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Iraq War Veterans Protest America's Army Title 216

Posted by Zonk from the lots-of-choices dept.
Via GamePolitics, a story reported by the St. Lois Post-Dispatch of frustrated war veterans protesting America's Army . Roughly 100 veterans of the Iraq war marched near an elaborate demonstration of the military-funded game, outside of an expo center in Missouri. Their shouts of 'war is not a game' must have contrasted sharply with the elaborate simulator the Army had set up to publicize their (already very popular) FPS title.
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Iraq War Veterans Protest America's Army Title More

Iraq War Veterans Protest America's Army Title

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  • Wars we are currently fighting are not a game.

    Medal of Honor? Bring it.

    Wolfenstein, too. I'm not gonna roll over for no Nazi robots...
    • America's Army [goarmy.com] doesn't appear to have evil robots.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by IndustrialComplex ( 975015 )

        America's Army doesn't appear to have evil robots.
        Query: Can a robot actually be classified as evil?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by MikeFM ( 12491 )
          Only if it is a thinking robot. Without artificial intelligence I don't think it can be evil. Now - as to what morals a robot should have.. hrm.. it has to be nice to other robots?

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by Surt ( 22457 )
          As evil bender once said:
          Hey Sexy Mama, Wanna Kill All Humans?
      • Yeah, but it's just a free game. If they added robot then they could probably get money for it.

        Never underestimate the selling power of Nazi robots, guys. That's the first thing they taught me in business school.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by Opportunist ( 166417 )
          And Zombies. And Ninjas. And of course Pirates!

          Just think of the possibilities!
          • "America's Zombie Ninja Pirate Army?"

            Oh, man. I'd buy two copies of that and throw one of them at Jack Thompson.

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by StarvingSE ( 875139 )
              America's Zombie Jesus Army?
            • Oh, man. I'd buy two copies of that and throw one of them at Jack Thompson.

              That brings up an interesting question. I think it's safe to assume that Jack Thompson is completely against this game. Can we then turn around and ask him why he hates America so much? ; )

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by eln ( 21727 ) *
        And why not? If the purpose is to recruit people to serve in tomorrow's army, they are doing themselves a great disservice by not including robots.

        After all, as the Commandant of the great military academy Rommelwood told his graduating class:

        The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots.

  • Good news, everyone! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Cervantes ( 612861 ) on Tuesday September 04, 2007 @04:23PM (#20470097) Journal
    FTA:
    One onlooker told the protesters they should support their country. Another passer-by snapped back at him: "That's exactly what she's doing."

    That might be the most embiggening thing about the entire episode... that people (who are not just typing it on their blog) are starting to realize that.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      That comment was very cromulent!

    • The Fuck? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Winckle ( 870180 )
      A random member of the public told AN IRAQ WAR VETERAN to support his country?

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • The WW2 generation and their children have a sickening level of governmental trust. I heard the "we are at war" line from some old guy in the grocery store, but we are NOT AT WAR. The playtime in Iraq police action wasn't important enough to merit a declaration of war from Congress, nor a draft! I dunno about you, but I don't think we really need to be in Iraq. We should have kept in Afghanistan and found Osama, even if we did have to invade our 'allies' the Saudies.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Surt ( 22457 )
            Seconded. The constant we're at war litany drives me crazy. People: we are not at war!

  • Games and Reality (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stoolpigeon ( 454276 ) * <bittercode@gmail> on Tuesday September 04, 2007 @04:30PM (#20470201) Homepage Journal
    It's my position, and one that I see echoed in many online communities, that games don't impact actual behavior. That laws seeking to limit or restrict games based on content are out of line. That lawsuits blaming violence on games are completely out of line. So - while I understand the emotions driving these folks, from a logical stand point, I think they are wasting their time and the army is wasting money.
     
    If someone would like to argue that the game preps youth for war and predisposes them to join the army, then they would seem to be arguing that gta prepares and predisposes players to crime and violence, etc.

    • Re:Games and Reality (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Chris Burke ( 6130 ) on Tuesday September 04, 2007 @04:59PM (#20470683) Homepage
      Well, to briefly restate a position I've written here before -- I don't believe that video games affect the conceptually related real-life behavior, unless that person is mentally equating the game with the real-life behavior. In the case of someone who becomes violent playing GTA, that mental equation is a result of mental instability and derangement, which is basically a requirement for equating stealing cars and shooting cops in GTA with doing so in real life. If you can't separate reality from fantasy, then yes I do believe a game could affect your real life behavior, but that's the fault of whatever caused the mental deficiency in the first place, not the game.

      By the same token, sometimes we create such a connection on purpose. The difference between a military-style video game and a military training simulator isn't so much accuracy and detail. The difference is that when practicing on a training simulator you are deliberately, explicitly, and with the support of your superiors trying to equate the simulated action with its real-life counterpart. I think it's worth noting that even when conflating games with real life in order to train someone to kill is the explicit goal, still a large portion of soldiers find that when push comes to shove and they're faced with the actual chance to shoot someone that they are unable to pull the trigger. Yet that portion is much smaller than before we started training soldiers to be comfortable shooting a person, starting back when we replaced normal firing range targets with person-shaped ones.

      Now what about America's Army? While it isn't an explicit combat trainer, it is a game called "America's Army" put out by the U.S. Army itself. It's not just any video game, it's official advertising for the Army, their P.R. for what being in the Army is like and what kind of exciting things you'll be able to do. Look at how in the game no matter which team you are on, your side is always the U.S. Army and the other side is the evil terrorists.

      What I'm saying is that AA has an implicit reality claim intended to create a connection between the game and reality. It is implicitly a brochure for what you can experience in the Army, going to foreign lands and shooting the "bad guys" for the sake of your country. The Army wants you to form a connection between the game and the real-life choice of joining the Army.

      It certainly isn't the same as explicit military training simulators, and I doubt any peacenik nerd playing AA for fun is going to rush out to join the military, or much less so run out and buy a gun to start shooting people. I'm just saying that there is a definite connection between the game and reality that doesn't exist in other games and thus causes more of an effect on people. BF1942 is in no way ever presented as showing how you could be a WWII soldier. GTA has no connection to real-life crime outside of the minds of the deranged. Yet if the next sandbox/crime game were to be produced by the mafia for purposes of recruitment, then I do think you would see a much stronger connection between the game and real-life crime.

      Long story short: unlike other games, America's Army is designed to make you think about the real-life Army while playing the game, because otherwise there wouldn't be any reason for it to exist.
      • I don't think intent impacts the outcome. That's why I think the Army is wasting their money on this. From everything I've read - I've never played the game - the degree of accurate detail is low. I don't see how it could be any other way due to the limitations of the platform if nothing else.
        • I don't think intent impacts the outcome. That's why I think the Army is wasting their money on this. From everything I've read - I've never played the game - the degree of accurate detail is low. I don't see how it could be any other way due to the limitations of the platform if nothing else.

          It's not about intent, it's about the connection between in-game actions and real-world actions. Conditioning occurs between a person's actions and the consequences. Without any connection to reality, video game cons
          • You'll have to help me out here. I'm not trying to be a smart ass - but here is how you start: "It's not about intent" and here is part of the next to last sentence: "specifically the explicit and government-sanctioned intention" and I know I'm just grabbing a little piece - but this just confuses me.

            Detail does matter. Not every detail - the import details. To learn to hit a target, the target doesn't need to have a lot of detail. But there is no substitute for firing a real weapon. This game
            • You'll have to help me out here. I'm not trying to be a smart ass - but here is how you start: "It's not about intent" and here is part of the next to last sentence: "specifically the explicit and government-sanctioned intention" and I know I'm just grabbing a little piece - but this just confuses me.

              It will help greatly if you start dealing in complete sentences. My first sentence: "It's not about intent, it's about the connection between in-game actions and real-world actions." The next to last sentenc

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by joeljkp ( 254783 )
        I don't think that video games affecting your actions or mental state is an all-or-nothing thing, and I don't think it requires a person to be "deranged" beforehand.

        For a quick personal example, I spent a few weeks playing GTA3 this summer, much of which I spent cruising around in cars and pulling whiplash-inducing U-turns in the middle of oncoming traffic. Once during the day on my way from work (real life), I spotted someone I knew pass me in the opposite direction, and got a strange powerful urge to pull
        • No, you're not deranged. After my first couple marathon sessions of GTA, I found myself sizing up cars I passed as potential escape vehicles. Their speed, handling, and durability in the face of gunfire. And... that's about as far as it got as far as real action. You didn't turn around, did you? You didn't forget that reality wasn't GTA, and you couldn't just pull a u-ey in the middle of the road, right?

          It's one thing to let a game affect your emotional state. It's another to actually let it guide you

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Raenex ( 947668 )

            Tell me when does GTA try to convince you that a real life of stealing cars and running from the police would be awesome?

            Clearly the game glamourizes violence and crime. You are rewarded for both. It's the whole point of the game.

            But the connection is there, a real undeniable connection, between the game and reality, and that's why this isn't the same as GTA.

            It's the same thing. Criminal gangs, hookers, reckless driving, and sniper rifles exist in real life. So does the army. You've already admitted some cross-over after playing GTA yourself. That you're trying to make a big distinction where there is none speaks more about your biases than anything else.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )
        One thing to remember about your argument is intellectual appeal, what is the target audience for that recruitment effort, you are obviously not with in that that target group. For people who are 30 to 40 IQ points lower than you, the world they perceive and how they react to it is totally different to the world you perceive and how you react to it. The use of the game to attract impressionable youth was thought up by people with a similar intellect to you but they knowingly targeted it at the jock straps a
      • Now what about America's Army? While it isn't an explicit combat trainer, it is a game called "America's Army" put out by the U.S. Army itself. It's not just any video game, it's official advertising for the Army, their P.R. for what being in the Army is like and what kind of exciting things you'll be able to do. Look at how in the game no matter which team you are on, your side is always the U.S. Army and the other side is the evil terrorists.

        And the only option you have is to start killing.... When the Sw

    • Re:Games and Reality (Score:5, Informative)

      by Fallen Kell ( 165468 ) on Tuesday September 04, 2007 @05:11PM (#20470881)

      If someone would like to argue that the game preps youth for war and predisposes them to join the army, then they would seem to be arguing that gta prepares and predisposes players to crime and violence, etc.
      Actually I would argue that the "America's Army" game preps youths for war and does prep them to possibly join the army. Anyone who has played the game and gone through the "basic training", they get a fairly good idea of what to expect at real basic training. In other words classes on identifying dangers, targets, vehicles, friend and foe and classes on basic medical procedures that might just save your life or the life of someone else. It lets you see what some of the courses are like that you will need to be able to physically tackle, and how the gun qualification and sniper qualification systems actually work (you won't get to be trained as a sniper unless you already are proficient with the weapons and can shoot fairly well to begin with, so if it is your life's dream to be a sniper in the Army, well, you better go and practice before you join up, because you will not get the training unless you can already shoot very well to begin with). This is what the game can attempt to simulate.

      Now does "Grand Theft Auto" train people to be a good car thief? Hell NO!. Now it COULD, however that would include teaching you how to bypass car alarms, pick locks, hot wire the ignition circuits, get past fuel line cut-off mechanisms, economics of the black market, what cars and car parts are currently worth, how to easily spot and recognize potential easy targets. But, it doesn't do that. It just lets you run around and get in the car and hit a button and you have stolen it, doesn't let you know how to actually do that stealing, which I believe is the reason why the game is fun to play, not tedious and hard work. I mean, if you had to know how to by-pass a proximity based keyless entry and ignition system for a car in the game by needing to either get and obtain (or make) a fake master key or intercept someone's key's code and clone it with another device, well, you should be out working as either a security expert at one of the said car manufacturers or something else, but you wouldn't be playing a time consuming game...

      I would say that the shuttle astronauts play "video games" as well. Simulators can and are "games" in a sense. Heck go to any game store/website and there will usually be a category of games called "simulator". These simulate an environment and actually can teach the players important things. The more realistic the simulator (not just realistic graphics, but realistic physics, realistic environmental interactions), the more that the person using the simulator can actually learn. This is why airlines and aircraft manufacturers create "simulators" for their new planes and designed to train their pilots before they even enter a real plane. In fact, they create the simulator "before" they even build the first prototype and have pilots test things out and tweak things while in the design stage (i.e. moving a control to a different location, changing which information is located on what display, changing the orientation of a switch or knob, or control stick, moving a petal, etc., etc.).

  • They're Within Their Rights (Score:5, Insightful)

    by $lingBlade ( 249591 ) on Tuesday September 04, 2007 @04:33PM (#20470253)
    They're well within their rights to protest the game as far as I'm concerned, the VA and/or local commanders may have other views. I however, do not agree with them and believe part of making an informed decision about joining the military should not in the least be influenced by playing an "Army Simulation". Get information from every source you can about joining BEFORE your sign up, choose a path that suits you and your talents and go from there. War is not a game, it's not a joke, but it exists regardless of whether you want it to or not. The game exists and whether or not it is designed to be a "simulator" which with today's technology could only loosely be called a "simulation", or just a game for fun's sake, is beside point. I say let it go...

    • Re:They're Within Their Rights (Score:5, Informative)

      by DragonWriter ( 970822 ) on Tuesday September 04, 2007 @04:46PM (#20470459)

      The game exists and whether or not it is designed to be a "simulator" which with today's technology could only loosely be called a "simulation", or just a game for fun's sake, is beside point.


      It is, in fact, designed to be a recruiting tool (or extended advertisement), more than a simulation for the sake of accuracy or a game for the sake of entertainment.

  • AA vs. Real Violence (Score:5, Insightful)

    by internic ( 453511 ) on Tuesday September 04, 2007 @04:47PM (#20470475)

    Any time America's Army comes up, I always think about how insane it is that on the one hand many people and politicians in the U.S. are hysterical about video games supposedly causing violent behavior, while at the same time I hear no real objections from these people to their tax dollars being used to develop a game whose explicit point, AFAIK, is to persuade kids to take part in actual violence (by becoming soldiers).

    I am not a pacifist, and I don't object to people serving in the military. My father served in the military and so did his father. I think that, whatever the realities, there are some good, noble reasons to become a soldier. I just don't think that "killing people is fun" is one of them.

    I also don't really think (in the absence of convincing evidence) that video games generally lead to violent behavior. I do think, though, that a game put out by the Army that touts its realism can shape the ideas of what combat is like in impressionable minds, so I definitely have an ethical problem with them using it as part of a recruiting effort with people who are just coming into adulthood.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Scrameustache ( 459504 )

      I am not a pacifist
      It still baffles me that anyone could take that stand.
    • I also don't really think (in the absence of convincing evidence) that video games generally lead to violent behavior. I do think, though, that a game put out by the Army that touts its realism can shape the ideas of what combat is like in impressionable minds, so I definitely have an ethical problem with them using it as part of a recruiting effort with people who are just coming into adulthood.

      Do you have an ethical problem then with all war games? Or are you saying it is unethical to use it to

      • It's unethical because it is a lie.

        In this simulation (I had a chance to play it because I used to work where they designed it.), the players are veritably invincible. The only thing realistic about it is that they are ambushed by a terrorist force of surprising size and ferocity. IEDs are blowing up all over and no players get hurt or die in any way. Also, these HMVs that you are riding in are apparently made of duranium alloy and surrounded in a force field, because the HMVs were not even affected by ne

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by stoolpigeon ( 454276 ) *
          So in an ethical game - a player should go out on a mission - and if they get wounded or killed, the game should be over and they should never be able to play it again.

          I can't imagine that any sensible person would play a game like you describe and then decide that they are impervious to rockets and gun fire. Shoot- A-team tried to teach me that and I made it through o.k. But anyway - everybody is keying on this 'simulation' thing and how this is different from every other video game because the a
          • You're misrepresenting the previous poster. My reading is that a better game would have convoy ambushes possibly wipe out players inside vehicles, with all the game consequences that has (wait for respawn, fail the mission, etc). Providing completely unrealistic behaviour in a recruiting tool is less than ethical, but you would allow some things for the sake of the game. Respawning is okay, but a pretense of invulnerability at certain times is not.

            Who says "Join the US Army! Our convoys are invulnerable and
            • If it were completely true to life it would be unplayable and boring. The vast majority of players would never see combat of any kind but spend a lot of time polishing boots. Anything less is a 'lie' and so the game cannot win by this standard of judgment. But as I've said, it is a horrible recruiting tool.

              I have two sets of discussions going on in this thread. One set centers around the idea that this game is unethical because it is a realistic simulation that trains youth to kill and this one

      • Do you have an ethical problem then with all war games? Or are you saying it is unethical to use it to recruit even though you don't believe it will have any influence on the actual actions of the intended audience?

        I think that usually playing violent video games doesn't significantly increase violent behavior. This is a very different situation. This game depicts real people (soldiers) that the players very likely may look up to in what are claimed to be realistic situations. That's very different t

        • This game depicts real people (soldiers) that the players very likely may look up to in what are claimed to be realistic situations. That's very different than most video games

          You really think so? Seriously? I have to say that I can't agree. I think there are tons of games out there that do a much, much better job of providing realistic depictions of military and paramilitary operations. In fact, this thread contains claims that the major problem with the game is that it isn't realistic enough.
    • I also don't really think (in the absence of convincing evidence) that video games generally lead to violent behavior. I do think, though, that a game put out by the Army that touts its realism can shape the ideas of what combat is like in impressionable minds, so I definitely have an ethical problem with them using it as part of a recruiting effort with people who are just coming into adulthood.

      Yeah, to me the difference between America's Army and all these games that supposedly corrupt our youth is that t
    • Now, now, the key here is that you become a soldier for your country.

      Remember when Muhammad Ali decided he's ok with beating people up but he doesn't really enjoy killing them and the US thought he's a hypocrit? Makes sense, he was beating up others for his own fun and profit, but the country would've liked it rather if he killed them for their fun and profit.

      That's what it's all about. All is fair and no crime if it's done for your country.

      • Remember when Muhammad Ali decided he's ok with beating people up but he doesn't really enjoy killing them and the US thought he's a hypocrit? Makes sense, he was beating up others for his own fun and profit, but the country would've liked it rather if he killed them for their fun and profit.

        Thing is, he was a prizefighter who fought other prizefighters, men who had had similar training and experience in their profession. He didn't beat up J Random Citizen on a random street corner. The chance of someone

        • What part of this is difficult to understand?

          What's difficult to understand is that violence is horrible when it's done for your own profit (even if regulated and covered with rules, like in a sport) when you do it for yourself, but all fine and nice when you're forced to do it for your country.

          While you're at it, try to explain why, say, BF2142, a game about a made up conflict set in some artificial future is bad for our kids, while America's Army, a game depicting very real conflicts, is good for them.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by vertinox ( 846076 )
      I do think, though, that a game put out by the Army that touts its realism can shape the ideas of what combat is like in impressionable minds, so I definitely have an ethical problem with them using it as part of a recruiting effort with people who are just coming into adulthood.

      One of the first thing the Nazi's did when they came to power was to ban book like "All Quiet on the Western Front" because it portrayed combat in a bad light. The German army was the first to come up with the concept training of ha

      • Given the nature of the game, it could be that AA would help in dehumanizing the enemy if the other side is seen as a video game opponent.
        This could be; I also think video games of this type dehumanize the players themselves as well. Or at least, warps your notion of the finality of your own death. we don't get extra lives or a second chance.

  • Well the army seems to think that it is a game... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by schweini ( 607711 ) on Tuesday September 04, 2007 @05:16PM (#20470955)
    According to this ad for the army [youtube.com], the army seems to think that war is just another game on another level. sickening.

  • I just had a weird idea (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Tuesday September 04, 2007 @05:28PM (#20471121)
    Next time some senator wants to censor games, how about sending him a copy of AA and ask him for a comment?

  • I knew I forgot to download something! Thanks protesters for reminding me!

    But really, saying the game isn't like war is like pointing out real life doesn't have a "respawn" key. It also ignores the quite probable fact (I don't know this for sure, I don't have any data to back this up, this is just what I think is probably true) that plenty of people play FPSs... including AA... without ever intending to join the army or pick up a real gun.

    Plus, let's say it WAS very close to the real thing as a virtua

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Gabrill ( 556503 )
      My best example of this is paintball. You take the very best macho winner paintball champion, and see how often he "dies" on a tournament weekend. Extrapolate that to actual combat, and you see that surviving an engagement is incredible luck as much as it is skill or equipment. War is no game at all.
  • I worked for the America's Army team when they were located at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. I wanted to get some more game industry experience on my resume and it was the only local job of its nature. It was a cool bunch of people working on the game, your typical bunch of gamers and artists. The only major difference was that we were all working on a piece of major recruitment propaganda for the Pentagon.

    You had these guys in military uniforms talking about how great it was that this

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jtev ( 133871 )
      I'm sorry that you have a problem with this. You should have known that what you were doing was going to be a specific attempt to attract FPS Doug and the like. I'm sorry, but I can't say that I feel particularly much sorrow for your moral quandary. You knew the score going in. It really just drives me nuts when people complain about things like this. If you were working for a company that then took the contract, then I could understand the problem, but if you're working for the Navy, then, you know th
      • Yeah, how dare someone go into something without having any moral qualms, but after reflecting on the reality of the situation come to decide that they cannot support it! That's like... changing your mind based on experience! No, wait, that sounds rational and good... I mean, that's flip-flopping!

        He quit the job, what more do you want? For every one of him there are two dozen people who take the job and never feel any moral qualms at all. I hate it when people dismiss someone else's experience just be
  • Contrary to the opinions expressed by others here, I think that video games make a great contribution to educating young people about the realities of war. In your average war game, the fighting begins with no real purpose (indeed, such things are often considered irrelevant by the players) and the only real costs of mounting casualties are to the players' egos, and to the effectiveness of their side as they begin to "win" or "lose". How does this not reflect the attitudes and outlooks of the people who l

  • Jack Thompson weighs in (Score:4, Funny)

    by meglon ( 1001833 ) on Tuesday September 04, 2007 @05:55PM (#20471467)
    ...And ask for his comments, Florida anti-gaming lawyer Jack Thompson took a moment to share his views with us:

    "This is not a situation in where the ESRB will be blind-sided by hidden or embedded content. This game promotes the killing of innocent people.

    The goal is to make it such a negative thing that the retailers won't carry it. This thing hasn't really reached critical mass as a public relations problem yet; that's what I'm trying to do.

    Towards that goal, I have half a mind to sue the Department of Defense and get this whole thing scrapped."



    On a related note, 96% of the 1081 people polled agreed with Mr. Thompson. As one person stated: "Of course it's obvious, Jack Thompson has half a mind."

  • Meandering thoughts. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by headkase ( 533448 ) on Tuesday September 04, 2007 @06:29PM (#20471865)
    This is kind of an aside; just recollecting what's been floating though my mind for the last few days. It seems to me that the leadership of the United States of America is losing it's way. As a frightening parallel in history, in Germany the Nazis rose to power by gradually placing more and more control into the hands of selected capitalists. We called it Fascism then. The same can be seen in the USA today, war profiteering is being funneled into the wealth of those who made the decision to war in the first place! An old-boys network such as this sadly is a fact of life but what strengthens the parallel between the Nazis and the current USA is that the leadership is also paying less heed to the wishes of the people they claim to represent. I hope that those who are ignorant of history don't drag the rest of us through it. Again.
    If you read a book called Earth by David Brin, he describes his vision of the near future as basically including a war where the bankers and anyone on their records are shot - cleansing the parasitism from societies fabric.
    What do you think? Because in the age of Information you can make a difference!
    • Actually the funny thing is, that the NSDAP can be translated nationalsocialist, in the first years the party was opposed to capitalism it then very soon sided with the big money.
      Also a very interesting history lesson is how they came to power and then eliminated the democracy slide by slide. They used a catastrophy (probably self inflicted still not proven but likely) the Reichstagsbrand, a fire in the german parliament as an excuse for raising a propaganda enemy, the jews, and with this not really existi
      • Ah one last thing I forgot, the uber surveillance organisation which was installed to support the "people" or the government. In germany it was the Gestapo (Secret National Police) in Russia the KGB. Btw. in eastern germany this organisation was called Stasi (Staats Sicherheit - Country Security, Homeland Security ;-) )
  • it seems that this depends heavily on how high up in the administration one is
  • No one turned this into a nerd discussion of the merits of the game. Which, given the topic, is somewhat OT.

    I will comment that it's a shame the US Army put this game out, since it's (and I will argue so) one of the more realistic FPS games out there. Fuck Rainbow Six. Fuck Counterstrike. This is the game where I can easily give out orders, or better yet, USE HAND SIGNALS to quickly communicate with my teammates. In fact, it's better to use hand signals since the sound of your own f'ing radio can give you a
  • The video of this protest, along with a more substantive interview can be found here [bsalert.com].

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