[pp.int.general] Pirate Manifesto Reloaded

[Ole Husgaard]

Carlos Ayala skrev:
> ----- Mensaje original ----
> De: Ole Husgaard <pirat at sparre.dk>
> Enviado: jueves, 3 de julio, 2008 0:02:13
>   
>> Could you please state explicitly the problems you see with this section?
>>     
> Explicitly? Even my fellow party member, Edulix, complaint about me being too explicit about it :)
>
> - if we join a traditional party, we'd lose our ideological neutrality
>   
Nobody ever talked about joining other parties. We talk about joining a
parlamentary group, if we do not get enough seats to form our own group.
Groups in the EU-Parliament are not political parties.

And the declaration do not talk about endorsing the politics of other
members in the group. We will of course try to make the rest of the
group vote like we do on the issues that are important. In exchange it
makes sense that we return the favor by voting like they want on other
issues if we do not disagree.

Please note that if we are outside any group, we do not get seats in the
parliamentarian commitees. And it is in these commitees most of the
important decisions are taken. Also, by being in a group we get funding
for staff.

> - the first paragraph talks about dealing not with all current seven parliamentary groups, but with groups that could be of interest; which groups are those -Marten & Amelia haven't answered yet-? greens? united left/nordic green left? each one of us is supposed to have an own ideology for non-core issues; however, it's not acceptable to force PPI to follow personal/one-concrete-pirate-party ideologies
>   
I think it makes good sense not to be too specific about which groups at
this stage. If we do not get enough seats to form our own group, we can
get a better deal if we have not already decided. If we already decided
and said we would join group XXX, this group would not have to support
us in our core issues, as the decision has already been taken.

I agree with the last part of what you say here, and see nothing in the
declaration making it impossible for individual pirates in parliament to
make their own personal decisions.

> - if we support a traditional party in non-core issues in exchange of that party not granting us support in our core issues, we'd lose our ideological neutrality for nothing
>   
Exactly. No reason to support others if they do not support us. Our
support of others has a cost for them: They have to support us in our
core issues.

> - if we lose our ideological neutrality for nothing and, as ALOA5 pointed, become a party without personality, we'd follow the way to our self-destruction -as it's happening with United Left in Spain (from 22 MPs in 1996 to 2 MPs ... and 1 of them is not really theirs but from Catalonian Initiative-Greens) because of behaving as PSOE's vassals-
>   
I totally agree. In our last local election a new political party "Ny
Alliance" entered our parliament. After being elected they stated that
they would support our current government no matter what. Now they have
lost most of their voter support, and most of the elected
parliamentarians are no longer party members.

Of course we should not become doormats, and I do not think we will, if
we have to join a group with non-pirates to gain influence.

But I see nothing wrong with political trading, like "We support your
proposal to limit roaming fees for mobile operators, if you vote against
the proposal for death penalty for illegal copying."

>> I do not think we are that far from each other in opinion.
>>     
> Ole: that section of Uppsala Declaration is against article 25.a.2 of PIRATA's Statute -""PIRATA" will not be part in any coalition government, nor will give
> inconditional support to any of the parties represented on the chambers
> of the different parliaments where "PIRATA" obtains paliamentary
> representation"-, so PIRATA's actually as far as can be from that strategy.
>   
Of course we should not give unconditional support to others. But I see
no problem with the conditional support that the Uppsala declaration is
talking about. If it means I can get somebody else to support me on some
issues I really care about, I see no problem supporting them on some
issues I don't care about.

So how come I agree with both you and the Uppsala declaration? Do we
have some kind of misunderstanding? It looks to me like you have
misunderstood something when you talk about giving unconditional support.

I think your major issue here is about joining a group with other
parties. If we do not get enough seats to form our own group (and it
looks so to me), we have a choice: Either we stay outside any groups,
and cannot make our voice heard in parliamentarian commitees. Or we join
a group, so we can get seats and influence in the commitees. Please note
that the groups in the EU-Parliament are not political parties.

> Are you gonna attend, Ole? :)
Yes, I am going to attend. I may be about 30 minutes late though, as I
have a local meeting I need to attend to.

> P.S.: I repeat: No credit is given to Uppsala Declaration until PPI members -the
> pirate parties- sign it; and PIRATA won't
> sign it at least until the EP
> strategy stuff is removed -removing it doesn't grant our sign; however,
> keeping it grants us not signing-.
>   
So you have issues with other parts of the declaration? Please let me know.

Best Regards,

Ole Husgaard.