Slashdot Mirror
Europeans, Tweak Your Representatives On Patents
zoobab writes "The FFII is launching a call for
action to push European candidates to answer questions on Software
Patents. Alan Cox has also written a open letter in
which he points out that those European elections are an opportunity for
each citizen to have the choice and to make the politicians listen. Get the
questionnaire and send it to the candidates
of your country!"
If they want as many valid candidates to fill out the questionnairs as possible, then they should direct it at the people, with sensible people language.
The only way to influence politicians is to get column inches and air time. The only sure way to do that is to do something dramatic (a la fuel protests, anti-war protests, anything that mildly annoys the French, etc.)
So, here's the Slashdot challenge: Come up with and implement a scheme to draw the media's attention to this issue. The winner is the first to make it to the BBC evening news...
I wrote a letter to my MP and MEP and all I basically got back was a nice parliamentary compliment slip and a letter with the lowest signal to noise ratio ever. They're all toeing the party line.
I've written my national and regional MP of the department of Work and Economy, and she promissed me to make sure belgium would not vote yes to the proposal of the current Irish presidency. Belgium (my country) subsequently abstained from the vote, along with a few others. Germany, which was expected to at least abstain, and that had said it would vote no, in the end voted yes, which makes blocking the proposal a whole lot more difficult (but not impossible). I won't pretend my writing made the difference, but I would say that yes, it does pay off to make some noise.
The big problem here is that lawyers and rulemakers can be bought, and that the FFII does not represent the kapitalist industry that can apparently leverage any vote it wants, 'xcept for a few small stubborn but harmless ones.
So, open your eyes, ladies and gentlemen, because King Kapitalism, in this case, is ~BAD~. I'm not a commie nor a leftie, but I just wanted to say this loud and clear, so that some people at least for once get the message. And no, I'm not an Anti-globalist, but I very much *AM* a Different-globalist, who wants to bring the power back to the ones who need it (us, the people, in case you were wondering)
Write your MP today, and get your friends to write as well. It's not so difficult to write a well founded email, and at least they will be aware that some groups in society WILL have a problem and at least HAVE warned the EU of the consequences. It will make their case less convincing, and they will never be able to say "uh, we didn't know". Write today. Peace out.
With great power comes great electricity bills.
So you would elect just an 'average person' to represent you in all things that have to do with europe.
Personally I'm going to vote for an Idiot so I can just ignore them.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I e-mailed MEP Sterckx of the right-wing ELDR group, asked to look into the issue, pointed to the FFII info, and told that, as the head of R&D of a small software company, I felt that the FFII best represented the interests of the Belgian software industry.
I got a nice answer back, and a follow-up pointing to the amendments his group proposed. It was clear that they have studied the matter thoroughly. Belgium abstained (= did not vote for acceptance) in the Council.
Sterckx will get my vote in the upcoming European elections.
I noticed that the questionnaire isn't available in all languages spoken in the EU (yet) - if you intend to use it, please do translate it into your language because that makes it appear much more important to your MEP.
Karma. Moderation. Is my
Definitely don't vote UKIP - looks like a finely glossed-over bigoted BNP to me.
I voted Green last time (as much as protest vote as anything else) and my region (South-East UK) did get one of the two green MEPs, but the Green campaign leaflet has some nasty anti-science stuff in it and they are opposed to the Euro.. so I'm a bit wary of voting for them this time.
I have voted in every election I've been able to, and this year for the first time I really have no clue who to vote for. All the parties have policies that I seriously disagree with, except maybe the libdems whose leaflet didn't have any policies in it at all so it was difficult to tell (I do normally agree with most of their stuff but this time the leaflet is full of contentless crap)
The UK electoral system desparately needs a kick in the head - at the very least we need a "no suitable candidate" option so that I can exercise my vote without sanctioning any of the dangerous stuff that these people stand for. Still, at least we do get a semblance of a choice unlike the US.
Q.
Robert Kilroy-Silk is one of their candidates. I think that says it all.
Not to me it doesn't. You need to add:
* Racists
* Small minded
* Little Englanders
* Living in the past
You're right, in that I'm not an economist or a banker so I won't argue on those grounds as I'll lose :)
My main reason for approving of the Euro is a philosophical one - the UKIP/BNP/Tories use it as a crutch for their xenophobic/reactionary policies. I'm opposed to those, and I believe that adopting the Euro will help to eliminate some of the social differences we have with the rest of the world, and help to prevent us from becoming more insular like the US.
Q.
I'm pro-Euro.
The main issue is your first point, "the UK would not be able to set interest rates to match its economic situation". While this is true, I don't see you proposing that the different regions of the UK should have their own currency.
There was an interesting article in the Economist a month or so ago saying that were it not for Germany, the Eurozones GDP would be higher than the US. Germany is essentially still suffering from the (probably necessary) decision to exchange East German Marks to West German marks at 1:1.
Another point worth considering is that Gordon Brown taked a year ago of having variable taxation that would change to regulate the economy just as exchnage rates are used ny the Bank of England now. We could join the Euro and still control inflation.