It Could Happen Here - Keep the Army Out of Gaming

Episode Date: February 24, 2022

We talk to two members of Veterans for Peace about military recruitment through gaming, the army's move onto Twitch, and how we can stop them through counter-recruiting both offline and online. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It could happen here, coming

to you live from my room in Chicago. But, importantly, we're coming to you live and it could happen here central where the gamers have seized the pod it is me christopher and his garrison hello fellow gamer hello i'm in the gaming trenches with my razor headset on looking into my uh nvidia powered a viewfinder and i'm ready to continue on the fight. It's going to be great. We're talking about gaming, we're talking about the military, we're talking about why the two of them crossing is extremely bad.

And with us to talk about this are two people who are somewhat less clownish than we are. This is Katie and Chris from Gamers for Peace, which is an initiative of Veterans for Peace. Welcome to the show. Hello. Hey, thank you. I take offense at being called less clownish than you guys. I'm just trying to live up to your standard. I'll have you know, I am very, very clownish and clumsy

and all of those good things, And they trusted me with weapons. Oh, God. So, I guess starting out, I wanted to talk about, I guess, very generally, the history of counter recruitment. Because this is something that's been going on in the u.s military for i mean really is like from what i could tell like about as long as there's been you know recruitment for the military but i was wondering if we could start i don't know maybe maybe around sort of the vietnam era when you when there's you know very very serious and intense sort of left wing kind of recruitment. And then we can go from there.

Yeah. Yeah. So coming out of Vietnam, you have Vietnam Veterans Against the War forming. And there's a massive pushback on the draft. The anti-war movement is pretty much at its strongest. And Vietnam Veterans Against the War time becomes a veteran for peace. Veterans for Peace has a long legacy of sitting at the front of the anti-war movement, peace movement, participating in nuclear abolition work, counter-recruitment work, de-escalation work out of Save Our VA, helping veterans get assistance with disability benefits and making sure that the traumas that veterans suffer and the communities impacted

by the military suffer are getting treatment for their care. Deported veterans, because Vietnam vets served and then got deported, and that continues to this day. So Veterans for Peace had a multi-pronged approach to the anti-war efforts in 2000s, around 2007-ish. Iraq-Afghanistan, Iraq Veterans Against the War, later known as Iraq Afghanistan Veterans Against the War, comes along. And that's a new generation of veterans carrying along, built on the legacy of Veterans for Peace and Vietnam Veterans Against the War. You know, there's a long history of coffee shops, GI resistance, outreach, doing work with veterans, trying conscientious objective, objective work, GI resistor work in, in there. And there's a, just a long legacy of just veterans sharing

their experiences and coming back and really wanting to make sure nobody else goes through that and making sure that they get the help they need and kind of slow that beat of the war drum that media seems to always be picking up. And that's where we came in. That's definitely a good way to put it. Now, especially born out of the pandemic, a lot of the recruiting had to move online. They didn't really have, if they wanted to keep recruiting, they had to go online. And that's where a majority of the new generation is. They are

watching Twitch. Twitch had a viewership, like pretty much competing with Netflix streaming as of this summer. And I'm sure that hasn't really changed much. I'm sure it is just as popular. And the audience for Twitch skews very young. So that's really what started to worry members of Veterans for Peace. Like, okay, we might need to ramp up truth and recruitment initiatives, which is what Gamers for Peace came out of. Because the thing is, if you're forming a parasocial relationship with these younger kids by streaming and forming those relationships, getting them on Discord and talking to them, you're getting a one-sided view of what military service is about and you are definitely not getting the uh imperialist informed viewpoint for sure um so veterans for peace kind of came out of that this like very insidious looking uh hidden and subtle way of of recruiting using the

video games that have already historically been used for recruiting purposes so it's like a double it's like a double whammy they got on us there. For those not inundated in the gamer warfare like we are, I think we should briefly describe what Twitch is, because I know a lot of people probably isn't actually aware of Twitch. Not as aware as we are down in these trenches, fighting off the cybernet stuff. Bad metaphor, sorry.

Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah, so I guess Twitch is like a livestream platform that is primarily used for livestreaming people playing video games. And people kind of develop their own brands and personalities and parasocial relationships with an audience via them playing these games and kind of adding their commentary. You know, a variety of games, you know, sometimes it's, like, mostly chatting with people, like, inside, like, a group chat while playing a game, or, you know, it's more focused on the game itself. It kind of varies, but yeah, it's arguably the biggest live streaming platform. I think it was bought by Amazon a few years ago. And yes, there is a US

there's a few US military channels on there that are actually relatively popular. I guess the other thing to kind of get into for some background is like you already kind of alluded to this but the history of the US military using video games for propaganda because they've been

they've been one of like the earliest funders of games for this reason i think getting into that history is like interesting um and something that some people are definitely aware of but a lot of times can get overlooked despite you of Duty being one of the biggest video game franchises in the world. Yeah, absolutely. The military's involvement in video game, video game design, using it as recruitment, using it primarily, initially at first,

it was thought of as a training tool, and they started looking at it for training. If you think back to like early 90s doom the original doom had a mod released uh called the marine mod it was a modification designed for the marine corps to use to train marines in as early as the early 90s when doom was at its height and then then that grows from there uh you have first to fight. What is it? A game called First to Fight features Marine Corps Marines in dress blues where you're tactically fighting a battle. And in which you never want to do, if you know anything about the Marine Corps blues, you do not want to be doing anything in those that isn't getting drunk. Exactly. Just drunk and dancing in this is all they're good for um yeah so

you have you have a first to fight and then it turns into call of duty uh america's army which uh thankfully just got pulled down all its platform from its platform that's a huge win uh but the army started design getting into the development of video games uh for training uh and then got into it for as recruiting and america's army is a perfect highlight of that where they just flat out had recruitment posters and training things uh in there with links to how to get to recruiters or get more information about joining the military joining the army um you have arma 2 uh you could you could argue and draw the line from uh military training simulators to pub g underground which is one of the most famous biggest uh battle royale games which is where you get fortnite uh out of so you can draw these lines

straight from the military's involvement in designing training and recruitment materials to what our kids are playing the most these days. And really one of the most kind of sick factors of this is how much games have been designed and pushed towards basically training people for – what, trying to think of the term, but, like, combat at a distance, in terms of, like, drone, like, drone combat, there's this, like, they started just using Xbox controllers for some, like, drone missions, like, like, it's, like, they're specifically looking at the pipeline of specifically young males who get into this type of gaming and trying everything they can to push them into a career where they just kill people in overseas countries using the same technology, using, you know, using video game controllers, using, like, you know, operating systems very similar to what were being used in video games.

And I mean, like, video games are a very effective propaganda tool if you're thinking, like, okay, I mean, I just enjoy playing war games. It's not, like, what's the big deal? Like, sure, like, I also enjoy playing war games sometimes. They can be fun. You know, I like those, like, tactics-based games. But these have been shown to be very effective at recruitment, to the point that video game footage and video games were, like, one of ISIS's favorite recruitment and propaganda tactics as well. Like, this's a it's a thing like it's not it's not just like oh it's fine like no these these things are actually kind of a problem yeah um they are very effective in that manner as a recruiting tool and there is a real synergy between

uh gaming developers and the dod because of how effective, you know, that recruiting can be or that recruiting tool can be similar to movies. You know, the military entertainment complex is a term thrown around a lot for good reason. You know, you have there is a black box of politics whenever you're watching a movie that pits some sort of power structure against whatever the villain is doing. There's always something there. And video games are not too different from that. You just have a little bit more say in where the story goes, but maybe not even.

It depends on the development. But there was an article in The Atlantic that was, it was actually like about a book from I think it's Dexter Thomas, Warplay. And it's all about uh video gaming and the the relationship with the military and they said the pentagon avoids pitiful expensive efforts to create their own training simulators and developers get fat government checks so they can help fund these uh new games new virtual reality things under the uh guise of it being a useful training tool for uh training in

like virtual virtual reality environments which scares me already um and then game developers are like great i can get a government grant so even if this flops i we still got the money out of it that's not an uncommon phenomenon yeah i mean in terms of like filmmaking yeah like there's been there's rules for like pent Pentagon contracts with film studios. They'll be like, if you want to use US military equipment or personnel, you need to follow these specific rules to portray the military in this light. Which often do get followed just because people want to use the cool equipment and stuff. I'm still angry that my beloved Transformers got cucked by the US military in all of their films. Got cucked. And as aS. military in all of their films. Got cucked.

And as a result, the films are pretty bad. Yeah. I'll have you know they are film art. No, I'm sorry. I can't even keep it straight. I hope. I hope. As someone with many, many Starscream action figures,

I dream of one day of having good Transformers movies. I mean, you have the 80s classic. You have the 80s classic. You've got the touch. And the Bumblebee film was okay. But it's even still, that one got cucked by the military pretty severely.

Yes. Welcome. I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures.

I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. It's funny that you mentioned ISIS using video gaming. There was just a recent report came out. It's linked to the UN. I believe it's linked to the UN Council on Counterterrorism or Office of Counterterrorism,

talking about violent extremism in gaming, the link between video games and violent extremism. And what's really interesting is it's not so much that the video games themselves are the issue, it's the gaming adjacent spaces, it's the parasocial relationship development, it's the meme, and it's what we've known in the gaming world for a while as associated with like the behaviors and culture around Gamergate and things like that, where we see this this toxic culture that is easy to cultivate inside these spaces and and be co-opted for more nefarious things. And that doesn't mean that the military isn't banking or utilizing those same principles to get its recruiting messages across. The military is another violent extreme position, right? Whether it's you're the violent arm of capitalism and the state or or violent like domestic terrorists or something like that, you're still opting into or your position is still getting mobilized towards potentially doing violence. And these gaming adjacent spaces are make it really easy for recruiters of all sorts to be in there and push people to more of that side of things. Yeah.

One of the things I remember when I was like a teenager on Twitch was like, so I watched just like a lot of Hearthstone streams, right? And this was like, these were, you know, like completely mainline Hearthstone streams. And there was,

there was this artist who everyone called kebab, the German. And yeah, so it turns out that kebab the german was a miss was like a a shortening like abbreviation of his actual name which was remove kebab and this guy's stuff was just being played on like every major like like twitch like all the major hardship which is playing remove kebab songs and it was like and this this was just like what like this is just what twitch was in like 2014 2015 and yeah like there there's so much like the the the extent to which just this sort of like i mean just overtly fascist like milieu would just seep into just like you know here's a bunch of people playing a card game

and like it wasn't and it wasn't even like like i mean some of these streamers were like really reactionary like i've seen like i've seen tft streamers who like will like watch videos of like cops doing rate like raids on people's houses on stream like you know so you have those people who are like really far but some of these people were just like i don't know they're just a lot of them are just regular people like a lot of them don't consider themselves extremists by any means yeah but it's just sort of culturally shock value yeah well even then like some of them just like i think with like with with with like with the germans like they just didn't know like they just they

just like didn't know what was going on and so they were just you know spreading all of this stuff and it was like it was horrifying yeah absolutely and actually i'm glad you mentioned that because about a year ago the the army esports channel got in trouble because one of the streamers didn't catch on uh to two there were two usernames that were explicitly white supremacists one of them was um six million was not enough yeah uh yeah yeah real real gross And I guess like just in the whole, uh, idea of multitasking between playing a game, trying to interact with chat and trying to make sure you're, you're on screen and all of those things, they didn't realize it,

or they willfully didn't realize it. I don't know which one, and I'm not going to make a judgment either way, but they did, they had to shut down that stream. And I don't think they streamed for a couple of weeks after that. They had to likeess some some things because they're like hey uh actively you know white supremacist people are on your stream you should probably you should probably do something about that yeah i feel like if you're the u.s military streaming on twitch that someone's job should just be to prevent that from happening like yeah but they have the resources yeah but it's like they kind of have this problem though because twitch has a there's a there's a huge just like like core like a large

enough base of twitch users are just like fascist or like hard right wingers that do things like like there's been a persistent problem on twitch for for years now of like these hate raids like people doing mass raids on like anyone who's not white and anyone who's like not a cis white dude and just like hate raiding their channels and like spamming the chat with like slurs and stuff like that and you know when when that's you know and that's to a large extent like yeah like those those are the people like you know that that's too large. Like, yeah, like those, those, those are the people like, you know, that, that,

that's a large enough part of Twitch that you like, even, even, even if you're like taking the most charitable thing, which is that the U S like the army is not overtly recruiting white supremacists, which like, okay. But like,

even, even if you give them the benefit of the doubt, right? Like that, that's a large enough part of just what Twitch is. Absolutely. They, they have an incentive to turn a blind eye.

And, and radicalization uh specifically right-wing and white nationalist radicalization in the military is well studied and well established as an existing phenomena i knew someone personally who uh got caught trying to smuggle weapons for a neo-nazi group and that's all i'll say on that oh boy yeah yeah no it is a thing and it hits really close it is definitely a phenomenon that happens in the military and um these paramilitary neo-nazi groups actively recruit from people coming out in the military because they have the trainings that they want and i mean i'm trying to figure out a way to tie this back to recruiting online but it's like with all of this in mind it is very insidious that the target is explicitly young kids and i'm not saying that just to be like oh you know because we've gotten a lot of

we've gotten pushback with saying well the military doesn't recruit kids they can only sign up when they're 17 no that is a kid that is complete bullshit yes legally a child that is a kid second of all it's like the thing is it's it's it's just like grooming children that's like that's what it is like it is it's the same process of grooming that's that's what's going on yeah one of one of my best friends growing up like because he was my best friend for like a decade like i met him in like first grade he was my friend for the entirety of school and then he got like because his parents sent him away to like one of those like like summer like like military school camps. And he was just never the same afterwards.

And he's like a fascist now. And yeah, it sucks. Yeah, it does. That does suck that there's not a better word for that. That that sucks. Because, yeah, they can't sign up until they're 17. But that's not the point isn't to convince 17-year-olds. Exactly.

The point's to ingrain this idea in them when they're, like, fucking 12 years old on the internet. And that is just what grooming is, right? Starting it when they're young, so when they're old enough, they will be able to sign up for the thing. Like, that's what the process is, and that's what, like, you know know military propaganda recruitment's been doing for a long time but specifically the way it's being done on the internet around gaming is extra insidious it was literally it is explicitly said by one of a recruiting

officer Dr. E. Casey Wardinsky and I apologize if I'm pronouncing that wrong but he literally said we have to confront this question of will we wait until they're 17 or will we start talking to them at age 12, 13, 14, 15 when they form the set of things they were thinking about doing with their life literally saying we want to groom children is like yeah so i think now would be the time to kind of get into the countering side of things is like yes this is this is a big problem as we've

laid out the past 20 minutes um what can we do about it yeah uh so what can we do about it there's um a good deal that we can do about it right um we we veterans for peace the truth and recruitment uh uh working group came up with an idea for uh the gamers for peace initiative concerned veterans and gamers and allies, because Veterans for Peace isn't just comprised of veterans themselves, it's also allies and accomplices, came together and started forming an online community of our own where we have kind of developed some four channels of change, this concept of four channels of change. One, do education, talking about sharing our experiences as veterans, talking about and unpacking recruitment tactics and techniques.

Start talking, being extremely vocal and raise awareness around the recruitment techniques that we've already been talking about, right? Second, we're doing some mentorship and leadership stuff, starting to develop programs in local communities that offer alternatives to the economic draft, right? Like just throwing it back to where we started talking about coming out of Vietnam, it was already said that Sergeant Hardtimes is the best recruiter, and it posts the draft. So when we went to an all-volunteer force you have to have a reason to join and there's a thing called the economic draft and it's

the impoverished conditions that many kids and people face that force them to go into the military right you don't have health care coming out of high school you're in an abusive home you're not talking to a guidance counselor no college is coming to you don't know how to pay for college you don't know where what you're going to do because you're 18 and on your own. And that's what we keep telling kids. So you have the economic draft, which encouraged gives an opportunity for recruiters to go, hey, this this program will solve everything. And what what people don't realize is what's being asked is, are you willing to kill for a Camaro? Are you willing to kill just to have a roof over your head? Are you willing to kill for Medicare? you willing to kill for a Camaro? Are you willing to kill just to have a roof over your head? Are you willing to kill for Medicare? Right. So we started to focus on developing mentorship and

leadership programs, include helping kids and young adults get into college or find mutual aid programs within their communities, start doing stuff locally because the problem is pervasive, right? Not everybody needs to escape abuse of home and is fine staying in their community, but doesn't know how to survive within the community because they don't have the resources there. And we also look at what's going on in the world today and recognize that things must be done at a local level. And youth can be part of leading that change, right? And addressing some of our world concerns. We ourselves do direct actions. we go to gaming conventions speak out try to actually do counter recruitment right where the recruiters are yeah we just it's really pervasive

if you if you if you go to any kind of con or any kind of any kind of like game fest or whatever um you know comic cons there will always be multiple military recruitment booths there. Always. Like Navy, Marines, Army, National Guard, like all of them. They will all be there. And it's not my favorite thing to see. No, it's frustrating. Board games aren't even safe, right?

The Army esports team has a 40k team. So if you play Warhammer 40k, they have a nationally or internationally ranked 40k team so if you play warhammer 40k they have a nationally or internationally ranked 40k team playing in the major circuits um you know what's most insulting about that sorry chris most insulting about that um and i know this because one of the streams that we do i hosted it's called ad slam because we started out as like roasting military recruitment ads but it kind of morphed into just like general veteran and military depictions and media. And one of them was on the, or at least reference the army e-sports

Warhammer 40 K team. And you know how people will like take their figurines really seriously. They paint them. They look really cool. The army like spray painted them gold and it's called it a day. And I'm like, really, you have all of these resources. You are using the recruiting budget, which is ridiculous and astronomical. And you spray painted them gold. Are you kidding me? Come on. And it's just insulting that it was so low effort,

but they still get the praise. A lot of people report like having positive viewpoints of the military after interacting with members of, you know, the esports team or the booth or whatever. So I'm genuinely annoyed that it's also low effort on that matter. And they're still getting a positive response. It bothers me. That's a perfect highlight because being there on like, I hate using military terms nowadays,

but being there boots on ground at these conventions, providing truth in recruitment, right? Talking about alternatives, really just being there in front of recruiters and talking to the people that they're targeting and family members, letting them know like, hey, we as veterans, right? Don't let this be what shapes your child's future or your future, right? There's other opportunities for you. And, you know, whether that's if you're into gaming, start designing games, right? Like there's so many opportunities within the gaming community that doesn't want to put you into the military pipeline also, right? So it's not the game's fault.

It's not like it's a tool that the state's using right now, right? And then we're trying to form our our own esports teams also right so we can compete directly against them uh kick their ass in some of the tournaments that they host um you know my my dream is to see some gamers for peace jerseys getting awarded like some trophy next to the army esports team and just dunking on them so across all the all the if we lose if we're up there we still get to dunk on them see we had so much more fun we don't have to go clean a barracks room after this like the ultimate goal being uh us being able to provide

tangible alternatives so uh a kid coming out of high school thinking like well i either go into a lot of debt to go to college or i join the military, if we can get not a hold of them, that seems predatory. But if we can talk to them or our organization can provide that alternative and say, oh, well, you don't really have to do that. We have a scholarship program that we can offer you or we can provide at the very least education about what they're really getting into so they can make a better informed decision. Because the main problem that I have with the way that recruiting works is that you are not getting a view of what life would actually be like.

You are not getting a view of what you are fighting for. There's a whole lot of like these vague concepts that they tell you that you're fighting for and that you're supposed to feel great about doing. But none of those are real in practice. Liberty or protecting the homeland. None of that is what you're doing. You're helping Northrop Grumman create a profit, right? And so at least, at the very least, someone who thinks that they have no other options. And in this country, that might not be too far off,

right? We don't have a universal healthcare system. That was part of the reason why I joined the Marine Corps is that I knew I would get healthcare and I knew I would get money to go to college and not be in the student loan debt that I was in. So I'm definitely not alone in that. And if maybe we can even just provide a more holistic view of what decision that you're making, that would be considered a win to us. So that was my soapbox. That was my soapbox. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill.

Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

One of the important things is trying to push back on the most nefarious things that we're seeing, right? Whether that's games that are becoming way too training simulator. games that are becoming way too training simulator. There's another campaign that Gamers for Peace worked on and Veterans for Peace worked on called the Platform Six Days with CARE, the Council on American and Islamic Relations, pushing back on a game called Six Days in Fallujah, which was delayed to quarter four of 2022 of this year. So it was pushed by a year, whether through our efforts or for whatever reason got it it was pushed by a year whether through our efforts

or for whatever reason but it was pushed by a year um and this game is dubbed uh arab murder simulator uh because it is it is uh we look at other games like escape from tarkov as as teaching fundamental skills uh through tried and true teaching methodologies for military skills. You know, we were talking about counter recruitment and truth in recruitment to give people an opportunity to make informed, have an informed decision about their participation in the war machine. But also we're trying to push back directly on the war machine and say, hey, there's better uses of our money for for as as a government to take care of our people there's a lot of fundamental things there's the contributions

to the climate crisis is uh the military is the number one impact uh impactor of the uh on the climate uh war is never green you can't greenwash the military. The you know, we have just so much going on around all the ways that people don't realize the military is involved. We have the future of drone warfare, kill cloud technology, gaming technology and the military and militarism is so tightly wound right now that just pushing back and trying to parse those two things apart is one of the things that is most effective for counter recruitment and also for mobilizing people to be like hey we actually deserve better like get out of my gaming space and like get me some food sovereignty get me get me like let let me be part of my community uh get out of the gaming space and stop using what is fun and has actual educational value mental health benefits physical health benefits communal impact social impact like this this gaming tool this gaming technology we have can be used for so much good uh but we need to disentangle the military's usage from it

and stop framing our time and joy that we enjoy with our friends and family through this lens that the military forces us to view it through. There are so many great games out there. We are in one of, like, right now

we have the most amount of games ever released. Most amount of good games, like, always being announced and released all the time. There's so many great stuff to play, and yeah, anything that can be done to push people away from stuff that kind of promotes this, you know, colonial imperialist kind of mindset is great, right? Like, that's why I kind of appreciate the cartoony aspects of Fortnite, even though I hate playing Fortnite and will never really do so, I still appreciate it, as opposed to, like, the heavily militaristic kind of aesthetics that other, you know, similar battle royales show.

Because with as many games out there as there is, yeah, I think any kind of attempts to push people away from the more problematic aspects of you know specifically shooting games uh is great yeah and just noting that when you're playing these games especially if they are relatively close to reality um understand the impact that you can have uh by pointing out simply that your friend doesn't respawn in real life right and also keep in mind if you are playing a game that is close to a recent reality that you could be playing through someone's actual trauma so i'm not telling you not to play the games if they are uh we've gone over a couple like squad uh and and others that are like, very realistic in their application,

just keep in mind when you're playing it that maybe look at it through that lens. How would you feel if you were playing through a game, but it was the exact moment of your trauma? And I'm not even saying from the military side. I mean from the people who are being bombed side. So I just want to have more people be more mindful with what they consume and how, and again, I'm not telling you not to consume it. Just telling you to think a little bit about it and what that type of media can do while having that baggage onto it.

There is a place for that's and the military experience in gaming, right? Like when I was in when I was deployed to Iraq, I took an Xbox 360 over there with me in the bottom of my sea bag. And we had on Camp Felicia, we had a local area network of Xboxes in all the camps. And we sat there and played Halo and Gears of War when that dropped while I was there. Right. Like it's how we stay in touch with each other. and when that dropped while I was there, right? Like, it's how we stay in touch with each other. It's how we process, like, auditory things and our combat experiences, right?

That's valid. Sublimation and processing of our traumatic experience is a thing. And games have that, and that's not a military-exclusive thing or a veteran-exclusive thing. That's for all communities. But what we have to do is add context and nuance

to when we're playing these games and go oh um there's another side to this story that's the local civilian that just had a bomb cave in their ceiling right uh there's there's these these instances where we've removed that because we're so focused on the competitive nature instead of the storytelling and the full scope of what that game is allowing us to process um and that's why i don't like i'm not blaming recruiters or blaming like coming up to uh people in the military and going you know you're horrible it's not the right thing hey i was there right i did six years in the marine corps and and um you know instead, Hey, you're a horrible person or things like that. Like we're trying to offer them, them, the recruiters and other military members community that go, Hey, you're allowed to speak out against the things that you

know are bullshit while you're in there. Because if I knew it was a bullshit while I was in there and I couldn't speak out, I didn't know I had a community to speak out to or with, and we're trying to offer community to them. Um, and that And that's beyond just video games, but that's drone operators and infantry guys and people that are just fed up with what they see in a system that is supporting a crumbling infrastructure, right? Like you can only deploy so many times without developing, either becoming completely dead on the inside or having developing some semblance of empathy that goes hey deep down i know something's wrong here and i just don't know how to uh like i don't know what that feeling is well that feeling is it's

just empathy for the human condition and not wanting to see people traumatized through war right um that that idea of us going into like even post 9-11 like immediate post 9-11 that's early on they went there with the right idea I want to defend my community I want to do service right like I don't have another option yeah I'm an economic

draftee but all in all I'm really here to help defend my people yeah it was a genuine thought like it was a genuine idea. You can very much disagree with the intentionality and the propaganda that governments were doing to promote the war and the unjust reasons

for that. But for the regular people, it was genuine feelings that caused that to happen. And overlooking that, I think, misses what makes the recruitment work. If you just look at all the people who

join the military as being like, oh, they're just bad people who want to kill brown people, you're like, you can think that, but that doesn't actually do anything to understand how recruitment actually works. And then if you can't do that, then you don't know how to actually counter it. Right, exactly. If you are a veteran and you feel like we do, this whole thing

was bullshit. And that can be an incredibly alienating experience. I've been there because it feels like with the amount of veterans we saw at the January 6th events, all the veterans that you see that get through to the right wing side of the culture of war. Just want to say that we see you. You're not alone. You are not crazy. I promise. We are trying to build a community of people like that who understand it and promote healing through that community, political education through that so that you can create resiliency within your community and as well as at least put a little bit of pressure on the military entertainment

complex and the military recruiting apparatus. Yeah. Fuck the military. Fuck war. It's truth. Do you two have anything specific that you want to plug? Yes. Join our Discord.

If you search the Discord, you can look up gamers for peace and you will see us on twitch we are veterans for peace all one word and we stream several times a week uh gaming content content about um different alternatives to military service content breaking down propaganda and recruiting efforts as well as other political education things uh sometimes it's just a random community game night as well um actually no that's not random those are on thursdays so go ahead watch us there um chris should i should we add anything i got something um uh the if if one of the first things you can do besides going to Discord and checking us out on Twitch, we actually have an online digital direct action campaign going on that we're pushing to allow content creators on Twitch as a platform to be able to opt out of military ads on their channels. So that is our campaign that we currently have ongoing.

There's a petition. So that is our campaign that we currently have ongoing. There's a petition. It is bit.ly slash Twitch military ad opt out is the URL. That'll take you right to the Twitch petition that feedback through Twitch. We're looking to hit a thousand at least ASAP on that petition to get some get a response from Twitch and then go from there, allowing content creators to take ownership of the ads and stuff that are on their channels

at least when it comes to military recruitment, and then going from there. We also are doing actions and planning things constantly, so be on the lookout. Join the Discord, all that good stuff.

Oh, if you need help navigating that, I'm Ahmad in the Discord at plantipashy.com and you'll find me. We'll try to put that link for the petition in the show notes so people can find that with an easy click. Awesome. Perfect. All right. Well, thank you two for joining us. We are It Could Happen Here. with an easy click. Awesome. Perfect.

All right. Well, thank you two for joining us. We are It Could Happen Here at Happen Here Pod in the places. In the places. The places, you know? All the places. They're all there.

Well, thank you everyone for listening. And yeah, go play, I don't know, Mario Kart 8 or something. Something fun. I don't know. I enjoy the Mario Kart games as someone of my age. Very, very, very integral to my driving education.

So yeah, go play Mario Kart 8. Fuck war. Fuck war. Fuck war. Not another generation. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media.

For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trails, and step into the flames of fright.

An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturno on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.