‘Pirate Party’ Gaining Traction in German Politics
- Posted on April 28, 2012 at 11:20pm by
Liz Klimas
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(Photo: AP/dapd, Clemens Bilan)
BERLIN (AP) — Pirates are capturing Germany’s political system.
The party with the outlaw name started as a marginal club of computer nerds and hackers demanding online freedom, but its appeal as an antiestablishment movement has lured many young voters to the ballot boxes, catapulting it into two state parliaments in less than a year.
The all-volunteer Pirates offer little ideology and focus on promoting their flagship policies of near-total transparency and an unrestricted Internet. But polls show them as the country’s third-strongest political force, leapfrogging over more established parties.
The tremendous success has doubled the Pirates’ membership to 25,000, but it also has handed them a crucial challenge set to dominate its convention starting Saturday: A party founded as a rebellious upstart must reckon with its new political power and its promise of a voice for all its members.
Logo of the German Pirate Party (Image: Wikimedia)
About 1,500 members gathered in the northern Germany city of Neumuenster to discuss the group’s growth. New polls predicted it would win seats in two more state legislatures in May, with forecasters expecting it to secure about 9 percent of the vote in both states.
“Many vote for the Pirates as a sign of protest. It is not directed against democracy, but it’s based on the unhappiness with the functioning of the established parties,” said Alexander Hensel, a political scientist who studies the Pirates at the Goettingen Institute for Democracy Research.
Analysts say that despite the nation’s robust economy and low unemployment, many Germans are disenchanted with the established parties, fueled by outrage over seeing the government bailing out banks and businesses to save the economy from collapsing in the wake of the financial crisis.
Thousands in Germany took to the streets last year in rallies during the worldwide Occupy movement, but it has now all but fizzled out — with the Pirates appearing to inherit the votes of the disenchanted.
While the mainstream parties in Europe‘s biggest economy are struggling to come up with a response to the continent’s debt crisis, the Pirates cheerfully admit they have no answers. Nor do they have a stance on whether German troops should continue to fight in Afghanistan.
But many voters welcome their blunt acknowledgment as a sign of honesty in the political arena. Instead of taking a stand on the pressing issues that more mainstream parties are forced to address, the Pirates speak up against copyright laws, demand free public transportation, and say every citizen should be paid a basic income without having to work.
“The Pirates are elected less because of what they stand for than by disappointment with the established parties and for their unconventional methods,” Hensel said.
The party’s core pledge of transparency and participation – live transmission of all meetings and the online involvement of all party members in its decisions, countless Twitter debates and email chains – is reaching the limit of feasibility as the number of party members has mushroomed.
The question is: Will the Pirates change Germany’s political system, or will the system crack the Pirates?
Hensel said the growing volunteer party will be challenged in its organization and leadership.
Its outgoing managing director, Marina Weisband, 24, collapsed last week between two TV appearances. She was briefly hospitalized, saying she was just heavily overworked. She and other Pirates now advocate having professional party leaders with more say in policy decisions.
But to grassroots Pirates, those calls amount to mutiny.
“The Pirates’ opinion is created by the party members, not dictated by the chairman,” outgoing party leader Sebastian Nerz said. “The individual’s freedom stands at the top.”
Nerz, 28, favored expanding the board from seven to nine members to give it a more professional structure, but wasn’t re-elected Saturday, losing to his deputy, Bernd Schloemer, 41.
Recently the party has been marred by a scandal over how to handle the far-right past of some of its members, with many Pirates refusing to exclude anyone from membership. But on Saturday, party members overwhelmingly approved a motion saying that any effort to deny or minimize the Holocaust would be against the party’s fundamental values, German news agency dapd reported.
Soon the party will need more professional politicians, if pollsters are right: In North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state with 18 million inhabitants, the Pirates can expect to get 9 percent of the vote in mid-May, according to Emnid, which surveyed 1,001 people for Focus magazine this week.
Another poll for public broadcaster ARD published Friday also found the party securing about 9 percent of the vote in Schleswig-Hollstein state’s May 7 election.
Pirate parties are now present in several European countries, but only in Germany have they skyrocketed to such success. In Sweden, where the movement originated, the party won 7 percent of the vote in European Parliament elections in 2009 but less than 1 percent in national elections the next year, making it a marginal party, albeit with a strong voice on cyber issues.
Germany‘s political establishment now sees the Pirates as poised to be in four of the country’s 16 state legislatures within a month.
“They are an interesting appearance. And we don’t know yet how that will develop,” conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel told Saturday’s edition of the daily Leipziger Volkszeitung.
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AuraStream
Posted on May 3, 2012 at 12:15pm@ 13th Imam I thought pirates where democrats or was it there other way around?
Report Post »OneTermPresident
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 4:18pm“the Pirates speak up against copyright laws, demand free public transportation, and say every citizen should be paid a basic income without having to work.”
Sounds like our knucklehead Occupiers
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 4:55pmArgh… get on board matie… Rape, Pillage, & Plunder… t’is the Old Way!
Report Post »13th Imam
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 7:57pmPirates were notorious thieves. We have the DEMOCRAT Party. The DEMOCRATS have made American business walk the plank. And there is No honor among pirates or DEMOCRATS.
Report Post »Libertyguard
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 3:07pmTo Lloyd Drako: Can you say, “National Socialist Party”. They called themselves Nazis. If someone is a good socializer there is a socialist. Hitler just wanted everyone to always go to parties and drink the alcohol the rich would buy for them with taxdollars from the 1% that belonged to the Vaterland and then all could be be very sociable. Somewhere, though, they got tripped up by Stalin who wanted Russians to be even more sociable than the Germans. This led to a very bad status competition on really who could be the best socialists after all. Music is always found at good parties. Therefore, its only logical to want the free music with the free drinks and to be truly sociable, you have to party all the time and if you party all the time you can’t work at all – so it makes sense that Pirate party wants all the people to have a basic living wage since, when have you ever known a sociable pirate to work. Just think about this.
Report Post »Lloyd Drako
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 5:43pmYou’re confusing me. Does socialism mean beer with Wagner or vodka with Shostakovich?
The term “Nazi” BTW originated as an insult directed against Hitler and his followers. It was seldom used by the Nazis themselves.
Real pirates of course don’t work. They steal. Y’all stay classy.
Report Post »german_viewer
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 10:42amI live in Germany, so I see it firsthand. The Pirate party is another socialist party – typical for European countries. They want a basic income for everybody – even if you don’t want to work – paid for by taxes. They want public transport to be free. If you don’t pay for your bus/train ride somebody else will have to – so again it’s gonna be paid for by taxes. They want to allow the free download and sharing of any kind of music, movies and written material – regardless of copyright. Basically that would mean to rip off the producers of such content and deny them their property rights. They want to abolish all college and university tuition (for public colleges and universities). So who’s gonna pay for it? Right, the tax payer. They want to institute a minimum wage in all 16 states. Germany has one of the lowest unemployment rates for young adults worldwide. Guess why? Germany has no minimum wage (except for a handful of occupations).
So Pirate party is another word for socialism.
The one good thing about this party is that they want to get away with the Big Brother state and are against the government spying on its people.
Report Post »Tolkayn
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 11:17amThe truth they don’t want the people to know is that fiat currency is worthless, it has no value, it is not backed by anything at all, no precious metals and hasn’t been for years. When a loan is created neither the principal nor the interest is printed, it exists only as numbers in a computer. It is in fact created from thin-air.
Don’t tell anyone though as the truth is so simple that noone would believe you.
When unemployment reaches 30% or more due to technological displacement and all those people lose their purchasing power in the current monetary system, how will the system survive? Simply put the system cannot sustain itself without the participation of the consumer. It is doomed to fail.
If you’re serious about a solution, check out The Venus Project. If you have questions about it check out the FAQ page. =)
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 12:42pmTHE PIRATE FLAG: BLACK for Anarchists (against all Governments); BONES for No Quarter (take No Prisoners; kill all)!
Report Post »Rikoo
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 3:28pm> They want a basic income for everybody – even if you don’t want to work – paid for by taxes.
Because they basically already have that will welfare etc.
> They want public transport to be free. If you don’t pay for your bus/train ride somebody else will have to – so again it’s gonna be paid for by taxes.
And who pays taxes? Right everybody, so everybody can use it now. Government often already pays like 60% of public transport so why not make it 100% and save money (no tickets needed for example)
> They want to allow the free download and sharing of any kind of music, movies and written material – regardless of copyright.
They are not against Copyright, they want to legalize P2P Filesharing, because they know it’s the only way to make sure there will no intrusive government control of the Internet or German equivalents of MPAA & RIAA will lobby for laws like SOPA or PIPA forever, until we get such laws. They want to protect your privacy as your admit yourself is good.
>They want to abolish all college and university tuition. So who’s gonna pay for it? Right, the tax payer.
And who pays most of the taxes? The people who went to university… Btw. we are talking about $1000 a year.
> Germany has one of the lowest unemployment rates for young adults worldwide. Guess why? Germany has no minimum wage (except for a handful of occupations).
Because the government pays you the difference if your wage it too low. So you subside companies w
Report Post »Rikoo
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 3:33pm> They want a basic income for everybody – even if you don’t want to work – paid for by taxes.
Report Post »Because they basically already have that will welfare etc.
> They want public transport to be free. If you don’t pay for your bus/train ride somebody else will have to – so again it’s gonna be paid for by taxes.
And who pays taxes? Right everybody, so everybody can use it now. Government often already pays like 60% of public transport so why not make it 100% and save money (no tickets needed for example)
> They want to allow the free download and sharing of any kind of music, movies and written material – regardless of copyright.
They are not against Copyright, they want to legalize P2P Filesharing, because they know it’s the only way to make sure there will no intrusive government control of the Internet or German equivalents of MPAA & RIAA will lobby for laws like SOPA or PIPA forever, until we get such laws. They want to protect your privacy as your admit yourself is good.
>They want to abolish all college and university tuition. So who’s gonna pay for it? Right, the tax payer.
And who pays most of the taxes? The people who went to university… Btw. we are talking about $1000 a year.
> Germany has one of the lowest unemployment rates for young adults worldwide. Guess why? Germany has no minimum wage (except for a handful of occupations).
Because the government pays you the difference if your wage it too low. So you subside companies which pay bad. Do y
SageInWaiting
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 10:24amEver get that feeling that the human race, like lemmings, have hit its critical mass and have started its dash for the sea? This world has gone insane.
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 1:53pmAlexander the Great; the Roman Empire; the Calaphate; Gingus Khan; 100 years War; WWI; WWII… SNAFU & FUBAR!
Report Post »GrayPanther
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 9:39amBased upon my contact with the younger generation, I would say we are doomed. When these robots with their electronic devices do talk it is rather without common sense. No wonder we have to import engineers from Asia. I’ll bet our collective I Q has gone down 30 points in the last 20 years. Hopefully, the pirate parties of Europe will become more effective and become a professional “Tea Party ” to alter Europe’s future. It can’t hurt.
Report Post »db321
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 10:28amOh the wise thank they can out smart god by controlling the Media. God is much smarter – he is going to give them everything they want – then he is going to throw in things that even that highest Satanist can’t ever imagine – When God removes Lawlessness from the Earth – in other word – God’s says you wanted it – you got it – try this!
This is the time in the World to get right with the Lord – it is going to get bad and Christians will not be around to see it – Thank God!
Report Post »socialism.rocks
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 5:46pmactually they have higher iq they dont even bother talking with you because they know you are a dinosaur
Report Post »tajloc
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 9:37amsocialism was Hitler’s approach to government until he was elected. c’mon Germany figure it out. We aint got much time left. TANSTAAFL
Report Post »Rom 8:28
Shamrock241
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 9:08am@ Socialism rocks/SUCKS There would be plenty of JOBS if your commie loving PIG of a so called prez would allow unobstructed Oil drilling and stop the EPA from regulating the Coal Plants into extinction. Just know this you filthy pig, myself and many like me have armed ourselve’s to the teeth, not for simply defending our property but when the next CIVIL WAR starts and it is coming don’t you kid yourself PIG, Lazy Liberal Socialist trash like yourself will be removed from this country once and for all. The Constitutions going to have to change slightly because i never want to go down this road again. NO MORE LIBERALS IN ANY ELECTED POSITION OF POWER….. Not even a school teacher/profressor
Report Post »Marine25
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 7:16pmSpoken like the true Nazi you are. The Constitution’s going to have to change a bit? Sounds like Hitler’s demand for the 1933 Enabling Act. Then he too, eliminated every socialist, communist and unionist in the country. Every war we have fought in the last hundred years has been to defeat idiots like you who wanted to eliminate all those who disagreed with them politically. Sorry to see we have a few of those democracy-hating nationalists right here at home.
Report Post »KingCanon
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 8:52amThis too is Biblically based!
Report Post »Individualism
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 7:33amthey should vote libertarian if they have a party like that.
Report Post »Smoovious
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 2:49pmYou obviously have no clue what a Libertarian is…
Report Post »the58thstate
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 7:19ama paycheck without working? we have that here already and its called welfare.
Report Post »disenlightened
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 8:56amwelfare – a way of life for Democrats everywhere.
Report Post »Beckofile
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 10:14amThe Social Welfare Hammock
Report Post »ComingUnglued
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 7:07amHaven’t the Germans been down this path before? How many people actually voted to Hitler, he was the fringe, look what happened there. Be careful Germany of who will commandeer the party.
Report Post »ColoradoMaverick
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 7:00amIt sounds like the OWS crowd to me. Little babies that want everything handed to them. Liberalism.
Report Post »endthemindlessspending
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 4:39am“demand free public transportation, and say every citizen should be paid a basic income without having to work.”
What a great idea everything for free and pay for doing nothing. How come every country hasn’t been using this idea?
Oh yea that‘s right it doesn’t work, mindless morons.
Report Post »soybomb315
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 12:27amnothing wrong with a protest vote. there is a lot to dislike about the major parties – they have been at the helm during the last 100 years of atrocities
whoever wins this november will have received the votes of approximately 30% of the public. The majority of the population is apethetic (for a number of reasons) or voted for the other guy.
Report Post »Itsjusttim
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 1:14amBut it’s funny how no one cared about doing the right thing until nations are going broke. Then the right thing doesn’t really matter.
Report Post »Itsjusttim
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 1:23amI remember when I was a child and I saw my foot prints, and I thought “What the hell is this crap?” Told my parents it was crap. Then I was handed by my mom my SS card, and I said “What is this crap?” Then when I was a teenager I was informed many states require a permit for firearms, and then I really was annoyed, and spoke my mind. I don’t really give a crap anymore, and it’s time for the whole system to get flushed.
Report Post »Itsjusttim
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 1:26amNow it’s time for God to take a big crap on everyone.
Report Post »Chet Hempstead
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 3:53amYou’re obviously writing about American politics, but this article about Germany. So, when you toss around a hyperbolic phrase like “the last 100 years of atrocities” in reference to petty crap like overspending and a slow expansion of federal power, it will seem naïve and foolish to people in a country that had, you know, actual atrocities in the last hundred years.
Report Post »nzkiwi
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 4:24amTim has cracked me up again!
Report Post »soybomb315
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 9:13ami can think of the following atrocious things….
Report Post »-starting unnecessary wars (millions dead, millions impovershed) like in asia and the middle east
-taking an idea like freedom and constitutional government and corrupting it to the point that we are no longer a shining beacon to the rest of the world
-highest debt in the world (per capita) and therefore making our children slaves
thomas242007
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 12:21amthis sounds rather interesting, hope it goes well for them, i just hope this isnt more of those anonymous idiots
Report Post »aChameleon
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 12:18amWho lives in a pineapple under the sea? Wait. This is supposed to be serious? Argggggh
Report Post »antifa
Posted on April 28, 2012 at 11:48pmFree information, free minds.
Report Post »socialism.rocks
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 3:14amyes bro!
Report Post »marine249
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 9:14am@ rocks
SUCKS
Report Post »RJJinGadsden
Posted on April 28, 2012 at 11:45pmI returned from Germany for the last time 18 December 1993. Yeah, there were a small number of idiots like this, but for the most part the Germans were the hardest working and most sensible people I had ever met. I recall many were outraged when Clinton won the presidency and I recall the predictions of one in particular whom I sat with one night shooting the bull. He was definately right about Bubba and what he would do. They are and have been falling into this quagmire for some time now. I hate to see that.
Report Post »Arc
Posted on April 28, 2012 at 11:39pmHmmmm Something to consider.
Report Post »Stoic one
Posted on April 28, 2012 at 11:38pmMMMmmm,….. New parties forming ???? his may be interesting.
Report Post »soybomb315
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 12:36amdont count on it happening in USA. the parties have rigged the system against 3rd party
Report Post »KangarooJack
Posted on April 28, 2012 at 11:36pmThe Rent is too damn high! {chuckles-remember THAT guy?}
Report Post »13th Generation American
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 12:29amI enjoyed that guy, at least he was honest
Report Post »Chet Hempstead
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 3:55amI loved that guy until I found out that his rent was only 800 bucks for a rent-controlled apartment in a nice section of Brooklyn, and he wasn’t paying it anyway.
Report Post »Smoovious
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 2:53pmWell, if he needed help to pay for the rent, in an apartment that was rent-controlled, then, perhaps… that’s because… .. .
. .. …the rent was too damn high?
Report Post »trueamerican40
Posted on April 28, 2012 at 11:33pmSame old stinky park filled with socialists…give me this, give me that. In my REAL world it’s called working 50-60 hours a week so you can EARN a car, food, house. What a brilliant idea.
Report Post »socialism.rocks
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 3:17amyou are a idiot there will never be enough jobs they cant create enough jobs get used to socialism-
i cant believe morons like you are still saying the same ole fricken repeataphile crap…
get jobs when there is none
when you lose your job and it is coming dont dare ask for a handout starve mofo die mofo die
bet you are a red-stater too
Report Post »Richalu
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 8:10amCareful what you wish for So. Rocks. When we lose our jobs and die, you lose your free and easy ‘give me more for nothin’ lifestyle.
Report Post »marine249
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 9:12am@ socialism
socialism sucks
Report Post »Lloyd Drako
Posted on April 29, 2012 at 9:24amDo any of you have the slightest idea what socialism actually means? Or–since the subject here is German politics–that it was the Germans who actually invented state-sponsored retirement, sickness and disability insurance under Bismarck, who saw such entitlements as a means of AVERTING socialist revolution?
Report Post »MatrixRedPill
Posted on April 28, 2012 at 11:26pmDeath to Tyranny.
Report Post »MatrixRedPill
Posted on April 28, 2012 at 11:24pmTheir symbol looks like the one on Glenn Beck couch pillow.
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