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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
and at worst, shills and sycophants for the multi-billion dollar brain drain that is the gaming industry.
Addiction is addiction is addiction. There is no redeeming value to gaming. None whatsoever.
It's the kind that validates itself by the gamers it pisses off. Road Rage in a First-Person Shooter. Hey, I'm not playing a video game commissioned by the army to make all this look cool. I'm not killing people. I'm playing a game!
Meanwhile, the Suicide Bomber's video game is coming along. The IED-builder's laboratory is fun! See how far you can get in building a bomb before your lab explodes like a meth lab in Kansas! Look at those Palestinians! How can they do that, dress those kids up like shaheen? We drop our kids off at the America Mall, and they buy these games and disappear in the basement killing people for hours. At least they're out of their hair.
And then this guy comes along and ruins their fun. He is teh gay.
I suggest we all read (or re-read) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card and I wonder if Card's story was the inspiration for this instance of our government's cynical exploitation of children. To me, Ender's Game paints (in fiction) an accurate picture of our society's long-standing willingness to exploit, subvert, and defile children. As individuals, most of us have accepted the sacrifice as long as it is not our personal sacrifice; as one example, we have been willing to draft the children of others as we protect our own (a la George H. W. Bush). We have long been willing to tolerate the abuse and hunger of children other than ours so long as we can keep it out of our sight and consciousness and away from our own children.
The thought that it might have been my child who learned to disregard human suffering and dignity at Abu Ghraib is abhorrent to me; that it was anyone's child grieves me; and that our military fostered the subversion of these young people in my name disgusts and repels me. This "game" also disgusts and repels me. It is nothing more than the subtlest of propaganda, designed to come in under the radar of those who might object to it or wish to protect their children from its influence and to ensnare those who have the most to lose.
We do need people from all schools of thought in the military. The whole Iraq misadventure should make us rethink the idea of the all-volunteer military. You say the all-volunteer army is the army of a democracy, but I don't really think it is. It's more of an army of convenience that commands far less of the civilians' attention than it should. An army of volunteers makes it too easy for the rest of us to sit on the sidelines and watch others sacrifice -- and send others to do the sacrificing without taking a hard look at whether it's really worth it. I seriously doubt we would be at war in Iraq today if there was still a draft in this country. If we need a military, and I believe we do, we need a draft. I appreciate your service and willingness to do your duty for your country, Captain. I only wish we civilians -- in effect, your country -- had done our duty and kept you and your fellow soldiers out of Iraq.
This is what qualifies for anti-war activism?
How pathetically fucking low can the bar go?
Let's see, offer a free video game where players kill any thing that moves, then offer them the opportunity to kill for real in Iraq.
Steven D. Green (reported in Washington Post): "Over here, killing people is like squashing an ant. I mean, you kill somebody and it's like 'All right, let's go get some pizza.'"
Is this how you recruit professional soldiers?
"You've forgotten the most basic aspect of the situation: it's a game, we're there to play."
No, the most basic aspect of the situation is that millions of dollars of tax money are being spent. If it is just a game, that was developed with my investment (via taxes), then I think it should be sold for profit and I should get some of the income.
If it is, as the Army seems to believe, an effective recruitment tool, then every taxpayer has the right to log on and express whatever they want about it-- gamers be damned. Gamers don't have any right to dictate how this particular game is used by citizens of the U.S. If they want a game where people don't have the right to log on and protest the war, they should play privately at home, or online by subscription on games that were developed for profit.
I, for one, believe that this is a particularly dishonest and manipulative way to recruit young people to a war that has been dishonest from before the beginning. Perhaps if lots of anti-war gamers logged on and disrupted the action, the government wouldn't be able to delude their recruitees so easily, and the gamers who have posted here would have to play games that they paid for instead of this game that all of us paid for.
My taxes weren't paid to subsidize their fun. They were paid to support my country, and anyone who disagrees with the way that money is being used has every right to protest. The very nature of this game brings it into the political arena-- an arena in which freedom of speech is paramount.
Setting aside the notion of the appropriateness of spending tax dollars and this kind of thing, I think the artist here is barking up the wrong tree.
The players aren't the ones who started the war. He should be harrassing politicians, not the poor soldiers who have been there and have had to endure killing and death.
I have to agree with Mark Prokop’s letter…this is a stupid subject for an article. One “artist” getting online to make a protest to a bunch of gamers is ridiculous. Why is this news-worthy? Why is “America’s Army” news-worthy? It has been out since 2002 or so. The military wastes its money on all sorts of stupid things…this is nothing.
The military spends $200 million a year to create transparently dumb propaganda. At least the investment in America’s Army produced something that some people enjoy.
No one has said that this performance artist cannot do what he does. But it’s not an effective way to protest the war. Now…if this guy makes an artistic video out of this project and promoted that…well…that’s something else. (forgot the name for that...using video games to create movies) Logging on to a FPS to say war is bad...just pointless. Trite. Someone else said that streaking across a field naked at a sports event would be a better protest. That’s true. More people would see it. That also takes some guts …making a statement in front of thousands of people. This “artist” is logging on to a game to protest "in-front" of 16-32 gamers. Who probably don't even notice or care about his protest. In part because they have so much other information that they are paying attention too when they play a game like this.
The only real important issue in this article, as I see it, is when is it OK to bother people -to shake people out of their daily routines-in order to make a political statement or help them on the path towards enlightenment…if you will. An anti-war protest in San Francisco may (and probably will) block traffic, causing tired people sitting in cars a long delay to get to work / get home. But it is a highly visible protest that people will remember. This online protest bothers a few kids playing a videogame. No great loss. But not something to be proud of either.
BTW, on 9/11, I was playing a Counter-Strike game (not the CS, but a clone). I was out-of-work at the time. I played the game late the night before and left it running on my computer. In the morning, I sat at the desk about to continue my pointless, depressing job search. The game was still on and I saw an enemy right in front of me, so I decided to play the game for 5 minutes. And I went around “killing” everyone. No one was really trying to defend themselves…people were too busy chatting. I then noticed that a lot of people were having a serious discussion, and some people seemed really mad, but they were not mad at the usual (bad team-members, trash talk, etc). I finally asked what was going on and they all started to yell at me “TURN ON THE TV!!!”
I wish I kept a log of those in-game discussions from that day. Some people were saying they wanted to join right up with the army. A lot of people were angry. Some non-Americans were saying they support US. Some non-Americans were saying that the US deserved this. Some people were yelling and cursing back at those foreigners. There was a military guy online who was trying to ask the anti-US foreigners why he (I assume it was a he BTW) thought the US deserved this. There was one guy who said “I’m going to stop playing this game for a while…I sort of feel today that there are more important things I need to do with my life.”
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
