November 20th, 2019 IRC Meeting

Decisions/Endorsements

Platform

Topic a week starting in December?

 

1	Platform Discussion
1.1	Quality Health care for all including dental and mental health care (expanded medicare for all)
1.2	Education
1.3	Criminal Justice
1.4	No eminent domain for private profit
1.5	Workers Rights
1.6	Public Transportation
1.7	Government Funding and Taxation
1.8	Housing & Homelessness
1.9	Drugs
1.10	National Security
1.11	Data Privacy: Protecting the privacy of the individual, not the state.
1.12	Economy
1.13	Right of Repair/You own what you purchased
1.14	FOIA
1.15	Immigration
2	Adopted Resolution on Sex Worker Rights
3	What to focus on going forward? Discussion
3.1	networking with other organizing
3.2	open disc with rival interests
3.3	communications -- a platform milestone
3.4	observations: what do we focus on?
4	Attendance Statistics
Platform Discussion
We brainstormed platform ideas. These ideas will serve as the basis for further discussion and expansion.

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
No eminent domain for private profit
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
Adopted Resolution on Sex Worker Rights
After making a presentation on the history of sex workers, Desmond Ravenstone proposed the following platform statement:

Consistent with our belief in an open society and individual autonomy, the Massachusetts Pirate Party supports the full decriminalization of consensual sex work, with commercial sex enterprises to be treated like other businesses, and sex workers assured of free expression and free association to organize for their rights, safety and dignity.

We oppose both sex trafficking and the conflation of sex work with trafficking and other forms of coercion, and agree that sex worker organizations need to be involved in efforts to address trafficking.

This proposal was adopted without objection.

What to focus on going forward? Discussion
networking with other organizing
masscann / aclu
massmesh
open disc with rival interests
healthy debate
who dont agree
who agree
focus on: discussion vs. an argument
communications -- a platform milestone
not just irc..
get on and become members, and discuss.
is it riot chat? is it tech?
geography is important, using librarys (or other) for meetups
Proposed: October Democracy tech meet
evaluate catagories/features of a given solution
discord
hangouts
riot
catagories
voting
video/voice conference
streaming
barrier to participate
observations: what do we focus on?
most pressuring issue concerning you
net neutrality, housing
drm
sex worker rights && expanding pirate party
immigration, school, community
housing
policing, accountability, body cams
inequality, fair access to resources re: food justice

Main Ideas for Discussion
What differentiates us from other parties/groups?
What are we focusing on?
Where are we going?
How to we reach out to more people?
Platform
How to run
What differentiates us from other parties/groups?
Focused on personal privacy
Tends to be defensive, though
Counter are cryptoparties and other means to show people how to protect themselves
People first
Focused on democratic decision making
Non-electoral efforts
Cryptoparties
Mesh Networking
Break light clinics
Ask for other ideas at meetings/on-line
Platform changes
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
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

• 11/24, 10:30am-3:30pm, Holyoke Pirate Meetup, Board Room, Holyoke Public Library, 250 Chestnut Street, Holyoke
• 11/26, 7-9pm, Mass MeshNet Tech Meeting
• 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
• 1/21, 7-9pm, Mass MeshNet Tech Meeting, Encuentro 5, Boston
• Spring 2020, ?, Worcester Meetup
• Spring 2020, ?, Springfield Meetup
• Spring 2020, ?, Boston Meetup

Participants

Observers

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