[pp.int.general] WHOA now - everyone, stop for a minute

[Valentin Villenave]

2008/11/12 Andrew Norton <andrew.norton at pirate-party.us>:
> We have a profusion of effort on this list, debating technicalities,
> semantics, irrelevencies, and definitions. None of it is needed, or
> desired. We need to start working together.

Greetings Andrew, hi everybody,

while I have been reading all recent mails, I am a bit reluctant to
add yet another mail but I feel compelled to mention a few things --
keeping it as short as possible -- about my own national Party (the
French one).

It was born as the second Pirate Party in June 2006, and while we
originally tried to follow the Swedish model, it was immediately
joined by thousands of people who all had strong ideas and political
orientations (including myself). At this time, everything you may have
seen on this mailing list for the past week would happen twice a *day*
on our forum. There were wars, there were hatred arguments, insults,
death threats etc.
(Today we're still the only country with *two* Pirate Parties, a
disgruntled member having hostily forked ours.)

The particular question of dealing or not with "non-core issues" was
always at the epicenter of our internal disagreements.

Two things helped us a lot to get over these wars. Not to suppress
them, but to prevent them from endangering our survival as a group.

The first one was actually an idea of mine (yes, I am still proud of
it). We didn't have a Wiki, so I opened one. Simple as that. Since I
had opened it, I began by filling it with my own political ideas on
every topic I could think of, creating one page per topic. Then
someone else came, and filled the same pages with other propositions.
Etc, etc.
My point is: we don't want people who have opinions to STFU. We just
need to provide these people with a *dedicated* space to express their
opinions, so that background discussions keep separated from actual
decision-making.

The second one was actually kindly provided by our own government, who
can't spend a day without reminding us of what we're fighting against
(and, therefore, what we're fighting *for*). Finding common enemies is
always the easiest, and the more efficient thing to do to unite a
group. Remember that citizens rarely vote out of enthusiasm for one
party (at least, not in European elections). They vote *against* the
people they don't want. While this may not be a good thing, please
keep in mind that we are originally a rebellion movement: if the world
wasn't ruled by corruption and greed, there would be no need for us to
act as a party.

Third point -- I should stop right here, but -- why on Earth are you
guys searching what you DON'T agree on, instead of what you DO agree
on?

Actually, if you're thinking in terms of "what we don't want" instead
of "what we want", the distinction between so-called "core" and
"non-core" issues quickly tends to disappear.

I am grateful to the Swedish party, for instance, to have pointed out
very soon that Intellectual Property(c)(r)(tm) was harmful to the
Third World, because of pharmaceutical and biological patents, etc.
Pirate stances are about a *lot* of different stuff: economy, culture,
social justice, even peace.

My point being: when examining *concrete* issues, you often end up
seeing that of all possible solutions, some are obviously harmful to
civil rights, to social justice and sustainable development. These are
the solutions any government would be tempted to chose, out of greed
or corruption; these are the ways we will not go.

Gosh, I've been too long. One very small example: some of you guys
talk about nuclear energy. While being *for* or *against* it is
certainly of some interest, may I invite you to think about the
*conditions* in which nuclear energy is used in our countries? In
France we recently had several incidents because the companies in
charge were placed under insufficient democratic control, and they had
(basically) soften security measures to save some money. Now, I think
we'll all agree to say that this should not happen; these are the
little bits of common ground and common sense I'd like you guys to
consider.

But *not* anymore on this list. Please create a dedicated area in the
Wiki, or a second mailing list (which I'll read carefully), or
whatever.

Cheers,
Valentin (Parti Pirate -- FR)