Battlefield 4 Banned In China

hypnosec writes "The Chinese government has officially banned Battlefield 4, stating that Electronic Arts has developed a game that not only threatens national security of the country, but is also a form of cultural invasion. The country's Ministry of Culture has issued a notice banning all material retailed to the game in any form, including the game itself, related downloads, demos, patches and even news reports. According to PCGames.com.cn [Chinese language], Battlefield 4 has been characterized as illegal game on the grounds that the game endangers national security and cultural aggression."

Comments

First Shot

[James McGuigan]

Bang!

Re:First Shot

[unixisc]

Since something like violence is so alien to Chinese culture.

Re:First Shot

[Blue Stone]

It's not that, though. It's that the game allows players to (gasp) imagine attacking China.

Perhaps the Chinese government are actually astute and realise that their ability to control the Chinese people is fragile and anything, even a fictional representation of insurrection could tip them over the edge into thinking 'hey, why not actually do this!?' ... or perhaps they're simply paranoid. Either way, it doesn't bode well for them, if this is what they consider a threat. If it's the former it will happen sooner or later. And if it's the latter, paranoia, they'll create a self-fulfilling prophecy by doing things like this (and, of course, much worse).

Flexible democracy is the best systems for a stable society, not a brittle authoritarian regime.

Re:First Shot

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that, though. It's that the game allows players to (gasp) imagine attacking China.

Perhaps the Chinese government are actually astute and realise that their ability to control the Chinese people is fragile and anything, even a fictional representation of insurrection could tip them over the edge into thinking 'hey, why not actually do this!?' ... or perhaps they're simply paranoid. Either way, it doesn't bode well for them, if this is what they consider a threat. If it's the former it will happen sooner or later. And if it's the latter, paranoia, they'll create a self-fulfilling prophecy by doing things like this (and, of course, much worse).

Flexible democracy is the best systems for a stable society, not a brittle authoritarian regime.

Try asking EA to develop a game where the US masses rise up against the legitimate authority in Washington DC (that takes place in our time) and see how well that goes.

Re: First Shot

[Anonymous Coward]

any one make a game like that someone even made a game where you play as Oswald and there is a Austin power game where you get to fire the laser at D.C.

Re:First Shot

[peppepz]

It's not that, though. It's that the game allows players to (gasp) imagine attacking China.

Is there any US game where I can (gasp) bomb NY, invade Washington DC, help set up Communism or Sharia in the country? I'm not saying that censorship is acceptable, but I can understand why they're upset.

Re:First Shot

[Culture20]

Try asking EA to develop a game where the US masses rise up against the legitimate authority in Washington DC (that takes place in our time) and see how well that goes.

They already did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier's_Gettysburg!
At least twice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier's_Antietam!

Re: First Shot

[Anonymous Coward]

any one make a game like that someone even made a game where you play as Oswald and there is a Austin power game where you get to fire the laser at D.C.

C'mon a realistic game (that has relevance to our time, that tackles real political problems of the US, etc...), not some kind of comedy like Austin Powers.

Re:First Shot

[brit74]

Uh, I'm pretty sure you haven't made any effort to understand the plot of Battlefield 4.

Re:First Shot

[MightyYar]

Turning Point had exactly this. In multi-player, you could be the Nazis and invade NYC. In single player, you were the defender, though. I don't recall the US government feeling particularly threatened.

It's not quite the same, but Call of Duty had Washington, DC invaded by Russians. It's a scenario, and you play as the defender only, so yeah - not quite the same. Modern Warfare 2, same thing. There are a bunch of games like this, but AFAIK they all involve the player being the defender.

I think US politicians have learned to stay away from the whole "evil videogame" angle.

Re:First Shot

[Anonymous Coward]

> They already did
> At least twice.

Those comparisons are not equivalent. Not even close.

Re:First Shot

[phayes]

It's not that, though. It's that the game allows players to (gasp) imagine attacking China.

Is there any US game where I can (gasp) bomb NY, invade Washington DC, help set up Communism or Sharia in the country? I'm not saying that censorship is acceptable, but I can understand why they're upset.

In The USA there is no means for interdicting any such games and many for making sure it cannot be legally interdicted. IIRC Iran has produced a number of games along these lines. If it doesn't sell in the USA it does not automatically follow that the USG stopped it. China's government is just showing that they do not trust their population.

Re:First Shot

[luckymutt]

Gettysburg and Antietam?
I think your missing the part about it being relative to our time.

Re:First Shot

[brit74]

Yeah, I think you've understood the plot of Battlfield 4 perfectly.

"Battlefield 4's single-player Campaign takes place in 2020, six years after the events of its predecessor. Tensions between Russia and the United States have been running at a record high. On top of this, China is also on the brink of war, as Admiral Chang, the main antagonist, plans to overthrow China's current government. If he succeeds, Chang will have full support from the Russians, bringing China to the brink of war with the United States." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlefield_4#Setting_and_characters

Re:First Shot

[umafuckit]

The Chinese were invaded by Western powers in the recent past, so you can see why they're touchy on the subject. They're pissed about the opium wars, and they're pissed at the exploitative and heavy-handed behaviour of the West up to the point when they left. At the summer palace near Beijing there are signs everywhere showing you what it was like before it was torched by the French and the English. They don't forget this shit. The cultures gelled less in China than they did in India. At least there was some cross-cultural understanding in India (especially early on). There was fuck all understanding in China from the get-go. Literally the first thing the English did was piss of the emperor and each side looked down upon the other.

Whilst it's not a competition and there are no "winners", culturally, violence is arguably more alien to the Chinese than it is to us Westerners. Whilst both Europeans and the Chinese have had their share of internal fighting and bloody revolutions, it's only us Westerners who have a long history of violent, expansionist, imperialism. Westerners destroyed almost all of the native culture in the Americas (in the Andes almost the entire native population was wiped out) and Australia. We've also fucked up huge swathes of Africa, the English committed plenty of atrocities in India and had no qualms about getting the Chinese hooked on opium. Our meddling in the Middle East after the first world war has left a legacy of violence and social problems. We constructed the state of Isreal, which has been nothing but violence and trouble. We've been building economies and riches using slave labour for millennia. Vast quantities of wealth poured in the UK, and other European countries, from slave plantations (a lot of it sugar).

Re:First Shot

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on it is not like USA is monitoring people who would do games or chat that kinda things. USA != China it has allowed always dissidents like for example communists

Re: First Shot

[Anonymous Coward]

Command and conquer red alert 2?

Re:First Shot

[lgw]

Wow, what sort of imaginary Chinese history have you been reading. How do you think China gained such a large empire, if not through conquest? They've been ruthless, both historically and present day, in using whatever violence necessary to suppress any sort of cultural dissent. We take some shit in the US because we still have the death penalty, but China has purpose-built mobile execution vans, because there are just too many executions to perform from a few central locations.

Yes the British did some nasty things over a hundred years ago. That's a pathetic excuse to justify China's modern brutal oppression.

Re:First Shot

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, what sort of imaginary Chinese history have you been reading. How do you think China gained such a large empire, if not through conquest?

That's government's fault, duh. That's the typical American/Western reasoning: western people and culture are peaceful, it's just their government that does all the bad things.

And in the Chinese's case, they have an even stronger case to make this argument, seeing as how their government is more oppressive so what its government does is even less representative of its people (you think Obama doesn't represent you? Multiply that by a few orders of magnitude and you might understand how some Chinese people feel about their government)

Re:First Shot

[umafuckit]

After unification by the Qin about 200 BC the country itself has remained more less the same size. If you want to call that a "large empire" then go ahead. From my perspective it's a large country. Yes, there was violence inside China for centuries: my original post says this. But there's been at least as much inside Europe and individual European countries. In China, most people speak the same language and are happy to consider themselves Chinese. They don't feel like they're part of "an empire." The obvious poo in the pie of course is Tibet, where China undoubtedly behaved in a violent and heavy-handed manner.

My post is no attempt to justify China's "modern brutal oppression." All that I'm saying is that it's no worse than what we've done to our own people or our neighbour's people. In fact, quite a lot of the very shitty stuff we've done is in living memory. Yet we seem to pretend it didn't happen and call the kettle black (as the over-rated post I replied to is doing). That is what the Chinese think when they see statements like the post I replied to.

You what I said by distilling it down to "yes the British did some nasty things over a hundred years ago. It's quite clear my post is about much more than that.

Re:First Shot

[Anonymous Coward]

Since something like violence is so alien to Chinese culture.

I'm sure if it was Chinese soldiers attacking/killing Western forces, they'd probably make it a mandatory part of every child's education.

Re:First Shot

[IamTheRealMike]

You didn't read the request, did you. He said "that takes place in our time". The first ga,e is a civil war re-enactment. The second link game also does not take place in the modern world.

What he's asking for is a game where large numbers of players are tasked with a mission to, for example, successfully capture the White House and take the President as prisoner, killing lots of US soldiers along the way. That's much harder to find, though I think in some of the Call of Duty games you can play the part of the Russians and attack the US. That's not the default mode though.

Re:First Shot

[mbkennel]

In actual fact, Chinese today are generally highly supportive of their central government, and much less so of their local governments.

Re:First Shot

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to call for a citation here. Let me guess, your passport lacks a stamp from China?

Re: First Shot

[iamhassi]

I would buy it, as would about 70% of the population based on latest polls

Re:First Shot

[citizenr]

Try asking EA to develop a game where the US masses rise up against the legitimate authority in Washington DC (that takes place in our time) and see how well that goes.

There was a game trailer a year ago that gave me some hope.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93-gWrh-MFk
unfortunately in the real game its the other way around and you are the bad guy killing brave freedom fighters :(

Re:First Shot

[PhxBlue]

Sounds like the plots of most of the Command and Conquer series.

Re:First Shot

[Anonymous Coward]

As others have posted, The China you see today is roughly the same as it was when it was unified in 220's BC by Qin Shi Huang ending the "warring states" period.

While it could be considered an "empire" its unchanged for a considerable amount of time.

Re:First Shot

[Ateocinico]

The British had performed brutal actions more recently. Against the Mau Mau for instance. But they are so cunning in being at the winning side, that they can apply the "vae victis" principle over and over again. And they are morally inferior to the USA because they lack any self criticism.

Re:First Shot

[ImdatS]

I would say: "He who is without sin shall throw the first stone..."

In human history, there were many atrocities and every great empire/culture was built mostly on violence first and then became peaceful. That's what it is and that is our shared history as humans. Even China as of today is not a coherent culture.

There are a lot Mongol mixes, lots of Turc people (Uighurs), Tibetans, and may more. Many were conquered, some voluntarily joined the Middle Kingdom. So, what?

What counts is whether people are free today - wherever they are living. And in most places around the world, they are not, including, but not limited to, China. Our goal as humans should be to make sure that everybody on this planet can, at one point, have a decent, dignified and free life.

Re:First Shot

[kaatochacha]

And you know what? They should get over it. Seriously. GET OVER IT.
Look at the Serbs and Albanians, carrying around that crap for , what, five hundred damn years? What good has it done?

Please don't trot out that "noble savage" nonsense about violence being "alien".
The Chinese were just as busy murdering their own dissenters way back when. The difference is: they're not around to bitch about it, as they were wiped out completely.
You know, I lived in Thailand. Land of smiles, everyone always seems happy, they're not violent, right? Wrong. They just present differently.

Re:First Shot

[ImdatS]

... culturally, violence is arguably more alien to the Chinese than it is to us Westerners....

Hmm, according to this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll#Wars_and_armed_conflicts, if I do a back-of-the-envelope calculation, the total death total (minimum) of inner-Chinese wars was about 100m people. On the max side, we are talking about over 210m people dead (sources vary).

This is not to say that Chinese Culture is per-se violent; it is more to say that it is not per se non-violent.

Let's be careful with generalizations...

Re:First Shot

[K. S. Kyosuke]

But imagine the sales in West Virginia!

Re:First Shot

[colinrichardday]

That's because the NSA is too busy trolling World of Warcraft.

Re:First Shot

[umafuckit]

Yes, they fucking should get over it. I say this to them when I hear them going on about this stuff. They're still fucking pissed at the Japanese over WWII, but none of this stuff is healthy. Another one is the Greeks who won't get over the Turks and this does them no good whatever. In both cases it's national propaganda that's the root cause of people not getting over it. I relate how the Chinese feel when hear us saying certain things because it's important we understand how our words are perceived if we wish to have the right effect. You will not get the message across if you don't know how the message is heard.

I have throughout said that the Chinese had their fair share of violence, I don't know why you attempt to pre-empt me with the "noble savage" line. All I'm saying is that we're arguably more violent than the Chinese (most of these genocides are Western, perpetrated by Westerners, or occurred because of Western meddling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history) and we should acknowledge that about ourselves rather than taking the superior, judgemental, attitude which often appears (as it did in this case with the poster I responded to) in relation to China. It sounds like hypocrisy to my ears and I'm not even Chinese.

Re:First Shot

[ppanon]

In China, most people write the same language

FTFY. While the written alphabet is consistent across China, my understanding is that the regional dialect groups (Mandarin, Wu/Shanghainese, Yue/Cantonese, etc.) can vary so much as to be effectively unintelligible to each other. While Mandarin may be the lingua franca of the national government, it isn't as widespread as English in the USA.

Re:First Shot

[umafuckit]

Yes, they've done a lot of internal killing. The numbers are large, but they also have a larger population. Humans are violent and the Chinese are no exception. They are probably no better or worse than we are in this regard (Catholics/Protestants, WWI, Nazis, etc, etc) , so why is the post I originally replied to labelled "insightful"? I think that says more about how we view China than China being violent.

Re:First Shot

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe Panzer General had an end game scenario path where germany invaded the US.

Re:First Shot

[Anonymous Coward]

Hundreds of millions of people in China don't speak "Chinese". It's a major problem for them.

Re:First Shot

[Some_Llama]

this is for the most part true, the only way they can all truly speak the same language is through th3 written word, although there was (is) a big push for everyone to learn, if not outright only speak, mandarin as the "official" dialect... so some of the smaller dialects know Mandarin as well as their local dialect.

Cantonese is one of the other big dialects afair (from talking with an old chinese friend of mine who loved to speak of his culture)

Re:First Shot

[Anonymous Coward]

Where did you hear that? While it is true that there are regional dialects and they are not compatible for the most part they also speak Mandarin (what percentage speaks mandarin i don't know).

Case in point, my wife has a cousin from Fujian province and he speaks some dialect she cant understand (she speaks mandarin/Cantonese). Since he is also fluent in mandarin they have no communication issues.

While on a boat tour of China we met a couple who spoke Cantonese and mandarin. While the boat operator wasn't able to understand them my wife can as she understands Cantonese as well. (Boat operator at least spoke Mandarin ).

PS, There is no such thing as a "Chinese written alphabet".

Re:First Shot

[circletimessquare]

the point is that you could make such a game, and the game would not be banned

i'm sure some media talking head might bring it up: "outrageous!"

but this of course will just increase sales

Re:First Shot

[UnknownSoldier]

3 words:

Only cowards censor.

Re:First Shot

[Anonymous Coward]

Like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance

Re:First Shot

[couchslug]

In the South it's certainly relevant, like it or not.

Re:First Shot

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that, though. It's that the game allows players to (gasp) imagine attacking China.

Is there any US game where I can (gasp) bomb NY, invade Washington DC, help set up Communism or Sharia in the country? I'm not saying that censorship is acceptable, but I can understand why they're upset.

You mean like Civ 1 through 5?

Re:First Shot

[kaatochacha]

I completely agree with you on the Propaganda aspects.
The noble savage thing seems to generally be when someone talks about culture other than their own, and for whatever reason tend to view them better than their own, possibly because we're all more aware of our own failings. It's like the flip side of the guy saying "My culture is ALWAYS right". I tend to have a (pessimistic) viewpoint that most cultures are equally brutal, they just may not have had the opportunity to show it. So maybe I"m pushing "We all suck equally" rather than "They suck more than us".

Re:First Shot

[Quasimodem]

Tell that to the people who were blacklisted during the McCarthy era for supposed communist sympathies and lost their livings in education and the arts.

Re:First Shot

[thetoadwarrior]

Given the idea of making a video game where the US is the bad guy or a modern era game featuring a citizens revolt against the US government won't ever get made for pretty much the same reason, I don't think Americans can take the moral high ground on this one.

Re:First Shot

[MurukeshM]

Hitman: Blood Money had Agent 47 infiltrating the White House and assassinating the Vice President. But then, nearly all of the targets in the HItman games are villainous in character. You could try to the guards of the White House (I assume they are soldiers), but it's tougher in this mission to come out alive doing so.

Re:First Shot

[MaskedSlacker]

There are lots of games where you can fight against the US in campaign mode. Hell, in C&C: Generals you could even play as Muslim terrorists. Of course, there are several Civil War games where you play from the Confederate side (Civil War Generals by Sierra was one of my favorite strategy games of all time if only for the imagined challenge of reversing what was really such a one sided conflict.

Re:First Shot

[MaskedSlacker]

it's only us Westerners who have a long history of violent, expansionist, imperialism.

How does this kind of ignorant tripe get modded insightful? Only someone with the most cursory, Eurocentric understanding of history would say this. All of your examples suggest that you passed your high school World History course by snoring through it.

Violent, Expansionist, Imperialist Powers NOT part of "the West": Achaemenid Empire, the Mauryan Empire, the (several) Mongol Empires, the Mughal Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the several Caliphates, the Angkorian Empire, the Burmese Kingdoms from 1400-1800, virtually every Chinese empire ever, etc. Depending on your particular definition of "Western," add the Russian and Byzantine empires for good measure.

Of course, they all had great positive achievements as well, just as the violent, expanionist, imperialist powers of the west all had great achievements too. Except, of course (just to Godwin this whole line of conversation), the Nazis. Fuck those guys.

Re:First Shot

[peppepz]

In The USA there is no means for interdicting any such games and many for making sure it cannot be legally interdicted. IIRC Iran has produced a number of games along these lines. If it doesn't sell in the USA it does not automatically follow that the USG stopped it.

But I didn't say this. My point is, that if nobody in the USA has ever done a game like that, it's because it would be considered highly offensive, by itself. There's no need for the government to declare it outlaw. Attacking the government is obviously considered more offensive than hitting people with a car (as in Carmageddon) or committing assorted crimes, killing the forces of order, and crushing people with a tank (as in the GTA series). The post I was responding to was saying that a realistic simulation game about attacking the government is not a big deal. But if nobody has ever made such a game about the USA, there must be some reason; and that reason is that most people would find such a game offensive.

About the legal means making such a ban impossible: while there's no doubt that the USA are the most free country in the world, history has also shown that they have a habit to overridde even their most sacred laws when the government feels that the country is under threat. Just to make one example, but there are others, http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/12/27/1727207/us-federal-judge-rules-nsa-data-collection-legal : isn't the right to privacy constitutionally guaranteed?

Re:First Shot

[umafuckit]

Thanks, I'd forgotten about the Mongol empire. I'd not heard of the Mauryan, Mughal, Caliphates, Angkorian Empire, and Burmese empires. I do indeed consider the Russian and Byzantine empires to be Western. The Ottoman too, for that matter.

Re:First Shot

[mjwx]

It's not that, though. It's that the game allows players to (gasp) imagine attacking China.

Perhaps the Chinese government are actually astute and realise that their ability to control the Chinese people is fragile and anything, even a fictional representation of insurrection could tip them over the edge into thinking 'hey, why not actually do this!?' ... or perhaps they're simply paranoid. Either way, it doesn't bode well for them, if this is what they consider a threat. If it's the former it will happen sooner or later. And if it's the latter, paranoia, they'll create a self-fulfilling prophecy by doing things like this (and, of course, much worse).

Flexible democracy is the best systems for a stable society, not a brittle authoritarian regime.

Try asking EA to develop a game where the US masses rise up against the legitimate authority in Washington DC (that takes place in our time) and see how well that goes.

I have no doubt the US govt wont stop them or ban the game because they dont need to... The game also wont sell.

The western powers prefer a soft approach to their propaganda. Instead of outright banning of anything potentially subversive they start smear campaigns to alienate and disenfranchise anyone who might use the product. They would simply start to insunuate that anyone who plays the game "hates 'Murica". They'll be huge segments on all news channels about how video games are destroying the youth of today and I have no doubt a school shooting or seven will be blamed on it. This is just as effective as outright banning, sometimes even more effective. Look at how many people irrationally hate labour unionism without realising that the only thing that keeps us from the working conditions of China was the advent of labour unions earlier in our history.

Re:First Shot

[Anonymous Coward]

You should double check the historical map of the China. Qin dynasty territory is about 1/3 of modern China so it's has grown considerably over the centuries. Most Chinese shares the same written language but speaks very different dialects. The Chinese government behaves in an oppressive matter not just in Tibet, but also in XinJiang and other minority populated area.

We humans have fairly blood thirsty ancestors in the name of power, but not many comes close to the genocide committed by CCP on it own people since 1940. Feel free to google "Great Leap Forward" and "Cultural Revolution."

China already does a good job whitewashing and brainwashing it's own history so your help is not needed.

Re:First Shot

[mjwx]

Wow, what sort of imaginary Chinese history have you been reading. How do you think China gained such a large empire, if not through conquest? They've been ruthless, both historically and present day, in using whatever violence necessary to suppress any sort of cultural dissent. We take some shit in the US because we still have the death penalty, but China has purpose-built mobile execution vans, because there are just too many executions to perform from a few central locations.

The one you're clearly ignoring.

The US and other western powers openly supported the Chinese Nationalist government lead by Chiang Kai-Shek against the communists. If it weren't for that little Japanese invasion the Maoists would have continued to be oppressed by Kai-Shek's forces fully backed by the US. Chiang Kai-Shek wasn't particularly gentle with his oppression of the Maoists either. However after WWII the Maoists found themselves receiving equipment and their numbers were bolstered by new recruits who joined the Maoists to fight the Japanese, so they went to war and well lets face it, Chiang Kai-Shek was a complete moron which is why the nationalists ended up having to retreat to this little island you may have heard of, Taiwan. The Chinese spent decades in cold war against the US and NATO as well. Even after the Sino-Soviet split which only served to make them feel more vulnerable than before as they'd lost the protection of the USSR against the western powers.

Yes the British did some nasty things over a hundred years ago. That's a pathetic excuse to justify China's modern brutal oppression.

And the western powers continued to do quite nasty things to them for another 50, 80 if we include the cold war. Not that I agree with China, but you have to be pretty ignorant to think that everything have been peachy between China and the US for the last 100 years.

Re:First Shot

[AmiMoJo]

It would be more like the Chinese invade to overthrow the corrupt US government and install a Chinese style democracy. The US citizens welcome them as liberators and all is well again.

EA kinda did it with one of the C&C games (Red Alert 2?). You could play as the Chinese, blow up the Whitehouse etc.i liked that game.

Re:First Shot

[Killjoy_NL]

Only the Sith deal in absolutes ;)

Re:First Shot

[phayes]

You clearly haven't thought your position through. China has outlawed the game because they feel threatened by a game where the player attacks the Chinese government. You say "yeah but were positions reversed, the USA would react the same way" giving as proof your ignorance of any games where the USG is attacked. I point out that there ARE games where the USG is attacked & yet the USG has never banned them proving you & your conspiracy theory wrong.

You can go on any tangents you like but your premise that China is justified in banning a game because we would too is still wrong.

Re:First Shot

[peppepz]

You say "yeah but were positions reversed, the USA would react the same way"

I said that they could, not that they would.

giving as proof your ignorance of any games where the USG is attacked. I point out that there ARE games where the USG is attacked

There are no such games made in the USA, would you really compare BF4 to a homegrown game made in Iran by some Iranian kid who changed some texture of Quake?

& yet the USG has never banned them

What they would do if such a game was successful and mass-marketed as Battlefield 4 is, remains to be seen.

proving you & your conspiracy theory wrong.

What conspiracy?

You can go on any tangents you like but your premise that China is justified in banning a game

You mean the premise where I said that censorship is unacceptable?

because we would too is still wrong.

They're not justified. I pointed out that they banned the game because the game content was offensive for them, which I can understand, but being my culture different from China's, I can not justify.

Re:First Shot

[cold fjord]

The first ga,e is a civil war re-enactment. The second link game also does not take place in the modern world.

It doesn't really matter. It is reasonably certain that if somebody wrote such a game it would be protected by the first amendment. The government would have a rather high hurdle to actually ban it.

Re:First Shot

[phayes]

You say "yeah but were positions reversed, the USA would react the same way"

I said that they could, not that they would.

Your first post was an apology for the chinese ban "because they're upset". Thus you clearly imply the US would ban "because they're upset". Your game of playing could and would is akin to my implying that because you could go out and rape a child, you would do so.

giving as proof your ignorance of any games where the USG is attacked. I point out that there ARE games where the USG is attacked

There are no such games made in the USA, would you really compare BF4 to a homegrown game made in Iran by some Iranian kid who changed some texture of Quake?

Have any games been banned for anti-USG content? No. Have games had controversial political content in the US? Yes. Were they banned? Again no. Does a game have to be highly marketed to be banned? No. Is saying that it needs to be marketed a means for moving the goalposts by pepppz? That's the only logical justification.

& yet the USG has never banned them

What they would do if such a game was successful and mass-marketed as Battlefield 4 is, remains to be seen.

Bull. Sexual content, sure, we all know that sex is the untouchable third wire in gaming, but never for political content. "Think of the Children" is the only justification that could work in the US.

proving you & your conspiracy theory wrong.

What conspiracy?

see above

You can go on any tangents you like but your premise that China is justified in banning a game

You mean the premise where I said that censorship is unacceptable?

No, the part where you were implying that the USG would ban for the same reasons the chinese did.

because we would too is still wrong.

They're not justified. I pointed out that they banned the game because the game content was offensive for them, which I can understand, but being my culture different from China's, I can not justify.

So do you still have those uncontrollable urges to rape a child or do you now realize that merely implying something distasteful when it is false is also distasteful?

Re:First Shot

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no such games for a reason, don't you think? I'll give you one - Guantanamo.

Re: First Shot

[kbx911]

Im sure if mw3 showed russian invaders as good guys invading us, it would have been banned. The us uk is always showing worthy opponents in bad light, first it was russia in games and bond movies now its china. Get in their shoes. When they start making games that show us getting pwned then your oh so free country will ban them too. Wait and watch. Why provoke? Use fictional country names build a fictional geo map and borders its just agame, why put propaganda into it.

Re:First Shot

[HappyPsycho]

Try Modern Warfare 2's airport massacre scene and the controversy that erupted in the US / UK after.

Re: First Shot

[Anonymous Coward]

rather amusing how we always criticise China ignoring what our government does. Sometimes we criticise only to do the same later... examples - US criticism of human rights with rendition, Guantanimo and abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan going on; Government intervention to stop attack on HK dollar in 97 and then intervention to keep banks afloat; Mass surveillance; now in UK at least the (not so) great firewall of Cameron. Only a few examples but could easily go on. None of us have as much freedom as we like to think!

Re: First Shot

[Anonymous Coward]

no we just wipe out the natives and forget we did it. .. Native Americans, Aborigines, South American Indians....

Re:First Shot

[neoritter]

That was a Russian airport though.

Re:First Shot

[neoritter]

What are you talking about? This is the Qin Dynasty's are of control. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Qin_empire_210_BCE.png http://www.chinatownconnection.com/images/qindynastymap.gif You can see the outline of current People's Republic of China. Now compare that to the Yuan Empire: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hekc7k3TR_c/TVVDWj_yIXI/AAAAAAAAAAM/wuJB5xwNSfk/s1600/64939-004-0AE0DF2F.gif China was primarily land based, but don't mistake that for not being imperialistic or expansionist. You need to really go back and reread the history on that region.

Re: First Shot

[neoritter]

I'm sorry my ancestors carried infectious diseases that they weren't able to protect against? I'm not excusing certain actions that happened during early colonization and later in history; but don't try to lump the large native deaths all under those despicable actions. That majority died from diseases through incidental contact.

Re:First Shot

[neoritter]

So you're only beef with the US towards China was that we supported the wrong bad guy? Or are you also mad we supported the democratic South Korean government and the same version in Vietnam? Because both of those seem silly on a couple levels.

Re:First Shot

[neoritter]

If by unchanged you mean doubled/tripled in size sure...

Re:First Shot

[neoritter]

I think you're opinion of the rate of genocide is faulty because it seems like you're looking at only a very narrow window of history. As noted by your linked wiki article, "The difficulty, as Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn pointed out in their early study, is that such historical records as exist are ambiguous and undependable. While history today is generally written with some fealty to 'objective' facts, most previous accounts aimed rather to praise the writer's patron (normally the leader) and to emphasize the superiority of one's own gods and religious beliefs." The Chinese were very big on this, and you may remember from history class the large purges of books, etc in China at varying dynastic transitions. If you've read any of the classical Chinese histories like Romance of the Three Kingdoms (not entirely historically accurate) there is a good deal of killing of enemies. It was common practice in China to kill entire families because on person was a traitor. And when I say family, I don't mean mom, dad and the kids. We're talking anyone brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents. I think your portrayal of China as "less violent" is where you got stuck with the noble savage line.

Re:First Shot

[umafuckit]

Thank you, I shall do that.

Re:First Shot

[Anonymous Coward]

In actual fact, Chinese today are generally highly supportive of their central government, and much less so of their local governments.

And the reason they support it is the same reason as the West: most people are conditioned, indoctrinated, and brainwashed by the government to support it, duh!

And again, the Chinese have a stronger case to make this argument than the West, with their form of government being what it is.

Cue in 3...2..1..

[Anonymous Coward]

Boo hoo, who shall we now single out as evil enemies, deserving of mindless wholesale slaughter? Poor entertainment industry!

Re:Cue in 3...2..1..

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't cry, we still have terrists. Al Qaeda will save us!

Re:Cue in 3...2..1..

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think even the entertainment industry can successfully play the pity card off this. What were they expecting to make in sales to China anyway? USD$25, minus shipping?

Re:Cue in 3...2..1..

[Anonymous Coward]

Not like China was going to be a big legitimate market, anyway -- nobody fecking pays for games over there.

Re:Cue in 3...2..1..

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt they care either. EA likely expected any potential profit in the Chinese market to be completely canceled out thanks to piracy.

Re:Cue in 3...2..1..

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering they get paid *nothing* to assemble little boxes for us to run those games on, can't expect 'em to pay much ;)

Re:Cue in 3...2..1..

[lgw]

Boo hoo, who shall we now single out as evil enemies, deserving of mindless wholesale slaughter? Poor entertainment industry!

Anyone who sets himself up as a dictator? As I understand BF4, it's not about painting some race or culture as evil, but about the notion that warmongering dictators are a bad thing and often cause wars. That's certainly not specific to any country.

Banning cultural invasion

[DoofusOfDeath]

What are they, French?

Re:Banning cultural invasion

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, did they surrender?
I'm waiting for Battlefield 4 - Foxconn Rising

Re:Banning cultural invasion

[Anonymous Coward]

It is completely obvious if you know how the Chinese government thinks.
In their doctrine there are no discontent minorities in China, no separatists and everyone is happily part of a large, 1 party, China.
The mere idea that there could be a civil war is controversial to them because it implies otherwise. They consider promoting this idea in whatever shape or form an endangerment of national security and harmony, and therefor as "cultural aggression".

Re:Banning cultural invasion

[billcarson]

The parent post was probably ment to mock France, but he is right: their efforts were futile. France today is just as Americanized as any other western country.
Their tactic of only playing french music didn't work so well either. Culture isn't something you can protect with legislature.

Re:Banning cultural invasion

[DoofusOfDeath]

I wasn't trying to mock France. I just thought the similarity of their approach to cultural preservation was noteworthy.

Re:Banning cultural invasion

[Austerity Empowers]

I would like nothing more than to destroy Foxconn!

In the game...of course.

Re:Banning cultural invasion

[Anonymous Coward]

Cultural Invasion? While china is systematically buying land and planning cities in the US (ya know: actual subversion/invasion)... nothing but sympathy over their games.

Re:Banning cultural invasion

[timeOday]

I think "Americanized" is a misnomer, and a more correct term would be "commercialized."

Granted, commercialization has its natural home here. But in the end, I think our whole-hearted embrace of greed just speeds up the process somewhat. All life is about sucking up resources, and most likely doomed to end in a race to the bottom.

Re:Banning cultural invasion

[Anonymous Coward]

France today is just as Americanized as any other western country.

Hardly. I haven't heard of a movement in France for daily showers or basic grooming.

Re:Banning cultural invasion

[phayes]

If by noteworthy you mean increasingly expensive taxes levied upon more and more products (First just blank CDs, then just consumer disks, then all disks & now anything that "could" store any copyrighted material), financing the french audiovisual industries that are used by fewer & fewer people, then yes, it's noteworthy. In more common terms, for people who are tired of paying theses taxes just so a tiny well off minority can continue to buy villas in the south, it would be "it sucks".

Re:Banning cultural invasion

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they're just the hypocritical motherfuckers that execute more people than we do here in the US.

I guess they don't like the competition.

Re:Banning cultural invasion

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets look at a few things.
The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world, at 754 per 100,000.
China's rate is 121 per 100,000
Now, the US population is 313 million vs. China's 1.351 Billion.
Wonder what will happen in the US if the population ever reached over a billion, considering its current crime/incarceration rates.

"Ministry of Culture"

[AlanS2002]

Someone needs to tell these idiots that 1984 wasn't meant to be a manual.

Re:"Ministry of Culture"

[DoofusOfDeath]

Someone needs to tell these idiots that 1984 wasn't meant to be a manual.

If you mean the NSA, don't worry, they just got your message loud and clear.

Re:"Ministry of Culture"

[Anonymous Coward]

Countries like US, UK, etc. are certainly treating it as one. China's just trying to fit in.

Re:"Ministry of Culture"

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, such original comment, so creativity

Re:"Ministry of Culture"

[jovius]

In 1984 popular culture was generated by machine algorithm, and people happily hummed along with the nonsense. I think it's a bit late already to prevent that from happening...

Re:"Ministry of Culture"

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone needs to tell these idiots that 1984 wasn't meant to be a manual.

Other way around. People aren't following 1984. 1984 simply accurately predicted the future.

Think Nostradamus. Even if the book wasn't written (and no other book of similar nature was written), these things are bound to happen.

Re:"Ministry of Culture"

[s.petry]

Look here you insensitive clod. That book is banned in China just like Battlefield 4, they can't use it for a manual if they can't read the thing!

Re:"Ministry of Culture"

[Anonymous Coward]

It is telling that the US doesn't appear to have one at the federal level. Well, perhaps NEH could be counted as one part of such agency. Chinese reaction could be expected the second first scenes from the game play was presented. Obviously EA was ready to take this loss and sell something else to the Chinese markets.

Re:"Ministry of Culture"

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone needs to tell these idiots that 1984 wasn't meant to be a manual.

Sounds like you haven't heard of the Parents Television Council with it's Culture Watch publication and letter writing successful campaign to get the FCC to censor television and radio. Oh, guess who used to be a part of it. That grade-A douche bag Billy Ray Cyrus. Who now praises his daughter for doing exactly what he used to censor. Whatever makes him the most money it seems.

Re:"Ministry of Culture"

[Anonymous Coward]

No. That book was banned.

http://www.amazon.cn/%E4%B8%80%E4%B9%9D%E5%85%AB%E5%9B%9B-%E4%B9%94%E6%B2%BB%E2%80%A2%E5%A5%A5%E5%A8%81%E5%B0%94/dp/B002EVOBNU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388225906&sr=8-1&keywords=1984

Re:"Ministry of Culture"

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait for a copyright claim on it soon, notwithstanding

Travel...

[retech]

It'll be interesting to see if anyone traveling, who is employed by, or associated with this game, is able to pass through China.

Re:Travel...

[Virtucon]

Why would you want to? With the recent spate of news stories on pollution problems in China it reminds me of New Jersey.

Re:Travel...

[Anonymous Coward]

China makes New Jersey look pristine in comparison.

Re:Travel...

[s.petry]

Randy Marsh called on Al Qaeda to fight Jersey and left China out of it, so I'm thinking they are pretty equally "evil".

Re:Travel...

[DigiShaman]

With a Transit Visa (G Visa), you might be able to pass through China when traveling through. But if you plan on staying in China for any length of time as a destination, you will need to obtain a Tourist Visa (L Visa). For those, you have to fill out a request form and send it off to the nearest Chinese consulate. I've done it in person, though I have seen travel agents in line with me carrying sacks full of passports. In any case, yes, it's quite possible foreign people affiliated with this product could be denied entry. For example, I'm pretty sure Björk is banned. The only way to know for sure is to apply. If you get denied, now you know.

Re:Travel...

[Anonymous Coward]

more specifically, Shanghai makes New Jersey look like some sort of garden state.

Re:Travel...

[retech]

I would think everyone on that dev. team would be banned an L visa.

Re:Travel...

[Meyaht]

Lol, nice

Re:Travel...

[Virtucon]

It's a Jersey Thing.

Banning...

[Chordonblue]

You'd think they would have banned it elsewhere until it was at least finished!

Re:Banning...

[Anonymous Coward]

You sir or mam have won my internet points for the day!

Re:Banning...

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, I'm intentionally avoiding it for a year after release, if it's stable and the mandatory DLC is under 2Gb I'll think about paying half price for it, otherwise I'm just fine and dandy with 1943 and BC2, both excellent games. Battlefield 3...well, put it this way, EA are in receipt of a game disc with a brief explanation of why I can no longer use it scratched into the surface. (Captcha: Avoided)

c'mon slashdot

[blooddiamond]

slashdot posting a 3week old story! Not good

Re:c'mon slashdot

[SJHillman]

You're right... if they keep doing things this quickly, their editorial integrity might start to falter.

retailed to the game

[Anonymous Coward]

The country's Ministry of Culture has issued a notice banning all material retailed to the game in any form

yea, that sounds like it was written by a chinese person

chaosers advocate for linux re; privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

they used to be /. heros. they poo-poo windows & macs without hesitation. hobbyist whiner penguinistas pull no punches. free the innocent stem cells. never a better time to consider ourselves in relation to momkind, our spiritual centerpeace & originators of the wwwildly popular new clear options program

Not the first time

[Anonymous Coward]

They also banned Reisure Suit Rarry

Re:Not the first time

[DexterIsADog]

Ha ha! I see what you did there! I love casual racism!

Re: Not the first time

[loufoque]

don't confuse japan with china, you insensitive clod!

Re: Not the first time

[DoofusOfDeath]

don't confuse japan with china, you insensitive clod!

He's not. You're thinking of Tentacle Larry.

Re:Not the first time

[Anonymous Coward]

Except it's the Koreans who have trouble pronouncing the "R" sound, not the Chinese. But, I also enjoyed the joke.

Re:Not the first time

[BronsCon]

casuar lacism?

Re: Not the first time

[loufoque]

The Japanese are the ones whose alphabet uses the same letters for r and l sounds.

Re:Not the first time

[DexterIsADog]

Yes, that's the stuff! Though the racists don't often use their fake online identity, as you have done.

I applaud your (fake) bravery, sir!

Re: Not the first time

[DoofusOfDeath]

I believe you. I just wanted to make a tentacle porn joke.

Re: Not the first time

[dunkelfalke]

um, no.
there is no japanese alphabet in first place. there are logograms and moras (sort of, but not quite the same as, syllables), not letters. so there are ra, ro, ru, re, ro and rya, ryo and ryu sounds. and even there the "r" is not quite "r".

Re: Not the first time

[loufoque]

There are three japanese alphabets.

Re: Not the first time

[dunkelfalke]

No, there are none. Japanese only use an alphabet when they write in romaji (latin letters that is). Neither kanji, nor hiragana nor katakana are alphabets because they are not letters. Letters represent phonemes, kanji represents morphemes and words, hiragana and katakana represent moras.

Re: Not the first time

[Culture20]

I think you're thinking of Day of the Tentacle Larry.

Re: Not the first time

[loufoque]

Call it a "script" or "writing system" if you want to be anal. It's the same thing than an alphabet to normal people.

Re:Not the first time

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha! I see what you did there! I love casual racism!

Language is not a racial trait. Not all forms of bigotry are racism.

Re: Not the first time

[dunkelfalke]

And Duke Nukem said "your face, your ass - what's the difference"
It is not the same thing at all. Which also makes your statement about using letters for sounds totally wrong because neither letters nor phonemes - what you called "sounds" are involved.

Besides, like I already mentioned, it is even not really r, but actually something between r, l and t. If you listen closely to japanese speech, you can even hear that it sounds more like r, or more like l, even in a same sentence.
It is a somewhat stupid example, but that is the quickest I was able to found. Listen here at 4:30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wckZcVFLU24

It sounds like "anata ga iru kala".

Re: Not the first time

[loufoque]

Nice way of displaying you're a hardcore weeaboo.

Re: Not the first time

[dunkelfalke]

And wrong yet again. I've watched about 10 anime titles in my whole 33 years of life.

Re:Not the first time

[kaatochacha]

The Japanese too. They have a sound that's sort of a L/R put together

Re:Not the first time

[thegarbz]

I like Dylan Moran's comedy skit where he describes Germans speaking like "the sound of tinfoil being chewed by a typewriter being kicked down the stairs". "That's not racism, it's just observation."

People need to take themselves ress seriousry.

Re: Not the first time

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, since we're playing the pointlessly anal game, weeaboo is a more general term that refers to an obsession to Japan and/or it's culture. Anime is the usual subject of focus of course, but there are others.

Re: Not the first time

[dunkelfalke]

No, it is just that I have learned a fair share of different languages through my life - Estonian, Russian, German, French, English, Hebrew and Japanese. I can speak only three of these fluently nowadays, but still.

Re:Not the first time

[AmiMoJo]

Ironically both the Chinese and Koreans can pronounce the 'L' sound. It's a part of their languages. It is the Japanese who pronounce 'L' about half way between an 'L' and an 'R' sound.

But hay, they are all slitty eyed funny little men right?

Re:Not the first time

[DexterIsADog]

How about you grow up a little instead? Hmm? You may not realize, but some of the people you know are embarrassed for you.

Re: Not the first time

[Anonymous Coward]

Day of the Tentacle Larry.

You just had to give me that image, didn't you?

Re:Not the first time

[thegarbz]

Actually most humans have this thing called a sense of humour. Just because you lack it doesn't mean you need to be embarrassed for other people.

Why not actually go see a comedy show like the many thousands of adults who do so daily. Then maybe you can tell the difference between racism and humour.

You may not realise it but some of the people you know are laughing at you.

Re:Not the first time

[BronsCon]

This is a name I use everywhere and my email address is right there (from which it's trivial to discern my identity, if you have two brain cells, since both are associated with my real name elsewhere on the public internet).

There's a difference between cracking a racially targeted joke and being racist. My black, mexican, and chinese friends don't think I'm racist; but then, they've heard my half german, half italian ass tell plenty of Hitler and wop jokes, too. Sometimes it's just good-hearted humor, not intended to hurt anyone; it's typically people with a predisposition for racism, themselves, who jump right into calling everything racist.

Might want to check yourself; there was nothing fake or brave about my post, or this one, or, really, anything else I post here.

Re:Not the first time

[DexterIsADog]

Good, I think I got through, since you're defending yourself with a little desperation.

Someday you may realize what's wrong with you and just, you know, wean yourself out of racism. I wouldn't bet on it, but it's possible.

Re:Not the first time

[DexterIsADog]

Oh my goodness, you actually used the defenses of "I have lots of (black, Mexican, Chinese) friends" AND the "well, I'm one of (ethnicity), so I can tell those jokes". AND you implied I may be racist (while you are not) BECAUSE I pointed out what you wrote was racist.

That is ADORABLE!

Re:Not the first time

[BronsCon]

Haha, I love how people jump right to shit being racist. I never said I had lots of black, mexican, or chinese friends, just that I do have friends of those races. I also never said it was "okay" for me to tell jokes relating to my own ethnicity (but why wouldn't it be?); I was using that to illustrate that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. You know, do unto others and all that. Race/ethnicity-related humor doesn't offend me unless it's directed at me in a clearly hurtful manner; most people I know share this view, and the few who don't know to leave the room for a minute when one of us is getting ready to say something off-color (we likewise leave the room when they're discussing things we have no interest in). That's the thing about people, though... get enough of them in a group and there will be enough overlap of interests that one group can talk about their shit while another has their own conversation, all the while people are moving from one group to another, and nobody is left out, even when one portion of the gathering is discussing something they'd rather not be involved in.

And if someone hears something offensive and doesn't walk away? Well, everyone has the right to be offended; who the hell am I to deny them that right be censoring myself?

Re:Not the first time

[DexterIsADog]

You're retreating further and further into the weeds, which is a good sign. Any time now you may begin to think. Don't be afraid of it, it's part of growing up.

Re:Not the first time

[BronsCon]

I think all day for a living, thank you very much. Maybe off-color humor isn't your cup of tea, and that's just fine, you're welcome to walk away from it if you don't like it. Nobody is forcing you to stick around and hear it. Seriously.

Re:Not the first time

[thegarbz]

Defending? Wow. Just wow.

This isn't me defending anything. I've said nothing that needs defending. This is me pointing out some of the problems you seem to have identifying the difference between a person's beliefs about race and making some standard jokes.

Ok go see a comedy show.
Go chill out a little.
And then go get some reading comprehension skills too.

Re:Not the first time

[DexterIsADog]

And still you keep replying to try and justify your position. Better and better.

Re:Not the first time

[DexterIsADog]

And you're still doing it! You call racism "standard jokes". That. Is. AWESOME!

Re:Not the first time

[BronsCon]

And from your posting history it's clear that your position is "the opposite of whatever the other guy says". If I suddenly stood up and proclaimed that I'm a horrible, racist scumbag, you'd turn face and say there was nothing wrong with a little off-color humor every now and then. Bravo.

Re:Not the first time

[DexterIsADog]

Aww, I had the feeling you were heading in the right direction, and then you muled on me. So sad.

But I'm flattered you looked at my posts. That makes me feel warm and squishy inside.

Re:Not the first time

[thegarbz]

Maybe you should look up the definition of "racism" and the definition of "jokes".

Just because someone uses a word that *you* consider hateful does not make them a racist, it simply makes you thick skinned. It's the difference between me saying "Uah look at that nigger" and crossing the street, vs going to up a friend and saying "My Nigger!" then giving them a man-hug.

If you can't tell the difference and you consider both of them racist because of the use of a word then I really feel very sorry for you.

Re:Not the first time

[DexterIsADog]

Your analogy is invalid. Your first comment (unsolicited by me) into this thread was "People need to take themselves ress seriousry." Unless you're Asian? I didn't think so.

You're comfortable with racist humor like a fish which doesn't notice water. It's just part of the environment. Well, notice it. Ingrained racism is no longer fashionable. And it's less tolerated.

Try this on; if you tell a racist joke, YOU ARE BEING RACIST. It's just a fact. Your strenuous protests give me the idea you actually know this, but won't admit it to yourself.

Yow, were you this thick in school?

Anyway, I've spent my quota of time educating you. Feel free to post one more I won't reply to (or read), and go on with your life, satisfied that there's... there's... no, nothing wrong with YOU.

They don't like BF

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine what would happen if there was a GTA Shanghai edition... WW3.

Re:They don't like BF

[GTRacer]

Is GTA: Chinatown Wars close enough? That one's an oldie and I don't remember a war...

Re:They don't like BF

[Anonymous Coward]

Nops, GTA: Chinatown Wars didn't sold 27.34 million units (GTAV), it didn't had people's attention.

Captcha: peaked

cultural aggression

[Anonymous Coward]

Well they certainly wouldn't want to endanger cultural aggression.

Re:cultural aggression

[Anonymous Coward]

You're absolutely right.

Even here in Canada, we're seeing an emergence of increased cultural aggression from the US and many American companies are trying to bring their American values to Canada. Traditionally, we're valued our social programs, healthcare and unemployment benefits as a cultural force that has helped us to provide better governance and lifestyle to the vast majority. The American (corporate) values are really starting to push the view of letting the aggressive superstar individual succeed and everyone else fail. I'm sorry if anyone is offended but today's American values tend to let the entire middle class suffer and hurt the lower class significantly. The old adage that the rich get richer and the poor stay poor has been tilted to the extreme in today's economic reality.

Don't get me wrong - I love the US. But they tend to think that democracy and capitalism are one and the same and that's not true. People don't exist to serve artificial constructs like corporations. People exist to help serve and better the human race and too often we forget this as we struggle in our daily lives. I want my children to live in a better world than the one that I grew up in and I don't see it happening today. The US concept of democracy has been perverted by corporate interests and aggressive corporate lobbying. Candidly, I think the world is a more violent, aggressive and dangerous place to live in today than it has been in the past. That being said, it's still better than anything coming out of the cultural toilet that is the Middle East, China and Russia.

Re:cultural aggression

[ArcadeMan]

The one day I don't have mod points. As a Canadian, +insightful/informative to you, AC.

Re:cultural aggression

[Anonymous Coward]

So...? Was brainwashing involved? Or have people simply made different choices than before? Why is it assumed that Americans don't also want some similar things?

Re:cultural aggression

[Anonymous Coward]

"People exist to help serve and better the human race and too often we forget this as we struggle in our daily lives."

People ~exist~ to do whatever the hell they want. Who the fuck are you to dictate to others why and what they exist for??

Every time I hear some anti-American culture tirade its from some nutjob whose pissed off because when given a choice, people dont behave the way the nutjob thinks they should.

American cultural influence is largely based on individuals having choice - some people think that other people shouldnt have choice because, well, theyll make the "wrong" decisions. Well Fuck You.

Re:cultural aggression

[phantomfive]

People don't exist to serve artificial constructs like corporations. People exist to help serve and better the human race and too often we forget this as we struggle in our daily lives.

Oh no, we don't exist to 'help serve and better the human race." That sort of thinking leads to the euthanization of homeless people.

Re:cultural aggression

[Quila]

push the view of letting the aggressive superstar individual succeed

This is telling. You have the view that society has to let a person succeed. Restated, a person needs permission from society in order to succeed. No more superstars so that everybody can have a nice relatively equal lifestyle, huh? Herrison Bergeron, here we come.

Re:cultural aggression

[Threni]

> With the constant battering from Hollywood, music, comics and other cultural exports, Europe is in crisis
> primarily because old and new social concepts are clashing, and we are the battlefield.

What crisis? Old and new "social concepts"? Clashing? Do explain. Especially the bit where comics (which next to nobody reads in Europe) are leading the vanguard. Even (American) movies are seen as cheesy; that's why there's so much piracy - they're literally not worth paying anything to see.

Re:cultural aggression

[Anonymous Coward]

Just look at our last round of "boxing day" sales. The retailers seemed to have pulled out all the stops for "black friday" leaving little for boxing day. I predict in the next few years boxing day will die off in favour of "black friday".

Re:cultural aggression

[Anonymous Coward]

The company that makes Battlefield, DICE, is located in Sweden.

Re:cultural aggression

[Anonymous Coward]

This is telling. You have the view that society has to let a person succeed.

Your post is more telling. You conveniently omitted the GP's word aggressive individual, as well as the rest of the statement where everyone else fail. GP isn't talking about just any person that you seem to be talking about. He's certainly not talking about your job creators (who succeed while also making other people succeed you know)

Re:cultural aggression

[Anonymous Coward]

"People exist to help serve and better the human race and too often we forget this as we struggle in our daily lives."

I love how I am suposta bend over backwards and make everyone's lives better, but yet I dont see it happening for me

"I want my children to live in a better world than the one that I grew up in and I don't see it happening today."

Then quit wasting your life on slashdot, get off your ass and do something instead of sitting around hoping somone else is going to do it for you

Re:cultural aggression

[Anonymous Coward]

So now relate with the NYC decision to limit the size of a soda....

Re:cultural aggression

[rahvin112]

What you aee seeing in Canada isn't American caused. It's a multi-billion dollar propaganda campaign being executed on all English speaking nations by an Austrailian media magnate. Canada has been lowest on list and is only now seeing the effects, it actuslly started in Austrailia moved to the UK and US then into Canada. It's one of the most successfull propaganda campaigns I've ever seen.

Re:cultural aggression

[PhxBlue]

I'm sorry if anyone is offended ...

And that's how we know for a fact you're Canadian. ;)

Seriously, though, don't apologize if your statements of fact offend people. American (corporate) values are bullshit, and we've seen example after example of how they do cause harm to the American middle class. And yet we, as a nation, continue to let ourselves be distracted by "horrible" health care website rollouts and the like.

Because of this, one of my long-term goals is to move out of the United States. American hegemony is going to end, and while I'd love to see the United States gradually settle into national maturity, I fear what's coming is far more violent.

Re:cultural aggression

[PhxBlue]

I love how I am suposta bend over backwards and make everyone's lives better, but yet I dont see it happening for me

You don't have to "bend over backwards" to make other people's lives better. The cost to pay fast food workers a living wage works out to less than 50 per combo meal; is that "bending over backwards"?

What we as a nation have to realize is that if we took the resources we currently put into killing people halfway across the world and focused instead on improving the lives of our own citizens, we'd be far better off.

Re:cultural aggression

[Solandri]

Even here in Canada, we're seeing an emergence of increased cultural aggression from the US and many American companies are trying to bring their American values to Canada. Traditionally, we're valued our social programs, healthcare and unemployment benefits as a cultural force that has helped us to provide better governance and lifestyle to the vast majority. The American (corporate) values are really starting to push the view of letting the aggressive superstar individual succeed and everyone else fail. I'm sorry if anyone is offended but today's American values tend to let the entire middle class suffer and hurt the lower class significantly. The old adage that the rich get richer and the poor stay poor has been tilted to the extreme in today's economic reality.

I'm American but love Canada; lived on the border for most of my childhood and worked there for 3 years. But you have to understand that nobody is "forcing" American values onto you. You always have to agree to it, whether it's because the American stuff is lower price or has better features, or in a contract negotiation they're big and you're small. You can always say no. If you choose not to, then it is you who are selling out your values, not the Americans who are forcing theirs upon you.

If you consider it to be "forcing" their values onto you when they sell a product or negotiate a contract based on what they want, then likewise if you try to buy a product or negotiate contract based on what you want, you are "forcing" your values onto them.

If Canadian culture and values are changing, then it's because of the choices of Canadians. There's no American standing above you with a whip and chair forcing you to dance the American way. You always have a choice. The French (and to a lesser extent the Quebecois) understand this, and take steps to actively ban foreign cultural influences. I think it's a silly way to do it (IMHO individual freedom is more important than cultural preservation), but I respect that they're taking a stand to preserve their unique cultural values, even if costs them some trade contracts and international treaties. That is what it means to stand up for yourself, instead of blaming others for your own choices.

Don't take this the wrong way. I would dearly love for Canadians to "export" some of their values to the U.S. But you have to grow a backbone and be willing to take a stand and make the personal sacrifices that entails (like some people here refuse to buy from Sony for the rootkit fiasco despite drooling over the PS3 and PS4). If you just blame others for your own decisions to assuage your own guilt, you'll remain a pushover and lose more and more of your personal identity. So stand proud to be Canadian, and don't be afraid to refuse to buy American goods or to tell them "no" if it somehow infringes your values.

Re:cultural aggression

[Anonymous Coward]

As an American, I couldn't agree more with you and the GP poster. Excellent points and perspectives.

Re:cultural aggression

[Anonymous Coward]

But you have to understand that nobody is "forcing" American values onto you.

I don't see the GP saying that. GP said various forces (in this case meaning entities with capability) are "pushing" their values. That to me can mean something as simple as adverting to something more nefarious like propaganda.

No, Canada doesn't have to cave (I don't think he's saying Canada has... any particular recent US-style legislation or change are you thinking of?). That doesn't mean the aggressor isn't being, well, aggressive.

In that regard, the GP making a post is his way of making a stand and growing a backbone. Proponents are "pushing" US values on their soapbox. GP is doing the same on this little soapbox called slashdot

Re:cultural aggression

[Tom]

It is owned by EA.

Re:cultural aggression

[Tom]

Clashing? Do explain

I did. It's clearly seen in the attitude towards unemployed. When I was young, unemployed people were helped and supported. It was clear they had put money into the unemployment benefits system when they were employed, so they were entitled to their benefits now. The task of the government was to play matchmaker between companies looking for people and people looking for jobs.

Today, the credo is that unemployed people are lazy bastards and need to be pressured into getting a new job. The government is watching closely that they follow all the (mostly new) rules on how many job applications to write and if they live in a place that is too large, they have to move to a small and cheaper one.

On is an attitude of being-in-this-together and the other is an attitude of competition and scarce resources.

Re:cultural aggression

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't exist to benefit humanity. I am not a subject of sacrifice not for YOU not for anyone else and definitely not for the whole, stupid, humanity. I don't expect you to sacrifice anything for me. I don't know you. I don't care about you. All I might want from you I can BUY from you if you are willing to sell.
You and I, both, will benefit from such a deal. Each of us will PROFIT from the deal.
But the thing is - YOU don't think that you should profit from the deal with me. You think that you are a thief if you made yourself richer.
So you live in a secret shame about being wealthier then your neighbor and you live in a secret rage about your friend who is better-of then you are because your friend done the unethical and "stole" from you. Free transaction are evil in your mind. They must be monitored for "fairness" and "social justice".
Groups of people that make a product and profit by selling it - are "evil corporations". And you are "struggling" daily. Want to see your ethics in action? You should if you want to keep believing what you say. Jump over to a country in Europe called Belarus. Take a look at "economic equality". Rejoice!

Re:cultural aggression

[Anonymous Coward]

>Austerity
you're going bankrupt trying to "care for each other". only countries that export oil (norway, canada) can afford to keep the dream alive.

>Monaco, Luxemburg, etc
the rich in europe have you guys fooled. you are so deluded that they have even set up countries for themselves. and megacorps like Vinci controls construction, Nestle controls the food supply, etc

But they dangle the carrot of socialism and you keep pulling the cart

Re:cultural aggression

[Threni]

Unemployed people are still helped and supported (in the UK). There are agencies who find people work. I work in IT and I signed up to a few websites and found work very quickly. I appreciate not everyone has an interest in IT and studies it in their spare time but you need to have skills which people want; you can't just roll out of bed and expect people to hand you money. If there are jobs available then people should take them, rather than decide they'd rather get paid to do nothing. And if you have to move to another area to work...well, I'd had to commute over an hour in the past (this isn't that unusual in the UK)..if you have to travel further to find a job where your skills are required then I don't see that as a problem; it's always been that way. Unemployment benefit is not something that anyone I know uses; I guess it's fine if you're struggling to find some work for a few weeks/months, but if you're just on it all the time then I suggest that 1) you're not looking very hard for a job and 2) there's some sort of problem here which unemployment benefit isn't really designed to address.

Not sure what you mean about living in a place that's too large; do you mean subsidised housing, or a town?

We're all in society together, and companies are going to want the best they can get for a given salary, and if people can't provide that then I'm not sure what you believe the answer to be. Just give up on some people (but pay them anyway) or try and foster a society which encourages people to earn an honest living even if that means study/commuting?

Re:cultural aggression

[deconfliction]

...

Don't get me wrong - I love the US. But they tend to think that democracy and capitalism are one and the same and that's not true.

This, and your first paragraph, I absolutely agree with. but...

People don't exist to serve artificial constructs like corporations. People exist to help serve and better the human race

Here you have begun to project your desires of how you wish other people thought. People exist because we are biological organisms in this living universe. Or people don't exist because their would-be parents lived in a region of the living universe that wasn't able to support their successful breeding.

Candidly, I think the world is a more violent, aggressive and dangerous place to live in today than it has been in the past.

Really? I'm sure it depends on your geographic region, but here in the U.S. I remember *common* crime being more prevalent before the rise of pervasive mobile phones. Unfortunately I also bear witness to the increase in truly sinister new-age crime enabled by technology compounding historic human nature of spying and coercion.

That being said, it's still better than anything coming out of the cultural toilet that is the Middle East, China and Russia.

Hmm... I wish I could point to a lot of culture from those places that I like. I admit I tend to imagine that the free speech rhetoric I've been conditioned with has led to better rock music, movies, video games, and other art. But I still have hopes that in the not too distant future the cultural walls will disolve and the billions of people in those places will start producing more art and entertainment that I like. Unfortunately I think there are some large corporations that want to keep a lid on the new-age of de-scarcified art enabled by the internet and digital reproduction. Hopefully we'll see them crumble in the long term.

Re:cultural aggression

[Tom]

(IMHO individual freedom is more important than cultural preservation)

Individual freedom is a part of culture.

Re:cultural aggression

[Tom]

American cultural influence is largely based on individuals having choice

And science is rapidly proving how much that "free choice" is an illusion and how dramatically you are influenced by even small environmental factor.s

If you find out that your ideology is based on a wrong assumption - what do you do?

Re:cultural aggression

[Tom]

If there are jobs available then people should take them, rather than decide they'd rather get paid to do nothing.

Thank you for proving my point, that is exactly the attitude change I was talking about.

Not sure what you mean about living in a place that's too large; do you mean subsidised housing, or a town?

No, one of the fairly recent changes to the unemployment laws is that instead of giving you X â of unemployment benefits and leaving it to you how you split that up between your expenses, you now get unemployment benefits for a limited time and after that you get "unemployment benefits II" (it's actually called that, with a roman 2), which is much, much smaller, in fact it is just above the poverty level, but you also get seperate money (also fixed amounts) for rent, etc. basically, the money is split up. However, since the government now "pays your rent" (ignoring that they give you less money than before and the only reason the "pay the rent" is that they split it into dedicated sections) they get a say in how big your home can be. There's a formula saying how many square metres a family of X members can have, and if your home is 2 sqm bigger, the government can force you to move.

It's not subsidised. They just labeled a part of the old unemployment money "rent payment".

We're all in society together, and companies are going to want the best they can get for a given salary, and if people can't provide that then I'm not sure what you believe the answer to be. Just give up on some people (but pay them anyway) or try and foster a society which encourages people to earn an honest living even if that means study/commuting?

My argument isn't about economy, it's about society. You can treat unemployed people as temporarily in a tough spot and help them along, as a society that is helping each other out. Or you can treat them as parasites who are lazy bastards and need pressure and punishment to get their butts up and find a job.

Same amount of money flowing, but completely different social climate.

Re:cultural aggression

[jirikivaari]

Cultural aggression is nonsense. By who? US Government? US Government trying to get Chinese people to play BF4? Really? That's like saying Japan is culturally attacking the West because people started watching anime in the Western world? Are you serious? Spread of cultural things back and forth is the best thing ever for world peace. Obviously local people whose Ivory Towers are crumbling get annoyed by that. Just look at Middle East. Wonder why would you think local fundamentalists are trying to tell the story that watching Sex & Cit.. err Battlestar Galactica is a sin? Sometimes it makes me think posts like above are paid by someone.

Re:cultural aggression

[kaatochacha]

I agree, and to back up my belief, here is an alien book titled "To Serve Man".
Nothing bad can come of that!

Re:cultural aggression

[dabadab]

Don't know about BF4 in particular, but they sure are right about "cultural aggression".

They are certainly experts of this topic since it is what they are doing in Tibet for 60 years.

Re:cultural aggression

[Tom]

By who? US Government?

Obvious nonsense. It doesn't require a conspiracy or an intentional actor to happen.

Spread of cultural things back and forth is the best thing ever for world peace.

Except, of course, for the random indian tribe who has no immunity to the disease you bring and dies out. Friend, there are always side-effects to everything. The freedom and liberty you celebrate might erode the family unit that is the backbone of some other culture somewhere else. Who knows? Who are you to judge?

Re:cultural aggression

[Anonymous Coward]

Except in china, money is more important than individuals.

Re:cultural aggression

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a multi-billion dollar propaganda campaign being executed on all English speaking nations by an Austrailian media magnate.

Murdoch has an American citizenship now, and you are very very welcome to keep him.

Re:cultural aggression

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't matter, the game is developed in Sweden wholesale.

Re:cultural aggression

[AmiMoJo]

That has little to do with American culture though. It's just the newspapers got more aggressive as TV news and the internet made them largely redundant for reporting actual news. They switched to opinion and more specifically in the case of most of the hatred and anger inducing stories. The unemployed are an easy target because there is an endless supply of inarticulate and poorly educated people to focus on and rail against. Of course they attack other weak targets like the disabled and immigrants, but the unemployed are particularly attractive as an object of hate.

Re:cultural aggression

[Tom]

That's utter and complete bollocks.

The press has run some, uhm, "interesting" articles, but this particular spin is coming loudly and clearly out of politics, not the media.

Re:cultural aggression

[jirikivaari]

...the freedom and liberty you celebrate might erode the family unit that is the backbone of some other culture somewhere else. Who knows? Who are you to judge?"

On intellectual level I agree with this but not in the practice. There is certainly costs to everything but in this practice this means that some homosexuals get executed in name of "traditional values", people are not allowed to use Twitter in name of "keeping society peaceful" et cetera. Human societies consist of all kinds of groups competing with each other for status and resources, and usually a big web of shady beliefs are needed to keep those in power. Just look at the recent Snowden leaks.

But seriously though those (Indian tribes? Care to give real examples?) are extremely small costs compared to the world peace that Internet and spread of culture is pushing. Lack of communication between people leads to groups starting hostilities with each other. For example, I've met a lot of people from my neighboring country online that I would not otherwise. I think those relationships will help to promote peace between our countries more than any diplomats could. Similarly, I think Hollywood movies and tv-series will promote more peace in the Middle East than any of the war operations ever could. The only reason these extreme Islamists have power is that they protect their power hierarchies with strong rhetoric about traditional values, and a group of lies along that.

Re:cultural aggression

[Tom]

this means that some homosexuals get executed in name of "traditional values", people are not allowed to use Twitter in name of "keeping society peaceful" et cetera.

Oh, I absolutely agree that there are positive and negative cultural elements, and I'm all for abolishing at least the worst of them. Like religion.

Nevertheless, the point is that there are side-effects. Yes, you might bring freedom to people and save the gay from execution. But maybe that same culture you bring also destroys the family and makes people unhappy who don't want to live in an ultra-competitive cuthroat world.

And one more word: The progressive values of today, are the traditional values of tomorrow. That islam or christianity that we see as ultra-conservative traditionalists? There was a time when they were considered revolutionaries, new-fangled stuff you shouldn't let your daughters near.

Banning = more interest.

[Anonymous Coward]

Banning it will only make it the #1 pirated game in china Tomorrow.,

I'd be alarmed too

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a populist screed about how America is going to help the first influential person with "dreams of democracy" make a coup d'etat against the government of China. In the game's defense it does show China's military kicking the collective ass of the US Navy and the Marines up one side and down the other.

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[Runaway1956]

Well, hey - realistically speaking, how many organizations do you think are capable of facing a million man army, which can draft a half billion man army on short notice? Come on, now, there aren't anywhere near a million squids and jarheads in the Department of the Navy.

On the plus side - when they've got our asses surrounded, we don't need to worry to much about target acquisition! "Target rich environments" do have their benefits!

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[DSElliot]

The PLA has short arms and short legs - meaning that it can't get to where it's going and once it gets there, it doesn't have the logistical tail to fight. The strength of the US Army has nothing to do with our weapons. I served with the US Army in Egypt about 10 years ago at a remote checkpoint in the middle of the Sinai desert. I watched as every day, Egyptian conscripts were given a bag of rice and vegetables as their food for the day. Their only water was from a 55 gallon oil drum which was used for cooking and bathing and the only time they got meat was when they were rotated back to their main base. Meanwhile, I'm on a FOB with satellite TV, air conditioning and more turkey sandwiches that I could possibly eat. That's when it struck me that the strength of the US Army does not come from our weapons - it comes from our ability to move more turkey sandwiches across the globe than the good guys can even move in their own country. An Army marches on its stomach. The problem with a million man army is that you have to feed it and once we cut that off, the Chinese have a million starving, trained men with guns.

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[cold fjord]

On the plus side - when they've got our asses surrounded, we don't need to worry to much about target acquisition! "Target rich environments" do have their benefits!

Things pretty much worked out that way the last time US and Chinese troops fought each other.

Lt. Gen. Lewis Berwell Puller

During the Korean War, the Chinese communists had overrun the Yalu River and the Marines battling them were in a running fight to reach the coast. Ten Chinese divisions surrounded Col. Lewis Berwell Puller's 1st Marines. The indomitable "Chesty" Puller saw the situation with his own brand of logic: "Those poor bastards," he said. "They've got us right where we want them. We can fire in any direction now!"

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[Runaway1956]

You do make a helluva good point. But, we also saw what happened in Vietnam. I'm not old enough to be a Viet Vet, so I base all my thinking on hearsay and history books. But, the Ho Chi Minh trail proved quite effective for the opposition. They moved personnel, vehicles, weapons and equipment, food, and other material pretty freely. Ultimately, we lost that one.

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[Runaway1956]

When once asked what his one wish would be, "Chesty" Puller responded, "I would like to see the face of every Marine I served with one last time."

The streets of Heaven are supposed to be guarded by United States Marines. Maybe the general has seen his Marines again.

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[mjwalshe]

And the Chinese army is much more about internal control than being able to project force 2000km away

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[mjwalshe]

At what cost human and materiel with the gunships roaming at will dropping a 105mm on anything that looked like a truck - the VC didn't have much success in a fight it was only after the "peace" treaty and the NVA invading in a more traditional manner.

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, and thanks to that, we have a perfect example of what to watch out for. Surely you don't think we'd lose to that tactic again.

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[Tom]

Everything you said is true. There's just one thing to add:

The problem with a million man army is that you have to feed it and once we cut that off, the Chinese have a million starving, trained men with guns.

Pray that they're in your enemies territory at the time.

Russia won WW2 through their burned earth strategy, but it cost them their industrial base and contributed greatly to them losing the Cold War.

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[currently_awake]

During the Korean war about a 100,000 Chinese soldiers attacked 2,000 soldiers from Australia and Canada in the battle of Kapyong and were stopped. Of course that was a defensive battle not an allied invasion of China- and fighting defensively gives a huge boost. We'd not get the same result if we invaded. There is more to war than just numbers of men, aircraft, ships and tanks.

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[currently_awake]

The reason the US lost in Vietnam is because they fought a purely defensive war. They never invaded North Vietnam and never carpet bombed their cities. The communists historically don't care about civilian casualties, but if the Americans had poisoned the rice fields and destroyed the bridges and roads it would have made it impossible to feed their soldiers in the field. China simply didn't have the spare food to give them.

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[brit74]

> "It's a populist screed about how America is going to help the first influential person with "dreams of democracy" make a coup d'etat against the government of China."

Really? That's not what the wikipedia page says --

"Battlefield 4's single-player Campaign takes place in 2020, six years after the events of its predecessor. Tensions between Russia and the United States have beem running at a record high. On top of this, China is also on the brink of war, as Admiral Chang, the main antagonist, plans to overthrow China's current government. If he succeeds, Chang will have full support from the Russians, bringing China to the brink of war with the United States... the player hears their commanding officer, Captain Garrison, talking over the phone about the intel: that Admiral Chang is planning a military coup d'état, and if he succeeds, he will gain full Russian support, confirming an earlier report from an asset in China.[10][11][25] Tombstone returns to the USS Valkyrie, an amphibious assault carrier en route to China's eastern coast.[25] On board, Garrison informs them of the assassination of Chinese presidential candidate Jin Jié; and how Chang convinced the Chinese that the United States was responsible." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlefield_4#Setting_and_characters

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[Anonymous Coward]

they are much smarter about remote control. look to Iraq if you have any questions about winning 2000 km away.

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[Runaway1956]

You sound like a young person, with that post. Maybe not though - some older people think in a similar way.

The real reasons we lost in Vietnam?

1. Popular support. We were, after all, the invaders. Few people like the idea of foreign invaders coming into their country, and trying to run things.

2. Foreign support. All those war material coming down the Ho Chi Minh trail were supplied by China. Or routed through China.

3. S. Vietnam Government corruption. Out of every ten dollars value pumped into Vietnam, corruption ate six dollars. Food, weapons, ammo - everything just fell into a vast black hole. And, that corruption helped to defeat us by feeding that popular support, and the foreign support of the North.

That defensiveness you mention? Yeah, it played a part, but it really wasn't a major part. And, the reason for THAT is not exactly what you might think, either. Basically, we agreed to play a defensive game in Vietnam, because we allowed ourselves to be coerced by China. The bombing of Hanoi, for instance. China TOLD US that if we bombed downtown Hanoi, then the Chinese army would come in and kick our asses. Our politicians didn't want to face China, so they caved. China also TOLD US that if we bombed any staging areas on their side of the border, then their army would come in and kick our asses. Again, our politicians believed them. There were numerous, lesser ultimatums issued by the Chinese leadership, most of which our politicians just obeyed. Not all, but most.

It can be argued - convincingly argued if you work hard enough - that we lost the war due to politics. Our own politicians failed to support our troops properly. But, even if you fail to make that argument very convincing, the reasons stated above will suffice.

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[Runaway1956]

That same tactic is working against us in Afghanistan today. Look carefully. An entrenched political machine keeps us on the defensive, while the puppet we support tries to pretend that he is in charge. The only part of the Vietnamese equation that is missing from Afghanistan, is China. Pakistan makes a piss poor imitation of China, but Pakistan does fulfill some of the functions of China in the Vietnam war.

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[Runaway1956]

Trucks? Far more war material was moved on bicycles than on trucks. Bicycles, backpacks, and those ubiquitous pole things across laborer's shoulders.

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[HiThere]

You left out one major factor:
Nobody ever explained to the US citizenry why it was reasonable for us to be in there in the first place, so nobody wanted to go.

That was one reason the US switched to "the volunteer army". When you volunteer, you have given up the right to complain about being sent to a "war". ("War" is in quotes, because the US Senate hasn't declared war in the last century, so it can hardly be considered a war, legally. Legally I believe it's just an unjustified, probably unjustifiable, use of deadly force against foreigners.)

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[Anonymous Coward]

because the US Senate hasn't declared war in the last century

You'll have to wait a while before that statement is correct. The last time the Senate declared war was June 6, 1942 (against Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania); the last that wasn't in response to enemy attack or declaration was on April 6, 1917 (against Germany).

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[shutdown -p now]

Russia won WW2 through their burned earth strategy

Scorched earth had probably contributed to the victory, as part of the overall stalling tactic in the first year of the war, but I don't think it can be truly identified as the thing that won it.

but it cost them their industrial base and contributed greatly to them losing the Cold War.

The industrial base was rebuilt - in fact, expanded - by the end of the war; the necessities of the latter forced this in high gear. Soviets would have never won the war otherwise - in long term, it was the ability to outproduce the Germans that proved crucial (though Hitler's constant desire to micromanage his armies while making facepalm worthy mistakes over and over again certainly helped it along).

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[HiThere]

OK, make that 50 years then. What I SHOULD have said was "in my lifetime", or actually "since I started to read". (I don't remember hearing that the US declared war during WWII, but there was certainly reason to do so. 1917 sounds about right for what I remember.)

OTOH, there are quite a few times earlier when I don't belief that war was actually declared before the US commenced fighting. Having the president also be the commander-in-chief encourages a bit of military adventurism. OTOH, it may lessen the chance of a coup d'etat.

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no Heaven. There is no Hell. These lies and delusions are what makes it possible for History to repeat itself.

Besides, if there was a Heaven, the streets would hardly need to be guarded by US Marines.

Unless your idea of "Heaven" is a military-police State.

Talk about Satanic.

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[neoritter]

Canadian Special forces managed to hold off tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers during the Korean War. Hill 227 in the Korean War was held by 20 French Canadian special forces for three days against two Chinese divisions (roughly 14,000 men). That's what, 1:700 ratio?

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[neoritter]

Military considerations are the lowest reason why we "lost" that war. I put lost in quotes because we signed a peace treaty and two years later the NVA invaded after we had left, so technically we didn't lose. The US won pretty much ever tactical and strategic battle in that war. The problem was, the Viet Cong and great propaganda. The Tet Offensive was a huge military debacle for the Viet Cong. After that they basically lost the ability to wage any sizeable resistance. But it was an amazing media coup for them. The American public and others increasingly gained the perception that we were losing the war.

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[neoritter]

Pakistan is more like Laos or Cambodia, if you're doing analogies.

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[Runaway1956]

Yeah, but that was cheating. The Chinese had no idea there were TWENTY Canadians up there!

http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~magi/personal/humour/General_Audience/Red%20Rory%20o'%20th'%20Glen.html

Red Rory o' th' Glen

The story is told of the English Regiment marching through
the Highlands of Scotland (when English Regiments were wont to
do such). As they passed through a very narrow defile, a voice
mocked them from above.

"I'm Red Rory of the Glen," the voice called. "And I challenge you!
Send up your best man."

The Colonel of the Regiment looked up to the hilltop and beheld the
BIGGEST Scot he had ever seen. His kilt-girthed form must have stood
7 foot and the Claymore in his hand would dwarf most men.

Again the challenge echoed across the hills. "I'm Red Rory of the Glen
and I challenge you! If anyone amongst you would dare to call himself
``Champion'', then send him up!"

The Colonel, unwilling to let this challenge to the flower of English
Soldiery pass unanswered, called over his Adjunct. "Major," he seethed,
"send up the Regiment's champion. I want this Scot's head!"

And so the Champion went forth. Up the hill he strode, confidence
in every step, to do battle with this Challenger. The Challenger
roared his mirth and stepped over the crest, out of site; the Champion
followed. Soon the sounds of battle rolled over the hill and the
Regiment waited. And then, THUMP Thump thump.... A head! Rolling down
the hill came a head. And then, from the hilltop, came the rumble of
the Challenger's laughter. "I'm Red Rory of the Glen! Again I challenge
you! Send up your best Squad!"

"Major," shouted the Colonel! "This cannot be stood! Send up the best
Squad." Up the hill forged the Squad, then over the crest to face the
Challenger. Soon the sounds of battle were heard again and then THUMP
THUMP THUMP Thump Thump thump! The heads of the squad came rolling down
the hill.

"I'm Red Rory of the Glen," came the voice, "and I challenge you! Send up
your best company!"

Rage contorted the Colonel's face as he screamed, "Major! Send up
Company C. I want that man's head and I want it now!" "Yes, sir," was
the only response, and soon Company C was advancing up the hill. Again,
from over the crest, came the sounds of terrible battle but this time,
floating above them, came the sound of the Challenger's laughter!

Slowly, the sounds of battle died away but still the laughter continued.
And then, from the top of the hill, came a avalanche of heads to pile
up around the Colonel's feet.

"I'm Red Rory of the Glen, and I challenge you! I have beaten the best
you have to send, now come yourself!"

"Major," said the Colonel, his rage now turned icy cold. "Take the
Regiment up that hill and destroy him! I don't want anyone to return
without his head!"

So, in good form, the Regiment marched up the hill and out of the sight
of the Colonel waiting at the bottom of the hill. This time the battle
raged for hours. Then as the sun sank into the hills, the Adjunct came
hurtling down the hill, his uniform disarrayed and splattered with
blood. His eyes spoke books of terror. "Colonel," he screamed, his
terror edging his voice with panic, "RUN, it's a trap. There's two
of them!"

Re:I'd be alarmed too

[neoritter]

That was pretty hilarious. But that speaks to the same point. Keeping your enemy unaware of your true force size can be a significant advantage. In fact the commander of that Canadian team is considered the sole liberator of a Dutch town and at one point captured almost 100 German soldiers on his own. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9o_Major Numbers aren't everything. ;)

What about Russia and U.S.?

[tompaulco]

It looks like Russia and the U.S. are also in the game, and you can play as any of them, so will it also be banned in the U.S. and Russia? Nope? Didn't think so.

Re:What about Russia and U.S.?

[Virtucon]

Give Putin about 5 minutes and he'll have a law ready to sign banning the game and promoting his new health and fitness photos.

Re:What about Russia and U.S.?

[Suiggy]

It's the single player campaign that China likely has an issue with, which is strictly one-sided in portraying China as the enemy.

Re:What about Russia and U.S.?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the part (whole game) where you play alongside a chinese agent to take down a rogue chinese general.

Re:What about Russia and U.S.?

[danbob999]

The US would never do the same. They always accept when they are the enemy in a video game.

Re:What about Russia and U.S.?

[tompaulco]

I got the game for Christmas, but haven't played it yet. It looks interesting. I'm a strictly single player guy. I don't find it interesting to play against others on the internet, especially profane 13 year olds who have nothing better to do but play online games 24/7.

Re:What about Russia and U.S.?

[Raistlin77]

Voicing an opinion that results in the game developer changing the title of one side of the fight is a far cry from making the game illegal. Medal of Honor was not banned and EA was not forced to remove "Taliban" from the game, they simply did so because they felt it was the right thing to do profitwise after hearing said opinions.

Re:What about Russia and U.S.?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Out of respect to those we serve, we will not be stocking this game," said Maj. Gen. Bruce Casella, the service's commanding officer. "We regret any inconvenience this may cause authorized shoppers, but are optimistic that they will understand the sensitivity to the life and death scenarios this product presents as entertainment."

So, profitwise, apparently military personnel are big buyers of EA Military Sims and the inconvenience of "not be stocking" the game would be such a hit that EA chose to not include the Taliban as a playable side. Funny, though, how "sensitivity to the life and death scenarios this product presents as entertainment" doesn't result in a blanket "not be stocking" of all Military Sims (like America's Army). And you're right it wasn't an outright ban, since I presume military personnel could mail order the thing. The whole point, though, was to intentionally manipulate sales in a unilateral way open a government official's opinion. That's minimal a form of censorship, even if a potentially mostly mooted one. Though the point that you think it would cut enough into their profits for them to change things...well, that does almost imply they were afraid the censorship would potentially go farther and hence it was wise to drop the issue instead of having the military customer backlash.

And yea, I'm presuming a lot that military personnel are the big buyers of such games, but then I don't think most other people would be "sensitive" to the point of not buying the game, anyways, so I can't see them swaying the sales figures either way, really. Of course, I'd assume the biggest truth is more like EA wants to maintain a cozy enough relationship with the US military so they can continue to make new games, so that might have the most to do with it. Ie, if it's not a matter of outright censorship, it sounds like some sort of collusion or corruption. It's definitely nothing to the scale of what China does, but that doesn't make it a good or acceptable thing.

Re:What about Russia and U.S.?

[PhxBlue]

To be fair, AAFES' video game selection is piss-poor already. I'm not sure anyone would go to a base exchange looking for a video game unless it's at least two years old.

Re:What about Russia and U.S.?

[Anonymous Coward]

Censorship can be implemented via different mechanisms. You have outright banning, economic incentives, political pressure, etc.

Re:What about Russia and U.S.?

[Anonymous Coward]

Silencing by shame is not less a form of censorship than silencing by force.

Re:What about Russia and U.S.?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd have played that. It reminds of struggles during WW2 against a superior enemy. Too bad game companies can't target their digital assets by geographic area. I believe it would be called "localization." Wow, I might be onto something great!

Re:What about Russia and U.S.?

[Anonymous Coward]

Battle of Fallujah (PC war game based on the Iraq war) banned in the US. 'Nuff said

It's ok China...

[g0bshiTe]

It's ok China, you can ban the game just keep in mind that millions of BF 4 players are enjoying the game on Chinese manufactured equipment.

Irony anyone?

Re:It's ok China...

[DexterIsADog]

It's ok China, you can ban the game just keep in mind that millions of BF 4 players are enjoying the game on Chinese manufactured equipment. Irony anyone?

Umm, since their intent is to prevent Chinese from getting ideas, and they do like the revenue from manufacturing computers for the rest of the world, and would probably prefer that other countries' youth wasted their time on games instead of studying, then...

No, that's not ironic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony

Re:It's ok China...

[ElectricTurtle]

That ok. Thank you for money. (Signed) China Dictated but not read.

China has a point

[Suiggy]

The voracious supporters of democracy and freedom in the West are more radical and virulent than 20th century International Communists when it comes to spreading their ideology. China has every right to to be concerned, especially when bringing "democracy" and "freedom" to the rest of the world means bombing campaigns, land invasions, and subservience to Western central banks.

Re:China has a point

[JoeyRox]

I agree, freedom and democracy are a virus on humanity that should be stamped out of existence.

Re:China has a point

[Anonymous Coward]

Well put.

Re:China has a point

[Nemyst]

What the hell are you harping on about? This is all about the Communist Party banning a video game which casts them in a bad light (in this case, in a state of internal turmoil, with the entire country plunged into civil war). It's a move to preserve the public image of the party as something invulnerable and all-knowing.

Re:China has a point

[Anonymous Coward]

The voracious supporters of democracy and freedom in the West are more radical and virulent than 20th century International Communists when it comes to spreading their ideology. China has every right to to be concerned, especially when bringing "democracy" and "freedom" to the rest of the world means bombing campaigns, land invasions, and subservience to Western central banks.

Only on Slashdot does this get +5 insightful... If this were the USA doing the censorship instead of China, the slashdot commenters would be screaming of tyranny. When China does it, censorship is cheered on as fighting the encroachment of the USA and western influence.

Re:China has a point

[zlives]

in this case the bombs are imaginary... censorship is still censorship.
Communist ideology, built on the backs and necks of their own citizens is not Chinese ideology.

Re:China has a point

[umafuckit]

That's not what the poster you replied to is saying. He's saying, I believe, that many of our governments in the West are now so powerful and complicated that elections are becoming a progressively less powerful means of keeping our leaders in check. Most of the political parties are the same, and the vast and powerful civil service machinery stays more or less unchanged no matter who is in power. If they want to go to war and kill thousands of innocent people, then we have no say in the matter.

In our democracy we put our trust in those in power to run the country for us and we usually have no direct say in what actually happens. It's supposed to work like that, but a lot of people don't seem to realise this. It's true that it's much easier for an individual to enter government in a Western democracy than in China, but overall I think our governments have more in common with the Chinese government than a lot of us are willing to admit.

Re:China has a point

[the eric conspiracy]

Except this has nothing to do with American ideology. It's all about the negative depiction of the Chinese Communist party in BF4.

Re:China has a point

[Anonymous Coward]

And the U.S. is leading the charge.

Re:China has a point

[dunkelfalke]

Well, cruise missile democracy should indeed be stamped out of existence.

Re:China has a point

[LordLimecat]

Yea! Remember that time when democracy starved 40 million people? And when Freedom did a mass genocide in Cambodia?

Re:China has a point

[Anonymous Coward]

In theory, except the freedom has to be aproved under dubious claims of "public safety" (protests).

As for the supposed democracy, seems very ill, subverted and controlled by said central banks and their investments, be it corporative or plain legislative/political through said corporate "donations".

Re:China has a point

[Anonymous Coward]

freedom and democracy

If you mean the sort delivered via bombings, enhanced interogation techniques, fake evidence of non existant wrong doing and freedom fries, I fully agree. Please keep your american imperialism (starting from the founding of the U.S.A and still ongoing) away from the halfway functioning parts of the world.

Re:China has a point

[Sardaukar86]

If this were the USA doing the censorship instead of China, the slashdot commenters would be screaming of tyranny. When China does it, censorship is cheered on as fighting the encroachment of the USA and western influence.

So there are a bunch of us nihilistic fuckers on Slashdot? Who knew?

Missed opurtunity

[Kimomaru]

China SHOULD ban it, but they should have banned it because of its frequent glitches and crashing. China had a chance to be funny about this and I think they just missed it. Maybe Australia can pick up the pieces of this comedy gold.

Re:Missed opurtunity

[Suiggy]

You seriously expect today's soulless politicians and bureaucrats to have a sense of humor that is anything more than parroting a scripted joke written by a political speech writer? Now that's funny.

Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans surrendered in Vietnam

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[oodaloop]

The U.S. surrendered in an another country after a long war. The French surrendered immediately when they were invaded. Hardly the same thing.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

950,765 communist forces killed in Vietnam from 1965 to 1974
58,220 U.S. service members were killed.
yeah, the U.S. totally got their asses kicked! LOL. We stopped the communist threat and that is the important thing. Economics 101 and time did the rest for us.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Desler]

Immediately? They fought the French Indonchina war from 1946 until 1954 when they withdrew and they were smart to do so. Unlike the US who continued to fight a losing war for two decades wasting tons of money and wasting lots of lives.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Desler]

We stopped the communist threat

In what way? The entire country of Vietnam became communist after the end of the war.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[fredrated]

By "communist forces" do you by any chance mean people defending their own country, first from the French, then from the U.S.? That is a pretty honorable thing to do unlike, for example, invading a country and killing people that were no threat to you, any of your friends or anyone else in your country.
As for 'stopped the communist threat', you do know we lost, right? Perhaps not.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[cold fjord]

Americans surrendered in Vietnam

Actually no. The US left as part of a peace agreement which the North Vietnamese violated by invading and conquering South Vietnam with tanks and infantry divisions. Just another case of communist aggression and lying.

Interestingly China invaded Vietnam several years after North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam. It wasn't a pleasant experience for them.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[fche]

North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam before the US ever got there -- not at all unlike how North Korea's invasion of the South started that war.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Em Adespoton]

Americans surrendered in Vietnam

Actually no. The US left as part of a peace agreement which the North Vietnamese violated by invading and conquering South Vietnam with tanks and infantry divisions. Just another case of communist aggression and lying.

Indeed... because communist aggression and lying looks so different from capitalist aggression and lying....

Really; your argument doesn't hold together. It's just another case of aggression and lying -- governing style doesn't even have to come into it.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Desler]

Just another case of communist aggression and lying.

Sort of like how Lyndon Johnson lied about the Gulf of Tomkin incident?

In 2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified; it concluded[7] that the Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2, but that there were no North Vietnamese Naval vessels present during the incident of August 4. The report stated regarding August 2:

At 1500G, Captain Herrick ordered Ogier's gun crews to open fire if the boats approached within ten thousand yards. At about 1505G, the Maddox fired three rounds to warn off the communist boats. This initial action was never reported by the Johnson administration, which insisted that the Vietnamese boats fired first.[7]

Regarding August 4:

It is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night. [...] In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on August 2.[8]

In 1965, President Johnson commented privately: "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there." [40]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Bruinwar]

A peace agreement that everyone, including Kissinger, knew was a joke.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Sarten-X]

America had promised, as part of that agreement, that we'd bring air support to Saigon if the North did invade. They did, and we didn't.

Politicians lie, intentionally or not, regardless of what party they associate with.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

We stopped the communist threat

In what way? The entire country of Vietnam became communist after the end of the war.

The communist effort was ground to a halt, instead of sweeping over all of Asia.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

oodaloop was comparing America's surrender in Vietnam -- after a long hard war far away from home -- to French surrender of their homes promptly upon invasion. Read carefully, try to keep up...

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[MarkvW]

There was a very significant indigenous resistance force in South Vietnam in the '50s and '60s. That was not true in Korea in the '50s.

Besides, why wouldn't the North want to reunify the country after partition had been forced on them by the imperialist French and their allies.

The Vietnam War was STUPID.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Trepidity]

The U.S. had hundreds of soldiers in the South by 1955, and thousands by 1960. The French, of course, had hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the South in the early 1950s, until a string of military defeats forced them to withdraw. It's not like the West was just minding its own business when North Vietnam suddenly invaded a previously-entirely-independent South, forcing the West to respond. The West was already there with a large military presence since the '40s, supporting a series of corrupt (not to mention incompetent and murderous) colonial-lackey dictators, from Bao Dai up through Ngo Dinh Diem and Nguyen Van Thieu.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

Would that be the French army that held the Germans back allowing the British Expeditionary Force run away at Dunkirk?

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Trepidity]

That "peace agreement" was an instrument of surrender in all but name, and everyone on all sides knew it.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

The French have more victories than the US.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[SuricouRaven]

If you're refering to WW2, they didn't surrender immediately. They were one of the first to declare war on Germany after the unprovoked German invasion of Poland. True, their government surrended soon after - but even then much of the french military defied the order and continued fighting, simply joining forces with whichever local allied power would accept their aid. Their civilian resistance effort also went down in legend - a campaign of intelligence gathering, covert communication and outright sabotage that significently hindered German efforts to transport troops and material through the country and brought vital information to the allies.

Their surrender, though quick, was not given easily: It was only forced by a series of catastropic strategic defeats. It was only when the German army was standing at the fringe of a defenceless Paris that the surrender was hastily given, with government leaders fearful of the immense loss of civilian lives (Not to mention their own) should the capital be attacked.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[cold fjord]

Communists have the unique distinction of killing approximately 100,000,000 people in the last century. Revolution, class warfare, and the extermination of class and state enemies are a pattern repeatedly demonstrated in communist rule, often followed by attempts to export the revolution to other places. It is built into the ideology.

The Soviet Story is informative. - Excerpts

When a kinder, gentler communism arises, a "socialism with a human face," the brotherly "socialist," i.e. communist, nations invade to set things straight.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[mc6809e]

And in effect surrendered to the Chinese who were supporting the Viet Cong and forcing communism on the entire country.

There were probably times during the war when Chinese soldiers were fighting directly with US troops.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[cold fjord]

Sort of like how Lyndon Johnson lied about the Gulf of Tomkin incident?

Not quite. They key part is here: "....it concluded[7] that the Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2 ..."

There clearly was a meaningful naval engagement on one day, but they were mistaken about events on the second day. Calk it up to the fog of war, it happens. There are many unknowns, uncertainties, and mistakes that occur in warfare. You don't have perfect knowledge, and the enemy tries to fool you. Electronic equipment is not infallible and is subject to miscalibration, spoofing, and other faults. The interpretation of results is not immune to mistakes of many kinds, including faulty judgment.

Actions in the Gulf of Tonkin, August 1964

On the afternoon of 2 August 1964, while steaming well offshore in international waters, Maddox was attacked by three North Vietnamese motor torpedo boats. The destroyer maneuvered to avoid torpedoes and used her guns against her fast-moving opponents, hitting them all. In turn, she was struck in the after gun director by a single 14.5-millimeter machine gun bullet. Maddox called for air support from the carrier Ticonderoga, whose planes strafed the three boats, leaving one dead in the water and burning. Both sides then separated. ... more

You can't just wipe that away by claiming the mistakes that followed on another day mean it didn't happen.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Quila]

That is a pretty honorable thing to do unlike, for example, invading a country and killing people that were no threat to you, any of your friends or anyone else in your country.

That is exactly what your communists did, invading the South. And don't say it was Vietnamese stopping US imperialism, because the fight was US vs. Soviet imperialism.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[TangoMargarine]

Gee, just because they've been around for almost 5 times as long?

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[cold fjord]

In 1973 the US did aid South Vietnam. In 1975 the Democrats in congress sold American allies down the river, banning even medical supplies for them. They almost did it again in Iraq in 2007. The Democratic party earned the mistrust of the American people on national security matters for a reason.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[TangoMargarine]

Assuming that it would ever have done so in the first place...

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Desler]

You can't just wipe that away by claiming the mistakes that followed on another day mean it didn't happen.

Considering the events of what happened were lied about, you clearly can.

It is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night. [...] In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on August 2.[8]

In 1965, President Johnson commented privately: "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there." [40]

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[fustakrakich]

As for 'stopped the communist threat', you do know we lost, right?

We did?

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[cold fjord]

It was "peace with honor," honor that was discarded within a few years by Congress. If the US had continued to back South Vietnam in the face of North Vietnamese aggression as it did in 1973 it might have worked out and stabilized into a situation similar to North & South Korea. Unfortunately the Democrats in Congress threw that away in 1975.

As a practical matter there is a lot to what you state.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[higuita]

All Wars are STUPID

There! FIFY

There is always one side that think it is better, it is correct, it have some kind of right. Worst wars happen when both sides think that. Then there is all the lies, illusions and blindness that fuel some kind of hate that didn't existed in the past. Everyone have reasons to both LOVE and HATE the next guy, just press the right buttons to increase one over the other.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1975 the Democrats in congress sold American allies down the river, banning even medical supplies for them.

[Citation needed]

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[fustakrakich]

Peace agreement?

The message: a peace settlement under a Nixon presidency would be more favorable to the South Vietnamese.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[MarkvW]

I don't think that nonviolence would have worked against Hitler. I think that war was the only option once he declared war on us. So, I don't think I can agree with you that "all wars are stupid."

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[umafuckit]

There never was a "communist threat." The only threat was the two sides goading each other during the cold war and risking doing something stupid. The Eastern Bloc was too busy fucking itself up to be a threat to anyone. It crumbled because it was not stable.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Trepidity]

Even up front, though, the peace agreement was much different than the one in Korea. The one in Korea demarcated an armistice line, but crucially, the U.S. neither promised nor carried out a troop pullout, but rather maintained a huge troop presence in South Korea to enforce the armistice line.

The reason I see what Nixon signed as a capitulation even from the start is that he agreed to a total troop pullout within 60 days. That left no U.S. force in the country, and very little credible U.S. enforcement of the North-South border agreement. Yes, there was a promise that we'd bomb if the North ever invaded, but we pulled out all the ground troops, which made it a fairly weak promise (it's not even clear that a U.S. bombing campaign would've saved Saigon in 1975).

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

By "communist forces" do you by any chance mean people defending their own country,

I think by "communist forces" he means women, children and old-people who coud not protect them selfs places like My Lai

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Clopy]

Communists have the unique distinction of killing approximately 100,000,000 people in the last century.

Quoting "The black book of communism"? Really? That books is considered a joke by many scholars, lets say that it is at least controversial. Even if you argue 100mil victims of communist regimes, you can hardly say that it is a "unique distinction". Capitalism has killed much more, fasism has had its share too. It is a mute arguement. If you want to argue against communism/capitalism/fasism, etc, at least do it with some serious arguments like the economics, liberties, their feasibility, which system is more just, etc.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Em Adespoton]

cold fjord: you realize that with a few word substitutions, you're talking about capitalist states, right?

This isn't an ideological issue -- it's a human issue. Look at the last century: Germany (not communist) doing an ethnic cleansing... Italy (fascist) joining in... Rwanda (definitely capitalist, to their detriment) involved in ethnic cleansing, the Congo, Somalia, Croatia, Serbia, Yugoslavia, Chechnya, and more.

And then we move on to the ones that were due to American interference in the past century: Iraq, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Laos, various conflicts in the mid-east, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada (US invading gentler communism), Panama, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Haiti, Cuba (pre-communism), Honduras, Puerto Rico, Egypt (Suez crisis), Lebanon, Indonesia (over 1,000,000 killed due to US-assisted millitary coup), Chile, Angola, Sudan, Colombia.

Good reference for American interventions (both defense and pro-active intervention): http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html

As you can see, people are violent, and incite violence in others. More powerful governments tend to want to export their culture to the rest of the world, and use force when that export is rejected. While political communism is obviously a failed method of governance, none of the others have fared much better, when you take into account the physical and mental health and prosperity of the average citizen.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

In those cases the wars are civil. The US involvement is just a proxy war with Russia and China.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[LordLimecat]

The capitalists dont tend to leave tens of millions dead of starvation in their wake. Lets please not gloss that over, its sort of a big deal.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[wm2810]

That the French surrendered immediately is the largest bs imaginable.

They asked for an armistice the much larger Germany after over a month of brutal fighting, after they lost 360 000 soldiers (excluding prisoners) and over 2000 planes (although some of them were British).
After their army had been destroyed (for various reasons but cowardice wasn't one of them), after their logistics had been damaged beyond repair.

In that one month almost as many French soldiers were killed or wounded as the Americans during the entire ww2.

Those soldiers didn't die because of wine overdose. Those planes didn't rust on the ground.

They killed or wounded over 150000 Germans, destroyed over 1000 German planes. Just in that one month. Not bad for the first years of the WW2. They certainly were better and more effective fighters than the Soviet soldiers in the first months of Barbarossa.

During the Great War they almost single handedly hold up the Germans for years for the price of millions killed or maimed.

Please don't spread that bs, it was the staple of the Nazi propaganda in the occupied territories, and later of the Soviet propaganda in the Warsaw pact countries.
In the 1940 France was fighting as courageously as any other nation. The later defeat looked as bad as any defeat: in Philippines, at Smolensk or Stalingrad - because it was a defeat, not because they were Frenchmen.

And I'm not a Frenchman, never even been there too.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

After China helped Vietnam, Vietnam invaded Cambodia as a result of a pact with the Soviet Union to encircle China from the south. China didn't like this so they invaded. Though they couldn't exactly be said to have won the war, they sufficiently dissuaded the Soviet Union from further encroachment. Read all about it here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[fredrated]

We lost the war, we won the peace. Too bad we went through the war part.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[fredrated]

You might change your mind if you weren't trying to see the whole picture through the keyhole of a door. Start with the Viet Minh trying to free their country from the colonial French.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Cederic]

You have a very odd way of spelling, "inspired tactical withdrawal".

Anyway, we came back. We didn't have to, y'know.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

So BF4 is about how the chinese allied with the french to resist the American/Nazi forces during a civilian resistance of tactical espionage!?

But what of the sneaky canadians??? I heard that DLC was a hit in tokyo!

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[wm2810]

Well, both were political decisions and nothing wrong with them.
The US left Vietnam because the fight there was more and more pointless. But certainly it wasn't a sign of weakness. After all the American intercontinental missiles were as deadly and accurate as ever.

They lost a battle but the simultaneous detente with China showed the Soviets their place.
A battle was lost but shortly afterward the Soviets were losing one political battle after another anyway.

France still existed after the armistice, and both the UK and the US were maintaining friendly relations with her.

There is nothing wrong with admitting defeat after a good fight. France asked for an armistice after the best French armies were destroyed, after the fight had become pointless, after the defence of her territory and the civilian population wasn't possible anymore.
Exactly as the American soldiers during the battle of Chosin Reservoir.

Maybe it was a mistake but it was their mistake.

But the small France (in comparison with Germany) and millions of her fallen soldiers in both wars don't deserve the "one french rifle never fired, only dropped once" treatment.

The destroyed German planes weren't available over London a few months later.
The first class, prewar trained German soldiers, the destroyed - by the French or simply by wear and tear equipment weren't available in Russia.

Among them the thirteen most modern German Panzer IIIs and Panzer IVs, destroyed in minutes during the battle of Stonne by a single French tank commanded by captain Pierre Billotte - despite being hit by 140 antitank rounds.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

>the much larger Germany
stopped reading there. pure propaganda.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

>considered a joke by many scholars
a joke to communist scholars

>Capitalism has killed much more
and that makes it ok for communism to kill people?

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[wm2810]

I think it is not quite right. Paris was declared an open city because its defence wasn't possible. The French government relocated to Bordeaux and continued the fight from there.

Germans were assisted in those catastrophic strategic defeats by lots of luck.
There were moments all the nazi nonsense could have been sent straight to hell. But the luck was with them.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[kaatochacha]

I would pay to play this.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[kaatochacha]

I guess it's good that the serious threat of International Communism is so far off you can make that statement, and concentrate on fixing the flaws in International Capitalism...

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Sara Chan]

Their civilian resistance effort also went down in legend

Indeed, “legend” is the correct term. Many of the most active members of the French Resistance were Jewish, who therefore had little to lose. Their names were changed from obviously-Jewish ones to more French ones, when the history was later written.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Jerry Rivers]

Thank you for this. It's refreshing to see a comment that's based on, you know, actual knowledge of history rather than on somebody else's uninformed opinion.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[angel'o'sphere]

Erm? You know the difference between invaded and conquered, do you?

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[angel'o'sphere]

That is the most uncorrected, disrespectful nonsense I ever have seen on /.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[angel'o'sphere]

What we now call capitalism started perhaps roughly around 1800. Perhaps a bit later like 1850.
And yes it left dozens of millions people dead in its wake ... from starving people where "the society" could not cope with the industrialization to slaves dying on the fields or during transportation ...
Btw, as china shows capitalism and communism don't contradict each other ...

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[MaskedSlacker]

Again with ignorant tripe being moderated informative.

The US was involved before the partition. Vietnam never would have been split except because of US interference.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow not a good day for cold fjord.
Getting ass raped despite valiant effort at distorting facts and selective outrage.

And if he thought figurative ass rapage was painful, wait till he has to answer to his State Department review gang, sorry I mean team.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes your version is true about the facts.

But
You have to give credit to their education system and "where number 1" mentality when even dropout in another country woiuld know better.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to have an active fantasy life enhanced by stunning ignorance of history.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

US lost, full stop.

Just like in Iraq, Afghanistan etc
Let us know when all your shiny toys can win one.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[syockit]

No, but that wasn't the point of contention. You see the word GGP used, "unique distinction"?

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[cold fjord]

Your history is a bit off. Iraq is a clear win, the US was out of Vietnam with a treaty, and the Taliban bolstered by al Qaida no longer rules Afghanistan. If you're bitter about that I suggest buying a beer to catch your tears.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

You have been suckered by Cold War propaganda. The figures for "Communist megadeaths" derive from a single source: "The Black Book of Communism". It has been debunked, yet its spurious figures are endlessly quoted.

The old adage holds: repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

You've certainly been suckered in by something. The massive death tolls by murder, oppression, and forced starvation in Russia, China, Cambodia, and other places is well known. If you think that the Black Book of Communism is the only source for that you are sadly mistaken. I suggest watching the Soviet Story to get a taste of it. Then maybe read The Great Terror, by Robert Conquest. Someone seems to have planted the lie in your mind that Communist rule wasn't responsible for mass murder in many countries.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

Their surrender, though quick, was not given easily: It was only forced by a series of catastropic strategic defeats. It was only when the German army was standing at the fringe of a defenceless Paris that the surrender was hastily given, with government leaders fearful of the immense loss of civilian lives (Not to mention their own) should the capital be attacked.

In other words, they refused to pay the price that was necessary for victory, letting someone else carry the burden. Same as every single other European country (except for Yugoslavia, but they had no chance to win or even hold back, even disregarding the losses). It's quite fortunate for all of us that there was a country that could and did pay the price of victory in Europe; otherwise all the wise ones who surrendered to save the lives of their civilians, would be under Nazi yoke for decades to come (and, of course, have their Jewish compatriots slaughtered wholesale anyway).

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[shutdown -p now]

The way this 100 million figure is computed is basically by taking every single violent death or death of starvation in any country declaring itself communist, and claiming that all such deaths are "because of communism". Of course, by the same methodology, we should count all genocides of native people of various colonies of European capitalist states as "victims of capitalism" - that would give 5 to 10 million in Congo Free State alone, for example.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[shutdown -p now]

Oh, and the reason why Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia? Very little to do with ideology, actually. Rather, it was because it was a buffer state, bordering Austria. The whole point of Warsaw Pact was to basically set up a bunch of buffer states in Europe between NATO countries and the USSR, so that if a conventional war were to break out, it would not be again waged on Soviet territory as happened in WW2, with all the associated devastation.

Ideologically, Prague Spring was actually very much counter to Soviet ideology. It is rather telling that neither Romania nor Albania, for example, agreed to take part, and Albania in fact left the Pact over it. Even in USSR itself, the invasion was a subject of a bitter dispute in the Politburo, which the hawks eventually won (a little known fact was that Brezhnev himself was against it - but people pushing for it were, collectively, at least as powerful).
 

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[shutdown -p now]

Iraq is a clear win

Which part of it? The one where Kurdistan is all but separated (and may possibly end up in an armed conflict with Turkey eventually), and the remainder of the country is the arena for a civil war between Sunni and Shia who are massacring each other in an endless cycle of revenge attacks for revenge attacks for the last several years? The one where Iran is actively strengthening ties with the Shia-dominated government, vying for the takeover, and likely to eventually clash with Saudis and their allies over it?

and the Taliban bolstered by al Qaida no longer rules Afghanistan.

Well, Karzai has openly stated that Taliban will be invited to "negotiate" (really, to grovel before, since once Western troops leave, Taliban will be the only well-organized armed faction in the country that enjoys considerable popular support) in short order, so things are getting back to where they were.

In the meantime, what had the US-installed puppet administration achieved in Afghanistan in all these years? Well, they have put in place a new constitution, which officially declares Afghanistan an Islamic Republic where no laws can go contrary to Sharia (and people have been convicted to death for "apostasy", i.e. converting from Islam to Christianity, under this article of the constitution). They have also let the poppy industry do whatever the hell it wants (because most of the government is personally invested into it), and now Afghanistan is back to the top of the charts as the biggest supplier of raw ingredients for heroin.

At the same time, American private companies have prospered by investigating and tacitly supporting the newly revived (previously suppressed by Taliban) local customs, such as the institution of "beardless boy" companions for homosexual pedophilia, widespread among prominent figures in the Afghan community. I wonder if you have your panties in a twist over Manning leaking that bit, on the basis of "damage to diplomacy" that you had claimed for Snowden's leaks?

So yeah... epic win all around! Good job, guys!

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

Cum hoc ergo propter hoc.

Like any other ideology, communism has been abused by psychotic oligarchs. That it was particularly effectively used to such ends has no impacts on it's merits or flaws. If your intention was to argue that certain aspects of it better give themselves to such abuse, then you will need better arguments than that.

At any rate, I am hard pressed to blame most 20th century communist state atrocities to communism itself. The ideology itself doesn't advocate anything particularly strongly related to any of those things.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[daem0n1x]

Banging your head against a stone wall for a long time until you're bleeding from every hole in your body does not make you brave, or a hero. Just very very stupid.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[daem0n1x]

Stop being insightful. Just brainlessly bash the French like any American Patriot should do.

French? We don'need no stinkin French around here!

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[daem0n1x]

You forgot all the Klingons and Vulcans.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[SuricouRaven]

I'm British. We *invented* bashing the French.

We still won't shut up about their quite humiliating defeat at Agincourt, and that was six hundred years ago. They outnumbered us substantially, and we were fighting on their own ground with an army exausted and cut off from supplies - and still managed to slaughter nine thousand of so of their soldiers, while losing little more than a hundred of our own.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[JimCanuck]

And you also evacuated your Army that was stationed in France to protect them from the Nazi invasion that was coming without actually even attempting to defend France.

A evacuation which would have resulted in annihilation of the British Army in Europe had the French Army not hold a defensive line until the evacuation could be completed against the Germans.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[JimCanuck]

Which part of it? The one where Kurdistan is all but separated

That is a win, for people who have been opressed for centuries by the Arabs and Turkish.

Bush did the right thing by giving the Kurds a bit of space to be comfortable in without the centuries of prosecution following them.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[JimCanuck]

North Vietnam didn't exist until they managed to liberate the North of their countries from French rule in the First Indochina War.

The Viet Minh were allies with the Americans and the Nationalist Republic of China in the war against Japan. When their country was going to be forcefully reoccupied by France after the war, they turned their attention to keep the French out of it.

There was no "South Vietnam" to invade, there was just a French Puppet government.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[higuita]

Hitler alone could not do anything...he needed the people support.
German people fall in to the nazi hate talk due to the instability of world crisis and specially by the huge and stupid "war compensation" from WW1. Crisis make people to want to believe on new solutions, specially if the current available ones don't really solve anything... just look at Greece economical crisis and how a both a fascist party and a alternative popular party gained popularity in last elections. Extended crisis and greed are the seeds for wars. Mutual help, support and sharing helps avoid wars. It's up to the people to decide what path they want to follow (what that could do to others).

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[shutdown -p now]

It would be a win if that independent Kurdistan was actually separated and recognized as such. As it is, it just sets up the way for another future conflict. For example, if Iraq does become Iran's puppet, they might decide to reconsider the arrangement, prompting Kurds to push back - and Iran has some experience "dealing" with that kind of thing the hard way. Or, say, if Iraq just falls apart due to Sunni-Shia conflict, Kurds might be forced into declaring formal independence, which will likely not be tolerated by Turkey.

I also have the impression that GP thinks of "win" solely in terms of "what good is this to US", not in terms of freedom and such for other people. In that sense, given that Turkey is a prominent NATO member and a consistent ally for many decades, and that the main Kurdish resistance organization is called Kurdistan' Workers Party and officially espouses Marxist ideology, I don't think he'd consider that a win.

Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam

[Anonymous Coward]

to French surrender of their homes promptly upon invasion.

Let's put that "promptly" into context. Here are the times it took for Germany to occupy the following countries:

• Denmark, a few hours
• Luxembourg, 1 day
• Netherlands, 1 week
• Belgium, 2 weeks
• Poland, 1 month
• France, 1 month and two weeks
• Norway, 2 months

Chinks gonna chink

[Anonymous Coward]

No surprise. Seriously, not news.

Somewhat awkward

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't defend such actions, but I can in some way understand that creating of a "USA vs *insert any other non western nation not being pro USA* game" might be perceived as glorifying "political" tension, with an emphasis on charicatured violence added to it in the form of computer gaming. I have nothing nice to say about the state of China though.

I think DICE would be so much more classy working with historical content, fictionalized or not, instead of creating some kind of fantasy revolving around a future war involving parties that already today is fueling tension so to speak.

As a person not residing in, nor being a citizen of USA, I want to say that I used to think it was fun watching CNN show the US military bomb Iraqi military forces in the 90's, but then I grew up and today consider lots of USA's actions to be akin to state terrorism. Battlefield 3 and 4 just isn't making a positive impression on me, but I guess those games might for others be thought of as having some kind of value for propaganda purposes. *shrugs*

One might imagine how a story in the the two games (the single player mode) as a product of narration, could perhaps be a satire or a parody (I don't know what is in the SP campaign), however one sort of still end up with a fairly clear notion of "USA" fighting "some other nation" I think.

Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

what china thinks.

cultural aggression

[Tom]

Don't know about BF4 in particular, but they sure are right about "cultural aggression". The most successful invasion the USA is continually running on the rest of the world isn't military.

I live in Europe. Most of the Americans view us as socialists, mostly because there used to be a cultural difference between Europe and the USA. Where in the US the basic concept is "everyone makes his own luck", Europe has a bigger focus on the social units you belong to - the family at the lowest level, the nation at the highest. That's why we have healthcare and unemployment benefits and all that, because we care for each other in addition to ourselves.

Both models have advantages and disadvantages. In the US, you can make it, there are more options for venture capital or starting your own company in general, and less obstacles. At the same time, the path is smaller and more dangerous. And if you fall, you fall alone.

But things change. With the constant battering from Hollywood, music, comics and other cultural exports, Europe is in crisis primarily because old and new social concepts are clashing, and we are the battlefield.

Now imagine Asia, where the social groups are even more important than the individual. What kind of havoc a US-spirit can wreck there.

Almost fooled me...

[Libertarian_Geek]

The voracious supporters of democracy and freedom in the West are more radical and virulent than 20th century International Communists when it comes to spreading their ideology. China has every right to to be concerned, especially when bringing "democracy" and "freedom" to the rest of the world means bombing campaigns, land invasions, and subservience to Western central banks.

Wow, for a brief moment there, I thought that you weren't condoning censorship. Good use of the halo-effect/devil-effect in making the East's censorship look justified by calling out the West's evils. Uncensored corruption is of course bad, but censorship doesn't suddenly make the censors' intentions or methods a good thing. Let me simplify: Censorship = still bad.

Good for china

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck you ea games

Because someone has to say it...

[Megane]

And nothing of value was lost.

Can't have that...

[Anonymous Coward]

... the game endangers national security and cultural aggression....

Any game that endangers cultural aggression is bound to be a problem. Just think what would happen if American aggression was endangered....

Unsurprised

[Chris Mattern]

Battlefield 4's storyline includes a Chinese admiral attempting to overthrow the Chinese government. You're not allowed to suggest those sorts of things.

Huh...

[Anonymous Coward]

...I guess it won't be long before the UK bans first person shooters, then.

Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

The European cradle-to-grave welfare state is an unsustainable boondoggle that's bankrupting the continent through deficit spending. Those deficits will never be paid back short of hyperinflation because Europe has declining birth rates that will make it impossible maintain the current welfare state.

If you want to know what the future of Europe looks like, look at Greece.

Re:Bullshit

[Tom]

I'm not sure if that is propaganda or just utter and total rubbish.

I actually have a good example: The pension system in my country. Yeah, the usual argument is demographics and bla bla bla.

Truth is: It was on purpose ruined by politicians who abused pension funds to fund projects that had nothing to do with pensions.

A professor of economics did the math - the old system would have been sustainable, if it had not been plundered.

Missed Opportunity

[Bazman]

EA should have worked with the Chinese government to produce a version where you can invade Taiwan, Japan, and if you do really well, North Korea,,,

Re:Missed Opportunity

[swb]

AFAIK, the Chinese fear a Korean war less for the conflict than for the effects on Chinese internal stability due to expected influx of millions of North Koreans.

I'd like to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

...that I'm really surprised, but I'm not. Anything that looks like it might be a critical of china's government is always met with an over-reaction.

Jana

[dhanson865]

"Released in October, Battlefield 4 is available in North America, Europe, Jana, Australia, and New Zealand, and was not officially launched in China."

What is this Jana they speak of?

Swedish, not US

[Anonymous Coward]

The Battlefield series is developed by DICE, a Swedish studio owned by EA. It's a Swedish game, not a US game.

Games and Movies are people's Imaginary Friends

[eyenot]

China is smart to do this. People are far too shut-in these days. Look how much entertainment has expanded and filtered in the niches of everyone's lives. It does not always have a positive effect on individuals (does the news even bother to cover stories of MMORPG recluses any more or is it now to be taken for granted?) and therefore nor does it always have a positive effect on populations.

Consider the effect that a film like "V for Vendetta" has had on activism itself. The iconic Guy Fawkes mask and the anonymized approach to public activism leaked directly from the film into peoples' lives, who took it seriously and decided to implement it in a fashion.

Consider the effect that video games have on what you decide to talk about with people when you're out shopping, or at work, or at school, just "hanging out", and so on. For many people, about the only people they wouldn't talk about their video games with would be their parents, who would grow weary of the subject and try to divert them to something "more productive". And that HAS to be a dwindling case, considering how many life long gamer are now parents of kids old enough to game passionately.

People fall in love with "weighted companion cubes" (despite the dead bodies inside). People spend a great deal of time meditating on whether the cake is a lie or whether there is no spoon.

When you add in a dimension of possible political opinion and conflict to an immersive game, it also adds those political opinions and conflicts to the discussion. With things in China as bad as they are right now, in many districts, it would be a bad idea to entertain people with some game depicting "the day after tomorrow" sort of mayhem that no doubt many of them wish was real today.

Because that is what they would be talking about around the water cooler, or out shopping, or while stocking the coal cellar, or while cooking, or at school. Especially the at school part, that's sort of what China's mostly concerned about. Remember it was students who were active in Tiananmen Square.

Every day, in the United States, I shake my head in shame at how many people are operating in their daily lives on a level of cinema fantasy running through their heads. It's not that they watch too many movies or that the content of the movies is wrong somehow, it's that they take what they've watched far too seriously and for whatever reason they've also adapted it to fit their self image and their perception of what their life actually is.

It's easy to defend these people as "needing heroes", and "needing to be heroes", and so on. But it's not easy to defend people who aren't aware of their surroundings and who aren't concerned with real events and real consequences in real life, no in any sense of the word "defend". And plenty of people -- who don't have self-image and self-esteem issues, or who aren't trying to take reality escapism to a whole different level -- enjoy their hero sagas and their epic struggles as things separate from real life. It's not those people that draw my concern, it's the growing number of others who get completely absorbed and proceed to live in a psychological bubble composed of entertainment imagery.

Case in point, "thug life", which is a cultural mainstream even in neighborhoods where there's no threat of actual gang activity and where there are plenty of opportunities for a better life. It's even a mainstream with little white upper class girls in grade school who obviously aren't going to cap anybody and if they wanted to count stacks they could learn accounting and investment from their millionaire parents. There's something lacking in someone's life besides monetary value and secure social networks, when they emulate being a thug ostensibly in pursuit of money and social standing, even when they have ready access to plenty of both.

It's expensive to get a rich man's money, but, it's cheap to fill a poor man's pockets.

HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

hey lets make a game about the al qiuda destroying U.S. im sure everyone likes that

Im Östern, nichts neues

[Anonymous Coward]

What can be expected of a people so different from the West that they cannot even properly metabolize alcohol.

Then BF4 has done its job

[Anonymous Coward]

The US military, and propaganda departments of the US government, have massive input into the current AAA military games available for PCs and consoles. It does not matter whether the game is developed in the USA, or one of the tame European nations. Actually it does. American law is STRICTER over this kind of interference, so it is far easier, for instance for US war propaganda operations to influence games made in the UK (Codemasters with their mega-flop UK in-house Operation Flashpoint 2), Canada (COD series) or Scandinavia (BattleField, by far the worst example of neo-fascist warmongering propaganda sold to children as a 'game').

It gets worse. In the UK or much of Europe, it is actually a criminal offence (described in law as terrorist activity) to make a game where the 'good' guys are the victims of US and NATO aggression. Indeed it is now actual possible to arrest Muslims in the UK if they participate regularly in a team that purposely plays the 'Muslim' side of a commercial team based multi=player military shooter. This is deemed 'intent' under recent anti-terror laws introduced in the UK- and YES, people go to jail for this.

China is between a rock and a hard place by clever intent. If they don't ban an obscenity like BF4, they allow UK and US military planners to laugh in their face, as Chinese youth willingly participate in scenarios crafted to demonise the Chinese people, culture and government. If they 'ban' BF4, they look like the same old authoritarian communist thugs of old.

However, if a Chinese game was made reversing the moral position in the story, showing NATO and the USA as the mass murdering warmongers they really are, the game would be banned in the UK, most of Europe, Canada and Australia. It might even be banned in Obama's USA, because despite the Constitutional protections, Obama regularly imprisons US Muslims for watching or making available "BANNED" mainstream Muslim satellite services. It is a small leap from Obama's ban on specific TV services to a ban on specific games, using the same "terrorist" excuse.

COD reaches millions of young (and not so young) minds. So does BF4. And unlike most games, these are truly popular and enduring, as their multiplayer slurps up vastly more hours use than any average AAA computer game. However, in truth, few players respond to the vile propaganda in the single player 'story' campaign. But they ARE 'groomed' to see urban destruction and warfare as 'normal' by the scenarios depicted in the multi-player maps. And they ARE encouraged to see as 'fun' the use of modern weapons of mass murder deployed in the civilian cities of Humanity across the planet.

Re:Then BF4 has done its job

[Cederic]

This is deemed 'intent' under recent anti-terror laws introduced in the UK- and YES, people go to jail for this.

Curious, I hadn't seen any mention of this from reputable sources.

Er.. today is the safest it's been in decades

[Renevith]

I want my children to live in a better world than the one that I grew up in and I don't see it happening today. [...] Candidly, I think the world is a more violent, aggressive and dangerous place to live in today than it has been in the past.

You realize this is a factual claim, not an opinion, right? Shouldn't you make a basic effort to know whether it's true or not before posting it?

Since you're talking about your own children, I'll assume you grew up in the 80s to early 90s. And since your comment focused on US culture, I'll use US crime rates since then to illustrate my point, which is that children today will grow up in a world about half as violent what you grew up with:
Violent crime, 1993-2012
Violent crime, 1973-2003
Homicide
Property crime (theft)
Even non-crime dangers are way down:
Fire deaths since 1918
Traffic deaths since 1900

Bear in mind that I'm not commenting on the rest of your post, just that one claim I quoted above. But if you care about truth more than truthiness, you should really change your tune about the violence and danger in today's (US) society.

Re:Er.. today is the safest it's been in decades

[Tom]

You realize this is a factual claim, not an opinion, right? Shouldn't you make a basic effort to know whether it's true or not before posting it?

We live in the most peaceful times in history, true.

However, we probably also live in the most rude times. There's a massive amount of non-criminal aggression out there, and it's not just trolling on the Internet. I posted about it in another comment, the way we treat unemployed or poor has turned from "here's some help, get better soon" to "get off your lazy butt, or I'll kick you".

Maybe "aggression" isn't the right word, but there's a certain "cold" in social relationships. 20 years ago, over here in Europe the american, Facebook way of friendship was the mark of a psychopath. You know, having 500 friends, none of whom you really know all that well? When I went to the US as a teenager, I was pretty surprised by the way people who had known me for 10 minutes treated me as a friend - but also could barely remember my name the next day.

I'm not judging. That's the american way, mostly due to people moving a lot more than people in Europe do, and the european way is... slower, more personal, warmer, but also not as welcoming to strangers (there are many places in my country where the saying is that you're not considered a local before the 3rd generation).

Reminds me of another ban in another country

[braindrainbahrain]

This story reminds of the game Mercenaries 2: World in Flames which takes place in Venezuela. The game was promptly banned a it was believed to be propaganda against Hugo Chavez, the president at the time. That was in 2006. Venezuela since banned all violent video games in 2010

Oh yeah? What about Capitalism?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

Here's a brief overview of the last 10 year just in 1 country - almost 2.5 million in iraq alone.

I hate dumb motherfuckers such as yourself who paint the west and capitalism as not as bad as communism. Has Communism killed 2.5 million people in the last 10 years in 1 country?

The kinder gentler communism you wish for was supposed to happen in iraq, instead 2.5 million people died.

I have a secret for you: Communists and Capitalists are the same thing - in the end it's whatever the bankers can play the people off each other to believe and then psy-op that concept to control people and enslave them.

You have a lot of learning to do about the nature of reality.

Free Occupied Tibet.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta say, I am not impressed by mods, loading this comment poorly, whenever an article about China's politics comes up.

China/CCP has occupied Tibet and because of cheap consumer products and cheaper ethics, many ignore the human rights abuses, including the UN....

Wither the artists against Apartheid, that helped Free South Africa? Small chance of a boycott against China :-/

Fundamentals need to be reassessed. The UNHDR of 1948, is a excellent starting point.

China/CCP is such a switched on place, the Dalia Lama is labelled as a terrorist. Still, so was Steve Biko & Nelson Mandala.

Free Tibet Forever!

Re: He is

[Anonymous Coward]

He is, the Chinese can pronounce the 'L'. It's the Japanese and Koreans who can't

I wish it would be banned in the US

[musth]

Militarism propaganda violence shit.

Invade PRC by a computer game ?

[Anonymous Coward]

We succeeded in invading PRC using a computer game ? Cool.

Ha.

[dhenson02]

They took a page out of Infinity's book on this one. Too bad it cost them billions in potential revenue.

Wikipedia

[Anonymous Coward]

Can everyone stop referencing Wikipedia... You are trying to be intelligent but Wikipedia citations are not accepted in the world of academia! Both sides of the argument that cite need to have some solid references or don't bother :D

Actually

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen translated versions of both Animal Farm and 1984 on the shelves of local bookstores the last time I visited China.

Go figure.

Maybe History, not 'Future Scenario'

[Geodesy99]

China may have had their own Stangelovian incident.

From Page 5, "The Move from Qinghai to Taibai", http://www.project2049.net/documents/chinas_nuclear_warhead_storage_and_handling_system.pdf

"Another security consideration may have led to the move. During 1967, the nuclear weapons program in Qinghai became subject to Cultural Revolution strife, including attempts by rival factions to seize nuclear-related facilities in both Qinghai and Xinjiang. On March 5, 1967, Premier Zhou Enlai, at the urging of CMC Vice Chairman Gen Nie Rongzhen, declared martial law and placed Jia Qianrui in charge of enforcement. Along with Hong Youdao, Jia oversaw the relocation from Qinghai to Taibai County in 1969 and 22 Base operations until the unit’s subordination to Second Artillery in January 1979."

mg

[KulcsarMaria]

http://www.marketglory.com/strategygame/indi30 free to play strategy game in wich the profit can be transformed in --REAL MONEY--! http://www.image-share.com/ijpg-2372-1.html