Progessive Caucus Convention

[jokerman]

You really shouldn't leave the caucus simply because you disagree on one issue. We aren't supposed to agree on everything, if all of us agreed on all 12 items in the platform, that would be pretty wierd, it shouldn't happen that we all agree on everything.

Also, by leaving, you really hurt the Progressive cause, which transcends the caucus. The caucus forum provides a place for members of all different left-leaning parties to come together and discuss general leftist strategy, since none of the parties actually run against each other, the Progressive Caucus in a sense can be the leftist party. If we don't have all the major leftists in it, it loses much of it's purpose.

Hell, I likely disagree with the caucus on several issues, yet I stick with it anyway.

[MAS117]

Note: The platform on in this thread and the one on the AtlasWiki has been updated.

We now move on to speechs.

Thank you.

[MAS117]

The Chairman steps to the podium

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Progessive Caucus, thanks for being here today in great Charlotte, NC. We had some trouble in the beginning of this convention with the venue but I'm glad to see that all sorted out. Before I begin, I'd like to thank the following people for helping out to make this convention great: Akno21 and Peter Bell.

In the past few days there has been great debate over some amendments and additions to the platform. I prefered to step aside on the issue of prostitution because I really am not sure what I believe in, in well, this new area of the platform. I myself do not agree with everything in the platform, like the Death Penatly, but I am sticking with this caucus because I know that it is great. Some members like Texasgurl took a strong stance on the anti-prostitution amendment. Now that it has been added to the platform, her and members like Siege40 wish to leave the caucus. I urge these members to stay in the caucus. Without some of you this organization wouldn't be what it is today, and we need your help to stay and fight for the issues you believe in.

Now as Chairman its my duty to report to you, the members, on who I believe should receive the endorsement of the Progessive Caucus of Atlasia. I hereby urge the members to vote to endorse the following ballot:

Presidential/Vice-Presidential Election
[1] Siege40 (IL-VT)/Emsworth (IL-NV)
[2] King (U-VT)/John Dibble (L-GA)
[3] John F. Kennedy (MRLP-CA)/Ernest (MRLP-HI)

***Siege40 and Emsworth receiving the official endorsement of the Caucus***

Senatorial Elections[/b]

Mideast[/b]
Milk_and_Cereal or Abstain

Midwest[/b]
NOTA

Northeast
Colin Wixted

***I come to you today asking you to support the re-election of Colin Wixted despite his opposite beliefs. The fact is to endorse a member of the Communist Party would not be suitable for a caucus of this stature and distintion. Colin has worked in a very bi-partisan way with not only me but other Democrats such as Sam Spade and Cosmo Kramer, and therefore I urge the caucus to endorse him over Migrendal. If you don't want to endorse Colin, I urge you to Abstain or vote NOTA.***

Pacific
True Democrat

Southeast
Sam Spade

I urge the members of this caucus to take these people seriously and vote to endorse them. Before I hand it off to Akno21, I just want to tell you that I do intend too seek the Chairmanship of this caucus, and I have urged my friend Akno21 to see the Vice Chairmanship. If elected, I will continue the progess of my good friend Peter Bell, and everything that he has done.

I now turn it over to Akno, and I ask after Akno, that President San Croix, followed by Fmr. Chairman Peter Bell to make there speechs in a timely fashion. If anyone else wishs to address the convention, please IM me or PM me.

Thank you, good day, and may Dave Bless Atlasia.

Steps down from podium with the crowd going wild, while listening to Kenny Loggins play his hit song, Celebrate The Progessive Caucus Home, in the back of the Covention Center.

[jokerman]

I will be seeking the Freedom Party position on the caucus board.

[The Dowager Mod]

The exploitation of Women is a pretty good reason to me for leaving the caucus.
Simply legalising prostitution doesn't make it right.

[Hatman 🍁]

The exploitation of Women is a pretty good reason to me for leaving the caucus.
Simply legalising prostitution doesn't make it right.

The legalization of prostitution would prevent women from being exploited, because it will be regulated. It's not just about the women either, men can be prostitutes too.

[Siege40]

The exploitation of Women is a pretty good reason to me for leaving the caucus.
Simply legalising prostitution doesn't make it right.

The legalization of prostitution would prevent women from being exploited, because it will be regulated. It's not just about the women either, men can be prostitutes too.

We all know that less than one in a hundred prostitutes are men.

Siege

[Akno21]

I'm not going to have time to write up anything till tomorrow morning, so if Alcon and Peter want to go before me, that's fine.

[Hatman 🍁]

The exploitation of Women is a pretty good reason to me for leaving the caucus.
Simply legalising prostitution doesn't make it right.

The legalization of prostitution would prevent women from being exploited, because it will be regulated. It's not just about the women either, men can be prostitutes too.

We all know that less than one in a hundred prostitutes are men.

Siege

So? Let's not be sexist here. The same ratio of women are rapists. Doesn't make it right. In the same way, you cannot say women as a sex are being exploited because it happens to men too. Plus, you are forgetting that many women enjoy prostitution. It is true! Certainly one is not being exploited if they enjoy it. This is why we dont make blowjobs or heterosexual anal sex illegal. They are very demeaning, but since there is consent, it is ok. Some women enjoy it. 

[Ebowed]

I hereby urge the members to vote to endorse the following ballot:

Presidential/Vice-Presidential Election
[1] Siege40 (IL-VT)/Emsworth (IL-NV)
[2] King (U-VT)/John Dibble (L-GA)
[3] John F. Kennedy (MRLP-CA)/Ernest (MRLP-HI)

Siege40 recieving the endorsement of the Progressive Caucus makes fine sense, but I don't see how having King or John F. Kennedy on your ballot that you're "urging" members to cast makes any sense, other than rather blind hatred of Harry, and it's funny that you've got so much against Harry considering what an assclown you were in your last weeks in the Senate (to use someone else's wording).  The fact that you're encouraging members of a "progressive" caucus to preference an unserious self-described "loony" campaign over a more liberal ticket doesn't make sense at all.

[Hatman 🍁]

With seige leaving the caucus, I dont think we should endorse him for President.

[MAS117]

I hereby urge the members to vote to endorse the following ballot:

Presidential/Vice-Presidential Election
[1] Siege40 (IL-VT)/Emsworth (IL-NV)
[2] King (U-VT)/John Dibble (L-GA)
[3] John F. Kennedy (MRLP-CA)/Ernest (MRLP-HI)

Siege40 recieving the endorsement of the Progressive Caucus makes fine sense, but I don't see how having King or John F. Kennedy on your ballot that you're "urging" members to cast makes any sense, other than rather blind hatred of Harry, and it's funny that you've got so much against Harry considering what an assclown you were in your last weeks in the Senate (to use someone else's wording).  The fact that you're encouraging members of a "progressive" caucus to preference an unserious self-described "loony" campaign over a more liberal ticket doesn't make sense at all.

I'm sorry I should have put Harry on there it is my mistake. I will be putting him on my ballot. For the record, I don't have a blind hatred of Harry at all. And towards another question, I don't think just because he left the caucus means that we shouldn't endorse him. Anyway these are my recommendations to you, no one has to follow it. I did put urge in there because I feel strongly for those characters, but I will be putting Harry 4th on my ballot.

[Ebowed]

I stand corrected.  Anyway, I don't think because Siege left the caucus that it automatically disallows him from being endorsed either, but rather it should serve as a warning regarding the direction that this caucus is taking.

[Hatman 🍁]

I dont think we should be endorsing people who aren't in the caucus. We should be rewarding loyalties.

[Peter]

I dont think we should be endorsing people who aren't in the caucus. We should be rewarding loyalties.

We should endorse those who will advance our cause the most in office, regardless of their membership. Going to the contrary would simply be cutting off our nose to spite our face.

[Akno21]

Today I speak to you regarding several important issues before our caucus. To get straight to the point, I will seek the Vice-Chairmanship of the caucus, which means I will run for chairman, but put MAS117 as my first preference and encourage my supporters to do so. I have served as chairman before, so if anything happens to MAS, the caucus will have an experienced backup.

As you are aware, the progressive cause doesn't have a lot of supporters in government right now. Many pieces of progressive legislation are getting repealed. Sure, we would like to take back some Senate seats, enough to halt the conservative movement. The time will come, we will get more qualified candidates, leading conservatives will retire. It is their time now, it was ours in the past and it can be if we stick around, make a good name for ourselves, and play by the rules.

I have learned that the hard way. Even though we are down right now, there is always next time. We must remember that. We cannot be stuck in the mindset that if you lose as an incumbent, you are done. It's not worth it to pull out every trick in the bag to win. There is always another day, you can come back if you lose, but you cannot come back if you disgrace yourself.

Remember, this is a game. Have fun. There's no need to go personal, and there's no need to get upset over attacks from someone you barely know who lives 2,000 miles away.

If the caucus endorses Siege and Emsworth for President, I will accept that. They fit in well with our platform, and if elected will do well. However, I believe the caucus should endorse Harry and Ebowed as well, and encourage members to choose between the two tickets. While Harry and Ebowed are not as socially liberal as Siege and Emsworth, they are against the death penalty, and are certainly not conservative. But don't just look at positions. Look at actions. Look at Harry's couragous actions when StatesRights unconstitutionally nullified the Gay Marriage law. He went to jail to protect the country and show support for Gay Marriage in the Southeast. He has accomplished a lot in his eight months in the Senate, and is a defender of Civil Liberties, gaining the ACLU's endorsement when he ran in October. He deserves an endorsement.

I second the chairman's call for everyone to stay in the caucus. Just because you disagree with one stance doesn't mean you don't fit in. You aren't supposed to agree with everything, we aren't clones. We have a unique opportunity with the caucus, an opportunity to organize the left. But we can only do that if we have everybody, and they are active at the caucus boards.

Thank you for attending the convention and Dave Bless you.

The Beatles "Come Together" plays in the background as Akno exits the stage.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Only just noticed this. So legalised exploitation is part of the platform now? Hmm... wanna know why the caucus has lost pretty much all the influence it had?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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First off local authorities have a huge cash problem as things are. They simply do not have the funds to "frequently" check prostitutes for STD's, and if you are going to make 'em check, you'll drain cash away from local services. Seeing as most of the legalised prostitutes are going to be active in the CBD's of larger cities (who have the worst cash problems of all, need to run more services and have bigger poverty problems) this is nothing short of madness.

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How touchingly naive. So Pimps will still be running the "trade" but as they won't look like "street thugs" anymore but like respectable businessmen that's O.K? How on earth are the police or local authorities going to regulate them?

Serious question: where's the money coming from?

[Peter]

Fellow Progressives,

I'll talk about the elections in a few moments, but first of all I would like to just address some general points: I would first of all like to thank you all for the loyalty that you showed me when I was Caucus Chairman. It was an honour to preside over the rise of this Caucus to the truly brilliant organisation it is today.

I call on you all to go forward to your Regional Assemblies and your fellow citizens and to call on them to reform the laws of your Region to the socially liberal view that our platform advocates. It only takes one man in each Region to start the crusade, and I hope that you will all answer this calling.

Despite my attempts to spread the crusade for beliefs such as sexual liberalism to the wider community, few have taken up this calling, your time is now. Outside of the Mideast, Regions continue to not allow teenagers access to pornography with seemingly no consistency with their own age of consent laws. 13 States continue to have laws criminalising the perfectly natural expression of love between 16 year olds, and there remain States that have laws that set higher ages of consent for homosexual relations.

This injustice must end: Anybody who wants to make my day - Here's the Mideast's version as a starter.

On to the elections:

I've thought long and hard about the coming Presidential race - I'm undecided - I think that many of the candidates on offer are well qualified to lead the country and to advocate our agenda in the country.

When I come to vote, I will undoubtedly take more into account than the simple qualification that I consider for Progressive endorsements - who will advance our agenda the most? For the Presidential race, the answer comes back as Siege/Emsworth, and I urge you all to endorse this ticket.

In the coming days we will form the Progressive Caucus board and it seems likely that I will take one of the ILP seats on it - this will be my honour and I hope that those who have had doubts of late understand that this is not a party - there is a lot of intellectual disagreement - one convention we may pass a measure, but at the next we may reverse that judgement. I ask you to stay and fight your corner, or else it will certainly lose.

Fellow delegates, good night and may Dave continue to bless our great nation.

[Peter]

Only just noticed this. So legalised exploitation is part of the platform now? Hmm... wanna know why the caucus has lost pretty much all the influence it had?

Perhaps because the people who are meant to make up the backbone of the Caucus can't be arsed to protect the values it should be standing for by voting.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Perhaps because the people who are meant to make up the backbone of the Caucus can't be arsed to protect the values it should be standing for by voting.

*whistles*

*looks for excuses*

It wouldn't have made a diffe

Because I hadn't been paying attention, didn't know when the voting thing started, that kind of stuff.

Which, despite being true, isn't much of an excuse at all. Sorry.

[MAS117]

If President Alcon would like to give his speech, then he is welcome to do it. However, we can not wait this long for it. Therefore we will move onto electing the Progessive Caucus Board. The caucus rules states this about the board:

The Board

1. At the beginning of each Convention a census of the Caucus membership by party shall be conducted by the Chairman.
2. Each party shall be allocated a number of seats on the board by taking its number of members in the Caucus and dividing it by 5 and then rounding to the nearest integer.
3. Independents and members of parties lacking any Board representation may affiliate together to elect Board members as though they were a party.
4. Each party may elect or appoint Caucus members from their party to the Board as they shall wish.
5. The Chairman and Vice Chairman shall have seats on the Board ex officio.
6. The Board may endorse ballot measures and legislation by a majority vote.
7. The Board may issue emergency endorsements for elections when it is the opinion of the Chairman that there is insufficient time to hold a full Caucus vote.
8. The Board may pass a vote of No Confidence in the Caucus Chairman by a majority vote.
9. Should both the Chairmancy and Vice Chairmancy be vacant between Conventions the Board shall elect a new Chairman.

With Siege40 and Texasgurl gone, the number of members in each party in the caucus is as follows:

Independent Liberal Party - 9 members
Farmer-Labor Party - 8 members
Independents - 3 members
Constitutional Union Party - 3 members
Freedom Party - 3 members
Communist Party - 1 member

Due to these numbers the following parties have been allocated a certain number of seats on the board. They are as follows:

Independent Liberal Party - 2 seats
Farmer-Labor Party - 2 seats
Independents - 1 seat
Constitutional Union Party - 1 seat
Freedom Party - 1 seat
Communist Party - 0 seats

It is the duty of the members of each party to come up with who will sit for each party on the board. After you have came up with who these people will be, please post them in this thread, IM me, or PM me and I will put together the final list. Thank you.

[Peter]

The ILP appears to have settled on myself and Emsworth.

Preston seems to be the only Freedom member interested, so I think thats pretty much a given.

I had previously convinced Alcon to sit for the Union since Sam wasn't interested, but that they may have changed on both sides.

The only question remaining is therefore the FLP

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I have a looksee who's interested...

[Emsworth]

Mr. Chairman,

The Independent Liberal Party has chosen the following members to represent it on the Board of the Progressive Caucus:

Peter Bell
Emsworth