“I Ain’t Reading All That; Free Palestine”

The meme enrages Israel supporters because Israel apologia depends on mountains of verbiage to spin obvious atrocities as reasonable and appropriate. At some point the kids noticed this was happening, and started dismissing all the narratives.

…Without mountains of narrative, all you’ve got is a nonstop deluge of raw video footage depicting the blatant genocidal criminality of Israel. No narrative overlay is required atop a video of a baby beheaded by Israeli military explosives. It stands on its own. You’d only need narrative to explain why the footage of the headless baby doesn’t say bad things about the side that’s dropping the bombs.

…Manipulators understand that they can use narrative to promote material agendas if they can get people to believe those narratives, and it enrages them when people handwave away the narrative and stick solely with the raw data of material reality. If you’ve based your life around trading empty narrative fluff for real material resources and gains, having your narratives dismissed can feel like holding a huge pile of currency that suddenly got devalued to zero. Of course the manipulators would be upset about this.

  • xxd@discuss.tchncs.de
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    5 months ago

    I generally agree with what you wrote, but just saying “I ain’t reading all that, free Palestine” is a bad way to phrase it. Only a few days ago, someone posted this which boils down to the same phrasing, but arrives at the conclusion “trump 2024!”. Saying something like “this is obviously a manipulative and false narrative” would be way better imho.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Bruh

      There’s a difference between that being their actual train of thinking, and just not arguing with someone who’s pro genocide.

      Like, I run across a lot of accounts. And give them a shot to talk in good faith.

      But there’s people out there who want nothing else but to argue. They have no logical consistency and will just keep saying things, and after you point out why they’re wrong, drop it and pick a new one.

      It gets fucking exhausting, and isn’t ever going to be productive.

      So I just started blocking them and it’s made Lemmy so much better.

      There’s a very good chance the person in the screenshot is at the same point. They’re just tired of people defending genocide, they know facts and logic won’t get them to stop, and interacting with someone would just be a waste of time.

      So…

      TLDR,FP

      • xxd@discuss.tchncs.de
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        5 months ago

        Yeah, I agree with all of that and that’s all valid! And I know that it’s not their actual train of thinking, I just think that this leaves on a weak argument and that just feels kind of… defeating, you know? I’m all for blocking fact and logic-resistant people, I just really don’t want to give them the feeling that they’ve won the discussion. But I guess you’re right and with people like these you just can’t end on a high note.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          I just really don’t want to give them the feeling that they’ve won the discussion

          If it was reddit where possibly millions of people would see a chain of comments, sure, it would matter disproving them.

          But Lemmy is still small enough it doesn’t really matter, but there’s still enough people someone else can handle it. I’d rather spend my time genuinely trying to help someone understand something than waste it on people who just wants a slap fight.

          Fair warning though, once they realize you never reply or down vote their comments, they usually won’t take it well. You’ll get a lot of reports and more than a few of them started tagging me in their comments so I’d still see their insults.

          I’m not sure if they quit because they move on to someone else, or if reporting the harassment stops them, but I’ve never had one do it for longer than a month after blocking them.

    • sub_ubi@lemmy.mlOP
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      5 months ago

      It’s not a debate strategy only available to one side, it’s a statement.

      It’s what you tell a flat earther who demands you watch a 2 hour video. You quit engaging because their arguments are very, very stupid.

    • bl_r@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 months ago

      I don’t like the logic that “you cant say this because it is a similarly structured statement to something someone bad said”

      Also “i aint reading all of that; free palestine” is a lot better since it isn’t like you are gonna convince any zionists to change sides with logic, since they don’t care about logic or truth. They care about the narrative and the stories they have.

      As someone who routinely gets drunk and argues with zionists, I’ve noticed that most people nowadays are entrenched with their position on the genocide. And like arguments I’ve had with fascists in the past, you aren’t gonna be able to actually argue with them because they have 100 propaganda points drip fed from both American liberal and conservative media, and Israeli press, ready to pull out at once.

      When you get dog piled, or someone cites 30 propaganda news pieces, you shouldn’t engage, its a waste of time. “I aint reading that; free palestine” is probably the best thing to say

  • slumlordthanatos@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    All I know is that I watched a video of a young girl, maybe 10 or 11, wailing and crying and saying that her house was bombed by the Israelis while she went to the aid station, and all she found when she returned was rubble and the bloody chunks of her family.

    She’s hardly the only story, and continuing to brutalize the Palestinians is only going to succeed in creating a generation of angry young adults who will continue to line up to join Hamas for revenge.

  • WallEx@feddit.de
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    5 months ago

    They will always have reasoning for the bombings, always had (eerily similar to the "mobile bioweapons factories in Afghanistan, which where faked by the cia). So why would I trust one word out of their mouths? They accept civilian casualties as necessary. Disgusting.

    This is both sides BTW.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I would suggest there’s more than 2 sides here. There’s Hamas (and their supporters), who are most definitely assholes, and then there’s Israel’s military and intelligence aparatus and their supporters… who are also most definitely assholes.

      then there are the civilians getting fucked over by all the assholes.

  • HeyMrDeadMan@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Legit question, if I don’t believe in ‘Free Palestine’, but I do believe in ‘Fuck Isreal’, am I an ally or an asshole?

  • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    But I have very appealing arguments in favor of committing Genocide. Sir please one moment of your attention

  • 🦄🦄🦄@feddit.de
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    5 months ago

    People of whatever side trying to shortcut critical think with bullshit answers like that are super sus.

    • Sneezycat@sopuli.xyz
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      5 months ago

      People trying to overload your critical thinking with tons of nonsensical arguments must be cut off like this.

      There’s no point in thinking about what someone arguing in bad faith says. You’ll demonstrate how they’re wrong, and they’ve already come up with 3 new bogus arguments while ignoring that they were wrong.

      • 🦄🦄🦄@feddit.de
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        5 months ago

        You don’t know if they are nonsensical arguments, if you don’t read them, that’s the point.

        • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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          5 months ago

          My brother in Christ what sensical argument could there possibly be made in favor of what the Israelis are doing in Gaza?

          Just become some asshole on the internet said it’s a table doesn’t mean it has legs to stand on.

        • pyre@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          genocide is always wrong. i don’t need to read your apologia to reconsider whether I’ll be ok with genocide.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Well, yeah…

          You’re taking this as a blanket reply to a first comment, the person you’re replying to is more talking about “the last straw” after already giving discourse a shot.

          I usually give people about 3-5 replies before giving up on them.

          At that point you have enough data to decide if disengagment is the only sane option.

          If you just always kept replying to someone and treating it like a conversation, some people will just never stop replying.

          At a certain point you have to just walk away from the conversation.

  • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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    5 months ago

    Honestly though whenever people say this I just assume they are absolute morons. Like if you aren’t willing to read a few sentences then I don’t l know how you could possibly think your opinion on anything is in any way informed.

    • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      People who get like this are the ones tired of dealing with morons. You, for example.

        • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          That’s about the level of intelligence I get when I make actual arguments. Much better.

          • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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            5 months ago

            If only there was some way to influence people into taking political discourse and educating themselves about complicated topics more seriously. Maybe we could even write something advocating for that on a public forum.

            But where would we find the people who need to see this message? Maybe in a highly upvoted meme post that lionizes willful ignorance?

            • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              What you fail to understand is that when you’ve dedicated hundreds of hours of sincere effort trying to take down a wall and realize you’re no closer now than you were at the beginning, you just step back and look at the people bashing their head against it and say: “Hey, this isn’t working. It might not be worth the effort.”

              So hey, it’s not worth the effort, free Palestine.

    • sub_ubi@lemmy.mlOP
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      5 months ago

      What’s one thing you read and researched that really makes you sympathize with Israel?

      • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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        5 months ago

        Israel is a country so I don’t know how one could sympathize with such a conceptual idea. But I generally try to sympathize everyone who is negatively affected by a conflict and there certainly are some Israelis who have been (hostages for example). But of course, in the current moment, that is a distraction from the primary issue of ongoing ethnic cleansing by the IDF.

        I don’t know what that has to do with what I’m saying though. Ignorant people can still be on the right side of an issue by chance. But I don’t think we should be celebrating willful ignorance like this.

        • sub_ubi@lemmy.mlOP
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          5 months ago

          They didn’t flip a quarter, they’ve made up their minds having seen the atrocities. Ignoring hasbara is a critical reaction.

          • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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            5 months ago

            Instead of a quarter they trust information from their peers and the media they happen to consume. Through the same uninformed process, many people also support Israel. This is why genocide happens, and if you navigate the world in willful ignorance, you will find yourself on the wrong side of a future issue.

            • sub_ubi@lemmy.mlOP
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              5 months ago

              Do you take an hour out of your day to engage with every video a flat-earther makes? Will people take you seriously if you don’t?

              • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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                5 months ago

                Did the comment in question take an hour or did it take ten seconds? There is a big difference.

                The preceding comment is deliberately omitted here, I assume because it wasn’t even particularly long (when I see responses like this it’s usually to comments that are fairly short).

                But even if it was long, if someone took the time out of their day to write up something to me personally I think it’s not that hard to at least read it. Even some people who I initially wrote off as bad faith have sometimes surprised me with good points about a topic.

                That said, if it’s some low effort thing like a link to a two hour long video or read this 200 page book I would typically ask them to summarize the key points to see whether it is worth my time. But simply saying “this is too long for me” to a short comment sets a very low bar for your intellectual curiosity. People who feel this way are likely very ignorant.

    • IHateReddit@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I agree, also often times populist parties are the ones who provide simple solutions to complicated problems which can’t be solved that easily.

      • sub_ubi@lemmy.mlOP
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        5 months ago

        Those darn populists, they don’t get complexity like the elites. Of course we have to keep bombing tents

          • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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            5 months ago

            Yeah no you kinda did.

            Y’all rant a fair game about nuance then act shocked and surprised when someone reminds you that context exists and you went on this anti-populist rant against the position of “bombing children is bad even if the Jews do it.”

            Not to mention how modern anti-populist rhetoric is often thinly veiled classism, IE deriding “pan et circuses” as if providing food aid and cultural enrichment programs to the masses is some the fuck how a bad thing.

              • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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                5 months ago

                Again, use your context readers

                You butted into this conversation that is about Israel and Gaza, to have a go at the “populist pandering narrative”

                Inserting yourself into a conversation you weren’t needed in is like real-estate, location location location, doesn’t matter if you built a mansion, you decided to do that on swamp land, and now you’re drowning in muck for it.

                Just because you can’t read the room doesn’t make everyone else in the room still existing and reacting in the context of the conversation that was happening before you waltzed in foul play.

                • IHateReddit@lemmy.world
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                  5 months ago

                  Re-read the first comment of this thread. It is about the second reply in the image. This obviously belongs to the OP. I am discussing why it is bad to respond with “I ain’t reading all that” to any political statement in general.

          • sub_ubi@lemmy.mlOP
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            5 months ago

            Oh did I miss something complex and nuanced? Please share! What do you find complex about the genocide? Why is “stop sending Israel weapons” an unworkable solution?

  • Xhieron@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I can’t even read this stuff anymore and not picture a drunk/high homeless kid getting righteously thrown out of a stolen truck.

  • topperharlie@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    without even entering on the underlying discussion, randomly throwing an equivalent to an “ok boomer” always sounds like an asshole move to me.

    but you do you I guess.

    • sub_ubi@lemmy.mlOP
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      5 months ago

      How would you respond to a 10k word essay about why it’s ok to bomb starving children?

        • Kecessa
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          5 months ago

          Good news, you can reply “I’m not reading all of that” and then add your reply after for the same effect!