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Thursday, September 22, 2011

Pirates

During my senior year at UCSB in the fall of 2008 I went to a talk given by Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez who were running as independents in the election. At that point in time I was pretty sure I knew where my vote was going, but I still wanted to hear what he had to say. It was an eclectic audience, ranging in attendance from scholars and university administrators, to journalists and media representatives, Nader supporters, as well as Nader protestors, and probably more than a few people like myself who were just there to partake in the experience.


I remember leaving before the event had come to a proper close as suddenly a Nader campaign worker started straight up asking the audience to give them money. After all the key speakers had finished, this guy takes the stage to talk more about the campaign, how hard they work to get recognition, how much it costs to travel throughout the country and then eventually asks point blank, “Who here in this room is willing to commit a thousand dollars to support Ralph Nader’s campaign?” What followed can only be described as one of the most uncomfortable silences I have ever been party to. In fact I think he started at some higher number like two thousand and after the first uncomfortable silence lowered his initial request to a more manageable amount. Let’s face it, it’s unlikely that you’ll find someone willing to spontaneously donate a thousand dollars in a room filled by and large with university students, which if they were anything like me at that time, were facing student loan debt, credit card debt and an unwelcoming job market where liberal arts degrees aren’t the most coveted commodity in the midst of a banking crisis and impending economic meltdown, and who didn’t even have a hundred to spare, let alone for campaign contributions. But I digress… What follows below is taken from a notebook where I scribbled random quotes and ideas from throughout the talk (some may be paraphrased)


“You keep voting for winners but you keep losing.” (Gonzalez on the two parties)
“In what other society do people have to be persuaded to vote for someone who espouses their beliefs?” (Nader on obstructions facing third party candidates in a “bi-party dualopoly” wherein voters end up “supporting the last worse candidate.”)
"Corporate crime, put crooks in cells" (Nader on Wall street criminality)
“Why do artificial entities (corporations) have the same constitutional rights and protections as humans who vote?” (Nader on the Fed’s bailouts)
"Cut military budget, solar energy, no nuclear power"
"Consumer distraction, corporate sleight of hand” (Nader on lack of action against aforementioned corporations)
Nader’s closing line, a Chinese proverb, “To know and not to do is not to know."


Why am I talking about Ralph Nader and what has he got to do with pirates? These are excellent questions. I was reminded of smaller party politics as I was watched the news on Sunday evening, which reported the results of Berlin’s recent state election. I guess it’s worth taking a minute to do a brief explanation of this election and the structure of German government in general. Please bear in mind that I am neither an expert on government [especially not on one as complex and layered as Germany’s] nor am I politically inclined [in Germany] as I am not allowed to vote here.


The election on the 18th was a state election wherein constituents (people of Berlin) voted for members of Berlin’s parliament (141 seats up for election) and the city mayor. There are a number of German political parties; the majors, namely those who have seats and thus influence in the federal legislative body (Bundestag), are: the Christian Democratic Union, Christian Social Union, Social Democratic Party, Free Democratic Party, The Left, and The Greens. In the interest of brevity, and because I am not fully able to explain all the differences between the parties, a list will have to do. But suffice it to say, it’s a multi-party system. In addition to the big hitters there are other political parties represented in state parliaments (such as Berlin’s) and other minor parties, which run the political spectrum of causes (Social Equality Party, Feminist Party, Ecological Democratic Party, the list goes on and on).


So the polls close and after all the votes are counted the new layout of Berlin’s parliament is drawn up. How many seats were won or lost by the respective parties? Do individual parties account this election in terms of losses or gains from the last state election, which for Berlin was in 2006? Has there been a shift in majority representation? Is there a new coalition? (A crude explanation of political coalitions: when different political parties ally themselves. For example, the previous coalition in Berlin was known as “red red” [different political parties have different colors] consisting of the Social Democratic Party and The Left, a coalition that spans from the center-left to the left). These are the typical questions reported on after an election.


The post-election stats are published and what was interesting about this election for Berlin was that a freshman on the ticket, the Pirate Party (in its first state election), cleaned up 15 seats in this election, about 9% of the voter turnout. Who are the Pirates? Well actually it’s an international political movement active in 33 countries that has its beginnings in Sweden. The flagship Pirate Party has members present in the European Parliament and owes much of its following to a 2006 Swedish police raid of a facility hosting the Pirate Bay, a file sharing website which is also a board member of the Pirate Party. The police seized all servers and as a trial was put into motion Sweden’s Pirate Party membership surged in response to the website’s shutdown, more than doubling its size in just a few days. In the most recent European Parliament elections Pirates captured 7% of the Swedish vote. In Germany, the Pirate Party was founded a bit later in 2006 and like its predecessor suddenly gained a huge following. The support came in 2009 in response to a piece of legislation that resulted in blocking certain websites. The legislation, interpreted by some as a slippery slope to censorship, prompted tens of thousands of people to sign a petition on the Pirate Party’s website to voice their opposition to the law. The petition was signed by 134,000 people -- the largest number of people to ever put their names on a single Bundestag petition.

The Pirates aim to “bridge the gap” between the ever growing Internet generation, which uses the Internet to exchange and gather information, and the contemporary politicians who according to the Pirate Party are “of a different generation,” and thus have a different take on information privacy and regulation, copyright and patents including Internet piracy, for example, the term which inspired the party’s name. The Pirate Party, who wants to ensure that downloads for personal use are legal, appeals to interests of a considerable sector of young voters and now has a foot in the door. It remains to be seen what kind of role this fledgling party will now play in the state’s parliament. Perhaps over a few decades the Pirates will be as prevalent in Parliament as the Greens, who 30 years ago also had humble beginnings in Germany. Incidentally the Pirate Party pillaged a reported 17,000 former Green Party voters in Sunday’s election. As I said this Pirate movement has gone international with active parties all around the world. I wonder if the Pirates could ever aspire to fairly notable third party status in the US…

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