December 4th, 2019 IRC Meeting

Platform Discussion

Platform Topics

Need to integrate these from the Boston meeting

• Housing first
  • everyone has a place to live, providing stability and improving state of mind
  • not solely focusing on people who are homeless, but recognizing the increasing cost of housing
• Education reform (but not the neoliberal kind)
  • Fix the infrastructure of our schools
  • Use technology (only where needed?)
  • Centering on student empowerment and help for students to succeed at what they are good at and support them where they have challenges
• Criminal justice
  • reducing policing and incarceration
  • Increasing harm reduction policies.
  • Less punishment, more restorative justice

Quality Health care for all including dental and mental health care (expanded medicare for all)

• Implement community based mental health and wellness programs for those who need it
• We are already paying for everyone
• Merge VA into Medicare for All
• Cuts administrative costs and profits of the private system
• Retrain administrative workers if needed
• Negotiate drug and other medical prices
• Impose consistent prices
• Using compulsive licensing of patents for drugs
• Ending evergreen patents
• Having better funding for drug research that shifts reward system to target health problems not profits
• Better research into the effectiveness of drugs

Education

• Putting Students First
• Innovation in funding that reduces per student disparities in funding. Raising the bottom
• Encouraging critical thinking
• Maximizing the tools available to teachers
• Empowering teachers

Criminal Justice

• Decriminalizing victimless crimes
• Focus on restoration, rehabilitation & education not punishment
• End Civil asset forfeiture
• Fair principles and wages for prison labor
• No disenfranchisement of prisoners. No taxation without representation
• Adequately fund pubic defenders
• Community policing & end arrest/citation quotas
• No private prisons
• Train police in conflict resolution, make them peace officers not police officers
• Make police files public automatically
• No privacy for police while on the job
• End cops being above the law
• Do not break the law to enforce the law

Workers Rights

• Pro-union, card check not vote
• OSHA on every work site including government. Keep safe for all involved.

Public Transportation

• Fund MBTA and other public bus systems so they can expand quality, reliability and service
• Maintain roads so they are safe
• End tolls & surveillance on the Pike, Tobin bridge and Boston tunnels

Government Funding and Taxation

• Use systems thinking and true accounting

Housing & Homelessness

• We have an affordability problem
• More cost effective to provide housing for people who are homeless
• Incentivize keeping housing owned by people in the community, not for use as a speculative investment
  • Transaction tax paid by non-occupants?
• Improve renters rights: better recourse
  • Fund outreach to renters and owners about their rights and obligations

Drugs

• End the drug war: Decriminalize ala Portugal. Focus on addiction as a public health issue.
• Fund Needle exchange programs and programs to help people to deal with addiction
• Treat addiction as a disease not a crime
• Continue to support the legalization of cannabis and its use for those it helps
• End drug testing for government programs

National Security

• End TSA: No more security theater
• End the wars

Data Privacy: Protecting the privacy of the individual, not the state.

• Discard information once you are done processing it.
• What of GDPR should be here? Not right to be forgotten.
• Stop gathering of license plate/surveillance data or expire after X weeks. Do not share with private entities.
• Retain public data locally.
• Body/police surveillance camera data must be available by the accused at a minimum

Economy

• People first; end corporate subsidies
• Measure the people’s economy, not the stockmarket
• Honest accounting that measures the true benefits and costs of the commonwealth
  • Use these metrics to make better judgements about government policy
• Government policy should promote competition not monopoly

Right of Repair/You own what you purchased

• Software/media you paid for and download cannot be revoked
• Cannot deny someone legal process using software.
• Lock you out of your house/reposes your car w/o legal decision
• Should not be a felony to modify or examine the software/hardware you purchased
• Companies should not be able to take back stuff you already paid for
• Copyrighted works should eventually become part of the public commons (No Mickey Mouse Law)

FOIA

• All data paid for by the public should be on-line and machine readable/searchable (with personal privacy exceptions)
  • That includes all branches of government
  • No scanned documents without OCR
• Reduce the time for agencies to respond to requests to 10 days
• Consolidate oversight and enforcement of FOIA into one separate agency
  • Under gov appointed by gov/elected by the people? (look at OCPF?)
  • Change from legal process to automatic fines for when out of compliance of the law
  • Use fines pay for bringing agencies into compliance technologically
    • This saves tax payers money, simplifies the process
  • Agency would have regulatory power and can set guidelines/rules (technologies/vendors that have worked)
  • Agency can review rules/tech of other agencies and call them out accountable for non-compliance

Immigration

• Make Massachusetts be a sanctuary state
• Abolish ICE
• Establish a path to citizenship for all immigrants
• No taxation without representation; limited voting rights
• Should be a judicial process for deportation with true due process
• Honor agreements regarding asylum seekers and treat them with dignity and due process
• Streamline process to move from one student to worker visa status
• Immunity (amnesty?) for immigrants reporting crime

https://masspirates.org/wiki/March_10th,_2019_Boston_Regional_Meeting https://masspirates.org/wiki/September_29th,_2018_Party_Conference

Platform Order

What would we implement in our first 100 days of achieving power?

• Citizen surveys of police and school systems and municipal government (13 and older)
• End solitary confinement
• Fair pay for fair work (even prisoners)
• Open government additions
  • Removing exemptions of the open meeting law for all three branches of government
  • Actual enforcement of open meeting law and FOIA
  • All data paid for by the public should be on-line and machine readable/searchable (with personal privacy exceptions) That includes all branches of government
  • No scanned documents without OCR
  • All bills have to be voted on in committee
  • All votes have to list who the individual votes
  • Reduce the power of house speaker/senate president
  • Remove legislative loopholes (no votes in out of session periods). Spell out limits on emergency sessions.
  • Require bills only include content relevant to the original purpose of the bill
  • Expand whistleblower protections (suggested after the meeting)
• Full decriminalization of private consensual activities and implement effective harm reduction strategies.
• Change the law to use IRV/RCV
• Fully fund the MBTA and all public transit systems
• Pass net neutrality bill
• Have a mock budget with taxes and spending
  • Include money for energy conservation fund
  • Solar credit?
• Close the fusion centers
• Stop any support for ICE and other related agencies. Prohibit county sheriffs from helping ICE
• Try to increase competition in oligopolies esp. media
• Promote training for creating cooperative operations and tomorrow’s leaders (e for all?)

What would we implement in our first year of achieving power?

• Restorative justice approach for minors
• Implementing changes based on survey results
• Within the first year exonerate and wipe records of all private consensual crimes
• Basic right education
• Fund the development of public transit in Mass.
• Development of high speed broadband in Mass.
• License requirement
  • law students have to teach kids their rights
  • psychology students to help homeless
• Education
  • Expand financial decision making/responsibilities education
  • Teaching labor rights and struggles
  • Bring back home economics and food preparation
• Require state (MEMA) and municipalities do a climate change/storm risk assessment
  • Must include food security, housing, transportation

What would we implement longer term?

• Decentralize federal/state government to county/regions and municipalities
  • Reconstitute county governments to make them elected and able to solve regional problems
• Removal of laws that no longer apply especially if they are harmful to individual rights
• Expand the ballot initiative and direct democracy. Institute a people’s veto

Projects

Goals for Q1 2020:

• Organize meetups
• Organize election
• Organize Fundraiser(s)
• Organize candidate trainings
• Revise platform

Regional Meetings/Events

Leader: jokeefe

• Holyoke Meetup canceled
• Worcester meetup moved to Spring 2020.

Video Newsletter

Leader: Joseph

• Next pirate news recording?

Democracy and Dogfood (Tech)

Next meeting will be December 8th, 11am-1pm, Diesel Cafe, Somerville. Topics are:

• find discussion/voting system;
• update CCTV cameras to include older cameras outside North America we didn't include;
• write an app to record the location/ownership of CCTV cameras;
• set up torrents for PirateCon videos (creynolds);
• post remaining audio for PirateCon talks (srevilak).

Tabled Projects

Computer Donations

• jokeefe contacted friend who refurbishes computers for a non-profit
• Archived https://piratenpad.de/p/MassPiratesComputerDonations - move to wiki

FOSS Tutorials

Worcester farm group is interested in having some FOSS tutorials. Perhaps:

• how to do basic labels in GIMP,
• work through a few sample spreadsheets related to seed cost and
• similarly applicable real-world situations, depending on the needs of the group

Basically how to do graph design & product management with open source tools. Malt will put together a one paragraph description of what we need and we can mail it out to ask pirates to help.

Fight bills to make the Film Credit Permanent

H.2419 would make the film tax credit permanent. It is supposed to expire in 2023. The bill has 100+ signatures this time around. jokeefe will submit testimony.

Upcoming Events

• 12/8, 11am-1pm, Democracy and Dogfood (Tech) Meeting, Diesel Cafe, Somerville
• 12/3, 7-9pm, Mass MeshNet Tech Meeting,
• 12/10, 7-9pm, Mass MeshNet Tech Meeting, Democracy Center, Cambridge
• 12/17, 7-9pm, Mass MeshNet Tech Meeting, Encuentro 5, Boston
• 12/24, 7-9pm, Mass MeshNet Tech Meeting
• 1/?, 11am-1pm, Democracy and Dogfood (Tech) Meeting, ?
• 1/7, 7-9pm, Mass MeshNet Tech Meeting, ?
• 1/14, 7-9pm, Mass MeshNet Tech Meeting, Democracy Center, Cambridge
• 1/17, 7pm, ?, Worcester Meetup, Stone Soup, 4 King St, Worcester
• 1/21, 7-9pm, Mass MeshNet Tech Meeting, Encuentro 5, Boston
• 1/28, 7-9pm, Mass MeshNet Tech Meeting
• Spring 2020, ?, Springfield Meetup
• Spring 2020, ?, Boston Meetup

Participants

• Pirate_Joe: Joseph Onoroski Lowell
• jokeefe: James O’Keefe, Somerville

Observers

• igel[m]
• davidd
• Deffy
• haskal[m]
• MikaelaSuomalainen
• ChanServ

Summary

Start with Quality Health care for all including dental and mental health care (expanded medicare for all). Will post/email about it and ask for comments on the post.

Will record a pirate news this Sunday after 5pm. Jokeefe will ask what time works.

Minutes

 


[9:06pm] jokeefe: Agenda: https://masspirates.org/wiki/December_4th,_2019_IRC_Meeting
[9:06pm] jokeefe: ids
[9:06pm] Pirate_Joe: Joseph Onoroski Lowell
[9:06pm] jokeefe: anything to add?
[9:06pm] jokeefe: James O’Keefe, Somerville
[9:06pm] jokeefe: Unfortunately, srevilak won’t be able to attend
[9:06pm] Pirate_Joe: Actually, still exhausted from the storm. That is why I missed the meeting on Monday
[9:07pm] Pirate_Joe: Malt or Desmond?
[9:09pm] jokeefe: Checked with Malt. Will email Desmond in the future.
[9:10pm] jokeefe: I am fine with keeping the meeting short
[9:10pm] Pirate_Joe: Sounds good.
[9:11pm] jokeefe: Platform Discussion
[9:11pm] jokeefe: https://masspirates.org/wiki/December_4th,_2019_IRC_Meeting#Platform_Topics
[9:12pm] Pirate_Joe: I see this as start forward. Simply applying mass health but on a national level.
[9:13pm] Pirate_Joe: For the health care that is.
[9:14pm] Pirate_Joe: First having it cover basic wellness appointments and move it outwards from there.
[9:14pm] jokeefe: So start with Quality Health care for all including dental and mental health care (expanded medicare for all)?
[9:15pm] Pirate_Joe: Yes, mental health is a wellness visit but for psychological care instead of physical.
[9:17pm] Pirate_Joe: https://www.mamh.org/
[9:17pm] Pirate_Joe: Amazing people over there.
[9:17pm] jokeefe: Thanks!
[9:18pm] Pirate_Joe: Basically would be looking to apply what we have done in ma already and make it more accessible for thw eest of the nation
[9:19pm] Pirate_Joe: The rest*
[9:19pm] jokeefe: What about putting up a post/email with what we have and ask for feedback on the post?
[9:20pm] Pirate_Joe: I could write up something tomorrow.  Sab or crew?
[9:21pm] jokeefe: if you can, great. send it to the activists list.
[9:21pm] Pirate_Joe: Np
[9:22pm] jokeefe: thanks
[9:23pm] Pirate_Joe: Son woke up and is laying on my arm 
[9:23pm] jokeefe: Projects
[9:23pm] jokeefe: Regional Meetings/Events
[9:23pm] jokeefe: Worcester is a go
[9:24pm] jokeefe: Video Newsletter
[9:24pm] jokeefe: Anytime work this weekend?
[9:25pm] Pirate_Joe: Comp is still out of comission. I have time Sunday night
[9:26pm] jokeefe: What time Sunday night?
[9:26pm] Pirate_Joe: Can you record?
[9:26pm] Pirate_Joe: 5-6?
[9:27pm] jokeefe: I think so.
[9:27pm] Pirate_Joe: Anytime after 5 will work for me.
[9:27pm] jokeefe: Good to know. Will check with others.
[9:28pm] Pirate_Joe: Ok. Ty
[9:28pm] jokeefe: We have a tech meeting Sunday. Will get an email out and put up a blog post.
[9:29pm] jokeefe: National Party had its elections. Results at https://wiki.pirate-party.us/PNC_12/2/19
[9:31pm] Pirate_Joe: So I am not a part of the team.
[9:32pm] Pirate_Joe: Very well.
[9:32pm] jokeefe: We didn’t receive your acceptance as treasurer so we didn’t elect you.
[9:33pm] jokeefe: if you are interested in that role, I am sure you will be elected on Monday
[9:34pm] Pirate_Joe: Since I already have the money in the account it makes sense.
[9:34pm] jokeefe: true
[9:34pm] jokeefe: I think you would do well
[9:34pm] Pirate_Joe: Not putting their names on it since I find the whole affair disconcerting.
[9:35pm] jokeefe: I can understand
[9:36pm] Pirate_Joe: What do you think?
[9:36pm] jokeefe: About you running?
[9:37pm] Pirate_Joe: I would prefer running for office than wasting my time on a council that can't get the job done.
[9:38pm] jokeefe: We all have to put our time where we feel it is most effective.
[9:39pm] jokeefe: That said, the national party really needs a treasurer, even temporarily while we find a replacement
[9:39pm] Pirate_Joe: I am sure you are aware of my frustrations. No need to sling mud.
[9:40pm] jokeefe: I sympathise with your frustration
[9:40pm] Pirate_Joe: I'll do it, since I now have little trust if them
[9:40pm] Pirate_Joe: But h sq
[9:40pm] jokeefe: h sq?
[9:41pm] Pirate_Joe: But happy to help you and keep an eye on them.
[9:41pm] Pirate_Joe: Sin is awake and wants my attention.
[9:41pm] jokeefe: Transparency is a great think
[9:41pm] Pirate_Joe: Son*
[9:41pm] jokeefe: We have at least four people submit requests for Muckrock’s facial recognition technology FOIA
[9:41pm] jokeefe: Let’s adjourn then
[9:42pm] jokeefe: ok?
[9:42pm] Pirate_Joe: 2nd
[9:42pm] jokeefe: aye
[9:42pm] Pirate_Joe: And aye
[9:42pm] jokeefe: I’ll post the notes
[9:42pm] Pirate_Joe: Ty sir
[9:42pm] jokeefe: Have a relaxing night and beyond
[9:42pm] jokeefe: Thanks