I'm from germany, and have voted for the pirate party in recent local elections.
I'd like to add a few things:
1. The german system of government is very much different from the US. In the US you have by-and-large a "winner takes it all" voting system.
In germany, by contrast, we have a system of proportional representation. That means, winning 10% of the popular vote nets you 10% of the seats that are on the line in your voting district.
That's why we currently have 6 parties in our federal parliament ("Bundestag") - where you have only 2 parties in congress.
2. Although this is "just" a poll it isn't meaningless. The pirate party has been steadily building up momentum in the last 2 years. They now are the 5th largest party by member count in germany.
They have also scored surprisingly high wins in two recent regional elections, and are set to repeat those gains in the two upcoming elections.
3. The pirate party runs on a platform of systemic reform. They want copyright reformed to be more compatible with the 21st century. They want a reformed educational sector with more use of modern technology in the classroom, as well as improved structures (i.e. more freedom to pursue different educational models).
They also want to reform the political system at large, by having more citizen participation in political decisions. They want more public votes on specific issues, as well as more transparency (For example: ACTA was negotiated in secret and only announced to the german public once the details were finished. They pirates strongly oppose such intransparency.)
This helped them to capture the votes of young, highly educated people.
Many, but by no means all, from the "informatics" sector.
They have also mobilized many first time voters, and re-energized many people who had formerly abandoned voting.
4. What's currently also helping them is the bad state of our government (the governing coalition is in disarray), their inability to answer to the challenges shaping our future, their corruption (our head of state recently had to resign in shame), their detachedness from concerns of everyday people. This greatly helps them to get the vote of people who are disaffected with the "established" parties and who are ready to give those "political youngsters" a chance.
It's by no means guaranteed, but they seem to be on the way of becoming a serious political force in germany.
I have a lot of respect for the Pirate Party and I wish they'd put up some candidates where I could vote for them, but I have one question: how will they do "more citizen participation in political decisions" and avoid policy being set by tabloid headlines, and conservative populism. The basic problems of mob rule.
They had it coming, considering how the Greens (in the EU) were flip flopping on ACTA.
Do you happen to know what German parties ALDE http://www.alde.eu/ is linked to ? They are pro ACTA, so it would be interesting to know whether they lost a few percentage points as well ?
Politics in Germany are really interesting these days. Even if the Pirate Party should fail in the end, the discussion it brought up is already very beneficial.
I don't see the Pirate Party failing anytime soon. In fact, I'm quite surprised they're as successful already, but I cannot imagine a future where their popularity isn't raising. They are the embodiment of the younger generation (e.g. under 25, maybe under 30) that are just becoming voters and have no real say in the politics yet. They (actually We) are used to having broadband internet, smart mobile phones, etc., i.e. ubiquitous computing and free internet access. Right now, we're getting attacked head-on by the old established empires (media in particular), but the only reason that they can lobby some laws into passing is that they bribe old politicians who have no understanding and attachment to the internet, and really don't care what happens in the world after 20 years, because they will mostly be gone by then. However, the younger generations do care, and they will not accept it (barring some radical change in the social structure). When we come into power, the media empire will lose. The Pirate Parties are the only political organization that are catering to this voters need (so far - I'm assuming other parties will adapt... most politicians are not loyal to principles, but only to power).
High Pirate Party Numbers = 4 more years for Angela Merkel
I welcome the German pirates for several reasons:
- "the discussion it brought up is already very beneficial."
- they have a high turn out of former non-voters
- "harmless stupidity": The German pirates seem to be ambivalent as of now. For instance, they are the only left-wing party that's not in favor of female employee quotas (an idea so absurd, there's not even an english wikipedia entry http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frauenquote). If they dig deeper into this populist lefty anti-authoritarian theme (as it seems to be the case) the first thing they will achieve is less votes for the other left-wing parties.
And personally, I think this would be a good thing (see "female employee quotas").
This is good news. But I am not sure yet if I would vote for them (usually I do not vote). Their economic policy seems not mature enough or too much towards an even more socialist State. This is what is now failing us in most of the western Europe.
I would really like to see some groups against copyright/patent madness AND against public spending/over taxation madness we have been struggling with for the last decades. Unfortunately, it seems that in Europe those ideas tend to polarize between 2 'very' different groups such as left (and not even all) for the copyright thing and right (and not even all) for the taxes thing. And that's why I do not vote.
Fuck I just wrote a juge text but the link expired and I lost it.
Heres the short version:
Generally I agree and I would like to see that too.
About PP:
1. Basic Income (BGE) is a very liberal socal policy(something I could see Friedman or Hayek support). It rases the amount of GDP on the government side but takes away a lot of the controll and bureaucracy that is there now.
2. The want to take away alot of state power too, specially in police and military. Think about what massiv change there drug policy would make.
3. The are the only ones that I could ever see attacking finance. Because (a) the are young (b) not infiltrated by lobbiests (yet) (c) currage to trie something diffrent (think out of the box) (d) efficent use of tools and communication (work on the buget like a opensource project would be something worth trying)
Rather have liberal statist with a social side then conservativ statist with love for police (CUD) or hardcore statist like (SPD).
I encourage you to vote next time. Of course no party will ever be fully aligned with your interests. And true, the Pirate Party has only recently started to seriously think about topics outside their main fields. But no party completely pushes through their own positions anyway:
If the Pirate Party would form a coalition e.g. with the Union party, they would have to negotiate a coalition agreement. And each party will make sure that they please their clients (i.e. their voters or other supporters) sufficiently. So the Pirate Party would probably abandon their weaker positions (e.g. economic policy), but hold their ground on their main topics (copyright/patents etc.).
well i have bad news for you.
the only party in germany that is really pro free market capitalism, the FDP, is on its way to obscurity due to severe policy missteps.
All the other parties embrace, as we call it here, "social capitalism" to varying degrees.
So, in germany, you mainly have the choice between several "left leaning" parties.
When measured by US standards, most our parties are "socialist".
This has nothing to do with their politics, it is simply the fact that they offer an alternative, people will vote for them because they don't feel represented by the other parties.
They are new, they are cool, they have an "anti-authoritarian" vibe, they will achieve nothing and be forgotten in a couple of years.
The funny thing is, the "Greens" are considered old, they have achieved nothing (there's still a massive oil dependency, there are still nuclear reactors, ...) and now they panic :)
Edit: the Pirates can gain traction by promising people "if we only had the power, we could do this or that" and they can increase their popularity by simply critisizing the current parties in power ("we would have it done some other way, we would have [insert popular opinion]") but in the end they will change nothing, just read up on the history of the Greens and just replace the name with Pirates
Claiming that the Greens achieved nothing is rather ridiculous. They achieved a lot of things (most importantly that protecting the environment has become an issue none of the other parties can simply ignore). That they did not achieve everything they wanted at some point is the nature of democracy (and reality).
It's true that the Pirate Party is right now getting attention and votes through hype and protest voters, and that they choose their stances based on ideals rather than realism. They'll have all kinds of problems when these things change (as they will have to).
But the Greens are a perfect example for a new party that pulled through all this and became firmly established because their core issue is important enough.
I disagree that greens did not achieve much.
They have completely changed the political discourse in germany.
After 30 years of the greens being in the Bundestag, we now have the largest percentage of renewable energy in europe (>20% of our energy already comes from it), even the most conservative of parties now subscribe to quitting nuclear energy altogether (7 reactors have been shut down already, the rest is to follow until 2021) , we have the strictest environmental laws in europe, and on and on.
I would say the greens have been very successful by any measure.
I think it is a little bit more than that: the feeling is that the established parties are completely detached from the problems of normal people, and certainly don't represent their interests anymore. One comparatively harmless recent example: one politician got caught for cheating on her PhD (copying stuff). So she lost her job in parliament, but next she was offered a job as "science relations adviser" for the European parliament (especially her who had just betrayed the institutions of science) - a slap in the face of the honest population.
The pirate party promised to represent the real people, it is written in their genes that they want to prevent politicians being politicians just for the sake of power. For example the discussions sometimes go so far that they think their representatives in parliament should only act like puppets executing the decisions made by online votes.
Whether they'll manage to deliver is another question, but they don't claim to have all the answers and their intentions are pure.
The thing is, that lack of answers is often held against them. But if you think about it, the other parties don't have the answers either. They just stumble through blunder upon blunder (for example dealing with the financial crisis). It's just a human fallacy to assume somebody who takes a firm stance is also competent (this was even shown in psychological experiments).
I will vote for them, because in some important areas of politics they have the better offer.
And because say don't try to say things in a "politically correct" way, but just say it. No professional spokes persons, media professionals, image professionals, etc. They are (for now) just people with an option.
I disagree. I would vote for the Pirate Party if I could just for their stance on internet freedom. I'd like to see media monoliths destroyed by having their control on distribution taken away from them.
Quite interesting is also their approach to finding positions via voting on an open online platform (which is open sourced by the way: http://www.public-software-group.org/liquid_feedback ) where each member can vote itself and also delegate its vote for different topics to other members.
I didn't know that.
I was dreaming of a party that voted like this based on the input of all it's constituents since ten years or so.
Maybe I should move to Berlin after all!
You can even participate if you are not a party member.
And that's what their long term vision also includes:
Large scale, direct, participation (using digital means) of many people in the political process.
They call this concept "Liquid democracy"
I really wish I was in Europe now to participate more in this. If you ever wanted to get info politics (even only a little bit), now is the perfect time. Next elections into the Bundestag and four years later into the gov't. And in ten years the European commissioner for IT things will be a Pirate, harrr harrr!
When following politics I sometimes secretly wish I didn't move from Germany to Spain, where the political scenery is a tad more... predictable.
That being said, I see absolutely no reason why the Pirates should be part of the government. Germany has had almost 20 years of policy blocking and mindlessly bullying oppositions (from both sides of the political spectrum), but maybe this can actually change with the Pirates - an opposition that has no problem in granting the governing parties their successes.
I wonder why the photo says "Nerz Attends". His name is Sebastian Nerz. My guess is that somebody chose the first two words from a random sentence (i.e. "Nerz attends the general assembly") and tagged the photo with that as a name.
[+] [-] philippK|14 years ago|reply
I'd like to add a few things: 1. The german system of government is very much different from the US. In the US you have by-and-large a "winner takes it all" voting system. In germany, by contrast, we have a system of proportional representation. That means, winning 10% of the popular vote nets you 10% of the seats that are on the line in your voting district. That's why we currently have 6 parties in our federal parliament ("Bundestag") - where you have only 2 parties in congress.
2. Although this is "just" a poll it isn't meaningless. The pirate party has been steadily building up momentum in the last 2 years. They now are the 5th largest party by member count in germany. They have also scored surprisingly high wins in two recent regional elections, and are set to repeat those gains in the two upcoming elections.
3. The pirate party runs on a platform of systemic reform. They want copyright reformed to be more compatible with the 21st century. They want a reformed educational sector with more use of modern technology in the classroom, as well as improved structures (i.e. more freedom to pursue different educational models). They also want to reform the political system at large, by having more citizen participation in political decisions. They want more public votes on specific issues, as well as more transparency (For example: ACTA was negotiated in secret and only announced to the german public once the details were finished. They pirates strongly oppose such intransparency.)
This helped them to capture the votes of young, highly educated people. Many, but by no means all, from the "informatics" sector. They have also mobilized many first time voters, and re-energized many people who had formerly abandoned voting.
4. What's currently also helping them is the bad state of our government (the governing coalition is in disarray), their inability to answer to the challenges shaping our future, their corruption (our head of state recently had to resign in shame), their detachedness from concerns of everyday people. This greatly helps them to get the vote of people who are disaffected with the "established" parties and who are ready to give those "political youngsters" a chance.
It's by no means guaranteed, but they seem to be on the way of becoming a serious political force in germany.
[+] [-] SideburnsOfDoom|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philippK|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _k|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ch0wn|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomp|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] woodpanel|14 years ago|reply
I welcome the German pirates for several reasons:
- "the discussion it brought up is already very beneficial."
- they have a high turn out of former non-voters
- "harmless stupidity": The German pirates seem to be ambivalent as of now. For instance, they are the only left-wing party that's not in favor of female employee quotas (an idea so absurd, there's not even an english wikipedia entry http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frauenquote). If they dig deeper into this populist lefty anti-authoritarian theme (as it seems to be the case) the first thing they will achieve is less votes for the other left-wing parties.
And personally, I think this would be a good thing (see "female employee quotas").
[+] [-] viandante|14 years ago|reply
I would really like to see some groups against copyright/patent madness AND against public spending/over taxation madness we have been struggling with for the last decades. Unfortunately, it seems that in Europe those ideas tend to polarize between 2 'very' different groups such as left (and not even all) for the copyright thing and right (and not even all) for the taxes thing. And that's why I do not vote.
[+] [-] nickik|14 years ago|reply
Heres the short version:
Generally I agree and I would like to see that too.
About PP:
1. Basic Income (BGE) is a very liberal socal policy(something I could see Friedman or Hayek support). It rases the amount of GDP on the government side but takes away a lot of the controll and bureaucracy that is there now.
2. The want to take away alot of state power too, specially in police and military. Think about what massiv change there drug policy would make.
3. The are the only ones that I could ever see attacking finance. Because (a) the are young (b) not infiltrated by lobbiests (yet) (c) currage to trie something diffrent (think out of the box) (d) efficent use of tools and communication (work on the buget like a opensource project would be something worth trying)
Rather have liberal statist with a social side then conservativ statist with love for police (CUD) or hardcore statist like (SPD).
[+] [-] mduerksen|14 years ago|reply
If the Pirate Party would form a coalition e.g. with the Union party, they would have to negotiate a coalition agreement. And each party will make sure that they please their clients (i.e. their voters or other supporters) sufficiently. So the Pirate Party would probably abandon their weaker positions (e.g. economic policy), but hold their ground on their main topics (copyright/patents etc.).
[+] [-] philippK|14 years ago|reply
All the other parties embrace, as we call it here, "social capitalism" to varying degrees.
So, in germany, you mainly have the choice between several "left leaning" parties.
When measured by US standards, most our parties are "socialist".
[+] [-] jfrm|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brico|14 years ago|reply
They are new, they are cool, they have an "anti-authoritarian" vibe, they will achieve nothing and be forgotten in a couple of years.
The funny thing is, the "Greens" are considered old, they have achieved nothing (there's still a massive oil dependency, there are still nuclear reactors, ...) and now they panic :)
Edit: the Pirates can gain traction by promising people "if we only had the power, we could do this or that" and they can increase their popularity by simply critisizing the current parties in power ("we would have it done some other way, we would have [insert popular opinion]") but in the end they will change nothing, just read up on the history of the Greens and just replace the name with Pirates
[+] [-] brazzy|14 years ago|reply
It's true that the Pirate Party is right now getting attention and votes through hype and protest voters, and that they choose their stances based on ideals rather than realism. They'll have all kinds of problems when these things change (as they will have to).
But the Greens are a perfect example for a new party that pulled through all this and became firmly established because their core issue is important enough.
[+] [-] philippK|14 years ago|reply
After 30 years of the greens being in the Bundestag, we now have the largest percentage of renewable energy in europe (>20% of our energy already comes from it), even the most conservative of parties now subscribe to quitting nuclear energy altogether (7 reactors have been shut down already, the rest is to follow until 2021) , we have the strictest environmental laws in europe, and on and on.
I would say the greens have been very successful by any measure.
[+] [-] Tichy|14 years ago|reply
The pirate party promised to represent the real people, it is written in their genes that they want to prevent politicians being politicians just for the sake of power. For example the discussions sometimes go so far that they think their representatives in parliament should only act like puppets executing the decisions made by online votes.
Whether they'll manage to deliver is another question, but they don't claim to have all the answers and their intentions are pure.
The thing is, that lack of answers is often held against them. But if you think about it, the other parties don't have the answers either. They just stumble through blunder upon blunder (for example dealing with the financial crisis). It's just a human fallacy to assume somebody who takes a firm stance is also competent (this was even shown in psychological experiments).
[+] [-] yaix|14 years ago|reply
I will vote for them, because in some important areas of politics they have the better offer.
And because say don't try to say things in a "politically correct" way, but just say it. No professional spokes persons, media professionals, image professionals, etc. They are (for now) just people with an option.
[+] [-] Falkvinge|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hessenwolf|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpdus|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtrimpe|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philippK|14 years ago|reply
And that's what their long term vision also includes: Large scale, direct, participation (using digital means) of many people in the political process. They call this concept "Liquid democracy"
See here for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_Democracy
http://liqd.net/en/
[+] [-] Falkvinge|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yaix|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maebert|14 years ago|reply
That being said, I see absolutely no reason why the Pirates should be part of the government. Germany has had almost 20 years of policy blocking and mindlessly bullying oppositions (from both sides of the political spectrum), but maybe this can actually change with the Pirates - an opposition that has no problem in granting the governing parties their successes.
[+] [-] sasvari|14 years ago|reply
edit: some more information: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,826540,00...
[+] [-] Falkvinge|14 years ago|reply