This, sadly, is not an April Fools joke.
A Web site that posts the photographs of more than a dozen Tucson anti-war protesters and denounces them as traitors is creating a stir among local peace activists, who say it makes them more committed to using their free speech.
Featuring pictures reportedly taken at protests Thursday and Friday, the site asks: “UNAMERICAN? TRAITORS? CONFUSED or just plain PATHETIC??? YOU DECIDE.”
The site, http://traitorsoftucson.tripod.com, also contains potentially offensive images and language, such as the Statue of Liberty with a raised middle finger.
Peace activists are circulating an e-mail sent March 24 by a man who said he was going to attend two scheduled protests last week and take “close up digital photos of each individual protester which I plan on posting on a website I’ve built.”
The e-mail, sent to at least one local organization, also said the man bought a large ad in the Arizona Daily Star and planned to notify local businesses about his Web site.
“I hope I cause several of your traitors their jobs,” the e-mail said.
— snip —
The Web site has a “sort of a violent edge to it” and is filled with inaccuracies and mischaracterizations, she said.
She said part of the anger directed at activists seemed based on the idea Iraq has some responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks – which she called “a product of disinformation or shoddy reporting by broadcast news.”
You pro-war types proud to be associated with this? Does it bother you at all that these tactics, used by anti-abortion wingnuts, led to the murder of Dr. Bernard Slepian?
I eagerly await your impassioned denunciations of this anti-American extremist.
Via Atrios.