[pp.int.general] USPP Status

[Ray Jenson]

Thank you, Antonio, for your thoughtful reply.

There are two things we need for the PP to work: dedicated volunteers who
aren't afraid of the labels which others will place on them for helping this
effort, and money to fund our marketing and other operations. The USA is a
big place, and so lots more money would be needed; but the fact of money
being needed at all is due to the large amount of capital used for
opposition.

I calculated (just from what I could see) that running one newspaper article
costs them about US$180 000 to distribute. So far, that put their tally in
the past 5 years at around $180 million (assuming that is correct--about
1000 articles over the past 5 years through Murdoch's various mass-media
press outlets). The price to combat it with truth and facts on our side is
less than 1% of their costs, but that still put it at almost US$2 million
over the past 5 years. That's US$500 000 per year.

These articles are various articles about the copyright regime's benefit to
others, or how their poor profit margins are wasting away to nothing (only
US$2 billion in profits instead of US$6 billion), or how awful it is that
the US Department of Justice never gets involved in this act which costs
lives... and other such propaganda which serves only to strengthen the
perception that copyright should reign supreme over the lives of citizens.

But raising that kind of money is a serious problem: many of us are still
tempted by large amounts of money, addicted to the almighty currency note,
and none of us really has independent wealth to front such a bill. 



From: pp.international.general-bounces at lists.pirateweb.net
[mailto:pp.international.general-bounces at lists.pirateweb.net] On Behalf Of
Antonio Garcia
Sent: Monday, August 22, 2011 6:15 AM
To: pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
Subject: Re: [pp.int.general] USPP Status

That is SADLY not only the situation in the USA... but almost everywhere.

To end that intolerable situation, we need to reassess it objectively,
analyse it thoroughly... and present a global viewpoint to the peoples.

The problem is... anybody who has cared to do that job... will find himself
in a tiny minority position trying to get it through to the others that have
not even started wondering about what really goes wrong in this odd world we
shape every day all of us together.

All our troubles... are in our minds... some of them crazier and more
delusional than other. Nobody can find solutions for a problem whose
premises he got wrong.

We do not have to cheat the system... we just have to aknowledge the system
cheats us... and pull all our guts together to do something about it.

People are all fed up, not knowing what to do inside of this global and
complex situation we build all together... and the first who really comes
with an objective analysis of the situation and a blueprint for a workable
evolution... gets it all.

I've been pushing to get "humanism" adopted as the true ideology of the
Pirate Parties... because our geek discourse is yet a limited subset of
it... the one we felt most confortable with when we used the networks to
reach far out and find each other... scattered far away as we were. It is
time to aknowledge that... and be who we really are, completely.

Then, we will take off as if we owned rocket science ;) .

________________________________________
From: ray.jenson at gmail.com
To: pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 01:08:52 -0600
Subject: Re: [pp.int.general] USPP Status
The issue in the USA is that we cannot reconcile truth with politics--where
the lobbies control our Congress and maintain their undue influence, we
remain robbed of our ability to mount anything remotely resembling a
defense, counter-offensive, or even to garner attention. The MAFIAA still
holds sway over our lawmakers here, and undue influence in other parts of
the world as well. Until that intolerable condition ends, we might as well
be shouting "death to the pigs" at a police station. We are little more than
targets which everyone tries desperately to ignore.
 
In Sweden, the issue was foreign influence over domestic governments; in the
USA, we have no such trigger. We lack solid countering on every front but
the ones that truly count, and these are what Murdoch's media hounds work
hard to suppress. We don't live in a day or age where truth counts. We live
in a time where profit overrules the rights of ordinary citizens, and those
who profit work hard to prevent anything toppling it.
 
Until we can have a solid platform that the common person can actually get
behind, no party in the USA can operate successfully. And until that happens
(which hasn't really occurred in 5 years), no party, whether centralized or
not, will really take off.
 
The Utah PP was crushed in 2007 because the Libertarians took our signatures
and beat us to the post--Libertarians, funded by corporate interests and
backed by special interest funding. It took cheating the system for them to
gain a foothold, and yet people trust them as a political party to end the
very things they used to push past us. They cheated, period. It was a dirty
move, inspired by media hype about the PP-Utah being formed.
 
The time we live in is not one which favors art, unless it comes in the form
of mass-produced images on special pieces of paper--we call it currency.
 
We need a fundraiser. I have ideas, and anyone who wants them is welcome to
them. But I don't know enough about fundraising to coordinate everything...
I would need help. And when I've asked for it in the past, it has been
lacking in the PPUS, USPP, and every other branch of the PP that I've
appealed to.
 
In short, when we actually find ourselves capable to move, only then can the
PP flourish anywhere in the US.
 
But seriously: let's make sure we stand firm, and don't cheat the system the
way the others have done. It will hurt us more certainly than any other act.

 
*Gets down off of soapbox.*
 
-Ray Jenson, former PPUS Operations Officer
Ray.Jenson at gmail.com
 
P.S., I probably pissed some people off... please don't spam me with
notifications about this.
 

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