So today Direct Action to Stop the War (DASW for short) had a protest in front of Ubisoft's SF offices.
Why?
To stop Ubisoft from making all these shovelware games.
Nah, I jest. They're actually protesting against Ubisoft's role as publisher for the game America's Army. While most of you probably already know what it is, for the few of you who don't - here's a quote from the DASW:
“America’s Army” is a game developed by the U.S. military to instruct players in “Army values,” portray the army in a positive light, and increase potential recruits. The “game” is the property and brainchild of the US Army, which admit freely, and with pride, that it is one of their principal recruitment tools.
Alright. The Army's already said numerous times that it's a recruitment tool. So what's the problem? Since the game has a T rating, it can be played by people 13 years and older. And here, according to the DASW lies the problem:
The military recruitment of children under the age of 17, however, is a clear violation of international law (the U.N. Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict). No attempt to recruit children 13-16 is allowed in the United States, pursuant to treaty. In May, the American Civil Liberties Union published a report that found the armed services regularly target children under 17 for military recruitment. The report highlighted the role of “America’s Army,” saying the Army uses the game to “attract young potential recruits . . . train them to use weapons, and engage in virtual combat and other military missions”, adding that the game “explicitly targets boys 13 and older.”
To summarize: America's Army violates the UN Optional Protocol (we're part of the UN in case some of you are confused), which states that nobody under the age of 17 can be recruited into the military. Because America's Army is a T rated game and it's intended to be a recruitment tool, it violates international law. Therefore, America's Army is illegal.
.... does anybody see anything wrong with that? I checked out the UN Optional Protocol myself and it
mentions nothing about creating propaganda (like video games) to make minors think that going into the military is win. In fact, the
whole point of the UN Optional Protocol is to
prevent children from being forced to fight in the military. Jeez, people. So in short, their only real reason (meaning it isn't just based solely on whether or not you think the conflicts the US is in is right or wrong) for protesting this is moot. There's nothing wrong with not agreeing with the military's ways of recruiting people. There is something wrong with twisting facts in an attempt to make your argument stronger.
As for the rest of the reasons they got - they're your usual spiel. "Don't let our children die in Iraq and Afghanistan", "Don't support an unjust war", you know... the usual arguments that we've been hearing for the past five years.
But here's the thing that really struck me the most:
A friend of mine was there and he heard something that they called the "JROTC Rag". Now I don't have the actual thing to reference to, but according to my friend, the gist of it was basically mocking the efforts to save JROTC in SF by saying JROTC's okay with gays now, but that doesn't matter because now everybody in JROTC is just fodder for the war.
This really irks me, and it's not just because I'm in JROTC either. And after three straight years of being in JROTC, I'll say this. I have never been actively encouraged to join the military in any way by any of the JROTC instructors. Nor has anybody else in SF JROTC. Heck, the records show that only a handful of people from JROTC in the past couple of years have chosen to join the military, and they all acknowledge that they picked it because it was the thing they wanted to do. And guess what happened to everybody else in JROTC? Did they all just join the military? Nope. They all went to college, graduated, and got jobs. Just like everybody else.
It saddens me to see people who claim that they're trying to "create awareness towards these issues", but they show little knowledge of the other side of the story. Where's the awareness if you've only got half the story?
Same thing can be applied to the protests about Tibet too. We have the Pro-Tibet people who think that they're on a mighty crusade for justice and can't possibly fathom that Tibet may be doing some things wrong too on their part. And we have the Pro-China people who fully believe that Tibet is Chinese territory and don't understand why foreigners are supporting people who have violently rioted against Chinese citizens in Tibet. Yes, Tibet isn't all pacifist. >_>. We have two groups who refuse to make any attempt at understanding each other. But that's a story for another day.
To the DASW: Look. I have no problems with your cause. I'm not that fond of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan either. The thing I do have a problem with is when your group does things like create bullshit reasons to support your agenda. Or slandering a program that you don't know anything about aside from the fact that it's associated with the military.
Wow, that was a long one.
-RagolSlayer
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
gloomy
annoyed
happy
