8 ms·

Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

109 points by ytNumbers 14y ago

mburshteyn 14y ago
There's a new California Pirate Party springing up too: http://www.calpirateparty.org/ http://www.calpirateparty.org/
forgetmyid 14y ago
"The reason for their quick growth is that they are new and that's enough at the moment. But not in the long run." Gero Neugebauer Political scientist, Free University Berlin So what? To paraphrase Keynes, in the long run we are all dead. I really dislike such dismissal without some sort of context such as whether a short term gain might or might not have any effect and why. But then again the journalist only wanted a contrary quote for 'balance'.
- soc88 14y ago
  The fun thing is that “they are new” now lasts for almost 6 years. How long will we have to wait for the “long run” now, considering that exactly the same thing was said 6 years ago? :-)
  - forgetmyid 14y ago
    Indeed. I also expect they will have the usual turbulence of a new political movement. Infighting, policy changes, etc and that all of that will be used to again dismiss the larger reason for their existence.
  - netrus 14y ago
    They ride the "we are new" horse themselves, to explain their lack of expertise and knowledge in many pressing political issues. They are a new party, so people will look over some gaps, but this cannot last forever (maybe not even until the federal election next year).
- NameNickHN 14y ago
  This is one scientist's opinion and as we know there are as many opinions as there are scientists. Probably more. Roughly a generation after the Second Worldwar the Green Party was founded and there to stay. After another generation the Pirate Party movement comes to live. Seems to me that each generation is - at some point - fed up enough with their elders to band together against them.
- stesch 14y ago
  Journalists (and political scientist) don't quite understand the Piratenpartei. The members of the German Pirate Party would happily go back to the things they were doing before. The party was founded as self-defense. Some members see it as a goal to make the Piratenpartei unnecessary. Not within the next 5 years, but maybe later.
10dpd 14y ago
I've always been intreagued by the notion of democracy and allowing people to choose their leadership. All political systems sound good on paper. But my point is this. At a psychological level people are driven by emotion rather than logic. Most of the general public do not understand or are interested in politics. They do not have the indepth knowledge required to make a good decision. Rather they rely on the media to tell them who to vote for. Depending on the economic circumstances at the time, the ordinary person will vote for the person who promises to overcome their short-term pain, while ignoring the consequences for the long term. The most recent example is Greece, where the people have voted for a government that is threatening to wreck all progress to date on solving their financials issues for the sake of easing austerity. Thoughts?
- jellicle 14y ago
  Yes, democracy is the worst system of governance we have, except for all the others. In Greece, voters punished the two main parties who colluded to fuck them over so badly, by voting for other parties. In fact, almost 20% of the parliament is now composed of members of brand new parties - brand new because many voters don't feel their interests are being represented by the older parties. Isn't this result exactly what we would want and hope for in a system of governance? > is threatening to wreck all progress to date on solving their financials issues for the sake of easing austerity. Oh my.
  - 10dpd 14y ago
    "If Athens doesn't keep its word, it will be a democratic choice. The consequence will be that the basis for fresh aid will disappear." Jens Weidmann, German bank chief (quote from today from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18046280 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18046280 )
    - hef19898 14y ago
      That's european union understanding of democracy. you can vote for what ever you want as long as it is what we want. they showed it time and again. Examples include the austrian government with far right participation, the felt 100 votes about eu membership and maastricht contracts (sometimes three times until they finally got slim pro vote). And thats one of the reasons the pirates and others are growing that fast: people are pissed by that, espacially the younger ones. just my 5 cents.
muuh-gnu 14y ago
In other news, former German president Roman Herzog, member of the (for now) largest party, the Christian Democratical Union CDU, suggested that having new parties like the Pirates entering parliaments is bad for overall democracy because it is increasing political diversity, and should be combated by again increasing the election threshold, which is now at 5%. According to the interview he gave recently, increasing political diversity in the parliament decreases support of a goverment and the chancellor, which could destabilize a country, meaning less dissent in the parliament, more stable country. The two big parties are basically getting threatened by the internet and are obviously ready to go nuclear by threatening to simply team up, get supermajority required for a constitutional change, and "optimize" the political diversity down to 2 or 3, US style, maybe even 1, by simply throwing the annoying emerging competition out of the parliaments.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  More parties being bad for democracy is extremely funny. It would be nice to see a total abolition of parties, in fact in most democratic constitutions the word 'party' is never mentioned. People should vote for other people, not for parties.
  - muuh-gnu 14y ago
    > It would be nice to see a total abolition of parties Abolishing the formal definition of parties wouldnt help, because like-minded people would still team up and form de facto parties, so nothing substantial would change. > People should vote for other people, not for parties. In Germany, you have both. There are two votes, the first one is for people, the "direct candidates". The second is for the whole party, which again is represented by a list of candidates determined by in-party elections.
    - zanny 14y ago
      In the US, party affiliation is listed on ballots. Removing that affiliation might start subconsciously breaking people off from thinking every member of the DNC and RNC are running on some unchanging monolith platform of the party.
jacquesm 14y ago
The pirate party will continue to win seats until the larger and more traditional parties will need them for a swing vote. The election after that one the pirate party main points will be part and parcel of the established parties' programmes.
- Riesling 14y ago
  > The election after that one the pirate party main points will be part and parcel of the established parties' programmes. I doubt that. One of the main points of the pirate party is to take power away from the politicians and give it back to the people (via direct democracy and member votes). The existing politicians would need to change things massively to their own disadvantage.
  - VMG 14y ago
    Or they could just use buzzwords and meaningless gestures to mislead the public, like they do now.
xtiy 14y ago
The power of the people shall be heard.
biafra 14y ago
'They call it "Liquid Democracy" and it involves members making suggestions online which then get bounced around through chat rooms, which they call Pirate Pads, before emerging from cyberspace into the real world as policy.' Liquid Feedback is a server software (implementing LD for an organization) that allows proxy representation. If I think person X can vote for me on topic Y, I can say so by using LF. And I can change my mind from one minute to another not only every 4 years. Here is a longer explanation: http://communitywiki.org/LiquidDemocracy http://communitywiki.org/LiquidDemocracy Pirate pads are not chat rooms but Etherpads to work collaboratively on documents (that happen to have also a chat function).
- rmoriz 14y ago
  Everyone should check out the source code of Liquid Feedback (LQFB). It's really a mess of pg pl/sql and lua. Zero! tests. http://www.public-software-group.org/liquid_feedback_core http://www.public-software-group.org/liquid_feedback_core http://www.public-software-group.org/liquid_feedback_frontend http://www.public-software-group.org/liquid_feedback_fronten...
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
diminish 14y ago
pirate parties are simple revelations of the internet revolution. ultimately knowledge society needs its own political forces and conflicts.
rowla 14y ago
I voted for the Pirate party here in Berlin, and occasionally it seems their success surprised them more than anyone else. Right now, both the established political parties and the voters are fascinated by the Pirates. From nowhere to 8 % - that's quite a feat in our slow-moving political landscape. It also means that both the party and those rooting for them are a mix of young people, disappointed voters from both ends of the political spectrum, libertarians and many other factions. Many Germans are fed up by what is often called a One Party system in disguise, where labeling decisions as "without any alternative" has become Chancellor Merkel's favorite move. There were several large-scale attempts at Internet censorship / filtering (it used to be child pornography yesterday, it's terrorism and copyright violations today, and it'll be something else tomorrow), and more and more people see through the whole theatre. However, I'm afraid that everyone and their grandmother will project their hopes on a very young and very heterogenous party. There will inevitably be some disappointment. But then, to quote Groundhog Day: "Something is... different. Anything different is good."
- gurkendoktor 14y ago
  > From nowhere to 8 % - that's quite a feat in our slow-moving political landscape. I actually feel that the slow-moving days are over. The recent rise and fall of the FDP was spectacularly fast too, without anything happening, or the FDP even changing their opinion at all. (The FDP is a libertarian/neocon party with some interest in civil liberties.)
spoiledtechie 14y ago
I love this so much. I am an American. I wish the American Republic was the same as the German Democracy. Such an idea will only take time to take shape. I salute Germany and the Pirate Party for taking a such aggressive stance towards true democracy.

109 points by ytNumbers 14y ago

There's a new California Pirate Party springing up too: http://www.calpirateparty.org/ http://www.calpirateparty.org/

"The reason for their quick growth is that they are new and that's enough at the moment. But not in the long run." Gero Neugebauer Political scientist, Free University Berlin So what? To paraphrase Keynes, in the long run we are all dead. I really dislike such dismissal without some sort of context such as whether a short term gain might or might not have any effect and why. But then again the journalist only wanted a contrary quote for 'balance'.

soc88 14y ago
The fun thing is that “they are new” now lasts for almost 6 years. How long will we have to wait for the “long run” now, considering that exactly the same thing was said 6 years ago? :-)
- forgetmyid 14y ago
  Indeed. I also expect they will have the usual turbulence of a new political movement. Infighting, policy changes, etc and that all of that will be used to again dismiss the larger reason for their existence.
- netrus 14y ago
  They ride the "we are new" horse themselves, to explain their lack of expertise and knowledge in many pressing political issues. They are a new party, so people will look over some gaps, but this cannot last forever (maybe not even until the federal election next year).
NameNickHN 14y ago
This is one scientist's opinion and as we know there are as many opinions as there are scientists. Probably more. Roughly a generation after the Second Worldwar the Green Party was founded and there to stay. After another generation the Pirate Party movement comes to live. Seems to me that each generation is - at some point - fed up enough with their elders to band together against them.
stesch 14y ago
Journalists (and political scientist) don't quite understand the Piratenpartei. The members of the German Pirate Party would happily go back to the things they were doing before. The party was founded as self-defense. Some members see it as a goal to make the Piratenpartei unnecessary. Not within the next 5 years, but maybe later.

10dpd 14y ago

I've always been intreagued by the notion of democracy and allowing people to choose their leadership. All political systems sound good on paper. But my point is this. At a psychological level people are driven by emotion rather than logic. Most of the general public do not understand or are interested in politics. They do not have the indepth knowledge required to make a good decision. Rather they rely on the media to tell them who to vote for. Depending on the economic circumstances at the time, the ordinary person will vote for the person who promises to overcome their short-term pain, while ignoring the consequences for the long term. The most recent example is Greece, where the people have voted for a government that is threatening to wreck all progress to date on solving their financials issues for the sake of easing austerity. Thoughts?

jellicle 14y ago
Yes, democracy is the worst system of governance we have, except for all the others. In Greece, voters punished the two main parties who colluded to fuck them over so badly, by voting for other parties. In fact, almost 20% of the parliament is now composed of members of brand new parties - brand new because many voters don't feel their interests are being represented by the older parties. Isn't this result exactly what we would want and hope for in a system of governance? > is threatening to wreck all progress to date on solving their financials issues for the sake of easing austerity. Oh my.
- 10dpd 14y ago
  "If Athens doesn't keep its word, it will be a democratic choice. The consequence will be that the basis for fresh aid will disappear." Jens Weidmann, German bank chief (quote from today from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18046280 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18046280 )
  - hef19898 14y ago
    That's european union understanding of democracy. you can vote for what ever you want as long as it is what we want. they showed it time and again. Examples include the austrian government with far right participation, the felt 100 votes about eu membership and maastricht contracts (sometimes three times until they finally got slim pro vote). And thats one of the reasons the pirates and others are growing that fast: people are pissed by that, espacially the younger ones. just my 5 cents.

muuh-gnu 14y ago

In other news, former German president Roman Herzog, member of the (for now) largest party, the Christian Democratical Union CDU, suggested that having new parties like the Pirates entering parliaments is bad for overall democracy because it is increasing political diversity, and should be combated by again increasing the election threshold, which is now at 5%. According to the interview he gave recently, increasing political diversity in the parliament decreases support of a goverment and the chancellor, which could destabilize a country, meaning less dissent in the parliament, more stable country. The two big parties are basically getting threatened by the internet and are obviously ready to go nuclear by threatening to simply team up, get supermajority required for a constitutional change, and "optimize" the political diversity down to 2 or 3, US style, maybe even 1, by simply throwing the annoying emerging competition out of the parliaments.

jacquesm 14y ago
More parties being bad for democracy is extremely funny. It would be nice to see a total abolition of parties, in fact in most democratic constitutions the word 'party' is never mentioned. People should vote for other people, not for parties.
- muuh-gnu 14y ago
  > It would be nice to see a total abolition of parties Abolishing the formal definition of parties wouldnt help, because like-minded people would still team up and form de facto parties, so nothing substantial would change. > People should vote for other people, not for parties. In Germany, you have both. There are two votes, the first one is for people, the "direct candidates". The second is for the whole party, which again is represented by a list of candidates determined by in-party elections.
  - zanny 14y ago
    In the US, party affiliation is listed on ballots. Removing that affiliation might start subconsciously breaking people off from thinking every member of the DNC and RNC are running on some unchanging monolith platform of the party.

jacquesm 14y ago

The pirate party will continue to win seats until the larger and more traditional parties will need them for a swing vote. The election after that one the pirate party main points will be part and parcel of the established parties' programmes.

Riesling 14y ago
> The election after that one the pirate party main points will be part and parcel of the established parties' programmes. I doubt that. One of the main points of the pirate party is to take power away from the politicians and give it back to the people (via direct democracy and member votes). The existing politicians would need to change things massively to their own disadvantage.
- VMG 14y ago
  Or they could just use buzzwords and meaningless gestures to mislead the public, like they do now.

xtiy 14y ago

The power of the people shall be heard.

biafra 14y ago

'They call it "Liquid Democracy" and it involves members making suggestions online which then get bounced around through chat rooms, which they call Pirate Pads, before emerging from cyberspace into the real world as policy.' Liquid Feedback is a server software (implementing LD for an organization) that allows proxy representation. If I think person X can vote for me on topic Y, I can say so by using LF. And I can change my mind from one minute to another not only every 4 years. Here is a longer explanation: http://communitywiki.org/LiquidDemocracy http://communitywiki.org/LiquidDemocracy Pirate pads are not chat rooms but Etherpads to work collaboratively on documents (that happen to have also a chat function).

rmoriz 14y ago
Everyone should check out the source code of Liquid Feedback (LQFB). It's really a mess of pg pl/sql and lua. Zero! tests. http://www.public-software-group.org/liquid_feedback_core http://www.public-software-group.org/liquid_feedback_core http://www.public-software-group.org/liquid_feedback_frontend http://www.public-software-group.org/liquid_feedback_fronten...
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

diminish 14y ago

pirate parties are simple revelations of the internet revolution. ultimately knowledge society needs its own political forces and conflicts.

rowla 14y ago

I voted for the Pirate party here in Berlin, and occasionally it seems their success surprised them more than anyone else. Right now, both the established political parties and the voters are fascinated by the Pirates. From nowhere to 8 % - that's quite a feat in our slow-moving political landscape. It also means that both the party and those rooting for them are a mix of young people, disappointed voters from both ends of the political spectrum, libertarians and many other factions. Many Germans are fed up by what is often called a One Party system in disguise, where labeling decisions as "without any alternative" has become Chancellor Merkel's favorite move. There were several large-scale attempts at Internet censorship / filtering (it used to be child pornography yesterday, it's terrorism and copyright violations today, and it'll be something else tomorrow), and more and more people see through the whole theatre. However, I'm afraid that everyone and their grandmother will project their hopes on a very young and very heterogenous party. There will inevitably be some disappointment. But then, to quote Groundhog Day: "Something is... different. Anything different is good."

gurkendoktor 14y ago
> From nowhere to 8 % - that's quite a feat in our slow-moving political landscape. I actually feel that the slow-moving days are over. The recent rise and fall of the FDP was spectacularly fast too, without anything happening, or the FDP even changing their opinion at all. (The FDP is a libertarian/neocon party with some interest in civil liberties.)

spoiledtechie 14y ago

I love this so much. I am an American. I wish the American Republic was the same as the German Democracy. Such an idea will only take time to take shape. I salute Germany and the Pirate Party for taking a such aggressive stance towards true democracy.