Is PPAU an international lobby or a local party?

In 2014, Fiona - the leader of the Reason Party - attempted to win a parliamentary seat who finally claimed victory in the upper house seat representing the northern metropolitan region in Victoria.

According to Financial Review; Fiona has been living in Melbourne for about four years, having established the Sex Party in 2009. She has broadened her platform to include supporting voluntary euthanasia, same-sex marriage, decriminalising cannabis for personal use, greater transparency in government through freedom of information laws, and increasing people’s right to privacy.

Regardless the concept, the party waved a storm which asked:

And this is the point, Is the lobby different from the party? Is that better? Is that the reason of Fiona’s success?

Lobbyist–policy-maker relations are important in explaining the relative power of an interest group, since it is at this point that the demands of the group are conveyed to government.

Britannica …

Internationally:

Interest groups have long been active in international affairs. A confluence of factors accounts for the explosion in international lobbying activities. These include: the increasing importance of international organizations, such as the United Nations (UN) and its various agencies, and regional organizations, such as the European Union, with jurisdictions that extend beyond national borders; the fact that many issues require an international approach; and increasing awareness of issues because of advances in communications and the adoption of many international causes in Western democracies (where most international interests originate and operate) by an increasingly affluent middle class.

So; as long as human beings engage in politics, “interest groups” will be a part of the political process. Moreover, interest group activity will almost definitely increase in all political systems in the future, Which obliges us to answer this question clearly:

Are we a local party or an international lobby? :slightly_smiling_face:

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To date, we have been a local federal party, with a loose affiliation to international parties with similar names and sometimes only vaguely similar politics.

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We are a Political Party on the domestic political landscape.

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We needa talk about the personallity and our appearance which we want, not our definition and status …

Well, the question you asked was about local vs. international, but sure, let’s talk about personality.

In many ways, I think the great name debate was a proxy for discussion about the party personality.
Ref: Formal proposal to rename the Pirate Party by 2018
and: Alternative names for the Party

Many people questioned how the current name was perceived by the wider public, but I never heard anybody express concern about feeling as though their own beliefs didn’t sit well under the current banner.
Dozens of alternative names were considered and discarded.
There was never anything close to a consensus on a alternative name.
So, “Pirates” we are.

I’ve been hanging around with this motley crew for around 6 years now.
Keeping in mind that I’m half way through a nice bottle of red on a Friday evening, here’s my list of what it means to be a Pirate, in decreasing order of frivolity:

  • Pirate song: “I’ll be a Pirate 'cos Pirates are free” - says it all really.
    Listen to this while you read the rest of these points: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiyEP02KNZw
  • Did you ever notice that we have pirate themed parties for our children, but we never have “murderous thief” party themes. There’s a reason for this. Pirates emerge wherever the powerful push the powerless too far, and we all kind of know this when we’re told it. It’s like an archetypal story.
  • We’re part of a political movement born out of a notion amongst the youth of Sweden, then spread around the world, that corporate imperialism should never impinge upon the basic human NEED to share culture. People and their culture should come first, everything else flows from there.
  • The notion of free culture expanded to cover a wide variety of other areas of our lives. We want to be liberated as individuals, but when Pirates mutiny, it’s not every man for themselves. We do it as a crew. Nobody gets left behind, and so we’re libertarian-left or left-libertarian, depending … “Peoples front of …”
  • Democracy. Yep, that’s like the pirate code (“more of guideline really”). We’re all children of the internet … surely democracy can be “MOAR” democratic than that … looks deeply … Oh Shit, that’s really hard.
  • Ermagurd, sooo many “feelpinions” - we need , “Science” - yep we believe in that because … it works - . look, the planes keep flying and the iPhones keep on iPhoning. Yep, objective, verifiable truth is useful stuff, but it only tells us which things are objectively true, and never which things we should value. So, we constrain the “feelpinions” to questions of value, then we go make a lot of policy. Lead with values, verify with evidence.
    Woohoo, look at all the policy that emerges. Damn, that’s a lot of policy, and nobody seems to disagree with ANY of it.
  • Hmmmm. Yep. We’re all individuals and we value culture and humanity above crony capitalism, and we all pretty much kind of agree on this policy stuff, but we kinda have this problem that we’re almost universally wary of “joining”. We don’t follow leaders. We’re individuals god damn it.
    Yes, we’re ALL individuals.

Sigh…

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This pretty much sums it up.

(not sure if this is historically accurate… I’ve read that pirates of the golden age of piracy put together a list of rules they all agreed upon which they signed, thereby formally joining the crew, before setting sail. They lived and died by this code. It included things like considerable monetary compensation for lost body parts.)

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the pirate code (“more of guideline really”)

Notice it was in quotes… I was quoting from the movie Pirates of the Caribbean.
It was a very small joke that I thought most people would get.
For reference:

I know, just being pedantic me. :wink:

When I knew about PPI (the pirates of this century) I believed that PPI is the network of the social engineers, data providers, investigative journalists and a marvelous integrated network of pirates who change according to this wonderful agenda … As a symphony where each of us has an impressive and magical role in it.

So, that’s the personality that I mean. Not the name but our feelings which make our world better, our imaginations where the pirates live in it by their huge boats that help the oppressed and support the needy who should take a place in this world. The image which we wanna achieve with others through our great principles.