One of the latest online creator scuffles happened in the comments section of a blog between comic book writer James Hudnall and the creator of The Wire, David Simon. The post’s topic was about a Wire episode from the current season, and Hudnall opened with this:

If you listen to David Simon’s 34 Minute podcast on iTunes you get the sense that he has a very disparaging, negative look at the system and the Wire reflects that. While I agree with many of his conclusions, I think it’s probably too negative. If things were that bleak Baltimore and other cities would be in much worse shape than they really are. I grew up in the 70s and many cities that were once hell holes have been radically cleaned up.

The day will come when all those vacants will become expensive real estate. It’s happened in cities like New York and San Francisco. It’ll happen in Baltimore.

I guess it’s because Simon’s a self confessed liberal that he thinks society owes everyone something. But many of the characters in the Wire are self destructive and damned in their own ways. There’s only so much society can do if people don’t do for themselves. Cutty is an example of someone who does try to clean up his act and his life is much better. Life isn’t all negativity all the time.

Simon shows up a few comments later to rebutt some of Hudnall’s assertations and closed with this before leaving for what seems to be for good:

But the next time anyone suggests that I have “confessed” to my political beliefs, they have an invitation to kiss my ass. I am on some issues conservative, on others middling, and on many matters way left of liberal. In Europe, I might be called a social democrat, maybe a green, or, depending on the country, a labourite.

In these United States, I am someone who has spent enough careful time in the other, marginalized America to be wholly contemptuous of anyone who equates raw, unencumbered capitalism — absent any other social or political framework — as even a poor excuse for how to run a country and take care of its people.

Self-confessed. Like I’m guilty of anything other than speaking my mind. Fuck you, asshole.

Hard to disagree with Simon’s reaction here - it’s insanely frustrating to be falsely pigeonholed into a box based on limited information.

Spread the word!