By John Walker on August 7th, 2008 at 1:19 pm.
America’s Army has always courted controversy, but protesters in San Francisco yesterday declared that it was in violation of international law. Gathering outside UbiSoft’s SF headquarters, a not really very impressive throng of about twenty turned up to wave banners and sing impromtu protest songs (although none so clever as mine above) against the Teen rating of America’s Army in the US. Game Videos were there, their video of the event below.
The key issue is that America’s Army, designed as a recruitment tool for the US Army and funded by the Department of Defence, is allowed to be sold to 13 year olds and above, which the protesters, and ACLU, say is a deliberate attempt to recruit underage Americans into the armed forces.
If you watch past the slightly frightening angry ladies, there’s an interview with someone who explains why the game violates UN law, and explains the motivations behind the protests.
The protesters made it clear they are not against violent video games, but purely the recruiting nature of America’s Army. According to Xtaster, the campaigners wish for a sticker to be on all boxes, reading:
Warning: The video game America’s Army has been developed by the United States Army to recruit children under the age of 17 in violation of the U.N. Optional Protocol and international law. Combat service has been known to cause death, irreparable injuries, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and lifelong feelings of overwhelming guilt.
Xtaster go on to say, stating that it might be pure fiction, that two protesters managed to speak to Ubisoft bossman, Laurent Detoc, and report the following:
They say [he] told them that Ubisoft’s publishing of the America’s Army game actually did lead to an “internal conflict” within the company, and that an ethics committee was established to deal with these issues.
“Combat service has been known to cause death” Really???
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If they played the game, they’d know it probably does more to scare teens away from joining the army, really.
That is one sad protest, though. And shouldn’t they be protesting near somewhere army-related, as opposed to the Ubisoft building?
Also, those women are pretty scary.
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America’s Army has been coming for a long time. The US military have in various forms been happy to get into relations with game makers looking for the ‘authentic’ edge for years – ‘militainment’ is nothing new at all – this has just made explicit what was already implicit.
But, hey, for an administration whos right-wing conservative contingent stands side-by-side with Somalia in not signing the UN Convention on the Rights of Children – what can you expect?
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Forcing them to put on a sticker “Playing this game will make you gay” would be 100x more effective.
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Because, of course, under international law there’s no difference between the forcible abduction and impressment of children into militias under conditions of lawless violence and war, and a video game played by upper-middle-class teenagers. Let’s ask the kids in Uganda, why don’t we?
Like Code Pink, these folks excel at simply pissing off people who otherwise agree with them. I think the majority-white and generally well-off kids who can afford a computer and DSL line for AA are safe from the grasping hands of military recruiters, since they’re — well, white and well-off.
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It was obviously rated as a video game, not a recruitment tool. I don’t think that they are so stupid as to not know that, they probably just want an excuse to protest about the ‘illegal war’.
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I think it’s really silly. I played America’s Army when I was a teen, and I didn’t want to join the Army. I found it to actually be quite a good online shooter.
That it’s against international law is also a stupid argument. I’ve seen ads for the army in places where teenagers can see all over the world (Here in Italy there are Army ads in gaming magazines. In England there are regimental recruitment booths on shopping streets).
I think those people need to chill the hell out. You can even see by their posters that what they actually care about is the war on Iraq, and not the well being of 17 year olds.
I say they go push their agenda somewhere else.
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I wonder how they feel about the Army Cadets.
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I thought this game came out quite a while ago, almost a year at this point. Also, that game was quite shit. The console version (the only one to get a rating, the PC version didn’t since its online-only) should have gotten a T (same amount of blood and guts as Star Wars).
Then again, putting a sticker that says “This game has been known to cause death, irreparable injuries, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and lifelong feelings of overwhelming guilt.” would be far more effective.
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@Cooper — I think “Kuma\War” is a greater offender. There’s something really distasteful about having a violent conflict occur on day N and then a video game arrive on N+1 trying to put an educational gloss on exploitation. (Though you can’t accuse them of gross political bias — in one mission you can play as heroic Silver Star awardee LT (j.g.) John Kerry!)
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Best warning label ever.
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Sure, and most certainly. But pointing at others and saying ‘it’s not that bad’ doesn’t help. Neither does the assumption that being white and middle class is a sfaety barrier. It downplays just how powerful this media rhetoric can be.
WWII has undergone constant re-writing in US media for decades. The current state of military games set after WWII basically owes itself to the works of the US army.
It might seem a bit feeble to protest what is ‘only harmless fun’ and no real threat to kids – but it’s just part of a much, much larger media jigsaw which has for many years been working to make the US army and wars they engage in seem nothing other than righteous and a whole load of fun. It’s that same jigsaw which played a part in an almost complete lack of public critical engagement with the war in the US.
Edit: @wb, yes, that’s kinda the point I was making about ‘millitainment’. This has been around for such a long time, KW as an obvious example – AA just makes the recruitment side explicit – it’s not as if the glorification of the army and war is this all new thing. Shame only a bunch of old hippies can actually get wound up enough by it to say something.
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“Illegal war”? Why the sarcasm?
AA is a recruitment tool, weather people are prepared to admit it or not. Admitadly, it’s a pretty shitty recruitment tool, but that’s it’s purpose anyway. Plus it’s a pretty shit game too. *shrugs*
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I agree with them. “Americas Army” is fucking disgusting in every way possible and yes it should be banned. They use it to advertise war and recruit kids whether they admit that or not, but that’s the purpose. As for UBI, they sold themselves to the devil.
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If the protesters see allowing persons under the age of 17 access to this game as “illegal recruiting” in violation of international law, where do they stand on JROTC (Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps)?
For those of you not familiar with it, the JROTC is a Federal program sponsored by the United States Armed Forces in high schools across the United States. [wikipedia.org] How is a video game a recruiting tool and the JROTC not?
I’m guessing this route seemed more likely to garner press attention because of the video game angle, so they went with it instead of raising what might be a more valid point against a more formidable foe.
Misdirected anger, misspent energy.
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Wait a minute, the mininmum enlistment age, with parental consent, is 17. So who freaking cares if your crappy online shooter has somehow convinced a bunch of 13-year-olds to go sign the dotted line, they can’t do it anyway. You can’t “recruit children under the age of 17″ when they don’t, by law, accept recruits under the age of 17.
Also, when anyone cites the UN, you know full well and immediately that they are full of shit.
“..much, much larger media jigsaw which has for many years been working to make the US army and wars they engage in seem nothing other than righteous and a whole load of fun. It’s that same jigsaw which played a part in an almost complete lack of public critical engagement with the war in the US.
The ‘Military Industrial Complex’ is it? The same bastards responsible for water flourination and cattle mutilations. Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you…
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@ascagnel:
It’s been out for several years, now. And yes, it is shit.
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[I]t’s just part of a much, much larger media jigsaw which has for many years been working to make the US army and wars they engage in seem nothing other than righteous and a whole load of fun.
Agreed, though I’d argue that you’re describing the sort of national mythologizing that goes on everywhere and in every time. It took a Thucydides to skewer the imperial pretensions of a post-Periclean Athens, but even that great historian fell under the spell of the demagogue. In France, the myth of a heroic national resistance didn’t start to crumble until works like The Sorrow and the Pity ruthlessly stripped away the lies and illusions people had fashioned for themselves. France has yet to admit its military role in enabling the Rwandan genocide. Israel is still in the process of re-examining the “founding myths” that fill their schools and wash away and and all stains on that nation; its Arab neighbors haven’t done even that. And so on. So it’s no surprise that the US does the same thing, just more efficiently and with Hollywood’s help.
But — having said that — I think that the myth of the invincible US military is something that could only grow up in a period without real military conflict. Vietnam showed that we could lose a war to ragtag militants backed by a poorly-equipped Soviet Bloc army; Korea demonstrated that even a brushfire war could explode in the faces of military and political assurances to the contrary; the Iranian revolution and South American death squads showed the limits and results of the covert actions that marked Eisenhower’s foreign policy.
World War 2 veterans in America (and their age cohort) consistently opposed US military involvement abroad. As late as the end stages of Vietnam, public opinion polling showed that support for Vietnam was inversely correlated with age — that is, the younger you were, the more likely you were to support the war.
We went into Afghanistan and Iraq with a recent history of only a few minor actions (Grenada, Panama, Somalia, former Yugoslavia) and one serious war (Gulf I) that turned out, unexpectedly, to be a pushover. With every one of those largely successful except Somalia (which has its own convenient Dolchstoßlegende to explain it away), we had a belief that the US military was itself a game-changer, that we were, in short, immune to the bloody historical rules of combat.
We weren’t. We aren’t. Like many, I’ve known many people personally affected by the war — sons killed on the highways of Iraq, Marines who still agonize over the bullets they fired, husbands returning with PTSD in their dreams and violence in their hands — and there’s nothing grand and glorious about their sacrifices, nothing great arising from the wasted nobility of their service. This is a reassessment that will continue for many years, and one that will affect the way media, including entertainment, sees the military and its role in our government.
What I’m saying, I suppose, is both that the factors underlying AA are not new, and that they are not truly controllable. AA could only arise in a culture that — on both the right and the left — saw its soldiers as both supremely competent and supremely moral. (In a similar vein, perhaps you remember the Bruce Willis vehicle Tears of the Sun, in which the only moral option was to use the Marines to bring peace to all of war-torn Africa, huzzah!) The war in Iraq no longer supports that myth, even if the news media and the military have managed to minimize the images of violence visited upon our soldiers and their civilians by war.
Will this sort of thing continue? Sure. But its effects will be limited. It will be a long time — another thirty years of peace, perhaps — before America is ready to commit itself to another avoidable meat grinder. And one video game or a hundred will do nothing to affect that.
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@Maximum Fish:
You don’t get it, Maximum Fish. They can’t recruit kids under 17, but they can convince them to join up once they are 17. Teens between 13 and 17 can easily be influenced by propaganda. That’s the point of the law. They can’t aim their ads at kids, in the same way that tobacco companies can’t, even though you can’t sell cigarettes to minors.
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“I agree with them. “Americas Army” is fucking disgusting in every way possible and yes it should be banned.”
With a balanced argument like that, how could you possibly fail in your efforts?
P.
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@Willem
So let me get this straight, in a society in which we are bombarded every minute of every day by a hundred and a half avenues for convertional advertisement, political campaigning and propagandizing, religious indoctrination from day one on, history through the eyes of the currently trendy curriculum; in a society in which nearly every action you take every one of these days is the direct result of some elogated chain of enviornmental conditioning, somehow we are throwing a fit (or at least a couple of freaky bitches are) about a videogame aimed at convincing kids to join the military? That everyone under the age of 17 should be always 100% neutral about the prospects of enlisting?
And so gradeschool job fairs aimed at making little Johnny into a firemen or police officer are okay, but joining the military is a no-no? Because we apparently don’t need one of those, enlightened as we all are. We should take this opportunity i think to note that the US is in the minority of countries that even has an all-volunteer military. Perhaps the UN should start bitching first at Germany and Sweden, for requiring military service of everyone…
And besides, it’s the UN. I mean, they’re paid to be full of shit. The fucking Human Rights Council is a rogues gallery of the worlds worst rights abusers and despots, who take turns at anti-semitic and anti-western grandstanding.
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@John Walker: That’s acceptable because it involves hats and marching.
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Ouch… Just skimming the comments here makes my head hurt. Never discuss politics on a gaming blog. Especially if the words “US” and “army” have anything to do with it.
No good will ever come of it.
Edit: Ok, reading through the comments, I’ve got to say it could be much worse. It’s actually quite civilzed when compared to other discussions I’ve read about similar topics on other websites..
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I predict George Bush burnination in T minus 10 posts.
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“And besides, it’s the UN. I mean, they’re paid to be full of shit. The fucking Human Rights Council is a rogues gallery of the worlds worst rights abusers and despots, who take turns at anti-semitic and anti-western grandstanding.”
Um, let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Yes, the Human Rights Council is currently a (sick) joke, but that doesn’t mean everything the UN does is bad. I mean, a protcol on the involvement of children in armed conflict is hardly a bad thing.
Reading the protocol itself:
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu2/6/protocolchild.htm
I think that the idea that video games breach article 4.1 is a bit of a stretch.
P.
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@wb
Of course. Nation building is nothing new, and it’s certainly moved away from being a tool of the European political elite to substatiate their power to something much more nebulous. Performative, discursive, Foucauldian – whatever you want to call it, it’s not easy to see it as under the control of anyone and anything.
Which makes it more dangerous, as it becomes very difficult to criticise anything in particular such as AA or KW (or any number of movies, tv programs etc.) without seeming willy – these are just harmless fun, surely. Yet, at the same time, trying to focus upon the wider issue is impossible, as it’s too nebulous to grasp.
Which is why I disagree that ‘one video game or a hundred’ won’t make a difference – and that unless hippies go out and shuffle around outside Ubisoft, these things won’t change, as it provides a chance to point the finger at wider issues (as someone mentioned, this group seem to be more obviously anti-war and anti-military than anything).
Otherwise, yeah, it’s just that cycle you point to – a couple of decades time, the US goes to war again with a similar lack of critical public engagement as no one remembers a fuss being made last time, as, frankly, not much of one is being made.
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War! HRNNG! What is it good for?
Starting arguments on messageboards.
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@cooper
Look on the bright side — in a couple of decades, it’s very unlikely that the US will be able to power-project too far beyond its coastlines.
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@Paul Maloney
Agreed. However, the problem with setting any sorts of international standards, noble in intent though they may be, is the same problem with the broader concept of “international law”. Laws are only worth a damn when they are backed up up by the means and credible threat to do violence, physical or otherwise, on those who do not follow them. As the UN has no such ‘right arm’, and fails to take decisive action even when it is able, it has become the worst kind of joke to those who flaunt it’s well intentioned laws.
So around the world there are those who round up 9 year olds to serve the military junta, and nothing is done to prevent this because the UN is hamstrung by anemia and a quasi-moral relativistic hand-wringing about being “just as bad as they are”, and nobody else even gives a damn.
And these fat bitches are out picketing in front of Ubisoft over a low rent videogame because if they actually pulled this stunt someplace where it mattered, they’d get shot in the face for their troubles. They care deeply about child soldiery, just not deeply enough to risk any inconvenience to their own lives. Convenience activism at it’s worst.
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@wb
So i hope you’re not from the US then. I mean, i’m not a “my country right or wrong” sort of guy, but then again, i don’t give a shit how wrong we are; i still live here.
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@MaxFish
The UN make a lot more sense when you think of it as a giant collection of not-very-coordinated entities, some of which do great work (UNHCR, WHO, UNICEF), some of which do very poor work (UNRWA), and some of which are designed for political grandstanding and deadlock (UNHRC). And then there’s stuff like the Security Council, ICJ, World Bank, WIPO and so on, all of which tend to get a lot done, even if you don’t always like what they do.
Edit: In re: the power projection issue, it’s not a question of how happy I am about it, it’s a question of whether I think the US can maintain a pre-eminent position moving forward. Absent some miracle breakthrough in energy generation or petroleum production, we’re looking at a long period of increasing energy and transport costs with a breaking point sometime in the 2030s to 2040s WRT petroleum. Just as the US miracle of the 20th century was made possible in part by essentially free transportation that let us create vast cities and giant highways while fueling global military and political involvement, any significant change in transport costs will force us to redevelop our national economic and infrastructure and cut back on international involvement. The economic fill-in of the post-WW2 void by Europe, China and developing nations also means that there are fewer places for us to easily intervene; the Middle East, like Africa, is unusual in that its borders and political systems are recent, artificial, and unstable — and I don’t think we’ll be in a hurry to intervene in either of those regions again.
Is this good? Probably not — the US has been a net stabilizer within the international system, even over the past eight years, and it’s hard to see more opportunistic powers like China or Russia having the same beneficial effect. (If you’ve traveled in Africa, then you’re probably familiar with what I call “sinocolonialism.”) But it’s not about what I like; it’s about what I believe will happen.
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@Little Bobby Bobbertson
That’s right c’hall.
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@Maximum Fish: We should strive to be 100% objective, yes. It’s impossible, of course, but we should do our best to reach that goal.
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@wb
Again, i agree. The UN is not entirely worthless, i should flat out say. It’s not. But most of the standards, regulations and laws they maintain and “enforce” that actually mean something and are effective, are those that provide mutual benefit to all subscribing parties.
Pro-competition laws for instance, within any given nation, may restrict the activities of businesses, but by mandating adherence to a “nash equilibrium” highest benefit code of business, they end up making everyone better off (within limits, as with everything) and aren’t to hard to digest.
But something laws on something like child militias, or bans on weapons, or the absolute worst, “war crimes”, will only be followed so long as the political points it buys you exceeds the necessities of using these, and as soon as that’s no longer true, as soon as anyone’s back is to the wall, they’ll start rolling out the cluster bombs and landmines and segmenting hollowpoint rounds and mustard gas and whatever else.
Essentially what these laws do is only allow western nations to preen and claim moral superiority over nations who do not possess the luxury of doing so, nations caught in bloody civil wars where following UN rules of engagement would mean instant defeat for whichever side elected to do so.
I guess i’d only say the UN should recognize it’s limits, and focus on what it’s actually good for. But that’s of course impossible, as it is the world’s largest bureacratic entity, and with bureacracy comes ceaseless empire building.
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@Willem
I could be a giant cynic here, but i don’t even think it’s possible to be 1% objective. Some fights are worth fighting, some are just an unyielding waste of time and money.
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I’m an international politics student, and I’m trying to use RPS to avoid working on my dissertation. Can we please avoid pLOLitics and get back to computer games?
Otherwise I’m going to have to procrastinate at ‘gamesradar’ and nobody wants that now do they?
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@MaxFish
But something laws on something like child militias, or bans on weapons, or the absolute worst, “war crimes”, will only be followed so long as the political points it buys you exceeds the necessities of using these….
Too true. Political realism is a cruel mistress.
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@Bobby,
Well, today we’ve all loved a little, and laughed a little, and maybe even learned a little. I learned that we’re all pretty much the same under the skin, that even the hardest heart can be melted by the tears of a child, and that you have to eat the ice cream to enjoy it, otherwise it melts and then there’s naught but tears and a sticky pool of black sesame gelato, and nobody wants that.
And that console gamers are pricks. That’s something we can all rally ’round!
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There’s nothing wrong with glorifying military service to kids as long as they don’t actually sign the kids up until they come of age.
And comrade wb, what’s your point? Do you have a point besides the self gratification of spewing left-wing misinformation on a gaming forum? Let me just say the left-academic tradition of empty cynicism and self-hate you are taking the opportunity to represent here makes me want to throw up – and I’m not even American.
I know people who’ve been to Iraq for multiple tours, and they hardly come back as empty husks incapable of leading normal lives. In fact some of them say how much they enjoyed the experience and can’t wait to go back.
The American military *is* actually invincible in any meaningful sense of the term, no other power could hope to last very long in a stand up fight. I suppose you mean the myth is that each individual American soldier is bulletproof. As your kind loves to use the word “myth” with so much abandon I guess the reach isn’t so surprising.
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@wb
Do you mind if I quote you in my dissertation’s concluding chapter?
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Why not play this
http://www.democracygame.com
Then you can pretend you are working on your dissertation AND enjoy gaming goodness :D
(couldn’t resist)
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@wb
Agreed, console gamers are pricks. This is what i want to protest. Anyone want to drive down to ghetto-ass Louisville KY and help me picket in front of the local Gamestop? WASD FTW!
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“I know people who’ve been to Iraq for multiple tours, and they hardly come back as empty husks incapable of leading normal lives. In fact some of them say how much they enjoyed the experience and can’t wait to go back.”
What do the iraqi citizens say about that? It is, after all, their country, not the property of the US…
just saying…
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Link to the protocol.
One notices that recruitment (joining the armed forces and using children in combat), not advertising, is what is prohibited.
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@Deuteronomy: Are you being serious? Really?
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@Paul Moloney
Failed what? I can’t be arsed to explain something that should go without saying. I suppose you support the Iraq war, too. No matter, you’re a dick, mindless and irrelevant. Piss off.
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Edit: Broke my own rule. Damn it.
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I might have missed the bit explaining this, but I’m confused as to why they’re protesting about AA now. The game is a good few years old already…
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“What do the iraqi citizens say about that? It is, after all, their country, not the property of the US…
just saying…”
Latest poll is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7299569.stm
“38% want American forces to leave immediately, compared with 35% who want the troops to remain until security has been restored. ”
It doesn’t state what happened to the other 27% – I presume they are don’t-knows.
Donald Duck: grow up.
P.
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@Donald Duck
They brought a cave troll.
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@Donald Duck: Thanks for this reasonable and well thought out response. May I applaud you? With people like you, I’m sure we can convince everybody that war is a bad thing.
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hands up if you have been to war……………………
i have twice afgan and iraq, yay squadies
opps forgot kosovo aswell (not war but i think stoping ethnic cleansing counts)
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Deuteronomy wrote:
And the locals are just thrilled to be able to give the American tourist the holiday experience of a lifetime! Bring your kids!
Little Jimmy says: “Oh, boy! I can’t wait to tell my friends about it!”
-Swell, you do that, Little Jimmy!
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You’re more likely to die in an automobile wreck in the USA over the same time it takes to complete a tour of duty in Iraq. If the locals are really that unfriendly they aren’t doing a very good job of showing it.
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i thought they were very nice chaps who were keen to sell me whiskey and ice lollys.
true story
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Good for them! Games should not be used to promote wars, let alone recruit!
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@cullnean:
They didn’t offer you tickets for the Mossad Magical Ride? You should have tried those.
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@Deuteronomy: Well, obviously. Americans are lousy drivers and when they go to war, they make sure they don’t get shot.
However, I don’t think your statement is true for the Iraqi’s. Unless you count roadside IED’s as an automobile accident. They’re also people, see?
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@Diogo Ribeiro:
nope the Israeli spy’s didnt offer, but i did get a jaunty trip in a puma helicopter
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So you think if the Americans withdraw now the Iraqi death rate is going to go up or down? I have a feeling bombs hidden in markets that take out 100+ Iraqis are worse than the roadside ones targeted at Americans in that respect.
Cullnean, I assume you’re an Englander, are you guys allowed to drink in theater?
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@Deuteronomy:
yes i am, and no we cant (offically)but i may have or maybe i didnt (offical secrets act and all that)
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The Wired blog post on this is pretty good.
Also, @Flint, this is a protest against specifically the Xbox 360 version of the game, which is new (?). Doesn’t make much more sense, but there you go.
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EDITED
Meh what’s the point. I’m sure its all achieving the aim of bringing freedom and democracy to the middle east…
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The real problem with using wargames as a recruitment tool on kids is that the kids tend get the wrong message. They take tactical positions that leave their flanks and train exposed, have a combat posture and comms discipline that practically invites engagement, and have such a poor lack of situational awareness that they interpret immediate and decisive threats as nuisances, trying to press forward even after it’s too late.This is best illustrated in the instructive video that’s been circulating for a while now, but has recently been revived by the fail blog folks.
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Maximum Fish:
Being Swedish, I feel I should point out the fact that the mandatory military service we do have is only basic training and you’ll never get called into service for anything other than defending Swedish borders. The professional military is far more voluntary than the American army in that we don’t have recruiters running around nor do we have a socio-economic situation that excludes a large chunk of the population from any other means of a career or government and media which glorify war and calls for blind support of politics and troops.
Also our actual “mandatory” military service is more or less voluntary these days considering the tiny armed forces we have, and even if you do get called in you have the right to refuse any kind of armed service.
In what way does pointing out the fact that both the Israeli government and Palestinian terrorists are doing some atrocious things constitute anti-Semitism?
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@Dinger
You may find that makes them more acceptable for recruitment in the army. ;)
AA is crap. We have reached a consensus on that, but what about the tactical FPSs that aren’t? They should be recognised for what they are.
I name True Combat: Elite.
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The US army playing the peacekeeping role by providing an alternative target? Interesting idea. But it’s unlikely Iraq would descend into chaos if the US and UK pulled out. If there was a concerted effort to emplace a democratic regime (as opposed to a US sockpuppet) supported by a non-partisan peacekeeping force, there’d be little problem I’d reckon. Unfortunately, that means the US authorities admitting that their strong-arm tactics are ruinous…
Anyway, I’d take ‘empty’ cynicism over blinkered propaganda any day. But is that calls of deviation and repettition I hear?
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Wow these comments are giving me a headache. I want to jump in and yell at some of you really loudly, but I’ll save myself the trouble. Stupid people will be stupid and believe whatever they want to believe, some comments at RPS won’t change anything.
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That is the best part about being an american, if your not being lambasted by a bunch of right wing facists your being screamed at by a bunch of left wing ones that smell allot worse. I live in Eugene Oregon (considered the second biggest hippy mecha in the west), and I can tell you without a ounce of doubt: These people really dont care about what there protesting about, they just want there 15 minutes of fame. Just once try and have a intelligent conversation with any extremist and you will learn how closely related we still are to apes.
Having lived in one of the most protest happy places I have ever been I have learned that very few actually care about what they protest. A big chunk is self gratification with the remainder being wanting to belong to something, anything, that makes them feel wanted and important.
Here we commonly refer to it as “Masterbation with a megaphone”
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All I can say is that I remember going over to Plymouth and being creeped out by how in-your-face the British army was, it’s a very different culture to Ireland, despite the fact that here it was relatively normal for the army to have roadblocks and provide security for money vans. Things like the British Army Cadets seem strange and slightly unwholesome, as a school-endorsed concept, although I know people who treated joining the Reserves (equivalent to the TA, I guess) as a normal thing while in school. I guess there’s a mix of a firm belief in self defense and a complete lack of desire to project power, at least currently. (Considering the Irish government in the 70′s made plans to invade Norn Ireland)
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I think they’re right. Though I’m not sure it’s as evil-intent as is being said.
The game was created as a recruitment tool, we know that. It’s made for people who are teenagers, we know that. Put them together, and you have recruitment of young teenagers for the army, which is forbidden.
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Ok you are under a misconception here Erlam. Recruitment does not mean advertising or any other form of contact. It actually means bringing young teens into warzones and giving them guns and telling them to shoot people. Exposing someone who can’t be recuited to a recruitment tool is not forbidden.
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@Skalpadda
“In what way does pointing out the fact that both the Israeli government and Palestinian terrorists are doing some atrocious things constitute anti-Semitism?”
It doesn’t. It’s a bunch of apologist morally-convenient over-simplifying bullshit, and though decidely untrue, it alone does not constitute anti-semitism. No, the anti-semitism part comes in when the human rights commission, chaired by fucking Sudan, (formerly Libya, under Gaddafi) becomes a forum for holocaust denial, continual condemnation of Israeli Jews under the guise of “Zionism”, and an unprecendented and unrivalled number of condemnations against one country, while dozens of far worse rights abusers are left unchallenged.
The UN openly condemns Israel for reprisal attacks, and yet fails to condemn the insitgating attacks on Israeli civilians; they deny Israels right to defend itself by classifying palestinian combatants as “civilian resistance”, and greenlight terrorism against Israel via a 1982 resolution that says armed struggle is a legitimate tool for fighting against foreign occupation, naming Israel specifically, they failed to condemn or even note the recent partisan bloodshed following the Palestinian elections; Kofi Annan personally condemned Israel for the “extra judicial killing” of Abdel Aziz Rantisi, and yet made no mention of the over 3,000 actual extra-judicial killings in Brazil; they are required to produce 25 accusations of rights violations by Israel every year, and yet stand silent when regarding Iran’s stoning, burning and crucifixtion of women by state-sanctioned murder squads (“morality police”) for crimes such as being seen in public with an unmarried man, silent when Saudi Arabia condemns a teenage girl with down syndrome to death by stoning for the crime of having been raped, and waited until 1991 before they finally repealed a resolution equating Zionism with racism, even though state run Palestinian television to this day (funded in part by UNICEF) promotes suicide bombings against Israel.
Israel has been the target of nearly 60 percent of the commissions decsisions and condemnations, has been the subject of more resolutions than any other country in the world, and hopefully we can all recognize this is a disproportionate figure.
This may be a total tangent, but it’s one i feel fairly strongly about…
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Apologies all round! Bad day at work. Yeah, more than a little juvenile, but Paul Moloneys smug correction didn’t really help my mood. Anyway, sorry, won’t happen again. I think I’ll leave a long wellrounded rant about AA for another day, it’ll be boring and full of facts and writing it will be like work. You know my stance and you know why -I don’t think it’s necessary to say I’m on the left end of the spectrum when it comes to politics.
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I don’t get it. In what way does your recounting the various barbarities of all sides and the hypocrisy of the UN construct an argument against the Skalpadda quote you started your post with?
But I admit, the idea that there might be something such as a Military Industrial Complex where the old money and the old power get together and organize their getting a lot richer is of course a halliburton, yes a hallucination.
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San Francisco should just fall off the face of the earth. The US Government should stop funding the City of San Francisco until people think. Its the parents fault for letting their children play Mature rated games.
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Maximum Fish: I won’t go into this much further because the Palestine/Israel conflict is not what this site nor article is about, but it’s worth noting that during the past 20 years the UN attitude towards Israel has changed quite a lot, and while I agree that there are plenty of other issues that should have equal importance, two wrongs still don’t make one right.
I’ll stop adding to the derailing the comments thread now. *hides*
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I think we should let the residents of San Francisco get some first hand knowledge of cluster munitions. You know. So the survivors could protest a bit more authentically.
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@Skalpadda
Yeah, sorry. PC gaming website. No more tangents, i promise.
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Ok, I’ll jump on the rerailing train.
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I always found AA sobering. There’s no happy lives to save, all you do is kill/be killed. Bleeding to near death (a feature no other big FPS has) isn’t exactly the most appealing way to sell the army.
What AA did was educate me and increase the respect I have for the professionalism and exposure to danger the US army does exhibit.
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I always find things like this incredibly painful. It’s like watching one of those movies where the main character is just constantly embarrassed or made a fool of… and you don’t even like the main character because he’s just an annoying weaselly guy so you’re supposed to be entertained by his blunders but it just hurts it hurts
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@Deuteronomy – I have always felt anyone willing to join the army in any form must be a little bit wrong in the head. In the end it’s that they are willing to take someone else’s life. I don’t want to sound like a hippy, I’m not a pacifist but to join the army you do have to be a wee bit fucked up.
Oh and a recruitment tool. Or a tool for recruitment, in other words a way of getting people recruited. I don’t understand, Erlam was right.
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Its the parents fault for letting their children play Mature rated games.
It’s rated teen, though.
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Well, let it be known that I did not support the war in Iraq. How ever, I do not automatically take some moral high horse opposing war and military in general. Because, frankly, the more people you convince to become pacifist, the easier it will be to gut them later–just common sense, try it in EVE. Call me a cynic, sure. I opposed the war in Iraq not because of left-wing sentiments, but because I took a look at the long-term threats, and wagered: “I think we have better things to do than depose Saddam.” It was a strategic and politic assessment, and I was accused of a good deal of Machiavellian detachment from morality when my more “convinced” friends went on and on about how it was apparently our moral duty to depose this cruel tyrant (as opposed to many others) or that he posed a threat to the safety of my fellow Americans. Though it didn’t help that I said, flat outright, that the only way we could get away with a war in Iraq was if 1) Everything went according to plan or 2)We had a proper, irrefutable casus belli.
Since the other Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then-Secretary Rumsfeld were incompetent and utterly convinced that Iraq would not need a large occupation force to keep the peace, they ignored General Shinseki’s minority opinion. Though, many years later, they’ve discovered the hard way that he was right.
Considering they didn’t bring in enough troops to pacify the region until long after it was too late to paint a happy media picture, I’d say that they didn’t have the strategic sense to carry operations out well enough to satisfy the whims of politics.
And, yes, only when they got more troops in Iraq was there a turnaround in the rate of violence. Also, getting the help of Iraqi local militias to smoke out Al Qaeda militants (who, as it turned out, didn’t care how many Iraqis they killed, so long as they hit one or two Americans in the process, which convinced the locals to help) improved the situation.
And the fact that the instigators of the Iraq war couldn’t hide their avaricious intentions under the propaganda didn’t help. Great job making everyone hate our troops, Mr. Bush.
Now!
These protesters aren’t here to actually make a difference. Any difference. They just want attention. They’re assuming that any and all games automatically “hook” and “brainwash” kids, so they’re also operating on underlying assumptions that insult the very people they claim to protect (the children).
Which is a fault that any moral guardians are liable to find themselves guilty of.
This is also a bit of self-aggrandizement on their part, seeing as how they just want to make a “point” on Iraq but through a new angle–one that could get them more press because it’s more interesting.
Having to listen to idiocy from Democrats and Republicans on the issue of Iraq, and even on war in general, has generally soured my outlook on any and all discussion I happen to stumble upon regarding the matter.
The left-wing is more interested in posturing on a ground of moral superiority to look better than the people who don’t agree with them. And they’re less interested in actually doing things, or taking actions knowing that good will come of them, than they are interested in making a fuss and feeling good about themselves. Also, tossing around insults that diminish others’ intelligence as a form of intellectual bullying doesn’t help their case.
The right-wing is still deluded by a national myth of invincibility and feel-good posturing of another sort–patriotic, my-country-is-stronger-than-your-country, dick-waggling. The sort that does no good, and throws away the lives of the men and women brave enough to fight for their country and duty-bound to die for their choice. That, and the right-wing is motivated largely by greed. This is obvious to all observers, and wasn’t sure this needed mentioning.
(If you’re wondering why I have more vitriol saved for liberals than conservatives, it’s because I’m a moderate Democrat who’s sick of seeing his own party losing itself to elitism, posturing, and hypocrisy. But if you need me to vote Dem in the general election, you can likely count on my vote. If I don’t decide to abstain altogether.)
On the issue of the invincibility of the US military:
No conventional threat can, at this point, defeat the US military. However, the military will never defeat politics. Or bureaucracy. Oh, lordy, the bureaucracy.
So!
Considering I’ve probably offended all parties involved, with liberals calling me a fascist for not having a knee-jerk moral-superiority perspective on the issue of war, and conservatives calling me a hippy for not buying into the propaganda and being unwilling to abide by their avarice, I should probably close with something to brighten the mood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCImrmR63JE&feature=related
Have some Barenaked Ladies: If I Had A Million Dollars.
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Well, that explains the bizarre idea of what constitutes ‘left wing’.
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Yes.
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Indeed. It seems Americans have a big thing against being ‘left wing’(which I believe they generally misunderstand anyway). Which is strange to me as I have been brought up in a household where if I had voted conservative I would be shunned. Personally I don’t like to think of myself as ‘left wing’, I don’t think you can put a label on your views that easily. I’m a little from column A, a little from column B etc.
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That’s what the term “moderate” is supposed to mean.
But I find that nobody’s taking me to task for my unflattering description of the right wing. Consider that I’ve had to live with the American left and right for years. And, thus, have developed a special place in my heart for both. Next to a furnace.
Most of my fellow Americans, especially in these parts, are self-proclaimed liberals. So there’s no anti-left bias amongst them. Instead, they’re walking billboards for the blog Stuff White People Like, minus the irony and satire.
Not sure about what it’s like across the big pond, but over here liberals are just as exasperating, and bound to fits of illogic, as conservatives. And many are so smug as to be unbearable to talk to, and condescend towards anyone not “Leftier than thou.”
And before anyone takes that as a dig against other Americans, I should point out that this is a problem I find inherent in the human condition. No country is immune to idiocy. It’s just easier to point out in the loudest group of the bunch.
It’s that idiocy, in American politics, likes to spread itself all across the spectrum. Equal opportunity, as it were.
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Wow… yeah I agree with Diablo in the whole junior recruitment thing.. isn’t that the whole deal with the RLTC and various other things they subject kids to in if i can remember as early as middleschool, if not just highschool.. which would consist of the whole being under 17 deal… what a silly load of crap. :=)… kids may slightly be losing thier minds but in the end they’ll still not be able to join until they are 18 as is… so it’ll be thier choice. done deal.
(but yeah there’s alot of messed up stuff with kids and various video games but this doesn’t seem to be about bad parenting, or maybe just simply being oblivious now…. go build a fort and shoot fellow kids with sling-shots imo.. now if you exscuse me it’s to late for me, i must return to WOW O_o’
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Are u kidding?? if we play war we will go down in afghanistan and kill bad guys… War is a not a shooting game… if they should be scared of something they should think of BF2 and Counter strike not WAR…. By the way War online ROCKS! ;)
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