Thursday, January 11, 2007

Campaign Financing, Vidoegame Violence, and WAR: The Hypocrisy that is Joe Lieberman

As Joe Lieberman is jumping all over the bush "MORE WAR DOCTRINE" of escalation in Iraq consider the hypocrisy of Joe Lieberman's positions concerning campaign funding, video games, violence, and war.

According to ConnecticutBlog and MLN, this is the kindof people that Lieberman takes his campaign money from.
An analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group, found that the Connecticut Democrat, who won re-election last month as an independent, received about $73,000 from a variety of industry sources over the past two years.

Among the donors were Linda McMahon, chief executive officer of Stamford-based WWE Entertainment. McMahon said in an e-mail that she gave money to Lieberman because "I make contributions to a variety of candidates whom I respect.

snip

"If you're going to portray yourself as a champion against sex and violence on TV and in video games, it certainly doesn't look like you're completely serious if one of your big contributors makes its money from sex and violence," said Massie Ritsch, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics.
...
Asked why he accepted their money, Lieberman first joked, "I really don't get anything [contributions] from that industry.""


Now if that doesn't beat all? Joe is in the middle of a fight against video game violence and he takes money (and denies it!) from the ultimate in violent TV producers:

The WWE.

If you think it couldn't get any worse here well, YES! it can. Not only do they feature violence BUT violent sexual content as well:(warning!)

.


That was taken from WWE's Raw. And if that doesn't expose the ultimate in hypocrisy than how's about a video game version of all of this violent content, "WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW", where they tout such features as:

  • Spanking mini-game - in bra and panties matchups, a female wrestler could enter a "spanking" mini-game. The meter mechanic from the chop battles are retained, but the player must perfectly time the button press three consecutive times to win. If the player does so, a cut scene of the two female wrestlers kissing is played.
  • Also added to the game was the Clean/Dirty system, which influenced each wrestlers tactics. Players can choose if the wrestler is clean, dirty or neutral. A clean or dirty wrestler has a meter that can be filled up by performing special clean/dirty actions or moves. Clean wrestlers with a full meter can enable a temporary rush of invincibility while dirty wrestlers can perform an illegal move.



[update]More Courtesy of JoeJoeJoe at MLN
More on an hidden feature in WWE similar to the Grand Theft Auto feature that sent Phony Joe into convulsions:

WWE Raw 2 Cheats
"Hint: Nude Characters
Either create a female character, or edit one of the existing ones and give them all pure black clothes (0,0,0 for all 3 options). Then have a match in any PPV arena and on the Titantron they will appear naked."



Violence, cheating, violence against women, sexual content... These games have it all, mirroring the WWE's television productions.

Lieberman falsely claims to carry the banner in the fight against violent videogames and violence on TV... He is really only a perverted spokesman for hypocrisy in action.


Via Scarce at MLN and talking about video games, and how Joe Lieberman wants to regulate them for their violent content:



While Joe talks about this issue, Joe Lieberman has taken money from violent video game producers.

But here is one violent video game that Joe is desperate to get your kids to play:
F2C2
Welcome to the battlefield of the future!
F2C2 was created by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to help explain the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program to soldiers in an interactive environment. The game depicts the 18 FCS systems, all connected via the FCS System of Systems Common Operating Environment, supporting the 21st century soldier.

Although F2C2 is best experienced when the player has a working knowledge of Army concepts and terminology, anyone can play! F2C2 may seem hard at first if you haven’t had Army training, but there are tutorials available. Prepare to be challenged!


You can download this video game, designed to train soldiers, for free at the official US Army webpage. Take a look at at how realistic this game is:



It's not just that Joe wants your kids to play this realistic game... It is that he also wants your kids to go to Iraq and do this for real.

And there is the hypocrisy that is Joe Lieberman.