Iraq & Vietnam War Stories

Two articles – one quite disturbing about the ways in which our military is preying on children via videogames intended to encourage enlistment and one promoting a “citizen oath of office” intended to encourage our participation in the Obama administration via advocacy and activism – are coming to you on the eve Mr. Obama’s inauguration.  I am wanting to feel hopeful about our country’s future despite the very dark cloud hanging above us in the form of endless militarism and a very besieged economy.  Can Barack help us reach a more just society?  I contend we will need to prevent such endeavors as those in the first article and much more engagement by the citizenry as spelled out in the citizen oath  to both support policies that promote equality and democracy and to oppose with conviction and energy those that merely serve to perpetuate past injustice.  See what you think…

Can a child distinguish between real and virtual violence? Our Army seems to think so.

Even though the Army Experience Center, located north of Philadelphia, purports to merely be an educational facility that uses interactive simulations and online learning programs about careers, training and educational opportunities within the armed forces, this $12 million investment seems more geared to teaching kids how to kill and destroy things.

“If it’s a state-of-the art anything, it’s state-of-the-art adolescent boys’ wet dreams,” according to Penny Coleman, author of “Flashback.”

The 15,000-square-foot structure apparently includes strings of Xbox 360 pods and individual gaming stations and a UH-60 Black Hawk, an AH-64 and a Humvee. The touch-screen installations where one can view jobs with the Army pale in their light.

All this is at no cost to the visitor and with only a 13-year-old age limit.

Here, the Army wants the American public to know that the military experience is a valuable one, even though many of the virtual reality experiences and simulations involve blood and gore.

Though they work hard at avoiding the portrayal of violence, we are still talking about killing, maiming and physical destruction.

For example, the Army’s official game called “America’s Army” is, according to Coleman, “unapologetically about realistic, deadly combat – minus the blood. A hit registers as a puff of red smoke. Four puffs and you are ‘engaged.’ Concerned parents can further sanitize the violence with controls that cause dead soldiers to simply sit down.”

There is even such a thing as the 1st Infantry Division apparel collection, an official licensed line of clothing, on sale at Sears, made in China and available in boys’ sizes. Could we stop it already?

And believe it or not, there was a provision in “No Child Left Behind” legislation that forced schools to allow access to recruiters who would provide contact information for students as young as 11.

But does the absence of blood and guts mean that young people can make a distinction between reality and fantasy and simply have fun playing games? In some cases, perhaps, but not in most.

The psychology of murder is profound and these games, as they’re called, tend to desensitize the participant to violence.

Many studies indicate a direct correlation between exposure to media violence, especially interactive video games, to increased childhood aggression.

A Stanford University study reveals that over a 20-week period, third- and fourth-graders who limited or eliminated television and video games showed a 50 percent decrease in verbal aggression and 40 percent in physical.

But kids will often be attracted to violence games, especially when they are couched under the label of “fun.”

Historically, our heroes in books, movies, TV shows and so on have been outright killers. Rarely is the peacemaker held up.

Most sports, including boxing, martial arts and football, are glorified, legal versions of past gladiator-type aggression.

Technology has made it easier to distance oneself from the true horrors of warfare. Perhaps it began with swords, then firearms.

Now we can zap the enemy with electronically controlled missiles and nuclear weapons that further distance us from seeing the tragic consequences of our actions.

The attacker never has to face the victim.

Somehow we may have been convinced that war and armies are a necessary evil. Therefore, because we must always fight to protect ourselves, shouldn’t we assemble the best Army we can get?

So, let’s get the volunteer soldiers ready as early as possible, at no cost to them.

Opponents to this way of seeing things will legitimately argue that the military has and continues to be a great career option for many citizens.

Others will say that playing violent video games has no effect on the mind of a child or adult. Kids have played war games and fooled around with guns for ages and not become murderers.

But, wouldn’t a better alternative to children enjoying shooting at people and blowing up buildings be games that encourage the use of their minds, skills and physical dexterity to engage in activities that promote the sanctity of life and peace?

Violence has never been an effective solution to the world’s problems, many of which were created through violence.

Cruelty can easily become a human addiction, especially among the young.

Inflicting pain and suffering should never be an American sport.

Our common enemy has always been greed, fear and outright stupidity. Peace is not a bad thing to teach our children.

Their lives should not be a recruiting center for death and destruction.

Let’s help them, with our taxpayer dollars, to stand up for that even if it kills us.

And here is the article containing the citizen oath, which was originally written following Bush’s first stolen election…

A “CITIZEN’S OATH OF OFFICE” FOR INAUGURATION DAY 2009
by Robert Jensen

Eight long years ago at a counter-inaugural event in Austin, TX, I administered a “Citizen’s Oath of Office” to the people who had come together on the steps of the state Capitol to challenge the legitimacy of the incoming Bush administration and its right-wing agenda. In 2005 I offered a revised version that expanded on our duties during even more trying times.

In 2009, we welcome a far saner administration but also face far deeper problems, and hence such a citizen’s oath is as necessary as ever. The Obama administration will no doubt step back from the reckless and reactionary policies of the past eight years, but the core problems of empire and economics — U.S. domination around the world and corporate domination at home and abroad — remain as threatening as ever. The robotic talk among Democrats of pressing on in “the right war” in Afghanistan (allegedly to fight terrorism) and a continued faith in the predatory capitalist system (albeit softened slightly in the face of potential collapse) offer little hope for meaningful change at the deep level so desperately needed.

As we celebrate the end of an eight-year disaster, we should recommit to the ongoing work required to create a truly just and sustainable world. With that work in mind, here’s my suggestion for a 2009 Citizen’s Oath of Office, with new language added in brackets:

“I do solemnly pledge that I will faithfully execute the office of citizen of the United States, and that I will, to the best of my ability, help create a truly democratic world by (1) going beyond mainstream corporate news media to seek out information about important political, economic, and social issues; (2) engaging fellow citizens, including those who disagree with me, in serious discussion and debate about those issues; (3) committing as much time, energy, and money as possible to help build [authentic] grassroots political organizations that can pressure politicians to put the interests of people over profit and power; and (4) connecting these efforts to global political and social movements fighting the U.S. empire abroad, where it does the most intense damage. I will continue to resist corporate control of the world, resist militarism, resist any roll-back of civil rights, and resist illegitimate authority in all its forms. [And I will commit to collective efforts in my local community to help build joyful alternatives to an unsustainable consumer society.]”

I think these bracketed additions are crucial. First, adding “authentic” as a modifier of “grassroots political organizations” reminds us that the campaign to elect Obama was not a movement, no matter how many times he uses that term. It was a campaign to elect a candidate from one of the country’s two major parties, both of which are committed to imperial domination and predatory capitalism. That isn’t to argue there is no difference between candidates, but to remind us that a slogan-driven electoral campaign for such a party is not a people’s movement. Authentic movements for justice do not arise out of the Republican or Democratic parties but from people coming together to challenge illegitimate authority rather than accommodate it. Strategic decisions about voting do not replace organizing.

Second, in addition to traditional movement building, it’s clearer than ever that we must focus some of our resources on strengthening on-the-ground alternatives to an extractive industrial economy that is undermining the ability of the ecosystem to sustain life. Those local experiments, such as worker-owned cooperatives and community-supported agriculture, will be increasingly important as the dominant culture proves itself unable to cope with economic and ecological collapse that is no longer a matter for speculation regarding the distant future but a reality we must face now.

We can’t predict the exact texture and timing of that collapse, but we can know it is coming and confront the need for real change. Imagine we are riding on a train hurtling 100 miles per hour on tracks that end at the edge of a cliff. The engineer is replaced by someone who wants to slow the train down to 50 miles per hour but is committed to staying on the same tracks. Slowing down may buy us some time, but the cliff remains.

So, like many others on Tuesday I will breathe a sigh of relief when Obama is sworn in, but I won’t breathe easy.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 19th, 2009 at 9:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.