Germany has a "Pirate party"? How cool is that?

[Safetykitten]

"The CDU won 23.5 percent, up slightly from 21.3 percent in 2006 but well below the 40 percent the party used to win in Berlin in the 1980s and 1990s. The Greens won 18 percent, up from 13.1 percent in 2006, and the Left party fell to 11.5 percent from 13.4 percent. The Pirate Party won a stunning 8.5 percent."

Why can't we have nice things?

[louis-t]

1. "But I don't wanna be a pirate."

Jerry Seinfeld

[msongs]

2. join the pirate party and steal what u want. of course u will not complain when ppl steal from you n

[Honeycombe8]

3. Campaign Slogan: Yes, We Aaaarrrrggggg? nt

[ambibar]

5. Actually...

Their main slogan is: "Klarmachen zum Ändern" ("Prepare to change") a wordplay on "Klarmachen zum Entern" ("Prepare to board")

Now where did I hear that change stuff before? ;)

[MannyGoldstein]

4. Massachusetts has an official Pirate Party, too

Registered by the state and everything. My Nook Color doesn't do cut and paste, but you can Google it.

[Earth_First]

7. Link:

http://www.masspirates.org/blog/

[Kablooie]

6. Old news. My son had a pirate party when he was 6.

[azul]

8. Let's pray they be not sea-pirates.

"The chief weapon of sea pirates, however, was their capacity to astonish. Nobody else could believe, until it was too late, how heartless and greedy they were."
-Kurt Vonnegut

[Rochester]

9. Arrrr!!! I support these pirates!

[RainDog]

10. most northern European nations do

and the party is comprised of a lot of techies who are about open source issues, among other things.

[Electric Monk]

12. According to wikipedia, Sweden was the first in 2006

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Parties_International

The first Pirate party was the Swedish Piratpartiet, founded on January 1, 2006. Other parties and groups were formed in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain. In 2007, representatives of these parties met in Vienna, Austria to form an alliance and plan for the 2009 European Parliament elections.<4> Further conferences were held in 2008 in Berlin and Uppsala, the latter leading to the "Uppsala Declaration" of a basic platform for the elections.<5>

[mod mom]

11. Ah...we do to but it's called the GOP.

[dickthegrouch]

14. you beat me to it mod mom

GOP is the current epitome of pirates taking from everyone else and hoarding for themselves.

[hfojvt]

15. greedy old pirates?

[Puregonzo1188]

13. I believe we have a Pirate Party as well.

[reorg]

16. very

The WSWS don't seem to like them, maybe because they take away some potential votes from the Left Party in Germany, which shares quite a few positions with the Pirates.

Up to a few weeks ago, nobody expected them to actually win seats in a parliament. But they attracted ten percent of the vote in East Berlin, 8 percent in the West. Their party program is still incomplete, but their focus, net politics, has been discussed in online forums and blogs for almost 20 years now and was big news last year with all the brouhaha around Wikileaks. In European countries with proportional representation it is apparently important enough to play a significant role in elections, especially with the younger generations.

[sfpcjock]

17. Arrrrrrr! I like that, too. Now if they would just have a "Caveman Party", LOL

:)

[Raine]

18. Already have one ... the Teabaggers. nt

[HopeHoops]

19. So do we - they're called "teabaggers".