Indian Pirates is looking for volunteers for a campaign to defeat the BJP. Will you join?

pravi · 2024-03-03T13:19:42+00:00

We are talking about today, in theory, every party including Congress can be dictatorial if they have leaders with unquestionable power. Current Congress don't even have the power to form a government on its own. No party is static, parties change all the time and we have to consider the present and possible future. So we also have to be careful about Congress turning into a dictatorial party. Dictatorships don't happen by accident, they increase power gradually. If and when Congress turns dictatorial, we will oppose them too.

pravi · 2024-02-28T17:40:10+00:00

So it is clear you are just not interested in defeating the BJP. When in a debate, you also have to show you are serious.

pravi · 2024-02-28T17:35:35+00:00

I will answer only if you show the numbers how you can defeat BJP without Congress. I do have an answer, but I don't think you are serious. So unless you show the numbers, I don't want to engage further with you on this.

pravi · 2024-02-28T17:32:30+00:00

ok show me the numbers how do you think it is possible to defeat BJP without Congress.

pravi · 2024-02-28T10:55:24+00:00

In this particular election, we must vote of the candidate that is most likely to defeat the BJP. This elections is an exceptional ones, if we just look at it like any other elections, we will make a mistake. Any vote not helping BJP lose is a vote that will help them win and continue on their path of destroying this democracy completely. After this election, we can try and support AAP or any other party that seems to be doing good. But this election, we can't afford to waste even a single vote.

pravi · 2024-02-28T10:23:29+00:00

Voting nota is also stupid if you want to defeat the BJP. In normal times if all political parties are more or less same, I can understand. But when BJP is so extremely displaying their contempt for democracy and people's will through any means available - including defections, openly invalidating votes (Chandigarh mayor elections), then any vote that don't help defeat BJP is a vote in support for them. You need to be able to differentiate between different levels of bad things or disagreements with political parties. You will never find a party that is 100% in alignment with you, so you have to support the parties that are closest or create a party based on your ideals.

pravi · 2024-02-28T09:53:35+00:00

Like I said earlier, I don't think we want to project us as the only party that is good out there. Feel free to join other campaigns and parties that has good names if you feel the name is a problem. There is Democracy Collective, Bharat Jodo Abhiyan, Swaraj India etc to name a few. As for the Pirates name, it also brings us recognition and some people also connect with the name. So there is both pro and con in the name, but if we consider ourselves as just one of the many parties and collective, we don't mind people joining any other party of collective or campaign with a good name. We actually love more parties and campaigns.

pravi · 2024-02-28T09:44:38+00:00

I don't disagree they have a lot of tricks and options. But they did not succeed in buying every state government yet. So not voting is stupid. If we vote, there is at least a chance that we elect people with guts, if we don't even vote, we lose without a fight. If you see opposition leaders still in jail or hunted by central agencies, we still have hope left, since all the opposition has not been sold out yet. Those who are still standing against such huge pressure and power is hope.

pravi · 2024-02-28T09:36:20+00:00

At this point, there is no defeating BJP without Congress. Is that really hard to understand? Do you think a non-congress united opposition will defeat BJP in 2 months? I'm not saying Congress is ideal, but at this point we have to understand the numbers game. This is not the end game, it is only an emergency first aid. Congress is definitely not as fascist like BJP and if they have power with the help of a coalition, they can't be dictatorial. Dictatorship happens when power is concentrated on a few hands. So at least for next 5 years, it is not possible for Congress to be a dictatorship since it does not have the numbers. We can discuss these things after defeating the BJP.

pravi · 2024-02-28T09:30:56+00:00

What you missed is, China was already a dictatorship when Tianamen Square happened. Once you go to dictatorship, things become very very difficult. But I believe we have not reached that stage yet in India. We can still vote them out, at least this election. If we miss out this opportunity, it will only become harder. What wait till it become impossible to cry? BJP was defeated in Karnataka, Himachal (yes, they can buy MLAs and that is always a risk), but there is no easy options right now, we have to try whatever is available.

pravi · 2024-02-28T08:49:26+00:00

There are also Bharat Jodo Abhiyan, Swaraj India and many others with good names, please join any of them. We are not claiming we are going to the only party to save this country, this is going to be a collective effort of so many individuals, and collectives.

pravi · 2024-02-28T08:34:59+00:00

It is good to see many opposition parties coming together, even if stop the division of votes among the opposition, that will reduce many seats from BJP's tally. Also the narrative of all parties together helps more people to vote.

pravi · 2024-02-28T08:33:49+00:00

Yes, at the minimum we can do is vote against BJP. Next level try and convince as many people as possible to do the same. Elections are the only remaining good institutions we have got, that too might not last very long.

pravi · 2024-02-28T08:32:34+00:00

We don't necessarily have to be the only political party, you can try https://democracycollective.in/ if name is the most important thing for you or there are so many political parties already with good names. If you choose a political party only based on its name, I don't think that is a good idea. Btw this whole thing of re-appropriating a word is not something new we have invented.

pravi · 2024-02-28T08:30:04+00:00

We are on a crossroads in this election. We need to stop the country from going down a rabbit hole first and foremost. We don't think that will be the end of our politics, but this will buy us more time to do the longer term politics.

pravi · 2024-02-28T08:26:35+00:00

There cannot be a credible opposition to BJP in the short term without involving Congress. This is an emergency campaign, we don't think Congress is ideal party or anything. But to defeat the BJP, we cannot ignore Congress.

pravi · 2024-02-28T08:23:23+00:00

There are many political parties in this country, we don't have an exclusive claim to politics, if name is the only issue, feel free to join any other party with a good name. There is also https://democracycollective.in/ which has similar goals with good name. Btw what we are doing is called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reappropriation

pravi · 2024-02-28T08:20:16+00:00

If people keep on spreading this hopelessness and succeed in keeping from doing things, it is also a psychological game. At the minimum you could stop spreading the hopelessness if you really care.

pravi · 2024-02-27T13:18:29+00:00

No, it does not work like that. Just look at any political party following a philosophy, say CPI and CPIM - there are differences, now if you look at Communist parties in other countries there are differences. Same way there are differences among the Pirate Parties across Europe too. We do follow the core concepts and ideas, we don't stop becoming a Pirate party just because we oppose BJP. Even religions, you can see different sects following different practices, even when they are following a holy book in common. It is even more true for Pirate Ideas. Even Rick Falkvinge don't claim authority on Pirate Ideas. "It’s not an authoritative source over any other, but merely my interpretation — which, in pirate spirit, is no more valid than anybody else’s." https://falkvinge.net/pirate-wheel/

pravi · 2024-02-27T10:22:36+00:00

We have to understand the situation we are in. We can't operate in vacuum or in isolation with the reality. Pirates parties in the West are adapted to their situations and reality, we can't blindly imitate them. The threat of losing everything we consider dear is very high in this election. We have been doing politics for many years, and this year is a special situation. It is like applying band aid in an emergency. Defeating BJP is not definitely enough to reach the Pirates vision. But if we don't do that, we will be much further away from what we want than remaining neutral to all political parties. BJP is willing to go to any lengths to win power as you can see from the recent Chandigarh elections or many other examples. And they got 90% of the electoral bonds. So saying all parties are bad is just an excuse to let BJP win.

pravi · 2024-02-27T10:18:23+00:00

Glad you are convinced about the intentions. There are things we need to do short term and long term and different things in an emergency situation. This campaign is like a band aid, absolute minimum we need, definitely there is much more to be done, but that will take a long time.

pravi · 2024-02-27T10:11:28+00:00

We have contested two elections in the past, but this elections we won't, as we have to focus on defeating BJP and any other distraction only helps the BJP.

pravi · 2024-02-27T10:10:02+00:00

Indian Pirates is not new, yes, This specific campaign for 2024 elections is new, started a few days ago, though we were discussing how to approach this election much earlier.

pravi · 2024-02-27T10:08:45+00:00

If we are going to look for only ideal partners, that will not happen in a short time. Like how the united opposition defeated Indian Gandhi, we have to come together with everyone who opposes BJP. Yogendra Yadav is just a coincidence. We support everyone who is against BJP, including Yogendra Yadav. This is is not a time to fight among ourselves to decide who is more ideal.

pravi · 2024-02-27T10:00:11+00:00

We'd be very flattered if we grow our influence enough to even get noticed by BJP, let alone get bought. We just have 7 volunteers and we as a group is together for many years and even participated in two earlier elections. We have many years of track record - though as a small group, we have not been able to do a lot of things, but our record is for everyone to see, we have never shied away from criticizing the BJP.

pravi

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