[pp.int.general] "interesting" Spiegel piece this week

[Justus Römeth]

Here is this week's Spiegel title story about Piratenpartei in English:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,829451,00.html

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 8:30 PM, Justus Römeth <squig at dfpx.de> wrote:

> More information:
>
>
> http://www.bild.de/politik/inland/piratenpartei/versinkt-die-piraten-partei-im-braunen-sumpf-23803046.bild.html
>
> It is Bild, and therefore evil, but what is written is correct, and the
> syntax should work well with google translate.
>
> On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 7:26 PM, Justus Römeth <squig at dfpx.de> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 6:48 PM, Andrew Norton <ktetch at ktetch.co.uk>wrote:
>>
>>> I think it's important to take criticisms as criticism. It's all too
>>> easy to take negative comments as 'attacks; which will just lead to a
>>> victim complex.
>>>
>>
>> I agree in principle. However, if the media constantly repeats that you
>> as a party want to abolish all copyright (or rather authors' right, which
>> is the correct translation of *Urheberrecht*) and do not have a big
>> political or election programme or no programme at all even though this is
>> not the case, certainly less so than with parts of the other parties you
>> can call it biased reporting, or a media shitstorm, if you allow.
>> Furthermore, the current discussion about Nazis: I am sure the other
>> parties have the same structural problems, it just does not come to light
>> because the unfortunate racist, sexist or revisionist statements by members
>> of other parties are not made on the Internet usually but at their weekly
>> pub-meeting sort of shows that too. Instead of trying to analyze those
>> facts and then report on them the media just asks 'do the pirates have a
>> problem with Nazis'? Instead of saying: 'hey, we have this problem in our
>> society, and possibly in other parties as well, the transparency of the
>> Pirate Party just exemplifies it' they question whether we are fit to lead
>> the country.
>>
>> It does not help of course that some of the party members that were
>> elected into important positions reveal rather troublesome statements, not
>> because those statements are wrong (most of them are not, at least not if
>> you are a free-speech maximalist (which I am not, however, but I try to
>> understand what and why they say it here), but because those statements
>> will be misunderstood and misinterpreted by the media and society at large,
>> which understandably is particularly sensitive with these topics in
>> Germany. Overall, we need to learn on how to get better at this kind of
>> stuff, and those that hold positions like Carsten Schulz (candidate for
>> Hanover center for the 2013 state elections here who is an advocate of
>> absolute freedom of speech and unfortunately chose the holocaust as the
>> yard stick to measure it with and had his candidacy taken away because of
>> that) need to present their positions in a much more sober way that makes
>> it clear why they have that position. Doing so as a candidate for a
>> political mandate certainly will not help then. The same goes for what
>> HaSe, the chairman of the Berlin Pirates, wrote. The problem is not that we
>> have people like them in the party. The problem is that they do not know
>> how to present their ideas in a way that can not be misunderstood, and the
>> problem is that they were elected in positions that make it seem like those
>> positions are shared by many or most German pirates, which they most
>> certainly are not.
>> You should keep in mind that in the 50s (which is when FDP, SPD and
>> CDU/CSU were born) most of German society had some history with the nazis,
>> as the whole country was nazified, and only a few German antifascist
>> actually made it out of the continent. Even the Greens had problems with
>> right-wing extremists at their very beginning, and the left party's
>> communist GDR history hardly is that much better.
>>
>> I do not think the people that held offices but were revealed to have
>> been members of the NPD (neonazi party) before and subsequently resigned
>> are that problematic, and I am sure that Bodo Thiersen, who does not only
>> call for the right to deny the holocaust existed, but actually also holds
>> that very opinion more or less openly (which is illegal in Germany) will be
>> kicked out sooner or later, since he clearly does not belong into our party
>> (as opposed to Carsten Schulz, who does not deny the holocaust happened).
>>
>> In that sense I just hope that we all learn how to deal with the media
>> better, that glimpses like Mr Delius' do not happen anymore by our
>> top-personal, and that people like HaSe either mask their opinions that can
>> be misinterpreted while holding office or just do not get into offices like
>> that anymore. The Pirate Party is no place for Nazis and holocaust deniers,
>> and we have to make that clear to everyone, especially media and the
>> public. We need to communicate our ideas in a way that they can not be
>> misunderstood (and we are learning how to do that, I hope).
>>
>> The other problem regarding some media calling parties that are not ready
>> to form coalitions not fit to be elected to parliament: How do they think
>> democracy works? How is a new party supposed to learn and get ready for
>> taking the responsibility an actual government position brings with it if
>> not as part of the opposition?
>>
>> I think we need to relax over this, just treat this a way we all treat
>> shitstorms all the time, do our things, stay calm, and keep on doing good
>> work. This includes improving our communication, both 'internally' and with
>> the media, so that we get misunderstood less.
>>
>> -J
>>
>>
>>> If your first response is to call it an attack, or an attempt to play
>>> dirty, rather than dealing with the points raised, then you might have
>>> a future as a media coordinator for the US Republican party. That's
>>> their shtick - everything is an attack, an attempt to trick them into
>>> saying something bad, a 'gotcha question', etc. It's what you fall
>>> back on when you can't deal with the issues raised.I thought we were
>>> above this.
>>>
>>> Andrew
>>>
>>> On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 6:29 AM, Francisco George
>>> <francisco.george at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> > Well anyway it seems that Der Spiegel is the spear lance of coordinated
>>> > attacks as Lennstar said we are in phase III.
>>> >
>>> > http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,828588,00.html
>>> >
>>> > 2012/4/23 <pp.international.general-request at lists.pirateweb.net>
>>> >>
>>> >> Re: "interesting" Spiegel piece this week (Justus R?meth)
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > ____________________________________________________
>>> > Pirate Parties International - General Talk
>>> > pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
>>> > http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
>>> >
>>> ____________________________________________________
>>> Pirate Parties International - General Talk
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>>>
>>>
>>
>
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