CPAC Special Report: Duplicitous Behavior in the USRPF

KLONDIKE, CPAC Newsroom –  On the 25th of March Snaily5 published a post announcing those persons who had been elected to office in the RPF Election, held in the weeks prior. Those elections, which may seem foreign to many of us, are said to occur every month. However, as the month of May came and went, no such elections occurred.

NOTE: The following post is an editorial – my opinion. All research, interviews, and history contained herein is a result of my own work, as are the opinions this post contains. 

It is no secret that governments are invented in armies to give a type of ‘persona’ to an army. It is likely that your army is led not by an elected official, but rather dictated by two or more people. Many people try to aspire to having a kind of democracy in armies. While these attempts are noble, their success is rare. The truth is that there are two major kinds of governments –  an oligarchy (a small, select group in power) or a dictatorship (one person in power).

This brings me to the point of my editorial, the Rebel Penguin Federation. The RPF are no exception to the claim I made earlier. Why single them out? For a rather simple reason – they are the ones most guilty of this. The RPF has a rich history of indoctrination of their troops. In order to more fully understand what is exactly going on, one must look to the beginning of RPF’s rise last year.

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Part I: Elmikey and the RPF Renaissance

In May of 2013, Elmikey returned to the RPF. RPF in early 2013 was a very different place than it is now, at the time the once-great army suffered from a seemingly endless depression, and had been wallowing in a state of mediocrity for the better part of four years. Elmikey hoped to revitalize the army through a “new” method of recruiting – auto-typing. This method had been used by the Nachos and to a lesser extend the Dark Warriors prior to this, however, Elmikey openly used this approach, something which had once been viewed by armies in a similar way to current views on multilogging. Through auto-typing, Elmikey was able to make the RPF rise. Its troops were young and held steadfast to the revitalized army.

However, in order to build a stronger RPF state Elmikey looked to vilify all opponents, whether or not that opponent was another army, a legend from the army itself, or the media. What Elmikey and the leadership of the army did harkens back to the days of fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini. Upon obtaining power Mussolini instituted broad education reforms:

He [Mussolini] also utilized propaganda as an effective tool, framing himself as (the) great ‘Il Duce’ (literally ‘The Leader’) and attempting to indoctrinate the youth into his military and political forces. The latter was executed through a combination of youth programs (à la Hitler Youth) and a complete restructuring of the educational system throughout Italy. Essentially, Mussolini replaced all historical material with pro-fascist renditions, emphasizing the glory and power of Italy, while he simultaneously banned the vast majority of other books that might conflict with this propaganda.

Toby Heinemann, “Domestic Policies under Benito Mussolini”

The troops of the army became so vested in what they were saying and their rhetoric had become so strong that RPF’s shortcomings were not a result of their own failures, but rather it was the result of everyone else’s own moral failings:

Eventually Elmikey’s nationalistic teachings became warped into outright brainwashing. The RPF troops began to almost worship Elmikey as the savior of their army. No better case of this exists than in August of 2013 when Elmikey became frustrated with both the view of his army and why he believed it was not getting enough recruits he took it out against his army and drastically reduced the number of owners and moderators.The troops who spoke out against the demotions were, in many cases, banned. On the other hand, many troops not only allowed this to happen, they supported Elmikey’s decision and applauded him for it.

I love them, everything is set now.

Twitchy543, Reacting to RPF Demotions, August 13, 2013

It’s Ok, I’ll get promoted again.

Ran806, Reacting to RPF Demotions, August 13, 2013 

The strangest part of all of this came in an interview between Elmikey and CPAC’s Kingfunks4. In this interview Elmikey tries to justify his actions and claims that he is not censoring dissenting opinions.

So, if you disagree you WILL be banned and you cannot deny this because you just said troops have been banned for disagreeing with you and the leadership.

No, there were 2-3 eight year olds that kept spamming the same thing every time and we would spend 15 minutes explaining to them and it’s as if they can’t read or understand English. So we got tired of those individuals and banned them for an hour so they would understand and learn.

How can you call troops “unloyal” for not being happy with the rank changes when the army, in a way, is being unloyal to the troops who are active?

The active troops are obviously higher ranks than everybody else.

CPAC has seen some active troops being demoted, including 2ic’s becoming moderators.

As I’ve previously stated I am looking for a professional staff team who can remain appropriate at all times and follow/enforce the rules for the safety of this chat. The 2ic’s that were demoted di not mind at all and believe it’s for the better of RPF’s long future.

CPAC Interview with Elmikey, August 13, 2013

Not surprisingly, Elmikey grew rather controversial in the army community. His enemies multiplied as time went on. This utter contempt for the media and the armies it “supported,” would eventually culminate in the creation of the New Dawn Alliance (or NDA) in September of 2013. This alliance was dedicated to nothingness than the eradication of the Nachos and its allies and the “purification” of warfare.

Yet, as the months marched on the indoctrination that Elmikey instilled in his troops was no longer directed against foreign enemies, rather it was directed towards his fight against a rising opposition faction within his own army. People eventually began to challenge Elmikey and his methods.

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Part II: The Collapse

Things changed in October of 2013. For the first time in his reign, Elmikey had to fight to keep his leadership role. Commando717 announced that the RPF would have elections that would determine the course of the RPF. The RPF was split, the vast majority of the new recruits backed Elmikey in the election while the ownership agreed that major reforms were needed in the leadership. However, the owners could not decide between themselves who to best lead the RPF. Old enemies and owners whom Elmikey had fired and demonized began to speak out against what he did in the army.

Ultimately, Elmikey’s support base proved to be sufficient to keep him in power. Things continued like this for several months. The owners harbored resentment the entire time and things eventually came to a head on the 18th of February. In a chaotic turn of events Snaily5 and Lilstar, two high ranking and extremely well-liked RPF officials, were removed from power by Elmikey. The two had been believed to have been conspirators against Elmikey, having wanted him to retire.

The situation deteriorated over the course of about three days, during which, Sir Pj and Elmikey had a falling out.  During this, Sir Pj released a post in an effort to convince the troops of Elmikey’s apparent wrong-doings.

Subsequently, Elmikey fired Sir Pj for this post.  All of the chaos came to a climax when Commando, in a repeat of his actions in October, posted a new election to decide the future of the RPF. However, when it became clear Elmikey would not win the elections, he defected to the Doritos of Club Penguin rather than face defeat.

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Part III: Post-Elmikey RPF 

The opposition faction had emerged victorious, but there remained a larger issue after the departure of Elmikey – what about the troops? Interestingly enough, not only did the leader of the army change, but also the view of that leader changed.

Click to Enlarge

And what of the new virtuous RPF? It holds to this day that it is more democratic than ever and in late March the RPF held elections for all offices within the RPF. Sir Pj was elected President, a constitution was put into effect, and a congress was created. All of this went off without a hitch. The army was improving in the Top Ten and things never looked better for the army. However, their constitution actually states that elections are supposed to happen once a month. The months of April and May have come and gone, no elections have occurred.

On the 2nd of May the army announced that Sir Pj had been peacefully removed from the office of leader due to him being gone for school. This decision had ultimately been reached by the acting leaders of the army. Despite their intentions, it nonetheless is contrary to what their constitution actually sets forth:

For a person’s impeachment, it must be approved by the Legislative Branch and the Prime Minister, whose responsibility is to act “under the International Law” [german: “völkerrechtlich”] and to make sure the State also runs according to that International Law. An impeachment of any Executive can be determined by a simple two-thirds majority of the Congress.

Article II, Section II of the Constitution of the USRPF, Retrieved May 25, 2014

Former RPF Prime Minister Max’s thoughts.

Yet, when you ask a typical member of the army, they believe they truly do belong to a powerful democracy.

On an additional note, little has changed in the propaganda situation – RPF has simply now swung to the other extreme, demonizing Elmikey and all his forms (though they have gotten better about saying the fault for their problems lies with armies and not themselves).

Something else should be brought into consideration when thinking about the current RPF – the effect of the dispersion of all the former RPF members. Whether they are four year veterans or last week’s recruits, the people that have been involved with RPF’s rise do in fact move to other armies. The following is a list of owners and moderators of Large and Medium Armies that have dispersed from the Rebel Penguin Federation within the last year:

Conclusion

RPF’s rise in the last year has led to massive ripples in the socio-political landscape of the Club Penguin Army Community. From auto-typing to a “baby boom” of recruits, the army proves to be an enigma. Many people believed that when Elmikey left the RPF so too would all the apparent indoctrination of recruits. However, as of now this seems dubious at best. The status of the troops yet to be rectified and the question that I leave you all with is rather simple – has RPF changed since Elmikey left?

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CPA Central Associate Producer