Author: Ruby Sinreich

RootscampSL update

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The first Rootscamp in a series of fabulous events starts in less than 5 hours. We’ve got a schedule up on the wiki now where you can propose topics and speakers. Please add yourselves and any other folks you’d like to hear from. Events run from today until Tuesday.

Here’s a picture of my avatar (Ruby Glitter) wearing a RootsCamp t-shirt:
Ruby Glitter wearing RootsCamp t-shirt

You can get your own t-shirt by visiting RootsCamp in Second Life. Click here to go directly to Better World Island, then select the RootsCamp teleport orb.

Please come to the kick-off meeting at 4pm EST today or let us know (by e-mail or wiki) if you’d like to lead a discussion. Also, let me know if you haven’t used Second Life before, I’m thinking of organizing a “newbie” session at RootsCampSL.

Finally, please please please write about this and link to http://RootsCampSL.org if you have a blog. We were very ambitious when we decided on Friday to hold this event the day after the election, so we have very little time to get the word out. I’ll buy a drink (in real life or Second Life) for anyone who blogs about it this week. Thanks!

Leadership time

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I love this quote from Mark Marcoplos commenting on OrangePolitics:

Price and the Democrats in general represent the firemen that watched complacently as the madness grew from a spark to a smoldering ember to a destructive blaze and then began brandishing a water pistol in the general direction of the nearly destroyed building.
– OrangePolitics.org: Get your red, hot results

And I also must say how excited I am to have a real-live Socialist in the US Senate! Has that ever even happened before? I’ve heard Bernie speak before and he really rocks the progressive values.

Here’s to hoping the Democrats use the occasion of their new congressional majority to relocate that spine they misplaced 10 years ago…

Americans favor Democrats, but it doesn’t matter

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It’s easy to get excited when we read polls like this, but you have to remember that political views are not evenly distributed across all the states or congressional districts. The country is very stratified into conservative (rural, exurban) and liberal (urban) areas, so the real deciders are the places that are in-between.

A majority of Americans said issues such as the Iraq war, the economy and terrorism would head in the right direction if the Democrats won control of Congress on Tuesday, according to a CNN poll released Monday.

A majority, 58 percent, said that a Democratic Congress would move the economy in the right direction, compared to 43 percent who said a Republican Congress would help the economy…
– Poll: Americans favor Democrats on the issues – CNN.com

Calling all geeky politicos…

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I know I can’t be the only one. Following on the success of BarCamps around the world, where geeks get together to share information and build community in a collaborative “unconference” format, folks are organizing RootsCamps for progressive organizers to debrief the 2006 election and talk about next steps. My colleague Andrew Hoppin and I are taking it one step further, to the new(ish) frontier of Second Life!

We are organizing RootsCampSL which will be a series of daily meetings with different discussion topics and speakers that will also address the brand new field of virtual campaigning in Second Life. i will post more details as they become available. For now, here’s how you can get involved:

  1. Join our in-world meeting today at 5pm eastern, at the Tech Soup office on Information Island.
  2. Visit the wiki page for RootsCampSL, where you can make suggestions and add yourself to the attendee list
  3. Join our Google Group and help us organize the event(s).
  4. If you are already a member of SecondLife, join our group “SL Netroots”.
  5. Spread the word by sending this link to your friends: http://rootscamp.org/RootsCampSL

Not-so-happy Halloween

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Brian seemed to think it was silly, but I was really looking forward to Halloween in our new home this year.

When I was a kid and lived in the country, there were no neighbors for miles so I had to visit other people’s neighborhoods to go trick-or-treating. When I bought my house in Northside (a working-class, Black neighborhood) 5 years ago, I was excited to be in an old-fashioned walkable neighborhood and geared up for some kids in costumes. I was disappointed to find African-American kids who didn’t bother to dress up being driven door-to-door in minivans. I considered putting up a sign that read “No costume, no candy.” But I’m not that big of a grinch.

So I thought those kids were lame and kind of ripping me off – getting candy for free without even having to dress up – but at least none of them robbed me. That’s right: during trick-or-treating, some time between 7pm and 10pm, someone took my bike right off my porch! Although I did receive a wide variety of trick-or-treaters of many ages and races, with costumes ranging from slack (“player”) to rad (“Aragorn”). In fact, I was having a grand old time until Brian asked me if I had moved my bike.

So this really sucks. And I also need to point out that in the FIVE YEARS that I lived in the supposedly “unsafe” Northside (where drug deals happen on the street regularly) I never had one thing stolen from my home or my car and was never physically threatened. In nearly every other place I’ve lived since 1993 (all relatively middle-class, white neighborhoods like where we live now) I’ve had my car or home broken into.

I can’t decide whether to feel violated or pissed off. Plus I just bought that bike a few months ago and I can’t afford another brand new one! I guess I’ll just have to walk it off for a while.

Brad Will

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Tell the world. Shout it from the rooftops. How many more have to die at the hands of imperialists like Bush and his friends in Latin America before the press (and the communities they serve with vital information) can be free again?

Brad Will, a U.S. journalist and camerman, was shot and killed yesterday in Oaxaca, Mexico, by paramiliaries affiliated with the PRI, the former Mexican ruling party. Will was in Oaxaca covering the continued resistance of teachers and other workers against the PRI-controlled government of the State of Oaxaca. According to reports from New York City Independent Media Center and La Jornada, Will, 36, was shot at the Santa Lucia Barricade from a distance of 30-40 meters in the pit of the stomach by plainclothes paramilitaries and died while enroute to the Red Cross.
– NYC: Indymedia: Bradley Roland Will, U.S. Journalist and Camerman, Killed By Oaxaca Paramiliaries

If you are feeling strong, you can watch the video recovered from his camera. Here’s more good coverage from Democracy Now!:Brad Will 1970-2006: Friends Remember Indymedia Journalist and Activist Killed in Oaxaca.

I just want to make sure this is covered with the necessary shock and indignation in the mainstream media. Please blog this and pass it along.

Goddammit.

Cheney wins

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… the award for Least Credible Politician ever. Here’s his latest whopper:

Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday the increase of violence in Iraq is linked with efforts to influence the outcome of midterm elections in which Republicans are struggling to keep control of Congress.
[…]
He said al-Qaida and other elements were trying to “break the will of the American people” because “they think we don’t have the stomach for the fight long-term.”
[…]
Cheney, who 17 months ago said the insurgency was in its last throes, said that “there’s going to be probably a continued level of violence for some considerable period of time in Iraq.” He said that unlike other wars, it was unlikely there would be some dramatic turning point that signals progress.
AP: Cheney: Iraq violence linked to election

And in related news, lie-detecting technology is advancing quickly. We just need to get one of those fMRIs in the Whitehouse.