Launching Some Campaigns

@andrewreitemeyer obviously legal protest actions will be more appropriate and comfortable for some members, and we need to plan and carry out plenty of those too. However, there's an old saying that "when injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty". I think if there are members who are disobeying unjust laws in private, it only weakens our case to tip our hat to those laws in public, even as we advocate for their abolition.

I think the precedent of the Wild Greens is relevant here. We engaged in many civil disobedience actions as the direct action arm of the Greens. Also, many of the original Greens MPs, and many of the Mana candidates in the recent election had a history of illegal civil disobedience actions. I see no incompatibility between principled civil disobedience and running for office.

Considering the small group of people active in the NZ Pirates at this stage, I think we would be best to pick 3-4 awareness raising campaign to focus on for now. Between them, they need to indicate the range of issues that concern the NZ Pirates, but they need to be things current activists care about and are willing to put time into.

Here are my suggestions.
1) Limit copyright to commercial use: since opposing oppressive copyright is the founding concern of our party, at least one of our campaigns needs to be about reforming copyright. I suggest a demand that copyright be enforceable only on commercial use, with the onus on the state/ the complainant to prove a use is commercial. This would exempt all "social dealing" in cultural works from copyright enforcement, and protect individual consumers from being targeted by powerful corporations using copyright.

2) Bring in a Universal Basic Income: this underlines that our concerns about copyright are about social justice, and its political-economic effects, particularly the shifting of wealth from the majority to a corporate elite. It can be presented as both a defence of the notion of universal social welfare (using arguments convincing to "the left" or "socialists"), and as a way to support people in becoming self-employed, or bootstrapping new businesses (using arguments convincing to "the right" or "libertarians").

Thoughts?

If a new Party is
going to gain traction it has to have a strong theme and broad
appeal... otherwise it will go nowhere... the objective has to be to
get 5% of the vote...

Some of the founding
principles could be

1. Personal freedom

2. Personal
   accountability

3. Less government
   interference

4. Equality of
   opportunity

5. Sound money

6. Quality of GDP to
   be a central theme in economic planning

7. No economic
   policy to favour any minority

8. New Zealand to
   remain in the hands of New Zealanders

9. Government
   spending to be maintained at no more than 50% of GDP

These are a few
suggestions – specific policy can be framed around these
fundamental principles.

With all due respect @milesdugmore, these principles are a good discussion starter, but they simply belong in a different discussion thread.

Again, what I'm looking for here is specific policy proposals which seem to already have strong support among our small active membership, around which we can take collective action to both promote and built the Pirates as a credible political movement.

Are there specific policies which you would go out and promote to your community as a member of the Pirates? If so, what are they?

Without agreed principles, how can you tailor policy around them...

So what discussion thread do they belong in ????

@milesdugmore I have found this and that interesting discussion that is still valid and could be followed up, e.g.:
https://www.loomio.org/d/diWvRTxb/should-we-have-any-policy-or-positions-outside-our-core-policy and herein my position that still stands: https://www.loomio.org/d/diWvRTxb/should-we-have-any-policy-or-positions-outside-our-core-policy#comment-77144

And this one: https://www.loomio.org/d/o5F10YTE/pirate-party-reloaded

I also had set up a number of articles under the '‽irate ‽arty - The XYZ Party' scheme to provoke discussions about what the members think the party could be about. Despite of comments on my views I was also particularly hoping to inspire other members to unfold the fields of highest interest for them as well.

Please feel free to comment of any of those or any other threads and also feel invited to start as many new discussions about abstract principles or concrete policies as you see fit.

Thanks for that @hubatmcjuhes . Does that answer your question @milesdugmore ? Great to have your contributions. At the moment we're just throwing ideas out, but I suggest that over the next few weeks, we make some specific decisions about what to focus on for the next year or so.

Just bringing the discussion back to "Launching some campaigns", a third item I would suggest campaigning on is Binding Referenda (BR). Maybe we could even be part of a coalition to launch a non-binding referendum asking whether Citizen's Iinitiated Referenda should become binding, or be discontinued? It's a total waste of people's energy and public money to hold referenda if the government can just ignore them.

BR may seem like a token change compared to the liquid democracy people's parliament we might prefer, but though it's a small step, it's definitely a step in the right direction. Again, there is strong support for it across a number of political groupings, particularly the youth wing of NZ First, but the Greens won't touch it, something to do with the way conservatives have manipulated non-binding referenda. Maybe having all their work on the asset sales referenda come to nothing might have given them cause to rethink their position though.

Net neutrality seems like another hot button issue we could help to build a broad campaign around. As @hubatmcjuhes said in the thread on IRD computers, the TISA trade agreement threatens net neutrality, and there is all sorts of boundary-pushing going on against the open internet, including cell phone companies offering free data while using FB and Twitter, which is anti-competitive, and definitely not net neutrality.

So I'm suggesting these 4 campaign focuses, in no particular order:
* limit copyright to commercial use
* bring in a universal basic income
* make Citizens Initiated Referenda binding (or abolish them)
* defend net neutrality

Any other suggestions?

I agree with everything you say, @strypey , I would only like to ask to add
* reject TPPA and TiSA, engage with existing campaining groups

This point is different of the others you are proposing as it is a short-term immediate thread. It will be over by 2017, this way or the other. We have to act on this one now, or it will just be happening without us.
Your proposed campaign goals are really pirate core concerns, which cannot be lost or won - but need fighting for now and in all future. Hence they could be regarded as higher priority; but the TPPA one comes with that immediate urgency that - in my humble opinion - justifies 'upvoting' it.
It is also a particularly good opportunity to get into contact with actively campaigning groups with a chance to make ourselves known a little bit better.

I would like to expand the copyright reform proposal to include all IP - patents, trademarking and the use of the concept of IP to obfuscate government activity.