Building a functional party

[Danyl Strype]

Kia ora koutou

At the end of tomorrow, I'm finally going to begin my one year net
fast. Before I go, I'd like to thank those who participated on Loomio
so far, and especially those who have taken care to make their
contributions concise, and on-topic, presented logical arguments and
evidence to back their claims and proposals, and shown willingness to
have their thinking changed by new information. There's been a
vigorous debate on Loomio about our campaign strategy for the 2014
election, which is good, but there are a few political realities we
need to acknowledge.

To have any chance of being elected to parliament, we need either a
*really* strong electorate candidate (extreme long shot), or a broad
enough network of activists, members, supporters to bring in 5% of the
vote. Even before it's any use getting 6-7 MPs into parliament, we
need to learn in detail how the place works. Not just the technical
stuff - how policies become bills, and how bills become acts - but the
messy human stuff of coalition-building inside and outside parliament,
building the critical mass of visible support to get law changes over
the line. We need to learn how to write detailed policy, which lays
out principles, goals, and proposed actions intended to achieve them,
and minimize unintended consequences. We need to learn how to pull
together, and respond to urgent situations we don't have policy
prepared for.

All of this will necessarily involve a larger and even more diverse
active membership than we have now, and we're all going to have to
work hard on disagreeing respectfully, and productively. It's much
better that we start practising this now on Loomio, while there's very
little to lose, rather than waiting until we get a chance at
parliamentary representation, and then wrecking it by squabbling
amongst ourselves.

Best wishes to all, and unless I speak to you on the phone or in
person, in my capacity as Orientation Officer, I'll see you online in
a year's time.

Ka kite anō

--
Danyl Strype
Orientation Officer
Pirate Party NZ
021 11 77 578

"Duchamp's argument is that the spectator is part of the creative act
and therefore shares ownership - and authorship - of the artwork with
the artist."
- Will Gompertz, "Why Star Wars should be left to the fans"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-14944240

"Uncomfortable alliances are not just necessary; they reflect and
speak to the tremendous possibility of our political moment."
- Harmony Goldberg and Joshua Kahn Russell
http://www.nationofchange.org/new-radical-alliances-new-era-1337004193

"Both Marxists and Chicago-school libertarian economists can agree
that free software is the best model."
- Keith C Curtis
http://keithcu.com/wordpress/?page_id=407

[mathmo]

The best way to achieve not doing that and ending up in a squabbling mess, is by concentrating on the core which is important (and we all agree on, and can be united on) and ignore all minor side aspects as distractions (which will be divisive, and split us rather than unite us together).

Unfortunately PPNZ in its current implementation seems to be loosing its way and its purposes recently.