[pp.int.general] IMPORTANT MATTERS

[Antonio Garcia]

IMPORTANT MATTERS

Dear fellow brethren, as I have to admire the courage you have all shown
in keeping silent about the important matters that haunt our community in
the run up to next weekends PPI General Assembly in Kazan...

... I'll give it one last try before I feel myself obliged (my mental
sanity as a Pirate makes it as much as unavoidable) to FORK the whole
movement to make sure logic, ethic and true pirate spirit still has a
place where it can thrive.

When I attended the 2012 PPI General Assembly in Prague, I did so because
I had ideas and strategies I wanted to share with the broader internatio-
nal pirate community.

There was one known problem though, the bid of the Catalan Pirate Party to
become a full member of PPI the year before, and their stated ambitions to
have any obstacle that made it impossible then removed from the Statutes
of the PPI in Prague. So I remained silent about my ideas and strategies as
long as there was no sound conclusion from the international pirate commu-
nity on the matter that would tell me I had come to the right place, or
not.

As the Prague PPI GA was held a few weeks prior to two important local
elections in Germany, and of course the vote on the catalan amendments
would have to pass with a two-thirds majority, I envisaged a pacifying
strategy... that would keep irritation and fighting at a minimum. I convin-
ced my two fellow delegates of the fact that it would do the pirate move-
ment NO good if the GA became such an open fight that the numerously pre-
sent german press could paint an image of pirates... as they have been able
to do just before the Lower Saxony elections. So I suggested to avoid any
direct confrontation with our strayed Catalan brethren and even vote posi-
tive to their amendments in public (thank you for tweeting that priceless
picture, Slim) to pacify the GA, and instead to lobby the individual dele-
gates of the present pirate parties to convince them one by one of the fact
that opening the pandoras box of more than one pirate party per country
would be a very bad idea. I had to convince only 1/3 of them to have the
proposed amendments sacked.

I can not get rid of the idea that somebody else came up with a different
strategy to get rid of the embarassing amendments... to run out of time and
have their treatment reported to a future GA.

This created a situation where of course, by virtue of the lack of resolu-
tion on the matter... I kept lobbying, and I kept silent about any other
kind of contribution because I would not contribute anything to a communi-
ty that created us a second Gibraltar. As a lesser evil, I could accept to
have to wait with my ideas.

So the Prague GA of PPI was heading straight towards leaving all amendments
but the ones that had been tabled because they affected Board and CoA com-
position untreated... and I imagined that even when I was almost sure of
a victory for my strategy... the fact of postponement was only a waste of
time and not a defeat... and I accepted that outcome.

Alas, our Catalan brethren, seeing their ambitions thwarted, and Kenneth
almost crying because he was going to miss his most coveted birthday pre-
sent... resorted to blackmailing. When Thomas Gaul told them he regretted
to have to be seen as the bad boy because he had to end the GA without the
catalans having achieved their goals... Kenneth replied that... yeah, he
could be the bad boy too...

... and he really could, he could derail the PPI GA in such a lousy way
that the massively present german press would have something nice to write
about pirates just a month before two very important regional elections in
Germany.

I have to recognize, Thomas Gaul resisted all that could be deemed reasona-
ble, considering the risks.

But the demagogic and populistic Kenneth, seeing his birthday present va-
nish, called for a vote upon the full membership of the Catalan Pirate
Party to the PPI, and at some point Thomas had to find a way out.

It came when the remote delegates of the Australian Pirate Party, unable to
follow the incidents in real time only through the limited impressions that
went through the video stream... asked merely that the situation be clear-
ly explained to them. Somebody at the GA table choose to interpret this as
if the Aussies had submitted the motion the Catalans were desperately
asking for... as to be able to lower the tension and save the PPI GA for
the Germans.

Where no motion on the subject was possible, by Statutes, a call for clari-
fication was converted into an illegal motion.

So, a vote was organized. Something that could not have been anticipated in
any strategy... not the least because it should not be possible according
to the current PPI Statutes.

First point I want to make very clear: nowhere in the current Statutes of
the PPI does it allow for any membership decision to be taken as a result
of a simple vote of the GA. There are procedures to be followed to become a
member of PPI... you present a candidacy following strict formal and con-
tent rules at least four weeks ahead of the GA, AND all member parties get
that information at least two weeks before the GA so that they can delibe-
rate on what their vote towards every candidate should be. Hell, we had a
CoA ruling as to whether the candidates that had submitted their paperwork
after the deadline were to be pardoned that slight error, and we decided
to have them wait one year. The Catalans had not submitted any candidacy
papers, as by their own strategy they needed to have the Statutes changed
first to allow for more than one full member party per country before they
should even try.

No candidate, no four week prior submittal of papers, no notice to the
other members that they had that candidature to consider, no presentation
when all candidates presented themselves... no nothing. They had had an
other strategy that had been thwarted... and their improvisation on the
situation to get what they wanted... had no chance at all to fit within the
framework of the existing rules everybody had to abide by.

The MOTION and VOTE... were illegal and completely void... to begin with.

Anyone could have them annulled in court, by the simplest of requests.

But I choose not to do so, in order not to ruin the GA for the Germans...
because it could as well be done a week later, without the pesky press as
a witness and everybodies guts hostage to the situation.

Something else I decided on the fly, as we were improvising now, was to
keep calm and not deviate from the plan I had been heralding for the votes
of the amendments. After two days of telling everyone we would vote green
to the amendments to maintain peace as possible in Spain and at the GA, I
figured out nobody would understand a red vote on our part, even if for
something different as a motion on the core matter of the issue... so I
decided to vote green. The motion was VOID anyway and results would be
annulled, so I choose not to create confusion and give all the delegates
what they were expecting, so that they could proceed the way they had al-
ready made up their minds instead of having to improvise upon unexpected
conditions at the last minute (funny, the moment in the stream where one
delegate tries to pull down the hand with a green card of an other delegate
of probably the same party).

The vote, that was invalid because the supposed motion was illegal... suc-
cumbed to the populist approach of the Catalans that had staged a very
infantilizing and circuslike presentation by verbally skilled demagogue
Kenneth...

... and resulted in a SIMPLE MAYORITY. If I recall from mind correctly...
8 in favour, 5 against, 5 abstentions. Alas, Statutes demand a 2/3 majori-
ty of ALL VOTES CAST.

Gregory Engels, the Überburocrat, has tried to argue with me that 8 is 2/3
of 13, even if barely...NOT. Others have argued that if I had explained
things better their vote would not have been an abstention...

... but the fact is that 8 is NOT 2/3 of 18, so I have to thank them for
their abstentions as much as I would have thanked them for their NO vote.

Definitely... not even by the results of that vote, had its casting been
deemed valid which it is definitely NOT, the Catalans achieved the acqui-
sition of full membership status.

But soit, the GA ended without further trouble for our German brethren...

... and the oddyssey before the PPI Court of Arbitration began.

First, I left it to the initiative of some other Pirate Party to file a
complaint. Anyones would do, as the situation was crystal clear. Better to
avoid the Civil War at home by being the ones with the initiative if it
could be avoided. 

The UK PP gave it a try... and the Court of Arbitration, invested with not
logic but surreal powers... came with a resolution that gifted Spain of a
second Gibraltar by doing some wishful thinking interpretation of the
meaning of the term "country" in our current PPI Statutes. Later develop-
ments show that in terms of disambiguation almost all pirates prefer the
term "souvereign state".

But the Court decision served its purpose (even if it rewrote the PPI Sta-
tutes to be able to circumvent the lack of discrete decision powers of the
GA in granting full membership to anyone out of the blue, as clearly shown
by the CoA ruling on candidate members at the GA itself) and PP-CAT got
its ill-gotten full member status idioticratically enshrined by the CoA
of PPI.

I could not get the backing of the Board of PP-ES to file a complaint in
the name of the Party, because they "wanted no troubles". They preferred
the stick of CoA up their arses.

So I had to fall back to a provision of the provisionally enforced rules
of procedure of the PPI Court of Arbitration that stated that anyone
could file an anonymous complaint in matters where infringement to the
PPI Statutes was involved. As this was the case regarding the motion to
vote the full membership of PP-CAT through a "spontaneous" motion, side-
tracking normal informed procedure, and also because of the twisting of
the wording of the statutes articles in the sentence of the CoA to grant
the GA more discretionary powers regarding membership matters than she
really has.

Again our Überchief Gregory Engels tried to argue that PP-CAT did not have
to follow the only available standard procedure (submit candidature pa-
pers on a four week deadline before GA, all parties informed of the can-
didature two weeks in advance of the GA. Sadly... our Statutes do not
mention the existence of any other way to obtain any membership status,
be it an brand new membership or a membership status change.

So I filed my anonymous complaint argumented in such a way that there was
no legal way to escape the pretended outcome. No argument could derail
my reasoning.

And then, in a shrewd move, our Überchief took advantage of a badly worded
complaint of the Swiss Pirate Party threathening to sue PPI... to offer
the head of all the members of the CoA on a silver platter as a compromise
and be sued in hell if necessary otherwise, and the Swiss took the bait.

So, without functioning Court of Arbitration... my invincible complaint
could not be processed... and remains queued until the General Assembly
herself in Kazan, or the Court of Arbitration elected by it, can resume
working on the pending cases.

There is one glitch though... as my complaint is crucial on deciding
whether the Catalan Pirate Party has voting rights in the PPI Kazan
General Assembly, and the votes of the Catalan Pirate Party can be
decisive for any voting done... whether they have the right to vote or
not is the FIRST issue the PPI GA in Kazan will have to take a decision
about. There is no escaping it. Just in the same way as the CoA had to
decide in Prague about whether those candidates that submitted their
candidature after the deadline could be allowed in anyway and influence
the votes from that moment on, or not.

Some have been speculating about my ability to defend my pretensions, as
when saying that my pirate party, PP-ES, has not submitted any amendments
to the PPI Statutes pursuing that goal, or that I have not nor will be
elected to be a delegate and thus I will have been denied any right to
a voice to have my concerns reach the PPI GA... and what can not reach
through the bureaucracy our Überchief controls... simply does not exist.

I believe that I am a pirate, and that nothing more should be needed to
have the oportunity to present my griefs to the General Assembly on such
sensible matters.

For, if we do not respect logic, do not respect ethic, do not respect
observance of our own Statutes and internal rules...

... what good is it to call ourselves Pirates and pretend to not be
politics as usual?

Please excuse me if I have bothered you needlessly, I am working for a
better pirate future, against all conceivable odds, either from foes but
also from should-be friends, and I have little alternative left to make
sure that what I have to say is heard and understood by enough pirates.

I will not be present in Kazan. Even if I received one very generous offer
to have all my expenses funded, my administrative situation in Belgium,
together with the fact that my spanish id card and passport are expired,
make it extremely hard and costly to obtain the needed russian visa that
is required to enter the country.

And I already wasted 1/3 of my total wealth being present in Prague, it
is not reasonable to spend money, mine or otherwise, to gamble on the
usefulness of whatever could be decided in Kazan.

I will decide on what to do further when the results from Kazan reach me.


Antonio García
still member of the Spanish Pirate Party
still Member of the Board of the Spanish Pirate Party.
 		 	   		  
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