Bad to the Bone

As the saying goes, a picture is worth 1000 words but sometimes links to news items help a little. Such as this item from Chile in which four men, including the one above, were arrested in connection with the beating, burning and slicing attack on Daniel Zamudio, a gay man. Apparently, being "bad to the bone" in NeoNazi circles only applies when going four against one, not during their docile and publicly humiliating arrests.

They not only beat up this poor guy but burned him, sliced off part of his ear and even carved swastikas on his chest. Not one. Several. In other words, Daniel Zamudio is Chile's answer to Matthew Shepard, only worse.


Mr. Zamudio is not expected to live much longer, as he's on life support and the family is waiting for his body to fail before pulling the plug.

It's people like this that make me want to come out of retirement. In fact, sometimes I wish I could witness a gay person being assaulted so I can give their attacker a piece of my mind and whatever other body parts I care to use. You can have all the gay pride marches and lobby for all the equality laws that you want but the fact is, radical right wing fascist homophobes like these miscreants count on nonviolent opposition. And as long as we persist on nonviolent opposition, they will never pay the full price for their hate crimes and will always escape every opportunity to know what their victims feel like.

And, with all apologies to Dr. King, the only answer to intolerance is more intolerance, the only answer to bigotry is a virulent, withering bigotry against bigotry. And, as Stonewall proved, sometimes the only way to wake people up and to let bigots know that you mean business is through violence. Because that's the only language these reactionary reptiles understand.