[pp.int.general] Pirate Manifesto Reloaded

[Carlos Ayala]

----- Mensaje original ----
De: Ole Husgaard <pirat at sparre.dk>
Enviado: jueves, 3 de julio, 2008 14:10:48
> > - 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.

Felix, Eduardo and aloa5 have shown you how much resemblance is between political parties and Strasbourg parliamentary groups; so actually they behave as parties -conservative, 'liberal', 'socialist', communist, green, nationalist, euroskepticals-.

> And the declaration do not talk about endorsing the politics of other members in the group.

Come on, Ole: the first time I might believe you hadn't read it well; I'm gonna quote it again for you:

It encourages to "listen to the advice of the group on all other issues, and vote with the group unless we have some strong reasons not to", in exchange of us doing "our utmost to persuade the other members of the group to join our position on the issues that fall within our political platform" -i.e., in exchange of that group not granting us support in those core issues-.

If after quoting it you still state that it doesn't talk about endorsing the politics of other members in the group, I won't believe anymore that it's due to you not having read the Uppsala Declaration. It'll be just you denying the undeniable.

> 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.

What does try mean? What kind of deal is that? We would try to get their support, and in exchange we would actually give our support. Give them almost all -or all, in non core issues-, getting almost nothing from them -or nothing, in core issues-. It would be the biggest political failure ever seen ...

> 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.

Please note that anyway we would still be MPs, so we would still vote in parliamentary sessions -being a voting key in some of them-. We in PIRATA prefer the loneliness of the non-inscrits during the first five years -in exchange of increasing the number of voters because of giving a good image to those voters-, rather than having a few temporary committee seats -in exchange of granting our political self-destruction-.

> > - 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

But you don't have to tell me that, instead try to explain it to the Uppsala Declaration authors, who wrote that "once elected, we will discuss with the groups that could be of interest". Which are those groups? Have Marten and Amelia already decided which of Strasbourg seven parliamentary groups -i.e., conservative, 'socialist', 'liberal', communist, green, nationalist and euroskeptical- could be of interest?

Better tell Marten and Amelia that such idea is nonsensical, instead of telling me.

> 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.

That's because ... well, I don't know why do you say such thing. Again, Uppsala Declaration encourages to "listen to the advice of the group on all other issues, and vote with the group unless we have some strong reasons not to". Why do you deny the undeniable?

> > - 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.

Piratpartiet 2006 Valmanifest states that if -in an scenario with two major parties- "both the factions refuse to meet our demands. This is the more
complicated case, but we can handle this one too. Initially we will
support one faction, and make a government possible. Most likely this
will be the ones with the less votes, so that the others, the
‘victors’, will feel that they have lost power they were entitled to.
They can, however, not do much about it, since we will support the
government without questioning in anything that does not involve our
principles"
-i.e.: supporting in exchange of nothing-; so let me warn you that Piratpartiet
disagrees with you on that.

> > - 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.

You totally agree ... however, you still support Uppsala Declaration. That's a huge contradiction.

> 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.

I don't know what are you talking about: Uppsala Declaration encourages to "listen to the advice of the group on all other issues, and vote with the group unless we have some strong reasons not to", in exchange of us doing "our utmost to persuade the other members of the group to join our position on the issues that fall within our political platform" -i.e., in exchange of that group not granting us support in those core issues-; that's the opposite from what you state that Uppsala Declaration supposedly states.

> 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.

Again: Uppsala Declaration encourages to "listen to the advice of the group on all other issues, and vote with the group unless we have some strong reasons not to", in exchange of us doing "our utmost to persuade the other members of the group to join our position on the issues that fall within our political platform"
-i.e., in exchange of that group not granting us support in those core
issues-; that's unconditional support, fully rejectable.

How many times will I need to copy&paste the Uppsala Declaration for you? Though I'll do it as many times as required, as it's quite easy to copy&paste, and seems to be easier than you admitting the true contents of the Uppsala Declaration.

Apart, as Felix says, in PIRATA we care about non-core issues; simply, as Rick Falkvinge repeatedly stated, we don't include those issues in our core issues because of wanting to be a solid, compact, consenssus-driven movement. As each of PIRATA members may have a different stance in non-core issues, we let citizens set our agenda in those issues, following some requirements; if those requirements are not met, we stay with the abstention for those non-core issues.

> 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"

What Uppsala Declaration encourages is not dealing -PIRATA Statute actually encourages dealing (though via consultation to citizens, to be sure that they accept the deal for non-core issues; and rejecting the deal if it's not accepted by citizens)-, but surrendering to the traditional group you agree to join to.

> 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.

You cannot agree with both PIRATA and the Uppsala declaration, at least in the EP strategy thing, because both parts defend opposite stances.

And I haven't misunderstood anything: instead, you seem to be not willing to read the actual Uppsala Declaration -I hope that with the several times I've copied&pasted it here, you finally read it-.

> I think your major issue here is about joining a group with other parties.

Major, though not the only one; please read my mails explaining rest of controversy -I did send them on monday, at
11:29, at 11:58 and at 12:30-.

> 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.

False dichotomy, as we have another option: to pressure groups using our vote in parliamentary sessions -where do we actually have seat and vote, if we reach Strasbourg-. If we have not key votes, we wouldn't be anyway decisive in committees and

- no significant changes would be achieved by us
- any change would be reversed for sure in parliamentary sessions

So, surrendering to a traditional group instead of nothing seems nonsensical for PIRATA.

> > 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

I repeat: No credit is given to Uppsala Declaration until PPI members -the pirate parties- sign it. You don't seem to pay much attention on what I say ... it's not only about agreeing the text, it's also about no single party apart from Piratpartiet seeming to have signed Uppsala Declaration. No credit, thus, has to be given to an unsupported text.

About issues with other parts -another repetition of my (seem to be) unread? words- please read my mails explaining rest of controversy -I did send them on monday, at
11:29, at 11:58 and at 12:30-. There you'll be able to find the answer to your question -e.g., there is no single mention in Uppsala Declaration for Information Society, FLOSS, net neutrality, etc-. Regards,


                                                                                    Carlos Ayala
                                                                                    ( Aiarakoa )

                                                           Partido Pirata National Board's Chairman


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