Uppity Wisconsin
Making Wisconsin Progressive Again
Summerfest: Putting a big smile on killing
Tue, 07/01/2008 - 9:39am | xoff
Michael Mathias at Pundit Nation took the words right out of my mouth this morning:
Apparently not content to be just the worlds biggest music festival, officials at Summerfest are hosting a military recruiting exhibit called Virtual Army Experience, an incredibly violent interactive “game” in which participants shoot at people displayed on a life-size computer screen while standing on a real Humvee equipped with machine guns...I can’t imagine what the management of Summerfest was thinking in allowing this horror show of death and violence onto the grounds, or how it would help their image as a family-friendly event to let anyone set up something in such obvious poor taste.
Peace Action-Wisconsin began a campaign against the exhibit, and has had at least some success, as reported by Kristina Paris, a longtime peace activist who called Summerfest to complain:
I just got through to a person: they reviewed the situation, have upped the age to 18 years with an ID, stopped handing out free DVD's but are still allowing the virtual killing. When I asked if a peace and social justice group could be there with an alternative to killing, they said they would be very open to most groups who pay for the booth space.
Maybe next year there will be an antiwar exhibit. At Summerfest, apparently all it takes is money. Organizers of the Veterans Day parade in Milwaukee have barred participation by Veterans for Peace because VFP is "political."
Tags:
Stop, Think, Experience, Then Decide
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 07/03/2008 - 10:29am.
Look, if we are going to make a big deal about this, how about addressing that Grand Theft Auto is also at Summerfest? Otherwise it just looks like this is an ant-military thing! I encourage people to at least go look at the game, experience it, and then make up their minds on the matter. One way or another, I just don't want this getting out of hand because people think one thing about the exhibit when they would experience another if they actually went through it. Yes, I think they should put an age limit of 18 on it and kids 13-17 would need parental permission in order to go through, but they have the freedom to put up this exhibit just like we have the freedom to protest it. I just ask that people do this in an educated manner so as not to get the other side so riled up.
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