September 1st, 2021 IRC Meeting

Decisions/Endorsements

Afghan War Statement

https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/MAPPAfghanistanStatement

Platform

Planks: https://github.com/masspirates/planks

Projects

Outreach

Leader: Malt

• Next pirate moot?
• Setup local video meetups by region with people who said they were interested in organizing a local chapter
• Organize candidate trainings

Video Newsletter/Podcast

Leader: Joseph

• Pirate news recording scheduled for Sundays, 7pm with go-live at 7:30pm. Unless changed

Other To Do

• Application to PPI

Participants

Observers

• davidd
• hvxgr
• slerman

Summary

Afghan War Statement approved:

 
The US military has finally left Afghanistan after 20 years. Good. The Afghan invasion and occupation was the wrong reaction to the attack on the United States by al-Qaeda on September 11th, 2001.

The war cost the US over 2000 dead Americans, tens of thousands of disabled Americans and over $1 trillion dollars. We cannot forget that over 100,000 Afghans died from our occupation. Nor can we forget how our occupation fostered corruption in Afghanistan that made millionaires of a small number of well connected Afghan men and ultimately helped the Taliban regain control.

We could have devoted a fraction of what our military has spent occupying Afghanistan on promoting economic development, education and health as well as building a native Afghan nonviolent resistance movement.  People who have enough to eat, a job with a decent income and the ability to read have much more ability to organize and use nonviolent tactics to undermine the support of their leaders.  We forget when we judge the success of a nonviolent resistance that, after twenty years of violent resistance to the Taliban, the Taliban won in the end.

By taking a long-term nonviolent approach, one that focused on economic development, education and improving the health of all Afghans, we would have left Afghanistan a far better place than we have so far.  The cost in lives and worthless government spending of the US' failed 20 year policy was immensely higher than our approach.

Had we not invaded Afghanistan, Iraq and numerous other countries that bore the brunt of our weapons, we would have more than enough to switch our country away from technologies that promote global warming. Nearly 20 years after our invasion of Afghanistan, we could have demonstrated to the world the good that is possible when we tackle the looming climate catastrophe.  We could have had a green economy that lifts everyone up rather than making the 1% immensely rich. 

Our occupations demonstrate that as a country we have the ability to bear high costs over decades for a failed policy. Now is the time to build a Green Just Future for all Americans and lead the way forward for everyone on our beautiful planet.


  

Started work on two new planks:

• https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/MAPPImmigrationPlank
• https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/MAPPDigitalFreedomForAll

Edited the Digital Freedom For All plank.

Minutes

 


[9:02pm] jokeefe: Agenda: https://masspirates.org/wiki/September_1st,_2021_IRC_Meeting
[9:02pm] jokeefe: ids
[9:02pm] jokeefe: James O’Keefe, Somerville
[9:02pm] malt: sam capradae, worcester
[9:02pm] jokeefe: Anything to add?
[9:02pm] malt: nyet
[9:02pm] Joe: Joseph Onoroski, Lowell
[9:02pm] jokeefe: Decisions/Endorsements
[9:02pm] Joe: Mass budget
[9:02pm] jokeefe: Afghan War Statement
[9:03pm] jokeefe: https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/MAPPAfghanistanStatement
[9:03pm] Joe: Add please
[9:04pm] jokeefe: ?
[9:05pm] Joe: If we are doing this for the USPP may as well do it for us.
[9:06pm] jokeefe: The USPP version has more edits
[9:07pm] Joe: Looks good to me.
[9:07pm] Joe: Motion to approve and post it?
[9:08pm] malt: aye!
[9:08pm] jokeefe: Added Massachusetts Budget to the agenda, Joe
[9:08pm] Joe: Ty
[9:09pm] Joe: Just want ti schedule for tomorrow when we can go over it.
[9:09pm] Joe: Prefer 10am to 2 pm
[9:09pm] jokeefe: all in favor of approving the statement?
[9:09pm] Joe: Aye
[9:09pm] malt: aye
[9:10pm] jokeefe: aye
[9:10pm] jokeefe: any opposed?
[9:11pm] jokeefe: motion passes. Will post it tomorrow.
[9:11pm] jokeefe: Platform - what topic should we cover next?
[9:11pm] malt: have we done education yet?
[9:12pm] Joe: Foreign policy
[9:12pm] malt: 2nd foreign policy
[9:12pm] Joe: Yeah, first one
[9:12pm] malt: my memory has been SHOT lately. zero focus, no creative energy
[9:12pm] jokeefe: https://masspirates.org/blog/ourissues/education-for-all/
[9:12pm] Joe: We already have a rough statement on it
[9:13pm] jokeefe: Foreign policy isn’t that applicable for Mass. government
[9:13pm] jokeefe: What about https://github.com/masspirates/planks/blob/master/FreeDemocraticallyControlledTechnicalInfrastructure.txt ?
[9:14pm] jokeefe: or https://github.com/masspirates/planks/blob/master/ParticipationInDigitalLife.txt
[9:14pm] malt: i feel like we could combine these two
[9:14pm] Joe: Well, we can do a piece about the benefits of being a sanctuary city.
[9:15pm] jokeefe: We can combine those two.
[9:15pm] jokeefe: perhaps a position on immigration ?
[9:15pm] Joe: That works too
[9:17pm] malt: are we editing it on the git?
[9:18pm] malt: or  is there a pad coming
[9:18pm] jokeefe: https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/MAPPImmigrationPlank
[9:18pm] Joe: That is all I have. Sorry but I am extremely tired.
[9:18pm] Joe: May I be excused early?
[9:19pm] malt: sure buddy!
[9:19pm] malt: oh are we doing immigration?
[9:19pm] jokeefe: Also: https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/MAPPDigitalFreedomForAll
[9:19pm] jokeefe: We good for recording Sunday?
[9:20pm] malt: i think i shall be out of town
[9:20pm] jokeefe: Hope you get some rest Joe
[9:20pm] jokeefe: Hope all is well malt
[9:20pm] Joe: Yeah, recording is still on.
[9:21pm] malt: oh i'm good, we're just going camping
[9:22pm] Joe: Good night gentlemen.
[9:22pm] jokeefe: oh good. See you Sunday Joe
[9:22pm] Joe left the chat room. (Quit: Connection closed)
[9:23pm] jokeefe: thanks for pasting the text into the statement, malt
[9:23pm] malt: my pleasure
[9:24pm] malt: I think 5, democratically controlled infrastructure, and 6.1, access to digital communication, can be combined
[9:25pm] malt: 6.3 6.4 and 6.5 all seem kinda redundant
[9:26pm] jokeefe: 6.5?
[9:27pm] jokeefe: on 5 and 6.1 - access is good, but control is better
[9:27pm] malt: my bad
[9:27pm] malt: 2, 3, 4
[9:28pm] jokeefe: ok
[9:28pm] jokeefe: ok
[9:53pm] jokeefe: Good progress. Shall we finish up next week?
[9:56pm] malt: i think so
[9:56pm] malt: I'm just kinda blanking when it comes to explanations
[9:58pm] jokeefe: shall we adjourn then?
[10:04pm] malt: aye!
[10:04pm] jokeefe: Have a good night. Will post the transcript.