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- cross-posted to:
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Patrick Breyer, a staunch defender of digital rights, laments the Pirate Party’s exit from the EU Parliament as a blow to online privacy.
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I had somewhat hoped that my fellow countrymen in Germany would not fall for the obtuse populism of the right, but that is exactly what has happened.
I’m afraid there’s nothing left to counter this, because voters obviously no longer care about rational arguments and don’t even want to acknowledge the real problems of our time. They make it easy for themselves and just blame everything on illegal migration or whatever - just as the right-wingers tell them to do.
In this reality characterized by stupidity and false attributions of blame, it is hardly surprising that important but somewhat abstract topics such as data protection are no longer of interest to the masses. It’s enough to make you cry.
As an American, it’s really sad to see the EU fall into this trap.
The saddest thing about this is that the Europeans and especially the Germans should really know better. But no, all the lessons from our dark history seem to have been forgotten - or they are simply ignored so that one can once again live in the comfortable world of simple explanations where there is always some minority to blame.
In the whole bad times lead to strong people, which leads to good times, which leads to weak people, which leads to bad times, we’re in the weak people leading to bad times stage. Now things need to get bad enough to start making strong people.
Only problem is the fascists are smarter this time and are pushing everywhere, so this time might not have nation states on the good side.
obtuse populism of the right
Don’t fall for propaganda either. Left and right are two buzzword used by rulers to manipulate public opinion and always stay in power.
I voted for him. Sad to see him leave. It doesn’t seem like we have many advocates for digital privacy in the parliament.
e: typo
There are more parties who defend internet privacy then just the pirate party. Won’t matter much tho with the current rightwing majority.
They have been very active fighting the chat control proposals that keep coming, haven’t really seen others being so active about it besides them. This is really bad.
Is the incoming majority particularly anti-piracy? I thought they were more fixated on leaving the EU, gutting the “woke” public sector, and rounding up all the immigrants for deportation.
Last I checked they didn’t have the majority though?
Technically… maybe. Here’s a calculator, EPP+ECR+ID+a chunk of the non-attached and non-assigned might make it over the 50% mark, and then there’s renew which has neoliberals in it.
But that’s not coalition material as the EPP is not eurosceptic, also, that coalition would reach so far right that a good chunk of the EPP would definitely not be on board with it. The populists might also be opposed on reasons of preferring stoking anti-Brussels sentiment over surveillance, and there’s plenty of opportunity for rifts, like the RN saying “The AfD is in favour so we’re opposed”.
Do note than in the EP factions have fuck all when it comes to faction discipline. There’s no whip, all there is is plenty of negotiating.
These results are just a drop in the bucket in relation to the grim state of German election results and overall societal discourse.
There’s not much room for optimism right now. Very dark skies ahead and things may get much worse before they will become better.
Same in Belgium, how is this the new reality seemingly everywhere???
Mass propaganda and some reeeeeaaaaalllly stupid people.
MAGA has entered the chat.
Pretty much the same propaganda “package” is being used all over the world.
Governments work hard and spend billions of public money to try to stay in power, they spend these in modern and technological warfare too.
The parties in power are failing to address the problems ordinary people are facing. Problems like the excessive immigration of people from Asian countries, the insane housing prices, rising cost of living etc. People are looking for alternatives.
These extremists know exactly what the problems are and how to talk about them. They also know better to meet people where they are, like on social media. To most people who are ignorant of politics, these parties seem to solve all their problems.
And let’s be real, half the population is below average intelligence. Way too many people don’t realize or even worse, don’t care, about what these parties are really about.
I was considering voting for the pirate party, but they polled at less than 5% in France and it was not a useful vote, which was evidently needed.
Yeah, the greens had a risk of not getting 5% so it was much more worthwhile to vote for them.
You should be able to vote for both… 😮💨
There may be even better voting systems but 3-2-1 would be a nice change. This way strategic voting gets at least somewhat mitigated and might force people to actually invest some time and look at the agenda of some other parties too because they have to vote for 3 parties.
There are voting systems that completely prevent the need for tactical voting (e.g. instant-runoff voting, aka alternative vote) but if the system still trends towards having two main parties then not much has really changed.
A bigger issue is that a single candidate/party is not very good at representing an area in comparison to having more (3, 5, ideally more). If people vote 80% A and 20% B and A gets the single candidate then 20% are misrepresented. With 5 candidates then that could be split 4 to A and 1 to B, a perfect representation.
You trust polls?
And I was right to; pirate party got less than 1% of votes, also due to the fact they couldn’t afford to have their voting paper in most places.
Polls are problematic in that they reinforce their own predictions. It’s especially frustrating in recent years when you’re bombarded with them even when there’s no election in sight. Problem is, governing parties are usually busy governing while populists are campaigning 24/7. Media has made a huge effort to reinforce the trend and get people used to living in a far right era. Polls are unhelpful and destort democracy to a dangerous degree.
I wish I could actually vote for the pirate party. But I can’t here. Didn’t show up in the election list. They were 2 or elections ago
Sounds like you’re the new candidate.
I voted for them. Judging by the numbers, there must have been about three of us.
and unfortunately czech pirate representatives dropped from three to one :(
God fucking damn it
I wanted to vote for them, I did so last time, but they didn’t appear on the ballot in my country this time. Couldn’t vote for them…
Fuck, this is seriously bad news
What did the pirate party stand for? I heard of them before, but not much what they stand for other than digital privacy.
I think this election was mainly focused on Migration, economy and green deal. Mainly why the right took over and the green and left lost. People are seeing the negative effect of migration more and more, and diplomats cannot hide it anymore.
