a moment to talk about video games...

i hate (a word i do not use often) the games call of duty and modern warfare.

i realized i hated them long before i ever knew why. i knew that there were some games that had violence that didn't bother me at all. it's not great, but it didn't seem as bad as those two.

folks, i've put my feelings (who are often much ahead of my mind) to words.

this year i decided that i was okay saying out loud that i'm a pacifist. it sums up what i believe about peace and violence. i have spent a lot of time developing my thoughts on pacifism since i said it outloud. when applying it to these video game thoughts and trying to figure out what it is about these games that makes me so angry (not a feeling i experience often), i discovered that the common denominator in the violence of those two video games that the others did not have is the recreation of real wars. i realized that what bothers me the most, right down to my core, is the idea that an entire (and extremely profitable) market can be created around the recreation of the horrible deaths of real people as a GAME. as entertainment.

think about it. war is something that haunts some veterans for life - veterans who are currently alive, that many of us know personally. war is something that caused adult men to run away from home to avoid. war is something that tears families apart. war is something that right now is penetrating the innocence of youth around the world and is forcing them to bend to it's will, while sacrificing their lives for no purpose but to hate and to harm. and we are okay making it a game.

is my logic that some fictional violence is more okay sound? probably not. i don't love it, but it just doesn't get me as profoundly furious as the idea of remaking the war experience for people to use as their (insert reason people play those games here).

sorry. just had to get that off my chest.