[Politics] Obama loses brownie points tonight
Mar 4, 2008 Author: aktrez | Filed under: News
In tonights speech Obama says:
“Americans know that we need to put a book in our childrens hand instead of a video game every once in a while!”
While we all know that education is very very important…. there is no denying that he makes this statement in hopes of striking a nerve in the core of those more conservative voters who will see this and say “Oh, good, he’s against those hate monger video gamers!” No one focuses on educational video games. No one ever focuses on how gaming HELPS our society and gets some kids to make new friends and gets them into careers they may have NEVER thought possible.
What are your thoughts on this comment?
UPDATE: An interesting link to read
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29 Responses for "[Politics] Obama loses brownie points tonight"
Sadly, I think any candidate at this point in any election will say anything to get as many votes as possible.
It’s also a sad fact that most, if not all the politicians and/or activists saying things of this sort. Have barely(if at all) laid hands on a controller.
Mixed. I can see why he said it since video games are always getting a bad rap. I can’t hold it against him; as others said he’s trying to aim for a group of voters.
I kind of also see it as “old person talk”, lol. Adults just don’t understand sometimes!
Well.. this statement could be taken good and taken bad… Videos can be used for education and make it fun also.. and it also keeps kids out of trouble and in school. Ik alot of video gamers that Fail school cause they are 2 worried about playing games and not doing there HW or study.. but Obama is right.. it is a True Fact that Video games are making people lazier in america. and jobs are all time low. meaning Factory work stuff that is acctually work. not sitting @ a desk.. computer jobs are all time high. we have more Game designers than ever. i remember when a game designers where needed cryied appon paying well.. now this demand is so low that some arnt paying as high as the old days.. so kids reading books might acctually want to get in other careers that do more than just sitting @ a desk. i think this statement is very Wise. and well Said.. People are Looking @ the surface. and not what is ment by this statement. Obama is someone we need in office not hillary.. Hillary is someone that would acctually try to ban some of the games we play today. obama wants kids to get better diverse in the education. open doors to bright futures in america.. and bring jobs back into the US. Like they need to be.. i want to see a Computer company where all the parts are made in America.. so read a book. then play games. and bring profit back to America so we can use that $$$ for the education for our kids.. i want to see a game console that is made in the US…So yes read a book while ur playing video games. its that simple
jinxie: Obama is in his mid-40’s. That’s a bit old for your average gamer, but not a lot older. He was a teenager when the Apple came out. He doesn’t get that “old person talk” free pass. Shame on Obama for pandering, which is EXACTLY what it is.
“I would call upon the video game industry to give parents better information about programs and video games by improving the voluntary rating system we currently have. Broadcasters and video game producers should take it upon themselves to improve this system to include easier to find and easier to understand descriptions of exactly what kind of content is included.” - Obama
I’d love to see someone ask them “What do you think of legislators wasting tax payers money on bills that everyone knows (just look at their history) are going to be found unconstitutional? And would you mind giving us an industry that does a better job than gaming at explaining to parents exactly what they’re getting?”
And, by the way, you’re not allowed to use GTA:SA in your answer, since they deliberately lied. Raising Cain about GTA:SA while saying not a word about all those “Unrated version” of pretty much every movie out there is BS pandering at best.
That being said… I think it’s very bad to let little kids play games like GTA, Mass Effect, and Doom 3. Obviously.
My original statement from Myspace (fixed):
Not good… I’m not diggin’ that vibe at all. I’m all about a good book…… but gaming can be a positive thing… there are puzzle games.. hand eye coordination also gets exercised… brain stimulation… doctors use it now… games in schools help educate young minds… MMOs connect people around the world… it also exercises the imagination.
Perhaps it would be better if he said we should read more vs. watching Tila Tequila, Rock of Love, or Flavor of Love (ie, bad reality t.v.)…. although I must admit… I’m totally guilty for watching those shows (teehee)!
He’s been saying that for a while now in his speeches. I know what he meant… I forgive him. If he blamed video games on societal problems… then I would not!
Video games were a part of my education. It’s what got me interested in computing… and is one of the most significant influences on why I choose my degree and career field… allowing me to buy a lot more video games.
This is due mostly to the incredible ignorance that the older generation has towards video games, Aktrez. They will never get passed gaming as being anything else but a childrens activity. That’s bad for them. Sadly and I hate to say this, the older generation has to die off and our generation, who grew up on gaming and see them as common as books, will take over this world and understand all the benefits that can be had from Video Games, but by then they’ll probably be something new the future generation is into. That will be ignorant towards hehe, like holographic gaming or something we haven’t even thought of yet.
That’s just the way it is, so really, Obama is just playing up to the Right like you said Aktrez. Bringing up Video Games as something positive at any point in this election. Will be frowned upon in the mainstream media. I can see Fox news now. *Video Games helping children? What is he talking about?, with all the violent video games out there. What with the pacmans and donkey kongs and children not doing there homework. Video games are just a distraction! That’s not the message we wanna send to the youth!*
“every once in a while” softens it for me. This guy ain’t so bad. So far he has been no where near the anti gaming bandwaggoner Hillary is.
Video games stances aside for a moment, looking at the alternatives out there i’d be willing to give this dude alot of leeway in what he says. Americans can’t do much worse.
He’s been including that line in his speeches for a while now. I know what he meant… I forgive him. If he blamed societal problems on video games, then I would not have!
Video games were a part of my education. They influenced my decision to get into computing, pursue an engineering degree, and get into the technology career field - which let’s me afford a lot more video games.
Well stated Miscue. We live in different times. We grew up with electronics. We’re the digital age. Students barely even use a pencils and paper anymore. It’s all done on the computer. That’s where we’re headed. If school used computers in my gen. I would have been excited to go to school everyday. I was born too late, hehe.
I mean too early hehe
Mike Huckabee dropped out of the Republican race.
His statement is no different from the Saturn car commercial that flashes a picture of two little boys playing video games while the announcer says “Rethink what it means to really interact.” and in the next second flashes to a picture of boys playing basketball outside.
The social mentality that playing video games together doesn’t bring people closer is not going away anytime soon. Though my personal experience begs to differ.
Without growing up with video games I would have never:
1. Gotten into anime after playing Final Fantasy for the first time.
2. Gone to an anime convention and experience cosplay for the first time.
3. Met my boyfriend who was intrigued by my passion for anime, video games, cosplay, etc.
4. Met Aktrez and begin this incredibly crazy journey called G.E.N.
5. Met nearly ALL of my friends.
6. Gone to my first Video Games Live concert.
The list goes on and on, but you get my point. I take video games in healthy non-sun deprived doses and it has done me nothing but a world of good.
A lot of people are now questioning my like/dislike for Obama as a person. I don’t dislike Obama at all. This isn’t the first thing he’s said that I disagree with but I am extremely fair and I do look at more than just this statement. My problem is that he made the statement at all. It could have been worded in MANY different ways aside from bringing video games into it. “We should spend more time with our children”. “We should focus on our childrens education”… etc. No reason to bring in video games to the equation at all. it simply made VG look like the bad where education is the good. That’s what bothers me. He’s also made other comments about legislating our entertainment which bothers me a great deal. Entertainment should not be legislated by the government. It should be legislated by the industry (ESRB ftw) and should be controlled at home by the parents. Government should have no say in it.
I understand you better now Aktrez. I agree.
Video games are too easy a target
I am not happy with him for saying this
He should have stayed more positive
Video games can be treated like a reward just as any other social activity
If a student is doing well in school, getting good grades, doing their assignments then they have the right to their social time.
That can be dating, watching TV, or playing video games
Aktrez, you’d make a pretty hot running mate. Maybe you can straighten him out.
He certainly could have worded it differently, and I wish he had. ‘Every once in a while’ softens the blow, but the English language is filled with slippery words and phrases like that, designed to allow a person to back out of a comment previously made if it displeases someone. And politics? Well, that’s a pretty slippery field.
Personally, I’d like to hear much more on this subject from him than just this one line quote. I refuse to base my opinion on someone through just a single spoken sentence - which I’m not implying you do, Aktrez, by any means. I’d like to know the real meat and potatoes with what encouraged him to say this, if it really is to appease the masses (as other people commented on before me) or if it’s his personal beliefs. Maybe he’s simply uneducated himself? Forgive my cynicism, but I don’t know if the public will ever know the honest truth about any candidate.
In conclusion: Someone needs to put a controller in this man’s hands.
I wish I could say that this would stop my from voting Obama, but I was never gonna vote Obama in the first place, so I can’t.
While it’s true that it’s a softened blow against video games, it’s a blow he didn’t need to make. He could have simply said “Americans know that to succeed in this world we need to keep our children hungry for learning” or something that simply focused on the learning part without even mentioning video games. (as Aktrez definitely mentions above)
Make no mistake: Obama is a seasoned politician, though relatively new to the national scene. Politicians know the implications with the statements they make. This was no flippant “take the controller out of their hands and give them a book!” remark, he was intentionally targeting older audiences with that remark. Which is funny because I always figured Obama was riding the wave of the young generation that was going to come out and put him over the top.
It’s a calculated risk he’s taking that a comment like that will help him win over the trust of older people that he has their children in his thoughts while not turning people off enough to not vote for him. My guess? This comment isn’t going to stop someone from voting for him, so it’s a politically wise move.
Now, I think a good interview question would ask Barack if he believes that gamers are less educated than those who do not play video games. Because that seems to be the implication made, that gaming detracts from education.
From yonder:
“I would call upon the video game industry to give parents better information about programs and video games by improving the voluntary rating system we currently have. Broadcasters and video game producers should take it upon themselves to improve this system to include easier to find and easier to understand descriptions of exactly what kind of content is included.” - Obama
Honestly, if I hear one more goddamn politician crying about the ratings system on video games, I am going to snap. Has anyone really looked at a DVD box? I mean, really looked at it? Where is the MPAA rating? It’s on the back, down in the 5 point font credits, and in the tiniest text, you can see why it got the R/PG-13/PG rating. Now look at a video game box. Where is the rating? On the front, in big, BOLD F***ING LETTERS. And on the back? Still big, and describes why it got the rating in BIG letters as well. The video game industry has the best ratings system in media.
I’m really not one to rant against “society” in general, but we really need to start getting away from investigating every tragedy that happens, because it never ends up being reasoned with difficult problems, like “Jimmy felt bullied and while his parents were rightfully working two jobs to pay for his future college education, Jimmy felt like he had no one to talk to, so he lashed out by taking an illegally bought gun and shooting his classmates.” It always ends up “Jimmy played Halo and his parents never knew that it was such a violent game when they bought it for him and that game drove him to kill. If only they had known!”
It’s garbage and I’m sick of it. The only comfort I get is in the fact that, over time, those politicians and people in power will die. People who have grown up with games their whole life will get those positions of power and know better, and look to root causes as opposed to extraneous, non-important “factors” into why people sometimes go off the deep end and do horrible things.
Maybe that’s another problem with our society. We think we can control everything to the point that nothing is outside of our control. If someone does something wrong, there must have been factors that we as a society can correct so that it will never happen again. We never believe that sometimes, a perfect storm of bad things happening in one day can just push someone to do something they never thought possible and never wanted to do. We are not robots or machines. We are emotional creatures that are unpredictable and fragile. Sometimes, we break, and there isn’t a good explanation for why. When we grasp that concept, maybe we can start weeding out what is important and correctable with what is out of our grasp.
(Wow, what a rant. Tangents galore!)
There’s only one issue at the root of everything here:
Republicans blame games or other entertainment media for everything, and if they had their way we’d be stacking up the books, games and magazines once again for burning in Nazi-esque piles.
Democrats blame poor parenting and seek to find ways to address the true cause of any “problems” that arise.
I’m on the sidelines now (other than vocally), but if ANY politician passes legislation that in any way impacts my freedom of gaming choices, I will be gathering up support for lawsuits to obtain the same limits on gardening, biking, hiking, customizing cars, going for walks, playing basketball in your driveway or any other hobbies other people have- since any of those hobbies are equally as likely to cause societal violence as gaming is.
If we’re going to be ridiculous in this society and ignore the facts, we need to be equally ridiculous as our “Empire” we’ve turned into continues to fall.
I agree w/ candidate Obama, although I’d recommend a g– d– grammar book instead of just “any ole’ book”.
[face_dancing]
What’s wrong with getting your kids to read every once in a while? I know so many people even at my age who still don’t know the difference between “your” and “you’re”, “its” and “it’s”, and so forth.
I don’t agree that video games have anything to do with societal problems, but if more kids spent time reading and not as much playing, I think that would make for a good mix.
That being said, I spent my youth doing basically only those two things - reading and gaming. I barely knew what outside looked like
But at least I know how to spell today.
Meh, I will just say, never liked him.
Even as a gamer, I don’t see anything Obama’s statement. Putting childhood education and literacy ahead of entertainment, which is the ONLY thing the quote covers, is not a conservative viewpoint. It’s not a liberal view. It’s hardly even a political viewpoint. It’s a staple of good parenting.
I don’t see the point of automatically going into fanboy mode and bringing up extra tibits about video game violence, video game ratings, how movie studios are dodging the rating system. The only Obama was trying to say with that sentense is that parents know to put education first and fun second. Period. End of story. Move along folks. Nothing to see here.
As for the educational video games, as much as I acknowledge them, they can’t be considered a substitute for an educational book. Nothing can. Not even an audiobook or and e-book is considered proper substitute for a physical paper book.
Again, it’s not the validity of the statement that churned my stomach it’s the fact that it was even made. There could have been SO many other ways to get in there that education is important. Having to even make a statement about video games just makes me feel like he’s “jumping on that bandwagon” so to speak.
Upon doing further research on his views of this, I found that he is for legislation in the gaming industry (hence the link I posted above) Which is why I made the point that I felt he was sort of doing that to appeal to the more conservatives.
Don’t get me wrong, if I were a parent I would be cracking the whip and gaming would be a privalege not a right. That being said, our polititians should not be bringing their own parenting beliefs into their election speeches… IMO.
I didn’t notice the link to Common Sense Meadia. I seen it before. It’s more like NONsense.
They claim to be non-biased but they have a deal or partnership whatever they wanna call it with AOL.
The claim to want “sanity, not censorship” but want “regulation” and but in on other peoples rating system.
Their rating system is broken. The use green for “safe”, yellow for “might not be safe”, and red for not “safe at all”. These guys gave an NC-17 movie a fricken yellow! - http://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/Lust-Caution.html
I give this site no reagards at all.
royallance: I’d disagree with your assessment that “nothing can be considered a proper substitute for a physical book.”
When I was at the tail end of my (public) elementary school experience, my parents bought a GeoSafari for the family and I loved playing that game. The interactive experience of finding X country and making sure I identified it correctly (this is gonna sound cheesy) made the learning experience fun, or at least more entertaining and exciting than looking at an atlas and straight memorizing.
When I got into middle school (6th, 7th and 8th grade), I used that geography knowledge to get second place in the school geography bee when I was in sixth grade and first place when I was in eighth grade. (If I only knew what anamorphic meant in sixth grade, I might have won then…)
Seriously, if the geography game in Bully was available to children, I think it could only help open a different learning path to all students. Or even the English game, where you take six letters and try to combine them to make as many words as possible (classic word game). These types of games may seem trite, but they open your mind to different means of learning that I feel are just as viable and effective as “read book, memorize, read book, memorize”.
I passed my Jr. year of high school because of Animaniacs. Not even kidding. History, I loved, but I was just SOOOO bored with reading about it. I could NOT get myself to learn the damn capitals for the life of me.
Then, I came across the Animaniacs soundtrack and they had a song about the 50 states and their capitals. Our test that semester was about 40% of our grade in that class. It was the only class I was struggling in at the time (due to the book reading that was just NOT happening for me)
I memorized the song and passed the test with flying colors.
Thank you Wacko, Yacko and Dot!
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