An unresolveable situation

I write to you, my non-existent following, to explain what's up- Why I've been absent.

There's an unresolveable contradiction between me and my surroundings. The big national hoo-hah these days is the conflict over health care reform, and this debate threatens to divide this already divided nation further.

I have no false premises about the democratic party- I know they are only out to preserve the American capitalist system, but on this critical issue, I fall on the same side as many of them- those struggling for a universal health care system.

However, the big problem is that the people I love- my family, relatives, and some of my friends, are all on the wrong side. My folks are involved in this 'tea party' business- this nationwide mobilization of all the reactionary forces in society, and it kills me to see them come out on the side of reaction.

It weighs on me like a bag of bricks around my neck. It's difficult for me to put my heart into any creative endeavour knowing that the more I express my views, the more the people I love will hate me.

It especially drives me mad, because I can tell that they are suffering from this fucked-up system as much as I am- One person in my family broke his back for years, getting up early, shining shoes, and working his way up to a management position, only to be discarded like a piece of garbage once the economic crisis reached the critical stage and the overlords decided he was extra baggage. He's found a new job since, and I'm glad for him, but it counfounds me that even through all of this, his libertarian-republican views do not seem to have shifted at all- From what I can tell, in his mind, it's still the predominantly black 'welfare bums' and mexican immigrants nipping at the heels of the 'productive, go-getter' white middle-class. Of course, he's not racist, but he still doesn't realize how this white, middle-class neoliberal ideology perpetuates the system of racism.

Another managed to keep her job, yet with the strain on the economy, the workload on her appears to have increased. She's very touchy and emotional these days, and I want to console her, but there appears to be little I can do. She is also completely unwilling to accept my political beliefs- She thinks I am part of the problem. I want to say, "I'm part of the solution. You may not realize this, but I'm fighting because I think you deserve better- I'm fighting for your right to live a dignified life and reach your potential as a human being." but she's convinced that I'm on the side of the 'freeloaders' trying to take away what little we already have.

And as far as foreign politics go- I don't think they truly realize what role their beloved 'America' is actually playing in the world. Things like 'family', 'culture', 'church', 'heritage'- all these collective things that people immerse themselves in- that they identify with- They don't realize that while in this 'free society' they are free to be involved in all these things, by the nature of the imperialist system, America is compelled to take these things away from the rest of the world.

Underneath all the humanitarian pretensions, what America is actually doing to the 'global south' is treading all over these 'sacred objects'. Families are destroyed through military conflict and the economic strangulation of nations and peoples that resist American global domination. Native cultures are tread upon and utterly destroyed- For example, in South Korea, the Confucian/Daoist cultural heritage- the Korean identity has been completely swept aside- It is now completely Americanized, dominated by westernized Protestants, basically functioning as another appendage of the American economy. South Koreans now dress exactly the same as Americans, eat the same crappy mass-produced food, watch the same TV programming; Basically, we are sapping away everything interesting and unique about the rest of the world, and replacing it with a soulless, cookie-cutter consumer culture, that does nothing but make people miserable and isolated from their fellow humans.

I don't know what to do. It would be great if people would wake up and realize what is the true cause of their problems, but that seems unlikely. Honestly, I kind of wish someone could just declare me 'mentally insane, suffering from delusions', and then perform some sort of surgery on me that carves out the part of my brain that allows me to feel empathy for other people. Then, I could go back to sleep, not offend anybody, work hard, get married, run the whole pointless rat race and die like everyone else, but at least my family would love me.

I haven't posted in a while...

... but there's a reason for that.

The fact is: Nothing of real importance seems to have happened since my last entry, as far as politics goes. The military government in Honduras is still in power, but the hubbub in Iran seems to have died down.

A couple days before I wrote my last entry, I read of the Indian government sending paramilitary soldiers into Midnapore to flush out a parallel government the Naxalite Maoists set up after driving out the police and the revisionist CPI-M cadres. Very titillating, but there has been zero follow-up coverage since then- Well, there was one article that said that the pro-government forces had entered Lalgarh, the center of the uprising, but that doesn't say much.

I can say, hopefully the Maoists soundly rout their attackers, gain control of India, and raise the red flag over New Delhi, but that's about the extent to which an isolated first-world keyboard-revolutionary can do... It's too bad. At the very least, I wish I could send them a care package full of hammer and sickle shaped cookies, but alas, even that is out of the question.

Besides the lack of interesting events to comment on, I've also been sidetracked with other, personal conundrums. I'm transferring to a different college- It's going to be the same silly garbage I had to put up with at the first one I went to, but at least I'm not paying out-of-state tuition.

And then, there's my creative projects. If you've been paying any attention to me at all, you'd notice that I write music, draw, and create videos, as well as write cynical political rants. Well, recently, I went out and purchased an accessory for my Kurzweil K2600 keyboard that relays the audio signal from the keyboard to the computer's sound card via MIDI. I would be able to rephrase that last sentence in incomprehensible audio technician jargon if I had paid attention in those boring electronics classes I took, but I don't care- the point is, this makes creating music a lot easier for me, now that I can record loops and use them in Acid Pro 4.0 (the program I use).

This raises new problems, though. In the past, due to the limited amount of software and hardware I had to work with, the music I produced was different, and focused much more on using loops creatively to create an interesting sound collage, rather than writing a catchy tune. Now that I can make a clean recording of the sounds coming out of my keyboard, I actually have to come up with chord structures, melodies, bass lines: the whole gamut.

It's not that I'm not up to the task. I've been working hard so far, and almost finished one piece. However, as opposed to my earlier audio experiments, these 'more structured' pieces take a lot longer to create.

Oh yeah, and I have to write lyrics. I guess I'm very self-conscious about things I write that don't follow the traditional prose structure- With prose, as long as you have a decent vocabulary, know the basic tenets of grammar, and have something interesting to say, you are guaranteed to produce something of at least some value. Poetry, or lyrics, have a much greater risk of seeming hokey and overly pretentious.

For an example of good lyrics, I'd point to Skinny Puppy. Well, they're not good in the traditional sense, of rhyming couplets, but they have an interesting stream-of-consciousness style, which reminds me of the ramblings of a paranoid schizophrenic, yet they still manage coherency- It's a sort of dark word painting that goes along perfectly with their sound and dystopian image.

In the video medium, I haven't done anything new since my V.C. Funk remix, which I uploaded a couple months ago. I feel I need to start an entirely new paragraph to describe my next big project, so so be it.

Audio: The audio for this new project will be a distorted time-streched mess. I have a soundfile- It was originally a recording entitled 'Weiner Farm' by a bunch of kids from Michigan, but I ran it through soundhack, doubled the length, and now it sounds great- perfect for frightening small children.

Video: The visual component of this problem is a photoshop file with mural-esque dimensions (the height is the same as a youtube video, and the length is really reallllly long), of a whole bunch of unrelated objects and psychedelic backgrounds that bleed into eachother, including a nice landscape with a tree on it, a man wearing a monocle, the overmind from 'starcraft', a volcano, and some abstract stuff. There will be more, but that's all I've drawn so far. Once I've finished the drawing and imported it into Sony Vegas, my video-editing program of choice, I'm going to use the green screen feature to superimpose an upside-down panoramic photograph of Paris at night in the background.

So yes, these are the reasons why I've been lazy. Sorry. Now, I've got to go do something else. I might write again in a couple days, depending on whether something interesting happens, or not.

Coup d'etats and Dissidents!

DEAH DIAWRY
MOOD: APATHETIC

I've been disappointing myself yet again. Note to self: Blog entries don't have to be perfect. Quantity beats quality. I'm only holding myself back by not writing when I supposedly 'don't have anything intelligent to say'.

Anywho, let's commence.

Iran:

In my last entry, I took an ambivalent stand towards the Iranian uprisings: Since all of my information about the demonstrations was filtered through mass media outlets, I felt it was difficult to get a decent picture of the array of classes in Iranian society-

In short, I couldn't tell whether or not the demonstrations counted as a 'mass democratic uprising' or an attempt at a 'color revolution'- an attempt by the imperialist west, headed by the United States, to expand their sphere of influence and restore the comprador bourgeoisie to power in Iran through the manipulation of mass media and by throwing their support behind the westernized reformist factions.

Well, a couple days later, there was an interesting article posted by Stratfor, a private intelligence firm-
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090622_iranian_election_and_revolution_test
- which raised several points that I think make choosing a side in this whole debacle much easier.

First of all, the writer mentions that the West's interpretation of events from Iran tend to come from a very limited number of sources- It is usually westernized, English-speaking Iranians that are the ones interviewed. The author doesn't mention it, but looking back on history, it seems to me that there's a historical precedent for this, with regards to all nations not submitting to the Washington consensus.

I guess I'm already going off on a tangent- but anyways, let's continue

The way the western masses receive their information about countries hostile to U.S. foreign policy is as follows- Information is compiled from two main sources:

1. The Official State media for said country.
2. The personal accounts of dissidents.

With regards to the State media, keep in mind that the Western paradigm still views the world in a black-and-white way- a Good vs. Evil battle between the forces of 'Democracy and Capitalism' and 'Evil Totalitarianism', and therefore, the official media of said country is always assumed to be dishonest.

As for the personal accounts of dissidents, their personal accounts of what has happened in the country they fled from is typically unquestioningly swallowed by the media and reported as truth. Never mind the fact that these dissidents are commonly the ones most disillusioned with the government they fled from and likely have no qualms about just plain making stuff up. Also, for example, with regards to the divided countries during the Cold War (North/South Korea and East/West Germany), the capitalist nations typically dangled a carrot in front of prospective dissidents- If they 'crossed over' to the capitalist world, they would be rewarded.

Basically, in order to make sure that these exiles didn't immediately become disillusioned with the widespread inequality and other social ills of the capitalist system, and to prevent their 'information weapons' from turning on them, the capitalists provided these people with a cushy, comfortable life, sparing them from the reality of the system they chose to live under.

Anyways, back to Iran. Yes, well it looks to me like another case of the above- like the media is blowing the size of the demonstrations and the extent of their support way out of proportion, in an attempt to destabilize the Iranian government. Thus, I really don't think that these protests are worth supporting- Despite the fact that the Iranian leftists are giving their support, they are rallying around a small clique of liberal intellectuals completely detached from the Iranian working masses.

Also, shit's been going down in Honduras. We have yet another coup d'etat- The first one of the Obama administration, and SUPRISE SUPRISE!- The American government actually declares the coup illegal! Of course, anyone who has the ability to read between the lines can see what's going on- Obama is still attempting to spread U.S. hegemony, but he's trying to distance himself from the Bush/Reaganite way of doing so- That is, invasions, occupations, militarist coup d'etats and all that jazz.

The other interesting bit of information regarding this coup is the story behind the ex-Honduran president, Zelaya. He was a member of the 'Liberal Party'- a member party in the Liberal International; Your typical pro-Oligarchy neoliberal crap we're so used to seeing. However, after taking power, he sided with Hugo Chavez and attempted to legalize drugs, seeing as how the U.S.-led 'War on Drugs' only increases the prescense of gangs and drug cartels. Well, this alienated some members of his party, and apparently the military, which lead to this coup.

Well, the result is yet to be seen. Currently, it looks like the military is attempting to restore order by taking news media off the air, firing at protestors, and appointing another liberal oligarch guy as president. Things look hopeful, though. With the regime looking isolated, with even the yanks questioning it's legitimacy, hopefully we'll see Zelaya return to power, further fragmenting the opposition and pushing Honduran politics further to the left.

On the events unfolding in Iran

I think it's about time I voiced my opinion on the situation in Iran.

There have been too many knee-jerk reactions from both sides- those supporting the uprising, and those supporting the existing the government. Let's examine the positions of both sides for a moment.

Those who show support for the Islamic Republic do so because to them, the situation appears to be another attempt at a U.S.-backed color revolution, in which the U.S., and in this case, probably Israel, attempt to shoe-in a candidate friendly towards them, in this case, the reformist Mousavi. This has happened many times in the past, so I don't think it's fair that supporters of the uprising try to silence everyone that disagrees with them with accusations of 'conspiracism'. Their judgement is based on the assumption that the reformist opposition in Iran is analogous to the opposition in Venezuela; a small minority of westernized, urban intellectuals who seek to depose the national-bourgeoisie and return the comprador-bourgeoisie to power. There would, of course, be a liberalization of the theocratic social values, which would be a positive thing, but at the same time, they assume there would be a restoration of the neocolonial relationship with the United States, strengthening imperialism in a time at which it should be in decline, and retarding the global class struggle.

Those who show support for the opposition fall into two categories:

1. The liberal, and in the western media, mainstream opposition: Those who see the opposition's use of the slogan 'Death to the dictator' in the western sense, with dictator = anyone the U.S. doesn't like. To me, it seems this group buys into the typical western viewpoint with regards to the Middle East; that every regime that doesn't westernize and adopt bourgeois-liberal capitalism is intrinsically unpopular with it's people- That all of its supporters are brainwashed, and all of those against it live in fear, waiting for the day brave, white, American men will storm in and free them from their asiatic barbarism. Ok, I apoligize, that was a caricature.

2. The left-wing opposition: Those who see the uprising not as a reformist struggle, of a people angered over a 'stolen election', but rather, an expression of widespread discontent against the Islamic Republic. Evidence for this viewpoint... Well, there are a few pictures from the Iranian riots in which red flags are visible among the protestors. There's the fact that Obama is stating that he doesn't really prefer one candidate over the other, and just wants the chaos to end, which could suggest that the U.S. fears the demonstrators radicalizing more than either candidate.

For anti-imperialists, picking a side here is tricky. I myself am still wavering between either pole, as I read more information from either side.

The fact is, I don't live in Iran. The Iranian exiles who are getting indignant whenever someone challenges their viewpoint don't live in Iran. There has been almost a complete media blackout except from the official Iranian news sources and from the demonstrators themselves.

Those who do not live in Iran have no way of telling which side represents which class, so it's impossible for me to confidently throw my support behind one side or another. To me, it all comes down to the Iranian working class, and I'm getting mixed messages with regards to what side they support.

There is the possibility that this situation could be similar to the Russian Revolution- That the traditionalists are held in power due to support from the landed aristocracy and the rural petty-bourgeoisie, and that the center of opposition is the industrial proletariat, which is divided into both a liberal wing, comparable to the Kadets, and a radical wing, comparable to the Bolsheviks. In this case, perhaps the pro-government forces may still outnumber the opposition, yet the opposition will be worth supporting- An overthrow of the Islamic regime will be a shedding of feudalist fetters.

Perhaps, this may lead to a liberal pro-western government, similar to that of Kerensky. Of course, such a government is not a good thing, but perhaps the exacerbation of the current economic crisis and the inability to live up to their lofty promises will thoroughly discredit liberalism in the eyes of the Iranian working class, giving momentum to only remaining alternative- the Iranian communists.

On the other hand, if the Iranian working class is largely pro-Ahmadinejad, and the opposition is indeed merely small cliques of well-off westernized, urban intellectuals, then perhaps this is indeed a 'color revolution', and the government does deserve critical support- not because we support Ahmadinejad and theocracy, but because communists should always oppose any attempt by imperialist powers to 'force' the developing world to a stage of development they are not yet ready or willing to live under.

Time will tell whether or not the Iranians are ready for change.
Of course, if someone has concrete evidence showing exactly which side has the support of the Iranian working class, it would certainly clear things up.

Comments on the first half of 2009 - part deux

In the last post, I discussed pressing issues on a world scale. Perhaps I'll go back to that in my next entry, but I feel I need to vent about some issues in my personal life that have been quite pressing, lately.

First of all, work. The job that I have currently disgusts me- We all know capitalism is exploitative, but I have never experienced such a rotten example of said exploitation.

I'm washing dishes at a Lebanese restaurant, also, sweeping, mopping, doing odd jobs, being called into the boss' office to spell-check his facebook posts. Honestly, the work isn't too bad- I can handle practically everything they throw at me. The problem lies squarely with the manager and owner- this guy is a total scumbag. Let me paint you a picture.

This guy is from Lebanon- a Lebanese christian, to be specific. When I first started the job, I was excited- Not only do I love Lebanese food, I enjoy the culture of the Muslim world; Anasheeds, Dabkeh, and the general tendency of people from this part of the world to be critical of U.S. foreign policy. Needless to say, I was quite disappointed. My boss is the typical petit-bourgeois expatriate; Of course, he still plays some Dabkeh in his restaraunt, but that's about the extent of it.

The Lebanese elections ocurred recently, and my boss was an avid supporter of the March 14 alliance- basically, the pro-west coalition, who I assume will try to 'reason' with the U.S. and Israel- the countries that periodically randomly slaughter civilians and drop bombs on the southern half of the country in their 'terrorist-hunting' escapades.

Of course, I can't mention I'm a communist, which on a side note, really says a lot about how hypocritical people are when they say we have 'freedom of speech' in this country. Sure, you can have whatever views you want, but if you're not supportive or at least ambivalent towards the American way of life, you have to keep your mouth shut if you want food on your table.

Anyways, the furthest I could go at work was suggesting that I liked March 8 coalition. My boss' eyebrows raise- "But they're terrorists, man!". If I hadn't been mopping, and if I didn't have to worry about getting fired, I would have facepalmed in disgust, but I had to settle for saying, "Well, that's what the U.S. government says, and I don't exactly trust them".

The man is a total hypocrite. I spend most of my work day in the back, working strenuously, but when I go to collect plates, I usually check to see what he's up to. Most of the time, he's doing one of three things:

1. Eating in the front of the restaraunt with friends of his.
2. Walking around scolding his employees.
3. Sitting on his fat ass in the office, posting on Facebook, occasionally calling us in to spell-check his posts, or making awkward phone calls to random girls he looks up- I believe I heard him on the phone saying, "You are my dream girl" or something ridiculous like that once.

As for a recent incident- We had an unusually busy day this Tuesday, and as per usual, I was working continuously from the beginning of my shift until close. Near the end of the day, it's my duty to mop the pretty much all of the restaraunt, save for the kitchen, where the cook has to mop. When it came to my turn to mop, the cook had only recently finished, and the water still looked usable, so in hopes of saving some time and sparing myself from more unnecessary scolding, I used the water already in the bucket.

Wrong move. I was halfway through it all when my boss blows up in my face, telling me he'll fire me if 'this shit ever happens again'. I am instructed to go to the back, put in new water, and do the whole thing over again. When I get back there, one of the garbage cans has tipped over because one of the wheels is missing and the boss is too much of a cheap-ass to get it replaced. Inevitably, I get blamed.

Well, I get back to mopping, and I finish up the front- Then something infuriating happens. My boss turns to me and says, "You are lazy".

WHAT.
WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY?!

No, I didn't say that. I said, "Your're calling ME, lazy?!". Then he shushed me, so as not to disturb the two customers that were still eating. I couldn't believe it. This asshole, who spends hours posting on facebook at work, calls ME lazy. I'm still angry about it, but there's nothing I can do.

Anyways, he pulled me aside for a talk afterwards, and gave me yesterday off. He said, "You feel really guilty, don't you?" I wanted to spit in his fat face.

So, I think I've come to a realization about the way he and probably thousands of other petit-bourgeois run their businesses. Since they know workers are easily replaceable, and they know we'll do everything we're told for a paycheck, they can work us hard, treat us like shit, and the second we show the least bit of dissatisfaction with the way we are treated, they can can us and hire someone else. We're like juiceboxes- they suck all they can out of us, then crumple us up and throw us away.

I've got to work today, but I've got to find some other work soon. I can't deal with this sort of abuse. I know all businesses are more or less the same, but there have got to be some out there in which the bosses aren't such hypocritical assholes.

Comments on the first half of 2009

It's been a week since my last update. Rather shameful, I think.

Anyways, it's time to rant. This is an interesting time in my life, and coincidentally, human history. After the decadent 90s, and the brainless, apathetic first 8 years of the 00's, this economic crisis has shaken society to its foundations- I like to think of it as an 'economic hangover'.

Danger lies ahead. Of course, since Obama was elected, we're supposed to be hopeful for the future, expecting change, but it's interesting to see how quickly his popularity has sank in the first couple of months of his presidency.

On the other hand, the situation in the rest of the world looks shady, with things looking as if they could either lead to human emancipation or annihilation. I'm just going to run down the list of areas in which the inter-imperialist or counter-imperialist struggles are intensifying.

- The Afghanistan/Pakistani Conflict: I'm not exactly a huge fan of the Taliban, but anything is preferable to U.S. occupation. What is interesting, though, is how the conflict is gradually spilling out into the Pakistani countryside. With the Pakistani government looking fragile and largely unpopular amongst its' own citizens (probably because they can see it's nothing but a tool of western imperialism), things could get quite interesting.

In the event of a governmental collapse, it seems there are several ways things could play out- Of course, there's the possibility of a hardline Taliban government, which might garner a lot of support due to it's opposition to the great powers meddling in local politics, but at the same time, Pakistan is much more urbanized and industrialized than Afghanistan, meaning that the collective consciousness of the people is marginally more secular (industrialization gradually breaks down cultural conservatism).

On the other hand, there's also the possibility of a milder Islamic anti-imperialist or perhaps even a nationalist movement taking power. I myself prefer this option, seeing as such a government may not view more progressive organizations (socialists, communists) as their main enemy, due to their common goal of anti-imperialism, and therefore may make strategic alliances with them in order to completely expel U.S. influence from the area.

- The DPRK: I'm not excited about the situation in this region. I wholeheartedly support the DPRK, but I'm extremely worried; their closest allies, China and Russia, seem to have abandoned them, joining the western powers in voting for increased sanctions.

I want to slap the entire Chinese government in the face. 35 years ago, the PRC, even though it was pursuing a social-imperialist policy with regards to the third world, at least paid lip service to anti-imperial and colonial struggles. It looks like that's all gone out the window- they are indistinguishable from the western capitalists.

Well, actually, I'll give them some credit- as far as capitalist swine go, they are far better at what they do than Washington and Europe, probably because their political discourse isn't swamped with loonies who believe the best way to adapt to the conditions of the 21st century is to cling ever tighter to the ideals enshrined in a ancient document intended for 18th-century agrarian society.

But anyways, back on subject. I'm just crossing my fingers that the DPRK can hold on. I know that sooner or later, the U.S. is going to try to pick a fight with them, and the big question is what course of action Russia and China are going to take. If they join in, all I can say is that they're dishonorable bastards, even by imperialist standards- stooping to the level of the U.S. as far as betraying smaller states that used to be friendly with you goes (Iraq, anyone?).

If they don't join in, things become a lot more hopeful. The U.S. is a decaying empire, but still puffed up with hubris. Our media keeps echoing the same refrain- that the DPRK is militarily incompetent- using old equipment- that we'd crush them within weeks like Fall Weiss. I say that's a load of bullshit. If there's any military that is incompetent, it is the U.S. military, overstretched, overconfident, unable to win conflicts against ragtag militias in Iraq and Afghanistan. They haven't been involved in a full-scale conflict against a regular military in ages, whereas the DPRK has been on war footing constantlly since the end of the Korean War. The people of the United States are divided, cynical, and apathetic, whereas the North Koreans look to be as unified and imbued with revolutionary Songun spirit (to use their words) as always.

Of course I don't know for sure about any of this, because of the secretive nature of the DPRK (I can't say I blame them, considering the amount of pressure they're under), but I think this is another case of hubris getting the best of the U.S. After all, we told ourselves that the Vietnamese, Afghans, Iraqis... etc. would be pushovers, right?


I'm tired of writing, as of now, and I think I'm going to go for a jog. I suppose the next couple of entries will follow a similar format, with me giving my $0.02 on the various regions of the world where things look poised to intensify.

Just an idea on how to stir shit up...

I haven't updated in a while. I know nobody is actually reading this, but I'm trying to make it a habit to get my thoughts out on paper, and I guess I've been disappointing myself lately.

Anyways, I've got several things on my mind.
First of all- video games. They are one of the newer forms of media, powerful because of the interactivity they allow. However, as it has become another multi-million dollar industry, it is inevitable that they become as heavily saturated with ruling-class ideology as any other medium of entertainment.

For instance, take the 'Mercenary' games. I'll admit, I played the demo of the first one, and liked it at the time. After all, I was still a revisionist at that time, and to me, the DPRK seemed to be 'bad guys' that I could maim and kill without any remorse. Looking back, that game and its' sequel disgust me- Though the game is open ended, and you can end up working for factions besides the United States, the fact is that you play a mercenary carrying out imperialist actions towards the DPRK and third-world regimes resisting imperialism.

Well, there are exceptions. We have games that seem to be critical of modern bourgeois-democratic society, but it is always in a cynical, post-modernist sense. They rightfully take the piss out of this corrupt, fake society, but never proposes any real solution; The best example of this is the 'Grand Theft Auto' series- Again, it provides good criticism, but callous, greedy individualism and lumpen behavior is the only possible course of action to take in these games.

I'd love to see a real alternative to this- Something produced by an independent game studio, which keeps in step with the other video games today, featuring ridiculous and unrealistic animated violence, and an over-the-top storyline that the kids these days love, but with an underlying message that serves a progressive purpose. Here's my idea:

We need a first-person shooter, preferably based off of the Duke Nukem 3d engine, for ironic effect (ironic, as Duke symbolizes the all-Amerikan, sexist 'badass' persona), in which you play as an attractive female North Korean soldier, wearing a military uniform that hides her figure- We deliberately make our character attractive, but dress her modestly as a rejection of the commodification of sex all too typical in video games these days.

The rest of the game will proceed as follows: The evil imperialists attack the DPRK, therefore, our hero, a female super-soldier, armed with the Songun revolutionary spirit, takes it upon herself to smash the South Korean puppet regime and bring down the U.S. government, freeing the citizens from capitalist slavery, slaughtering scores of imperialist soldiers, destroying national monuments (dubbed 'symbols of oppression' in-game), and eventually destroying the U.S. Capitol, and installing a replica of the Juche Tower in its place. No corner will be cut- Absolutely everything will be tailored with the intent to make the blood pressure of conservative pundits rise.

You see, the strategy here isn't to endorse the DPRK. I happen to support them, other people don't, and I'm fine with that.
The strategy is expose the youth to an alternative point of view- one critical of Amerikan imperialism, through the power of contreversy and memetics. Of course, immediately after the game comes out, nobody is going to pay attention to it, but the idea is that sooner or later, some conservative pundit- preferably that asshole Glenn Beck catches whiff of it, and begins another 'moral panic', warning people about how 'evil commies' are 'brainwashing the youth' through their video games.
Then, we get exposure. The youth will flock to it for several reasons - because some actually are of an anti-imperialist persuasion, some are curious, some will think it's hilarious because it's 'epic trolling', and some will play it just because it's fun...
Oh wait, that's one of the important parts. The game should be FUN. That's why I picked Duke Nukem 3d in the first place for this game to be based off of. Even despite the sexism and other reactionary baggage, the game was an absolute blast- an ultra-violent tour-de-force from beginning to end.

So yeah, that's something I'd love to see done. If someone were to begin work on such a project, I'd gladly contribute in whatever way I can, drawing enemies, writing dialogue, whatever is needed (probably not the music, as bombastic North Korean propaganda music would best suit the atmosphere of the game).

Of course, there are plenty of other ways in which the video game genre could be used to bring a progressive message to an audience rife with apathy- perhaps in ways that don't promote mindless violence, but this is just one suggestion, solely concerned with using the power of shock value.

Anyways, I've had other stuff on my mind, perhaps I'll cover it later tonight if my friends ditch me like I have a hunch they are going to...