Staten och kapitalet, revised version

This really says it all. Nevermind the stupid flyers and posters littering your mailbox, this is spot on.

The importance of a free, growth-driven and entrepreneurial Internet

Two clowns by the name of Gerard Versteegh and Shadi Bitar, representing two companies I can only assume deal with entertainment through the internet, film2home.se and earbooks.se, have a reader's letter published in Svenska Dagbladet today. The letter is so filled with wrong assumptions, logical flaws and plain errors that's it would take me more effort to go through it step by step than I'm willing to put in. I'll take the short version:

The letter is basically a poorly executed attack on the Moderat politician Karl Sigfrid, who has profiled himself as the only Moderat politician interested in questions regarding the Internet and integrity, and of course on the politics of Piratpartiet, the pirate party.

I feel one of the very first sentences of this letter sums it all up pretty nicely:

En moderat internetpolitik bör sträva efter ett fritt, tillväxtdrivande och entreprenöriellt internet.

Translated to English: Moderat internet politics should strive for a free, growth-driven and entrepreneurial Internet.

Umm...well, yes, and that's exactly what Karl Sigfrid is striving for and you two morons are fighting against.

Obviously Mr. Versteegh hasn't succeeded very well in being free nor entrepreneurial, and of course neither Mr. Versteegh nor Mr. Bitar will see any of my money any time soon.

Me - a pirate

That' it. I'm officially a pirate. Just signed up as a volunteer. I can't take the corrupted justice system anymore, and I can't take the politicians bending over and spreading their butt cheeks wide open for the entertainment industry to screw them, and more importantly us - the people - senseless. It's disgusting, and it has got to stop.

Goddammit.

Not the brightest political analyst out there

I really don't know, Alex Schulman might be good at some things, but he should definitely not quit his day job to become a political analyst. His analysis of The Pirate Party's EU election result is nothing short of a disaster.

Perhaps it's all just meant to be a joke, some sort of irony or something, in which case he doesn't succeed very well, I think. Most likely though, he just doesn't have a single clue what he's talking about.

Fortunately there are real journalists and writers out there who do a minimum of research before they start typing. And there are bloggers out there who can put Schulmans pointless rant into perspective.

This is why

If anyone is still wondering why Piratpartiet, The Pirate Party, got 7,1 percent of the votes in this weekend's EU elections, and why they are so desperately needed in the EU, here's your answer. And here.

The well established political parties are simply too stupid, ignorant and/or well paid by the entertainment industry (who spend 900 million SEK a year "lobbying" and suing dead grandmothers and bullying minors instead of developing new and sustainable business models) to care about the fact that the bills they're passing are colliding heads on with basic rights that we're used to in this part of the world, at least after the fall of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, and that many, thank God, refuse to give up without a fight.

My guess is that England and France will have their own pirate parties, or civil liberty parties if you will, taking several seats in the EU parliament after the next election, and working for the basic rights and liberties that the old parties are dismantling in an absolutely unbelievable attempt to increase the profit of an industry unwilling to adapt to the modern times.

Look to China!

Swedish politicians should see great potential in this new software developed in China with the aim to block websites containing unwanted material. Apparently China's aim is that this piece of censorship software must be installed in every new computer sold from the first of July.

This could be a logical next step after IPRED2 has been implemented. If anything, it could help further boosting The Pirate Party's ratings just in time for the next EU elections.

Come on, Reinfeld & co., look to China once again!

Congratulation, pirates

Piratpartiet, the Pirate Party, was last nights sensation with 7,1 percent of the votes in the EU parliament election, giving them one seat in the parliament and giving the more established parties a well deserved slap in the face for not doing their homework (or, rather, doing the entertainment industry's homework - to the letter!) when it comes to issues on privacy, integrity, human- and citizens rights. To be honest I'm surprised that only 7,1 percent of the 43% that actually voted found that these basic rights are more important than employment and welfare issues, subsidies for EU-farmers, the size of a cucumber or anything else for that matter. After all, who bloody cares if they've got a job or not as long as basic human and citizens rights have been taken away from them, one by one?

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Shockingly, the Pirate Party is the only political party in Sweden who want to uphold this article of the UN human rights declaration.

Unfortunately, CNN have - as usual - left a lot to desire in their research, and claim that the Pirate Party are all about legalizing sharing of copyrighted material. I can imagine the election result is quite a surprise for CNN if they really believe a political party could get 7,1 percent of the votes based only on the fact that people want to continue sharing music...

Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt also seems to have problems grasping what this is all about, but agrees to listen to some of his (many) critics:

-Jag ska lyssna på vad Niklas Wykman säger för vi vill vara ett parti som tar frågan om integritet på allvar.

Riiiight, something about not criminalizing an entire generation now, wasn't it? That turned out pretty well. But, of course, you won't hear any real self-criticism from the prime minister:

-Vi ska komma ihåg att Moderaterna är ett regeringsparti. Vi kommer inte att gå till väljarna med enfrågeresonemang och populistiska utgångspunkter, säger Reinfeldt.

You know you're a hardcore politician, and completely out of touch with reality, when you turn questions of important human and citizens rights into "silly, populist reasoning that has no place in a government party". What a pompous ass.

A joke, I presume?

"You've got to be kidding me". That was my first thought when reading Henrik Pontén's letter in today's Svenska Dagbladet. Assuming Mr. Pontén is in fact the athor (which I must admit I'm having problems believing) he seriously wants the public to believe that IPRED, IPRED2, FRA, Hadopi, Acta and Datalagringsdirektivet, to mention a few, are just products of our imagination, they're not real, they're not threatening the freedom of speech or personal integrity. And none of them are the result of lobbying efforts from the entertainment industry. Oh, and the industry paying off judges and policemen to win highly questionable lawsuits, that's just part of the whole conspiracy theory against these peaceful "friends of the Internet" (yes, he actually uses this term!).

What kind of drugs is Henrik Pontén on? Or perhaps he's just trying to be funny, or something?

Pontén ends his ridiculous rant with a call for The Pirate Party to explicitly denounce the threats made to him over the last couple of years. As if this political party has somehow been involved in these threats.

If anything Don Pontén and his little Camorra-army should apologize profoundly to all the people whose lives they have ruined or seriously damaged with outrageous threats, lawsuits and compensation claims. Innocent or not, it doesn't matter, pay up or face the consequences.

No democracy for you

I've written about the fact that I'm not allowed to vote in the EU elections in a blog post called "No democracy for me". Turns out the question of democracy is just as relevant for EU citizens who are entitled to vote, following what appears to be a large scale election fraud in Sweden, where election tickets for The Pirate Party have been hidden or thrown away by the officials at the polling stations!

How this grave attack on the democracy has not caused more attention in the media is beyond me. In fact none of the larger newspapers in Sweden seem to have written about it. I can only imagine the commotion if the Socialist Democratic Party was the victim, and not The Pirate Party.