Hit Ed Where It Hurts

The following Philadelphia Inquirer story appeared yesterday, written by reporter Steve Goldstein, about Arlen Specter meeting with Altoona, PA residents, holding a Q&A session about a host of topics (the Iraq war was number one on the list, as it should be).

Now I definitely have issues with Specter, including his recent repugnant defense of Larry Craig, but I have to give it to him; if I make it to be his age and survive his surgeries, I hope I'm able to accomplish what he can.

However, there's something else in Goldstein's story that I want to highlight, and that's the real "takeaway" from this post.

It seems that, according to Goldstein, Ed Snider, chairman of Comcast-Spectacor which owns the Philadelphia Flyers, 76ers, and many other cable and business interests, has contributed to the group Freedom's Watch, the organization that is lobbying members of Congress (primarily Republicans) to support the Iraq war (they have spent $15 million on this effort - please read more here).

To merely say that such an act by Snider is utterly unconscionable as far as I'm concerned is sugar-coating the matter. His contribution is blood money to perpetuating the carnage in a country that was never a threat to us, had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11, and possessed no link to al Qaeda before we invaded. The conclusion is inescapable that Snider and the other Freedom's Watch miscreants want the human misery in Iraq to continue as an ancillary benefit of sorts to the state of Israel, involved now and possibly forever with the Palestinian conflict.

With all of this in mind, I'm letting you know that I am going to try and organize a boycott of Comcast-Spectacor. Yeah I know, good luck with that (especially when content linked to this site is hosted by Comcast). It's going to be tough, since there are so many ways that Comcast impacts our lives.

However, one way we could do this without affecting our TVs or computers (if we can do that, all the better) is to simply not hand over any of our money to an event at the Wachovia Center (particularly for the Flyers and the Sixers) as well as the Wachovia Spectrum (Phantoms hockey and I'm not sure what else). One exception that I can think of right off the bat is the Flyers Wives Fight For Lives Carnival; I would never suggest doing anything to hurt that great cause.

If anyone is interested in publicizing or committing to this, please let me know in the comments or Email me (I can be reached from the home page through a link at the bottom right hand corner). If you are interested, I will link to you from this site and publicize your efforts, and I will do so with thanks.

It is long past time to punish anyone who has done anything whatsoever to perpetuate the Iraq war, and Ed Snider, through his contribution to these fiends, now merits this punishment, and we have a not-too-difficult way to send him a message. Believing in an exclusionary, corporatist orthodoxy that exalts himself above others is one thing. Openly supporting a human tragedy that has led to the slaughter and maiming of thousands, to say nothing of having stirred up the unholy stew of sectarian violence and militant jihadism that has also spawned the worst refugee crisis in the world, is something wholly other.

Update 9/5: 2.35 million, Ed - 2.35 million.