kristallnacht USA

Today I read a despicable item on AOL. Goes like this:

In a quiet Missouri town, a thirteen-year-old girl, MM, hanged herself in her closet after being victimized by cyberbullying. She had been exchanging myspace messages with a 16-year-old boy named Josh who first won her trust then turned against her, posting nasty things like, "You should die. Everyone in this town knows what you are. Everyone here hates you." After her death, a neighbor tipped off police that Josh was an invention, created by a 47-year-old woman on the same street, whose teen daughter had had a falling out with MM. Allegedly, the mother-daughter pair cooked up the idea to pose as a friendly boy, win MM's trust, and find out what she thought about the daughter. The password of fake-Josh was passed around to other kids in the neighborhood. As things got uglier, many kids took turns playing Josh, making up vicious things to write to the child.

You're probably thinking that this is the despicable part. Actually, I haven't gotten there yet.

As far as I can tell, it's completely unclear what part the woman actually played. She may have come up with the fake-Josh idea herself. She may have learned of it after the fact from her daughter. She may have encouraged her daughter to write nasty things. She may have written nasty messages herself, spread the Josh-password around, and encouraged other kids to participate in the hoax. Or maybe she knew almost nothing about it. Or maybe she knew, but didn't stop it. Or maybe she did try to stop it. The story is long on rumor and short on facts.

Since the news of her alleged involvement broke, the woman has become a lightning rod for hatred in the name of moral outrage. She now stands at the whipping post where other women (yes, it's always women) have stood before: Linda Tripp, Susan Smith. She receives death threats daily. Her home has been vandalized. Her teenage daughter has had to change schools. She's lost her job. Her phone number and address have been publicized, and posters exhort eachother to hound her until she kills herself like her alleged victim. On a hundred webpages, people are posting messages which all sound very familiar. "You should die, cunt. Everyone knows what you did to that poor girl. Everyone hates you." The girl's suicide was a year ago, but the groundswell of hatred continues to gain momentum on the internet, like plague or wildfire.

Let's review. She is hated because she stands accused of bullying a girl to death. The people who hate her must be tenderhearted souls who are taking up for the victim, who can't bear to think of poor MM's pain. They are shocked by the woman's alleged crime, because they themselves would never do such a thing. Would never threaten or bully or seek to hurt another living soul. They would not destroy someone's life because of rumor. They would not mob together to call for a woman's death. They would not litter the web with words like, "You should die, cunt!" Right?

Christ. I'm no fan of cyber-bullying, but my tolerance for bloodthirsty hypocrites is far, far less.

I suppose some of the haters might say they are deliberately giving her a taste of her own medicine, to show her how it feels. I don't buy that excuse. She has become the target of a runaway mob: mindless as sheep and vicious as jackals on the scent of blood. What's sickest of all is that this mob credits itself with acting in the name of virtue and decency.

Here's what I think:

Within every person lives a secret bully, caged and stowed in a down-deep hidden cave, but always starving for a chance to break loose and be a mad little kid again, taking vicious delight in throwing stones at cats, torturing bugs, and making weaker kids cry. Bullying satisfies something dark in our souls that we can't quite explain and pretend not to have. But it's there, lurking. There is nothing like the gleeful blood-rush that comes from dominating another person: knowing you can do anything you want to him, take all your savagery out on him, see fear in his eyes. Power is a drug. Absolute power is a high that can't be equaled.

What feels even better than bullying, is bullying as part of a mob. The power-rush increases exponentially when you can have an orgy instead of just a solo thrill. Imagine: you not only get to beat up a kid, you've got your friends there holding him down and laughing as they egg you on. You not only get to storm into town and rape any girl you want, you're drunk on the shouts of your fellow soldiers as they take turns with her mother and sisters, and machine-gun her brothers against the wall.

But wait. There's one thing that feels even better than bullying with a mob: bullying with a mob and claiming God on your side. Imagine: you not only get to run wild in the streets with your jackbooted comrades, beating up old men and women, smashing their homes and shops -- you also feel the pride of righteousness and just vengeance against your enemy. As you swing a bat into a man's skull, you tell yourself, This parasite deserves it, he's been asking for it, and by God it's time I deliver it! You return home swaggering to the cheers of your neighbors, to parades and patriotic speeches in your honor: Well done, boys! You've struck a blow for the Fatherland tonight. Your country and your Fuhrer salute you!

Hatred looks for a target. Thanks to education, many people in America today are queasy about jumping on the bandwagon of kike-hating, nigger-hating, fag-hating -- they've been conditioned since Sesame Street to think, Nice people -- people with class -- aren't allowed to do that anymore. If we do that we'll look ignorant. But hating a woman who's been accused of an immoral act, that's admirable. She's stepped outside decent behavior and broken the rules, so now we have license to pick up stones and chase the bitch naked through town until she drops to her knees, sobbing and begging for her life. She asked for it; she's a fallen woman. We, the righteous, are gonna give her what she deserves! Come on everyone, join the party -- let's make this cunt bleed!

Hatred looks for a target, and in a quiet neighborhood in Missouri, it has found one. The Enemy has a name and a face now -- she's forty-seven and a killer of children. America cheers for its righteous citizens as their bricks and rocks find their mark, as they scream for her blood.

But me, I think the Fuhrer is grinning in his grave tonight. This is my lesson to the world, he chuckles, though the world stops its ears and pretends not to hear it. I saw the truth of it when I was barely grown. In any land, in any century, people are the same. You are no different from what we were. Your moral superiority is hypocrisy, a lie of arrogance. I created no evil; I only channeled the natural impulses of men to my purposes. Look at Dachau, then look in the mirror and know: in you and your children and your children's children, I'm still alive, and always will be. The final victory and the last laugh are mine.