Dreaming of Pirates...

My first childhood contact with the concept of Pirates, was through the story of Peter Pan and Captain Hook. Due to my name being Peter, I fantasized more about becoming the Pan himself than a Pirate...

Yet a few days ago there I was filling in my application to become a Pirate member and a few days later than that I am the Pirate Party's candidate for Corfu...

Why did I do this?

As some of you may know, I spent a large part of  last year, taking part in endless and varied conversations, in the "plateia", on facebook, and with many friends, all to do with the situation in Greece and possible solutions and proposals to get out of the "fix"... Certain themes kept cropping up again and again in these conversations, themes like Real Democracy, Transparency, Justice and Equality...

Since I was a teenager I had no great trust in elections. I don't consider we have ever been given any realistic choice. To make matters worse, the exisitng system has managed throughout the years, aided greatly by our indifference, to stack the odds in its favor, by voting in various ridiculous election by-laws. (An example of this is the fact that in the last elections, and in the 2nd electoral district of Athens, Syriza had a higher percentage than New Democracy, yet they got significantly less seats than them!)

I believe deeply that what we need is a change, not simply of government, but of the way the whole system works, even of the way we think.

The Pirate Party represents exactly this for me. The possibility of setting up something different, something "cleaner" and more fair to everyone.



Initially when I begun to read about it, when the Party was not yet set up in Greece, I found it a little strange.
There was no mention of their "positions"  as regards the "important national matters". And I got the feeling that the Pirates were more into "secondary"matters like digital rights, transparency, access to digital technology and copyrights.



I soon realised though that the "important national matters" are potentially not the ones that the usual media channels and newspapers make them out to be. In fact it is those "secondary" matters that are most important...



Being an active citizen, achieving full transparency in government, distinct separation of authorities (especially judicial), are the matters whose change will really change our lives.

Matters like "memorandum or not", "Euro or drachma" and "right or left", I am afraid are matters which are thrown at us in order to make us lose our time talking about them, while others make the decisions.

I don't in any way support that the memorandum and its apllication are not catastrophic for Greece, but neither can I say with any certainty whether we would be better of with the drachma than the euro.



What I would like is for us all to be able to decide together about these matters and not have others decide for us.

And that is exactly the reason why I have decided to support the Pirates in their campaign, to become a Pirate myself. Because this is a central part of the Pirate idea.


So I am a candidate to become an MP with the Pirate Party in Corfu.

I realise that most English speaking friends of mine probably don't vote in Greece, but I hope that those who know me and what I stand for, might put in a good word, only of course if you agree with the ideas...


Peter Papageorgiou

For those willing to find out more about the Pirate Party here a couple of links.

Pirate Party UK
Pirate Party Greece (in Greek)

Dear Europe...

Dear Europe,
I have finally decided to write you a letter. Your behavior the last few days, let alone the last few years (!) has been atrocious. You have shown very bad manners and terrible misjudgement.

You insisit that we accept these memorandums and loan agreements so that you may continue to lend us money that we apparently need to pay of our debts. You are upset because the elections last Sunday show that 2 out of 3 Greeks don't want to accept your memorandums and don't want your loans. You insist that they are misguided and you continue to hope that he politicians who ruined this country with your help, somehow have the legitimacy required to continue to rule it.

Well, Europe, I'm really sorry, but this is just not on...

You see , Europe, all this time you gave the country a lot of money to supposedly set up infrastructure and shore up the economy. The problem is Europe you gave the money to the WRONG PEOPLE. And now you want it back from me?

Dear Europe, I live on a small island in the Ionian. My house is only 5 minutes drive, away from my job. Yet in the short distance I cover to get to work, I see many examples of the stupid choices you made when handing out money and aid packages.

And by the way, Europe, who are these "markets"? I went to the market today and all I saw was a lot of fish and fresh produce. There was no money there to be marketed. Who could come up with such a silly idea, Europe? Selling money?

Money, dear Europe has no value. All it is a piece of paper. How can you sell it? And all this credit Europe. Where do you get it so you can extend it? Grow up Europe. You are playing games, but there are peoples lives at stake...

Europe, this has really got to stop. This experiment at the expense of the greek people has got to stop. Do you really want to see how far you can go? Do you really think the Greeks will take it sitting down? They have already shown a lot of patience...

And do you really think , Europe, that your own people, are not waking up? Europe, an excellent musician I very much like, once said:  "You can fool some people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all of the time" You should listen to that song, Europe. It's pretty cool...

In fact you should listen to a few of his songs... have a drink while your at it. Relax. Close your eyes and make believe you're lying on a beach, somewhere in the Mediterranean. Because you can only make believe.

Make believe money, make believe system, make believe banks, make believe jobs.

Fuck off Europe. Fuck off and leave me on my beach. It's mine, Europe. I'll fish off it and eat, I'll collect chorta and boil it and eat it. I'll share with your people, Europe, because they like me and I like them. But I'll not share with you, Europe. You don't play fair. I do not wish to be a part of your experiment.

Take your banks and your loans, your make believe money and make believe life and fuck off.

A Greek.