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The MP3 Party

 
 
The Sinister Haiku Bureau
14:54 / 31.07.02
From the BBC News.
Definitely interesting. I'm not entirely sure how to respond to this: Probably with a combination of "Yes, Finally!This is exactly what the world needs!", Shock and suspicion at/of some of their policies, and cynicism that they'll ever even finish building their website.
Thoughts?
 
 
gridley
15:35 / 31.07.02
see now, there's a third party I could get behind....
 
 
Baz Auckland
18:42 / 31.07.02
...except for the 'bring back the death penalty' bit, I like them.
 
 
The Sinister Haiku Bureau
19:24 / 31.07.02
From googling for the founder's name, he seems to be something of a Thatcherite, which is kinda scary. They certainly do have some policies which I'm suspicious of, notably the death penalty one, their environmental prioritisation, pro-monarchism and immigration policies. Part of me thinks this is a rather dubious attempt to co-opt the MP3 /free-software/digital rights movement(s) towards the centre right and away from any ties with the radical left, which seems like a much more reasonable political alliance (to me). I honestly don't know whether to love these people, hate them, or just laugh at them- especially since there only appears to be one member at the moment, albeit a rich and self-aggrandising one. But one way or another, it'll certainly be interesting to see where it goes.
Incidently, does this guy remind anybody of Hagbard Celine?
 
 
gridley
19:32 / 31.07.02
What? Just because his political headquarters are in a golden submarine? hehe... yeah, definitely.

so, when they say they'd send longterm prisoners overseas, where exactly are they talking about?
 
 
gentleman loser
20:54 / 31.07.02
From the article:

It claims to have a programme "based on the well-developed cybernetic theory of Complex Systems used already in many fields (mathematics, nuclear physics, genetics, theoretical mechanics, etc...) but in this case applied to the social and economical structures of British society".

Maybe the Space Brothers will come down to Earth and solve all of our problems too! This is just a tad simplistic, I think. On the other hand, I'm somewhat of a Green Party backer and lots of people say the same thing about them.

Expect disaffected youth to stay away in droves.

They hate to be co-opted.

gridley

so, when they say they'd send longterm prisoners overseas, where exactly are they talking about?

Australia?
 
 
Thjatsi
22:54 / 31.07.02
Is it just me, or are the proposals, "a ban on lawyers being elected to parliament", "broadband in all new houses", and "neutrality in all foreign affairs", really fucking bizzare ideas to base your party on?

Why ban lawyers from being elected to parliament, as opposed to say janitors or florists? And, doesn't neutrality in all foreign affairs mean that you won't be taking steps to prevent any Rawandaesque genocides?
 
 
Tezcatlipoca
05:19 / 01.08.02
"Another proposal is to allow anyone to adopt any "royal" title such as tzar, king, super-king, shah, emperor or sultan - as long as the title is not taken already and at least 100 UK citizens agree to be his/her "subjects"."

Delusions of grandeur await...
 
 
Morlock - groupie for hire
12:06 / 01.08.02
Also, cutting Grundig tax breaks for not owning the trademark to MP3 seems a bit...odd.

Half a manifesto. Eeeenteresting. The rather heavy link to AudiobooksForFree smells a bit, too.
 
 
tSuibhne
13:10 / 01.08.02
Part of me thinks this is a rather dubious attempt to co-opt the MP3 /free-software/digital rights movement(s) towards the centre right and away from any ties with the radical left, which seems like a much more reasonable political alliance (to me).

You might be surprised at how conservative these movements are. A fair number of people in the Open Source movement are libertarians, and ever since the economy in the US fell apart there's been a constant call from certain areas of the IT world to deport foreigners who are working in the IT field.
 
  
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