The American media really hates video games huh

[SonOfVoorhees]

Fuck them. They hate games that kill fake people but glorify American soldiers killing real people in Iraq. Idiots. Pay no attention to the media.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

News media does not give a shit either way about video games.

They care about making money. End of story. And the baby boomers have the most money and they will buy stories about how CoD is corrupting our youth. They won't buy stories examining actual causes; because they are complex and often hit too close to home on a subject that people want to believe they have nothing to do with.

 

[Parakeettheprawn]

The American media hates everything other than children and puppies. If you can name it, they hate it.

Oh they find ways to hate some children too, give them enough time and they will.

 

[Gorrath]

But a whole third? Really?
Or does the army not believe in birth control?

Well it doesn't hand out birth control in war zones, no. You can't tell soldiers they will receive administrative punishment for violating regulations and then promptly hand them birth control, it sends a really mixed message. Some soldiers bring their own birth control, but when you're gone for a year at a time you tend to run out. Lots of soldiers just play the odds and lose.

As for losing a third of your unit strength, that is exactly what happened to my team. Our teams were six people. Two operators, two LOS radio people, a cable dog and an NCO. Within six months of our second deployment, we lost an operator and a radio person to pregnancy. They also pulled our cable dog and assigned him to another team that had lost two to pregnancy and one to enemy action. We spent nearly our whole deployment in Afghanistan at half strength and then 2/3rds for our whole time in Iraq.

This is just anecdotal stuff of course, but it wasn't exactly rare in mixed units, especially those where a lot of the MOS' take nearly a year to complete just the AIT portion of training.

 

[Callate]

The American Military being criticized is hard to do because of the 9/11 crap that is still around.

So any problem the Americans see must NOT be the military but an outside force.

Even if it is an internal force, and has been shown to be the culture in the military for years. Even instances where rapes are covered up by people in charge for reasons ranging from "the rapist is my friend" to "I don't want my leadership to look bad."

That particular story also touches on sexual assault and the presence of women in the military, so any excuse that allows them to brush past any controversies related to any of those matters- huge bonus.

 

[Doclector]

We should just hang the fuckers.

No, I don't care that me saying that proves them right. I've put up with them for most of my goddamn life, and now videogames have been around a lot longer, they've been outright lying TO ENTIRE COUNTRIES for years now.

In fact, being realistic, can they not be jailed? Fined? Surely they can't tell lies of this magnitude and get away scott free, they must be punished, in the name of honest journalism, they must be made a fucking example to everyone of what happens when you tell full blown lies when people are trusting you to tell them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the fucking truth. This is not a matter of anger, although believe me, I'm fucking angry, this is a matter of simple right and wrong, and they are most certainly in the latter.

And before some clever bugger decides to comment about me supposedly being more angry about videogames than sexual abuse in the army 1) I don't bother with much news anymore, the details of the story are lost on me, I stopped bothering with the news when people kept blaming groups I belong to for everything and everything else that was happening was just god awful anyway.
2)One thing I think I understand is that the soldiers responsible have been caught and will be punished. The lying motherfuckers who keep trying to blame things on videogames have not. They haven't even been seen to be committing a crime, which considering they're appearing on the news and outright lying, they could well be.

 

[Sir Christopher McFarlane]

Moral crusaders of all countries hate vidya games. The actual reason for the (unexistent) rise of crime, violence and melting of the Arctic is: video games, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, "we've moved away from god" and "the government is behind it all", usually coupled with aliens.

Basically it's a blame game. In the future, when video games become as widespread as film or close, it will move on to the next thing. Personally I like Alex Jones's theory of suicide pills and murder pills.

Spoiler

Actually crime is related to ethinic minorities, paticurally Blacks and and lesser extent Hispanics.
http://www.colorofcrime.com/colorofcrime2005.html
http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/press/htus8008pr.cfm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2009/02/18/a-rising-share-hispanics-and-federal-crime/

I know that the OP was about the US, but my response was about the world at large. I was just listing the usual suspects of every moral scare.

 

[Voulan]

My experience of American media leads me to not me surprised by yours. I was there on holiday two years ago, and I noticed two things; the amount of news channels that run 24/7 (in New Zealand we have only 4 that run an hour a day on different channels), and how because they have 24 hours to report on news that barely happens often enough, they will spend hours going over the most menial things. I also noticed that because these are more discussion-based new channels, they aren't news per se, but panels to discuss opinions, which makes them automatically biased.

When I was there the two main news stories were about some woman that left her kid in a trolley at the supermarket and drove away, and Lindsey Lohan in court. For a whole week, this was the only thing they talked about! It was the most mind-numbing drivel I've ever experienced.

This isn't an attack on America in general, just those pointless 50 or so opinion-shouting media outlets. If they aren't actually considered news channels and I'm being ignorant, do forgive me - this was based on watching TV occasionally over my two week holiday there flicking through channels.

 

[Reiper]

The American media may sensationalize things, but at least the USA has minimal / no censorship of videogames unlike certain countries I can think of...

 

[triggrhappy94]

Thinking about it, I do remember a QTE sequence in Battlefield 3, where I had to tap B repeatedly to sodomize my comrade with the butt of my rifle...

Wait... the butt of the rifle?

Would that even work? Surely you'd be better advised to use the barrel.

...

I'm just sayin', y'know, practical considerations.

It's rated M for a reason and you really have to mash B.


OT:
I think part of it is just intersecting media trends. Abuse in the armed services is getting increased attention as officials (going all the way up to the President) are trying to prevent it, and punish those who commit. And video games are always easy to blame for things, especially when it involves violence. Video games tend to get more attention following large violent crimes committed by young individuals.
That's just my observations. I avoid news sources that blame video games--coincidentally, my favorite news personalities also smoke pot with Zach Galifianakis on the Real Time with Bill Maher and get drunk with Lil Jon on Watch What Happens Live.

 

[aba1]

I don't want to get all kinds of defensive, but having served in the U.S. military for a good deal of time, some of the broad-brush strokes really do needle at me. I realize that I'm probably going to get hammered for victim blaming here, but I want to let people know about a particular issue that's somewhat unique to the military. When you are deployed and even sometimes in garrison situations, sex between soldiers is forbidden. So when you're in a mixed male/female unit, you have instances where people are copulating against the rules. Once this gets found out, the soldiers can get in VERY hot water and sometimes this leads to the female claiming that she was not a willing participant. Once all of the evidence comes out, there are times when the charges of sexual assault are dismissed.

The reason I'm explaining all this is that I've often seen people ready to demonize any dropped sexual assault charges as the military just trying to cover things up. While tehre are instances of exactly that, there are also instances where the charges being dismissed are absolutely justified. I myself witnessed no fewer than three instances where a long running consensual relationship turned into sexual assault or rape over night once someone higher up caught wind of it.

This is not me attempting to deny anything. The military has a sexual assault and rape problem caused by extraordinary stress combined with a bunch of young adults who are taught to be agressive. No matter how many rules the military puts in place, if you stick two twentyish year old people together you are going to end up withs exual relationships and sexual assaults/rapes. Short of keeping male and female units completely seperate (an almost impossible task) I don't think there is an easy solution to this.

Thats interesting, you rarely hear of that view point. It makes a lot of sense too with women trying to protect their jobs and such (I assume it is usually women claimed rape but I could be wrong).

 

[Jaythulhu]

Sheesh, that ranting maniac in the video on page 1 is... well... a prime example of someone who should not be allowed near a firearm. I thought he was going to start frothing at mouth.