SL Capitol Hill Anti-War Protests

by Pixeleen Mistral on 20/02/07 at 6:25 pm

Sun honcho John Gage joins virtual protests

by Onder Skall

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February 20, 2007, 14:45 SL Time – Capitol Hill sim

Protesters from a wide variety of groups converged on the Capitol Hill sim today to speak out against the proposed attacks on Iran. Word spread from one group to the next organically, and suddenly the sim went from completely unoccupied to full in less than fifteen minutes. Shirts and signs were created and handed out on the spot, and chants of “Bush is a criminal!” and “no war on Irani children! no war on Palestinian children!” filled the chatlog.

Plot Tracer of the SLLU covered the details for me: “i think it is important that all people unite against the warmongering US President. It is important that those Americans who stand for peace and goodwill tell him to backdown. It is also important that the US’s real friends tell Bush he is wrong. The children of Iran are innocent, just as the children of Iraq are. No to war and no to any more of US imperialist adventures in the Middle East.”

Soon members of SL Capitol Hill arrived to observe the situation. One member said: “It’s nice to see the park getting used.”

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John Gage dons an anti-war t-shirt

When asked why he was here today, Anit-Ban leader Cochise Collas simply said: “I am against war and afraid the US will attack Iran.” I think he was going to say more but a dog and a bear came charging through at that point dancing to an infinite-looping “La Cucaracha”. That’s protesting SL style!

Amid the bizarre spectacle of a Second Life protest, one person that caught my eye was John Gage from Sun Microsystems. I asked him what brought him here: “I didn’t plan to be here, but I come here often [...] Years ago, I was one of the organizers of Vietnam Moratorium…we had 400,000 people on the Washington Monument grounds, and had a significant impact on Nixon. Dan Ellsberg has said that it helped stop the use of nukes on vietnam….we should do the same here.”

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54 Responses to “SL Capitol Hill Anti-War Protests”

  1. VIDEO HUB blog

    Mar 1st, 2007

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    Jun 22nd, 2007

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  3. Darkfoxx

    Jun 22nd, 2007

    Back in the middle ages, ya know, castles, knights in shining armour, etc, IRL…

    Some western dickweeds thought it would be a good idea to go to the middle east and chop off some heads, unless those heads would convert to their religion. And they went, and chopped off many a head.

    Who started this whole mess? We did.
    Why does the general public in the middle east dislike us? Cause we won’t leave them the fuck alone.

    Why don’t we leave the middle east for what it is for a moment and concentrate on something new?

    Like Africa, I hear there’s some real problems going on there. Just think how many people we could save using all that military hardware and those trillions of dollars spent on bullets, to help them to some clean water instead?

    I think that the people in the middle east will dislike the wes t a lot less if our troops would just stop shooting up their homes. They’ll get pissed at their neighbours yes… But at lest we won’t be giving them a bad example to follow. and they won’t be so happy to fly aircraft in buildings.

    Just a suggestion from a hippy. Swords to plowshears, people. Peace.

  4. KMG

    Oct 15th, 2007

    What a great success the Second Life protest must have been, afterall all of you wouldn’t be commenting on this page and discussing politics and the war if it weren’t for the Second Life protest. I’ve heard conservatives say that people on Second Life are hippies, weirdos, liberal freaks, idiots, losers without a life etc etc and that they don’t actually understand politics or how terrible the government of Iran is…and so on. And I can’t really defend or attack specific people on Second Life because I only just signed up for it yesterday and don’t know much about the game. But I can tell you this, my boyfriend’s parents play the game and make several hundred dollars a month (real US dollars) by playing second life because they create textures, houses, sell property and land etc…and they are shrewd enough to see that there is a huge market for this stuff on second life and that people are willing to pay them real money for it. They’re not hippies, in fact in real life one of them is a private contractor doing programming and making a mint and the other is a marketing professional for a lucrative agency that has clients like Intel. They aren’t crazy liberals, they do have a life, they do contribute to the capitalist American system and are certainly not what most conservatives think of when they picture people on Second Life. I’m not saying there aren’t crazy people or liberals or hippies that play the game. I’m sure that there are. But there’s nothing wrong with that. Second Life is a huge community full of a diverse population of people from all over the world. There are many different religions, political beliefs and cultural differences among the people of Second Life and it’s rediculous to pidgeon hole them and say they’re all the same. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with protesting the war via Second Life. Afterall Second Life is primarily an advertising tool like anything else on the Internet. If you advertise your company on Second Life, you’re promoting your business in real life. If you sell items you make in Second Life you can advertise them in real life. If you protest the war in Second Life, you just basically advertising online for the anti-war movement that exists in real life. And just like in real life, if you hate anti-war protestors, you have every right to voice your opinion on Second Life or on blogs on the Internet, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be allowed to protest. The one thing I do like about Second Life is that it allows everyone in the world an opportunity to come together as one democratic community. There will be “griefers” or people that go against the ideals and good will of the community but they exist in real life too and are unavoidable. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be allowed to come together as a community in the world or online and fight for what you believe in. If I had been at that Second Life protest, I may not have supported people who held signs promoting the Iran government because they’re government is even worse than the US government and shouldn’t be condoned. But it wouldn’t stop me from protesting with them and holding my own political signs up about the views I believe in. I can disagree with someone and still pull together with them to fight for a common cause. So stop trying to divide people with personal attacks or hate speech regarding people who happen to be different than you. Be a little more understanding and if you don’t agree with someone or something, express that disagreement in a civil manner. Otherwise no one will listen to you anyway and just think you’re a hot head or are ignorant. Just a thought.

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