Merkel's junior partners face Berlin poll rebuke

[reorg]

Source: The Irish Times

DEREK SCALLY in Berlin

VOTERS IN the German capital are expected to provide one final political humiliation for German chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition partners tomorrow.

After a long series of state election disasters, the Free Democrats (FDP) are poised to crash out of Berlin’s city-state parliament following local elections.

Making matters worse, the party are likely to be replaced by a band of political novices known as the Pirate Party.

After a cheeky campaign focused on civil rights, data protection and internet censorship “Die Piraten” – part of a Europe-wide movement – overtook the FDP to hit 9 per cent support in a final opinion poll.

Read more: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0917/1224304264332.html

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That's quite a jump for the Pirate Party. From Der Spiegel, 07/03/2009:

"The German Pirate Party was formed at the end of 2006 with similar principles to the original, and better known, Swedish Pirate Party. In Sweden the pirates make up the third largest independent party outside their parliament -- they campaign for copyright law reform and individual privacy. In 2008 the German version became the second Pirate Party to contest a state election (in Hesse) and last month they managed to get over 0.9 per cent of votes in the European Union parliamentary elections.
"The European elections were the tipping point," says media-liaison-pirate Fabio Reinhardt. Indeed, it has helped stir up a storm of interest in the party. Since June 9, their membership has tripled, rising to 3,200. And there are more would-be pirates signing up daily. A recent debate over Internet controls in Germany -- sparked by legislation against child pornography -- has put even more wind in the pirates' sails."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,634131,00.html

[No Elephants]

1. Political parties formed around copyright protection?

[reorg]

2. Mostly about protection of privacy

- they are opposed to airport scanners, data storage laws and so forth. I believe their poll gains in the run-up to the Berlin elections are mostly a windfall due to the publicity around Wikileaks.

[msongs]

3. child porn puts wind in their sails. nice bunch nt

[tama]

5. Not child porn

but officials using child porn as an excuse for to restrict freedom of expression on Internet in many ways that have nothing to do with child porn.

[reorg]

7. that's not what the article says

the Pirates were not the only party fighting the law in question:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugangserschwerungsgesetz

which would have achieved nothing whatsoever regarding the false pretenses that our moral majority so dearly loves to peddle when it comes to censoring the Internet.

In fact, in "November 2009, German President Horst Köhler refused to sign the act into law without further information, as it is considered by many legal experts to be unconstitutional."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugangserschwerungsgesetz

[tama]

4. Against

corporate ideology of "intellectual property" and for freedom of information.

If knowledge/information is power, then copyright legislation, patents etc. forms of "intellectual property" aim to concentrate power in the hands of few and deny it from majority. Whole notion of "intellectual property" is, of course, philosophically in the same league with Randian objectivism. Greed and stupidity.

[bananas]

6. How will this affect global warming?

[harmonicon]

8. This will clearly help.

I wish the US had a pirate party.

[Owlet]

9. Yarrrr!! Me too (NT)

[DetlefK]

10. Sad part: They have no idea where the money for their reforms should come from.

They are just a bunch of well-intentioned idealists. As soon as they hit the hard business of budgets and taxes, they will falter. And when the voters realize that the pirates can't deliver what they promised, their ship will sink.

[harmonicon]

12. What?!

What money would be needed to pass legislation reforming laws about privacy and copyright? Why would any change in taxation be needed? I really don't get what you're on about.

[JackRiddler]

11. I see the concept has inspired some Abe Simpson reactions on this thread.

Some of you are pretty funny. Carry on.

[reorg]

13. amazing poll results for Pirates confirmed in first projections!

up from 0.9 to 8.5 per cent, what a shocker.

The neoliberal FDP has been kicked in the butt as expected.