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Banning War Toys
Inez Tenenbaum Should Ban War Toys, A Product Posing the Greatest Threat to Our Safety
Inez's top priority should be banning war toys. War toys are products threatening the safety of people everywhere with or without lead paint.
War toys teach children to accept a militarized world, which is unsafe for people anywhere. War toys teach children that war and killing are acceptable in dealing with conflict and that people who look or think differently should be defeated. Some toys help children play together. Other toys teach them new things. But war toys teach children to fight. War toys teach them that might is right, and mock kindness, conciliation, cooperation, skill, and thoughtfulness toward others.
In Nazi Germany toys for children were used to spread racial and political propaganda to German youth. Toys were also used as propaganda vehicles to indoctrinate children with militarism. From their first days in school, German children were taught love for Hitler, obedience to state authority, militarism, racism, and anti-Semitism.
Inez Tenenbaum's husband Sam, whom she introduced at the beginning of her confirmation hearing, is a long-time, dedicated fighter of anti-Semitism and a friend of mine. Sam Tenenbaum challenged Lee Atwater for running an anti-Semitic campaign against Max Heller in 1978 in a congressional race. Heller was formerly Mayor of Greenville, SC and a Jewish refugee from Austria who had fled the Nazis. Atwater later apologized to Tenenbaum just before he died from brain cancer in 1991. War toys worked for Hitler, teaching German children the glories of war and empire much like they instruct US children in violence today.
War toys and games are a family concern. War toys are playthings, used in simulated conflict, to gain power, and win by using violence. A war toy's aim is to wound or kill. Playing is fun, but when children play war games they learn things like creating two sides, "ours" and "theirs"; solving arguments by fighting; using guns and other war equipment as toys; praising and rewarding the use of violence and physical strength; starting fights and making enemies; pretending people don't suffer and die in a war; and making war seem okay.
War toys are easier for children to play with than learning how to read or play the piano. War toys teach children aggression. Aggression needs an outlet, but aggression can be played out in a non-violent manner with peaceful games.
Children should know what really happens in a war. People are hurt, maimed and killed. War toys, games, television shows, and movies using guns seldom show the real effect of what violence does to people. It is wrong to hurt others or pretend to hurt others, but violence sells in the media in action adventures like CSI and the multiple murders and shootings, bleeding and leading on local TV news.
Studies indicate a direct correlation between exposure to media violence, especially interactive video games, to increased childhood aggression. A Stanford University study showed that third and fourth‑graders who limited or eliminated television and video games had a 50 % decrease in verbal aggression and 40% in physical aggression.
Technology has made it easier to distance ourselves from the true horrors of warfare. We can zap "the enemy" and innocent civilians with electronically controlled missiles without seeing the tragic consequences. The attacker never faces the victim.
Better alternatives to children enjoying shooting at people and blowing up buildings are games that encourage the use of their minds, skills and physical dexterity in activities promoting the sanctity of life and peace.
Violence has never been an effective solution to the world's problems. Cruelty can easily become a human addiction, especially among the young. Inflicting pain and suffering should never be an American sport. Peace is the best thing to teach our children.
Inez Tenenbaum should ban all war toys, with or without lead paint.
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41 Comments so far
Show AllYes, the prevalence of war toys does, as Turpenseed suggests, instill a sense of the appropriateness of war, but banning the toys is not going to be very effective without a massive cultural shift to go along with it. A top-down decision to ban a class of toy will hit a wall of resistance from everyone to the right of Pat Leahy. Remember the attempt to ban toy guns? Just guns? Kids were getting shot by the cops for brandishing toy guns and the final outcome of trying to ban them was that they have a big orange nozzle on them IDing them as toys. But they are still manufactured and marketed.
If you are going to try to ban war toys, then you are going to have to try to ban war movies and war-based computer and video games, Tom Clancy novels and Kipling's poetry. It's the glorification of war by the adults that teaches kids that war is OK.
"banning the toys is not going to be very effective without a massive cultural shift "
Right, besides, we used to play all day games of "Army" using sticks for guns.
You don't just ban things you don't like. Don't buy the toys for *your* kids if you don't like them.
If you can use a stick for a gun
why do you need to buy one?
Why not, as a society, we say that we don't approve of these things?
My point was that it's a bit short sighted to think a ban on toys would really do anything, short of demonstrating the opression of the government that would do that. So it goes when you think your heart is in the right place but you don't think even the next step after. Wouldn't you have to ban chess too, an overt example of a war game, centuries old and seen by many as almost an art form? How about football?
OK, I'd rather you didn't get silly.
Banning guns would be a way that society says that it doesn't approve.
If you really need to continue playing with guns, use those sticks you used as a kid.
Chess has nothing to do with it and you know it.
Silly.
"If you really need to continue playing with guns, use those sticks you used as a kid."
If I want my kid to have a toy gun, I want the freedom to get him one.
"Chess has nothing to do with it and you know it."
Why not? Do you play? If you do, you would know the fundamental fact that chess is based on killing members of an opposing army on the way towards winning a war. Children often learn it when very young. I'll bet Turnipseed doesn't think this is good for society either.
How about martial arts for kids?
There will always be those who can make it around the bans but banning the extremes can help moderate the damage we're otherwise witnessing. As JenniferB suggested, the least we can do is regulate these toys. For example, of the 20 kids who played with war toys and grew up to be violent, how many of those 20 would have stayed that way had regulation made their parents think twice? There are martial arts and violent games but they're not as accessible to the very young ones as are toys. That's most likely why TT choose to bring up war toys. Most parents today are even more irresponsible than yesterday's parents when it comes to buying toys for kids so regulation will be needed to moderate the seeds of violence.
"For example, of the 20 kids who played with war toys and grew up to be violent, how many of those 20 would have stayed that way had regulation made their parents think twice?"
There seems to be zero studies that would answer a question like this, which is why I stated that I don't think Turnipseed made his case. All anyone here is doing is guessing.
"There are martial arts and violent games but they're not as accessible to the very young ones as are toys. That's most likely why TT choose to bring up war toys."
Slippery slope. He can forget it anyway, this idea would never get traction anywhere except perhaps in Berkley.
I have to agree with JAKE on this one, regarding chess. Chess was designed as a war strategy game. The analogy is anything but silly.
Excellent points, CV.
Just ban war.
I'm sorry, but this reminds me of that great line by George Carlin from one of his shows in the late 80s: "Now they're thinking about banning toy guns . . . BUT THEY'RE GONNA KEEP THE F***IN' REAL ONES!!"
As a Libertarian, I think it's a bad idea. Reminds me of the foolish attempt thet New York City tried in the 1990s when it tried to ban water pistols.
Libertarians - Republicans that like to smoke dope.
Hey - the Socialist Party has a Senator. How many Senators are from the Libertarian Party?
(answer: all the Republicans)
Shows what little you know about the Libertarian Party. Are you aware that we oppose the war on drugs, foreign interventions, the Patriot Act, Illegal monitoring (Wiretaps and email readings during the Bush era). All of these stands are contrary to the Republican Party's stand. We also joined the Green Party in 2004 filing a suit contesting the election results in Ohio. Turns out that if the Ohio AG hadn't moved those voting machines, Kerry would have carried the state and won the election.
Okay, so there is one senator who's socialist (Big government) but our 1988 presidential candidate is in the house (Ron Paul).
SHows what little you know about us.
Libertarianism is another failed religion.
How many people do you have in the Senate? Because the Socialist Party has one.
And by the way - Ron Paul sux.
Libertarianism is another failed religion. Okay, you support the war on drugs, foreign interventions, the Patriot Act, Illegal monitoring (Wiretaps and email readings during the Bush era). All the things that the Libertarian Party opposes.
Ron Paul is one of the few in congress who doesn't use all of his congressional allotment each year. He's the only congressman who voted against HR560. He won't vote yes on any amendment that he believes to be unconstitutional.
"Libertarians - Republicans that like to smoke dope."
does that make Schwarzenneger a Libertarian?
I would suggest that banning "war toys" would have to expand to include movies, video games, and books, as CV June argued earlier, at which point you're trying to ban an idea. Just trying to ban toys with war as the theme really amounts to banning an idea. At which point you're violating the First Amendment and doing something dangerously akin to book-burning.
If we can't convince others that war is evil without silencing our opponents' point of view, our argument that war is wrong must be really weak.
As a literary note, CV June, Kipling regularly put the gore and pain of war into his poetry (and prose!).
"'Ere's a beggar with a bullet through 'is spleen;
'E's chawin' up the ground,
An' 'e's kickin' all around:
For Gawd's sake git the water, Gunga Din!"
-Gunga Din.
We reap what we sow. I strongly say yes to banning war toys as they do nothing but create more anti-social behavior in kids and even make it more likely that kids will rebel against their parents especially if the parents are peace loving. If not ban, at least put a minimum age requirement such as say, 14, when they might have some maturity to not play with the idea of war. Maybe then there will be fewer adults toying around with wars especially in Washington. The more I read astrology, the more I am thinking that Mars feels "relaxed" and even having fun at our expense especially when kids are subject to playing with war toys at such early ages. Given Obama's push to continue Dubya's wars, I have a bad feeling that Inez will be bullied by Obama not to even think about reigning in war toys as he would love to see future kids fighting more dirty wars. I pray for Inez's life should she make the bold and right move to reign in war toys and she had better be prepared to confront the MIC. Good luck.
Sioux Rose
One point of the article is that the indoctrination (to violence and the pro-war state) begins VERY early, before children have learned on their own to form a more holistic foundation of personal values.
Any discussion of what is legal hits the hot bottom concept of freedom, but it always comes down to a balance (or should) between the rights of the individual and those of the society as a whole.
"One point of the article is that the indoctrination (to violence and the pro-war state) begins VERY early, before children have learned on their own to form a more holistic foundation of personal values."
ANYTHING learned by a child could be called "indoctrination". Suppose I raise my child to be Mormon or Quaker. Suppose I raise my child with African-American pride, Chicano pride or White pride. Suppose I let my child watch three hours of TV a day. Should the state regulate what concepts parents can teach their children? I hope you wouldn't agree with that.
"but it always comes down to a balance (or should) between the rights of the individual and those of the society as a whole."
I believe that's why Germany banned Scientology. They found it to be a predatory cult and felt the need to "balance between the rights of the individual and those of the society as a whole." Is this how you, as an astrologer, want to approach free speech?
Sioux Rose
HOPED UP: You're all over the page. If I say A, you'll say B. Frankly, I'm not up for getting into "the ring" with you tonight.
As for those who look at singular factors, i.e. "toys," the real point is that violence absolutely PERMEATES all aspects of American culture, and it starts YOUNG. For the "boys" who posted that they played with guns and GI Joe and are still pacifists, obviously you weren't twisted in your need to assert aggression in the first place. As society gets increasingly UNBALANCED, more will act out. Proof it's unbalanced? How about rates of homicide, domestic abuse, road rage, depression, obesity, drug abuse, alcoholism, etc. And when churches clammor FOR war (albeit "Holy war") if that doesn't make you sick (given it's everything Jesus was not about and would not advocate) then there is not much else that really can be said. When a nation is as drenched in blood-letting as ours, it's worth examining all the places this desensitization to violence happens. And work from there.
"One point of the article is that the indoctrination (to violence and the pro-war state) begins VERY early, "
The alleged "indoctrination" being an *opinion* that I think the author did not support very well. Empirical evidence would have been interesting and helpful.
The evidence is already showing in the long term results. How many of our young men and women would have fallen into the temptation of signing up and allowing the recruiters to sucker punch them had these same youngsters not seen or played around with war toys in their youngest and most tender years? This is what Sioux Rose most likely meant by indoctrination and this is not a mere opinion but a proven fact with long term tragic results showing for it. This also makes it easier for kids to further slip into the temptation to watch violent cartoons and play violent virtual video games and then there's martial arts and gun training. One builds upon the other and TT is correct to point out that war toys are the ROOT of evil. What more can you ask for proof?
Carla, are you in favor of banning "war toys"?
I love people who want to ban stuff. It's all fun until something they like is banned, like say free speech or gay marriage.
ja, ze children shell play with government approved toys only.
Ray Berthiaume
When my twins were 6 I had a birthday party. On the invitations I asked that there be no gifts of G I Joe, toy guns or Barbee (Twins are boy and girl). Got a little negative gossip, that's all.
During WWII, my father was a prisoner in a German slave labour camp for three years or more.
He refused to buy so much as a squirt gun for my brother and I.
Yet he can not understand why I am a pacifist.
When I was a very young child in the very early 50's, I remember playing around with a funny little rectangular box that had a glass cover lid for its cover. Inside were two oval pieces of plastic, each with a free moving ball bearing inside - little lopsided things nicknamed "jumping beans", which would roll at irregular, erratic angles as you varied and manipulated the slope of the box beneath them.
There were two small circular indentures in the bottom of the box, about two inches apart. The goal of this simple game was to manipulate the box, and try to get each jumping bean to roll and eventually come to rest in one of the holes. This actually took some skill and dexterity, since getting the second bean to come to rest in its target hole often dislodged the first one. At the pre-kindergarten level, I played with this funny toy for hours, along with tiddly winks, jacks, marbles, cards, and other manipulables.
Years and years later, when I was away in college, there was a purge of the family home, occasioned by my parents' moving. My sister and I came home for a weekend to sort, save, and pitch out junk stuff from our childhood, and I came across the funny little box in the bottom junk drawer of a dresser.
Thus, at the age of about twenty five, I grasped the symbolism and existential message of this toy for the very first time. On the bottom of the box, was a facsimile of the island of Japan, with a rising sun insignia fanning out from the lower right hand corner. One of the indenture spots on the map was labeled Hiroshima, the other Nagasaki. The jumping beans were you-know-what.
Neither of my parents had any idea how this toy originally came into the household by way of purchase, gift, or whatever. My older sister had never noticed the macabre message of the little box before either, and she had played with it too as a child.
This epiphany moment came during the height of the Vietnam War escalation. Now, I deeply regret our instant decision to toss this particular childrens' toy straight into the junk pile.
I would like to send it straight to Inez Tenenbaum, with best wishes from Vets for Peace.
Bill from Saginaw
thanks for sharing this, Bill.
That's a fascinating story, and I mean that sincerely. You never understand the things you play with when you're a child until your much older. Yet, I do not think that a toy such as that or any toy for that matter is the problem when it comes to the societal illness of war. It is the TRIVIALIZATION of war that is the problem, and one doesn't need toys to do that. We trivialize war to the point that it becomes something to which we are desensitized and familiarized, and we do it simply through not caring, not taking the time to understand what's going on in the world. Again, one doesn't need to play with toys to develop this sort of mentality. To say that toys lead to war is the same argument that was made after the Columbine shootings regarding violent video games and rock leading to students packing heat in homeroom. Trust me, I'm NO fan of war, and I've been opposed to it for as long as I can remember, but PEOPLE are the problem when it comes to humanity engaging in attempted suicide. Still enjoyed reading your post and best wishes to Vets for Peace.
The site ate my comment - what's going on here? Anyway, I'll try again.
It's the message that is more important than the object. I grew up with guns - and war, grenades, bombs, bomb-damage, etc - and I am not aggressive nor do I embrace militarism. We always had guns - and they were always loaded. (My father insisted that more people were killed with 'unloaded' guns.)
Organized sports are a far more dangerous avenue of indoctrination than any other games played by children. The whole idea of 'us' against 'them' is instilled and bolstered by school sports - just listen to what people say at those games, and what they say about different teams. That is the real method of brainwashing people into accepting militarism (nationalism) without question. Religion does the same thing - which is probably why Hitler was so high on both religion and sports.
Most people here 'get it' - it's about societal values. But most also fail to see how organized spectator sports play into the equation. How it teaches people to just cheer the
'home team' without getting involved themselves, let alone questioning why. This is how fascism becomes accepted by a society - and they will deny it ever happened. It just seems so 'normal' - because of all those years of indoctrination with sports, sports idols, and related imagery. It's a con job done by professionals. Just google Eduard Bernays and see how this all got started...
to find out how football led to Nürnburg google "Hitler Harvard"
"Be true to your school"
Did Brian Wilson know what he was singing?
While the author's intentions are noble, his methods are somewhat backwards. While I support the elimination of war and violence, banning war toys is more in line with banning an idea, not the elimination of war and violence, and banning an idea always leads inevitably to censorship, which I just can't get on board with. Even ideas with which I most vehmently disagree deserve to be seen and heard.
I am the most liberal, anti-war, anti-militarism person I know. I detest guns, nukes, and anything else that the military-industrial complex farts out. I scoff whenever I hear of some new, more advanced weapon being built under the misguided assumption that it will keep us safer, because I know it won't. Thus, the actual problems are REAL weapons and society's glorification of war that fuels their production.
I grew up playing with action figures. I've played violent video games. I even owned a few GI Joes (which, for the record, are about as realistic as Star Trek). Yet, I didn't grow up to be some hyper-aggressive war monger, rather the exact opposite. Toys are simply that, playthings and it is the responsibility of the previous generation to make the distinction between the simplistic world of play that all children inhabit and the much more complex reality that awaits them in adulthood. So rather than talking of banning the depiction of war, be it in toys, games, books, or movies (as this is, again, the slippery slope of censorship), let's focus on real solutions to the problem of war as opposed to its representation in fiction.
Sensible take.
You summed up my own position pretty well.
That's a rather special case but most people don't have what you didn't mention, inherent control. See, it takes training to get most others to be as "perfect" as you. Banning dangerous toys is not the same as banning ideas. That's not to say that I completely favor outright banning but reasonable regulations can't hurt. Most people who play with war toys, violent video games, and even watch violent television shows more than anything else are most likely to grow up anti-social and even dangerous. If you're against censorship, then why aren't you acknowledging Washington censoring peaceful protests and causes? Most kids don't have responsible parents and even for those who do, chances are that both parents work all day just to be able to pay the basic bills and taking care of their kids isn't always on their schedule. Why make it too easy for kids to get into trouble? It's like giving a 5 year old the keys to your car.
Little male goats butt heads.
Kittens bite at each other's throats and roll over each other.
Puppies gnarf at a cloth and shake their heads back and forth in the aeons-old gesture of snapping spines and growl mightily, wagging their tails.
I suspect that the violence and not the toys teach violence.
By that I include the violence of empty hours, love that cannot reveal itself, and other truths withheld.
Mr Turnipseed,although I empathise with your altruistic aims in this article I must remind you that the Army is one of the largest producers of video games.Even games like "Grand theft aut@ " and others are based on violence against others.
And as Carlin pointed out in his great rants football involves "taking thier land"and our entire culture is saturated with violence.As a Quaker i want to share this story again that my dad told me.A Quaker man was asleep in his bed upstairs ,when he heard the door being forced open ,he grabbed his shotgun and ran to the hall to find the burgler standing at the foot of the stairs.Lowering his gun towards the intruder he said"Friend I would not harm thee for all the world ,but you are standing where I am about to shoot" That said i admit to owning firearms of the antique kind,not much good for confronting armed people but usefull for other things like putting down a rabid animal.Let us just ban war and then the war toys will lose thier glamour and popularity.
peace
The war toys are not the problem. The problem is not liberalism's advocacy of freedom to put war, sex and everything else in the media (toys being just another medium).
The problem is liberalism's advocacy of the elites' freedom to wage class war on the people, so that elites create or encourage the creation of not only war toys but thousands of other channels of manipulation/control such that if you really wanted to reign in the elites and halt their diabolical class war, you'd have to ban most everything produced.
We can't ban production. We have to ban the elites' class war on people. And enlightening the people is the necessary way to enforce the ban. Over the millenia, the bad guys were kicked out of the village until they changed their errant ways. We can train the people in civic responsibility in the K-12 curriculum. Teach the people to slough the parasitic/oppressive elites off their backs, by shifting their individual exchange/association appropriately. Then you won't have all this crapola like war toys that serve only the elites.