june gloom on 3/12/2023 at 07:19
Quote Posted by SD
Once again, thank you for your meticulously constructed argument.
No. You don't get to play this game. You are not entitled to a debate, nor are you worth debating with. Your arguments, such as they are, wrapped in slogans, misinformation and borderline libel (don't think I didn't see your cute little tags framing the entire discussion as "Jews vs. Nazis,") are unfounded in reality and unworthy of discussion.
I don't like you, SD. I have never liked you. Every interaction I've ever had with you has been negative; I fully admit my acidic personality played a role, but in recent years I've gotten to see just how much of a reactionary you are, blaming trans people for your obsession with genitals and dreaming of empire. You're a profoundly unserious little man, a creepy little crypto-fascist with some serious sexual hangups and making it everyone else's problem.
Let's face it: you're a racist and an antisemite and so are several other people in this thread. Trying to argue that all Jews monolithically support Israel is in itself antisemitic,
especially when you include the increasingly common followup argument that the Jews who don't support Israel "aren't really Jews" or (
https://twitter.com/songsofyoni/status/1712169046077010141) forsake their Jewishness. But you don't care -- you're going to continue to frame this as a battle between good and evil, so you can feel good about yourself. So I'm not going to waste any further time on you.
Quote Posted by mxleader
Palestine is a terrorist state.
Palestine isn't a state at
all. It's occupied territory. What passes for a government in the PLO is deeply hamstrung by Israel's constant undermining of its authority. What passes for a government in Gaza in particular is a cult of angry young men with, let's face it, right-wing beliefs, taking control of a tiny little territory because they're just the biggest, toughest gang in what amounts to an open-air prison. Declaring Palestine -- and its inhabitants, every man, woman and child -- a terrorist state is the kind of rhetoric that leads to genocide, and you damn well know it. But you do not care, because you are a racist. Eighty years ago you would be saying the exact same shit about the Jews.
And on that note... it's time to segue awkwardly into something kind of off-topic, but this is the thread that finally spurred me to make this post.
I've been on this forum for 19 years. That's a long time. Now, granted, my activity here has been severely curbed in the last decade, for my mental health more than anything else. Every time I come in here I find that I made the right choice. This place has gotten more reactionary, more laxly moderated, honestly it's just a bunch of pathetic middle-aged white dudes jerking each other off.
I was not the best person I could be a decade ago, but can you blame me? I was dealing with a lot of shit: financial, psychological and religious abuse, living in a repressive household with no escape, no future; I was in such a bad mental state I couldn't even begin to figure out who I even was as a person. No shit I was angry all the time. TTLG, by nature of the kind of games it focused on, attracted people who were kind of broken, because Thief, Deus Ex, System Shock, they all felt like the kind of games that sucked your brain's dick and made you feel like some kind of exclusive elite because while everyone else was playing Call of Duty and having fun you were arguing with Goldmoon Dawn about whether Thief was in the Ultima universe or not. So shit yeah I hung out here, because it made me feel
smart. Arguing with some of you people made me feel
smart.
But I realized a long time ago all I really wanted was validation and a place to belong, and TTLG was never very good at either. Being here was a bit like being in an abusive relationship; honestly, I'm still unpacking some of the trauma of the endless arguments I've been in, the endless insults. Years ago I was told that I clearly must only laugh at rape and the Holocaust because I said I didn't like sitcoms. It's stupid, I know it is, but that comment
still bothers me. Or how about the time this forum tried to argue that I hated art because I brought up that Roman Polanski is a child rapist. Why did I stay here?! I don't know. Maybe it was because it was all I knew.
I've grown a lot in the intervening years. I do still remember, with embarrassment, actually being on the pro-Israel side of this debate about a decade ago. (Looking back on some of the older threads, SD has always sided with Israel, so points for consistency I guess.) I've learned a lot, about myself especially. It took me some time to really process my grief after my mom passed away, but the most important thing is that her death set me free. Free to actually see the world, free to actually be me. I went through a period where I couldn't grow because I just went from one abusive household to another, but the two years I spent in California -- notwithstanding the implosion of my relationship -- were periods of serious healing and growth for me. I try to be more loving, more empathetic. I try to understand people because for so long I didn't understand myself. I'm in a loving, healthy relationship and it's exactly what I need, with a partner who understands
me. I've learned how to be a better person, a better partner. I'm not so hung up on politics like I used to be five years ago; I was a pretty intense ideologue, subscribing to a specific set of political beliefs in the hopes of finding meaning in my life. These days I consider myself somewhere in a vague cloud of post-left anarchism/queer liberation/anti-colonialism. You can laugh if you want, I don't care. At least I know in my heart I'm on the right side of history. That's all that matters.
And okay. I admit it. I'm not the best debater. Try as I might, I still get frustrated easily, especially when arguing with self-satisfied men convinced of their own genius and absolute certainty, and it's always easier for me to drop a cutting
bon mot, because to be honest a lot of the people I get into arguments with, I don't feel are
worth the effort. Could I have made more cogent arguments in this thread? Sure, but why the fuck would I want to? It's a waste of time. Always was. I'm not going to change anyone's mind. If some of you lot were capable of having your mind changed on shit like this, would you even still be here? Anyway, I'm not.
No, really, I'm not. This is my final post. I've come back here sporadically for years because this place was such a big part of my life but I've known for a long time that it's an extremely toxic place, and the hardest lesson I ever learned was letting go. You can't heal by going back to what broke you.
I've asked Al this before, but I think he took it as an off-the-cuff remark when I first left this forum, not to be taken seriously, so I'm going to ask again: just delete my account. Make it gone. Nuke it off the face of the earth. Put up a Spirit Halloween sign. I can no longer in good conscience continue my membership on a forum that permits the kind of genocidal rhetoric that goes on in this thread. As a disabled and LGBTQ person I know that people like me are always next on the list -- if we're not (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktion_T4) outright first. I'm not going to be party to this shit anymore.
Some of you are alright. You can message me on Discord at junegloom, or if you know my current Facebook account you can find me there (some of you already know it -- Harvester and Dia, Rachel, plus a few others. If you're really interested you can ask them for it, or find me on Discord.)
The rest of you, goodbye. Here's a (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zjVlC98xZE) song.
