Pirate Party Takes 9% Of The Vote In Berlin Elections, Wins A Bunch Of Seats In Parliament
from the that-makes-things-interesting dept
The Pirate Party scored a nice victory a few years ago, having two of its members elected to the European Parliament, but despite a few tries, it had not been able to elect anyone to various state or federal legislatures... until now. TorrentFreak has all the details, but the German Pirate Party was apparently able to secure nearly 9% of the vote in the latest Berlin state parliamentary elections, which should translate into 15 seats in the Berlin Parliament. While many who don't understand the Pirate Party platform think it's just about file sharing, the fact is that more and more young people are recognizing that digital freedom is an important issue. I've long been on the record that I think the name of the party greatly distracts from its overall goals, but I do recognize the reason the party decided to go that way. Getting nearly 9% of the vote in any election for a relatively unknown party is quite impressive. Given that it's Germany, I have to imagine that the ridiculous state of German copyright law played a large role in leading to this election result. If anything it supports the viewpoint that the more draconian copyright law becomes, the less people are going to respect it. The question now is whether or not those elected will actually be able to have any impact, and if the party itself can leverage this into something more.
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Filed Under: berlin, germany, parliament, pirate party
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Re: "Free" Elections
Those few honest politicians are kept shuttered and powerless--or killed if they get too far out of hand. Political parties which have not been co-opted are kept out of the media reports. The purpose of holding elections is to propagate the illusion of choice; while in reality the country's political machinations are nothing more than a puppet show to keep us all distracted from those who are truly in control.
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There is a lot of sentiment along those lines in the US population. As our two parties seem to seek the extremes there are a lot of people in the middle who are sick of the whole thing. If the Pirate Party presented itself properly in the US I could see it getting a following very quickly. Passing things like Protect IP and ACTA could give a US Pirate Party a huge boost.
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A group was started with those themes in the US but was rapidly co-oped by the corporates and the message was changed to "get government out of our corporate regulation and into our reproductive rights instead" and "death to the poor"
That groups name was the Tea Party
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The difference is that the Tea Party thinks that it is fine if its own biases and prejudices are used to make the decisions about my private life.
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In that case, I expect to see The Pirate Party control both the House and Senate after 2012 election.
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By this I'm guessing you you mean extreme ends of 'right of center'?
Because the Dems are definitely not 'extreme left'.
Seems anymore the US has 'slightly right of center' and 'extremely right of center' as the main two parties.
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Perhaps concerning copyright policy, but it should be noted that the German Pirate Party political agenda seems to have been much broader than the Swedish counterpart. While the Swedish Pirate Party deliberately refused to take a stance on any left/right issues so as to be able to gather more support and foster cooperation among copyright reformers on both sides of the political spectrum the German sister party seems to be clearly oriented to the left, although I believe they still think of themselves as protecting many liberal values.
Of course the left/right scale is often not very informative when applied to information politics. For example I have found that some of the best critique of political plans to roll out a mass-surveillance state here in Sweden has come from parties which I would normally never vote for.
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*sigh*
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it is a movement, and it's growing stronger and stronger. i hope other countries will follow, because pirate parties are about the future of politics itself
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Wow! the pirates did it again!
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No. It's more the experience of the people of Berlin, that secret contracts aren't good for them. The "more democracy" and transparency approach is what gained the 9% (plus other Pirate topics, like affordable education, free access to data (in science and public data as well), etc.). Sure, some certainly have voted for them due to their position on copyright, but that's not a real topic on the state level.
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Recall
These pirate politicians should be sanctioned for their reckless acts against these other political figures who spent millions in hard earned money to advertise their campaign, and are now suffering from emotional stress because they have lost some of their votes.
/SARCASM
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Woo hoo!
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Don't be surprised at what might happen if enough people get angry, frustrated, and then decide to do something collectively to rectify the imbalance. Let's just hope that it doesn't devolve into something as violent as what happened in the incident I site above...
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+1 funny
(really)
Rioting, arson, murder and butt-rape.... over your access to free content being shut off? First of all, there's a big difference between the gangsters in Attica and the effete Nancy-boys who dominate the ranks of the pirates, apologists and their cheerleaders. You sissies couldn't knock the skin off of a rice pudding.
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My Lord, you're a transparent douche. I saw your pirate blow-buddy Falkvinge getting his panties in a bunch over this "nice victory." You two are peas from the same pod--both pirate scumbag pieces of shit.
Congrats on this Pyrrhic victory. Fucking asshat.
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http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-movies-on-bittorrent-110919/
And that people can rip off a bluray disc, producing an avi file that is just 1 gigabyte in size with greater quality than a DVD.
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Little mikee bad... AC good.
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Fail. In order to call something a Pyrrhic victory, the side that "wins" has to have lost something considered a greater value than what was won. A political party going from having zero seats on the German parliament to having 15 can only be described as an Epic win.
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Smells like fear and desperation from the copytards again...
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hahahha. what a fascinating world you live in.
Let's see:
Six strikes.....check
Great Britain.... check
Europe..... check
Canada.... check
Protect IP Act.... 33 sponsors, House bill looking even better... check
Felony Streaming.... folded into House bill.... check
Gosh. I guess you're right , whatever will we do?
While this won't eliminate piracy it will reduce it. Maybe you can enumerate your victories so we may be in fear and awe of you. But from where I sit, you are looking like Big Content's BeeAitch.
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Since your dumb ass will be the one obeying these immoral laws, you will suffer much more than I will. As the internet becomes unusable for you and your ilk, I will be enjoying the entertainment I want, when I want, and how I want while you'll be stuck eating the same shit they feed you now.
Bon appetit!
Oh, and BTW, usually it's only the losing side that feels they have to make some sort of petty list of their victories. If you're not savvy enough to know how to use the 'net, I'm not going to be the one to hold your hand and teach you.
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Since your dumb ass will be the one obeying these immoral laws, you will suffer much more than I will. As the internet becomes unusable for you and your ilk, I will be enjoying the entertainment I want, when I want, and how I want while you'll be stuck eating the same shit they feed you now.
Bon appetit!
Oh, and BTW, usually it's only the losing side that feels they have to make some sort of petty list of their victories. If you're not savvy enough to know how to use the 'net, I'm not going to be the one to hold your hand and teach you.
Nice concession speech, couldn't think of a single one, huh? Movies and music aren't high on my list of necessities. Enjoy your life in your mother's basement watching and re-watching terabytes of someone else's creative output you've stolen, bragging to your friends from your LARP league how you stuck it to the man. I'm sure you'll look back and reflect on that as the zenith of a truly pathetic life.
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This spittle-soaked rant makes me smile, because it is clearly from a desperately angry person who knows they're fighting a losing battle against a world that is moving on without them, yet utterly refuses to budge from their entrenched, outdated position on how thing used to be and still should be but aren't dammit!
"Congrats on this Pyrrhic victory."
Might want to Wiki that one and find out what it really means.
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ARRRRR How do we know you aint scurvy ridden plank dogs!
http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html
I'll keelhaul the lot of you!
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Re: ARRRRR How do we know you aint scurvy ridden plank dogs!
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Actually, in the US pirate party = clowns. About the only thing missing is the slap shoes and bulb noses. The national organization isn't even functional and its website is being run by the Florida affiliate (http://fl.pirate.is/) who themselves are a statewide embarrassment. No, people at least take terrorists seriously. These characters are armed only with seltzer bottles, cream pies and a host of really goofy political ideas. Though maybe they can talk Lord High Apologist; Mike Masnick into running for President in 2012. He'd fit right in- particularly that he's transitioned from blogger to political activist.
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As for apologist, you know that's an out-and-out lie. Mike has stated on innumerable occasions that he doesn't support so-called piracy. All he does is advocates for recognising that piracy happens, so how best to deal with it. That's a bit like calling someone who makes a suggestion to be careful of being mugged 'in favour of mugging'.
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Although I agree and would like to see more of a parliamentarian system here.
*good is not synonymous with "better than the other guy" or "least worst" in this context.
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The pirate party didn't do well because the German government is parlimentarian, it did well because the Bundestag is proportional.
Only half of the seats (299) are elected by plurality; the pirate party (I think; full results aren't out yet) won ZERO of those seats.
The other half of the seats though, are elected on party-proportional basis; by getting 9% of the vote, the pirate party is guaranteed 9% of the seats.
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But both elections use proportional systems, and it's because of this proportionality that the Pirate Party has been so successful. Which is my main point, and is still accurate.
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We need..
A 3rd party will never really appear on the ballot; the existing politicians know how to block all attempts.
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You're kidding, right? You think the German police are afraid of these patchouli oil wearing, hashish smoking pantywaists? The German cops are some hard guys. They laugh at pussies like these.
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Also: Police =/= Your corporate masters. I know you wish it was true, but it isn't
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The answer is that this will have as much impact in Germany as The Rent Is Too Damn High Party in the U.S.
It's almost s weak as reaching all the way down to Rep. Polis to circulate that lame "Dear Colleague" letter after everyone else turned you down Masnick. That's a real head scratcher. Who thought it was a good idea to circulate a letter in the House about a bill in the Senate?
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First foray into politics and Masnick is like a drunken, blind man in a minefield, staggering from one hideous explosion to the next.
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Proportional Representation
I believe state and Federal elections in the US are all strictly “first past the post”—which means each seat is won by the candidate getting the largest proportion of the vote in that seat. So a party that gets 9% of the total popular vote will typically end up with no seats at all.
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Where have you been? Masnick was behind the letter written by the so-called "tech entrepreneurs" and has Rep Polis circulating it as a "Dear Colleague" in the House right now. That's political activism.
As for apologist, you know that's an out-and-out lie. Mike has stated on innumerable occasions that he doesn't support so-called piracy. All he does is advocates for recognising that piracy happens, so how best to deal with it.
Masnick is perhaps the biggest piracy apologist on the Internet. He continuously attacks any and every reasonable measure proposed to curtail infringement. And never has he offered a single viable solution. Which includes his goofy "connect with fans" business model.
Piracy prevents new distribution models from taking root. How will a start up streaming company compete if they have to pay for content while pirate sites are able to offer the same service without having to pay for content?
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Re: He continuously attacks any and every reasonable measure proposed to curtail infringement.
Go on, we’re waiting.
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