Labor Party Standing Committee - FAREWELL

[Adam Griffin]

I can't believe Griffin took the time to write a 6 paragraph post decrying the drama in a chat room. So 2003.

Yes, and it's not a very good one either.  I just hope he's ready for the "little IRC chatroom crew" to make comparisons to Napoleon.

Uh, the difference being that Napoleon didn't actually ever frequent the IRC or know anything about it.

In short, yes people do talk about Atlasia on the IRC.  They also talk about how well George Wallace did in Maine, where to go to get the best hookers in DC, Dust in the Wind, how much is too high, whatever hilarious sh*t AdamFitzGerald said today, Snowstalker's pseudointellectual wannabe Marxism, or any seemingly random topic one can think of.  So yes, please go ahead good people, go to #atlasforum and see what horrors await you.  Given the types of denizens who post there, I can almost guarantee the random topic you will run into will be much horrifying and scarier than Griff's attempt at a Bilderberg Conspiracy theory.

I got to say, these are really big words from a guy who organized some of his own voting strategy in #labor (you mean Labor has their own IRC?  The HORRROR!  THE HORROR!) that allowed Labor to re-elect guys to the Senate while giving Deus (?!) first preference.

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Yeah, my post pretty much says all of that. Were you just reiterating it for me?

But really, I shouldn't have to say anything more.  Griff's posts here more than enough illustrate what the problem is with his beloved and persecuted party.  It's the voices in his head conspiring to get rid of him.

Or is it the massive cache of chat logs from god knows when to the present that half the IRC crowd has that say all that needs to be said? Say what you want about me, but at least I didn't shit-talk you every time you'd leave the room.

[Simfan34]

I'm surprised Adam seems to think THE IRC is the source of all the hidden powers of The People's Party, of which I was unaware that we had in the first place. What we do there is mainly guffaw at silliness such as this, or the Power Bill, or when the SoEA sued the PPT, etc. If we were to do what we did in person I'd imagine it'd involve cigars, brandy, tailcoats, overstuffed leather armchairs and perhaps even a monocle or two. Indeed I quote THE IRC from just yesterday:

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I mean this is a party with what, a fifth? a quarter? as many members as Labor has, a party with just one or two seats in the Senate, a party that has never elected a President, a party that has been trying to do some things for the better part of a year that it hasn't yet managed to do. And here we are with the Chairman of the Central Committee of the Labor Party of Atlasia himself acting as if this small party, composed of people who mostly spend their time acting like bourgeois elites out of a Soviet propaganda film, poses some existential threat to his own.

I mean did he not just a few weeks sternly reminding us of "Labor's track record at completely bending opinion to our will when possible, and short-circuiting it when it's not". And now he's acting like the, erm, "working people" are deserting his party in droves or something. Whether or not that's actually happening is immaterial, the thing is that this whole drive for "purity" and "cohesion" and to reveal the tentacles of THE IRC and its political vehicle of The People's Party is highly irregular, to say the least.

[Flake]

Continuation

[Hifly]

[  ] Continuation
[X] Dissolution

[SWE]

Dissolution

[President Tyrion]

Just a few words:

1. First off, I'm very disappointed that we lost one of our own in Cranberry. I understand that he was frustrated, but I hope that all who are frustrated with the system right now take steps to speak to someone. This hasn't been a period devoid of infighting or controversy, but I'd rather talk it out than see something explosive happen in what I thought was a fairly reasonable vote, which is a segue into my next point:

2. I think this vote is a perfectly reasonable way to evaluate our needs. If people by and large believe we need change (and the threshold is a rather low 25%), by golly, we'll change. I don't think that it's particularly odd to conduct a public vote; it's already clear that people have concerns, so I don't see why it's an issue to take the temperature of the room.

[Mechaman]

Just a few words:

1. First off, I'm very disappointed that we lost one of our own in Cranberry. I understand that he was frustrated, but I hope that all who are frustrated with the system right now take steps to speak to someone. This hasn't been a period devoid of infighting or controversy, but I'd rather talk it out than see something explosive happen in what I thought was a fairly reasonable vote, which is a segue into my next point:

2. I think this vote is a perfectly reasonable way to evaluate our needs. If people by and large believe we need change (and the threshold is a rather low 25%), by golly, we'll change. I don't think that it's particularly odd to conduct a public vote; it's already clear that people have concerns, so I don't see why it's an issue to take the temperature of the room.

Yes see, this is the attitude Labor needs to have.  I for one, am definitely not arguing that it's a matter of how "radical" or "left" the party is.  Just more so that it's a party that actually addresses the people's concerns rather than making revisionist excuses for why they are getting repudiated at the ballot box.

[Mechaman]

I can't believe Griffin took the time to write a 6 paragraph post decrying the drama in a chat room. So 2003.

Yes, and it's not a very good one either.  I just hope he's ready for the "little IRC chatroom crew" to make comparisons to Napoleon.

Uh, the difference being that Napoleon didn't actually ever frequent the IRC or know anything about it.

In short, yes people do talk about Atlasia on the IRC.  They also talk about how well George Wallace did in Maine, where to go to get the best hookers in DC, Dust in the Wind, how much is too high, whatever hilarious sh*t AdamFitzGerald said today, Snowstalker's pseudointellectual wannabe Marxism, or any seemingly random topic one can think of.  So yes, please go ahead good people, go to #atlasforum and see what horrors await you.  Given the types of denizens who post there, I can almost guarantee the random topic you will run into will be much horrifying and scarier than Griff's attempt at a Bilderberg Conspiracy theory.

I got to say, these are really big words from a guy who organized some of his own voting strategy in #labor (you mean Labor has their own IRC?  The HORRROR!  THE HORROR!) that allowed Labor to re-elect guys to the Senate while giving Deus (?!) first preference.

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Yeah, my post pretty much says all of that. Were you just reiterating it for me?

But really, I shouldn't have to say anything more.  Griff's posts here more than enough illustrate what the problem is with his beloved and persecuted party.  It's the voices in his head conspiring to get rid of him.

Or is it the massive cache of chat logs from god knows when to the present that half the IRC crowd has that say all that needs to be said? Say what you want about me, but at least I didn't shit-talk you every time you'd leave the room.

You want to play us up as a bunch of cowards Griff, when I demonstrated that I have the balls (like I did to Napoleon a couple years ago) to say what I think to your face.  I called you a hack a day ago in a poll and I'll do it again.  You helped Labor get to where it was a few months ago, no doubt.  You are an incredible campaigner when it comes time for it.  However, these past few months have shown that you have a bit more flaws than you are willing to admit when it comes to helping deliver a record of governance.  And your continued denial of plain reality when it stares you in the face to such an absurd degree is what drove me to type what I did this morning.

I'm kind of shocked that somebody who is supposedly involved in RL politics can be this far gone off the cliff about political strategy in a political game as you have for the past couple of months.  It's quite incredible really how you can miss the point by that much (though to be fair it's not like you are the only one who does) so many times and still come up with the wrong course of action.

I say you have a flawed attitude on the IRC and I'll defend that statement on here.  I'd be a fuckin liar if I said that nobody has ever said a nasty thing about you in the past, but on my end I can say that my criticisms (like I made yesterday morning in that poll thread) are by no means hidden and I'm upfront about it.  And with all that said I still stand by my initial statement that your comments so far have been incredibly deluded about yours (and others) impact on what has transpired and your continual insistence that it has only been because of "dishonest liars" and "conspirators".
In regards to your point about how staying away from the IRC doomed the Labor Party I'd like to point out that TNF has been in the chatroom for almost every fuckin night for the past three months as has Snowstalker.  If you want to argue correlation details here you are doing a very bad job of it if you are trying to link Laborites staying away from IRC with it's rate of success.  So again, please stop with this bullshit of yours of trying to delegate blame to everyone else but yourself and others in leadership.

Posters who frequent the IRC more than occasionally DO TALK SHIT about other Atlasians.  Posters who frequent the IRC more than occasionally DO PLAN VOTING STRATEGIES.  ANd posters who frequent the IRC more than occasionally DO TALK ABOUT CAMPAIGN STRATEGIES.  However, if you think this one avenue of communication, which only about ten or so posters out of hundreds use on a daily basis has that much of an effect on the game you clearly have not been paying attention to the years and years of PM campaigning that has been going on which is arguably just as (if not more so) effective in getting people out to the polls.  The IRC, like you probably said yourself, is a "wankfest" and like all "wankfests" it's not very large at all!  The idea that the denizens of the IRC are running the game is hilarious when you consider that much of the actual vote getting is done through the PM system that Dave Leip set up that allows party leadership to message literally hundreds of inactive posters to show up on election day "because reasons".
The only real difference between the IRC and the long accepted PM system is that in the IRC communication happens much quicker than it does by exchanging PMs (due to screen load times and the fact that a lot of PMs require more than five seconds to compose).  The only real correlation you can make (like you said it yourself) is that a lot of the people who are involved in politics also use the IRC, which is like saying that many Presidents and Senators went to Ivy League schools.

Please read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation

Believe me, it hurt me more than it did you.  It's like bitchslapping your own child but sometimes it needs to be said.  Labor could've and can be a strong left wing force in this game without being uncooperative, uncommunicative, hackish dicks about it.

Now you can keep posting six paragraph remarks to everyone in the vain attempt of yours to prove yourself right on every front, or just take brief moment to digest these words SLOWLY in that brain of yours and just give yourself the necessary time of introspection.  Because I'll be frank, while you might have all the time in the world to waste fighting over who is right and who is wrong in an election simulation I sure don't.
This is the last post I'm going to make here.  I apologize to Labor for taking up so much of it's time and hogging it's Convention thread.  I want to thank Tyrion for stating what I had come here to say far simpler than I ever could.

I really think it's a good thing you won't be around.  And I say that more for your own good than ours.  You seriously need a break man.

Much love man, and take care of yourself.

-Mechaman

[Deus Naturae]

Why exactly is this happening? I welcome the dissolution of the insidious anti-liberty cult that is Liebor, but what "last straw" is Cranberry referring to?

[Cranberry]

Why exactly is this happening? I welcome the dissolution of the insidious anti-liberty cult that is Liebor, but what "last straw" is Cranberry referring to?

Maybe this is just my point of view; but there happened things that made me really question my part registration in the first place; this ridiculous vote being the last. Firstly, I found it disturbing that some people could shut down a good source of media in Atlasia. Secondly, I did not like the whole debacle with this energy nationalisation bill, good, legitimate concerns not being addressed by Laborite Senators and so on. Thirdly, I was extremely upset when certain people where talking of basically treason when Nix filed the lawsuit. Most importantly, in those days when I found time, I found the first time to read the Labor Platform; and found at first the wording and especially some policy points not in suit with my views. I was thinking of my party registration a lot in the last few days, also taking with others that were feeling the same way; and while I initially thought of founding a new party, once I saw this vote, and I slept a night over it, I decided to leave Labor and start new with TPP. "Last straw" is possibly a bit exaggerated, but it was not the only thing that made me leave Labor, that's what I wanted to say.

[DemPGH]

The last time we had a platform discussion, TNF had to actually post a detailed poll in the form of an outline of the existing one in order to get feedback. So if people are skeptical of the some of the supposed outrage with Labor, it certainly resonates with me.

Are some of the "plots" that have germinated on the back alley trash that is the IRC now general knowledge? I know of nearly all of them from four or so different sources. Some of them are lean-over-the-keyboard funny and others are the result of little people with nothing else to do.

This stuff is why the game is in decline. For my part, I won't be around to be a villain for much longer, and I certainly don't blame Adam for how he feels, so I guess there will have to be new villains. 

[Cranberry]

I agree that my criticism of the Labor platform is not justified; I saw the vote then but did not vote because I did not find the time to study the platform enough to form an opinion; and I did not want to just vote for the sake of it. This nevertheless does not put my views more in touch with the Labor platform.

[TNF]

The problem with the platform process has always been that literally no one (aside from Nix) seems interested in helping me develop the party program, and then when I roll one out, then people decide to complain about it. For my part, I suppose I could do a better job of reaching out to those with an interest in developing the party platform, and for that, I apologize. But when I do do that and no one responds, I do tend to get kind of irked when everyone rails against it when it's presented to the whole party. One would think that such an important document would be worth at least some input from the party membership, and that I wouldn't have to constantly harangue members of the Labor Party for their input, only to receive almost none every time we go through the process.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Dissolution

[Oakvale]

The last time we had a platform discussion, TNF had to actually post a detailed poll in the form of an outline of the existing one in order to get feedback. So if people are skeptical of the some of the supposed outrage with Labor, it certainly resonates with me.

Are some of the "plots" that have germinated on the back alley trash that is the IRC now general knowledge? I know of nearly all of them from four or so different sources. Some of them are lean-over-the-keyboard funny and others are the result of little people with nothing else to do.

This stuff is why the game is in decline. For my part, I won't be around to be a villain for much longer, and I certainly don't blame Adam for how he feels, so I guess there will have to be new villains.  

I was planning to stay away from this thread and let Labor sort out their own affairs but f***, I'm sick of this gibberish. In his declining months it became very easy for Napoleon to lazily blame his failures on shadowy conspiratorial forces, too (which were always conveniently far too vague to be proved one way or another).

Let's take a quick look at the classic example of this apparent belief that the last few months are the result of secret conspiracies and schemes - Tyrion's confirmation for the Vice Presidency.

Senators who voted against:

Yankee: Has been in the IRC some years ago but now famously distrusts and dislikes the place.
Lumine. Has never been in the IRC.
Goldwater: Has never been in the IRC.
Spiral: Has never been in the IRC.
Cassius: Has never been in the IRC.

Senators who voted in favour:

TNF: IRC regular.
bore: IRC regular.
Cranberry: Has never been in the IRC.
Cynic: Has never been in the IRC.
Alfred Jones: IRC regular in days past, still pops in now and again.

e: It's also worth noting that Tyrion himself is often in the IRC, too.

THE CONSPIRACY IS EVIDENT.

The only "IRC plot" I can think of offhand is your own Attorney General bizarrely scheming to overthrow your own Secretary of External Affairs - something, I'll note, which was largely undone by myself and Bacon King contacting Nix (I think BK contacted you) with the details. Is there something else?

[Adam Griffin]

You want to play us up as a bunch of cowards Griff, when I demonstrated that I have the balls (like I did to Napoleon a couple years ago) to say what I think to your face.  I called you a hack a day ago in a poll and I'll do it again.  You helped Labor get to where it was a few months ago, no doubt.  You are an incredible campaigner when it comes time for it.  However, these past few months have shown that you have a bit more flaws than you are willing to admit when it comes to helping deliver a record of governance.  And your continued denial of plain reality when it stares you in the face to such an absurd degree is what drove me to type what I did this morning.

I'm kind of shocked that somebody who is supposedly involved in RL politics can be this far gone off the cliff about political strategy in a political game as you have for the past couple of months.  It's quite incredible really how you can miss the point by that much (though to be fair it's not like you are the only one who does) so many times and still come up with the wrong course of action.

I say you have a flawed attitude on the IRC and I'll defend that statement on here.  I'd be a fuckin liar if I said that nobody has ever said a nasty thing about you in the past, but on my end I can say that my criticisms (like I made yesterday morning in that poll thread) are by no means hidden and I'm upfront about it.  And with all that said I still stand by my initial statement that your comments so far have been incredibly deluded about yours (and others) impact on what has transpired and your continual insistence that it has only been because of "dishonest liars" and "conspirators".
In regards to your point about how staying away from the IRC doomed the Labor Party I'd like to point out that TNF has been in the chatroom for almost every fuckin night for the past three months as has Snowstalker.  If you want to argue correlation details here you are doing a very bad job of it if you are trying to link Laborites staying away from IRC with it's rate of success.  So again, please stop with this bullshit of yours of trying to delegate blame to everyone else but yourself and others in leadership.

Posters who frequent the IRC more than occasionally DO TALK SHIT about other Atlasians.  Posters who frequent the IRC more than occasionally DO PLAN VOTING STRATEGIES.  ANd posters who frequent the IRC more than occasionally DO TALK ABOUT CAMPAIGN STRATEGIES.  However, if you think this one avenue of communication, which only about ten or so posters out of hundreds use on a daily basis has that much of an effect on the game you clearly have not been paying attention to the years and years of PM campaigning that has been going on which is arguably just as (if not more so) effective in getting people out to the polls.  The IRC, like you probably said yourself, is a "wankfest" and like all "wankfests" it's not very large at all!  The idea that the denizens of the IRC are running the game is hilarious when you consider that much of the actual vote getting is done through the PM system that Dave Leip set up that allows party leadership to message literally hundreds of inactive posters to show up on election day "because reasons".
The only real difference between the IRC and the long accepted PM system is that in the IRC communication happens much quicker than it does by exchanging PMs (due to screen load times and the fact that a lot of PMs require more than five seconds to compose).  The only real correlation you can make (like you said it yourself) is that a lot of the people who are involved in politics also use the IRC, which is like saying that many Presidents and Senators went to Ivy League schools.

Please read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation

Believe me, it hurt me more than it did you.  It's like bitchslapping your own child but sometimes it needs to be said.  Labor could've and can be a strong left wing force in this game without being uncooperative, uncommunicative, hackish dicks about it.

Now you can keep posting six paragraph remarks to everyone in the vain attempt of yours to prove yourself right on every front, or just take brief moment to digest these words SLOWLY in that brain of yours and just give yourself the necessary time of introspection.  Because I'll be frank, while you might have all the time in the world to waste fighting over who is right and who is wrong in an election simulation I sure don't.
This is the last post I'm going to make here.  I apologize to Labor for taking up so much of it's time and hogging it's Convention thread.  I want to thank Tyrion for stating what I had come here to say far simpler than I ever could.

I really think it's a good thing you won't be around.  And I say that more for your own good than ours.  You seriously need a break man.

Much love man, and take care of yourself.

-Mechaman

Never said anything about cowards. Never said anything about balls. Never said anything about dishonest liars (are there honest liars?) And like you, I have a propensity to say what I think. I actually take the term 'hack' as flattering, no doubt, as it's my job. The hackishness is what took Labor to where it was not for a few months, but the past couple of years. And precisely the involvement in RL politics is why I call foul, because I'm all too familiar with how personal elements affect seemingly justified policy excuses. Denying flaws? Nah, I embrace them, but that doesn't mean I don't know what shit smells like when it wafts under my nose. I also highly doubt that anyone besides me being there as a party presence would be there doing the same things I'd be doing to guarantee continuity, but whatever. 10 people in IRC? LOL, maybe at any one time. And as far as the number of people in there versus the number of overall voters, please remember that many of us have the ability to unlock multiple votes based on merely what we say and send in one message. I'd try to digest most of what you're saying, but a lot of it is one-dimensional - like what you'd see in a Wiki article about the matter.

But the bigger point here is that you shouldn't be the one arguing any of this, because you've never frankly been high enough in any party structure to apparently understand the vote-whipping power and influence that the IRC carries (I would think you being in there quite often would yield a different take on the matter). One of us used these tools to build a massive operation, and the other didn't. At any rate, I appreciate your concerns about me. To be honest, I've been more detached from this game than I have at any point for some time, as real-life is going pretty great and I've been very busy. I look forward to stepping down in one month's time and seeing what happens from there.

[free my dawg]

I'm not gonna say much about these IRC charges headed against me. All I'm going to say is that you all know why I left.

[Adam Griffin]

By a vote of 15-2 (88%-12%) for continuation, this vote fails to reach the 60% threshold for further consideration.

Labor Forever!


Please stay tuned for some exciting developments coming in the next 48 hours, and be prepared for our Labor Party Fall 2014 Convention, which will be opening shortly! Our discussions on the future will continue there.

[Adam Griffin]

WE COULDN'T LAST, THEY SAID
WE WERE DEAD, THEY SAID

Fellow Laborites,

It has been a great pleasure to serve you over the past two years. It seems like it was just yesterday when this lowly and lone Laborite first registered in the IDS for a game he knew nothing about at the time, and with a party that had merely 20 people. Since then, we managed to build a party that has outlasted all of the other factions that came about during dissolution, and can proudly state that we are the oldest-living major party in the game. Our third anniversary is but mere months away.

Much like our party, I have likewise seemingly outlasted all of my old opponents in the arena, and as such, it is time for this old warhorse to fade quietly into the night. A new generation of leaders in the game - across the entire spectrum and not just within Labor - is long overdue. Maybe if I drift off to the nether with the rest of my former enemies, the fates will finally let this occur!

We have faced great difficulties in recent months, but when has Labor ever had it easy? As weaker spirits drifted away from our cause, we were left with a smaller political footprint. Do not cry for these lost souls, for everyone gets what they get coming in this game sooner or later. View this as an opportunity and a blessing, as the party that exists today has stronger resolve and commitment to our ideas in terms of concentration than it did before.

I worried after August about leaving the party with such little representation in the Senate; with defections added to it, this became a genuine fear of mine and one that motivated me to work harder in my final months - to leave at the very least a solid foundation for the restoration of our legacy for those who would come after all of this. Despite all of our critics and the haters, we carved out new pathways to glory for ourselves, as can be seen in the recent election results.

70% of the nation elected Labor Senators last weekend. Our Presidential ticket claimed 43% of the final round vote despite everything and everyone saying we'd be lucky to break 30%. Our ticket won in the second and third most populous regions, and only lost by 1 vote in the most populous region. And if the Party plays its cards right, we'll return to the Senate in the new year with a delegation that rivals our previous achievements.

My parting advice is simple: always look for opportunity, never compromise when compromise is not necessary, always remember that only Laborites have the best interests of Labor in mind, and never forget. These four elements are all that kept us moving ever forward, and they'll never, ever let you down if you stick with them.

I wish our future leaders the best of luck, and know that they will do well. I will always be here to assist when called, but this era of mine - the era of old - has come to a close.

I hereby resign immediately, one week in advance of the end of my last term, so that we may allow for a solid transition into the coming Presidential and Senate terms. Godspeed, you sweet sweet Laborites, and may we always continue to defy the odds.

x Adam

[Gass3268]

It was a privilege to be a member of this glorious party with you at the head. Your leadership will be missed!



I hope you enjoy retirement!

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

You did well, Your Majesty.