[pp.int.general] Obama's support for his election campaign

[Ray Jenson]

tyler durden wrote:
>>> History shows that this is exactly the kind of move that occurs right before people decide to commit to a violent resolution."
> 
> History shows busting a college kid for pirating music is going to
> result in riots in the streets? How about all people who get locked up
> for decades because of an institutionally racist war on drugs? People
> tear shit up all the time around the world and even in this country
> but history shows it hasn't been something like this yet. (think when
> Oscar Grant was murdered by police in oakland, or when the G20 was
> held in Pittsburgh a few months ago).

You need to study your history, kid.


>> Civil disobedience is not an activity which a political party is allowed to suggest, due to the laws being what they are in the US. If it did, it couldn't be a political party any more--it would become every bit the criminal organization that the MAFIAA is doing.
> 
> A movement succeeds by utilizing a diversity of tactics. The civil
> rights movement showed that there is an appropriate time and place to
> use voting, petitions, peaceful marches, sit down strikes, and yes
> even riots such as when MLK Jr was assassinated. So yes, civil
> disobedience has proven to be effective, necessary, and is an
> essential part of our democracy. Should the PP be actively engaged in
> this? No, we're a political party as you said. "We gather to change
> the laws, not break them". We don't have to do it, but I still dig it.

A political party is not a political movement. In the US, they are
completely different things, and a party is much more limited than a
movement is allowed to be. Grassroots support is a movement; voting and
candidates is a political party.

Civil disobedience cannot be a tactic which a political party supports.
This is a list for the political parties, not for the movement as a whole.


>> The issues of copyright, patent, privacy, governmental transparency, and free speech are all at the core of every issue you've brought up. Thanks for your input, the counterpoint is appreciated, but you really aren't as informed as you believe you are.
> 
> I'm communicating the irrelevancy(real or perceived) of the U.S.
> Pirate Party's platform to the struggles of everyday people. I'm
> getting this from talking with people who are already involved in
> labor unions, anti-war activist groups, and environmental justice
> organizations. There's one thing that we do see eye to eye on is that
> we see that there is no hope with the existing two party system. So
> the USPP's job is convince the angry masses to join up with us, but
> who the hell are we? We have positions on some core issues like free
> speech and transparency (what political party isn't?) and the only
> area where we have a more enlightened analysis are copyright issues.
> Everything else we're taking the 'Anything that is not covered by
> USPP's platform is left up to the individual candidate to make their
> own position'. Sounds like a great way to answer some of the questions
> people want answers to most - a single payer healthcare system, an end
> to US military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, a right to fair
> housing and employment, privatization of public services and a
> corporate control in general. I've got a question, why have the
> majority of people involved with the USPP and shown interest in our
> politics are privileged white men who are into computers and have
> little to no activist experience. Why should people listen to us?

Healthcare systems wouldn't be an issue (as I wrote before) if we paid
attention to the rights of individual citizens, and allowed those rights
(as they were originally intended) to be eclipsed by large corporations.
While this is not "anti-corporate" this is common sense.

The US involvement in the Middle East wouldn't be an issue if we hadn't
gone there to begin with. Transparency and access to government would
have allowed ordinary citizens to voice their opinions on the matter,
and honest government would have listened.

You say "a right to fair housing and employment" and these are goals
which are counter to common sense. While they work well in a Utopian
sense, they lack the fundamental understanding of where they have
already been instituted... handing a government too much power and
control over others is never a wise idea. I, for one, don't want the
government to be able to tell me where I can or can't live, what jobs
I'm allowed to have or not... etc., and what you are talking about is
Soviet-style communist dictatorship all over again. As such, I'm against it.

As to your question, I can tell you that as a former officer in the
PPUS, I was neither privileged nor inexperienced in activism. Andrew
Norton was also not inexperienced in politics, and far from being
wealthy. That was 2 years (at least!) of the PPUS, out of four.

As to the interest in computers... well, that's because the issues which
surround our society's progress revolve around the ability to
communicate freely (e.g., freedom of speech). What greater threat to
freedom is there than curtailing the freedom of the mind to express itself?


> I understand that you are in a bad personal living situation Ray and I
> know both of us want what's best for the Party. But honestly, you
> haven't been around to talk to us about what we should or shouldn't be
> doing and if you had a critique or suggestion about what we should be
> covering you know you could have communicated such through the normal
> USPP channels (website, IRC, forums, mailing list, whatever). Don't
> get mad at us about it.

I haven't been around? I've been right here, reading and watching,
trying to recover from my health issues for the past 2 years.

I'm not mad at you as an individual. I am upset that people are so
caught up in petty bickering behind closed doors that a schism is
created, and one which doesn't apparently see the need to oppose the
continuing injustices which continue to echo everywhere that US
companies see fit to try to operate. Our domestic policy is to try to
support our companies, and to grab at the power and money that flow in,
but we continually turn a blind eye to the fact that it not only earns
us enemies around the world, but at home as well.

If you can't see that, you have no business telling me anything about
what I should or shouldn't feel. I am outraged because petty differences
are more important to many of the members here than any kind of
resolution to act in a capacity for which political parties are intended
to act.

Piratpartiet didn't always agree, even within themselves, but they never
saw a need to divide over petty squabbles and side issues which are
ultimately solved by staying true to their party's platform. I
personally watched (even right before the elections last year) as
several dozen arguments occurred, because the issues themselves are
complex in nature and compromise is sometimes necessary in order to move
forward.

The other parties don't agree all the time either.

You criticize people you don't even know. You don't know my situation,
and so please don't pretend to. You've made snap judgments based on
partial information which has little or nothing to do with the party's
positions... the importance of these few issues is at the core of our
Bill of Rights, and it's this very concept of egalitarian leadership
which is at the root of the issue.

If you're so blinded by the cries over the healthcare system, maybe you
should go join the Democrats. If you want socialist policies enacted,
perhaps you should go live in China for a while and see if it agrees
with you. Having witnessed witnessed the atrocities of socialist
dictatorships as a child, and having lived under the watchful eye of
government for a decade of my life, I can tell you that it's a way of
life I don't ever want again.


The idea of socialism is Utopian--so let it stay in Utopia. Out here, in
the real world, the issue of healthcare just isn't as pressing as you
make it out to be.

I live without insurance. And I don't want the government's insurance if
it means I have no choices. I don't want to be fined for not having
insurance. I don't want doctors to be fined for treating me if I don't
have it. And I especially don't want a politician who is 3,500 km away
from me dictating what kinds of healthcare I'm allowed.

I don't want the right to be comfortable and have everything done for
me; I want the right to choose. I want choices, not limitations. But the
language of limitation is the only one our current Congress can
apparently see.

I would suggest some reality, Tyler Durden (nice nick, BTW), instead of
this fantasy world you insist on living in.