“Call of Duty”—Reject Imperialist Propaganda and Embrace Communism

Late last year, the U.S. imperialist propaganda machine cranked out another “game” Call of Duty Modern Warfare III  to encourage young workers to enlist in their bloodsoaked military and die for oil profits. The U.S. imperialists know that they are facing ever increasing competition and in fact are already deeply engaged in the wars in Israel/Palestine and Ukraine/Russia. Just as Russia, Ukraine, and Israel are desperately attempting to recruit or coerce youth to join their militaries, so too does the U.S. military as it leverages video games to boost its dismal recruiting as it prepares for further, more expansive wars.

For 20 years, Activision Blizzard has launched new versions of Call of Duty (CoD) “ripped from the headlines” video games mimicking U.S. imperialists’ actions globally. One version of CoD replicated the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, while another duplicated U.S. bombing of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Call of Duty: propaganda in service of U.S. imeprialism
The veil all but disappears, as the Marine Corps Entertainment Media Liaison Office is credited as a consultant and Activision Blizzard consistently credits the Marines across the franchise. CoD is not just profitable war fan-fiction, (earning $27 billion from 2013 to 2020), it is tied insidiously to the U.S. military. Activision Blizzard is infested with U.S. State Department and Defense Department personnel, making CoD military propaganda. With over 90 percent of American children playing video games, the military is deepening its reach to Twitch and Discord gamers, to lure prospective soldiers. Such blatant activity has prompted Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (still a misleader for workers) to sponsor a House amendment to ban the military from such activities. CoD is intended to manipulate the working class to fight for the bosses’ wars, accept U.S.imperialism, and join the military.

Who are the imperialist agents in Activision Blizzard?
Chief among these is Frances Townsend, Activision Blizzard’s senior counsel and executive vice president until September 2022 when AB merged with Microsoft. She was Assistant Commandant for Intelligence for the United States Coast Guard, counter-terrorism deputy for  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and a member of the National Security Council under President George Bush. She serves as trustee of the Atlantic Council, which actively strategizes how NATO can manage foreign affairs and, she also serves on the boards of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the International Republican Institute. These are all bosses’ think tanks strategizing on how to promote U.S. imperialism.

Another Activision capitalist agent is Brian Joseph Bulatao who is their current chief administrative officer. He previously was appointed to be the CIA’s Chief Operating Officer by CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
Grant Dixton is Activision’s Chief Legal Counsel.  He previously was a law clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court and the senior vice president of Boeing, a military aerospace company. As loyal servants of the U.S. empire, Bulatao and Dixton make CoD military propaganda and reflect the intimate connection between video game media and military production for war.

Promoting nationalism and war crimes with historical lies
To help increase support for U.S. imperialism, CoD revises history portraying the U.S. as the hero, promoting the notion that war crimes like torture are necessary, and desensitizes players to atrocities.
One such alteration of history includes the “Highway of Death” which was a real event following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait where the U.S. military bombed the retreating Iraqi army along with innocent civilians and refugees. However, in the Modern Warfare version, the attack is carried out by the Russians. The player’s assignment in Modern Warfare II is to kill a 'fictional' Iranian General “Ghorbrani.” He even has a white beard and similar attire as Qassem Soleimani who in 2020 was actually  assassinated by a drone strike ordered by former President Donald Trump.

In the 2019 edition of CoD, the player executes no-knock raids in the middle of the night, killing anyone whose reasonable response is to shoot back. For example, a fictional mother reaching for a firearm to protect her child is shot. While players can't engage in friendly fire in the game a baby can be killed, either in cold blood or for leverage against parents in the interrogation room.

Modern Warfare 2's “Borderline” mission takes place in the U.S./Mexico border. The player navigates an alley in a residential area until reaching one of the houses, barging in and "de-escalating" by aiming at the civilians. If the player fails to do this, the fictional civilians kill the player.

Also from Modern Warfare 2, in the mission "Hardpoint," participants pilot a helicopter providing air support to ground teams in the fictional region of Las Almas, Mexico. In the process of fighting off cartel members, the player destroys a school, church, restaurant, gas station and market!
In the first game of the Call of Duty: Black Ops series the player is tasked with killing Fidel Castro during the Bay of Pigs, a failed CIA-backed coup.

Overall, Call of Duty promotes imperialism and fascist myths that U.S. intervention saves lives, torture gets results, and "we get dirty, so the world stays clean." This encourages capitalist war, imperialism, racism and implicates Activision Blizzard as part of the sprawling military industrial complex.

COD recruiting youth to kill and die for U.S imperialism
The U.S. military has never shied away from exploring any relationship, charity or otherwise which promotes soldier recruitment.   The U.S. Armed Forces have recently started Twitch channels on which actual soldiers stream games online where viewers can donate and be convinced to join. Twitch viewers in the Army’s channel are repeatedly assaulted with chat prompts to “win a Xbox Elite Series 2 controller” The link simultaneously opens a recruiting form with no additional mention of the contest. These solicitations are aimed at kids as young as 12, who line up to be contacted by the U.S. military once they reach 16, the minimum age at which recruiters may legally contact someone in the United States. In 2022, the U.S. Army spent millions of dollars to host tournaments with high profile streamers, targeting Gen-z youth, especially Black, Latin, and young women close to recruitment age (Vice News, 12/1/22)

Our response to the imperialists’ murderous “Call of Duty” must be one of our own – Let’s embrace our “call of duty” to smash racism, sexism, and capitalism with communist revolution as part of an international process to destroy the roots of exploitation and imperialist war. This “call of duty” is not a game, it is reality.