GDC09: A candid interview with Age of Conan’s game director
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, News items, Massively Interviews, Massively Event Coverage
Last week at GDC 2009 was exceptionally busy, but that didn’t stop us from talking with Age of Conan’s game director Craig Morrison and discussing what went wrong with the game at launch and what’s been done since to improve upon it.
You’re in for a treat, we think.
After the jump, you’ll also find discussion on free trails for this year, the DX10 client, successful MMOs and upcoming content philosopy for Age of Conan. It’s a bounty of information even King Conan would be proud to see!%Gallery-9836%
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Cronous
CRONOUS is a full 3D graphic MMORPG. Therefore it supports Zoom In/Out function and camera rotation, enabling the changes of visual point. CRONOUS fixed the height of camera to play the game at the most comfortable visual point. So a player can enjoy the game in a familiar environment like RPG game in Isometric Perspective/ Quarter View Perspective. You can meet various characters equipped with full 3 D graphics, monsters, great special effects and vivid animation.
CRONOUS is an action role-playing game based on a level system combined with a skill system. A player attacks monsters and accumulates EXP by solving various quests. Accumulated EXP is reflected in the player’s level and he can use a special item according to the level, or he can use skills that others can’t use. Also he can use various skills by his own special combination.
Dynamic Battles and various Magic
CRONOUS made various efforts to make a dynamic battle and various kinds of magic to emphasize the fun of action role playing game. You can experience 3D sound which varies according to the distance & direction of the character’s animation which changes depending on the weapon. Also creative Level Design & various types of magic and monsters’ dynamic Al will make the battle more dynamic.
Non-Linearly Storytelling & Variableness
CRONOUS has 100 kinds of quests. Some must be resolved, but some of them can just be ignored. Also some special quests are hidden. A player can meet the hidden stories by solving various quests one by one. Some quests will show whole different results according to a player’s action. A player can meet the changing world which varies according to his own action in CRONOUS.
Growth Items
There are growth items in CRONOUS. As a player grows up, these special items increase their ability. A growth item will have a different tendency according to a player’s fighting style. If you travel the continent with the growth item, you’ll find yourself equipped with the best item. Also if you travel for a long time with a growth item, you can have your name inscribed in your item to leave it in CRONOUS forever.
Flyff
A long time ago, the Five Gods of Lais created a world called Roika. In Roika there was an abundance of life in its waters and its lands. The Five Gods brought forth the Human race after creating the plants, animals, and the other races of Roika. The Gods of Lais did not wish to be revered by the humans. They preferred to have a simple and harmonious relationship with them. Roika was truly then a world of peace and balance.
After some time, the Gods of Lais decided to leave for another world. In order to preserve the beauty of Roika, the Gods of Lais handed over the land-revolution method and the core part of the revolution-genesis-gear to the kind race of the Dwarves. At the same time, they also created the Comedian-Clown who was able to bring harmony and happiness to the inhabitants of Roika. With that, Roika retained its luster even after the departure of the Five Gods.
However, the Comedian-Clown created by the Gods of Lais had difficulty in bringing happiness to all the inhabitants of Roika. To help him with the task, the Comedian-Clown split itself into three personalities - Ipuli the Master of Intellect and Imagination, Bobor the Master of Light and Color, and Shelid the Master of Shadow and Desires. There was a time when the three personalities worked in harmony to provide happiness all throughout Roika.
But one day, Shelid was consumed by the dark nature of the Shadow and started to lust for power and the control of Roika. There was one who stood in the way of Shelid's domination of Roika and that was Bobor. To get rid of Bobor, Shelid deceived Ipuli by telling lies about Bobor's intentions to control Roika. Convinced by Shelid's statements, Ipuli went after Bobor. Ipuli created numerous fierce and magical creatures to help him chase away Bobor, but Shelid was able to control the creatures and use them to complete his plan to dominate Roika. Under Shelid's influence and power, these creatures turned into monsters and took away the revolution-genesis-gear from the Dwarves.
While in exile, Bobor sought help from the Human inhabitants of Roika to destroy the evil creatures plaguing the land and stop the chaotic rule of Shelid. He passed on the Mystical Arts of using Strength, Intellect and Compassion and the Magic of Flight to man. From then on continues the struggle of the warrior-citizens of Roika to bring back peace and balance that was once abundant in the world created by the Five Gods of Lais.
Warhammer online-US
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, which officially abbreviated as WAR, is a new fantasy MMORPG(massively multiplayer online role-playing game). WAR is an upcoming game and is developed by Mythic Entertainment, the creators of Dark Age of Camelot. The Warhammer will be released in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand on September 18, 2008.
Warhammer features next generation Realm vs. Realm gameplay that will immerse you in a world of perpetual conflict for years to come. Experience the glory of Realm vs. Realm! Declare your allegiance and join hundreds of thousands of mighty hero es on the battlefields of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning to experience the epic nature of war. Enter a grim fantasy world where the armies of Order (Dwarfs, High Elves, and Empire) and Destruction (Greenskins, Dark Elves, and Chaos) collide to determine the fate of nations. Invade enemy lands, besiege imposing fortresses, and sack sprawling capital cities for the glory of your Realm. Wield devastating magic and deadly weapons, battle monstrous creatures, and join your brothers-in-arms in epic Public Quests. Climb the Bastion Stair, carry your Guild Banner into battle, and unlock the secrets of the Tome of Knowledge as you travel the world. Sharpen your blade and prepare to unleash your inner mutation-the Age of Reckoning has begun and war is everywhere!
Our company are offering cheap Warhammer gold us and Warhammer power leveling us. If you want to buy that, click the link or the above buttons and go to the related page. You will know of more information about that. If you still have many questions, please connect our customer service.
Warhammer online-EU
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, which officially abbreviated as WAR, is a new fantasy MMORPG(massively multiplayer online role-playing game). WAR is an upcoming game and is developed by Mythic Entertainment, the creators of Dark Age of Camelot. The Warhammer will be released in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand on September 18, 2008.
Warhammer features next generation Realm vs. Realm gameplay that will immerse you in a world of perpetual conflict for years to come. Experience the glory of Realm vs. Realm! Declare your allegiance and join hundreds of thousands of mighty hero es on the battlefields of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning to experience the epic nature of war. Enter a grim fantasy world where the armies of Order (Dwarfs, High Elves, and Empire) and Destruction (Greenskins, Dark Elves, and Chaos) collide to determine the fate of nations. Invade enemy lands, besiege imposing fortresses, and sack sprawling capital cities for the glory of your Realm. Wield devastating magic and deadly weapons, battle monstrous creatures, and join your brothers-in-arms in epic Public Quests. Climb the Bastion Stair, carry your Guild Banner into battle, and unlock the secrets of the Tome of Knowledge as you travel the world. Sharpen your blade and prepare to unleash your inner mutation-the Age of Reckoning has begun and war is everywhere!
Our company are offering cheap Warhammer gold eu and Warhammer eu power leveling. If you want to buy that, click the link or the above buttons and go to the related page. You will know of more information about that. If you still have many questions, please connect our customer service.
Obama Buys Allies Where the U.S. Has No Friends
To hear this Black Agenda Radio commentary, click the flash player above. to download an MP3 copy for broadcast or personal use, click here.
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
"The U.S. plans to double the Afghan army and police, to 400,000 men, through the sheer magnetic pull of money. But, as the old song goes, money can’t buy you love." At root, the Obama/ Petraeus plan for Afghanistan is bribery on a massive scale, a "surge" of billions of dollars to convert the desperately unemployed into U.S.-allied fighters. The plan only looks halfway intelligent in comparison to the early Rumsfeld Iraq plan, which was based on the assumption that the US would be greeted as Afghanistan’s "liberators."
Obama Buys Allies Where the U.S. Has No Friends
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
The Obama plan for Afghanistan, like General David Petraeus’s plan for Iraq, boils down to using massive bribery – ten or twenty billion dollars, or more – to create a political and military ally in a country that doesn’t want the U.S. to be there. There’s really nothing mysterious or out of the ordinary about the strategy. The Obama/Patraeus plan for Afghanistan was also the George Bush plan for Iraq in the last two years of the Republican administration, and only appears to be some kind of stroke of brilliance when compared to the Donald Rumsfeld plan to subdue and colonize Iraq in the early years of the Iraq war.
Rumsfeld’s plan was defeated because it was based on thoroughly racist assumptions. The first assumption was that Iraqis would be universally overjoyed to be occupied by the Great (White) American Father – that they would gladly surrender their national sovereignty and put up no long-term resistance. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney and all the Bush minions had not a shred of a doubt that the Iraqis desired nothing more than to become a colony of the United States. When Baghdad was burning, consumed in flames set by the Iraqis themselves after American forces captured the city, Secretary Rumsfeld announced, and truly believed, that the Iraqis were “celebrating” having been conquered by the U.S.A. He assured the American people that only a few of Saddam Hussein’s most fanatically loyal “dead-enders” would put up further resistance to the American occupation. That essentially racist belief – that colored people desire to be ruled by white people – convinced the Bush administration that it could keep U.S. troop levels in Iraq low – that the vast majority of Iraqis wanted to be occupied by foreigners.
Rumsfeld stuck with his assumption until the American occupation was transformed into a siege of the Americans. Finally, Rumsfeld lost his job. In counter-insurgency terms, the war had been lost.
But America’s war was not the Iraqi’s war. Shia Muslim political parties had their own agenda, and waged a savage war of ethnic cleansing and sectarian annihilation. The Americans didn’t want Iraqis of any religious persuasion running their own country, but they were unable to control events. What happened next was not part of an American plan. Shia Muslim forces had captured 75 percent of Baghdad and Sunni Muslims were on the ropes. At least one hundred thousand former Sunni resistance fighters – virtually the entire force that had earlier brought low the American war machine – agreed to join the U.S. payroll. They made peace with the Americans to escape the wrath of the Shia – and to feed their families. General Petraeus’s so-called troop “surge” was only possible because there were few Sunni fighters to surge against. They were getting paychecks from the United States occupation force.
President Obama hopes to buy off various groups of fighters in Afghanistan in the same way. The U.S. plans to double the Afghan army and police, to 400,000 men, through the sheer magnetic pull of money. But, as the old song goes, money can’t buy you love – in Afghanistan or Iraq – especially when it competes with people’s natural desire to run their own countries. Only racists believe otherwise.
For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Obama Fronts for White Supremacy with Boycott of Durban Conference on Racism
To hear this Black Agenda Radio commentary, click the flash player above. to download an MP3 copy for broadcast or personal use, click here.
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
The injustices of the current world order are derived from those of the old order - which was based on white supremacy. The language of Euro-American hegemony has become more refined but, with the advent of the Barack Obama presidency, it has taken only two months to demonstrate that white supremacy - and its peculiar Zionist offshoot - has no difficulty exercising its power and privilege through the agency of a Black executive." The Durban II conference on racism has been eviscerated by the Black man at the helm of the racist superpower.
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Obama Fronts for White Supremacy with Boycott of Durban II
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
For many on the Left, it was an article of faith that the election of Barack Obama would change the paradigm of United States and international politics – that the conversation would be fundamentally altered when a Black man became leader of the sole superpower on Earth. How anyone could believe that one man’s melanin could undo or even significantly alter an imperial edifice erected over centuries at the cost of hundreds of millions of lives and the extinction of whole peoples – is beyond me. But wishful thinking and silly assumptions are washed away by events and the passing of time. In Barack Obama’s case, it has taken only two months to demonstrate that white supremacy – and its peculiar Zionist offshoot – has no difficulty exercising its power and privilege through the agency of a Black executive.
President Obama has shown us – and very early in his term – that he is just as determined as his white predecessors in the Oval Office to maintain the global order created by the conquistadors, colonizers, and genocidal maniacs of Europe and North America. Obama threatens that the U.S. will boycott the second international gathering on racism since the turn of the millennium, scheduled for late April in Switzerland. The conference is informally called “Durban II” in reference to the first such gathering on racism, in Durban, South Africa, in 200l. George Bush pulled the U.S. out of Durban I, claiming the deck was stacked against Israel, a state whose purpose is to maintain Jewish supremacy through an apartheid-like system in Palestine.
In the interim, Israel has escalated its savage aggressions against Arabs within its borders, in the occupied territories, and among its neighbors. Thus, the question of whether Zionism is a form of racism is as relevant today, as ever.
Since 2001, the United States has been engaged in its own, self-proclaimed war against Arabs and Muslims everywhere on the planet, and has intensified anti-Arab and anti-Muslim discrimination, here at home. The racial order in the United States has, since 2001, developed even deeper layers of hatred and discrimination directly related to American imperial policy in the world – and, of course, its connections to Israel and Zionist racism. It’s past time for Durban II, but Obama doesn’t want to go – any more than George Bush did. And for the same reasons. Imperialism is incomprehensible without an understanding of its white supremacist underpinnings.
The European and North American imperialists are busy re-writing the agenda for Durban II, so that whether they attend or not, the event will result in no indictment of white supremacy as a fundamental evil at work in the world, today. Language related to reparations to Africans for the white worldwide savagery and people-stealing that created the Black Diaspora, is gone, written out – as if the cascade of holocausts against Africa and Africans never happened.
For centuries, North American and European power and privilege has been built on the degradation of people of color. Now a Black man has been elevated to a singular status. He uses it to reinforce the system of white supremacy, and to write other Black and brown and red and yellow people out of history. His name is Barack Obama. Why should anyone be proud.
For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Vet Health Care Snafu Reveals Corporate Obama
To hear this Black Agenda Radio commentary, click the flash player above. to download an MP3 copy for broadcast or personal use, click here.
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
The Obama White House alienated and offended a key constituent group in the health care debate by proposing that veterans be forced to use private insurance to pay for treatment of combat-related injuries. "That the White House would put forward such a notion at all just as the debate on Obama’s health care plan is heating up, reveals an astounding level of political insensitivity - even incompetence - at the highest level." That’s no way to build popular support for a health care overhaul.
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Vet Health Care Snafu Reveals Corporate Obama
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
BarackObama’s recent confrontation with veterans organizations provides yet more evidence of the profoundly corporate character of his world view. The episode alsoprovidesanswers to the question of whothe Obama White House feels it is answerable to, and who it can rebuff and ignore.
The veterans groups were upset with Obama’s proposal that would have forced veterans to use private insurance to pay for treatment of combat-related injuries. That the White House would put forward such a notion at all just as the debate on Obama’s health care plan is heating up, reveals an astounding level of political insensitivity – even incompetence – at the highest level. Only two months into his presidency, Obama managed to alienate the relatively conservative American Legion and ten other veterans groups that are natural constituents in creating a health care system with even a semblance of a claim to universality.
It doesn’t take a political strategy genius to understand that you don’t mess with combat veterans’ medical benefits if you’re trying to build a solid block of popular support for any overhaul of health care. But that’s precisely what the Obama crew did, in attempting to save a measly half billion dollars a year. When the veterans organizations went to the White House to express their concerns, BarackObama himself rebuffed them, saying he would move forward anyway. That prompted the veterans to fire off a letter expressing their “outrage” that the administration would push for such an “unreasonable” plan that would treat combat duty like a pre-existing medical condition. The vets worried that the proposal could make insurance more expensive and possibly crowding veterans’ family members out of coverage. All for the sake of 500 million dollars, at a time when trillions have been committed to bailing out the banking class. What was Obama thinking?
This president, who goes to great pains to assure the corporate health care industry that they and their profits will remain protected under his health care plan, succeeded in scaring the hell out of mass-based veterans groups whose natural inclination is to support the deepest and broadest government role in providing health care.
Remember that Bill and Hillary Clinton destroyed the possibility of creating a modest national health care system in the early Nineties, by putting forward a complicated mess of a plan that few understood and nobody could wholeheartedly embrace. BarackObama appears determined to go down the same path. You don’t build a national health care constituency by pissing off the veterans, who for generations have had access to the closest thing to what the Republicans call “socialized medicine” that the United States has been stingy enough to provide.
After initially dismissing the veterans’ concerns, the White House backed off under the lampooning of Jon Stewart’s Daily show and others – which speaks volumes about the Obama administration’s political priorities. But the damage has already been done. The question has been implanted in the public mind: Who is Obama’s health care plan designed to protect?
For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Barack Obama: Hypocrite on Health Care, Hater on Single Payer
by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
When it comes to health care, Barack Obama is a hater, and a dishonest one at that. An honest and ethical hater tells you where she or he stands, and throws down the appropriate facts. President Obama doesn’t do this. He has claimed for years to be a proponent of single payer health care, the only practical and workable health care solution, but since his election to the senate in 2004 he has become accustomed to saying he would favor single payer "if we were starting from a clean slate" but of course we are not. Insurance companies are powerful interests, he seems to say, and for some reason, we have to let them keep the thrid of every health care dollar they currently take.
President Obama knows there is no blank slate and there never was. That’s not even honest hating. It’s hypocrisy. And it’s not leadership, it’s caving to the parasitical private insurers.
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President Obama: Hypocrite and Hater on Single Payer Health Care
by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
Obama likes to say that the insurance industry employes tens or hundreds of thousands, and we cannot just displace them. That’s hating. But his advisors know perfectly well that single payer health care insurance would create 2.6 million new jobs , after allowing for the 440,000 insurance company jobs it would do away with a fact detailed in the groundbreaking report issued earlier this year by the National Nurses Organizing Committee. Instead, in the spirit of a dishonest hater, Obama has tried to ban from public forums any discussion of the single payer health care option, despite the fact that it has massive support among the people who voted for him. That is hypocrisy.
When the Obama campaign asked for house meetings across the nation on health care, the option suggested most often was indeed single payer. So you didn’t hear much of anything about the outcomes of those meetings. If that’s not dishonest hating on single payer health care it’s hard to imagine what is.
Instead, the Obama Administration’s emerging health care plan is expected to be based upon a model that has failed multiple times, most recently in Massachusetts, which includes "individual mandates" requiring people above a certain income level to purchase private insurance or face a fine, and provides some kind of care at subsidized rates to those with the lowerst incomes. A recent study by physicians at Harvard Medical School meticulously exposes the predictable failure of the Massachusetts Plan live up to any of its promises, and explains succinctly why no "individual mandate" which subsidizes private insurance companies should be a model for any national health care plan.
It’s called "Massachusetts’ Plan" A Failed Model for Health Care Reform", and you can find it online here.
In it, Drs. Rachel Narden, David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler, all of Harvard Medical School deliver a withering assessment of the plan’s failure, and explain why it must not be a model for any national health care plan worthy of the name.
These are the key features of the Massachusetts Plan upon which Obama’s health care plan is modeled.
- Subsidized private insurance is made available for the poorest at reduced or no cost through a state agency.
- Unsubsidized private insurance at controlled costs was to be made available for those who made a little more.
- As with automobile insurance, those not qualifying for subsidized insurance would be fined ($912 a year in 2008, $1,068 in 2009, collected with your state income tax) for failing to purchase insurance.
- Employers were required to pay $295 a year for each employee they didn’t give health insurance to.
- To control costs, funds to pay for the program were taken from the existing pool that previously financed “safety net” care for the poor and uninsured, leaving many with fewer options and less care than was available befor the “reform.”
But the subsidized health insurance policies available to the poor in Massachusetts often covered fewer services than they were already receiving under previously existing conditions, and the greater the “income” of these poor people, the lower the subsidy and higher the deductibles. Under the Massachusetts Plan, the subsidies vanish altogether when one makes 300% of the ridiculously low Federal Poverty Level — about $31,000 per year.
Despite the fines for persons who fail to buy health insurance under the so-called “individual mandate” plans, many remain uninsured because coverage is simply not affordable.
them uninsured.
“The private insurance plans available through the Commonwealth Choice program can be extremely expensive. According to the Connector website (accessed December 29, 2008 at www.mahealthconnector.org) the cheapest plan available to a middle-income 56-year-old now costs $4,872 annually in premiums alone. However, if the policy holder becomes sick, (s)he must pay an additional $2,000 deductible before insurance kicks in. Thereafter the policy holder pays 20% co-insurance (i.e. 20% of all medical bills) up to a maximum of $3,000 annually ($9,872 in total annual costs including premium, deductible and co-insurance). A need for uncovered services (e.g. physical therapy visits beyond the number covered) would drive out-of pocket costs even higher. It is not surprising that many of the state’s uninsured have declined such coverage.”
How can someone making $31,000 a year pay $90 a week in premiums alone, plus $20% of all medical bills up to $3,000 if they get sick? Is calling this "reform" even the least bit honest? Or is it hypocrisy?
The study makes the point again and again that access to health insurance is not the same as access to health care. A full third of every health care dollar is already diverted to private insurance companies. The Massachusetts Plan, and the emerging Obama Plan seem intended to preserve this cut for private insurers, even at the expense of needed care. “…(T)he new inssurance policies that replced the (previous) free care system require co-payments for office visits and prescriptions, which are difficult for many low income patients to pay…” says the study, hence patients suffering from HIV-AIDS and other chronic conditions have had to reduce doctor visits or skip their meds due to the high co-payments that the "reform" required.
The report outlines how the advocates of these private insurance industry endorsed versions of health care reform have lied in state after state where this has been tried — in Oregon, Maine, Vermont, Tennessee and elsewhere. We encourage our readers to download and read it, at only 18 pages, as an antidote to whatever form of "individual mandate" health plan is finally proposed by the Obama Administration.
Plans of this type have not lowered overall health care costs, either. They provide no incentive to tone down the over-reliance on expensive techniques and specialists, and produce more primary care physicians, the doctors who provide day to day, person to person coverage. Obama’s offer to "let’s computerize medical records" as a cost-saving procedure sounds nice, but falls flat. Most of the unecessary paperwork is between care givers, hospitals and insurers with a vested interest in saying no to this or that treatment, test, or medicine.
During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama declared we should judge his first term by whether, under his leadership, the nation finally enacted national health care system that takes care of everybody and lowers the cost of health care. Now we are in the middle of a completely foreseeable economic crisis caused in part by many of the people who are advising the president. Single payer health care has come to the fore as a viable means to create 2.6 million new jobs, a proposal that Obama’s advisors neither address nor discuss.
Sixty days into his presidency, the clock is ticking. Lofty rhetoric and lawyerly evasions are giving way to actual policies, many of them deeply disappointing to the people who campaigned and voted for this president. It looks like national health care for everybody is a dream, that if left up to this president and his advisors, will be deferred again. The question is, should we leave it up to them at all?
Bruce Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report. He is based in Atlanta GA and can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.
Freedom Rider: Opposing Obama
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
This weekend’s pitifully small peace demonstration in the nation’s capitol reveals a near-totally demobilized U.S. Left mired in such timidity and delusion, activists fear to mention Barack Obama’s name when denouncing the wars he so aggressively prosecutes. "The new president, who makes no secret of his intention to continue the previous administration’s war of terror, escaped serious scrutiny and the condemnation he deserves." Forgetting that power concedes nothing without a demand, the Left shrinks from making real demands of the actual president in power.
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Freedom Rider: Opposing Obama
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Six years ago, on March 20, 2003, the United States began its invasion and occupation of Iraq. Since that date more than one million Iraqis have died, four million are refugees, and 4,200 American soldiers have lost their lives. America committed a terrible crime against the Iraqi people and against all of humanity, a crime that continues until the present day.
The occupation is ongoing, despite the election and inauguration of a new president. President Barack Obama always made it clear that he would never end the war, instead choosing to draw down the number of troops and always reserving the right to leave a “residual force.”
In spite of his clear declaration of continuing war and occupation, Obama was able to claim the mantle of an anti-war candidate. The anti-war movement was already demoralized by Democratic Party betrayal, and repeated corporate media lies about the true nature of America’s military aggression. The Obama fundraising and marketing juggernaut, in conjunction with hatred of the Bush regime, allowed the damning with faint praise adulation and the making of a phony hero for peace.
This delusion has made an already failing progressive movement nearly useless. So much so that anti-war activists are loathe to speak Obama’s name, even as they condemn the endless warfare that he advocates. The recent March on the Pentagon, sponsored by the Answer Coalition, is a case in point. Speaker after speaker condemned the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan by referring to “the government” or “the United States” without saying the name of the current resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The march displayed both good news and bad. It is good that appeals to shun Answer by capitulationist factions were ignored. It is always good when citizens openly oppose their government’s aggression. Yet there was an insufficient willingness to name the current war criminal in chief, Barack Obama, as the promoter of state sponsored terrorism.
At the March on the Pentagon, t-shirts and placards urged the impeachment and/or arrest of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. The new president, who makes no secret of his intention to continue the previous administration’s war of terror, escaped serious scrutiny and the condemnation he deserves. What should have been pointed attacks on Obama policy were instead mealy mouthed apologies. Instead of being educated about the rights and obligations of a conscious citizenry, the crowd was told to encourage Obama, to help him make the right decisions. Former attorney Lynne Stewart was a rare exception, excoriating Obama by name for continuing warfare and for withdrawing from the upcoming United Nations conference on racism and dismissing any discussion of reparations for slavery.
Some activists hope against all logic and the lessons of history that Obama will behave in a way that politicians never do. They expect him to defy the dictates of the true rulers who put him and all other politicians in power. They conveniently forget that power concedes nothing without a demand. They forget that meaningful change has come about only when an active and engaged movement makes demands on people who never want to serious consider changing the agendas set by their benefactors.
While not altogether successful, this first mass action of the Obama administration may be an important beginning for peace activists. The numbers of truly conscious people willing to take on Obama may be small now, but continued confrontation will soon be seen as a possibility and then as necessity, not as a departure from misguided notions of political etiquette.
This administration must be taken to task over numerous issues. Obama has already said that he will consider taxing health benefits and make unspecified changes to the entitlement system, our only safety net. Americans should take to the streets because of the prison industrial complex, they should take to the streets to demand single payer health care and they should take to the streets about a military budget that is larger than that of every other nation on earth combined. If they did, they would save themselves as individuals and save their nation too.
The stakes are that high. Being patient, giving the brother a chance, or being seen as racist are poor excuses for silence. Timidity will mean the death of what little good is left in this country.
Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com.
