@TanekRune @HeavenlyPossum

Who was it that told you not to fight back against the bullies? The grownups, that's who. They were incorrect then, they are just as incorrect now.

Bullies *really* love this "turn the other cheek" the religions keep telling you. They really want to test how far we are prepared to go before we fight back. There are no way of not encouraging them when your pure existence is offending them.

/Kind regards
50+'er

@TanekRune @HeavenlyPossum

Abuser logic.

Same logic that turns neighbors into collaborators, when they snitch on the people who ARE trying to fight back.

Victim-blaming. When the oppressor uses collective punishment on an entire community, and members of that community tell each other, this is all YOUR fault for misbehaving. Instead of, you know, the fault of the actual perpetrators who set up the whole situation and are responsible for carrying out the punishment.

Cowards who'd rather just keep rolling over and trying to pacify their abusers forever and ever and ever than risk any further wrath-- blaming themselves, BUYING INTO the shit the abuser tells them, becoming an extension of the abuser's will.

Slaves who hurry to click their own shackles on because they'd feel exposed and insecure without them.

@feich

Something like “I would rather let the fascists take over than risk giving the fascists an excuse to take over”

@EndicottAuthor @HeavenlyPossum

Better we should intimidate bullies than to let them intimidate us. I did. I was a scrawny, four-eyed nerd with chronic bronchitis. I was an obvious grade school target. I was much to weak to fight back if I fought fair. So I didn't. I put a bar of soap in a sock in my back pocket with the top sticking out so I could draw it quickly. Then I waited for them to come to me. Then I knocked a bully down with it. Boy was he surprised. Before he could get back up I jumped on top of him and beat his face black, blue and bloody. It wasn't on school property so I didn't get in trouble.

The next day his friend threatened me, also not on school property. I pulled out the sock and he fell over his own feet trying to back up before I hit him. I beat him bloody, too.

After that the bullies left me alone. That sock hanging out of my pocket served as an excellent deterrent.

I had fought like a berserker in ríastrad, so I must be "crazy". Nobody wants to fight a "crazy" person because you don't know what they might do. They might bit your nose off or something. They might not accept your surrender. Most mammals when they know they're beaten expose their belly and whimper. Most mammals stop fighting when the other mammal gives up. Not "crazy" people. Sometimes they just keep fighting. So the bullies at my school decided that discretion was the better part of valor. As well they should have. I was a dangerous kid.

Up until my stroke I was dangerous adult, too. My balance is kind of wonky now. I'm also seriously old. I cough a lot from my COPD. My main finger still works, though.

So the wise move for bullies everywhere is don't f*ck with me. It's a sure way to live longer.

See:

https://kolektiva.social/@LevZadov/114405126808628792

@athamanatha @leguinian_utopia

Yes, without a doubt. But telling other people not to defend themselves because it could provoke a general crackdown misses the point that fascists in power *are a general crackdown.*