If the army recruiters thought before that we would go away and never come back…they were dead wrong.
Tomorrow is set to be one of the largest demonstrations against the army’s pilot program to gain new recruits – particularly young people –to join the military by utilizing a wide variety of first-person shooter video games and real-life scenarios to demonstrate the “enjoyment” that can be had fighting in wars. Unlike video games, however, life does not come with a restart button nor is it structured around a system of re-spawning.
This despicable program aims to transform war itself, and everything that encompasses it, into just another click of the mouse for the youth already conditioned for it by years of personal video game experience. The army desires above all else to harness and exploit that conditioning by pursuing individuals well versed in the stunningly realistic, military-esc video games on the market. The army is desperately seeking to appropriate the numbness and desensitization towards violence resulting from playing such games for its own imperialist purposes.
Would-be recruits or just curious individuals wandering into one of these “experience” centers might think twice about going off the fight in Afghanistan or Iraq if they were not blindsided by flashy gimmicks, loud music, and safe-and-sound simulations. The army chooses not to distinguish between the façade of “fun” erected by such centers and the real horrors of engagement experienced by hundreds of thousands of Americans, Iraqis, and Afghanis.
The prospects for the future are even more frightening if such centers continue operating and increase their influence over young people. Is it so far-fetched to consider that over the coming years due to rapidly increased technological advancement, when military service – particularly infantry service – consists of sitting behind a desk in a chair in front of a monitor, that individuals will be unable to tell the difference between what is happening onscreen and what is happening in real life? Will these individuals even care after years of conditioning? The imperialist army of the United States, thus, acquires its most deadly weapon: a force of soldiers who will kill at a moment’s notice without thinking twice about what they are doing. To them, it is just characters on a screen, not living, human beings.
The insatiable appetite of the American imperial capitalists demands more and more “boots on the ground” – so to speak – to realize their quest for even greater control of resources, territories, and of markets. They would like nothing better than to have such a fighting force at their disposal. That is why the shutting down of these “experience” enters is indispensible in the struggle to destroy the war aims of the rampaging imperialists who seek the enslaving of the entire world in the interests of their multi-national corporations.
Join the demonstration this Saturday in protest against the manipulation of young people by the U.S. Army for the purposes of numerically increasing its plunderous forces throughout the Middle East and Central Asia. Let us use this opportunity to shut down this recruiting center of death and destruction for good!