[p2p-research] 10 days to go... SUPPORTING Smari McCarthy's P2P Electoral Candidacy for the Icelandic Constitutional Assembly

Thu Nov 18 23:02:52 CET 2010

thanks a lot Sa, by the way, how did you get that numbered URL on our blog?

On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 11:34 PM, Samuel Rose <samuel.rose at gmail.com> wrote:

> I did it. And if everyone likes what they see, I will post the same
> thing to smartmobs.com
>
> Plus, we'll let the following people know about it:
>
> boingboing.net
>
> Bruce Sterling (for his wired blog)
>
> John Robb on global guerillas
>
> The Espians
>
> perhaps some of those folks would be willing to talk about it or link
> to this on their blog
>
> Smari, do you have a website for your campaign?
>
> Please link to this in twitter, on facebook
>
> On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 10:15 AM, Michel Bauwens
> <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > THANKS simona,
> >
> > smari: we're doing what we can with the material available, but I suggest
> an
> > english text on your motivation and policy proposals,
> >
> > Sam: would you consider writing something for our regular blog, based on
> > your remark in facebook, which was well formulated I think,
> >
> > sorry, for the moment, still on the road and conferencing!
> >
> > On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 1:58 AM, Simona Levi <info at conservas.tk> wrote:
> >>
> >> I'll do my best but i don't have much influence in Icelandic electors.
> >> We will move it in the social network.
> >> I'll also publish it the 25 in Catlan main news agency...
> >>
> >> El 17/11/10 14:48, Michel Bauwens escribió:
> >>
> >> Dear Smari,
> >>
> >> of course, I want to fully support you on this, but I have a serious
> issue
> >> of timing, I just arrived in buenos aires, somewhat in a crisis mode as
> >> something went wrong with the coordination, no pick up and no
> reservation at
> >> the stated hotel, I need to solve this today, somewhat stressed you'll
> >> understand, then, tomorrow, there is the keynote and 2 days of
> conferencing,
> >> it's hard to say how much time I have.
> >>
> >> Most quickly, what I can do is just re-use what you write now, first at
> >> Ning, wait for someone to re-write it with some info about YOU, I can
> then
> >> always add a paragraph about why this is a truly historical occasion (a
> true
> >> p2p candidate, broader than single-issue oriented Pirate Party) then we
> >> publish it on the blog, and once it is there, we can repeat a few rounds
> of
> >> facebooking/twittering around the link,
> >>
> >> If you want us to do more, feel free to ask, we'll try our best
> >>
> >> As I said, for me, it's just bad timing when I'm on the road like this,
> >>
> >> I copied the list, in the hope and confidence that others on the list
> >> agree to support you even more, but I guess best is if you can provide
> >> material we can work around by adding a supportive paragraph,
> >>
> >> Don't hesitate to ask for anything, the worse that can happen is that
> >> people say no thanks <g>
> >>
> >> Michel
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> 2010/11/17 Smári McCarthy <smari at immi.is>
> >>>
> >>> Hi Michel, Simona,
> >>>
> >>>  In reference to our conversation in Barcelona about my candidacy for
> >>> the Icelandic Constitutional Assembly, I'm thinking that it's about
> time
> >>> to invoke the P2P culture and try and rally some external awareness and
> >>> support.
> >>>
> >>>  What I'd suggest is if we can draft some kind of letter of endorsement
> >>> from the P2P community and get a bunch of signatures, then I could wave
> >>> that around here.
> >>>
> >>>  A slightly more involved but potentially useful thing would be some
> >>> kind of video clip, just a talking heads thing, with somebody speaking
> >>> about the importance of understanding of networked societies and that
> >>> this understanding be incorporated into modern state structure.
> >>>
> >>>  And then of course there's the easiest thing to do, which is to click
> >>> the "like" button on my Facebook page. 97% of Icelandic adults use
> >>> Facebook and various sites are using Facebook ranking as a measure of
> >>> popularity, despite it being an incredibly skewed estimate.
> >>>
> >>>
> https://www.facebook.com/pages/Smari-McCarthy-a-stjornlagabing/161452417212255?ref=ts
> >>>
> >>>  Michel, could I request that you take initiative on this on the list?
> >>> I can provide you with background information but I do feel very
> awkward
> >>> about asking people to support me. :P
> >>>
> >>>  Here's some initial background [sharable]:
> >>>
> >>> ----------------------
> >>>
> >>>  In 1874 Iceland received its first constitution from the Danish king
> >>> as a result of popular demand for increased home-rule. In 1918 the
> >>> country became sovereign under the Danish crown, and in 1920 a new
> >>> constitution to this effect was enacted.
> >>>
> >>>  In 1944, after being disconnected with Denmark for over a year,
> >>> Iceland proclaimed independence. A temporary constitution, mostly based
> >>> on the constitution of 1920, was accepted, with an article stating that
> >>> it should be renewed within the year.
> >>>
> >>>  Now 66 years have passed without the constitution being reevaluated.
> >>>
> >>>  After the financial crash of 2008 the Icelandic people, understanding
> >>> the need for democratic reform as well as economic reform, started to
> >>> make demands for a constitutional assembly. After the government
> >>> collapsed in early 2009 the new government coalition of the Social
> >>> Democrat Party and the Left-Green Party agreed to organize a
> >>> constitutional assembly, although for many months this idea looked like
> >>> it would be buried.
> >>>
> >>>  In late October 2009 a national assembly was held in Iceland, where
> >>> 1500 people were randomly selected from the census to work over the
> >>> course of a day to create a new set of guiding principles for Iceland.
> >>> In the aftermath it was decided in parliament that the popular demand
> >>> for a constitutional assembly was so great that the issue could no
> >>> longer be ignored.
> >>>
> >>>  On June 25th 2010 law 90/2010 was enacted creating a mandate for
> >>> general elections for a constitutional assembly consisting of 25-31
> >>> nonpartisan individuals, based on single transferable vote in addition
> >>> to a gender quota rule. The elections for this assembly are to be held
> >>> on November 27th 2010, 10 days from now.
> >>>
> >>>  The electorate is the roughly 228000 voters in Iceland, and there are
> >>> 523 individual candidates running in the election, all as individuals
> >>> although some have known connections with special interest groups,
> >>> political parties, and such. These relationships have been mapped by
> >>> various websites. Various other websites provide filtering mechanisms
> of
> >>> various sorts in order to help people weed out the best 25 candidates
> to
> >>> vote for.
> >>>
> >>>  After the elections the assembly will convene in February 2011 and
> >>> operate for 2-4 months during that year to draft a new constitution and
> >>> propose it to parliament, along with suggested adoption mechanisms and
> >>> protocols. If parliament accepts the new constitution it will be put to
> >>> a referendum.
> >>>
> >>>  There has been an alarming amount of P2P activity in relation to this
> >>> election. Campaigns are primarily being operated through social
> >>> networking sites, with a lot of pressure on candidates not to advertise
> >>> in traditional media. A lot of individuals and organizations have been
> >>> in direct contact with the various candidates in order to provide their
> >>> own arbitrary filters, and in general there is a lot of buzz, but also
> a
> >>> lot of uncertainty, as the number of candidates and the
> equidistribution
> >>> of the attention is the source of great confusion.
> >>>
> >>>  To reduce this confusion somewhat and to promote the elections as an
> >>> important step towards more direct democracy, a broad coalition of
> >>> candidates from various political leanings has joined forces to raise
> >>> awareness about the forthcoming elections, operating on amicable
> >>> grounds, and further, there are discussions about creating a "shadow
> >>> assembly" using the Shadow Parliament Project's software and
> >>> organizational mechanisms, in order to facilitate broad discussions
> >>> amongst the general public during the operation time of the assembly.
> >>>
> >>>  In short, it looks like the opportunity for Iceland is great, but
> >>> there are still a number of hurdles. It will be interesting to see the
> >>> results, and hopefully this will lead to a great democratic upheaval,
> >>> promoting and protecting networked societies in the future.
> >>>
> >>> ------------------------------
> >>>
> >>>  Hope you can use some of that in some meaningful way.
> >>>
> >>>     - Smári
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  -
> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
> >>
> >> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
> >> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
> >>
> >> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
> >> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
> >>
> >> Think tank:
> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  -
> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
> >
> > Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
> > http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
> >
> > Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
> > http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
> >
> > Think tank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> --
> Sam Rose
> Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation
> Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
> Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
> skype: samuelrose
> email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
> http://forwardfound.org
> http://futureforwardinstitute.org
> http://socialmediaclassroom.com
> http://localfoodsystems.org
> http://p2pfoundation.net
>
> "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
> ambition." - Carl Sagan
>

-- 
P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
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Think tank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
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