first question – well it is a game and other things… thats why rl universities use it and thats why corporations use it as well…

second question/statement – I am human – I can’t be out on picket lines/ campaigning against nukes/ campaigning for free school meals/ campaigning for an independent socialist Scotland 24/7 – nor do I do my rl job 24/7. I have time out where I can make contact with people in SL and have fun times/ chat etc. You?

Third one…The population didn’t vote for Bush – and there he was! Same with Toeknee Bliar over here… as for Gordon Broon, even less.

fourth one – I agree entirely…

as for complacent consumers – I am a consumer just like you. I consume. And I live in a capitalist society – I can’t escape that and don’t want to. I want to be part of the change to a fair society.

I don’t push myself as any different from you. I don’t believe in leaders… I do believe in learners and teachers – and I think everyone is both. I see injustice, I don’t like the injustice, I shout. Not just in SL – but I see a place for shouting in SL – it actually does activate rl people into doing rl things – eg our blog has details of organisations and politicians to contact about the Burmese uprising and subsequent massacre. The more people who show they care, the smaller chance the dictatorship have of getting away with what they have done for much longer.

The Page 6 grrrl is definately not a thing I would be bothered with. IF I wanted soft porn, at least I would not bother with a cartoon construct who in rl is probably a man. But hey! Whatever floats your boat.

Sorry, Plot, but I have other things to do than read up on a nerd that thinks he’s changing the world by playing a video game. Get someone on your little team there to stroke your ego for you.

Now let me explain how you’re silly.

a) SL IS A PRODUCT MADE BY A FOR-PROFIT COMPANY!! Why is it hard for you fools to understand? Why do you think there are RL corporations creeping in? LL wants some cash and will allow whoever has it to buy an island. Get over yourself!

b) If you’re so active IRL then why do you have time to play on a computer game to fight the virtual Man? There is no shortage of actual causes to champion IRL.

c) Q:”So regarding the left and socialists etc being peppered with opportunists… the opportunists are creating laws in your country to ensure they get richer and hold on to it, while those who toil and die for them stay poor. And they are slandered for their poverty while the greedy and exploiters are congratulated and voted for.”

A: Stalin. The population didn’t vote for him…yet there he was! I’d take our system in it’s current state of disrepair over that ANY DAY. I’m not trying to be hip by any means!

d) As I stated in my other post, our democratic system is being corrupted by exactly what you’re talking about but that’s because we let it. We’re too busy feigning revolution with things like iPods (digital revolution) and Second Life (your revolution). Marketers have figured out how to keep the 60s from actually happening again…60s retro! Make everyone feel like they’re sticking it to the man by buying their product (Apple) instead of the establishment’s product (now Apple)! Buy a Che’ shirt!

If you were actually doing something to change things then I’d be all for it…even if I disagreed with what you were pushing for. But the fact remains you’re just like the rest of us…only we’re not pretending not to be complacent consumers.

Post 6 Grrl anyone?

Of course in a society where greed is the only way people can scrape their way from the bottom, some people will try to walk over others- but that behaviour is rewarded in our present society. Goodness and love and helpfulness are not. That needs to change.

Regarding the Russian Revolution, I quoted “The Revolution Betrayed” written by a man who lived through and indeed helped move that revolution forward, only to see it wrecked by an elite. He was a socialist who realised very early that what had happened in Russia was no longer socialism after a point. And for his protests, he was killed by a blow from an icepick.

SL is not 1917 Russia, nor is it a world apart. It is, however, part of many peoples experience of the REAL world and an interface where people from across the world can communicate and share rl and “sl” experiences. The right and the corporations are using it to brainwash people into seeing their products as part of the metaverse – and to further brainwash people into believing that the current system of capitalism is the natural order- the haves and have nots. The thing is it is not the natural order. It is a system highly controlled by an elite and their institutions- as was so called Russian communism- which is actually NOT communism, nor socialism. It is social control- keep the minions in perpetual fear over their livelihood and they will walk over each other to serve the elite. This is the case when poor people join armies to kill other poor people and die for no gain to themselves- the only gains go to the car company share holders and the armament factory share holders. This is the case when they return to live in their economic depressed areas to take up the mantel of poor white trash or black, while George and his family rake in the dollars. This is the case when people fight for jobs, walking over other poor people and wage slaves to get the scraps off the table to work to enrich the already rich further.

So regarding the left and socialists etc being peppered with opportunists… the opportunists are creating laws in your country to ensure they get richer and hold on to it, while those who toil and die for them stay poor. And they are slandered for their poverty while the greedy and exploiters are congratulated and voted for.

There are a few of us real people who work together to help each other and to fight for a better world. activism- my rent to the world.

More details on me (if u really want them…:-s )and on social actions in sl and rl can be found here- http://slleftunity.blogspot.com

Your storybook definitions are great but this is the thing with communism and socialism. Naive idealists and devious opportunists are the only people that subscribe to it on their own. The naivety comes from thinking there are no opportunists that will use such a system to their advantage and stand on the backs of the idealists who actually think utopia is possible. Russian Revolution anyone?

Democracy admits that people are weak and would try to abuse power. That’s why there are (supposed to be) checks and balances and ways for victims to get justice. I say “supposed to be” because socialst ideas have been corrupting this country. The Orwellian state of US and EU politics is obvious to those who step back and take a look…at all the video cameras mounted in public places. They keep us pacified by letting corporations convince us that the way to live better is through different products while the government is left un-checked by the average joe. The only answer to this problem would be ACTUAL activism and revolution…not neccessarily violent, though.

The answer DEFINITELY isn’t pretending to stand for something in a computer game that you aren’t required to be a part of. Chalk one up for Consumer Socialism!

Keep thinking you’re not a huge hypocrite as you pay your tier to a capital-driven company. Your Che shirts and Rage Against the Machine CD purchases are oil for the cogs of the very machine you pretend to rage against!

Not much different than kids dressed like punk rockers and goths hanging out at the mall! haha

As for the other things u have said here… What an awful thing to do- to mention another av who is not even in this thread to defend himself. I hope Peldon has seen sense and stopped paying you.

Regarding your continued attacks on socialists/communists- grow up and read some grown up political books- or at least switch your channel from Fox.

As a rl resident of the UK I can def say that the stars and stripes and the union jack have been sullied by the present us and uk govts forays in imperialist wars. imho. k?

erm – this must be a complete figment of your imagination. I started renting from you in Zephyr around this time last year. As a result TWO of my friends also moved into the sim. One of whom was Plot, and one of whom was Peldon, who is most decidedly *not* a socialist, but a liberal, as you claim to be. So, between Plot, and myself, and a grumpy US-flag-disliking liberal, you managed to conlude that your sim was infested with socialists?

Your response to Peldon’s passing grumble (which i doubt was even intended wholly seriously – knowing Peldon, he was making mischievous conversation) was hardly restrained reasonable or professional. It was *you* who started frothing at the mouth at the mere IDEA that a foreigner would dare to question the sacredness of the US flag. Instead of addressing the perceived ‘complaint’ rationally, you launched into a totally irrelevant tirade against ‘you socialists’. I have the convo in full. you made all sorts of unfounded and bullying accusations about Peldon’s imaginary socialist tendencies, and came over as a total crazy lady frankly.

The same happened when Plot contacted to ask you to explain to him what ‘group liability’ was. He made no complaint whatsoever, he simply and straightforwardly asked you for some information. Once again, you instantly launched into this weird, paranoid, aggressive *attack* mode, and assumed that this was all evidence of the same imaginary evil socialist agenda that you seem to enjoy being obsessed about. Again, you were totally unprofessional, you presumed an attack, when there was none, and you once again victimised a tenant for assumed political beliefs which had absolutely no relevance at all to the incident. Again, i have the convo in full. It is quite incredible how you are able to react in a way that is completely disproportionate to the event. I left Zephyr shortly afterwards, for a variety of personal reasons, but also, yes, because I didn’t want to continue to be in a landlord-tenant dynamic with someone who is effectively nothing more than an unprofessional, paranoid bully.

Anyhow, this isn’t exactly news to most people in SL – but I did want to set the record straight here.

Plot Tracer is the one being disingenuous. He is a former tenant who for ages had a very cheap discounted parcel in an beautiful area on one of my sims where for some reason, lots of socialists moved in (I guess because the rentals at $300/250 prims were quite discounted — I was trying to make it available to people).

Plot Tracer was late on his rent a number of times, and called on it. He was given grace periods merely due to the length of his stay there, but he took advantage of it. He also complained bitterly and fiercely at the $2 or $3 Linden fee that is automatically debited from the group which I in fact do make people pay in the group for “group liabilities” and do state on leases, cards, regular group notices etc is indeed part of his rent.

He started a huge fuss about this small fee as he felt there was no “proper notification”. But…he would evidently never read any group notices. What can you do? He preferred to fuss endlessly about this, I stood right up to him, and finally he and higgledy left the area in a huff, whereupon other people with valuation for discounted land promptly rented it *shrugs*.

Um, I don’t “own land the length and breadth” of SL, I own about 17 sims worth of land, spread out of 60 sims. There are now 12,000 sims. Oh, well. I know it makes nice “copy” to portray even Anshe Chung as an “evil land baron” but even Anshe only has 600 islands, for example.

The Lindens are the main land barons. The rest of us are tenants. And they are land barons because servers cost money. Did you think everybody must endlessly provide socialism for you?

The flag incident is emblematic of Second Life and the fucktards who inhabit it.

One person on this sim — Peldon — grumbled about another tenant’s American flag. He did this because he was angry about U.S. foreign policy blah blah blah. I generally don’t allow any display of items that jut up in the air, because it ruins the view. But in areas where nobody is complaining, I don’t go out of my way to return something.

In fact Peldon, the original complainer about the flag, himself had out a huge-ass windmill that was spinning — and therefore in total violation of the rules in the lease against not having large objects over two stories, and objects that spin. No matter. Socialists always want exceptions for their own fuck-you hedonism.

But since the look of this particular windmill didn’t really bother the view that much, and no one complained, I left the flag and the windmill alone. The minute Peldon complained about the flag, and I asked the tenant to remove the flag, then that tenant said, but hey, what about his windmill! No fair! And that’s how it always is in Second Life. One idiot being literalist and demanding full compliance of rules only engenders another doing the exact same thing as their only recourse.

That necessitated me to remove the windmill, of course. But finally, peace was restored because these two tenants, without having to use “the law” and “the evil landlord Prokofy to settle their disputes” (note how this is a microcosm of the LL/SL relationship) were able to tolerate each other’s displays of waving/spinning stuff, and reached accord. Today, both items are out, nobody complains.

Now…why didn’t they do that in the first place?! And here is where Peldon and all his friends like Plot Tracer scurry to self-justify themselves, saying, oh, but we didn’t complain about the flag. But…he did, and they have their anti-American sentiments. So when I get a complaint, and I see a technical violation, just like a Linden, I act; I do have rules about not putting stuff out obstructing the view. Anyway, I’ve learned from this episode, as from others, that you can never please entitelement-happy socialists *enough* so I don’t try : )

The starts and stripes were not “huge” — they were a normal flag, absolutely no different from *another* flag on an equally tall pole of some soccer team or something that didn’t elicit the wrath of these socialists. So their perceptions are skewed here.

Also, what’s happening here is two different incidents are two different sims are being mixed up:

o the incident with Plot Tracer and the flags occurred on Zephyr, on my property, where there are no communists, just socialists

o the incident with these communists took place on Mieta, a completely different sim on another continent, and didn’t involve any American flags from me or anybody else, merely a normal rentals latest listings kiosk that was on the ground.

The land in Mieta is a 512; the land in Zephyr is more like 6880 and in brilliant socialist style, is shared by everyone on that area as it is not parcelled.

The flag/objects/view rule has always been in all leases, and wasn’t somehow “thought up after the fact” — this is just some corruption of this story from the re-telling by rabid socialists ROFL.