There is a desire by some to go around kicking those with less power than themselves because they feel like they themselves have been kicked around. This is part of bullying and it is a part of the hierarchical structure our society forces upon us. Most people think bullying is restricted to children but it is happening throughout society. Those with power attack  those with less power. Bosses bully workers with low pay and the threat of losing their jobs, workers who have spouses or are parents may go home and bully their spouse or kids, their kids may then go bully a littler kid in the school yard, it depends a lot on how you learn to cope when bad things happen and bad things happen to everyone.

'Might makes right', right? When times are hard, and for most people times have been much harder since 2008 when Wall St destroyed the economy with the aid of the republicans, things become tougher, not only financially but socially for those with less power. Poverty and hopelessness play a key role in violence. But the violence isn't limited to physical violence, it can also be verbal violence especially on social media like twitter or facebook where people (especially when they themselves see themselves as outsiders) will attack people in their out-group or others with less power than them.

The main reason people aren't bullied seems to be whether there are consequences if they are bullied, this is why women tend to be bullied most by society, the taking of rights from them, not paying them as much as males performing the same job, making women responsible for the bad things that happen to women, like rape and domestic violence...

Women are taught, conditioned, never to confront men because although we know not all men are violent we all definitely know men are far more likely to snap and once they do who knows what the fuck they'll do. So society has been taught to respect anonymous men because who knows when they will get out a gun and take out you or a school. And when they do, we make apologies for them like, he was mentally ill, indeed, it is pretty much assumed if a man gets violent, he is mentally unwell.

Part of this dynamic seems to be that men are taught not to express fear, frustration, anger; they are taught to suppress these feelings and then when they can no longer cope with the emotions they explode into a violent dangerous rage.

Whereas women don't, or rather seldom do, for instance of the people who go on shooting spree, and if they do no one make apologies for them, most shootings are done by male and when a female does she is often with a male. So there is seldom any consequences for abusing a woman. If a woman is abused she will often walk away and rationalize it, tell her friends and family but seldom seek any kind of revenge. Hence there are few consequences. But then women are permitted by society to express emotions, to be afraid or seek help.  Although if a woman does retaliate, she is quick to receive the full benefit of the law telling her that what she did was wrong. Women are getting increasingly nasty jail terms. Again there are no consequences for giving those women harsher sentences, because women are being conditioned into believing women are bad.

But for both genders, it's a normal distribution curve, most men won't fly into a violent dangerous rage if they are abused, as is the case with most women, but eventually some women will be pushed to the point where they become violent. This article gives a good run down as to the gender and race of mass shooters in the US.

For many when they see violence they side with those who are being violent, perhaps to placate the person being violent so they won't turn on them as well. I am not sure whether this is the same mechanism witnessed in the Milgram experiment, where I have hypothesized that people are pressing the button because they want to and with the approval of the person representing of authority or are trying to appease authority by proving they are prepared to kill because they fear the authority will turn on them, or merely because they would like to press that button.

I wonder if it's a case of "I want to be on the side of those with the power" and demonstrate this by proving to go along with authority, but there has been much research done on what makes people not press the button, little seems to be done on why they do press the button. (Is this a case of denial about what human beings are really like?) It seems that humans are keenly attuned to obeying what they deem authority, as people will obey robots even when they are told by a person the robot is faulty.

Or whether it is a result of the Stockholm syndrome.

Stockholm Syndrome may manifest as the victim identifying  with the person harassing or abusing the victim. And perhaps that is the case when we feel badly for the person who attacks those weaker themselves as they are likely victims of bullying at home, by society or else where.

But I suspect this may also apply to those witnessing violence as well, not merely the victims of violence. Witnessing violence can be quite traumatizing, for adults and children alike, even when the violent event is an accident.

But there is one other troubling thing that keeps reemerging, women's passionate hatred of women especially after they've had a bad experience. One woman I talked to hated 'feminists' with a passion because she'd been violently raped and her mother called her a 'slut' because she didn't report the rape to the police. Another told me she'd been abused by women, but all I can assume is that this is Stockholm Syndrome. A man does something awful to you so you blame women?

Women abusing other women is a possible sad reality when the women have probably been abused themselves and then turn around and abuse those with less power than them.

What is clear is that there is a clear pecking order in society, mothers are at the bottom of that pecking order. Rich white good looking men/rich old white men/famous good looking rich white men are all hovering around the top of that pecking order. Younger men are not unless they are individually rich and/or famous and/or good looking. Violent, bigger, nastier men are also higher. Individual women can also chose where they sit in smaller hierarchies but as a class they fall below men. The bigger the group, the more power the group has. The more unity/organization a group has the more power it has.

There are ways to manipulate power between individuals - but we aren't going to get anywhere until we treat each other as equals - we all need each other - and when we realize how much this will we be about to undo much of the damage the pecking-order has done to individuals and families.

It came to light recently that Exxon knew that using fossil fuels has been impacting the climate for some 40 years.

In that time we've seen zealots who've known that climate change was all made up by government or greenies or ... whoever - for the sake of - whatever and just know that the climate isn't changing at all.

To fuel this, there have been some scientists, probably paid for by the Cato Institute or some such right wing think tank to prove that climate change wasn't really happening so the zealots, and some of those zealots were also paid for by similar think tanks, have 'research' they could point to to prove their case. I just read that Exxon spends $27M every year to block action on climate change, and no doubt some of this money goes to raising questions about the science and to fuel the debate. Some other of those 'zealots' were also paid for and those 'zealots' were right wing (or 'fair and unbiased') media.

Spin and confusion to cloud science - and especially with the weakening of the understanding of what real science is and actively confusing it with 'belief'.

And all of this benefits those making money. Because all the while advocates for curbing the use of fossil fuels in preference for renewable energy have to fight against those who are zealots or at least paid to fight on behalf of those making the money meanwhile the status quo is preserved and those making money can continue to do so.

But there is nothing new to this, 'they' did this originally with cigarettes spreading disinformation to prolong the life expectancy of their product so they could continue milking consumers.

We see a similar dissemination of false information when it comes to abortion and rape - for instance GOP who are woefully ignorant of women's anatomy and others who think that women's bodies actively stop conception as a result of rape(!) The muddying of women's biology by non-experts who think their opinion is a valid representation of the reality benefits those who wish to build armies for future wars that the US may engage upon. Also with freakonomics demonstrating that the legalization of abortion has decreased the crime rate, it's in the best interests of the prison industrial complex to end abortion.

In a number of fields we've seen that throwing money at bad science benefits those making the money.

And this is why I think what those with all the money are doing is throwing money at 'feminists' who seem for the most part to be totally anti-woman. An example of this 'kind of feminist' is 'the factual feminist' who is a 'feminist' in name only. She seems to be really a Mens Rights Activist. She works for and 'publishes' from the American Enterprise Institute - which labels itself as a conservative think tank.

People with money who have employees benefit greatly from telling us there is no pay discrepancies between men and women because it means they will have to pay women more. They also benefit from no paid maternity/paternity leave.

I have said before that I think that Intersectional feminism seems to be the brain child of right wing think tanks wanting women to move out of the workforce. But what seems interesting is that intersectional feminism which seems to be very popular among women's studies students and on college campuses are fighting with 'the factual feminist' so they have set up a war between factions and that benefits employers better because then young women aren't fighting for better pay for all women, they are fighting other 'feminists' instead.

Before you start regurgitating women choosing different professions etc, let me remind you of Lily Ledbetter, the US female soccer team and males who come out and say female tennis players shouldn't earn as much as men. And even if there are differences in performance and experience between men and women performing the same job, women still have to pay more for stuff than men, like hair cuts and clothes, and buy stuff men never have to buy, like sanitary products and bras. So employers get the benefit of paying women less and then there is an added tax on being a woman because women have to pay more. And the reality of oppression can be difficult for oppressors to handle.

So the point is there is a lot of misinformation out there. Don't believe everything you hear especially when there is money to be made from maintaining the status quo. Another example is the misinformation about Hillary Clinton. Do you really believe she sold fracking to the world, a process that has been in use since 1950, when Clinton was 3 years old? No doubt the price of oil during the early years of the Obama administration did more to entice the world to use fracking than anything Clinton may have said as Secretary of State. But people don't think when they repeat lies. Why would a woman being president be so frightening to some men? It is clear that people with money don't like changes to the status quo.

Be careful what you believe. There are a lot of people out there propagating false information for what they see as their own benefit, some may even be paid to tell you these lies. Remember this? News is scripted for the benefit of retailers, you think that scientists are immune to the need of money? Even women need money to survive in our society.

In science there is nothing wrong with developing theories, theories need to be tested to be proven correct. Always  figure out what your assumptions are.