Category: P2P / Panarchy

Scottish Independence: ‘Lower defence bill' after independence

Scottish taxpayers could pay about £1.5bn a year less for defending an independent Scotland than they currently pay towards UK defence spending, according to a report.

The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) study claimed annual costs could be cut from £3.3bn to about £1.8bn.

The report outlined the idea of a “relatively modest” independent Scottish defence structure.

It would be comparable in strength and size with other small European states.

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Continue reading “Eagle: Scottish Independence: ‘Lower defence bill' after independence”

Global Noise takes on austerity: ‘We are not going to be silent'

Demonstrators across the world are calling for an end to austerity as Global Noise protests kick off in more than 30 countries, including many in the Nobel Peace laureate European Union.

­The worldwide demonstrations on Saturday passed without incident, and Caleb Maupin from the International Action Centre explained what's driving the public to take to the streets.

RT: A year ago Occupy Wall Street spread across the world, and now it’s Global Noise. What is Global Noise all about? How is it different?

Caleb Maupin: Basically, Global Noise is saying we are not going to be silent. Because right now the banks are coming for us – they are cutting all of the programs. There is mass unemployment. There is cutting in government spending and the governments of the world are just having to pay back the banks.

And in the process, our future is being destroyed. It is impossible to get an education in this country without a rising debt.  What we are saying is that we are going to be a global noise. We are the next generation, the youth part of the working class as our future is being destroyed. We are not going to silently sit back and let them destroy our future. We are going to be loud. We are going to be confrontational and we are going demand that this stop.

Austerity is a crime against the people. These cuts are a crime against us, and we are going to demonstrate and we are going to oppose it.

Read full transcript.

Phi Beta Iota:  The Pirates Party went from 0 to 58 countries in 3.5 years, propelled substantially by taking 25% of the youth vote.

Worth a look.

Pirate Party is a label adopted by political parties in different countries. Pirate Parties support civil rights, direct democracy and participation, reform of copyright and patent law, free sharing of knowledge (Open content), information privacy, transparency, freedom of information, free education, universal health care and a clear separation between church and state.^{[citation needed]} They advocate network neutrality and universal, unrestricted access to the Internet as indispensable conditions to some of this.

Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party

The Pirate Parties International (PPI) is an organization supporting the Pirate Parties around the world. The PPI offers a common resource for international collaboration and can provide help to form a local party in your country.  The PPI is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that exists to help establish, to support and promote, and to maintain communication and co-operation between Pirate Parties around the world. It was officially founded in 2010 during the Brussels conference from April 16th to 18th.

Home Page:  http://www.pp-international.net/

The Pirate Party is an American political party founded in 2006 by Brent Allison and Alex English. The party's platform is aligned with the global Pirate movement, and supports reform of intellectual property laws to reflect open source and free culture values, government transparency, protection of privacy and civil liberties, rolling back corporate personhood and corporate welfare, evidence-based policy, and egalitarianism and meritocracy based on the hacker ethic.  The party's national organization has existed in multiple incarnations since its 2006 founding. Its most recent is the Pirate National Committee (PNC), formed in 2012 as a coalition of state parties. The PNC officially recognizes Pirate parties from 8 states,^[3] and tracks and assists the growth of more state parties throughout the United States.

Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party_%28United_States%29

United States Pirate Party: The party strives to reform laws regarding copyright and patents. The agenda also includes support for a strengthening of the right to privacy, both on the Internet and in everyday life, and the transparency of state government.

YouTubes

(15:10) TEDxObserver – Rick Falkvinge – The Pirate Party – the politics of protest

(5:45) Pirate Party of Canada on CBC's Power & Politics

(6:08) The Pirate Party charts it course | People & Politics

(14:59) TEDxUW – Larry Smith – Why you will fail to have a great career

Essays about Pirate Politics

• Book: No safe harbor: essays about pirate politics. Reykjavik, Iceland: United States Pirate Party; 2012.
• Available to download from: http://www.nosafeharbor.com/.

Summary

“An anthology of 20 selections about issues central to the concerns of the U.S. Pirate Party, divided into three categories: (1) government and corporate transparency and accountability; (2) privacy; (3) intellectual property. A good resource for seeing how the apparently narrow Pirate Party core issues pertaining to intellectual property tie in pervasively with much broader social and economic factors.”

Foreword

The first Pirate Party was founded on January 1, 2006 by Rick Falkvinge in Sweden.

Six months later, similar parties started to spring up all over the world. All of these parties started off with the same singular goal of intellectual property reform. But, these disparate parties realized that the roots of the world's problems ran deeper than even intellectual property reform could fix.

With time, these parties added many more items to their platform. These can be condensed into 3 topics – Government and Corporate Transparency and Accountability, Personal Privacy, and, of course, Intellectual Property reform.

If nothing else, 2011 will be seen as the year of the uprisings. The year began with the Arab Spring, in which the citizens of various Middle Eastern countries rose up and either overthrew their governments or caused massive changes in their governing structures. Later in the year – September – the Occupy Wall Street movement began and quickly spread across the United States and to every continent except Antarctica.

Who knows what 2012 will bring.

Read more.