Saturday January 10, 2009, 12:56 pm
This is ridiculous on too many levels.Why should we teach our children to kill at a young age.But the worse part is the government backing.Yet if you give your child a gun and teach him/her to shoot,the children will be taken away.Yet our government condones this action.God BLESS OUR YOUTH!

Saturday January 10, 2009, 8:35 pm
The title ("Kids Learn....") makes us believe that perhaps young children are being enticed to play these games. And yet the article states clearly that it is potential recruits who are using the computer sims. Despite often being in their late teens, they aren't children.

I agree that the combat simulators are going overboard, however, for potential recruits.

And, Joan - in 37 states, there is no minimum age for children to be taught to shoot and go hunting. In 8 states, there is a minimum age of 12 years and in 4 states a minimum age of 10 years. In the remaining state it is age 15.

Therefore, the government does indeed allow you to give your child a gun and teach him/her to shoot.

Saturday January 10, 2009, 10:41 pm
Lindsdey, the arcade has a teen rating that allows 13-year olds to play -kids. And yes, the article clearly states that the games are geared towards potential recruits, however the Army plans on being around for a long time, so -whether there is potential to recruit someone next week or ten years from now- the Army will make sure to tap into the constant stream of young people... the way its always been.

There is a difference between teaching a child to shoot to go hunting and teaching a child to shoot at other humans. Joan's analogy reminds me of the many incidents of children playing shooting games at the playground and the school immediately calling Social Services on the parents. Although I would agree these are examples of paranoid overreaction, it underlines the fact that our society gives or kids mixed messages, especially when we want them to learn to be tolerant of others and resolve our differences peacefully.

Another article on this topic from a veteran's widow can be found here:
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/113079/kids_learn_that_killing_is_fun_at_the_army's_lethal_new_theme_park_/?page=entire

Sunday January 11, 2009, 9:11 am
I'm really amazed at how thin the line is becoming between reality and virtual reality. This reminds me of a scene in Fahrenheit 911 that showed a Soldier in a tank listening to some all- American rock music perfectly willing and happy to shoot and kill "the enemy" because he didn't seem to have stopped to think about who "the enemy" is, let alone the fact that "the enemy" is human and has a life and family and values, too. Now, I have absolutely nothing against rock music, but it's eerie to me that rock and metal and a lot of really loud, heavy music that otherwise is great to dance or thrash to as a release of raw energy at a club or concert, is being more freely associated with acts of war and violence. It starts with video games and runs along a straight line all the way to that scene with the soldier in the tank, using it as some kind of glorious soundtrack to all his glorious killing of nameless, faceless, entirely objecified "enemies." And it bothers me that what is essentially some giant virtual- reality lounge equipped to recreate that video- game feeling of being a big tough hero in a tank (or chopper, or a hummer) with a gun is, with GOVENMENT BACKING, being passed off as something that simulates the REALITY of war... how much farther from the truth, from reality, can this be? It's mind- control and manipulation of the highest order and the government and military should be ashamed of themselves- but then again, they should have been in a lot of situations and they don't seem to know what shame is.
On another note, well... hooray for the economic downturn, I guess. Now more of them useless poor people can go running to the army to make ends meet (and to provide fodder for casualties.) What amazing promises of a better future, America, congratulations.
Oh, and one more thing- there is no difference between teaching a kid to use a gun for hunting and training him/ her to use it against another human being. Either way, the kid is learning to use a deadly weapon against something living and if the message isn't loud and clear when you teach a kid to do that, then I'd be hard pressed to find one that is, when it comes to the issue of guns.

Sunday January 11, 2009, 9:41 am
Guns aren't the problem, Rana. It's the intent behind the use of the gun that matters.

I own a shotgun. I was taught how to use it properly. And if it is ever pointed at another living being it will be in self-defense. Which, for civilians, is an entirely proper and good use of a firearm.

Sunday January 11, 2009, 12:40 pm
In a society that glofies war, murder, torture and stealing the natural resources of other countries, what else did you expect?

Sunday January 11, 2009, 1:21 pm
More psyche training starting at an early age. First, get them used to seeing people getting killed and develop extreme hand eye coordination while they are at it and get them used to blowing things up and liking it.

Sunday January 11, 2009, 6:14 pm
21 to drink but 12 to practice killing....uh, I don't think so. What's next liquoring them up in these places?

Sunday January 11, 2009, 6:37 pm
Any of you ever play "cowboys and indians" or "cops and robbers" when you were young? Or own cap guns? Or bows and arrows? Or a BB gun? Or play shoot-'em-up video games? Or play "Risk", where you kill off each other's armies to conquer the world? Or "Battleship"? Or own a GI Joe action figure? Or toy soldiers and tanks? Or a play sword?

Any of you ever learn boxing? Or fencing? Or karate? Or other martial (i.e., military) arts? Or play football? Or ice hockey?

Or have you allowed your children to do any of these, and many other "violent" things?

And if you have - so what?

Sunday January 11, 2009, 9:12 pm
Yes, I think plenty of us played those war games and took combat classes but I would argue without much purposeful context. This may be why we've become so increasingly militarized and continue to play the games as adults. We have clearly not heeded Eisenhower's warning about the military industrial complex becoming the out of control beast we see today with it's tentacles reaching into our shopping and entertainment centers. It's alarming so many of us can't see it. Anywhere it can feed itself it will because it's a massive business and it's designed to thrive despite the costs to human life. Look at these guys, young men that can barely speak a full sentence not raised by their parents but by corporations, lulled into this dark, electronic, exciting thrill-space and right into the mouth of the 'corporation' with the deepest pockets of them all.

It's perplexing we still can't see the insanity and futility of war at this point in our history. One would think the threat of nuclear annihilation would have straightened us out during the cold war, but no. We're still racking them up. The numbers of dead and severely maimed innocent, civilian woman and children from Iraq and Afghanistan ALONE, much less the millions and millions lost to the horrors of history's wars really prove a point. It's a collective insanity straight up. One that only seems to become outrageous when it boils over ever few years with another genocide. And genocides all have tyrants. We think Hitler was to blame for the Holocaust when he was just a single man, a second rate corporal with a self esteem problem. He's commonly understood as an icon of evil when he, himself was not the problem, the collective insanity that human beings are prone to is what killed the millions of innocents and continues to this day.

It makes one wonder if any country's military has ever really fought for the peace and freedom of humanity as a whole. Today's politically based military conflicts are just obsolete warring tribes with their loyalties fatally tied strictly to themselves and nowhere near humanity as a unified whole.
We have been fighting ourselves for so long now, and the question really begs, when are we going to wake up? Is it going to take Martians to get us to see it?

It's really just more genocides feeding themselves in a slower, more controlled, exciting and high-tech, bing! blam! blast! fashion. "Step right up son... the fire's fine!!"

Humanity is in it's adolescence. Here's hoping we make it through the awkward years!!

Sunday January 11, 2009, 10:23 pm
Great commentary Ted O.!

The videos speak for themselves. Interviews with young men led to believe the war "simulations" are nothing more than fun and games. I guess creating a simulator where your 21 year-old Army buddy gets his limbs blown off and comes home drooling in a wheelchair would seriously spoil the fun. Not something an "invincible" 19 year-old considers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfZuFrJvrqM

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/28547514#28547514

Monday January 12, 2009, 8:23 am
Lindsey, what I'm having trouble with is that you can feel that guns aren't the problem when you make a point of saying that if ever you were to use your own shotgun against another person it would be in self- defense. How are guns not a problem if you're living in a society in which you would feel the need to use a gun to defend yourself in the first place? Whatever happened to a good, old- fashioned fist- fight or, indeed, martial arts and other self- preservation techniques that would be more natural to us, that would involve using our bodies and our wits? I'm guessing that gun violence begets gun violence and if there never had been guns in the first place, then (1) kids would never have played cops n robbers (or they would have played a firearm- free version of it) or shoot- em- up video games, etc, etc, so they wouldn't grow up with this inborn acceptance of guns, and they wouldn't be getting mixed messages when, as they get older, they hear adults denouncing gun violence; and (2) Instead of blasting a hole into someone's body with an exploding metal cap in self defense (because whomever they need to defend themselves from is not threatening them with a gun) people just might have been, to this day, defending themselves using their own survival skills and physical power or by turning to their communities for help. It's a lot easier to stick a gun in everyone's hand and give them a constitutional right to use it if need be than it is to build communities and create an environment where that need is far less likely to exist. And it's also easy to say that the it's the intent behind the use of a gun that matters, but come on... there are a lot of people, whether out of weakness of character or a hidden desire for authority/ power, or whatever else, whose intent can easily be changed once they actually have a gun in their hands. Can we really ignore the phenomenon of trigger- happy cops or any other person who's in a position to "serve and protect" but abuses that position? And what about the issue that's at the heart of this article? How many of these kids who are co-opted by the military- industrial complex are really going to come out of there with pure intent? Some of them may be going in there with the intent to be among the ones who protect home and country, but they're going to come out trained to believe that it's o.k to kill whomever their country deems an enemy. And if that list of enemies is large enough, then most of those kids who just wanted to be good soldiers will probably spend their lives, during and beyond war, being capable of killing fairly indiscriminately...
So, yeah, I think guns ARE the problem, in a really big, overarching way. I just don't think that people's attitudes about war and violence and killing would be quite the same if the military had Nintendo Wii lounges where potential recruits were being trained in Kung Fu, although I still don't agree with that system of recruiting because it boils down to the same principles of glorification and brainwashing.

Thanks for the comment, Ted, very articulate and refreshing.

Monday January 12, 2009, 8:29 am
Rana, you objected to my statement that I would use my shotgun to defend myself and said, "Whatever happened to a good, old- fashioned fist- fight or, indeed, martial arts and other self- preservation techniques that would be more natural to us, that would involve using our bodies and our wits?"

If someone breaks into my home (where I keep my gun) and confronts me, why on earth would I choose to risk injury to myself by engaging in a fistfight with that person? I'm a 50-year-old female and virtually any man could overpower me immediately. And even if I somehow managed to win the fight, it's very likely I would be injured in that fight.

When someone is intent upon doing me harm, I'm not concerned about their well-being. After all, they are the aggressor - not me. I will take whatever measure necessary to insure that I can repel an attack - without injury to me.

Why should I try to protect my attacker at my own expense? Your statement simply doesn't make sense.

Monday January 12, 2009, 8:36 am
And, "How are guns not a problem if you're living in a society in which you would feel the need to use a gun to defend yourself in the first place?"

It isn't the guns that are the problem, Rana. It's the fact that in EVERY society there are murderers, rapists, burglars, muggers, and other people who prey upon law-abiding citizens. We "feel a need" to own guns because THOSE PEOPLE exist. They have always existed.

Britain has long since taken guns almost totally out of the hands of its citizens. Tell me - have the murderers stopped murdering? Or the rapists stopped raping? Have burglars now stopped breaking into people's homes?

No - they haven't. The only difference now is that innocent people find it much more difficult to protect themselves from the criminals. But, of course, at least fewer criminals are being injured - guess that makes it all worthwhile, doesn't it?

Monday January 12, 2009, 9:13 am
Do you really understand the warning of the military industrial complex? I think not, Ike's warning was of the ever growing "need" to develop more and more complex armament at the expense of the public good. Now that is the largest portion of our budget, arms are constantly being scraped in favor of the newest whiz-bang "kill 'em all bombs. Ike and JFK SAW the dangers in this, since then we have some how again become sheep who believe that this is the only way to protect our country, I think 9/11 should have shown that all the weapons will not guarantee safety.

As to home invasion, tell you what - you get real good at what ever martial art pleases you. I on the other hand will damn sure try my best to shoot any creep that comes into my home. One does not seruptitiously enter another person's home with good will in mind. For many years I was fairly skilled at a number of martial art techniques, and still partly because of my size and partly because of my sex - each instructor made it clear that when confronted with with one who means harm - use the best advantage at hand, a baseball bat, golf club - but remember if you really learn and know how to use a gun it can not be taken away and WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE. In a situation as described, one must assume their life is in danger, so my dear, you have a chat with those who break and enter. I will call the police to clean up the mess.

As to the techniques being used by the military, they are indeed underhanded, and yet if I try to put myself in their shoes, not a great place to be, I guess I understand. Humans are obviously a war loving species and only by finding new and unique ideas and EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION...can we hope to over come our natural impulses.
I have a fantasy that leaders who declare war must meet one another on a open field choose their weapons, take ten paces - turn and fire. Some familiar? Roosevelt's sons were in WWII and weighed heavy on him, they were given no special treatment. Maybe if the Bush girls had served in Iraq Mr Bush would have thought twice about his decisions.

After 9/11 middle eastern countries - most particularly Saudi Arabia, offered and did put a price on bin laden's head, we of course turned down that help, which begs the question, why must we be the only one's with the ANSWER?

Monday January 12, 2009, 9:14 pm
Kit B. Wrote: Do you really understand the warning of the military industrial complex? I think not, Ike's warning was of the ever growing "need" to develop more and more complex armament at the expense of the public good.

Kit, Thanks for pointing that out but this has more to do with complicated weapons. Eisenhower said the following "...we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together".

I consider myself 'knowledgeable citizenry' and the young adults most susceptible to being recruited here are integral to the 'armaments' you speak of. Fresh blood is required to fuel the multi-billion dollar arms industry. These individuals strolling in a public mall are literally part of the 'public good' that Eisenhower warned of expending. They are sucked in like flies to shit with the lure of a larger than life, exciting Xbox gaming experience integrated with life size weapon and equipment replicas. I would argue these experience centers and their sanitized, interactive-military-killing-simulators are a precise extension of the out of control systems of high tech armaments and precisely what was being warned about. Next thing you know we'll have military theme parks where you drop your very own atom bomb onto foreign cities and score points for largest masses of destruction....but instead of a stuffed animal you get a stuffed body bag!

Monday January 12, 2009, 9:30 pm
Quiet right I did not post his speech, rather hoped it's content was implied and that most by this point in time would know that it has come to pass.

Friday January 30, 2009, 1:15 pm
Lindsey,
Sorry to hear you think Rana's statement does not make sense. I would hazard to guess you completely missed her point and decided instead to zero in on only YOUR well being while missing the bigger picture of AMERICAN SOCIETY AS A WHOLE that struggles with this gun epidemic that kills so many daily. You and Rana and myself and EVERYONE ELSE ON THE PLANET, including all the evil thieves and killers etc. are one WHOLE ENTITY, and it's up to the people who refuse to live in fear and weaponry and mistrust who have the courage to feel into how we creatively solve that.

Rana, thank YOU for that amazingly creative and progressive comment that is precisely the type of dialogue needed to move in the needed direction.

Ted

Friday January 30, 2009, 5:14 pm
"American society as a whole" does not exist. Because our society is made up of hundreds of millions of individuals - each with individual rights. And one of the most basic is the right of self-defense. Another of the most basic is the Constitutional right to bear arms.

I have no problem with reasonable gun control laws, such as mandatory waiting periods, criminal background checks, and the like. Without question, gun ownership can certainly be abused. And so can drugs. We could avoid much drug abuse by simply stopping the manufacture of pharmaceutical narcotics. And criminalizing the taking of all narcotics. But, of course, patients who have a genuine need for narcotic pain control would then be without them.

Just as taking guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens would prevent those citizens from protecting themselves from criminals.

I hope that one day human nature will evolve to a point where violence no longer exists. But that day is far into the future. And until that day comes violent criminals will exist. And they will prey on the rest of society.

Long before guns were ever invented, people were killing other people just as frequently as now. With a great variety of weaponry. And their victims were just as thoroughly dead as any victim of gun violence today.

Saturday January 31, 2009, 1:33 am
Lindsey,

Just because our society is comprised of millions of individuals with 'rights' doesn't mean we don't exist...unless your speaking spiritually which I will guess your not.

Do you realize that Americans suffer far more deaths by guns than any other country on the planet? My post stated that our society is struggling with a gun epidemic. Maybe some statistics would help? Gallons of blood spilled? Numbers of children accidentally killed? Averages of innocent bystanders shot in the streets? The 24/7 news of domestic gun violence that pollute our media? Yeah, sure, let's just keep that status quo and keep buying more of these instruments of death and not bother with any new outlook on creatively solving it because "gosh, it's always been happening for millennia and certainly won't be stopping soon".

Ya know this is just silly, I just can't find it in myself to engage this dead horse gun/violence argument, it's just such old guff.

Forgive my disgust but I feel deeply that your words are so obviously not yours. And who or wherever you got them is just so off base. I invite you to doubt your worn out theory for at least a minute and see another point of view.

Ya know, in some cultures you would be considered the very criminal your condemning simply because your ignoring the very evolutionary impulse within yourself that you claim you hope for in human nature. You are human aren't you?

The older I get the more I really wonder if our race can survive the out worn (like parts of the constitution) fight-or-flight response that drives all this. Reaching into the past to prove the future is another one of the culprits.

We must evolve, my friend, it's our nature, it's not our choice, the question is if enough evolution occurs before we kill ourselves or the planet first.

Try a little Deepak Chopra or Eckhart Tolle to help understand.

Saturday January 31, 2009, 5:12 am
If the words were not mine, my condescending friend, they would be in quotation marks.

I have little interest in Deepak Chopra or Eckhart Tolle. I prefer Robert J. Ringer. Try reading his "How You Can Find Happiness During the Collapse of Western Civilization" or "Restoring the American Dream." Libertarianism at its best.

Saturday January 31, 2009, 11:45 am
Lindsay,
I apologize for my post being harsh and condescending. I should know better at this point to try and defend my position on that issue. I have a tendency to overreact because of personal circumstance related to gun violence. I'll check out Robert J. Ringer, thanks for that tip, I'm always interested in new points of view from people working for the betterment of mankind. Take care. -T

Saturday January 31, 2009, 12:39 pm
Ted, all opinions are welcome - whether they agree with mine or not! :-)

Tuesday February 3, 2009, 3:17 pm

Georgia Teenager Arrested in Torture & Burning Deaths of Kittens

Here's what comes from teaching kids to kill ....


A Georgia teenager faces felony animal cruelty charges accusing him of torturing three kittens in Brooks County with fireworks, dousing them with gasoline and setting them on fire in a December attack that horrified investigators and animal lovers.

Tuesday February 3, 2009, 8:18 pm
I have always said that there is a relationship between human asset production and recession; this includes both the military and schools, which according to my reading are closely related through high-stakes testing--sending the stupid to be cannon fodder:

Project manager Maj. Larry Dillard said recruitment was more difficult about two years ago when the United States was struggling in Iraq and jobs at home were easier to get.

"Now the news coming out of Iraq is better and we are in an economic downturn. It will be easier," he said.

Saturday February 14, 2009, 8:53 pm
Yes, I think most of us have played "cops and robbers" etc...but nowadays the games are played onscreen where subliminal messages are being embedded and the minds of children are delicate....We as adults "know better" but children are easily led...

You can see how children have changed in just the past decade alone...When I was a kid,going to school,the thought of bringing a gun to school wasn't even a reality.We played with pets,we didn't set them afire.

I do not have children but if I did I would find this scary enough to monitor what they were watching and what types of games they were playing.And I firmly believe the best you can teach your children is the difference between right and wrong...because when they go out and play,you cannot be there to monitor their behavior..

Friday April 17, 2009, 5:55 pm
Great discussion, any one know where to buy ammo? It seems that there is more than one way......(I won't say the rest for my feline loving friends.)

Saturday July 11, 2009, 9:13 am
US military: Gays not welcome; white supremacists 'OK?'

Wednesday July 29, 2009, 8:46 am
yah jees i din't know what to think about this one,it get's stranger out there ervery day know wounder this worold is so f.....t up.

Thursday August 6, 2009, 4:05 pm
Amygdala: What our wars do to our soldiers


Report: Home from Iraq, some troops 'kept killing'

The Military Invades U.S. Schools: How Military Academies Are Being Used to Destroy Public Education
In Chicago, there's a push to replace public schools with military academies. This model may soon spread to the rest of the country.

Army's Videogame Recruiting Backed By Lawmakers Despite Controversy
The House Armed Services Committee last week offered its support to the Army's controversial high-tech effort to increase awareness and knowledge of the military among recruitment-age youth.

Wednesday August 12, 2009, 4:28 pm
From my perspective, I see two root problems here, the first being the demand for war itself. If we rid the need for war, as in, stop trying to fix the rest of the world and focus on the home front first, then we eliminate the need for child killers.

The second has to do with the video game industry, as anything simulated can desensitize people if played enough, especially kids - and become hooked or addicted to it very quickly. Thus, kids are becoming the military's prey - from my perspective - the military's only motive here with this park is to try and "get 'em while they're young and impressionable," with the only motive being to turn them into mechanized killing machines, and they are only children.

We should work toward ridding the video game violence and it will be the beginning of the end of desensitization - and then the military won't be able to have a hold on anyone because there will be too many kids with feeling and will be able to decipher their own true ethics, and hopefully choose peace instead.

We are here to help each other out of this kind of crap, not to allow ourselves to become more deeply entrenched in it.

Wednesday August 12, 2009, 4:42 pm
Recruitment is down that much? The Army has to resort to showing kids how much fun it is to blow things up and kill other people via overdeveloped video games so the kids will have a taste for blood and will become soldiers when they are old enough?

I guess they have to use whatever underhanded tactics they can to get people. I guess an organization whose sole purpose is to kill people can be expected to use them.