Religious Leaders Ask U2's Bono To Stop Video Game Targeting Venezuela

[Joanne98]

:wtf:

Press Release
Religious Leaders Ask U2's Bono To Stop Video Game Targeting Venezuela

Wednesday, Apr 04, 2007
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=2009
By: Venezuela Solidarity Network

April 2, 2007

***Please distribute Widely***

For more information contact:
Gunnar Gundersen
[phone]
[e-mail]

WASHINGTON D.C. - Fifty religious leaders sent a letter to U2’s Bono today asking him to “do whatever is necessary to see that ‘Mercenaries 2’ is pulled from stores and not sold anywhere.”

Mercenaries 2 is a realistic, violent video game in which the player leads a mercenary force into Venezuela with the objective of killing a “power hungry tyrant” who has taken over the oil industry. Bono’s investment company, Elevation Partners, has invested $300 million in Pandemic Studios, the game’s creator. Mercenaries 2 is scheduled to be released this year.

The letter, which was signed by Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim leaders denounced the violent and realistic nature of the game and told Bono, “We feel your connection with this game detracts from your image as a human rights defender.”

Gunnar Gundersen, a spokesperson for the Venezuela Solidarity Network (VSN), a US-based grassroots organization that is pressuring Bono to stop the game said, “Anyone who has spent time in Caracas can immediately recognize the city’s streets and landmarks in the game. The aim of the video game is full devastation, so any person who moves should be shot, and all the buildings, such as the headquarters of PDVSA, the Venezuelan public oil company, can be destroyed. Gundersen, who lives in Oregeon, is married to a Venezuelan and has family who live in Caracas.

The Venezuela Solidarity Network believes that a violent video game attacking a country that has been targeted for “regime change” by the Bush administration, is more than just a game. VSN Interim Coordinator Chuck Kaufman stated, “Pandemic Studios has designed training videos for the army and the CIA. We don’t believe they just happened to pick Venezuela at random as the site of their new video game.”

The religious sign-on letter to Bono was written and distributed by the Maryknoll Office of Global Concerns in Washington, DC. Director Marie Dennis also objected to the realistic violence in the game. “Our faith traditions motivate us to confront the international debt problem that robs human dignity and calls us to counter the culture of violence that pervades our society today,” she said. “The celebration of violence in much of our media, music and video games is poisoning our children.”

For more information visit www.vensolidarity.org. Religious leaders who wish to still sign on to the letter can do so by sending an email to [e-mail]. There is also a secular sign-on letter on the web page for people who are not religious leaders.

###
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=2009

[Bjorn Against]

1. What the hell is wrong with Bono...

I admit I have played my share of violent video games, but some of these militaristic games really disturb me. I can handle Grand Theft Auto or Doom because those games are pure fantasy, but when it comes to games like Mercenaries or Call of Duty I stay far away because those games seem to really glorify war. When the violence is aimed at a country that never attacked or threatened to attack the US, but has provided our poor with cheap heating oil it becomes even more disturbing.

There is a big difference between fantasy violence and pro-war propaganda, Mercenaries crosses that line and that is why I refuse to play games of that nature.

[porphyrian]

2. Yep, and rock and roll makes you worship the devil.

Stupid fucking censors, you're ensuring the success of the game.

[juno jones]

3. I just hope he cares enough to do it

I'm not particularly impressed with his controlling interest in Forbe's magazine, his 17th century Irish castle or his wife's mondo expensive trendy clothing line manufactured in third world countries (other than Ireland, of course)...Sunday Bloody Sunday was a great song, but that seems so long ago now...

[Joanne98]

6. A controlling interest in Forbes? I didn't know that.

[juno jones]

7. Yeah, it was fairly recent, in the last year

he now owns 51% of the mag. I'll try to find a link, but I'm not on my home computer right now. I'll try to dig it up a bit later and post it...


OK found links: correction to above, mea culpa, bad memory...:) 40% ownership, huge chunk tho:
links:
http://gigaom.com/2006/08/07/roger-mcnamee-bono-buy-a-piece-of-forbes/

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2006/08/bono_buys_into.html

and an interesting one from NYpost...who knows how accurate it is tho:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12192006/business/bono__forbes_cut_mag_pensions_business_keith_j__kelly.htm

[Joanne98]

8. God. I hope he doesn't hang out with Steve Forbes. YUK!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. "realistic?"

Isn't this like complaining about how Rambo II sparked another war in Southeast Asia?

[Joanne98]

9. I think they're talking about the scenery!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

10. heh

I don't think they're complaining about graphics.

[Joanne98]

5. Here's their website!

http://www.vensolidarity.org/Campaigns/index.php

[JackRiddler]

11. k & r

bono... what a guy. When the G8 and IMF came out to strap the usual electrodes to the genitalia of the Third World debtor nations, he was there to provide a nice big fig leaf. As usual, the practice of figuring out the maximum these nations can pay and then demanding it was disguised as "debt relief," this time with the imprimatur of him and his other pop-song-whore buddies. A saint, I tell you, a saint.