The OffGuardian version of my recent post, First they came for the socialists, elicited this below the line exchange:
How do you respond to a comment like that? You don’t want to grace it with too considered a response. That would accord it an intellectual status it doesn’t warrant. Then again, ignoring it – something I’m getting better at when baited – isn’t always an option.
I seldom go in for sharp put downs. I don’t as a rule care for rudeness, least of all online where it can easily escalate, but on occasion it has its place.
I have a fess up of my own though, re paragraph two. Much as I’d like to lay claim to that “mate of mine” barb, I half-hinched it – all art is love and theft – from a BTL exchange on a Guardian piece a couple of years ago. The only new bit is the crystal meth gibe – and then only because being glued to the superb Breaking Bad on Netflix just robbed me of a month of my life.
But I digress. I don’t really suppose Ole is run by Mossad. I reckon he’s just your common or garden dickhead, probably aged fifteen, with a massive chip on his shoulder but such words are music to Zionist ears. From now on, confronted with antisemitism dressed as anti-capitalism, I’ll go on the attack, accusing the authors of being false flag Zionists.
The ‘twat on crystal meth’ part I’ll reserve for the most egregious exponents – who, as luck would have it, show a pronounced tendency to SHOUT with the caps lock on.
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