FLOSS/Linux Political Party

[Sid Dabster]

--- xdrudis <xdrudis at tinet.org> wrote:

> El Wed, Mar 02, 2005 at 07:36:26PM -0500, Sid
> Dabster deia:
> > *** Proposal for a FLOSS/Linux Political Party ***
> > 
> > I suggest a Linux Party is formed to promote the
> idea
> > of free software (and possibly related ideas). The
> > last European Election with the patent issue
> showed
> > the relevance of politics to the free software
> > movement. Voting purely on patents lead to some
> > undesirable alliance partners. While as LUG Radio
> 
> what do you mean undesirable alliance partners? 

Many people in Britain did not want to suppport UKIP.

> The "problem" we have is that we might all agree 
> in some topics (although the small list you give 
> below would probably already raise discrepancies),
> but a political party has to decide on more than 
> those topics. If we get together because we agree
> in information policy topics and then we disagree
> in taxes, social policy, security, foreign policy, 
> common agricultural policy, etc. it wouldn't work.
> 
> Political parties join people that have similar
> views
> and priorities on individual freedoms, collective
> freedoms, redistribution of wealth, environment, 
> economic policy, "world order", etc. 

I hope Wayne Stallwood will not mind me quoting him:
> I think what Sid is proposing is a single-issue
> party. The aim of these is somewhat different to
> that of a full manifesto party that pretty much 
> has to have a policy for every issue.
>
> The whole point of a single-issue party is not to 
> gain elected office, but to attract enough votes 
> that a full manifesto party will start paying 
> attention to that single issue and adopt the same 
> policies to gain the single-issue parties votes,
> either that or some single-issue parties actually 
> do manage to 'grow' to a full manifesto but it's
> quite rare.
>
> That's the way I think I understand it anyway, 
> somebody more versed in politics can correct me.d

xdrudis wrote:
> From any of these views you can argue against
> swpats, for open
> standards, and so on and so forth, because these do
> not oppose
> essentially any of the basic values of any party (at
> least any I
> know). Right and left is tradionatilly distinguished
> by distribution
> of (scarce) resources. Distribution of infinetely
> reproducible
> resources is orthogonal to that. Nationalist,
> eurosceptics, pro-EU,
> pro or against globalisation, etc. are mostly about
> who decides which
> and where power is located. Religious or
> traditionalist party don't
> have much of a precednet with computer networks, so
> they can adapt to
> anything. Votes show that information policy issues
> depend more 
> on whether a representative "gets it" than his or
> her political colour.
> It is most useful for us to join our prefered party
> if we
> have one and enlighten them on inmmaterial goods and
> information
> society, so that all parties push for a resonable
> policy, or 
> at least for different but all reasonable policies,
> instead of 
> just legislation who does not match reality. Another
> option is
> to join no party and try to enlgihten them all in
> campaigns for
> specific topics.
> 
> Yet, if you don't like any party, and you don't like
> to talk to 
> all of them on a single issue, you are encouraged to
> start a 
> political party. But when you do that, please set up
> a program
> in all kind of political decisions, not just
> information policy.
> Anyone may want to know what the party is going to
> do on 
> environment, trade, taxes, health, education, etc
> before joining it. 
> And you can give priority to information policy, but
> I guess
> you are not going to abstain in all the rest if you
> get to government,
> do you ?

The environmentalist have the Green Party, pressure 
groups like Greenpeace (both), Friends of the Earth 
they work at both level at the same time. However 
the Green Party in England has run into problem with
trying to be a full party because environmentalists
can be right, middle of left of the political 
spectrum. The Green party has also had problem with
people being more interested in a special interest
that they support than saving the environment. FLOSS
is not a rightwing idea, it goes against normal
capitalist ideas.


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