The "Red Star of Socialism"

Many years ago, when I was chef at the Art Museum, I found a sheet of red sticky stars in my desk drawer and started occasionally awarding them as "The Red Star of Socialism," which I described as the "highest honor" of our organization. It was a fun little joke, having more to do with the stars being red than anything about "socialism" per se, but the sense of it stuck. More recently, I was reunited at work with with my close comrade who was with me during the original "Red Star" era, and the concept once again gained currency. We now occasionally have debates as to whether a particular act of merit is really Red Star-worthy or not. Last night I decided that the Red Star of Socialism would also become the highest honor of my publishing operation M-Brane Press.

Tonight I announce that the first recipient of the M-Brane Red Star of Socialism is the hacker entity known as "Anonymous." They merit our highest honor for their righteous work yesterday in launching a successful and ongoing denial-of-service attack on the websites of the disgusting Westboro Baptist Church, Fred Phelps' sickening little clan well known for their "God Hates Fags" protests at people's funerals and other enormities. As of this writing, none of the Westboro sites are working: god hates fags dot com, god hates america dot com, and westboro baptist church dot com are all non-responding. 

In general, I am not a huge fan of hackers. While some use their skills for good, there is also far too much malicious activity that harms innocent bystanders. But in this case, Anonymous has done what we all wished we could do: shut those fuckers right the fuck up. Without their internet portals open, they are basically muzzled. But do I not defend free speech? Of course I do, but in the case of the Westboro fuckwits, I don't really care about their rights anymore than they care about mine. They have made it abundantly clear that they believe people like me ought to die, deserve to die and that they would be happy if I died and possibly even picket my funeral if I died. So, on balance, no I don't care if Anonymous is depriving Fred Phelps of his free speech for a while anymore than I'd be sad if the ugly son of  a bitch dropped over dead right now. He is, objectively, a vile piece of shit. All of decent society has repudiated his message. Every non-lunatic, non-asshole person who has ever heard of him has agreed that they are sick of hearing from him. Anonymous has made it, at least for a time, so we don't have to. 

For striking out against evil with such panache (they started the attack during a live radio interview involving the Phelps daughter/lawyer), Anonymous receives the M-Brane Red Star of Socialism and induction into my personal Pantheon of Anti-Douchebags.