SUPER CHOMSKY BROTHERS<\/b>: So there\u2019s this new PlayStation game, \u201cState of Emergency,\u201d in which you get to play an anti-globalization rioter. And Salon has this article<\/a> on it. Now, I don\u2019t want this site to become SalonSkipper; but this is too good to resist\u2026<\/p>\n First off, apparently none of the righteous rioters are white. From the game intro: \u201c\u2026its me and Ricky Trang, and a rainbow coalition of kickass who gots our backs \u2014 cholos, niggaz, kung fu kids from Chinatown, all going hella wild on the racist, consumerist, globalist system, looting it clean, and it is friggin<\/b> [hee hee!] beautiful.\u201d<\/b> You can play \u201cHector Soldado, the reformed Latino gangbanger who believes the Corporation is doing more harm to his neighborhood than the daily drive-bys; [or] Libra, the biracial human rights lawyer who decides the only true justice now possible comes from the brick and the gun.\u201d <\/b>(Can you play Sari Ross, the riot grrrl who milks her Indian heritage for every ounce of political positioning it\u2019s worth? Or Jake Phipps, the white liberal who becomes increasingly frustrated with Sari\u2019s posturing, and takes it out through passive-aggressive comments about how focusing on racial issues may \u201cdistract from the economic points we\u2019re trying to make here\u201d? If you hit the \u201cjump\u201d button twice, both of them talk for three hours, effectively winning any battle they join.)<\/p>\n The second neat thing we learn is that the rioters aren\u2019t reacting against capitalism. They think they are, but they ain\u2019t. Here\u2019s the setup: \u201cState of Emergency is set in a very near future, when the wildest anti-globalization prophecies have to come to pass: A giant multinational corporation now dominates the entire country, devastating the environment, dissolving all democratic governance, controlling all media. Dissent is prohibited, and the only glimmer of resistance is from the Freedom Movement, an underground affiliation of young people who take to the street with their faces masked by bandanas.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n Remind me again how this differs from the USSR. Just like adding \u201cThe People\u2019s Democratic Republic of\u201d before your name doesn\u2019t make you populist, democratic or republican, so adding \u201cCorp.\u201d after it doesn\u2019t make you a free-marketeer. Tyranny isn\u2019t exactly in the Robert Nozick<\/a>\/Libertarian Samizdata<\/a>\/Reason <\/a><\/i>magazine gameplan. (Related thought: How cool would it be if there was a PlayStation game where you could fight back in Tiananmen Square? Think it\u2019ll happen? What about \u201cPriest on the Run,\u201d <\/a>where you try to outwit the ChiCom goons while still saying Mass every day? Somehow I betcha Rockstar won\u2019t be coming out with those anytime soon.)<\/p>\n If the sole idea here is that corporations can become tyrannical, uh, sure, does anyone dispute that? (Although in order for it to happen, the corp.s must be able to ally with repressive governments, as in Burma, Nigeria* <\/a>or the Belgian Congo<\/a>. This in no way excuses the corporations; it just points out that there are more villains on the scene than the Black Bloc might want to acknowledge.) But the PlayStation game speaks with forked tongue. Originally, the rioters were supposed to battle the \u201cAmerican Trade Organization,\u201d thus mirroring the actual Ruckus Society & friends. But then the scenario was changed, so that now they\u2019re fighting what is actually a just battle against a real oppressor, rather than an idiotic campaign that downplays and obscures the real problems<\/a> with globalization<\/a>, in favor of breaking windows in ordinary people\u2019s cars and smashing up McDonalds storefronts owned by striving immigrants. Cute-o.<\/p>\n (*That New Criterion<\/i> article on Ken Saro-Wiwa is disappointing in two ways\u2013it has the typical NC<\/i> hopelessness, the belief that conservatism means that every effort to improve the world just makes things worse, so there\u2019s no need to suggest alternative solutions\u2013and it doesn\u2019t mention Shell Oil. I linked to it because it takes Saro-Wiwa seriously as a writer, unlike most of the stuff you\u2019ll find on the Internet about him, and it demonstrates that Shell couldn\u2019t do anything without the dictator Abacha.)<\/p>\n Erik Wolpaw of Old Man Murray <\/a>has some great comments: \u201c\u2018Totalitarian corporations are basically right behind fascist aliens and Nazis on the list of overworked video-game villains,\u2019 says Wolpaw. \u201cThey\u2019re even ahead of mean elves.\u2019 \u2026Wolpaw even examined one popular gamer bulletin board to see if interest in anti-globalization issues had been spurred by State of Emergency. But so far, \u2018after wading through 46 pages of posts, I couldn\u2019t find a single message dealing with the WTO, capitalism or Indonesian child laborers \u2026 On the other hand, I did find a lot of posters begging for the code that makes people\u2019s heads pop off when you punch them.'\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n And the Salon story helpfully links to these<\/a> stories<\/a> providing info on the anti-globalization movement\u2019s corporate funders. In a CNN-Enron-hearings touch, there\u2019s this para.: \u201cOn the arts-and-entertainment side, anti-globalization has been promoted by Michael Moore\u2019s films and books (from Disney and Fox Newscorp, respectively), while its marches are accompanied by the music of Rage Against the Machine (Sony) and Manu Chao (Virgin).\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n But corporations stifle dissent, of course. Of course. Yargh\u2026 enough.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SUPER CHOMSKY BROTHERS: So there\u2019s this new PlayStation game, \u201cState of Emergency,\u201d in which you get to play an anti-globalization rioter. And Salon has this article on it. Now, I don\u2019t want this site to become SalonSkipper; but this is too good to resist\u2026 First off, apparently none of the righteous rioters are white. From […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n