[Noisebridge-discuss] OT: battlestar wanted

[Mikael Vejdemo-Johansson]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Apr 19, 2009, at 5:59 PM, d p chang wrote:
> Mikael Vejdemo-Johansson <mik at stanford.edu> writes:
>> the Pirate Party now has more members than the Liberal Party.
>
> i realize that sweden has more parties than we have here in the us,  
> but
> are these two more 'outlier' parties? at least when i lived in  
> france i
> lost track of the various parties and their (to me) similar views
> (harkening to the 'splitter' bit from _life of brian_).
>

Apologies, I should have been more clear about the context:

The Pirate Party - founded a few years ago, shooting star among the  
outlier parties. Surprises everyone in its growth and success, but  
still isn't large enough to win parliamentary posts (not that this is  
uncommon - several other parties hanker on around the single  
percentage point....)

The Feminist Party - Fi - was founded a few years before the PP, by  
one of the really old foxes in Swedish politics. It still hasn't  
gotten enough votes to gain any positions, but it seems to almost be a  
real power in Swedish politics (for some value of...). PP made  
headlines when they beat Fi in the recent parliamentary elections.

The Liberal Party - Folkpartiet - used to be a paragon of social  
liberalism in Sweden, and now is giving in to some populist urges.  
They've been wavering between 6% and 20% for the last few decades, and  
tend to be solid members of the righter wing of the Swedish parliament  
- - the Bourgeouisie wing... They used to, once, in cooperation with the  
Social Democrats, sit in government - and for long stretches of time  
we used to have a liberal Prime Minister. These are the real thing.

Another party I recently saw that PP exceeds the membership numbers  
for is the Christian Democrats - Kristdemokraterna (kd). Also a real  
party in Swedish politics, with about the same span as the Liberal  
Party in results (though lately they're dipping below the 4%  
limit....), kd stands for a christian conservatism rightish wing  
politics.

Do note, please, also, that even the frothing-at-the-mouth-right-wing  
people in Sweden would fit better in the lefter wings of the  
Democratic party in the US than anywhere else...


Mikael Vejdemo-Johansson, Dr.rer.nat
Postdoctoral researcher
mik at math.stanford.edu






-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.10 (Darwin)

iEYEARECAAYFAknrVDgACgkQtUmpDMB8zM0HgACfRfL9JCHnpC8MMO/28yY8W1r2
mT4AmwVTz5ly4KBtUXE5VfFRhfHn9gat
=VGK5
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----