February 20, 2008 -
Unlike rival Hillary Clinton, Democratic presidential frontrunner Barack Obama does not have a significant track record with regard to video game content issues.His speeches, however, often contain a reference to parents making their children "put away the video games." For Obama, video games seem to serve as a sort of metaphor for underachievement.
The Illinois senator repeated the theme last night in a victory speech following his big win over Clinton in the Wisconsin primary. As reported by the Washington Post, which carried a transcript and video of the speech, Obama said:
I know how hard it will be to alleviate poverty that has built up over centuries, how hard it will be to fix schools, because changing our schools will require not just money, but a change in attitudes.
We're going to have to parent better, and turn off the television set, and put the video games away, and instill a sense of excellence in our children, and that's going to take some time.
A day earlier, speaking to a college crowd in Youngstown, Ohio, Obama made similar remarks. The Youngstown Vindicator reports:
[Obama called for] investments in early childhood education to close the achievement gap, but with an added emphasis on poetry, music and art, not just academics. Obama admonished parents to do their part by turning off the television, putting away the video games, and instilling in their children a desire to get a good education.
Nor is this a new theme for Obama. GamePolitics reported on similar comments as far back as April, 2006.
Comments
I don't see any problem with that. He certainly didn't say anything about banning games.
Obama hasn't called for laws to be enacted, so he's not really nanny-stating anyone, unlike Hillary.
And frankly, he's reminding parents that they have a job to do, not telling them how to do it. There's a world of diffrence there, and it needs to be said.
Besides, if people take obama's words to heart, and start getting involved with what their children are doing, guess what? a nanny state becomes unpopular and obsolete!
Obama doesn't WANT to make video games a government issue, he's calling on parents to do their job, rather than the government to do it for them.
Maybe you should think a little, instead of knee-jerk reacting to anything bad that comes your way, y'know like jack thompson does.
A little fun every once and a while is ok.
Oh, sure, we may not get drafted into a war, but how many soldiers have to lose their jobs again?
Are you aware that Obama has said, repeatedly, that he wants to severely cut NASA's funds?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18384932
Look up what the space program's done for you if you think it doesn't matter. :3
(insulation, ultrasound, fire alarms, enriched baby food)
I was saying this to illustrate the community's willingness to cut Obama some slack even though his position as given on common sense media is very similar to that of Clinton and Romney both of whom were lambasted here.
Again I'm not saying that either Clinton or Romney were right, but Obama is no better
No. It's not. Clinton and Romney want to federally mandate what we can and can't have access to.
Obama is merely recommending that parents take responsibility for their kids.
If Obama had said: "We’re going to have to parent better, and turn off the tv, and put the candy away..." would it suddenly be "Obama Campaign Theme: Candy as Metaphor for Fat People"?
Obama has no qualms about stepping in: "But if the industry fails to act, then my administration would" He is cool with the idea, just like Romney and since Romney did not forward any legislation then the two are remarkably similar
"Hate to make it political….as both Clinton and Obama are better then anyone the Republicans have to offer.
Obama = Style
Clinton = Substance
McCain = Draft you young’ins to fight a 100 year war "
*ahem*...
/start rant
It's people like you who frustrate me to know end. You take in the tripe sound bites that your candidate spews forth and then regurtitate them without ever bothering to think for yourself and maybe look into what the true original statement was in its proper context. McCain in no way wants to fight a 100 year. WWII over ended 50 years ago. Do we still have troops in Germany? Yes. Do we still have troops in Japan? Yes. This is the context in which he referenced the US being in Iraq in 100 years. He said that along as the safety of US troops was assured and that they were no longer actively in combat with the Iraqis, that he could foresee the US having a military base in Iraq 100 years from now.
I bet you that few, if any, of the posters here have personally been affected by the horrors of war as much as Senator McCain has. I truly believe that he only keep the men and women of the US in harm's way as long as the situation dictated, and not one moment more. His firm stance on human rights and against torture should tell you that.
end rant/
@yowsers.... hopefully we can find the soldiers other jobs that aren't limited guarding the economic interests of large corporations in a foreign land, not to mention the whole being shot at and shooting at others thing.
Not so sure that a "it will be bad for the economy to stop the war" argument is all that relevant. I'm gonna say that for me personally death or disfigurement of both soldiers and civilians is a bit weightier than people not having jobs waging war.
Maybe he shoulda' just said, "Move our society away from drama-queens, so we can deal with REAL issues."
You and those people who are making the same comments disgust me. This website is called GAMEPOLITICS. What does that mean? It means that they will report on goddamn near anything pertaining to video games. One such thing is what a front-runner presidential candidate thinks about video games. Obama said that in order to "instill a sense of excellence in our children" we must must turn off the TV and put video games away. Fair enough. This implies that video games and television have a detrimental effect on the education. That argument can be made. Fair enough. Therefore, I have little qualm with GP about making this claim. His speech implies that, without video games, kids would do better in school so it's a very reasonable conclusion to make that Obama has used video games as a metaphor for underachievement, and possibly that he does not like them.
So, you call GP both unreasonable, illiterate, and untrustworthy because they drew a conclusion about something that Obama said. Not only that, you claim that they have a political agenda. Who the hell does GP support? I think something negative about EVERY major candidate has been said on this site. This is the first time I've seen such outrage from people here, consequently on the first time Obama has been cast in a negative light.
@TRT-X
"Obama is merely recommending that parents take responsibility for their kids."
Fair enough. But I don't want the office of the president wasted on friendly parental advice.
"He is not saying “video games are bad for our children”. He’s saying “bad parents are bad for our children”."
Yes. He. Is. I remember him specifically asking parents to "put video games away." Granted, he was talking primarily about parenting, but the parent's function is to turn of TVs and video games. It is reasonable (again) to conclude that he does not like video games and considers them detrimental toward the education system.
I'm not saying I'll vote for Barack Obama or not, but I am saying this won't sway my opinion for the negative at all.
It seems to me that gamers, because we've been picked-on so much recently, have developed a bit of a oversensitivity complex.
TV and Video Games are forms of entertainment and come at the cost of a real loss of time that could be spent achieving a better preparation and level of happiness in life.
He isn't saying don't watch TV or don't play games at all. He is also not specifically singling out video games as stuff that supposedly makes youth get violent and start gangs and rape children once they become priests ... you know all the things TV media dont talk about when they are talking about how video games make people violent and about the latest pet-clothing craze.
This is because he isn't on the bank-roll of a special interest group for movies/tv etc concerned by the ever growing popularity of the interactive-entertainment medium of video games at the cost of a diminishing popularity of movies/tv etc.
Some of you guys (not all) need to read the article again and realise he's not calling out to "ban the vidya". Honestly, it has come to a point where some of you start making knee jerk reactions over anything slightly negative, video game related.
That said, kids these days do spend way too much time indoors, but it's not just video gaming. The internet itself is a pretty serious culprit.
Now if you can be politically active and still play video games, I highly doubt he'll mind.
QFT
Western society in general is putting far to much pressure on young people to get lots of academic qualifications, unless they are talented in sports, music or other "high profile" career possibilities. I remember, while I was growing up in the UK, I was pretty much thrown aside by my school because they did not think I would achieve academic excellence and I was no good at sports. Jobs such as fishing, mining, farming, construction, low level labour and admin work, are all considered "entry level" or "failure" jobs.
Sadly, in recent years, I have found two troubling situations resulting from this. Firstly, farmers and other low end employeers who either cannot get people to work for them for a wage they can afford to pay are employees illegal immigrants who tend to work harder and often take alot more pride in their work. Secondly, a fair number of chain stores and other "entry level" positions are only available to young people, and a college education has become a standard.. if you do not have one, or you are older than about 20, it is next to impossible to get a basic job.
I mean, I'm all up for defending video games and all that, but, man
The people who get all up-in-arms whenever it's implied that time playing video games might not be the most productive thing someone can do...*sigh* What the hell, people.
"No braaaaaaaaains..."
QFGT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm not an Obama supporter in the slightest, but I think GamePolitics is blowing that statement out of proportion.
I agree with everything said in that Obama quote above. I think many American kids need more discipline in their lives and part of that is less TV watching and gaming. He didn't equate playing video games with failure. I think he's saying parents have to teach, encourage, and enforce discipline and balance in their habits and behavior. Don't let your kids do whatever they want because it's easy.
Put into the even wider context of his speech and what he could actually do wiht policy, he's mostly talking about getting our kids more inspired and more into creative subjects like art and music. These are noble endeavors often affected negatively by gov't policy. He has the right path in mind and come November I'm trusting him to walk it well.
I personally regret wasting a lot of my school life playing video games and wish I had gotten out more like I do now. I find it hard to play single player games alone, these days.
And again, he's telling parents to start parenting their kids and not ignore their children and let video games do the parenting. He's saying that it's time parents started watching their kids instead of blaming games.