Jack Thompson: Gone too far.
So here I am, going to Wikipedia to see why Jane Fonda was called "Hanoi Jane" (believe it or not, I never really understood the logic behind the label). Do not ask why I was searching that. It's a long story.
However, through a long string of cross links to several other articles, my browser was taken to Jack Thompson ("controversy" to "media coverage of the VT massacre" to Jacko). Then I eventually reached gamepolitics.com from the Wikipedia entry of the site (another crosslink), and that's when I saw it.
The straw that broke the back. The sign that Jack Thompson should not only be barred from practicing law, but should also be banned from the human race.
Because he has left it, because what I saw was inhuman, uncalled for, and just plain wrong.
Keep in mind: I found this from a series of crosslinks that I started back on JANE FONDA! It's a wonder what you learn by just looking around.
In case you do not know the story, Jack Thompson sent this e-mail to GP and CCed it to several peers he has (or at least those he THINKS he has). Attached to this was a filing of the latest suit he's trying to push. The final sentence in the word document is the shockwave. It read, ad verbatim:
Below is what The Florida Bar will look like if [the Florida Supreme] court acts affirmatively on its show cause order, figuratively speaking, of course:
The picture that he speaks of? It's what I posted as the picture to this article. It is Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Dome. It was the closest surviving building of the 1945 atomic bomb dropping that eventually ended World War II, in case you are wondering.
To even say this, within any context, is outright sickening on so many levels. But also to use that picture.
For one, the fact that he would even include this picture. Sure, it may have been less offensive as, say, the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing in the mid 90's (forgive me as the exact year that happened now escapes me), or even the immediate aftermath of 9/11. But that time is a time that even many Americans may want to forget. Even though many could see that as a necessary thing to do at the time, our actions killed MANY innocents, and the morality and necessity of the bombings on D-Day are debated even today. It may have even been the start of the nuclear age. Hell, we might not be having to think that Saddam had WMD's in Iraq had we not made them to begin with. For Jack to use that dated picture from that time, in this sense, is inexcusable for that alone. It shows that not only did he fully condone such genocide, but he would gladly consider doing something similar....
figuratively speaking, of course.
That's the worst thing about this. That he uses that phrase to try to explain off that he doesn't REALLY want to bomb the Florida Supreme Court. He doesn't REALLY want to cause genocide. He doesn't REALLY want to scare all the people who have families to go home to, who make a living. He doesn't REALLY want to become like the terrorists that want to take away our precious freedoms however they can. He was just FIGURATIVELY speaking. Of course! Why didn't we consider that he was just being himself?
But wait, who else were we thinking was only "figuratively speaking" about something? Osama bin Ladin, when he kept threatening America with his rhetoric. Yeah, he was also "figuratively speaking". But what exactly happened just months, even weeks after we assumed that, and were basically TOLD that? Yeah: 9/11! Bush ignored all those warning because we all thought he was "figuratively speaking".
Basically put, Jacko, you have just sunk to a new low. How dare you try to scare the people who would go into that office to make a living so they can put food on the table? How dare you imply, figuratively speaking or otherwise, in ANY form of content or context, that you would want to blow up ANY building, or to destroy ANY lives, for your own well-being? How dare you, Jack, use a moral scar on the skin of America to try to prove your own point? How dare you use the same tactic bin Ladin used to scare us Americans, or how we are scared into not using our own freedoms?
Did you even think about what kind of threat you just leveled, Jack? The FBI comes after people that make such threats. They investigate, rather throughly and harshly, and prosecute in the same manner, these types of cases. VERY much after those 9/11 attacks. They take EVERYTHING like this seriously, Jack, not just those that they just feel are right to investigate. You may have sealed your fate with this latest stunt, Jack.
And there is something worse, still, hidden deep within the bowels of this latest stunt. It is this: What if this wasn't the first time Jack has thought this way? What if he thought that Rockstar would've been better with their offices blown to bits? What if he thought that whoever made Counterstrike (he got the name of CS's developer wrong more than once) would've been better off dead? He has always thought that video games are "murder simulators" and that every shooter ever created "trained" on violent games. Now he just proves to all of us that this is not the case. He was trained on history lessons, and they weren't good lessons, at that. But back to the point I was trying to make: What if he had thoughts like this before? Could this be more than we're letting on? We already know that he has made some weird filings before. But could this man be a dangerous person to be around? Has his anger for all things video games, could all of his frustrations for not being able to do a thing about these so-called "trainers" and having EVERYTHING thrown back at his face, for game companies mocking him and thinking he is a joke, have they all come back to him in such a way that he is struggling to find a way to handle all of the backlash? Maybe now he'll see what REALLY causes those tendencies to happen. We can only hope that, given that everything that I have said was true (and we should pray to God that it is NOT), that he wouldn't act upon them.
Proof of his going overboard is what the Game Politics people had as an e-mail exchange with him about this issue. In brief, he insults the staff, or at least who clicked the "send" button, by saying that the GP people cannot read nor tell the meaning of "figuratively speaking". He then also says that was a "gig" to the bar, "you need to have fun at times", that GP was "challenged by life and reasoning" and "should be checked into a mental health facility", that they were "boring", and we could go on and on.
Aside from the fact that he refused to answer any of their questions or that he was insulting them for raising said questions, among other things, one thing stands out in this. Well, two. One that Jack does not get the impact such messages have on the general public and he should be the one to have his thoughts checked. But the horrific quote of "You need to have fun at times".
In case you didn't catch the pretext, this was only him kidding around. This was a joke.
In that case, this joke was not funny in the slightest.
This was
A JOKE to Thompson. It cannot be stressed enough because the more I see it, the more I'm sickened by it. He thinks that harassing people to do whatever he wants while ignoring laws is a joke to him? He thinks that threatening innocent people is a joke? He thinks that doing this on an OFFICIAL COURT DOCUMENT is a JOKE? He thinks that ending the lives of countless people is a joke? He thinks making threats like these are jokes? And does he think that he's making it all better by saying "figuratively speaking" and "just kidding"?
Hopefully people will no longer tolerate this. I hope that, in the coming days, we hear of this stunt on mainstream media. I hope that we see this on EVERY major news outlet in America. I hope that the Florida Bar revokes Thompson's license for life. I hope that he is investigated into by the FBI for what he is doing to these people. I hope that we never have to hear the name of Jack Thompson again.
Though I doubt that any of those will come true, it is wishful thinking. But one thing is true: Jack Thompson is a disgusting excuse for a human being. He has dug his hole so deep that he has found Hell. One can only hope that he stays there.
And to how I started this out with: How I found this story. I figure I should end it with something similar. So I will do this: They called Jane Fonda "Hanoi Jane" after an error in judgment into what a picture of her in Hanoi meant and numerous spins into the truth of what she actually did there. I did in fact find out why that label was put onto her. Unfortunately, there is no spin on Jack Thompson's latest stunt. Since he used a picture of something in Hiroshima to prove his point, I will give him a label, and this is NOT figuratively speaking. His label now:
Hiroshima Jack!
Good night, and good luck!
Brilliantly thought out and written.
Thompson is a sick man, and I was floored when I heard of his latest stunt.
He needs to have a serious reality check, and maybe after 20 years of solitude in the mountains of Nepal, he'll learn to not be such a horrible person.