Are Bullies Any Different From Gossips?

There is a poem I've kept on my refrigerator since my early years of marriage. It's yellowed with age, wrinkled, and re-taped many times from accidental tears and household moves. I have known its destruction, division, and poison, first-hand, and marvel at how those that use it cannot see themselves within. Do you know this anonymous poem I speak of: 



THE SNAKE THAT POISONS EVERYBODY

It topples governments,

wrecks marriages,

ruins careers,

busts reputations,

causes heartaches, nightmares,

indigestion,

spawns suspicion,

generates grief,

dispatches innocent people to cry in their pillows.



Even its name hisses.

It's called gossip.

Office gossip. Shop gossip. Party gossip.

It makes headlines and headaches.

Before you repeat a story, ask

  yourself --



    Is it True?

   Is it fair?

    Is it necessary?

 If not, 

 Shut up.

Is there really any difference between gossiping and bullying? I don't believe so -- it's just in a more direct form. If you read through each line and apply it to the news, today, almost every bit of it applies to bullying. In one form or another, it's about people trying to control what other people do. Can you think of times when you have either been a part of or listened to someone generating all the pain and suffering that you can see within that poem? Do you listen, attentively, adding your own tidbits, or do you stop it? Do you not stop it, because you don't know what to say?