Loomio
Tue 5 Aug 2014 7:30AM

Board election: Introduction Hubat McJuhes

HM Hubat McJuhes Public Seen by 36

Kia Ora,

I was born and grew up in western Germany before I came to New Zealand in 2005. I am married and have two children (4 and 7 years old).

I have been following the rise of the Pirate Party in Sweden, Germany and Tunesia and joined PPNZ in it's very early stages.

Despite finding solutions to the immediate troubles (lack of members, money and infrastructure), I believe the next most important issue that needs to be resolved in this board's period is to create a new Constitution for the party to flourish. I have expressed my views about how a new constitution could and should look like in many discussions already. In essence it should express the core values the party stands for as well as the deliberation process (think: kernel). The latter is where we can set ourselves apart from any other party around - if we manage to design a radical and genuine grass-root driven architecture, making 'power to the people' a reality (at least for the realm of our own domain). Using the internet as the collaboration platform for distributed decision making and, in doing so, exercising our natively digital lifestyle, can convince like minded people to join in, where other parties cannot attract due to their established but dull top-down nature.

Today I kindly ask you to support me in working towards these aims and vote for me in the current board elections as an additional board member.

LET THERE BE (grass)ROOT!

HM

Hubat McJuhes Tue 5 Aug 2014 7:40AM

In earlier board elections I always had the feeling not to know enough about all candidates, or better: not to know anything about most of the candidates. I didn't think I would be able to make an informed decision; instead I was just honoring the effort that unknown others were willing to invest.

Now that I myself ask for others votes, I would like to introduce myself and explain my motivation so that others can know what to expect when voting for me.

I would like to encourage all other candidates to do the same.

HM

Hubat McJuhes Thu 7 Aug 2014 11:46AM

@craigmagee wants to know more:
How about presenting your idea for a more ‘bottom-up’ structure for the party and how you plan to implement it? I gather from past discussions that’s important to you and something you will push.

So I will elaborate on my current thoughts, which will only ever become effective to the degree I can convince the membership, of course.

In the tradition of Martin Luther I will now hammer a set of theses on the door (I hope they will not provoke 30 years of civil war, though ;-) ):

1) We are now tinier in number than ever, and we have been pretty much completely inactive for the last half year. There has not been the slightest indication of improvement of our situation for a long while. In other words: the strategy with which the party used to be run has not been working out very well.

2) With the Internet Party appearing with any amount of resources in their back, and also even the Greens having way better and more elaborated net policies than us, many - even in our own lines - think of us as superfluous. A stance that I deem wrong, oh so wrong.

3) We are not able to develop a superior set of policies without a massive increase in the number of engaged and active members. With a classic party architecture we are not able to attract anyone as a new member without a massively superior set of policies.

4) We can only survive if we incorporate an architecture that is beyond comparison of everything that has ever been and at the same point in time also serves the purpose of our core principles.

5) The Pirate Party movement, as a world wide phenomenon, is about embracing the liberating nature of the internet, empowering the individual to engage in collective to collaborate in developing new and 'grassrooty' approaches while defending the individual against the threat of the internet being abused as a means of control and reification.

6) Such a revolutionary new architecture as a political party, to be established with such a little workforce, can only be done in form of a technical implementation.

7) If we wanted to revolutionise the way a party runs it self with technical means, we need a constitution that very strictly defines the intent (core) of everything done with that technology as a framework.

8) TPPPaaS - The Pirate Party Platform as a Service:
If the Constitution could be seen as the Operating System of the party, the technology platform could be seen as the kernel.

9) The technology platform to start with could be a combination of LiquidFeedback, loomio, PiratePad and RedMine and/or others, bound together by some sort of membership management system.

10) The Executive Committee is there to administer and maintain the platform. Its members are the administrators of the system.

11) The purpose of the system is to serve the activists in being active. The users of the system are the members of the party. They use the system to actively develop policies. The members are (grass)ROOT. Root rules!

12) If The Pirate Party Platform as a Service manages to establish a framework for activists of all sorts of interesting areas, this platform can be attracting a large number of activists that without such a platform would work less efficient.

13) If a broader number of activist groups can engage under the umbrella of a PPPaaS, then there will have an interesting set of interesting policies coming together. A still relatively small number of experienced activists can produce a wide spectrum of interesting policies.

14) A platform that proves to work so well for established groups to formulate their policies can attract individuals that would not have considered engaging with policies unless there is actually a party that allows for immediate effectiveness of good thoughts.

15) A party with such a wide spectrum of interesting, progressive and innovative policies can attract an even wider range of members, quite possibly > 500.

16) A party with such an interesting set of policies brought to the attention to the masses through a new and innovative technological platform architecture can be successfully presented to the people as an alternative party to vote for.

17) We have 3 years to make it happen. Let's make it.

(Disclamer: The creation of the above would not have been possible without the help of a good bottle of New Zealand Merlot Cabernet and should not be taken too seriously by @craigmagee and others.)

HM

Hubat McJuhes Sun 24 Aug 2014 10:52AM

I would like to express my thanks to those who have been voting for the executive committee. Whoever you voted for - your voting was an expression of you believing that a Pirate Party is important for New Zealand and deserves some support and efforts. Thank you all for this encouragement to all members of the new board.

As it turns out I have been elected into the position that I feel most comfortable with. Thank you for your support and trust.

The new board is currently in the process to organise the first meeting. The President has suggested 7pm at Thursday the 28th on IRC. The accompanying use of a voice based system (e.g. mumble) is being considered.
So we are on track. Stay tuned...

HM

Hubat McJuhes Thu 28 Aug 2014 1:46AM

As an update to the above: you can download the mumble software here
http://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/Main_Page

We will use the following server details:
Address: mumble.piratenpartei-nrw.de
Port: 64738

I assume that we will use the IRC channel you find on our website:
http://pirateparty.org.nz/irc/
In the past, board meetings have been 'hiding' in a separate room called 'ppnz-board'. I cannot see what benefit this is supposed to provide, but if you want to participate and don't find anyone around at Thursday the 28th at 7pm, then check this room as well.