Posted on 12/22/2005 6:37:05 AM PST by Hadean
For kids, Christmas means toys. For boys in particular, the hottest toys often have a martial theme — BB guns, army men, light sabers and the like.
But this Christmas season, some parents trudging to the malls for G.I. Joes have had to meet the politically correct platoons now infiltrating the local Toys R' Us.
Code Pink, a leftist women's outfit that's a fixture at antiwar rallies, is taking a break from protesting real conflict in Iraq to campaign against so-called "war toys." As the Pink website warns: "Every holiday season manufactures prey on our children with pro-war propaganda disguised as innocent toys. Don't let your child be a victim of G.I. Joe!"
I feel compelled to note that the gracefully aging ladies of Code Pink obviously never have watched an actual G.I. Joe cartoon since the Real American Hero's enemies are famous for rolling, flying, or parachuting their way out of danger. The Teletubbies have a better kill rate than Joe and his comrades.
Nevertheless, Code Pink is calling for parents to boycott purveyors of pretend weaponry. Fair enough, I suppose. If American parents really think that a cowboy hat and plastic six shooter will turn their little darling into a senseless killer, then by all means: Send a message by buying "The Rainforest Playset" or "Sensitivity: The Boardgame" instead. Voting with your dollars — it's the free market at work. Code Pinkers horrified by a foam ninja throwing stars or a water gun can avoid these things and argue that others should too.
Yet Code Pink goes way beyond the venerable boycott. While the group urges activists to don pink camouflage and distribute sidewalk propaganda on the evils of war toys, it also instructs would-be peace warriors to pursue their campaign inside stores.
One suggested tactic is the "buy and return." The idea is for activists themselves to purchase war toys and then head straight to customer service. There they return the offending products while engaging in a verbal strike — imploring managers to take "violent" toys off the shelves and pestering fellow customers about war toys' dangers. (Certainly, there's no better way to win converts than to gum up the return and exchange lines during the holiday rush.) Code Pink suggests pre-arranging local media to cover the impending ruckus.
At least Code Pink's "buy and return" silliness is probably legal. Operation "Stick It To 'Em," however, encourages activists to deface private property by placing surgeon general-style warning labels on offending toys. The Code Pink website includes helpful samples that, they explain, are easily printed on sticky mailing labels. One sums up the heart of the campaign: "Violent Toys=Violent Boys."
That equation just doesn't add up. Clearly, not all toys are virtuous or appropriate for children. Video games like Grand Theft Audio, in which players can decapitate police officers (or alternatively, set them on fire or brutalize them with a chainsaw), are unhealthy for children — and probably for everyone else. Some toys have few redeeming values.
Yet there's a big difference between GTA: Vice City and G.I. Joe, plastic army men, or Super Soakers. As Code Pink says, wars — real wars — aren't games. But the reverse also is true: Games aren't wars. Neither research nor common sense supports quashing the natural tendency of little boys to play soldier, cowboy, or cop. And like it or not, violence is a reality in the world and soldiers and policemen aren't villains to most Americans. These professions embody the discipline, responsibility, and self-sacrifice that most parents want to nurture in their children. What better way for kids to express admiration and explore these virtues than through games and make believe?
Sometimes games turn ugly. Rough-and-tumble play can lead to bruised egos as well as bruised knees and elbows. Parents should set limits and exercise supervision to ensure that games and play don't go too far. Such parental involvement — teaching limits and under what circumstances aggressive behavior is appropriate — will do far more to shape boys into honorable young men than costumed whining at toy stores.
I didn't see any 'sarcasm tags' so I don't know if you actually believe that or not.
I played "Smear the Queer" when I was a kid.
Does that turn us into homophobes?
God because He didn't make them one,and men because they simply don't have what it takes to be one.
While it is the case that they are also anti military I think they are mostly anti-male and target little boys (especially their own) as they are the easiest to pick on...they are bullies.
Going after the little boys toys they attempt to turn male into female...since they cannot turn themselves into males.
More than a few of these fema-nazis also want to ruin their own male children doing it to get even with their X husbands...who escaped and are safely out of reach.
I see this attitude in my former sister in law who maintains what I call a 'front alter' personality that is 180 degrees away from the vicious drunken shrew who attacks her own sons at home away from witnesses.In the same manner, using the same tactics, language and violence that she once used on their dad.
Dad ,however, in many ways 'had it coming' the boys do not.
My SIL even has the chutzbah to go around publicly blaming her boys for discipline or attitude problems they sometimes have that are a direct result of her physical, psychological and spiritual abuse..she never blames herself for what is going on at home.
(the youngest she agitates and humiliates,has slapped in the face and likes to curse at him and poke in the chest while daring him to hit her..Then calls him a chicken s*$t when he won't..She spends hours a week undermining and eroding his self confidence and career choice (he wants to be a career Marine).She has also gone to his teachers telling them along with her friends and relatives that she is 'afraid' that he will someday hit her...I believe she is preparing the authorities to go after the kid when that day comes...The boy's grandma, my wife and I, and one uncle..those of us who know the truth will be there to inform the judge....his dad unfortunately won't be bothered with him as he has a new life, new wife, and likes to party)
It is a very sad thing is she is a public school teacher...
It is also sad how she forces her sons to go to church and participate in all the activities...all they see is a hypocrite mother and father and how God doesn't seem to care enough about them to deliver them from their parents abuse and a world that from their point of view mostly 'sucks'.
This is a great backhanded way for mom to make atheists out of her grown boys...in their misery they wont even be able to call out to God for help...if she has her way...
Fortunately God's plans will not be thwarted by man or shrew
We have tried the authorities but until she does something illegal they claim their hands are tied...and dad is unresponsive and conspicuously uninvolved
She is very clever at presenting her front alter personality and doing all her paperwork and schmoozing the right folks in order to keep up appearances.
She is a clever manipulator and the consummate victim...a true liberal.
Be very careful who you marry...and what kind of person is really teaching your kids...
-imo
Good Lord, no real man deserves such a fate!
I do. And actually, I meant that such games helped to contribute to moral decline among American youngsters.
Violence is not bad. Only misdirected violence is bad.
Even my kid can grasp this.
Oh shut UP you stupid old hags!
,,, no doubt this troop of clowns would support a woman's right to choose in terms of abortion but for kids they don't pay any bills for, they're trying to dictate terms for shopping during the "holiday" season. No choice allowed, it seems. Shopping over the internet means this problem of selection won't occur in stores, freeing up time to tip buckets of pink paint on these womyn in public.
My son would rather have a Gameboy instead of a GIJoe anyway.
Until the little monsters decide to try it on some neighborhood tomcats.
Sure, in their long gone youth, they were infatuated with Che Guevarra, Carlos the Jackal, Ho Chi Minh, Chairman and Madam Mao, and for the even longer in the tooth, Joe Stalin. The more intellectual among them often express a fondness for Marx and Engles.
The one time the "experiment" nearly succeeded, at least in England and France and to a lessor extent the US, the world got Hitler and the ovens, along with the Rape of Nanking. Not to mention the millions that Joe Stalin did in, one way or another.
Mayhem in the Grocery Store. Thank God for Texas!
The "Dollar" type stores are also a good source of politically incorrect "war toys". Of course around here, central Texas, the WalMart has Sherman Tanks right next to the H2 Hummers.
What real men would want them? I guess they'd have to settle for their nominally male comrades.
Why not?
The Second Amendment.. use it or lose it.
The techie version is :
I believe their predecessors were more likely to send money to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade or cut out the middleman and send it directly to to Uncle Joe, so he could kill a few more Ukrainians.
Size is good, hard to throw because they're are so light and "high drag". Try hedge apples.
They'd call in a SWAT team and it would be off to Juvi hall, if they survived the encounter with the SWAT team.
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