Hi crew,
Pirate Party Australia has been working hard on getting press releases out and establishing media contacts to spread our message. We are establishing some working groups to plan a fresh round of national protests, and we are working on an overhaul of our IT systems. We are looking at sending members to LAN parties to communicate with the players, and sticking flyers up in city centres, where legally feasible.
So far, we have not touched a cent of the membership fees or donations, and some members are using their own funds on essential services, because we know that every dollar counts.
To those of you who have joined us already, thank you for your support. I know we haven't gotten back to most of you with confirmations, but we do plan to once we have started collating the memberships.
To everyone else, I would like to tell you some hard truths that you might not like to hear.
To fix the world, you have to do more than click some buttons on a website.We appreciate that you did sign up as a preliminary member, but sometimes you have to roll up your sleeves and get a little dirty. In this case, all we are asking you to do is to go through the process of actually printing a document and faxing it. I know it's an old-world effort, but it's really just a few minutes of effort.
For those of you who have not joined because of the money, send me an email at
davidcrafti@pirateparty.org.au and we'll see if we can work something out. I grew up dirt poor, so I know what it is like to really not have a few dollars to spare.
For those of you who have not joined due to other issues, just look at yesterday's release of Senator Conroy's Internet censorship report. We don't have time to waste.
So far, around 140 people, or about 1 in 10 of the preliminary members have signed up. This is not good enough to affect serious change in Australia. We are trying to protect freedom of speech, but it looks like many of you don't have much to say. You need to get angry, and you need to join, and you need to convince other people to join. You need to do this by painting them a picture of what the world will be like if we don't put up a fight against the slide into tyranny that we are now facing. Ask the historians to imagine what Stalinist Russia would have been like if Stalin had the computing power of today. Tell them about how fragile democracy is and how it can be corrupted by just a few influential people over just a couple of decades. Let the environmentalists know that freedom needs to be protected, because without freedom, we don't have a world worth saving. Tell the libertarians that we are trying to keep the government out of their lives. Inform the concerned parents that we are fighting for their rights to run their own families. If you're in the country, speak to some farmers and tell them that we will stop companies from patenting their seeds. Tell the sick that we'll stop the drug companies from revelling in their pain. Tell the musicians that we will work with them to ensure they can earn good money doing what they love. Tell the trade unionists that we will work to repeal laws that infringe on their freedom of assembly. Let the gamers know that we'll rip out Michael Atkinson's spinal column if he doesn't realise that violent video games don't cause violent behaviour.
OK, maybe not the last one. In fact, I'm not even sure if my freedom of speech rights protect that statement now-a-days, so let me explicitly state that it was a joke that referenced Scorpion's finishing move in Mortal Kombat.
I hope my point is clear. We need you to join Pirate Party Australia, so we can protect our freedom to make the world a better place. You signed up as a preliminary member, so you already agree with our goals, so please make it official.
Regards,
David Crafti,
President
Pirate Party Australia
P.S.: Some people have stated a concern about being on the books as affiliated with the party, but the AEC treats the applications as confidential.
Originally Posted by 1AZRAEL1
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