It’s advice as old as the internet itself. Don’t feed the trolls. And more recently, don’t read the comments. But rules are meant to be broken. And I find it fascinating that people who I’m not connected to, but in Adam’s case, I’m familiar with, see and bother to respond to my posts. Often putting a lot of time, or at least a lot of words, into a response to someone they claim is an idiot, in a comment almost no one will read. In that way, I think it’s a demonstration that the original post breaks through their bubble, and eats at them in a way.

But it’s important for folks to know why these arguments are wrong, without engaging directly in a back and forth with folks that clearly are acting in bad faith.

Act 1

I love all the dog whistles folks try to sprinkle in. Cutting the line, preservation of our social infrastructure, they’re criminals or maybe they’re victims of slavery and sex trafficking (not sure why we’d imprison them for being victims). And then there’s the complete mis-understanding of how law enforcement actually functions. They have a credible allegation, nope, ICE is snatching up anyone who’s brown. Immigration crimes, nope, they’re snatching up green card holders and US citizens. Most accused of other serious crimes, nope, most have no other criminal record. They often gesture to legal immigration too, which Trump has famously gutted, and even if he hadn’t if you ask when their families arrived here, they often came at a time where legal immigration would reflect allowing in 10s of millions of people a year given today’s population, something they of course oppose.

One thing Adam gets right, it is a stain on both President Obama and Biden as well as Democrats in general that we didn’t destroy ICE when we had the chance. And there are plenty of Trump voters who now claim “this isn’t what we voted for” after they cast their vote for the candidate whose party distributed “Mass Deportations Now” signs at their convention. I guess to Adam’s credit, he voted for Trump fully knowing we’d be deporting sick children and grandmothers and he’s totally bought in.

Adam’s a bit more short and to the point here than is typical for him. Everything is Hamas’ fault. You can’t speak unless you first denounce Hamas. Hamas, Hamas, Hamas. Because it’s really hard to accept that a country you support has bombed babies. That the babies that were missed by bombs are now being intentionally starved. Many folks will lump together Hamas and Netanyahu. I think it’s interesting that Adam doesn’t. Maybe that’s an indication he’s at least somewhat aligned with Rich, that Netanyahu is the hero Israel needed to commit it’s genocide, finally. Shit or get off the pot.

Hamas has repeatedly offered all the hostages in exchange for an end to Israeli aggression, including before the Israeli Army entered Gaza. Israel has rejected every offer. Hundreds of military and Middle East experts have pointed out you can’t defeat Hamas militarily. It’s a political entity, driven by the occupation, apartheid and siege in both Gaza and the West Bank. There is no solution to Hamas that doesn’t involve ending Israel’s policy of Jewish Supremacy. Additionally, given the completely immoral and disgusting genocidal rampage that the IDF is perpetrating in Gaza, and increasingly in the West Bank, in what universe could Hamas surrender without international guarantees to prevent Israel from killing all the remaining Palestinians after they laid down their arms? It’s as ridiculous a demand as telling fish they should agree to live out of water.

Feeding captive civilian populations is literally in the Geneva Conventions, you know, the international law that Israel and the US love to pretend doesn’t exist. In fact, Israel’s allowed UNRWA and other NGOs to operate in Gaza precisely because it means they don’t have to feed Gaza themselves. If there was no humanitarian groups, Israel would be obligated to ensure access to food and medicine. The dog whistle here too in Rich’s comment, everyone in Gaza is the enemy. Even the starving babies.

You’re right Rich, I didn’t post on the internet decrying the civilian casualties from the carpet and fire bombing of Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo, Hiroshima, or Nagasaki. One, because it was 40 years before I was born. Two, because there was no internet. But I have posted about the concurrent genocide happening in Sudan. And I’m sure somewhere I’ve posted about infant mortality in Africa, but I’m confused, because is an military dropping US bombs, from US planes on infants in Africa? Because if they are, I 100% stand against that, and I’d love more information about it.

Jews defending themselves? Because history began on October 7. There weren’t hundreds of Palestinians being killed year after year for decades before that. The Nakba never happened, Israelis just found empty houses all over the place, because it was a land without a people. There weren’t Jewish militias that attacked both Palestinians and the British soldiers, to drive out the latter so that they could ethnically cleanse the former. But in any case, those 20k Palestinian babies under the age of 2 murdered in Gaza, they were really scary, right? Gotta defend yourself from that threat.

Genocide, has a legal definition, which I have used correctly since shortly after October 7 when it was clear that was what Israel was doing, even just based on their own statements:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Clearly what Israel is doing checks all of those boxes, and has for over a year. But go off, Rich. Prior to October 7, Israel was clearly an occupying power in Gaza (yes, Rich, even though they “left” and set up prison fences and controlled everything going in and out). And they remain an occupying power in the West Bank, as every serious NGO, and international body has repeatedly reaffirmed.

So either I’m an anti-Semite and Rich’s whole diatribe is accurate, or Rich is spewing propaganda and I’m actually just someone with a moral and ethical compass that works. I’m comfortable letting history decide. Rich and Adam are probably not so comfortable with that.