Did Pirates Party at the Purple Porpoise?

Is support for the Green Party in Germany melting?

Recently someone suggested doing a column about the Pirate Party in Germany and some online fact checking provided some material that hasn't been widely reported in the American media but it also produced some confusion because some of the facts published online provide different pictures of what is happening.   The file sharing community in Sweden has spawned a political party thanks to the efforts of Rick Falkvinge and that in turn has resulted in a similar phenomenon in Germany where the Pirate Party is gaining popularity.   This new party could be forth biggest in Germany with 8% of the voters joining or it could be the third biggest political party in Germany with 13% of the voters.   You choose.   The Pirate Party has grown bigger than the Green party in Germany or it may be just behind them in the rankings.

The fact that researching the story online does not provide a clear picture with exact numbers and percentages, in turn, provides an opportunity to write a future column on the possibility that the Internets is having a negative effect on the art of journalism because citizen journalists, who are supposed to augment and supplement the diminishing paid staff at various news organizations, can't access the hard facts necessary to provide accurate journalism and that is very troubling because reliable, quality journalism is necessary to inform voters in a democracy (as the Founding Fathers intended).  

Earlier this week, the English language version web site for the German magazine Der Spiegel reported that Martin Delius, who was described as the Pirate Party floor leader in the Berlin City Parliament, boasted that his party's growth rate was surpassing the rate of expansion achieved by the Nazis in the early Thirties.   Whoops!   Not a good example of political bragging in that Country.   The offender quickly issued an apology.  

The Pirate Party was spawned in Sweden by a group of music fans who wanted to share information and files.   The Pirates' Bay web site was their common meeting ground and provided the name for the political movement.   The party's focus has expanded and is described online now as being concerned with government transparency, information availability, and (conversely) user privacy for computer users.

Could the Pirate Party find some potential for expansion into the contemporary political scene in the United States?   Some of the main concerns of the Occupy Wall Street movement and those of the Germany Pirate Party seem to form a cusp area for the two groups and since one of the main (conservative) criticisms of the OWS movement is that they don't have a clear cut political agenda, forming a political coalition using both groups to appeal to America's youth vote, might happen with the same suddenness that is being achieved by the phenomenon in Germany.

Obviously such a development is too much of a radical departure from the conservatives' philosophy of "politics as usual," so seeing any impartial or favorable sounding news reports about the German Pirate Party on Fox Nation News, seems quite unlikely.   Although the basic "Screw your Rules" philosophy might appeal to conservative business executives wishing to circumvent the stifling aspects of government regulations.

Speaking of bypassing government rules as it applies to deficiencies in the art of Journalism, how much coverage have you encountered in American media about new worries that have been added to the list of woes for Rupert Murdoch and his son James?

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