Matchbox's Child Soldiers

Letter From Fort Hood

A firsthand account of Thursday's massacre.

—Kevin Drum
Is Congress Creating Another Housing Bubble?

Economists agree that the home-buyer tax credit is risky and stupid. So why does Washington love the policy?

—Nick Baumann
Obama's Big Power Play

Energy Secretary Steven Chu explains how we could turn our dumb grid into a smart grid.

—Kate Sheppard

Kids and war—always a bad combo, right? Not for the folks at Matchbox and Ogiilvy & Mather, who just unveiled their "Young Warriors" ad campaign in Singapore. The photo-realistic ads depict tween boys as virtual GI Joeys, flying jets and attack copters and straddlng a battle-scarred M1 Abrams tank in what sure looks like Iraq.

Particularly creepy are the kids' stoic, hardened expressions. As Copyranter (H/T) notes, "I get the point: Matchbox makes realistic little war machine replicas. But what's with the thousand-mile stares on the young faux dogfaces?" (A commenter quips back, "You try living in the shit for a year when you're eight. You'll get the stare, too.") I suppose Matchbox gets some credit for not going for the "combat is good, clean fun" G.I. Joe-type vibe that's usually used to sell war toys. Though by not going that route, it's unintentionally created a campaign that makes war seem like anything but a game.

My 7-year-old gets that stare when he's hungry.... or after he's killed a small animal.

It's amazing...the kids I grew up with, played War with, played Cowboys and Indians with, went hunting with...none of them, NOT EVEN ONE...has become a serial killer!

We fight to let girls fight yet we try to get boys to play with, what, barbies? Lets just not have wars! What countries will go along with that? China, Iran, DPRK? If the US just threw down every piece of military hardware could we all live in peace? "Can't we all just get along?"

Mr. Sisler; Your socio-economic background, the nature of journalism and the sophistication of the 'Media' were all different when you and your friends were boys playing 'War', or rather, 'War Games'. The dialectic of social-engineering now manifests in so suttle and seemless a fashion that the affectations upon our children's psyche are not necessarily manifested as a blood-lust rage with axes and butchers' knives. The power of subliminal control is also the ability to numb the response factor of possible sympathisers: As adults you and your childhood war-gamer friends allowed the zionists in israel to murder women and children in Gaza with the brutality and zeal of serial killers because you are inured to the horror of obscene murder. Or am I wrong with my presumption - was that you and your mates waving placards in the street out-front of the Whitehouse and demanding that the slaughter come to an end? Were you demanding the evidence that Hamas broke the cease-fire, which now we all know they did not. Have you contacted the UN to complain about the use of child-soldiers in Africa and Asia? (which is tantamount to child-slave-labour).

Psy-ops are used against your children in your home by Corporations and their Governments - because you allow it! Because you fail to recognise it, because you have been conditioned to ignore it.
And you allow crimes against humanity in Gaza, Iraq, Sierra Leone etc etc, and you allow child-porn (which is tantamount to child-slave-labour). And bail-outs for billionaires etc etc. And you allow it to go on and you write comments dismissing the powerful effect of brainwashing because you are brain-washed.

Get a grip - open your eyes and ears.

It's Ogiilvy & Mather, selling death and mayhem like "Joe Camel" sells cigarettes. And just like the tobacco companies, and like die Hitler Jugand, - you gotta get 'em young, using "immersion" techniques and before they can develop a sense of rational resistance or an "other differentiated" sense of self determination (i.e., before they can learn to resist the "cool" child-warrior propaganda). And just like selling tobacco, this type of marketing should be severely regulated and banned by the Government, since it leads to early recruitment in the Army or Air Force and often results in early death or disfigurement. You'd think Congress would act, unless, of course, the Pentagon's propaganda wing has a hand in this.... which, upon reflection, seems super-obvious to me.... (cue messianic patriotic youth-army music)

They gotta start training them up young: with warfare carried out by remote control now, why leave them in school and waste their young reflexes? They can have a few years' virtual combat training thanks to Matchbox and be experienced fighters by the time those amazing teen reflexes kick in. Why not subsidize their high school education with a few hours' a day at the console? And Momma needn't complain, her little boy's not being victimized at all, he's perfectly safe in a classroom!
The toy companies have always been uncomfortably close to the military.
Of course the effect on young minds of being sent to kill people, or as their 'bosses' will put it, destroy depersonalized 'targets', will be no worse than letting them play the violent games they already use after school and weekends.
Will it?

Appalachia, As the Crow Flies

It's a long way from the mountains of Vermont to the mountains of North Carolina. Except in music.
Photos: End of the Line

Photos of a town after GM went bust.
A Bitter Leaf

Inside the Bolivian cocaine trade, a family affair.
Phone Sex Operators

When you dial a 1-900 number, who picks up the phone?