Virtual Worlds, Social Media, & Social Justice

I'm coming up for air in physical life and immersing myself in virtual life after the U.S. election.  I've been a CODEPINK Women for Peace activist for over five years.  This election does not signal the end of CODEPINK work; we're not politically motivated, we are peacefully motivated.  

Military forces are still making war, not promoting peace, so our work isn't done.  I am however breathing deeply and relaxing a good bit now that an intelligent, diplomatically inclined man (sigh)  is headed for the White House.  This gives me the freedom to branch out a bit in my efforts to work for peace and justice.  

On December 10th people from all over the world will join together to celebrate and further advance the goals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was adopted and proclaimed by
General Assembly resolution 217 A (III)  on 10 December 1948.  I'm working with people from the U.S., U.K, Sweden, Italy and a host of other countries on a celebration that will last almost a week in the common countryside that is the virtual world of Second Life.  I won't try to explain virtual worlds beyond saying what was once a game platform where people moved online characters that represented them in a game around a 3D graphic representaton of a world.  My online representation, my avatar, is named Ana (Ana and Nancy have the same root meaning so that let's the very nerdy me identify with my avatar more deeply than a silly name might have allowed)....  Anyway Ana has been an entity in the virtual world of Second Life for two and a half years. In that time she/I has started a virtual chapter of CODEPINK Women for Peace and developed real relationships with people around the world who are also working for peace and justice.

I've linked avatar hands in solidarity with hundreds of other folks in support of Burmese Monks standing up to tyrrany and protesting for democracy,  protested Newt Gingrich's first major Second Life appearance that was streamed into the virtual world from where he was speaking in Atlanta, joined with lots of avatars from around the world protesting the G8 summit, and dropped virtual banners off virtual Washington monuments, as well as providing information about things CODEPINK was doing in the physical world.  You can see pics of some of these actions in Ana's Flickr pics.
Many folks say this is just "play" protest, but it is just as real as protesters you may drive by on the street and think for a second or two (or hopefully more) about the cause they in which they are proclaiming support.   The ultimate aim of any protestation is influence through the dispersal or broadcast of information to an audience that does not already possess that information.
The structure of the celebration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights draws on Second Life's popular usage as a "place" to share and enjoy live music.  People in their homes or studios around the globe have their avatars "play" at virtual clubs and cafes in the virtual world and people from everywhere have their avatars show up to listen to the music and dance.   It can be difficult to picture until you have done it, but the experience is very real for the participants.   The HRF (Human Rights Festival) in SL (Second Life) is gathering together some of the most sought after performers in Second Life who will play at various locations around "the grid" which is just another name for any virtual world or all virtual worlds.  (Yes, Second Life is but one of many virtual worlds in a rapidly developing interconnected grid of grids.)  People (avatars) who follow those particular performers or want to take a date to a concert or cafe or club will show up at the various places where the music is being played.  Non-activists will be exposed to the Human Rights Exhibits that are also in those locations.   Mission accomplished.  

Anyway I wanted to share my happiness that I can now more fully dedicate myself to exploring how to use the grid for the betterment of humankind now that I don't feel I have to dedicate most of my energies to counteracting the influence of the Bush-Cheney administration.  
I'm very excited about the development of the virtual world as meeting space as it allows a much greater potential for global friendship and interaction than has previously been possible as well as a host of other benefits such as the saving of fuel when complex meetings that require more presence and personal commitment than a simple cnference call or video conference.   Promoting virtual meetings is such a great area for women entrepreneurs, too.  And then there is the whole "differently abled people are not differently abled in virtual worlds - unless they want to be" thing, and how these virtual platforms will liberate the eldery, mobility challenged individuals to walk hand in hand on beaches with old and new loves.  

I'm so psyched up about all this, there are so many opportunities to explore and create!  

post script:  I will cross post this to a couple of my blogs as well as an entry on Blogher.  I apologize for any duplication to which you may be exposed due to this cross posting.  

Newt Gingrich in Second Life

Guest Post by Ana Herzog

Second Life passed another milestone today (Ouch! That sounds painful!) when Newt Gingrich used Capitol Hill SL today to announce his new plan to take over America.


























This photo of Gingrich is courtesy of Liz Link. Used with permission.
























The metaverse becomes more like real life every day.... the buying of Capitol Hill is nothing new in RL, but in SL this use was groundbreaking in that a precedent was set for Free Speech Zones in SL. I am gravely concerned about the creation of and tolerance for the zoning of free speech in RL, but in SL, well that is probably a good precedent. Capitol Hill folks, TROI Timtam and Kiwini Oe and their group that runs the Capitol Hill SL sim gave five of a very limited number of slots for avatars who could be in SL attendance at today's Capitol Hill SL event. Newt spoke to his minions and groupies in Atlanta and Second Life about the future of corporate politics and the emerging metaverse.

Most of the initial part of the speech was filled with him describing the metaverse. It didn't really take all that long to get Newt acclimated to presentation procedure in Second Life (which he repeatedly called Second Voice). I've been told by people in the know that Gingrich likes to drive his own avatar, but there was no evidence of that today. The avie appeared, sat, then stood in exactly the same spot for the duration of the talk.

In the second pic, above, you can see the back of him, the guests who were allowed invites into the sim, and at the very back beyond a virtual fence, invisible at a distance, there were the five lonely protesters.

It sort of honks me off that the sim folks presumed we would grief folks. I take my civic DUTY very seriously, as do other very courageous protesters. That is civic as in civil and civilization.

Anyway, you can see more photos of the event on flickr. i like the Venice Vandal's and Liz Link's photos of the event. But in these I took you can see the basic setup.

I may get around to the content portion of his speech eventually, but first I would like comment on the meta messages broadcast via this event today.

(Isn't In beautiful as she flies in protest?)
























I'm not sure Newt really understands the whole merging of a personally expansive identity into a new and larger self that encompasses an electronic persona that is every bit as real as a corporate face, or the identity one puts on for family as opposed to the one puts on at church or in the supermarket.

Conservatism and corporatism are starting to "get it" as far as understanding the networking abilities that Second Life affords.

It does seem that Newt understands much more of the metaverse and Second Life than most RL politicos do.

This isn't surprising to me. Newt is intelligent. This is the thing that makes him most dangerous. It always has been. Newt took out his Contract on America with the help of Tom DeLay. Newt was major player in the creation of K Street and the corporate coup d'etat that knocked off the last semblance of the representation of the people of the U.S.A. His contract was such a snow job. He promised the conservative Chrisitian right that the contract would help to clean up Congress and America. It carefully tended the seeds of the demise of America that had been sown by Ronnie Raygun. Bush is harvesting that demise.
















The hypocrisy shown by so many of the supposedly moral men who came into power in '94 by lying through their teeth to the American People about what their intentions were has become common knowledge and well documented. The longer serving hypocrits became emboldened. Foley, Craig, Stevens, Vitter, rode in with Newt. Opiate addicted Linbaugh served as a cheerleader. Stevens became the pork barrel king. Just look at this list of Republican scandals -- a major one every week this year. The Culure of Corruption is real and was orchestrated by Newt, Delay, Abramoff.....

So today Newt sang the praises of IBM (Yes the same IBM who allowed certain South American leaders to be tortured to death in their buildings a few decades back...) and the corporatization (is that a word) of SL. And this as the IBM Strike is going on. Oh, the irony... The double speak of Gingrich is scary. I believe he was well aware of the allusion to taking out a Contract on America. His current American Solutions campaign smacks of Dachau and Germany's Solution. He had to be aware of the similarity to Final Solution. This man is a soulless, corrupt maggot. He served divorce papers to his wife as she received chemotherapy for cancer. He told his second wife he wanted to divorce her over the phone at a holiday dinner. What a cowardly little sleeze bag. There is nothing honorable about this man and I am disturbed that so many folks continue to revere him.

Now back to the event itself.




















Here (above) you can see the paltry presence the five allowed protesters made ion the Capitol Lawn But this Cap Hill group's dedication to showing there was dissent is good.

It would have been better if I could have had a banner drop off the Washington Monument but they nixed that.

Guess that is it for now.

So we were left to our rather "normal" protest signs. I had some problems in that I couldn't get the shake fist animation to work so I had a wilted protest sign most of the time. Oh well.

Probably the avie schmoozing after the event had as much impact as the avie attendance at the event. Gingrich just wanted to make a pr statement. We felt compelled to dissent. But as always, talking to people is the key to understanding and a better world.
Here you can see Liz Link and I in real discussion after the event.

Virtual Movement Marches Forward

Turns out there is a virtual movement afoot.

Solidarity isn't just a buzzword for extreme leftiies. (You know, those folks who are even to the left of me...)

Second Life, a virtual world accessible through downloadable software similar to online multi-player games, is creating a bit of a stir in the trendy world of online life. The Peace & Justice Movement is one of the first communities to use this new world to connect, network, and advance their goals.

The recent March on Washington provided opportunity for the SL Net Roots
community (including CODEPINK SL) to stage a companion virtual march on the Capitol while at least a half a million people physically surrounded the U.S. Capitol with an unplanned route change that took the march around all four sides of the Capitol and not just the three sides that were originally permitted.

Here are just a few of the sites that covered the virtual march.

Avatars hold peace march
avatars-against-the-war/
second-life-war-protest
video_of_avatar.html
RootsCampSL
avatars-against-the-war
personaldemocracy
peace-in-the-metaverse-goodwill-toward-avs