The Arrogance of Power

Once most of us leave high school, the major form of bullying is the intimidation, fear and hate-mongering of the powers that be who wish to remain so. That is to say, the form of bull(ying) most prevalent then is bull(shitting) -- most commonly seen in the editorial sections of most newspapers. They’ll whine loudly about all the restrictions of THEIR freedom of expression, while having no compunction about suppressing everybody else’s freedom of expression.

That control of alternative and competing ideas has been particularly onerous in Hawaii -- in conjunction with the emergence of one-party domination -- by those they anoint as the experts and authorities, largely union shills and confederates. “Nobody will know the difference, if we all stick together.”

So there is this kind of collusion among the self-serving, privileged few. Editors making six-figure incomes will appoint themselves as spokesperson for the poor and disadvantaged -- thus not allowing them to speak for themselves, of their own truth. In this way, the poor and disadvantaged can be heard to say, “Pay the editors (demagogues) more; they're the truly deserving, not us -- money does not matter. The tourists, rich, federal government will pay our share” -- allowing everyone to evade the accountability and responsibility of their actions.

Even in the Age of the Internet, the old mainstream press cannot let go of its control -- and why they self-destruct in the new paradigm of the power of information that is shared -- and not that which is hoarded, distorted, and manipulated by a self-appointed few. In their electronic forums and discussions, they still exercise their right to “moderate” the comments on their boards so that nothing they don’t want to be said, is allowed to be heard in Hawaii, and in fact, when discussions in it become too engaging, it’s time to run another story about the perils of of the Internet and how it can ruin one’s life.

Of course they’re just being “objective,” which is a virtue permanently assigned those identifying themselves as the “press,” “academics,” “educators.” They would never think of their own ambitions and interests first -- like everybody else in society. They would never think to abuse power and trust -- and why God appointed them to oversee everybody else.

And so it came to pass that the mainstream press became a victim of its own arrogance, which is the essence of the authoritarian, bullying personality. They think they alone are so much smarter than everybody else that they’ll never be caught, discovered, exposed -- that they alone control that flow of information to make and break anyone of their choosing.

They’ll come back -- but no longer as gods and high priests of information and control. It’s not that they’re singularly worse than everybody else -- but that they’re not immune to the temptations for bullying control, as they think their training has made them -- because the reason for their choice of vocation made them congenitally more vulnerable to the lures of resentment, bitterness, envy in being constantly exposed to the rich, powerful and famous. That will distort one’s perspective of the human condition -- and the relentless, ruthless pursuit of MORE.

The rest of society is not so driven by ambition -- to become what they aren’t, which is always the denial of the person they actually are. And so they don’t know themselves very well -- which is the greatest flaw of all.