A disappointment for me, because I was on top - but it was probably a good thing that the fight got stopped before it occurred to me to start bouncing the kid's head off the pavement. I went home feeling pretty pleased with myself
The next day they caught me on my own and gave me the hiding they'd been holding over my head for weeks. Lesson two in the practical, real life art of dealing with bullies - they're vengeful bastards and they don't give up. After they left, I stood there for a minute or two, struggling with the realisation that all yesterday's triumph had got me was deeper in shit. I might have stayed there all night if another good samaritan - a woman again - hadn't come by and asked me if there was "ought up, lad", or words to that effect. She gave me a handkerchief for the tears her simple question evoked and took me to the nearby house of one of my aunts. Finally, the adult world was forced to stop ignoring the situation - as mere kid's stuff - and do something about. The bullying stopped - from my point of view, quite inexplicably.
Late summer, 2006. Two nominal adults, actually children from the neck up, take it into their heads that the pseudonym "Gummo Trotsky" is as much an affront to decency and good taste as having the wrong hair colour and undersized freckles. The result is a blogospheric shit-fight which rampages across Larvatus Prodeo, Catallaxy and The Road To Surfdom. The one blog they conspicuously avoid bringing their confected outrage to, is this one. It's time to change that.
You guys want to play for egos? Fine, we'll play for egos. Here. And if the end result is that I run away from the internet with my tail tucked between my legs for a few months, so be it.
Pick your window.
Warning: the comments on this post are rated IB - suitable for immature boys only. They contain high level coarse language, frequent macho posturing, homophobic insults and references to violence.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
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30 comments:
Hard to know if that is ironic or stupid.
Did you really wander round the forest forcing people to hurt themselves?
I can't imagine it really.
Easier to imagine a bunch of sad little tossers banging their dicks on the bottom of the desk as they bounce up and down typing juvenile insults to strangers on the internet.
Which bully boy was that CBS?
And yes, I am a bloodnut. As for your fond memories of forestry work experience - well, forcing me to punch the bark isn't an option here, is it?
If that's the best you've got - hypothetical threats of actual physical violence and a repetition of your completely unfounded slur, this stoush is already over. See that shiny stuf you're lying in?
It's broken glass mate.
Trotsky
Let me tell you something about me. Nothing you could write could really upset me that much. You’re too much of a mummy’s boy to cause me much concern.
You wrote this the other day proving that you haven’t grown up
“Speaking as a former smart-arse kid who shouted put-downs from a safe distance and then ran like buggery back to the safety of home and family“
I wouldn’t describe you as a ´smart arse´, Trot. Your own words indicate something else. More like someone who really doesn’t stand up for himself unless he is supported by numbers. These kids weren’t smart-arses in my day. They were cowards.
Just change the moniker like you said you would on Jason’s site.
'You're all a bunch of thieves drinking whine on taxpayers money and laughing about '
And you must be a mass producer of this 'whine', graeme. world's largest exporter in fact.
Friedrich Popper
Graeme,
Reading your last few comments, it's clear that Mark has been doing you a favour by putting you on moderation. I won't be extending the same favour here - everything you post will appear unedited and unfiltered. You can show your plain unvarnished unpleasantness on the web for all the world to see.
Joe:
From your remarks, it's clear to me that we had diametrically opposed experiences of schoolyard bullying. You know what we used to call kids like you? In Aussie schoolyards we used to call you boofheads. In Manchester you'd be called a "head th' ball" as in "Don't worry about yon bugger Gummo, he's just a bloody head th' ball." that is, someone who has intercepted too many footballs with his noggin and given himself brain damage. Like a punchy boxer.
Everyone else: What I said to Graeme goes for you too. If you want to post immature comments and make fools of yourselves, be my guest. Just remember that in this game the honours, if any, will go to those who keep a cool, mature head on their shoulders.
That's all for now. I'll be back tomorrow to see how things are getting along. See ya then.
I like your approach, Gummo. As my namesake used to say
'i may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort we may get closer to the truth'
or to adapt it to this case
'i may be a wanker or you may be one, and by an effort we'll soon find out who's the bigger one'
cheers
Friedrich Popper
Mr Lambert
Shouldn't you apologise for having the same name as Tim Blair?
cheers
Friedrich Popper
Mr Bird cunts and runs, I see.
Trot
Not all of adult life can be referred back to the schoolyard, although it does seem to have relevance to you, judging by the comment I mentioned.
Tim Lambert
What can I say? If I were you, I would quickly realize that humor is not my strong point.
So stick to fact checking along with hard to follow posts while ducking school time.
Tim, now I have you here; have you ever spent any work time off campus?
Dude, I know your married and all, but it's not too late to get a part time job in say a supermarket on weekends just to get a taste of the "real world". Leading a life as a campus troll shows. Grow up.
Gummo
It sounds as though you are very hurt by all this. Just get rid of the moniker and no one will be offended. Hey, you could almost be human.
Can I ask some of you lefties a question? A serious one.
Why is it that whenever you're challenged to a serious debate on important issues you invariably turn the conversation toward abuse and personal attacks?
Trot is a case in point. He turns the issue around as though he is the injured party and we’re the bad guys.
The only meaningful conversations I have had with the idolizer of a mass murderer is about his moniker. Aren't any of you offended by it?
oh for fuck's sake Birdman.
the anonymous one called Friedrich Popper was me having a bit of fun at everyone's expense. but i wasn't the other anonymous one - i've got more wit than that
cheers
Friedrich Popper
"i've got more wit than that"
yea sure do honey. You're so funastic.......not!
scintillating comeback, my dear anonymous. about par with a drunken mooning by college frat boys.
cheers
Friedrich Popper
bird droppings
You know what I think is going on here. For a very long time lefties have had a free run on lefty sites saying and coming up with the most absurd things. Of course there are many right-wingers who countered the thoughtless nonsense spewed out.
However, for the first time there is a person prepared to take you guys on at your won game and he's beating you up. GB has done a great job at hitting back harder than what has been dished out to him and it hurts.
Gummo's post is a case in point. His post is simply garbage offering no defense- further validating his desire to moniker as a mass murderer.
GM uses harsh language to describe his opposition. However it happens, as far as I can determine, because of the way he has been treated on various sites.
Getting back to the mass murdering idolizer: Trot has been involved in numerous "swarming" attempts against people he disagrees with. Yet this moral coward is "hurt' when the same thing happens to him.
The coward (Trot) even proves it by saying that he only insulted people during his "yooth" when close to the bosom of his family. Trot shows himself up as a coward.
Trot knows that by posting the blog comment and advertising it at LP would attract a gaggle of lefty supporters eager to swarm. Sure enough attracting comments from anon to the poisonous little toad (Lambert) hasn’t disappointed him.
Would youse stop ganging up on Missy? Just coz you think she might be lsebian is no reason to accuse her of lipsnihgin! I'm her PA and I can tell you she never snigged my lips!
Leave Missy alone!
So what if she's lesbian!]
Yours
Missy's PA xxx
GMB,
I've stated my comments policy for this thread here.
I see no reason to change it.
GMB,
You asked me to delete comments you made about Mark. I won't, for the reasons already stated. Got that now?
To the Anonymous who said
Gummo
It sounds as though you are very hurt by all this. Just get rid of the moniker and no one will be offended. Hey, you could almost be human.
Well, a genuine expression of empathy is always welcome, whichever anonymous you are, but it might be more welcome if next time you posted, you signed a name, after the example of Feidrich Popper. Unfortunately your phrasing "get rid of the moniker" reminds me of JCs frequent demands that I "get rid of the moniker", nonetheless I will try to take your comment in the spirit in which it is intended.
My personal assessment of the situation is that if I "get rid of the moniker", I will merely be giving Joe and Graeme the inch they need to gain the confidence to demand a mile. Once they have won this point, what is to stop them mounting a similar campaign of harassment, to force me to delete posts they find offensive? Nothing.
Now to jc, who has shifted from aping Graeme's braggadocio about his past bullying career to the more mature, adult line that not all of adult life can be referred to the schoolyard. Doubtless this is true - but when one sees adults behave in ways that are not what one expects from mature adults, such as this folie a deux you and Graeme are engaged in. then one must look for an explanation. And often, the simplest and best explanation is that you are seeing schoolyard behaviours carried forward into adult life. There are fundamental resemblances between your behaviour and Graeme's and that of those two Manchester bully boys which make the superficial differences - time and place, the use of the internet - simply irrelevant.
Why is it that whenever you're challenged to a serious debate on important issues you invariably turn the conversation toward abuse and personal attacks?
Trot is a case in point. He turns the issue around as though he is the injured party and we’re the bad guys.
Stop projecting Joe. Every school principal and school teacher in the country recognises this timeworn tactic - the good old "It wasn't me sir, honest, it was him." It doesn't work on them, and it isn't working here.
Trot knows that by posting the blog comment and advertising it at LP would attract a gaggle of lefty supporters eager to swarm. Sure enough attracting comments from anon to the poisonous little toad (Lambert) hasn’t disappointed him.
And you knew Joe, when you entered this thread, that this is what you should expect. You would also have known, from reading the post, that the issue that we would be addressing here is very specifically, your behaviour, Graeme's behaviour and whether it is acceptable.
The both of you have one basic problem in dealing with other people - you have bugger-all insight into your own behaviour and how people will respond to it. You just don't get the yawning chasm between your expectations of how people should respond to the way you act, and the opinions you think they ought to have of you and the opinions they actually hold. You seriously expect others to take you at your own valuation. To treat you with respect when all you offer them is open contempt. Well it doesn't work that way. Mutual respect works. Mutual contempt works. But you must respect me while I despise you always dissolves into mutual contempt.
When it comes down to it, the ultimate reason the two of you are here is because neither of you has the nous of a common housefly. Find a copy of Mother Goose and read the poem sometime.
Trot
You're writing idiotic babble.
Lambert
You haven't any talent for anything, you poisonous little toad.
Except attempting to destroy people's careers.
You were taught to have the morals of a pig. Stealing Blair's site ) breaching the UNSW code of ethics by using university resources and UNSW time to run your jihads.
You are a disgrace, Lambert.
You know, when I posted that invitation at LP, I was a little nervous about all the emotional wear I might be letting myself in for, but this has turned out to be quite relaxing. I can drop in whenever I feel like it, tear into Graeme and Joe for a bit, then leave them to stew in their own bile and throw out totally ineffectual insults - like Graeme's current favourite "bloodnut". The only thing keeping them here is their whale sized egos and their nasty little obsession with forcing me to change my pseudonym. And I damn sure don't have to worry about whether other bloggers are going to get pissed off because I've been implicated in the derailing of yet another good discussion. Because there's no interesting discussion going on here.
Question is, when it will it stop? It's unlikely that these two boobs are ever going to wake up to the fact that they're making complete idiots of themselves so I guess the answer is when I get bored with them and put the blog on moderation and ban their arses. Or the readership, god bless 'em, get bored with a blog whose main feature is the internet's one and only chimp exhibit. To put it in terms that you'd understand Graeme, you naughty practicing Foucaultian you, this is my yard, and as long as you stay here, your ass is mine, bitch.
Tim,
Let it go mate. They're toast. Please don't soggy them up.
Dammit, we just dropped by in the hope of sighting a bit of old fashioned hairy-chested biffo, and what do we find - bloody Evelyn Benchley-Parker's "Algonquin Club Revisited".
C'mon chaps, drop the sparkling arcane repartee and cut straight to the tears before bedtime nose-bloodying chase!
I agree, I want Gummo's knuckles to bleed, bangin' on those gum trees
cheers
Friedrich Popper
the joke is that the only person going close to a damages suit is Tim Lambert.
Tim, if the guy isn't uaing his name i would be quite wary of introducing it as it could you some money.
Gummo, I also be a little concerned if I were you.
I have a question for the grownups. (Joe and Gra-gra, you can go and read something else. This won't interest you)
Based on their performance in the blogosphere, what do you reckon the dynamic duo do for a crust?
I think Graeme would have to be somewhere near the bottom of the pecking order in a bureaucracy (do they still have messengers in the Public Service?) and Joe is probably on welfare (well he keeps claiming to be self employed).
What do you think?
I would have hought you were the one on welfare, Uncle R.
OK, it's time to bring this to an end. Thanks to a failure on my part to communicate my cunning little plan to all parties concerned, things are coming a little unstitched. Entertaining as it might be to sit back and watch a few new entrants come in and rip into JC and Graeme, in fairness to the people I e-mailed this arvo asking them not to comment. it's time for the fat tenor to sing Nessun Doema and for Toscanini to turn to the audience and say "I'm sorry ladies and gentlemen but that's all the maestro wrote before he carked it".
JC, Graeme - you have gained absolutely nothing by coming here and spilling out bile over my blog for the past 24 hours or so. I will not be changing my pseudonym. Your behaviour here has impressed no one. Particularly unimpressive was Joe's transparent attempt to persuade me to cry on his shoulder with that Anonymous "You sound hurt post ..." Pity your choice of language and inability to refrain from sarcasm gave you away. Nice one Baldric. There's a name for people who practice that kind of hypocrisy, Joe. Guess what it is.
Graeme's most witty sally was that late jackass of the year entry he threw at Tim Lambert - who absented himself from procedings at my request. It reminded me of a little gem I picked up at school once "If wit were shit, tha'd be constipated." When I used it on my brother, the old man looked at me with scorn and said "Tha's not exactly got 'runs thysen, lad." That's what happens when you rely on folk humour to do the work for you. Now let's get down to home truths, shall we? The following remarks are addressed to JC and Graeme and no-one else.
In the time I've "known" you via the internet, you've treated a lot of people with open contempt and now you're widely regarded with open contempt. I know, Joe, that you in particular, don't grasp the reasos for this - you described the comment where I pointed out this simple social phenomenon as idiotic. I doubt Graeme gets it either. Right now you'd both be pushing shit up hill without a wheelbarrow to get people to regard you with weary indifference. To win their respect would be like trying to haul a few tons of the stuff up the North face of Anapurna without ropes and pitons. Realistically, the most you can expect from any of us is that in time we'll treat you as an unpleasant memory. A very unpleasant memory.
And let's be clear that we're not talking exclusively about "the Left" here - we're also talking about people who refuse to be identified as leftists, whose philosophies are far from mine, who are embarassed to have you on their side in political debate. Some of whom you have treated with equal contempt to that you have shown for "the Left", because they didn't conform to your narrow idea of what it is to be on "the Right". An idea so narrow that it only includes yourselves and people who hold opinions identical to yours. In all things, including their appraisal of your character.
This situation is not of my making or devising it is a direct consequence of your own behaviour towards others on the internet. You will never understand this because you refuse to recognise that it exists. You are actually stupid enough to believe that such a situation could not possibly exist because it has no right to exist.
This site will be placed in moderation and you are banned from commenting here. Congratulations. You are the first commenters that I have banned from this site in over three years of operation.
Do not send me any abusive e-mails on this decision - you have no right to expect that the privacy of abusive e-mails will be respected. Any particularly choice examples of flagrantly offensive e-mails that I receive from you will be posted in this comments thread as addenda. My decision as to what constitues a flagrantly offensive e-mail is final and I will enter into no discussion on my decisions.
In future, I expect to be able to visit any damn blog I please, and comment there, without any harassment from you. There will be no repetitions of the "Gummo Trotsky idolises a mass-murderer" slur. This is not true. Either you know this is not true or you do not. If you know that it is not true, it is a lie. If you do not know that it is not true, you are delusional. I don't particularly care which, I don't want to hear it again.
If you should repeat this slur there will be consequences. I will immediately post a link to this thread so that other blog readers can see for themselves how you behave when you are let loose and form their own judgements of you. Rest assured, you will not be judged kindly. You will be embarassed by this. Some might call that blackmail. Right now I don't care. You are not members of my ethical community.
But hey, look on the bright side. Very soon you guys are going to realise a dream. You're all set to become internet legends.
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