Jack Thompson versus The Unholy Alliance: Madman targets Defense Department

10:39 PM on 12.27.2007   |   Jim Sterling

44 comments

It's been a while since we poked fun at the silver-haired maniac known as Jack Thompson, but the videogame-obsessed protectobot of chilluns everywhere is making sure he's not forgotten. His plans for the new year involve a new target -- the United States Department of Defense. He's not just fighting games anymore, readers -- this is a man that can take on entire armies.

Thompson is going after the Defense Department for forming what he calls an "unholy alliance" with videogames. It's no secret that the military uses games as a recruitment tool, as America's Army has shown. Thompson has obviously started to believe that videogames are inherently evil creations forged in Satan's bric-a-brac shop and that the US DoD is now a malevolent force of darkness for daring to have very loose connections with this soul-fuelled engine of destruction.

In his latest rambling note, Thompson has lied that the Virginia Tech killer was a Counter-Strike enthusiast (it was later shown that Cho played nothing more violent than Sonic the Hedgehog) and makes vague allusions to "proof" of "long term immersion" in so-called "interactive violence." GamePolitics has the full barrel of mistruths and tarbrushing, and does such a great job of countering his wild claims that you really should check their post out.

While this is just another in a long line of the washed up old hack's pointless attention seeking, I wonder exactly how he expects the US Department of Defense to take him seriously. This is where I'd take glee from the fact that he's setting himself up to make some powerful enemies, but since Microsoft completely ignored his pathetic wailing, I doubt the military will care very much. This man is hilariously irrelevant outside of the very industry he hates.