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Jack Thompson's Letter To Take-Two Exec's Mother

Posted by timothy on from the an-insult-to-actual-slime-molds-everywhere dept.

debatem1 writes "Apparently, anti-violent-video-games crusader Jack Thompson is at it again, this time writing a letter to the mother of Strauss Zelnick, Chairman of Take-Two, the company that produces the GTA series of video games. In it he compares Zelnick to a member of the Hitler Youth, advocates beating the young Zelnick, and contemplates the existence of a Ted Bundy merit badge for boy scouts."

17 of 351 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Jack's utter lack of a sense of irony by Warll · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Yes, except it was a lot more army oriented and was mandatory for most of the population. The exceptions were minorities like those of Jewish ancestry, they didn't have to attend. Lucky eh?

  2. What's more... by jd · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I'm fairly certain that authoritarian, despotic organizations would ALSO advocate beating children. Are we to assume from the lack of a contemporary reference that Jack Thompson feels safer using historical references most people never experienced - and those that did would barely remember? That references to, oh, any of the truly major world-horrifying cases of true, ultra-pure evil in Austria or Belgium would be too risky owing to the similarity between advocated mindset and the truly monsterous? That anything people could meaningfully comprehend would be more likely to be seen as condemning of the Jack Thompsons of the world?

    Don't get me wrong - I regard Take Two as an excellent representation of Dante's Inferno, given the way they treated David Braben and others, and shock/gore games strike me as very childish, but amoral "moralists" (Mary Whitehouse was another) who use cultist techniques to "program" the more easily-swayed segments of the population to believe their propoganda are far far worse than those they seek to suppress. It seems to me that of the Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse, Famine has retired in favour of FUD. There really are some fates worse than death, and perverted mind-control games would be one of them.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  3. Re:Glory Hole by peipas · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Indeed, he was brought into a discussion about GTA IV on NPR's Talk of the Nation last week. I had never heard him, just read about him. He came off like a total jackass, scoffing at the end, "I'm done?" "Yes, you're done."

  4. Re:Whatever by NTmatter · · Score: 3, Interesting
    For factual reference, Thompson claims to not have sent it directly to the mother:

    "I sent it to Strauss Zelnick's attorney. I would never send it to his mother," Mr. Thompson told me. I'll take Thompson at his word that he sent it through the attorney...however, I suspect that this is not good-will, but a byproduct of the plausible notions that he was unable to find the address by any reasonable (eg, non-stalker) means, and that he probably realizes the potential PR nightmare that could be caused by actually sending the letter directly to the said family member.
  5. Re:I hope by Lord+Ender · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That's interesting. As you know, no publicity is bad publicity. Jack is just trying to keep his company in the news so his share prices rise! Clever man...

    --
    A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
  6. Re:Jack's utter lack of a sense of irony by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I feel compelled to mention that I got my first blowjob at a scout camp.
    I'm sure it depends where you're from but I never really felt like I was being heavily indoctrinated into a Christian ethic.

  7. Re:Jack's utter lack of a sense of irony by iamacat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That being said, the Nazi deal just doesn't stick. He was basically forced into the Hitler Youth, and he ran away when they tried to enlist him in the army. Yes, while thousands of young people of the time, including Jehovah's Witnesses, gave their life or were forced into concentration camps for refusing to have anything to do with fascism. And that he encourages people in places like China and Iran to practice forbidden religion. I guess the Pope did nothing wrong as an ordinary German citizen, but he just doesn't measure up as the leading follower of Jesus Christ in the world. As it shows in his actions.
  8. Re:Jack's utter lack of a sense of irony by JMandingo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Hitler Youth fought the Canadians and British to a standstill for many days following D-Day outside of Caen. Not bad for a bunch of Boy Scouts facing naval guns and superior infantry numbers and air power.

    The Pope can choose whether to save or planten booten to your arse :-)

    --
    Vonnegut was right: Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been."
  9. Re:Jack's utter lack of a sense of irony by amirulbahr · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Don't try to pass yourself off as intelligent and objective when you throw in comments like this:

    After all, he's probably responsible for a hell of a lot children being molested and teenagers giving birth to unwanted children. You are no better than the guy trying to implicate the Pope with the Nazis.
  10. Re:Silly troll (yup, IHBT... *sigh*) by ejecta · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yup, I have GTA 2,3,Vice City and I also have kids and guess what? To my kids Vice City is "the box with a car on it" That's all, because they never get to see it being played, or play it themselves.

    Jack Thompson should try out this new technique called "parenting" it's worth promoting!

    --
    Two Parts Swash, One Part Buckle
  11. Re:Stop submitting Jack Thompson stories. by ZiakII · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Please stop submitting Jack Thompson stories. He's got nothing if you ignore him. Leave it to Shacknews, keep it off Slashdot.

    Do you really want someone intelligent taking over his spot? As it stands right now he will never get anything done, which is how I like it personally.

  12. Re:Like herpes by _KiTA_ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If I were Zelenik, the next iteration of GTA would have a character that looked exactly like Jack Thompson that a little old lady blows away with an Uzi.


    Just a thought.

    Supposedly GTA4 has/had a Lawyer that, when faced with the main character gunning him down, screams out that Guns don't kill people, Video Games do, and that violent video games are what's making the main character kill him. Thompson *already* threatened to sue him over it.

    That reminds me, didn't he have an agreement wherein they don't crush him like a bug for libel and he stops mentioning them and their games, at all, forever?
  13. Re:I hope by DiEx-15 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have to agree. Wasn't the agreement he had with Take-Two and such tell him not to do this stupid shit again? If I were Strauss Zelnick I would sue the bejesus out of Jack. I guess since Jack can't do legal stuff now (because of the sanctions) and maybe forever (because of the disbarment), I shouldn't be surprised that Jack Ass can't do much except write the mother of Strauss Zelnick.

  14. Re:Jack's utter lack of a sense of irony by cp.tar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Actually, it's claimed that Ratzinger was pretty defiant and avoided going to meetings, but I suspect that's something made up by the Vatican's PR people.

    I'm quite certain of it.
    When Croatia proclaimed independence from Yugoslavia, many (if not all) of our new leaders were ex-members of the Communist Party. However, since communism became a snarl word much like in the USA some 50 years ago, they all started explaining how they had been defiant and subversive and always fought for a national state of Croats. Some even wrote books on the subject. Lengthy, boring ones.
    I don't think I need to point out all the similarities.

    Now, bullshitting is what politics seems to be all about, but I do have to marvel at the people who proclaim themselves traitors of the old system and then get the gullible masses to trust them with the new system.
    Pure gold, that's what it is.
    (Furthermore, this all meant that Croatian political rhetoric slid towards fascism and - would you look at that bugger - fervent catholicism. In these parts, the Catholic Church more or less openly sided with the pro-fascist forces back in the WW2, so the fascist-communist dichotomy pretty much overlapped with the Catholic-communist one.)

    All in all, not only do I believe that this was invented as a PR move, but I consider it a bad one.
    I would have thought that at least in Vatican someone would remember the repentant sinner, the lost sheep and the prodigal son.
    That would have gotten my respect; this only earned them disdain.

    --
    Ignore this signature. By order.
  15. Re:Jack's utter lack of a sense of irony by DrLang21 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Except for the fact that after the Catholic Church spoke out against the regime, Priests started ending up in concentration camps.

    --
    I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
  16. Re:Jack's utter lack of a sense of irony by dr_d_19 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    At the time, Hitler wasn't considered all that bad in Germany. Until the late 1930's he wasn't considered too bad by most of the world.

    One member of Swedish Parliament even thought Hitler deserved the nobel peace price! For some reason the same MP member withdrew his nomination sometime in 1939 :)

  17. Re:Stop submitting Jack Thompson stories. by nuzak · · Score: 2, Interesting

    > Do you really want someone intelligent taking over his spot?

    It's not a zero-sum game here -- if he's gone, there's no sign anyone else is going to take his place. It's not as if the moral crusaders of the world have been holding back and waiting for him to vacate the spot.

    --
    Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.