January 19, 2000

11:51 PM

Holy crap! Unamerican Activities' James Squeaky has quit, stemming from an incident where Srini (guy behind unamerican.com) killed James' cat. Srini just lost what little credibility he had in my mind. Now, I'm going to feel shitty whenever I wear their t-shirts, actually I don't know if I'll ever wear them again. The more I think about it, the more it sickens me. I'm never buying anything from unamerican again.
posted by mathowie (11 comments total)

I own a dog and a cat. Both are very important to me, and I love them to bits. I don't understand how Srini could so something like throw the cat through the window.
I think the words "sick f**k" spring to mind.

James is right on. Best of luck to him.
posted by tomcosgrave at 5:20 AM on January 20, 2000

I just read all the journal entries on Jame's site and I just absolutely cannot believe it. This is beyond fucked.

I've been a big supporter of Unamerican. I ran free ads for them in kvetch, I talked them up to people, I displayed their stickers on my car with pride.

Not anymore. I'm heading out to my car with a razor blade.
posted by fraying at 2:28 PM on January 20, 2000

>I'm heading out to my car with a razor blade.

Not a bad idea. I've removed the stickers from my monitor stand and have taken down a unamerican printout I had on my wall.

Join me in executing this command line operation:

$ unamerican.com > /dev/null/
posted by mathowie at 3:32 PM on January 20, 2000

I don't think I'll be supporting Unamerican anymore. I never bought into Srini's change-the-world marketing crap anyway...and this is the perfect chance to ignore the whole thing. I'm not going to take any of my stickers off of anything though. I like those stickers...they're funny. And don't even get me started on the "whitey will pay" t-shirt.
posted by jkottke at 7:46 PM on January 20, 2000

yeah, some of the stickers are still funny, but I just couldn't bear to look at them anymore. I kept thinking of a cat flying through an unopened window and a seriously fucked up individual denying that he did anything wrong.

I suppose there will be some new Unamerican shirts and stickers, maybe these slogans would work for Srini:

"I killed James' cat and all I got was this lousy t-shirt"

"Start a revolution: kill an innocent animal"

"Taking responsibility for your actions has no place in my New World Order"

"Will terrorize innocent victims for food"

"Uncontrollable anger is totally punkrock!"

"Bomb the psychiatrist's office"
posted by mathowie at 9:44 PM on January 20, 2000

I never followed the whole unamerican site, but did visit it once or twice and contemplated buying one of the stickers. Didn't, though. So I don't have to remove stickers or burn t-shirts. The whole thing just keeps me thinking of how you never really know a person... especially not from a website. (Come to think of that... we are getting only one side of the story?) Scary stuff.
posted by prolific at 10:48 PM on January 20, 2000

Caroline writes -
> (Come to think of that... we are getting only one side of the story?)

If the cat became dangerous and tried to attack him, then I *might* have a little more belief...but chucking a cat - hell, a *kitten* though a window.
Seriously, if I saw that being done, the person doing the chucking would have a few bruises - to trat an animal like that is lower than low.

posted by tomcosgrave at 2:34 AM on January 21, 2000

Then again, all of this brouhaha might be a sham James is pulling because of something else going on between himself and Srini, some elaborate sort of retaliation. I'm with Prol, we should get both sides before condemning anyone. On the other hand, Srini hasn't offered any sort of rebuttal or clarification online (not that I can find, anyway), and the guestbook on unamerican is down (was it broken before all of this?)... circumstancial evidence at best. Blah... I don't feel like playing detective enough to track down the truth other than as it's presented.

If it's all true, though, it's a shame. "Fur is ammo." Ugh. Repulsive.
posted by jason at 11:58 AM on January 21, 2000

Srini drafted a letter rebutting what James said for the most part. The kitten out the window was an accident, Srini paid for all the vet bills, and when James left, he apparently took a bunch of Srini's stuff with him. Anyone want to flip a coin to decide this? Moving on....
posted by jkottke at 4:20 PM on January 21, 2000

I just read Srini's letter. Now it just seems like an immature argument between roomates. Hoo-hum. I hope they don't continue this in public.
posted by mathowie at 5:25 PM on January 21, 2000

>I just read Srini's letter. Now it just seems like an immature argument
>between roomates. Hoo-hum. I hope they don't continue this in public.

No such luck. Saw it on suck.com.
posted by Fenriss at 12:26 PM on January 27, 2000