Speaker 1: It could happen here coming to you live from my
Speaker 1: room in Chicago. But but importantly we were coming to
Speaker 1: your life, and it could happen here Central where the
Speaker 1: gamers have seized the pod. It is me, Christopher, it
Speaker 1: is Garrison. Hello, fellow gamer. Hello, and in the gaming
Speaker 1: trenches with my razor headset on, looking into my uh
Speaker 1: NA video powered view flinder, and I'm ready to continue
Speaker 1: on the fight. It's gonna be great. We're talking about
Speaker 1: talking about gaming, We're talking about the military, we're talking
Speaker 1: about why the two of them crossing is extremely bad.
Speaker 1: And uh with us to talk about this are two
Speaker 1: people who are somewhat less clownish than we are. Um.
Speaker 1: This is Katie and Chris from Gamers for Peace, which
Speaker 1: is an initiative of Vesterans for Peace. Well, welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Hello, Hey, thank you. I take offensive dying
Speaker 1: called less clowns, and I'm just trying to live up
Speaker 1: to your standard. I'll have you know. I am very,
Speaker 1: very clownish and clumsy and all of those good things.
Speaker 1: And he trusted me with weapons. Oh God. So I
Speaker 1: guess starting out I wanted to talk about I guess
Speaker 1: very generally the history of counter recruitment, because this is
Speaker 1: something that's been going on in the U. S. Military
Speaker 1: for I mean, it really is like from from what
Speaker 1: I could tell, like about as long as there's been
Speaker 1: you know, recruitment for the military. But I was wondering
Speaker 1: if we could start I don't know, maybe maybe maybe
Speaker 1: around sort of the Vietnam era when you when there's
Speaker 1: you know, very very serious and intense sort of left
Speaker 1: wing kind of recruitment, and then we can go from there. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So coming out of a Vietnam you have Vietnam Veterans
Speaker 1: against the war forming, uh, and there's a massive pushback
Speaker 1: on uh, the draft. Uh. The anti war movement is
Speaker 1: pretty much at its strongest, and Vietnam Veterans against war
Speaker 1: over time becomes a veteran for peace. Veterans for Peace
Speaker 1: has a long legacy of sitting at the front of
Speaker 1: the anti war movement peace movement, participating in nuclear abolition work,
Speaker 1: kind of recruitment work, the escalation work out of Save
Speaker 1: Our v A, helping veterans get assistance with disability benefits,
Speaker 1: and making sure that the traumas that veterans suffer and
Speaker 1: the communities of um impacted by the military suffer are
Speaker 1: getting treatment for the care UH deported veterans because Vietnam
Speaker 1: that's served and then got deported, and that continues to
Speaker 1: this day. UH SO Veterans for Peace at a multi
Speaker 1: pronged approach, the anti war efforts and UH two thousands
Speaker 1: around UH two thousand seven, Ish Iraq Afghanistan Iraq Veterans
Speaker 1: against the War later known as Iraq Afghanistan Veterans Against
Speaker 1: the War comes along and that's a new generation of
Speaker 1: veterans carrying a long built on the legacy of Veterans
Speaker 1: for Peace and being non veterans against the war. UM
Speaker 1: you know, there's a long history of coffee shops, g
Speaker 1: I Resistance, UM Outreach doing work with veterans, trying constances
Speaker 1: objective object or work um GI resisted work in in there,
Speaker 1: and there's just a long legacy of just veterans sharing
Speaker 1: their experiences and coming back and really ah wanting to
Speaker 1: make sure nobody else goes through that and making sure
Speaker 1: that they get the help they need and kind of
Speaker 1: slow that that beat of the war drum that seems
Speaker 1: to media seems to always be picking up, and that's
Speaker 1: where we came in. That's definitely a good way to
Speaker 1: put it now, UM, especially born out of the pandemic,
Speaker 1: a lot of the recruiting had to move online. They
Speaker 1: didn't really have if they wanted to keep recruiting, they
Speaker 1: had to go online, and that's where a majority of
Speaker 1: the newest generation is they are watching Twitch. Twitch had
Speaker 1: a viewership like pretty much competing with Netflix streaming UM
Speaker 1: as of this summer, and I'm sure that hasn't really
Speaker 1: changed much. I'm sure it is just as popular UM
Speaker 1: and the audience for Twitch skews very young. So that's
Speaker 1: really what started to worry members of Veterans for Peace, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we might need to ramp up truth and recruitment UM initiatives,
Speaker 1: which is what Games for Peace came out of. Because
Speaker 1: the thing is, if you're forming a paras social relationship
Speaker 1: with these younger kids by streaming and forming those laserships,
Speaker 1: getting them on discord and talking to them, you're getting
Speaker 1: a one sided view of what military services about, and
Speaker 1: you are definitely not getting the uh, imperialist informed viewpoint
Speaker 1: for sure. UM. So Venoms for Peace kind of came
Speaker 1: out of that. That's like very insidious looking, uh, hidden
Speaker 1: and subtle way of recruiting using the video games that
Speaker 1: have already historically been used for recruiting purposes. So it's
Speaker 1: like a double it's like a double way they got
Speaker 1: on us there for those not inundated in the game
Speaker 1: or warfare like we are. Um, how let's I think
Speaker 1: we should briefly describe what twitches because I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people probably probably isn't actually aware of of Twitch.
Speaker 1: That's whereas we are down in these trenches finding off
Speaker 1: the cyber net stuff bad sor yeah. Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: guess twitches like a live stream platform that is primarily
Speaker 1: used for live streaming people playing video games, and people
Speaker 1: kind of help their own like brands and like personalities
Speaker 1: and like paras social relationships with an audience via them
Speaker 1: playing these games and kind of adding their commentary, you know,
Speaker 1: variety of games. You know, sometimes it's like mostly chatting
Speaker 1: with people like inside like a group chat while playing
Speaker 1: a game. Um or you know, it's of more focused
Speaker 1: on the game itself. It kind of varies, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a it's it's arguably the biggest live
Speaker 1: streaming platform. I think it was brought by Amazon a
Speaker 1: few years ago. Um, and yes, there is a there
Speaker 1: is a US there's a there's a few US like
Speaker 1: military channels on there that are actually relatively popular. UM.
Speaker 1: I guess the other thing to kind of get into
Speaker 1: for some background is, like you mentioned, you already kind
Speaker 1: of alluded to this, but like the history of the U.
Speaker 1: S Military using video games for propaganda because they've been
Speaker 1: they've been one of the earliest funders of games for
Speaker 1: this reason. I think getting into that history is like interesting,
Speaker 1: um and something that some people are definitely aware of,
Speaker 1: but a lot of times can get overlooked, despite you know,
Speaker 1: Call of Duty being the one of the biggest video
Speaker 1: game franchises in the world. Yeah. Absolutely, the UM military
Speaker 1: and involvement in video game video game design using as recruitment,
Speaker 1: using it primary Initially, at first it was thought of
Speaker 1: as a training tool and they started looking at it
Speaker 1: for training. UM. If you think back to like early
Speaker 1: nineties Doom, the original Doom had a mod released h
Speaker 1: called the Marine Mod. It was a modification designed for
Speaker 1: the Marine Corps to use to train marines and as
Speaker 1: early as the early nineties when Doom was at its height,
Speaker 1: and then then that grows from there. You have First
Speaker 1: to Fight, uh what is it? Uh? Game called First
Speaker 1: to Fight features Marine Corps marines and dress blues where
Speaker 1: you're tactically uh fighting a battle and um in which
Speaker 1: you never want to do. If you know anything about
Speaker 1: the Marine Corps Blues, you do not want to be
Speaker 1: doing anything in those that isn't getting drunk exactly, just
Speaker 1: drunk and dancing and blues is all they're good for. UM. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you have you have a first to fight and
Speaker 1: then it turns into Call of Duty America's Army, which
Speaker 1: thankfully just got pulled down all its platform from its platform.
Speaker 1: That's a huge win. But the Army started design getting
Speaker 1: into the development of video games for training, UH and
Speaker 1: then got into it for as recruiting, and America's Army
Speaker 1: is a perfect highlight of that where they just flat
Speaker 1: out had recruitment posters and training things UH in there
Speaker 1: with links to how to get to recruiters or get
Speaker 1: more information about joining the military joining the army. UM
Speaker 1: you have armor to uh. You could you could argue
Speaker 1: and draw the line from military training simulators to pub
Speaker 1: G Underground, which is one of the uh most biggest
Speaker 1: Battle Royale games, which is where you get Fortnite out of.
Speaker 1: So you can draw these lines straight from the military's
Speaker 1: involvement in designing training and recruitment materials to what our
Speaker 1: kids are playing the most these days. And really one
Speaker 1: of the most kind of sick factors of this is
Speaker 1: like how much games have been designed and pushed towards
Speaker 1: basically training people for um like uh, I guess we're
Speaker 1: trying to think of the term, but like combat at
Speaker 1: a distance in terms of like drawing, like drone combat.
Speaker 1: There's just like they started just using Xbox controllers for
Speaker 1: some like drone missions. Like like it's like they're specifically
Speaker 1: looking at the pipeline of specifically young males who get
Speaker 1: into this type of gaming and trying everything they can
Speaker 1: to push them into a career where they just kill
Speaker 1: people in overseas countries using the same technology, using you know,
Speaker 1: using video game controllers, using like you know, operating systems
Speaker 1: very similar to what we're being used in video games.
Speaker 1: And I mean, like in video games are a very
Speaker 1: effective propaganda tool. If you're thinking, like, Okay, I mean
Speaker 1: I just enjoy playing war games. It's not like, what's
Speaker 1: what's the big deal? Like sure, like I also enjoy
Speaker 1: playing war games. Sometimes they can be a fun um
Speaker 1: you know, I like this like tactics based games. But
Speaker 1: these have been shown to be very effective at recruitment,
Speaker 1: to the point that video game footage and video games
Speaker 1: were like one of isis favorite recruitment and propaganda tactics
Speaker 1: as well, like this is it's a it's a thing,
Speaker 1: like it's not it's not just like oh, it's fine,
Speaker 1: Like no, these these things are actually kind of a
Speaker 1: profit of Yeah. Um, they are very effective in that
Speaker 1: manner as a recruiting a tool, and there is a
Speaker 1: real synergy between gaming developers and the d o D
Speaker 1: because of how effective, uh, you know that recruiting can be,
Speaker 1: or the recruiting tool can be. Um, similar to movies,
Speaker 1: you know, the military entertainment complex is a term thrown
Speaker 1: around a lot for good reason. You know, you have
Speaker 1: there is a black box of politics. Whenever you're watching
Speaker 1: a movie that picks u yeah, some sort of power
Speaker 1: structure against whatever the villain is doing. There's there, there's
Speaker 1: always something there, and video games are not too different
Speaker 1: from that. Just have a little bit more say and
Speaker 1: where the story goes, but maybe not even it depends
Speaker 1: on the development. But um, there's article in The Atlantic
Speaker 1: that was it was actually like about a book. Um,
Speaker 1: from because Dexter Thomas warplay and it's all about video
Speaker 1: gaming and the relationship with the military. And they said
Speaker 1: the Pentagon avoids pitiful, expensive efforts to create their own
Speaker 1: training simulators, and developers get fat government checks so they
Speaker 1: can help fund these new games, new virtual reality things
Speaker 1: under the guys of it being a useful training tool
Speaker 1: for training in like virtual virtual reality environments, which it
Speaker 1: scares me already. Um, And then game developers are like, great,
Speaker 1: I can get a government grant, so even if this flops,
Speaker 1: we still got the money out of it. That's not
Speaker 1: an uncommon phenomena. Yeah, I mean in terms of like filmmaking, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like there's been there's rules for like Pentagon contracts with
Speaker 1: film studios still be like, if you want to use
Speaker 1: you know, U. S. Military equipment or personnel, you need
Speaker 1: to follow these specific rules to betray the military in
Speaker 1: this light, um, which often do get followed just because
Speaker 1: people want to use the cool equipment and stuff. You know.
Speaker 1: I'm still angry that my that my beloved Transformers got
Speaker 1: cooked by the U. S. Military and all of their
Speaker 1: films um. And as a result of films are pretty
Speaker 1: pretty bad. Um. Yeah, I'll have you know they are
Speaker 1: film are you know? I'm sorry, I can't even keep
Speaker 1: you straight. I hope I as a as someone with
Speaker 1: many many star scream action figures, I I dream of
Speaker 1: one day of having good Transformers movies, classic, the you know,
Speaker 1: the eighties classic, Um, You've Got You've Got the Touch,
Speaker 1: um and the Bumblebee film is okay, but it's even
Speaker 1: still that one got coocked, that one got cooked by
Speaker 1: the military pretty pretty severely. Yes, it's it's funny that
Speaker 1: you mentioned isis using video gaming. Uh, there's just a
Speaker 1: recent report came out. It's linked to the u N.
Speaker 1: I believe it's linked to the u N. Council on
Speaker 1: Counter Terrorism or Office counter Terrorism. Uh, talking about violent
Speaker 1: extremism and gaming, the link between video games and violent extremism.
Speaker 1: And what's really interesting is it's not so much that
Speaker 1: the video games themselves are the issue. It's the gaming
Speaker 1: adjacent space. It's it's the para social relationship development, it's
Speaker 1: the meme, and it's the what what we've what we've
Speaker 1: known in in the gaming world for a while as
Speaker 1: associated with like the behaviors and culture around gamer Gate
Speaker 1: and things things like that, where we see this, uh,
Speaker 1: this toxic culture that um is easy to cultivate inside
Speaker 1: these spaces and and be co opted for more to
Speaker 1: various things. UM. And that doesn't that's that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that the military isn't banking or utilizing these same principles
Speaker 1: to get its recruiting messages across. The military is another
Speaker 1: violent extreme position, right. You're whether it's you're the violent
Speaker 1: arm of capitalism and the state or or violent like
Speaker 1: domestic terrorists or something like that, you're still um opting
Speaker 1: into or your position is still getting mobilized towards potentially
Speaker 1: doing violence. And these gaming adjacent spaces are make it
Speaker 1: really easy for recruiters of all sorts to be in
Speaker 1: there and uh push people to more of that side
Speaker 1: of things. Yeah. One of the things I remember when
Speaker 1: I was like a teenager on Twitch was like, so
Speaker 1: I watched just like a lot of harsh touch streams, right,
Speaker 1: and this was like these were, you know, like completely
Speaker 1: main light, hard stone streams. And there was there was
Speaker 1: this artist who everyone called Kebab the German and uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: so it turns out that Cabab the German was a miss.
Speaker 1: It was like a shortening like abbreviation of his actual name.
Speaker 1: Which was removed Kebab, and this guy's stuff was just
Speaker 1: being played on like every major like like Twitch, like
Speaker 1: all the major artonal streaments were just playing remove Kebab
Speaker 1: songs and it was like and this this was just
Speaker 1: like what like this is just what Twitch was in
Speaker 1: like and yeah, like there there's so much like the
Speaker 1: the extent to which just this sort of like i
Speaker 1: mean just overtly fascist like melieu would just seep into
Speaker 1: just like you know, here's a bunch of people playing
Speaker 1: a card game and like it wasn't it wasn't even
Speaker 1: like like I mean, some of these streamers were like
Speaker 1: really reactionally like I've seen I've seen t streamers who
Speaker 1: like will like watch videos of like cops doing right
Speaker 1: like raids on people's houses on stream. Like you know,
Speaker 1: it's like you have those people who are like really
Speaker 1: far right, but some of these people were just like
Speaker 1: I don't know, they're just a lot of them are
Speaker 1: just regular reels extremists. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just sort
Speaker 1: of culturally value. Yeah. Well even then, like some of
Speaker 1: them just like I think with like like with with
Speaker 1: with with like with the Germans, like they just didn't know,
Speaker 1: like they just they just like didn't know what was
Speaker 1: going on, and so they were just you know, spreading
Speaker 1: all of this stuff and it was like it was horrifying. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And actually I'm glad you mentioned that because about a
Speaker 1: year ago, the the Army Sports Channel got in trouble
Speaker 1: because one of the streamers didn't catch on to to
Speaker 1: there were two user names that were explicitly white supremacist.
Speaker 1: One of them was um six million was not enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah uh yeah, yeah, real, real gross. And I guess
Speaker 1: like just in the whole idea of multitasking between playing
Speaker 1: a game, trying to interact with chat, and trying to
Speaker 1: make sure you're you're on screen and all of those things,
Speaker 1: they didn't realize it, or they willfully didn't realize it.
Speaker 1: I don't know which one, and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: make a judgment either way, but they did. They had
Speaker 1: to shut down that stream, and I don't think they
Speaker 1: streamed for a couple of weeks after that. They had
Speaker 1: to like reassess some some things because they're like, hey, actively,
Speaker 1: you know, white supre him is this people are on
Speaker 1: your stream? You should probably you should probably do something
Speaker 1: about that. And I feel like, if you're the U
Speaker 1: s military streaming on Twitch. That someone's job should just
Speaker 1: be to prevent that from happening, like the resources. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but like they kind of have this problem with though,
Speaker 1: because Twitch has a there's a there's a huge just
Speaker 1: like like core, like a large enough base of Twitch
Speaker 1: users are just like fascist or like hard right wingers
Speaker 1: that do things like like there have been a persistent
Speaker 1: problem on Twitch for for years now of like these
Speaker 1: hate raids, like people doing mass raids on like anyone
Speaker 1: who's not white and anyone who's like not just white dude,
Speaker 1: and just like hate rating their channels and like spamming
Speaker 1: the chat with like slurs and stuff like that. And
Speaker 1: you know when when that's you know, and that that's
Speaker 1: too large, Like yeah, like those those are the people,
Speaker 1: like you know that that's a large enough part of
Speaker 1: Twitch that like even even even if you're like taking
Speaker 1: the most charitable thing, which that the US, like the
Speaker 1: Army is not overtly recruiting white supremacists, which like okay,
Speaker 1: but like even even if you give them the benefit
Speaker 1: of the doubt, right, like that that's a large enough
Speaker 1: part of just what Twitch is. They haven't a cent
Speaker 1: of in front of blind eye and and radicalization, specifically
Speaker 1: right wing and white nationalist radicalization in the military is
Speaker 1: well studied and well established as an existing phenomena. I
Speaker 1: knew someone personally who uh got caught trying to smuggle
Speaker 1: weapons for a neo Nazi group, and that's all I'll
Speaker 1: say on that. Boy. Yeah, yeah, No, it is a thing,
Speaker 1: and it hits really close. It is definitely a phenomena
Speaker 1: that happens in the military, and um, these paramilitary Nazi
Speaker 1: groups actively recruit from people coming out in the military
Speaker 1: because they have the training set they want. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I trying to figure out a way to tie this
Speaker 1: back to recruiting online. But it's like, with all of
Speaker 1: this in mind, it is very insidious that the target
Speaker 1: is explicitly young kids. And I'm not saying that just
Speaker 1: to be like, oh, you know, because we've got a
Speaker 1: lot of We've gotten pushed back was saying, well, the
Speaker 1: military doesn't recruit kids, so you can only sign up
Speaker 1: for their seventeen About that a kid. That was completely bullshit.
Speaker 1: That is a kid. Second of all, it's like, the
Speaker 1: thing is it's it's it's just like grooming children. That's
Speaker 1: that's what it is. Like. It it's the same process
Speaker 1: of grooming. That's that's what's going on. Yeah, one of
Speaker 1: one of my best friends growing up, like because it
Speaker 1: was my best friend for like a decade, Like I
Speaker 1: met him in first grade. He was my friend for
Speaker 1: the entirety of school and then he got like because
Speaker 1: his parents sent him away to like one of one
Speaker 1: of those like uh like summer like like military school camp,
Speaker 1: and he was just never the same afterwards, and he's
Speaker 1: like a fascist now, And yeah, that's it sucks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that does suck. That. There's not a better word for that.
Speaker 1: That that sucks because yeah, they can't sign up until
Speaker 1: they're seventeen, but that's not the point. Isn't convince seventeen
Speaker 1: year olds? The point the points to Ingraine this, I
Speaker 1: d in them when they're like sucking twelve years old
Speaker 1: on the internet. And that is just what grooming is, right,
Speaker 1: Starting it when you're when they're young, so when they're
Speaker 1: old enough they will be able to sign up for
Speaker 1: the thing. Like that's that's what the process is, and
Speaker 1: that's what like, you know, military propaganda recruitment's been doing
Speaker 1: for a long time, but the specifically the way it's
Speaker 1: being done on the internet around gaming is extrasidious. It
Speaker 1: was literally it is explicitly said by one of UM
Speaker 1: A recruiting officer, Dr. E. Casey Wardinsky. And I apologize
Speaker 1: if I'm pronouncing that wrong, but the you literally said
Speaker 1: we have to confront this question. I willie wait until
Speaker 1: they're seventeen or really start talking to them at age twelve, thirteen,
Speaker 1: fourteen fifteen when they form the set of things they
Speaker 1: were thinking about doing with their life. Because we're literally
Speaker 1: saying we want to groom children. Is like, yeah, so
Speaker 1: I think now would be the time to kind of
Speaker 1: get into the countering side of things. It's like, yes,
Speaker 1: this is a this is a big problem, as we've
Speaker 1: laid out the past twenty minutes of what can we
Speaker 1: do about it? Yeah, so what can we do about it?
Speaker 1: There's um a good deal that we can do about it? Right,
Speaker 1: UM we we Veterans for Peace, the Truth and Recruitment
Speaker 1: UH working Group came up with an idea for the
Speaker 1: Games for Peace Initiative concerned veterans and gamers and UH
Speaker 1: and allies because Veterans for piecesn't just comprised the veterans themselves,
Speaker 1: it's also allies and accomplices. UM came together and started
Speaker 1: forming an online community of our own UM where we
Speaker 1: have kind of adopted some four channels. Have changed this
Speaker 1: concept of four channels to change. One do education talking
Speaker 1: about UH, sharing our experiences as veterans, talking about and
Speaker 1: unpacking recruitment tactics and techniques. UH. Start talking being extremely
Speaker 1: vocal and raise awareness around the recruitment techniques that we've
Speaker 1: we've already been talking about. Right. Uh. Second, we're doing
Speaker 1: some mentorship and leadership stuff, starting to develop programs in
Speaker 1: local communities that offer alternatives to the economic draft. Right,
Speaker 1: like just throwing it back to where we started talking
Speaker 1: about coming out of Vietnam. It has already said that
Speaker 1: sergeant hard Times is the best recruiter and it posts
Speaker 1: posts the drafts we went when we went to an
Speaker 1: all volunteer force. You have to have a reason to join.
Speaker 1: And there's a thing called the economic draft. And it's
Speaker 1: the impoverished conditions that many kids in people face that
Speaker 1: forced them to go into the military. Right, you don't
Speaker 1: have healthcare coming out of high school, you're in an
Speaker 1: abusive home, you're not talking to a guidance counselor, no
Speaker 1: college is coming to you don't know how to pay
Speaker 1: for college. You don't know where what you're going to
Speaker 1: do because you're eighteen and on your own. And that's
Speaker 1: what we keep telling kids. So you have the economic draft,
Speaker 1: which encourage gives an opportunity for recruiters to go, hey,
Speaker 1: this this program will solve everything. And what what people
Speaker 1: don't realize is what's being asked is are you willing
Speaker 1: to kill for a camaro? Are you willing to kill
Speaker 1: just to have a roof over your head? Are you
Speaker 1: willing to kill for medicare? Right? So we're starting to
Speaker 1: focus on developing mentorship and leadership program UM include helping
Speaker 1: kids and young adults get into college or find mutual
Speaker 1: aid programs within their communities, start doing stuff locally because
Speaker 1: this is the problem is pervasive. Right. Not everybody needs
Speaker 1: to escape abuse of home and it is fine staying
Speaker 1: in their community, but doesn't know how to survive within
Speaker 1: the community because they don't have the resources there. And
Speaker 1: we also look at the what's going on in the
Speaker 1: world today and and recognize that things must be done
Speaker 1: at a local level, UM, and you can be part
Speaker 1: of leading that change. Right In teresting some of the
Speaker 1: our world concerns, we ourselves do direct actions. We go
Speaker 1: to gaming conventions, speak out, try to actually do counter
Speaker 1: recruitment right where the recruiters are. We just it's really pervasive.
Speaker 1: If you if you if you go to any kind
Speaker 1: of con or any kind of can any kind of
Speaker 1: like game fest or whatever, um, you know, co comic cons,
Speaker 1: there will always be multiple military recruitment booths there, like
Speaker 1: like Navy, Marines, Army National Guard, like all of them
Speaker 1: that they they will all all be there. It's not
Speaker 1: not like favorite thing to see. No, No, it's frustrating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: board games aren't even safe, right. The Army E Sports
Speaker 1: team has a forty K team, So if you play
Speaker 1: Warhammer forty K, they have nationally or internationally ranked forty
Speaker 1: K team playing in the major circuits. You know, it's
Speaker 1: most insulting about that. Sorry, Chris, it's most insulting about that.
Speaker 1: And I know this because one of the streams that
Speaker 1: we do, I hosted, is called ad Slam because we
Speaker 1: started out as like roasting military recruitment ads, but it
Speaker 1: kind of morphed into just like general veteran and military
Speaker 1: depictions and media, and one of them was on the
Speaker 1: or at least referenced the Army e Sports Warhammer forty
Speaker 1: K team. And you know how people will like take
Speaker 1: their figurines really seriously, they paint them. They look really cool.
Speaker 1: The Army like spray painted them gold and it's called
Speaker 1: the Day. And I'm like, really, you have all of
Speaker 1: these resources, you are using the recruiting budget, which is
Speaker 1: ridiculous and astronomical, and you spray painted them gold. Are
Speaker 1: you kidding me? Come on? And it's is insulting that
Speaker 1: it was so low effort, but they still get the praise. Um.
Speaker 1: A lot of people report like having positive viewpoints of
Speaker 1: the military after interacting with members of you know, the
Speaker 1: East or team or the booth or whatever. So I'm
Speaker 1: I'm genuinely annoyed that it's also low effort on that
Speaker 1: matter and they're still getting a positive response. Bothers me,
Speaker 1: that's a perfect highlight because being there on like hate
Speaker 1: using military terms nowadays, but being their boots on ground,
Speaker 1: you know, uh at at these conventions, uh doing providing
Speaker 1: truth and recruitment right, talking about alternatives. Uh really just
Speaker 1: being there in front of recruiters and and talking to
Speaker 1: the people that they're targeting and family members, letting them
Speaker 1: know like, hey, we as veterans. Right, don't let this
Speaker 1: be what shapes your child's future or your future. Right,
Speaker 1: there's other opportunities for you. Um and and you know
Speaker 1: whether that's if you're in the gaming start designing games, right, Like,
Speaker 1: there's there's so many opportunities within the gaming community that
Speaker 1: doesn't want to put you into the military pipeline also, right,
Speaker 1: So it's not the game's fault. It's not like it's
Speaker 1: it's that the state's using right now, right, um. And
Speaker 1: then we're trying to form some our Arny sports teams also, right,
Speaker 1: so we can compete directly against them, kick their as
Speaker 1: in some of the tournaments at day host. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: my my dream is to see some gamers for Peace
Speaker 1: jerseys getting awarded like some trophy next to the Army
Speaker 1: sports team and just dunking on them so across all
Speaker 1: the But if we lose, if we're up there, we
Speaker 1: still get to dunk on them. See, we had so
Speaker 1: much more fun. We don't have to go clean up
Speaker 1: barracks room after this. Like the ultimate goal being us
Speaker 1: being able to provide tangible alternatives. So a kid coming
Speaker 1: out of high school thinking like well, I either go
Speaker 1: into a lot of debt to go to college or
Speaker 1: I joined the military. If we can get um not
Speaker 1: a hold of them, that seems predatory, but if we
Speaker 1: can talk to them, or our organization can provide to
Speaker 1: that alternative and say, oh, well, you don't really have
Speaker 1: to do that. We have a scholarship program that we
Speaker 1: can offer you, or we can provide a lae at
Speaker 1: the very least education about what they're really getting into
Speaker 1: so they can make a better informed decision. Because the
Speaker 1: main problem that I have with the way that recruiting
Speaker 1: works is that you are not getting a view of
Speaker 1: what life would actually be like. You are not getting
Speaker 1: a view of what you're fighting for. That there's a
Speaker 1: whole lot of like these vague concepts that they tell
Speaker 1: you that you're fighting for and then you're supposed to
Speaker 1: feel great about doing but none of those are real
Speaker 1: in practice, liberty or protecting the homeland, none of that
Speaker 1: is what you're doing. You're helping Northrop Grumman create a profit. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: there's uh and so at least, at the very least,
Speaker 1: someone who thinks that they have no other options, and
Speaker 1: in this country that might not be too far off. Right,
Speaker 1: we don't have a universal health care system. That was
Speaker 1: part of the reason why I joined the Marine Corps,
Speaker 1: that I knew I would get health care and I
Speaker 1: knew I would get money to go to college and
Speaker 1: not be in this loan debt that I was in.
Speaker 1: So I'm definitely not alone in that. And UM, if
Speaker 1: maybe we can even just provide a more holistic view
Speaker 1: of what decision that you're making, that would be considered
Speaker 1: a win to us. So that was my soapbox. One
Speaker 1: of the important things is trying to push back on
Speaker 1: the most nefarious things that we're seeing, right, whether that's
Speaker 1: games that are becoming way to train training simulator. UH.
Speaker 1: There's another campaign that Games for Peace worked on and
Speaker 1: Veterans for Peace worked on at the platform, Six Days
Speaker 1: with Care the Council on American and Islamic Relations UH
Speaker 1: pushing back on again called six Days in Flucia, which
Speaker 1: was delayed to quarter four two of this year. So
Speaker 1: we got it was pushed by a year, whether through
Speaker 1: our efforts or for whatever reason, but it was pushed
Speaker 1: by a year. UM. And this game is dubbed a
Speaker 1: murder simulator, UH, because it is. We look at other
Speaker 1: games like Escape from Tarkov as as teaching fundamental skills
Speaker 1: through tried and true teaching methodologies for military skills. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, we were talking about counter recruitment and truth
Speaker 1: and recruitment to give people an opportunity to make informed
Speaker 1: have an informed decision about their participation in the war machine.
Speaker 1: But also we're trying to push back directly on the
Speaker 1: war machine and and say hey, there's better uses of
Speaker 1: our money for for as as a government to take
Speaker 1: care of our people. There's a lot of fundamental things.
Speaker 1: There's the contributions to the climate crisis. Is the military's
Speaker 1: number one impact? Uh impact or of the on the
Speaker 1: climate war is never green You can't green wash the military. Um.
Speaker 1: The you know, we have just so much going on
Speaker 1: around own all the ways that people don't realize that
Speaker 1: militaries involved. We have the future of German warfare, kill,
Speaker 1: cloud technology, gaming technology, and the military and militarism is
Speaker 1: so tightly wound right now that just pushing back and
Speaker 1: trying to parse those two things apart is one of
Speaker 1: the things that is most effective for counter recruitment and
Speaker 1: also for mobilizing people to be like, hey, we actually
Speaker 1: deserve better, like get out of my gaming space and
Speaker 1: like get me some food, sovereignty, get me, get me, Like,
Speaker 1: let's let me be part of my community. Get out
Speaker 1: of the gaming space and stop using what is fun
Speaker 1: and has actual educational value mental health benefits, physical health benefits,
Speaker 1: communal impact, social impact like this, this gaming tool, this
Speaker 1: gaming technology we have can be used for so much good. Uh,
Speaker 1: but we need to disentangle the military's usage from it
Speaker 1: and and stop framing our our time, our time enjoy
Speaker 1: that we enjoy with our friends and family through the
Speaker 1: lines at the military forces to view with her. Because
Speaker 1: there are so many great games out there, like like
Speaker 1: we are in one of like right now, we have
Speaker 1: the most amount of games ever released, most amount of
Speaker 1: good games, like always being announced and released all the time.
Speaker 1: There's so many great stuff to play, and yeah, there's
Speaker 1: anything that can be done to push people away from
Speaker 1: stuff that kind of promotes this, you know, colonial imperial
Speaker 1: it's kind of mindset um is great, right, Like that's
Speaker 1: why I kind of appreciate the cartoony aspects of Fortnite,
Speaker 1: even though I hate playing Fortnite and we'll never really
Speaker 1: do so, I still appreciate it as opposed to like
Speaker 1: the heavily militaristic kind of aesthetics that other you know,
Speaker 1: similar Battle Royals show, um, because I mean because with
Speaker 1: with with as many games out there as there is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think any kind of attempts to push people away
Speaker 1: from the more problematic aspects of you know, specifically shooting
Speaker 1: games is great. Yeah, And just noting that when you're
Speaker 1: playing these games, especially if they are relatively close to reality, UM,
Speaker 1: understand the impact that you can have uh by pointing
Speaker 1: out simply that your friend doesn't respawn in real life, right.
Speaker 1: And also keep in mind if you are playing a
Speaker 1: game that that is close to a recent reality, that
Speaker 1: you could be playing through someone's actual trauma. So I'm
Speaker 1: not telling you not to play the games if they
Speaker 1: are We've gone over a couple like Squad uh and
Speaker 1: and others that are like very very realistic um in
Speaker 1: their application. Just keep in mind when you're playing it
Speaker 1: that maybe look at it through that lens, like would
Speaker 1: how would you feel if you were playing through a
Speaker 1: game but it was the exact moment of your trauma.
Speaker 1: And I'm not even saying from the military side, I
Speaker 1: mean from from the people who are being bombed side,
Speaker 1: you know, So just just want to have more people
Speaker 1: be more mindful with what they consume and how. And
Speaker 1: again I'm not telling you not to consume it, just
Speaker 1: telling you to think a little bit about it and
Speaker 1: what that type of media can do while having that
Speaker 1: baggage onto it. And there is a place for that's
Speaker 1: in the military experience in gaming. Right Like when I
Speaker 1: was in when I was deployed to Iraq, I took
Speaker 1: an Xbox Sege six year over there with me in
Speaker 1: an to bottom my sea bag and we had on
Speaker 1: Camp Filia, we had a local area network of Xboxes
Speaker 1: in all the cans. When we sat there and played
Speaker 1: Halo and and Gears of War and when that dropped
Speaker 1: walls there, right, Like, that's how we stay in touch
Speaker 1: with each other. It's how we process like auditory things
Speaker 1: and and and our combat experiences. Right, That's that's valid
Speaker 1: sublimation and processing of our traumatic experiences a thing, and
Speaker 1: games have that. And that's not a military exclusive thing
Speaker 1: or a veteran exclusive thing. That's for all communities. Um.
Speaker 1: But what we have to do is add context and
Speaker 1: nuance to when we're playing these games and go, oh, um,
Speaker 1: there's another side to this story. That's the local civilian
Speaker 1: that just had a bomb cave in ceiling. Right. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's there's these these instances where we've removed that because
Speaker 1: we're so focused on the competitive nature instead of the
Speaker 1: storytelling in the full scope of what that game is
Speaker 1: allowing us to process. Um. And that's why I don't like,
Speaker 1: I'm not blaming recruiters or blaming like coming up to
Speaker 1: people in the military and going, you know, you're horrible.
Speaker 1: It's not the right thing. Hey, I was there, right,
Speaker 1: I did six years in the Marine Corps and and um,
Speaker 1: you know, instead of going, hey, you're a horrible person
Speaker 1: or things like that, like, we're trying to offer them
Speaker 1: them the recruiters and other military members of the community
Speaker 1: that go, hey, you're allowed to speak out against the
Speaker 1: things that you know were bullshit while you're in there.
Speaker 1: Because I knew it was a bullshit while I was
Speaker 1: in there, and I couldn't speak out. I didn't know
Speaker 1: I had a community to speak out to or with.
Speaker 1: And we're trying to offer community to them. Um. And
Speaker 1: that's beyond beyond just video games, but that's drone operators
Speaker 1: and infantry guys and and people that are just fed
Speaker 1: up with what they see in a system that is
Speaker 1: supporting a crumbling infrastructure, right, Like, Um, you can only
Speaker 1: deploy so many times without developing either becoming completely dead
Speaker 1: on the inside or having developing some semblance of empathy
Speaker 1: that goes, Hey, deep down, I know something's wrong here,
Speaker 1: and I just don't know how to uh, Like, I
Speaker 1: don't know what that feeling is. Well, that feeling is
Speaker 1: is just empathy for the human condition and not wanting
Speaker 1: to see people traumatized through war. Right, Um, that that
Speaker 1: idea of us going into like even post nine eleven,
Speaker 1: like immediate post nine eleven events early on they had
Speaker 1: they went there with the right, right idea. I want
Speaker 1: to defend my community. I want to be do do
Speaker 1: service right, Like I don't have another option. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: an economic drafty, but all in all, I'm really here
Speaker 1: to help defend my people. Yeah, it was, it was.
Speaker 1: It was a genuine thought, Like, it was a genuine idea. Right, people,
Speaker 1: you could very much disagree with, like the intentionality the
Speaker 1: propaganda that like governments were doing to promote the war
Speaker 1: and the unjust reasons for that, but for the for
Speaker 1: the regular people, right, Yeah, it was, it was. It
Speaker 1: was genuine feelings that caused that to happen, and overlooking that,
Speaker 1: I think MSS what makes the recruitment to work. You know,
Speaker 1: if if you just look at all the people who
Speaker 1: join the military as being like, oh, they're just like
Speaker 1: bad people who want to kill you know, brown people.
Speaker 1: You're like, that's you can think that, but that doesn't
Speaker 1: actually do anything to understand how recruitment actually works. And
Speaker 1: then if you can't do that, then you don't know
Speaker 1: how to actually counter it. Right exactly, if you are
Speaker 1: a veteran and you feel like we do this whole
Speaker 1: thing was bullshit you, and that can be uh an
Speaker 1: incredibly alienating experience. I've been there, because it feels like
Speaker 1: with the amount of veterans we saw the January six events, um,
Speaker 1: all the veterans that you see that get through to
Speaker 1: the right wing side of the culture war, I just
Speaker 1: want to say that we see you. You're not alone,
Speaker 1: you are you are not crazy. I promise you. We
Speaker 1: we are trying to build a community of people like
Speaker 1: that who understand it and promote healing through that community,
Speaker 1: political education through that so that you can create resiliency
Speaker 1: within your community and as well as at least put
Speaker 1: a little bit of pressure on the military entertainment complex
Speaker 1: and the military recruiting apparatus. Yeah, fuck the military, Fuck
Speaker 1: war war. It's truth all right to you two of
Speaker 1: anything specifically you want to plug, Yes, join our discord. UH.
Speaker 1: You can find if you search the discord, you can
Speaker 1: look up Gamers for Peace and you will see us
Speaker 1: on Twitch. We are Veterans for Peace all one word,
Speaker 1: and we stream several times a week gaming content content
Speaker 1: about um, different alternatives to military service content, breaking down
Speaker 1: propaganda and recruiting efforts, as well as other political education things.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's just a random community game night as well. Um,
Speaker 1: actually no, that's not random. Those are on Thursdays. So there, Um, Chris,
Speaker 1: should I have did we add anything? I got something? Um? Uh?
Speaker 1: The if if one of the first things you can
Speaker 1: do besides going to discord and checking us out on Twitch. Uh.
Speaker 1: We actually have an online can digital direct action campaign
Speaker 1: going on UH that we're pushing to allow content creators
Speaker 1: on Twitch as a platform to be able to opt
Speaker 1: out of military ads UH on their channels. So that
Speaker 1: is our campaign that we currently have ongoing. There's a petition.
Speaker 1: It is uh bit dot lee slash Twitch. Military ad
Speaker 1: opt Out is the u R l they'll take you
Speaker 1: right to the Twitch petition that feedback through Twitch. Uh.
Speaker 1: We're looking to hit a thousand at least a sap
Speaker 1: on that petition, UH to get some get a response
Speaker 1: from Twitch, and then go from there, allowing content creators
Speaker 1: to take ownership of their of the the ads and
Speaker 1: stuff that are on their channels, at least when it
Speaker 1: comes to military recruitment. UH, and then going from there. UH.
Speaker 1: We also uh are doing actions and planning things constantly.
Speaker 1: So beyond lookout, joined the discord all that good stuff. Oh,
Speaker 1: if you need help navigating that, I'm a mod in
Speaker 1: the discord at plantipa she slash today and you'll find me.
Speaker 1: We'll try to put that link for the petition in
Speaker 1: the show notes so people can find out with a
Speaker 1: with a with with an easy click. Awesome. Perfect, All right, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you to you you for joining us. We are it
Speaker 1: could happen here at happened here pod in the places,
Speaker 1: in the places, the places you know, all the places
Speaker 1: they're all there. H Well, thank you everyone for listening,
Speaker 1: and yeah, go play I don't know Mario Kart eight
Speaker 1: or something, you know, something something fun, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed you enjoyed the Mario Kart games as a
Speaker 1: as as someone of my age, very very very integral
Speaker 1: to my driving education. So yeah, go play Mario Kart
Speaker 1: date buck War War not another generation. It could happen
Speaker 1: here as a production of cool Zone Media or more
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Speaker 1: for listening.