Bailey Alexander

Lola Voronina; A Russian explains how the Pirate Party moves from strength to strength.

The Pirates are committed, cool and very, very focused. Rick Falkvinge found the party, keeping his calendar full of speaking engagements yet the independent members are what moves the fastest growing political party into the future. Fantastic stuff.   

I'm trying to get Falkvinge on Alex Jones and Democracy Now but other movements seem to occupy their time. So many movements, indeed, but inspirational to see how the Pirates move their ideas into action. Entering European Parliament and spreading their message through missionary work, like Kopimism, which just makes me smile. 

And to think she's going to teach me how to make Borscht next week. Life's nice. 

The Nature of Things: Copyright and Monopoly laws.

Read all about it on Rick Falkvinge's Infopolicy:

"Despite tougher Copyright Monopoly laws, sharing remains pervasive"

The Pirate Party goes from strength to strength.

Yet another stunning victory. Rick Falkvinge's Infopolicy posts the following: 

In the local election of Innsbruck, the Austrian Pirate Party has sent shockwaves by taking its first Austrian seat, finishing at 3.8% in the election.

This caused frontpage news in Austria – the tweeter @Exiledsurfer was kind enough to tweet the pictured frontpage. Taking one seat in the city parliament of Innsbruck in a local election may not seem like much – but it’s large enough to make the front page story, heralding a strong trend all over Europe – you can almost read the strong headline (“Pirates Get Their First Seat”) as though it read “It Begins!”. It is also noteworthy that their election budget was a mere three thousand euros.

Germany: Pirate Party Polls @ 11%

Overnight biz trip to Salzburg and caught this headline over lunch the following day; Piratenpartei uberholt die Grunen, translation; Pirate Party overtakes Greens in the polls.

Absolutely amazing and inspiring. Polling at around 11%, because the Pirate Party continues to effectively focus on very specific issues, privacy and copyright, they should reach their goals. Learning, living and working  over here allows me to better understand European politics. German government depends upon establishing coalitions,therefore Merkel needs and relies upon the smaller parties to have a majority.

As an American this is almost impossible to fathom, es ist true. In the article, which mio marito read to me, she spoke about the importance of smaller parties, and called the Pirate Party a "force to be reckoned with".

Rick Falkvinge: “Like A Cross Between Churchill, Gandhi and Mad Max”

Fantastic speech, critical issues, super nice guy this guy called Rick Falkvinge.

 

Rick Falkvinge's the rare player that's managed to legislate his passion and concerns for privacy and copyright law into Parliament, one country at a time.

On Rick Falkvinge's site you can read all about information policy and civil liberties in Europe and elsewhere in the world, if only we could channel Rick's ideas through the megaphone Alex holds across the pond, far more people would understand and appreciate those issues that directly impact their online lives. 

And like Alex, on this side of the pond, Rick is a force gathering momentum along with millions of fellow enthusiasts in search of all the latest data re SOPA, ACTA and PIPA. 

Speaking of...at first, the German government was a bit amused by Pirate Bay, now they're taking them seriously.

Rick Falkvinge and those 40 year cycles

Rick's article discusses epiphanies, politics, helping Asian Bitcoin players from getting harassed, stepping down from the Pirate Party and 40 year cycles.

Many ideas an much of Rick's political philosophy emanate from 40 year cycles; for instance, 40 yrs ago it was environmentally based, now the youth are concerned with privacy and copyright policy as well.  No coincidence he's effectively legislating these ideas into European Parliament. In Sweden, Germany and next they will focus on Switzerland, a land that takes democracy very, very seriously.

His article ends with:  

Therefore, I ended by asking for a favor. “Forty years from now, those of us who are still around, I’d like to ask you for a favor“, I said. “Odds are that when our parties are flooded with career politicians forty years from now, and we are living comfortably in our retirements, a bunch of spoiled young brats will organize out of nowhere and appear to demand everything for free in ways that are both reprehensible and incomprehensible.”

“Help them.”

 

Rick Falkvinge: 10 Myths about Patents

Rick is a man with many ideas, many of which are finding their way into people's lives as well as European Parliaments. 

Falkvinge discusses the myths:

Patent monopolies were an instrument during the guild era that regulated how knowledge could pass from master artisans to their apprentices. For some reason, this monopolization on knowledge and brake on innovation has survived into the free enterprise age, after 1850.

Many people have a lot of preconceptions about patent monopolies that aren’t true, just like a lot of people had preconceptions about the necessity of copyright before file sharing became widespread and people experienced it first hand. Most people don’t have first hand experience in patents, so this is an attempt to tackle the most common myths and misconceptions.

Andrew Norton and Glenn Greenwald report on Oslo's un-American response.

Rick Falkvinge's site has an article that overlaps nicely with Glenn Greenwald's post;

Future: Bitcoin

Rick Falkvinge: the door to citizens' freedom swings both ways.

Rick's Article:

Governments all over the world are becoming increasingly two-faced and schizophrenic when it comes to dealing with the net. As ecstatic as governments can be when citizens in other, “bad” countries take charge of their lives, they are equally terrified when citizens of their own country use the same technology to take charge of their lives where there is a “good” government.

Meetups; Rick Falkvinge, privacy and copyright concerns.

Meeting Rick Falkvinge was truly a privilege. What's he managed to do in such a short time is nothing short of miraculous; as the founder of Sweden's first Pirate Party its impressive they now boast representation in the European Parliament.

Rick's success emphatically highlights the momentum behind his movement, in particular, the youth.  Privacy issues, copyright concerns, these issues hit the kids hard. No worries; they'll be voting soon enough.

It's almost as if you have two entirely separate spheres of content; the typical incurious mainstream model; CNN, Fox and MSNBC and the alternative media; on the right, Alex Jones, on the left Amy Goodman. (I'm sure both would be highly surprised to find how much of their civil rights coverage overlap).