Alberta | Calgary-Centre | Madi Sid

NAME/NOM: Madi, aka Sid, aka Vagboy

PROVINCE: Alberta

RIDING/CIRCONSCRIPTION: Calgary-Centre

PARTY INVOLVEMENT / PARTICIPATION DE PARTI:

After getting in contact with oxpirate in February 2011 and attending his Bradley Manning rally, I quietly got involved in the background, supporting his pirate endeavours for a few months. For the most part I spent a lot of time speaking about the party in many online communities outside of this forum, and engaging otherwise politically disenfranchised folk involved in the anime/gaming/comic/hacker/nerd communities here. But as of the past few months I have been helping with direct action and dialogue external to the internet and nerd/geek cultures. I organized and lead the March 24th combined Calgary Day of Action for the Internet and Get Fraud Out of Parliament #2 rally, which saw about 50 people attend at short notice. We saw support from the University of Calgary's Young Liberals Association, who were proud to don anon masks with us, and I relayed the whole of the PPCA platform in great detail to the attendees (which I unfortunately cannot find the video of...). My display picture on here is from that rally.

Over the summer, I have been actively speaking on and spreading pirate ideologies within the widespread Calgary activist community, which I have strong roots in now after being extensively involved in helping organize and keep afloat Occupy Calgary, and continuously participating in consciousness raising on a variety of issues along with the development and implementation of local anti-oppression, community accountability, and allyship efforts. Other areas where I have been active in communicating pirate ideologies are through various summer music festivals, raves-turned-social-experiments, and collaborative community events which see presentations on skill-sharing, community endeavours/organizations, and opportunities to share personal stories and experiences to expand perspective. I have found through these efforts that pirate ideologies resonate with most everyone I speak to, spanning age, genders, political affiliations (or lack there of), religions, etc. In the following weeks, I will be focusing my efforts with oxpirate to hold regular events such as 'Pirate Picnics', 'Pints and Pirates', and more general campaign planning meet ups. We are also attending the upcoming Shambhala Music Festival, which will have around 12000 attendees, where we will be helping set up and run the Activist Hub and Solar Documentary Centre (a close friend of mine is organizing it), where you'll be sure to find a Pirate booth! Additionally, we have plans to have booths at future conventions such as GeekMoot (annual local geek meet up), Otafest (an anime convention which sees upwards of 5000 attendees), The Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo (which hit 60000 attendees this past year), and various street festivals which see hundreds of thousands of attendees.

I became an official member in early May.

POLITICAL EXPERIENCE / L'EXPÉRIENCE POLITIQUE:

My direct involvement with any political parties has been limited, mostly starting in late 2010 with the newly rebranded Alberta Party. I was mostly involved with some social media efforts, but learned many tips and tricks for successful campaigning at a local/grassroots level, of which many of the tactics were inspired by the unbelievable successes of the youth/internet driven campaign of Calgary's current mayor, Naheed Nenshi. My short stint with the Alberta Party garnered me the start of a foundation for a broad political and cultural personal network in Calgary. My political experience overall was much expanded through both helping organize and avidly participating in Occupy Calgary, in which my facilitation skills, media literacy, conflict resolution skills, and direct action skills were greatly increased. Since the end of the physical encampment, I have been readily studying a variety of topics extremely relevant to the changes I would like to see in the world, such as through gender equality, anti-oppression, community accountability, electoral reform, economic reform, dismantlement of oppressive hierarchies both immediate and societal, knowledge of union history and implementation of workers rights, alternative systems of organizing and governance (or lack there of), energy alternatives, and an interplay of these and other subjects.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST / CONFLITS D'INTÉRÊTS:

No conflicts of interest that I think I would be judged too harshly on, but I should probably warn ya'll that I've done nude modelling (the photos are only in the hands of a couple of people, and nowhere on the internet that I know of, but I would not be ashamed if they popped up in the future). Lol. I don't count the festivals/raves as something negative, because it's a quietly huge part of Calgary culture (not to mention western Canada and the rest of the world). Additionally, I became quite active through Zeitgeist Calgary for my first steps into social justice, and am still in contact (see: friends) with most of the people involved with that, which I am aware will hold negative stigma for some. But I have already dealt with those questioning me on that personal learning curve, through my transparency and honesty that I still had a great deal to learn at the time on political systems and economics. That network is a valuable resource to me at this point, but I no longer share some of the ideals.

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT / PARTICIPATION DE LA COMMUNAUTÉ:

The "PARTY INVOLVEMENT" section already gives a good idea of how widespread my interests and activities are, and certainly the variety and interconnectivity of my networks. But to elaborate, I attended and volunteered at Otafest for 7 years, and at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo for 3, becoming both acquaintances and friends with a large number of folk attending and organizing them, and definitely seeing and accessing opportunities for reaching out with the pirate ideologies due to the ingrained internet culture. Additionally, through my background in musical training (including attending the University of Calgary for music education for a couple of years), I have also built up a network and foundation to reach out to musicians and artists. This has grown as I have explored involvement with other art and music communities both in Calgary and abroad, through both organizing and volunteering at various festivals and events, and through reaching out with my own art and writing.

I have also delved into the world of food security and exploring options to deal with this such as community gardens, land inventory and food assessments, decentralization of food production and distribution, etc. Over the past year I have been organizing monthly convergences of various groups and people interested in social justice/activism/sustainability/etc. I am currently seeking to be more engaged in the LGBTQ(.....) support, sexual health, mental health, biking, and anarchist communities in Calgary. I have recently developed an open-format discussion style workshop based off of Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, addressing guiding personal mythologies, techniques for fostering interpersonal and community accountability, and even pirate ideologies such as transparency and sharing, with the intent of providing people with a lasting foundation for a healthy mental and emotional well being, in turn inspiring change in the world through healthier and happier interpersonal relations and empowered individuals. If I listed everything I've done in the past few years in detail, I would be writing a book, so I'm going to stop here haha. All this being said, I have a lot of people already willing to back me on this campaign, including gettin' down and dirty with the fundraising.

PLATFORM / MANIFESTE:

I stand strongly behind the existing platform of the PPCA. It is vital we stand up for net neutrality over draconian censorship; that we choose and protect privacy over mass surveillance; that we develop and push copyright reform to protect and support artists, and patent reform relevant to individual industries; that we update digital media distribution models to protect and benefit both artists and consumers; and that we strive for and achieve transparency in, accountability in, and open access to, government. Ultimatley, I see strong success in educating people on, and inspiring and facilitating, open-source operations in all fields, so as to maximize quality and quantity of idea creation, collaboration, and implementation, for the empowerment and betterment of all. What this comes down to as a pirate is a dedication to standing up for and implementing fundamental rights that are necessary to a real democracy. I see Liquid Feedback as one such vital tool to test and support, so as to have a working direct democracy model to offer people throughout my campaign and beyond.

As I am a strong advocate for personal freedoms and greatly value equality, I became an instant fan of the eight basic principles of Rick Falkvinge's Pirate Wheel, derived from a foundation of individual empowerment: privacy, transparency, TICKS, humanism, diversity, resilience, swarm economy, and quality legislation.

I am especially interested in focusing on how transparency and the free flow of information automatically fosters an environment of accountability and progress, whether in individual relationships or within broader communities (including governments), which has so far resonated with just about everyone I have spoken to. With my evolving background in aiding various communities with self-care, interpersonal, emotion regulation, and conflict resolution skills, I am extremely well versed in relating the personal to the political, especially in the context of supporting the pirate way.

Other areas which are relevant to Calgary culture at this point, which I hold a strong working knowledge of, are LGBTQ(...) issues and communities, food security and sustainability, and the regulation of illicit substances in the interest of harm reduction (although that is something I am not going to be bringing up unless directly asked about).

Areas which I would greatly appreciate immediate advice and input on are knowledge of electoral reform, economic reform, integrated critical theory, and sound policy alternatives, all in relation to pirate ideologies of course, so as to better speak on these issues.

Admittedly there will probably be a few hot-button issues I am also not well versed on, so feel free to throw me any advice and/or questions, and I will be sure to put in some solid research.