[pp.int.general] IMPORTANT MATTERS

[mattias.bjarnemalm at piratpartiet.se]

Dear Antonio

I think the Pirate movement would benefit widely from a fork and would 
suggest that you, not only to save your sanity but also for the greater 
good, start working on the fork right now. I don't belive that anyone 
who've read your previous emails about the Prague conference is going to 
act just because you've sent yet one more. And I don't think that the 
Kazan conference will live up to your expectations. So you might as well 
get to work straight away.

Do take heed though, that this list is for the current PPI, so you 
should send no more than one letter here inviting people to your fork. 
After that I will assume that any other email from you is spam and will 
treat it accordingly.

Best of luck with Pirates 2.0!

/Mab


On 2013-04-15 21:01, Antonio Garcia wrote:
> 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...
>
> ... Ill 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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