Now that Afghanistan is the longest running war in US history and, with all the “new” mineral finds, it might go on for another fucking decade, where is the Pentagon going to get its manpower? Conscription? No, my friends, why risk all that a draft might precipitate when you can seemingly sucker the kids into the bloody risks of grunt-hood with video games? (And mass unemployment also helps, of course.)
“David Simon and Ed Burns are all too aware of young men and their often-misguided call to adventure. In their award-winning TV series Generation Kill, based on Evan Wright's embedded reporting for Rolling Stone, the series documents the first three weeks of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In it a new generation of young marines or ''warriors'', who have been raised on hip-hop, heavy metal and video games, request the evacuation of a young Iraqi boy badly wounded by one of their more trigger-happy colleagues. Lieutenant-Colonel Stephen ''Godfather'' Ferrando acknowledges the situation is worse than ''shitty'' but refuses their request. He reminds them that ''nobody put a f---ing gun to our heads and forced us to come here. We're all volunteers.'' But surely this is disingenuous. Every year, the Pentagon spends $US6 billion using the latest digital gaming technology for training for the armed forces. This in turn has given rise to an effective recruitment tool called ''militainment''. According to Peter W. Singer, director of the 21st Century Defence Initiative at the Brookings Institution, ''America's Army'' is one of the top 10 downloaded games on the internet. Singer describes it as a ''first-person shooter'', where the player is a soldier who goes out on various missions. However, to access the game online you must sign up and give your personal information, which helps recruiters find you. Although Singer acknowledges that a large number of the players engage for the fun of playing the game, it has turned out to be, according to one study, ''more effective than any other form of recruiting that the US Army has.'' (Click here for more)
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The secret word is Colonialism
That game isn't even the half of it... "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" made Avatar style money & was basically a masterbatory fantasy for military enthusiasts and gun-nuts. I beat it on veteran mode because I'm hardcore liek dat... I thought it was mindless propaganda, but, I'm a gamer & don't put much to rolling through another game even if the story is crap. I did enjoy killing civilians in the airport in Russia, but, I enjoy killing civilians in GTA as well, so, it has nothing to do with something so vulgar as nationalism.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, in the upcoming months, there will be a number of military centered games coming out that compare with "America's Army"
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Medal of Honor
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier
But, the most depressing military shooter coming out...
"Homefront"... not only does this game look like shit, in respect to graphics and gameplay, the fucking story is like that of Red Dawn... only change out Russians for North Koreans, err, Asian soldiers... just, OMG! NORTH KOREA LIEK TOTALLY GOES & UNITES ALL OF KOREA & THEN THEY GO OFF TAKE OVER ALL OF ASIA! LIEK ALL UR BASE BELONG TO KIM! THEN IN 2027 THEMS ASIANS INVADES AMERICA! NOW U FIGHT 4 USA! Uninspired dribble, the sort of nightmare scenario that Glen Beck is selling as he tries to convince the elderly and insane to invest all their money in gold.
Problem is, most gamers are far more concerned with the Zombie Apocalypse than a North Korean invasion or patriotism. Most people don't understand that the average gamer is 35 years old.
http://www.theesa.com/facts/index.asp
Though, I digress... the reality is that these people are trying to blame their choice to kill at the behest of the military on something other than themselves, I've played violent video games for the majority of my life & I've never even been in a real fight. I was 18 at the same time, 03, I turn 25 on the 26th... I didn't sign up to go out and kill people I'd never met when all I had was some fed selling the vague line that there was a smoking barrel that could turn into a mushroom cloud. It isn't to say that these young men weren't to have fallen victim to propaganda and recruitment techniques that involved video games specifically designed to target young men such as myself, I was raised on hip-hop, heavy metal and video games... maybe it was just all the punk rock and dope I smoked, maybe it was the beauty I saw in the female form that gave me pursuits other than war, though, these people made their choices like I made my own, the video games and propaganda didn't make the choices for us.