I tried to email the principal of the school to tell him those Hitler youth need a better education than he is giving them,and to be disciplined for their abhorrent behavior but got a delivery-failure notice. I'll try again later.

We cannot let America become Nazi Germany! Kids are being raised on violent video games that simulate war and taught elitist racist tendencies to brainwash them for totalitarianism. (plus lots of them are rotten little rednecks to begin with, half of me wants to help them and the other half is hoping they all wipe each other out. Florida is as bad as TX) Those peace kids are the only hope for our future.

I prefer the phrases "Don't waste our troops" or "Stop wasting our troops." They are less assailable than "Support our troops" slogan when used by the anti-war groups..... No matter how many reasons the administration has had to come up with to justify the war and its continued occupation, they are all shaky.

I keep wondering more and more if the nutrition crises afflicting this generation's kids serve as a metaphor for the nation's failure to nourish these kids' minds and souls. Yes, there are families on an individual basis who do a wonderful job, but culture-wide the kiddos get little more than vapid nationalist propaganda. Empty calories in a different way. Just thinking aloud at the moment.

Are video games really training people to kill and make war? I mean, I've played violent videogames since forever ago, and I find actual violence abhorrent.

I'm not trying to sidetrack the real concern here - it's disgusting that symbols of white supremacy are being used in that high school, and says so much about the kind of attitude being cultivated. :(

Lisa, video games derive from simulators originally used by the military to train people for battle situations, first in aviation, then on the ground, so yeah, they are about training people for warfare. Watch the commercials for the latest games, they're overt battle simulations. It's about making people comfortable with killing each other. bad for your soul~!

what do you expect from a bunch of retards,who i bet were encouraged by there fascists parents to do that crap.

not just that, now the gov has teamed up with video game makers to advertise for the Military inside online games, with ads that can be adjusted in realtime. they have made it a very tiny step from kids playing in teams online where they can shoot people in virtual campaigns to one where they are shooting real people in teams, and have trained for it in a virtual setting. this is not sci-fi. this is now.

however there are many video games that challenge hand/eye coordination and the brain in games that are fun and do not involve violence, killing, or the slew of other negative ideas that so many games have today. many of them are nintendo games.

of course there's always the 3d world, too. altho its a bit passe, i guess.

Well, shoot polygon-and-pixel avatars controlled by real people in teams.

I don't know, I guess this is one of those things I don't believe - the idea that video game killing desensitizes people to real killing. I mean, I've played all three Dooms, every Quake but III, both Half-Lifes, two of three Halos, and many other first-person shooters, and I can still barely hold a loaded gun, let alone aim it at a living thing. A large number of my friends play these games, and are not attracted at all to real violence. I've been involved with online gaming communities for years - people who play all kinds of games from role-playing to wargames to videogames to the arenas and deathmatches you mention, Nezua - and I just don't see people being trained to be violent.

What am I missing?

lisa, i agree that we can't assign causality. but i also think that the games are not harmless because i just think they give the wrong idea to young children. that gore and murder are fun. or at least we respect the horror of premeditated murder so little that we make games around the idea. so i dont give them to young children!

and yeah, Quake is not quite the same thing as, say, "Manhunt." there are degrees of depravity. and its not always the violence that i find upsetting. sometimes its just the conversations the street people are programmed to utter in the virtual worlds. but i agree. i need my outlets, and just because you enjoy blowing shit up in a fake world doesn't mean you want to do it or will do it in the actual world.

but i think that the fact that the US military sees the shooting games as a precursor to actual killing, and a way to lure children into service is what is most frightening.

and lisa, i wonder if it may be a little disingenuous in such a context to frame the characters in online gaming as "polygon and pixel" people, because they don't feel that way, you know? no...when you are playing in realtime with real people, sure its a game. but like any game, even role playing non-board/non-video games can feel very real. real is in the head, right? not the surface. and i think that is where these types of games can aggravate trouble.

again i have to stress: i dont buy the causality argument. and i think a person who does X "because" they a) played ozzy osbourne music, b) were wearing eyeliner, c) played violent videogames did it for other reasons, not because of the media they chose to partake in.

but i do think if there is an absence in a child's life of good moral argument, example, and ethical teachings, and instead only TV culture and violent videogames and apathetic music lyrics or violent music lyrics...what will they build themselves of? they have to choose something. so yes, its the family, not the games. but there's nuance. i dont think kids should see certain things at a certain age, nor know that grown ups find certain things acceptable. but hell. "welcome to the cruel world" as mister harper said. they're gonna find out what a fucked up place we've made sooner or later. i just think the mind and heart should have some time to get solid first.

i've played violent video games too (mortal combat!) and it always surprises me that the people who talk about outlawing violent video games or violent music are the pro-war neocons. When, in reality, the reason people murder people has much more to do with neoconservative violence and oppression.

the subject reminds me of my seventh grade teachers who wouldn't allow us to play "Gangster Rap" in class. Of course, there is *a lot* of sexism, homophobia, and internalized white supremacy in rap music but, hey, that is because it is all over the city. Not that I think these are the reasons that the neocons hate rap, i'm sure it has much more to do with the songs about killing police... my parents were responsible about it thu. when i listened to it, even at age eleven, we would have talks about racism and such. So, I think that maybe is key--not to shelter children but have open communication about it (or else they just play the video games at their friends houses and hide it, which in my mind is even worse.)

yes i'm alllll about discussion. and also, i think sometimes a bit of shelter is good. i guess when it comes to children, we all find our own way to teach them, according to what we believe was good for us and what was not.

I'm not trying to be disingenuous, and I apologize for coming across that way. I was trying to emphasize that you're not shooting at real people, but at avatars controlled by real people, and that this is something that I think most people can distinguish.

In fact, I think that people distinguish it a little too well, and the trash talking that goes on in online gaming can go well beyond the pale - pure racist, misogynist garbage that is what mainly keeps me from most varieties of player vs. player gaming.

This I agree with:

but i do think if there is an absence in a child's life of good moral argument, example, and ethical teachings, and instead only TV culture and violent videogames and apathetic music lyrics or violent music lyrics...what will they build themselves of? they have to choose something. so yes, its the family, not the games. but there's nuance. i dont think kids should see certain things at a certain age, nor know that grown ups find certain things acceptable. but hell. "welcome to the cruel world" as mister harper said. they're gonna find out what a fucked up place we've made sooner or later. i just think the mind and heart should have some time to get solid first.

I also agree that in general, the Nintendo game lineup tends to be better content for children.

Oh, Jena... Flight simulators are so finicky they're barely popular anymore, darnit. I love flying airplanes.

I know some games have been based on training software, and there's the US Army MMOG which is supposed to prepare people for joining the military.

Anyway, I didn't intend to discount/ignore the idea that there are simulators like you describe.

i tried hard to word that without pointing at you personally. i dont think you were trying to be disingenuous. i'm just saying that people dont treat these games like pixels, and it doesnt feel that way. that's why the games are fun...they feel real. anyway, its not that i think people can't tell the difference! of course they can. (altho i dont think evidence of racism and bad attitudes online is evidence that they are differentiating between real life and a game, i'd say it is evidence of their attitudes in every day life). and i dont think its bad at all for adults to get online and shoot whatever they want. but a focus on it shows children and teaches them something, and i'm not sure it would be positive. and the reason why i would argue against such an environment (and you see that is really all i am talking about, not banning games or anything) is not because i think it would necessarily "desensitize them to killing" as you say, but rather is the same reason we don't tell our kids everything we tell our friends. some things they dont understand enough to evaluate or contextualize on their own.

my point, again, is mainly about what kids see as they assess their environment. if all the adults in the house were playing games that showed people working cooperatively to build or make things or solve things (without gore or violence), this would teach the child something about the world they were growing up in, and the values therein as opposed to if they grew up in a home where all the adults played shooting, killing, gore-filled games all day. i'm not saying it would make the kids killers. but it would teach them something about what is important and valued and ways of being or what is done for "fun," and what "fun" is.

anyway, these are not things we need to agree on or argue to death. because really, its up to each person how they raise their children, and i'm not here to force other kids to grow up by the standards i feel are right.

quite the Off-Topic thread! but a good one.

(altho i dont think evidence of racism and bad attitudes online is evidence that they are differentiating between real life and a game, i'd say it is evidence of their attitudes in every day life)

That's not what I meant - they're expressing nothing they don't believe, but they try to justify that it's okay to say these things in those places because "it's just a game." That is, the fact that it's recreation means that it's okay to do stuff you wouldn't do in, say, the workplace or around people who can punch you in the face. I've spent time arguing with people about this racism, sexism and homophobia, and they refuse to engage it as anything but "good, clean fun." I can't stand to be around that. I know lots of people who don't act that way in games, but the casual scene is just impossible.

On the actual topic: Where do people get the idea that white supremacy symbolism is a good thing? It's not, it's violence, and they know it's violence. It puts their targets in their place, makes them live in fear. It's terrorism. :(

I have very mixed feelings about the issues related to things like violence in games, movies, music. My concern is not for "our children" in the biological sense, but "our children" in the more global sense. Most of us will probably do a good job of finding a way to work this through with our own kids. But I see children every day that are exposed to this stuff and don't have parents who can or are willing to provide those protections.

Deborah Prothrow-Stith, an expert on youth violence at the Harvard School of Public Health tells a powerful story. Its about a father who's son is killed in the crossfire of a gang shoot-out in his neighborhood. At the funeral, a friend is consoling the father, telling him what a good job he has done in raising his kids and that he should be proud of them. The father replies by saying, "I was not as good of a father as I should have been, I should have helped raise those other kids in the neighborhood (referring to the shooters)."

I think its our task to think not only about what is best for our kids, but keep the "other kids" in mind as well. Partly because they are the ones who might be most vulnerable to these violent messages.

Why use video games when they can do things like these:

A ninth grader in a suburban Washington DC classroom is delighted to be excused from Algebra class to spend a half hour shooting a life-like 9 MM pistol and lobbing explosive ordinance from an M1A2 Abrams tank simulator. At the same time 3,000 miles away in La Habra, California, a 15 year-old girl is released from English class to squeeze off rounds from a very real looking M-16 rifle. The kids thoroughly enjoy the experience, especially the part about getting out of class.

The two students have experienced the Army’s Adventure Van, a 60-foot, 30-ton 18-wheeler with several interactive exhibits that bring an adrenaline rush and glorify weaponry and combat. The Army’s 19 vans frequent various community events and two thousand schools a year, generating more than 63,000 recruiter leads. In addition to the Adventure Van, the Army has three other 18-wheelers for recruiting purposes. The Aviation Recruiting Van contains an AH 64 Helicopter flight simulator and an interactive air warrior and weapons display.

Most of the kids know the difference between the pixels and the real thing. But when you at uniformed authority figures inside (or within) a school context, that changes the parameters.

Link to the article...

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/26/5440/

When there was a peace march in Washington D.C., there were soldiers who protested against the peace marchers.

The soldiers were really loud and angsty/rowdy.
That's the problem, right there.
It's the way a lot of people in this society are taught to think and act

They were shouting " support the war" and "support bush".The truth is, even if they don't really know what the war is about and even if they don't truly/deeply support the bush administration from their hearts and
souls, they're still going to be shouting. They like the rush,they like the angst,they like how it makes them feel "cool" or "awesome". Maybe now they
feel like those anime or videogame characters that they've wanted to be for so
long. Or maybe they just want something to b*tch and kill about.

It's the same as when you have someone who comes out of the movie theater and has just finished watching something that is high-speed and full of action like the movie "Fast and the Furious" or "2Fast2Furious" which are both a movie and sequel about street racing. There are a lot of people, especially a lot of men ( seeing as they're raised to be this way and have all of that testosterone )
who will get in their cars and start speeding down the highway going 60-100
mph. And it's really a disgrace when they end up getting in an accident and killing someone ( or themselves, but I can't say I'd feel too much sympathy for their foolishness because that would be a lie ).

It's sad but true. This is a way of thinking and behavior that is widely taught
and practiced, and it's just sad, really, really sad.
It's not the videogames and not the TV and not anime, but these things do contribute to the problem when you have weak minded, maladjusted people with
copycat personality issues, competition issues, self-esteem issues,insecurity, control/power issues, and all kinds of twist ups and disorders.

So, the question is now, " Why are people being taught to be this way?" which
shouldn't be to hard of a question to answer if you think about it.
But that's the problem. Most people don't step back and ponder these types of questions. Luckily ( thank you God ), there are a lot of people who will.

But is it enough. Because not a lot of people are willing to step up
and push their thoughts and observances to the front line ( for fear of being shot down). Meanwhile, there are still innocent lives being taken, slaughtered, murdered,as if it were just nothing. People are still suffering ( more than all the charities in the world could ever handle )

People without the types of problems mentioned a few paragraphs above, could play videogames and watch movies, TV, and anime , or whatever, and be totally unaffected by the hype. They may even (most times) get a lot of important information out it ( like hidden meanings and metaphors, which we all know permeate a lot of movies and such) and may be inspired to create something new ( notice the word "create", something which the non thinkers of society tend to do less, the same being instead of leading they will always follow ).

And in this, you have the solution ( if we could just get the capitalists out of the way, because they won't give up their "money" for nada, not even the end
of the world or the end of human existence).