Just having come back to Stockholm from Berlin and the celebrations of Piratenpartei’s great result in Germany (which the New York Times correctly quoted me on as a highscore), I thought I had to share some of it.
Getting bandwidth in the actual party location was a pipe dream at best, which is why I had to be selective and get the best photo out that I could – the one on the “WIN!” article which I also sent to TorrentFreak. It was kind of funny, actually: I had checked before the exit polls arrived, and there was plenty of bandwidth in the air everywhere. Good. Good recon. After the exit polls had arrived, there was not a connection to be found in the air. (I finally got enough to send our press release, and some time later still, post my own article with the photo.)
Anyway, I wanted to share this particular moment with you. It is the magic moment when the exit polls arrive, and people learn of what their real result looks like for the first time. You can hear the results being read, and some cheering as FDP get a bad result (the FDP is a party that claimed they were liberal and then shaped policy that was anything but, so the Piratenpartei held a particular grudge against them). Then come the results of the Piratenpartei.
Enough said. Just watch:
An article (in english) about the election results of Pirates in the “super election year 2011”, about server confiscations and disinformation of the german publically financed TV:
http://crowdleaks.org/pirate-party-move-in-to-berlin-parliament-election-victory-2011/
Should any information in this article need correction/additional info, please submit the info. The article will be corrected (Crowdleaks is a crowdsourcing work of non-professional journalists and therefore depends on feedback. The crowdsourcing functionality has been switched off in May, but the new solution is in work 🙂
Nice post!
e-lena: That disinformation sounds terrible 🙁 Although I’m perfectly aware of what it means to be considered a “threat” by those interests, not really “only” disinformation about politics to the public is the problem… These guys (first and foremost the MPs) are probably going to have to take on quite some stress in the dirtiest conceivable ways for speaking their word and actually daring to walk it too.
I am sorry but my appended link is not in english, but I think that the content of it does really fit into your blog here, Rick.
http://www.faz.net/artikel/C32306/piratenpartei-die-linux-demokratie-30688838.html
As a summary it says that what the whole pirate party spirit is simply a consequence of the open source thought that now there are tools to implement an open politic.
And I personally really believe that the success of the berlin pirate party is based on their transparency thought, less because of their other topics. people have the feeling to really take apart in politics with their help. And when I finish to think this to the end it really makes sense. The pirate party is mainly interested in implementing a tool to outsource the political decision finding to the people. When this would be done all the other party topics are needless anymore because the people would be enabled to have the control about them on their own.
Please correct me if I am wrong but isnt or shouldnt thos be the focus of all pirate parties? to eltablish a tool for political transparency?
That is actually one way you could expand or highlight the platform. Transparency in government and a way to involve the public in politics without the SOP of obfuscation and scapegoating used in practice today would be very popular with everyone.
I think the problem is that the Swedish pirate party takes this so much for granted that they forget the ordinary citizen would react positively to the message of “Let’s actually see how the government works”.
[…] dem Gründer der schwedischen „Piratpartiet“, der vor allem die Bedeutung dieses zweiten großen Erfolges (nach dem Einzug eines Piraten ins europäische Parlament) für die internationale Piratenbewegung […]
[…] dem Gründer der schwedischen „Piratpartiet“, der vor allem die Bedeutung dieses zweiten großen Erfolges (nach dem Einzug eines Piraten ins europäische Parlament) für die internationale Piratenbewegung […]