Here We Go Again With Video Game Violence Uproar

30 Apr

Posted by Kevin Bondelli as Issues, Media

Yesterday marked the release of Rockstar Games’ highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto IV, and once again the Baby Boomers are freaking out over the evil demons that will possess the souls of the unsuspecting innocents from the two most dangerous gateways to Hell: Xbox360 and PlayStation 3.

Now I don’t normally write on this subject, but I figure I’m not running for office or anything so I might as well. This uproar is just the latest in a long line of cultural panic in this country, from dangerous comic books in the 1950s to video games today. The argument is, of course, that these video games will turn children into stone-faced killers. Disputing the claims made by those under the spell of the culture of fear is the subject of the blog GamePolitics.com. Here are some of their posts:

Child psychologist Dr. Frank Gaskill argues against the video game fear-mongers, as do a number of other reputable authorities in the psychology and medical communities. As people now feel that the uproar of Elvis Presley’s dancing was silly, Millennials feel the same way about music and video games.

In Danny Goldberg’s Dispatches from the Culture Wars: How the Left Lost Teen Spirit he talks about the cultural disconnect between Baby Boomer politicians and the younger generations. The outrage shown by Boomer political figures like Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore over music lyrics turned off a lot of young people. The Millennial generation has shown a preference for openness, freedom of speech and expression, and transparency. Unwarranted hysteria over video games and calls for censorship of the medium is unacceptable to those that have grown-up with and fully understand computer and video games.

While stirring up unwarranted fear and seeking draconian responses to the specter of youth poisoned by video games may earn politicians some brownie points with scared-to-death Boomers, it will be to their detriment in appealing to the growing Millennial generation.

In a world where we are afraid of all the wrong things and ignore the real dangers we face, this kind of pathetic outrage is not surprising, but hopefully one day people will start to actually read the research and evidence before they begin their political posturing. As Dan Abrams would say, this is why America hates Washington.

Comments (View)

links for 2008-04-30

30 Apr

Posted by Kevin Bondelli as Links

Comments (View)

The 21st Century GI Bill in Arizona

30 Apr

Posted by Kevin Bondelli as Caucuses, In the States, veterans

ABC 15 in Phoenix has a story on the 21st Century GI Bill sponsored by Arizona Congressman Harry Mitchell (AZ-05) and its effect on Arizona State University students.

Young Democrats of Arizona President and YDA Veteran’s & Military Affairs Caucus Chair Sgt. Cole Hickman is featured in both the print and video coverage.

Click here to read/watch the coverage on ABC 15.

Comments (View)

links for 2008-04-29

29 Apr

Posted by Kevin Bondelli as Links

Comments (View)

The Youth Vote: Some People Still Just Don’t Get It

29 Apr

Posted by Kevin Bondelli as Media, Research, Youth Vote

Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic wrote of The GOP Generational Time Bomb and created this very telling chart:

Well, despite the fact that Marc Ambinder gets it, there are still many that are blind to the youth vote and seem to find it a personal mission to ignore or discount all of the research and evidence that has been done over the last few years.

Cassy Fiano of Wizbang flat-out mocks the youth vote in a response to the Washington Post article that makes the statement that the youth vote will matter in 2008. Here is Cassy’s thoughts about the civic reawakening of the Millennial generation:

A civic reawakening? Were 20-year-olds “awake” to politics before and somehow “fell asleep”? Um… ok. And, you know, there’s the teensy problem of this poll being conducted with MTV’s help, which automatically dampens the prospect of it becoming a reality.

Look, if “young people” vote, then that’s fantastic. If they don’t, then oh well. They aren’t going to make or break elections, no matter how much the media fawns over them. Every election season its the same old song and dance, and it ain’t a different tune this time around.

It’s not just Cassy Fiano that gets it wrong. Don Surber takes on Marc Ambinder’s piece referenced above. In his commentary, with the cliche title Young People Don’t Vote, he gets it so wrong that the Darwin Awards should make an exception and “honor” a living person.

But young people are a waste of time and energy when it comes to voting. They are not where the voters are.

Voters over time tend to grow more conservative. The percentage of young voters who were Republican was at its nadir in 1952. But Republican Ike Eisenhower was elected president. See Pew Research.

In 2000, Dems held an 8-point advantage in this group and still lost the presidency (Al Gore’s plurality was measured in tenths of a point).

In 2004, Democrats increased that lead to 11 points. Bush won by 3 points.

If there are long-term effects, how did Republican Richard Nixon get elected 16 years after that 1952 nadir — and President Reagan re-elected 16 years after that — and President Bush 16 years after that? Those young Democrats became Middle Aged Independents and then Old Republicans.

Ambinder said it is a ticking bomb. Oh there’s a bomb in that post all right, but I don’t think it is on the Republicans.

The PEW Research source he uses, could that be something I missed that shows young people becoming more conservative as they get older? Oh no, it’s the research that Ambinder covered that shows young voters increasingly identifying as Democrats. Not the best supporting document I would think.

Here are the fallacies that these critics of the youth vote seem overly fond of:

Young people don’t vote, so it doesn’t matter if they identify as Democrats. Even if we accepted the untrue statement that young people don’t vote, they do eventually grow up, this isn’t Peter Pan. Since research in fact has shown that party identification for the most part stays consistent throughout life, it still should be troubling to conservatives.
The silly kids are Democrats now that they are young and don’t know any better, but they’ll grow out of it. Research says otherwise my conservative friends.
Not enough young people will vote to affect the 2008 election, since Gore and Kerry didn’t win with the youth vote. Have you not heard of a trend line? Surber actually shows the youth vote increasing from 2000 to 2004, he should know better. With elections as close as they are, as well as the examples of Democratic candidates in 2006 that did win because of the youth vote, I don’t know how they can ignore it.

Though as frustrated as I get sometimes reading this nonsense, there is a silver lining. As long as conservatives completely write off the youth vote as unimportant and believe that the ghost of Ronald Reagan will personally visit each young person as they get older and magically turn them into Republicans, Democrats have an unobstructed field. So conservatives, by all means, keep it up. The youth vote doesn’t matter, don’t worry about it.

Comments (View)

links for 2008-04-28

28 Apr

Posted by Kevin Bondelli as Links

Comments (View)

The Bring Back Bondelli’s Blog Strategy

28 Apr

Posted by Kevin Bondelli as Chapter Tips, Facebook, Online Organizing

Following the success of the “Bring Back Bondelli’s Blog” strategy (if it wasn’t a success I couldn’t be posting this right now) I thought it might be helpful to explain my methodology and show how you can apply the same techniques for your own causes and campaigns.

After I sent emails to WordPress support about the suspension with no response, I decided that I needed to come up with a way to get their attention. My idea was what I called an “internet flash mob.” Flash mobs have traditionally been used for humorous purposes, with seemingly random groups of people meeting up at a location, taking an unusual action, and then quickly dispersing. I figured that a group of people from across the country emailing WordPress support would definitely get their attention and push them to remedy the situation much faster than they would otherwise.

With any such effort it is important to choose an effective medium. While email as a lobbying medium has greatly diminished in efficacy due to the low level of commitment and ease of action, it was the most effective option in this case. All support requests for WordPress go to the email address, so an influx of 40-50 emails about the same blog is disruptive enough to get them to act. It also gives them a pretty good incentive to take care of the situation quickly, since by solving my problem they are taking care of dozens of requests compared to the one or two emails they receive on other issues.

Once I decided on the action that I wanted people to take, I had to get people to take the action. This is where social networks came into play. Primarily I used Facebook and to a lesser extent Twitter. I took advantage of two aspects of Facebook: notes and the mini-feed.

I wrote the note seen in the screen capture above and tagged people that I thought would take action. I wrote two notes with the same content in order to tag more people. Facebook notes are effective because the act of tagging puts the note front and center in the attention of that person. They are alerted that they have been tagged in a note and the note itself is listed on the person’s mini-feed. With the amount of people tagged and the close network of Young Democrats online, the note also was likely to be featured on the Facebook home page News Feed (22 of your friends were tagged in the note…..). This led to people finding out about the situation and taking action even though they were not tagged in either note.

I changed my profile picture, Facebook status, Google Chat status, and updated Twitter with my call to action.

Two hours after I started this, 40-50 emails were sent to WordPress support and my blog/account was reinstated. Here is why I think this was so successful:

The medium (mass emails to support) was effective in getting the attention needed.
The word-of-mouth power of Facebook notes and mini-feeds helped my message spread quickly.
I used specific and simple call to action. If I had just posted a note whining about the blog being suspended nothing would have happened outside of a few comments of support.
I leveraged multiple online services in unison to get the highest possible level of saturation with a unified message.
My request was polite. I asked, instead of telling, people to help me. I also used please and thank you (which really does go a long way).

So that’s basically it. I am interested in hearing if any of you have used similar strategies in the past and how they worked for you. Please share with a comment.

Comments (View)