@Leucrotta I've said many times that I'm a healer at heart, and that they really shouldn't break me. After all healers are the worst when they decide to do damage.

@zetasyanthis There was a *lot* of bullying in my high school and some of how I survived it was escalating to violence very quickly.

So this feels a lot like being bullied (let's humiliate and ridicule the ugly nerd and if it doesn't do anything to stop us, we get to be all cool and keep going, and if it does respond, we get to be all cool putting down the response). And I'm pretty sure that's part of the goal (along with more "rational" stuff like achieving profits, apartheid and consolidating power in ways which will take years to recover) these people are legitimately mean-spirited and want to see themselves as the good people.

Being violent as a kid worked because of social stuff - other kids would see me fighting (viewed as laudable) and being smacked down by someone twice my weight (perceived as uncool), and the bullies didn't like taking the social hit. But in this case the bullies control all mainstream dialogue, so I worry that any violence will be sort of the thing that makes the bullies more justified and give them more material to ridicule and humiliate. The equivalent of wading in throwing punches isn't going to win this fight, but I honestly don't know what will.