A warm-up event took place this past Saturday at the Sacramento Public Library in advance of a Call of Duty: Black Ops tournament scheduled for mid-December. The event, which drew controversy when it was originally announced, went off with a hitch—approximately 20 people protested the event outside of the library.
Protestors included members of the local chapter of Veterans for Peace, reports the Sacramento Bee. The picketers held signs with slogans like “War is not a game,” and handed out fliers that stated, “End War games at the Public Library.”
John Reiger, chapter president of the local Veterans for Peace outpost, said, “They're trying to bring young people into the library, and that's a valid goal. But to use violent video games to draw the young people is just wrong.”
Also at issue, at least for Reiger, is the fact that the library leverages war games, like Black Ops, but doesn’t offer games depicting “civilian violence” like the Grand Theft Auto series.
The library had a little fun with the controversy by placing commonly banned books, such as Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man," "Harry Potter" and the Bible, along the entrance to the game room.
Comments
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
One time I went to the library and we got a free drawing lesson. Should I protest that our library isn't an art school?
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
I'm sending this story to my local library. I have a friend there who will get a kick out of the invisible man and harry potter in the game room...
Treasure bin: Cult Hits, chea pass gaming options, and rants about gaming in general
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
I have no problems with the idea of Libraries holding game tournaments to draw kids in. It's also true that Black Ops is not the goriest game they could have picked.
However, I have to question who OK'd this event. I really don't associate libraries with M-rated game tournaments. I would have voted against it, personally, even if it IS a popular game. But hey, I hope they got a good turnout.
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
I'm more shocked that I live in Suckramento and never even knew of the CoD event.
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
The Bible I knew about, Harry Potter I knew about. Why's "The Invisible Man" a banned book?
I'm Charlie Owens, good night, and good luck.
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
I'm just curious how many young people (or people in general) that the event actually drew. Was it a success? Did more people attend the event than protested it?
- When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
Don't these "veterans" remember what they fought for? If they fought at all? Me and my brothers in arms fought and many died to defend the Constitution, and now these old bastards are attacking it.
Semper Fi! Always Faithful means ALWAYS Faithful!
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
Sadly, vetrans organizations have often been anti-freedom. They often become platforms for 'we fought for this nation, so do what WE say!' even when it involves taking rights away. In the end, they are little more then social clubs that get used as pawns in political champagns.
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
Can we have the old plain text editor as a choice... I liked it alot more....
Anyway ah yes the banning of thought and the burning of books.... they go hand in hand.
I have a dream, break the chains of copy right oppression! http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/cigital-disobedience/
Copyright infringement is nothing more than civil disobedience to a bad set of laws. Let's renegotiate them.
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http://zippydsm.deviantart.com/
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
See the link below the comment box that says "Switch to plain text editor"? There you go.
Andrew Eisen
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
Which takes you to a HTML/CODE riddled text system that sometimes eats posts.
I have a dream, break the chains of copy right oppression! http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/cigital-disobedience/
Copyright infringement is nothing more than civil disobedience to a bad set of laws. Let's renegotiate them.
---
http://zippydsm.deviantart.com/
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
Which takes you to a plain text editor.
Andrew Eisen
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
I really like how some libraries are trying to be relevant to draw in folks. I don't like nutjobs who to try to keep libraries from being relevant - then those same nutjobs complain about how libraries are closing. As an adult, I haven't been to a library in ages though but if my local library starts doing stuff like this, I might be tempted to stop in.
(Thank you GP for bringing back the old comment editor.)
- Left4Dead
Why are zombies always eating brains? I want to see zombies that eat toes for a living. Undead-related pun intended.
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
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Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
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Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
Yep. Nothing is saved from religious censorship, not even the Bible. It goes violates the church of Atheism.
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
Heh. Actually, the biggest censor of the Bible is warring sects of christianity. There have been countless attempts (and successes) to stamp out 'heretical' versions of the bible over the years.
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
Manuscripts of the Bible that are thousands of years old exist (Dead Sea Scrolls being one example), and they're nearly identical to the modern versions. Out of 60-70 books that make up the Bible (i.e. Genesis, Psalms, the gospels, Revelations, etc), only around a dozen are disputed and ommitted from some versions. Most of that come from Protestant vs Catholic. The rest are in every version.
Even if one found a "bare-bones" version, chances are a Christian would acknowledge the books in it, even if they thought some were missing. It's as easy as Google to find the any of the books if you really need them and can't find 'em in print. What divisions between Christians disagree on is how much, if any, of the Bible is true, or the accuracy of translations and interpretations. Not which books belong or don't.
The translation thing is nothing unusual, though. Business, movies, anime, whatever... someone always thinks they have a better translation.
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
True, it is only a few books at a time that are heritical, but that is all it takes. Even the dead sea scrolls are an example of a version that was stamped out, and there were quite a few others at the time.
Many of the heretical books kept popping up even after the council of nicaea since it took many hundreds of years to fully standardize the roman catholic church.. and they had to contend with the OTHER 4 churches which both the roman catholic and protestant traditions tend to forget about.. and that is not even counting the etheopean branch.
The bibles was never as standardized as the modern narrative claims, and there is a pretty bloody history of churches trying to make sure that thier books were the ones to win.
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
"End war games but keep the war books and movies? "
Just what I was thinking. The problem is the one gamers face every day: games are just not regarded as a legitimate art form. War is not a game, true, but war games are games and have been for a thousand years or more. If protestors want to protest war games, they should start with chess, and they should broaden their protests to involve other media that portrays war - TV, film, books etc.
The fact is, games are teaching tools. They are the BEST teaching tools we've found. If we can't learn about war effectively, how can we ever hope to learn how to prevent it or why it should be prevented?
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors
Well, yeah. Those are educational.
---Fangamer
Fangamer
Re: Black Ops Library Event Draws Protestors