Labor Party Standing Committee - FAREWELL

[Adam Griffin]

Our Founding (We Almost Ended Up Being the Social Democratic Union)

View Labor Party Standing Committee, Jan-Sept 2012

View Labor Party Standing Committee, Oct 2012-Jun 2013

View Labor Party Standing Committee, July-Oct 2013

View Labor Party Standing Committee, Nov 2013-Feb 2014

View Labor Party By-Laws (Adopted 10/30/13)

View Labor Party Platform (Adopted 2/24/14)

Welcome to the Committee HQ of the Labor Party. Currently Atlasia's true beacon of center-leftism, our mission is to further the broader debate on the economic and social issues that impact the lives of everyday Atlasians. We are prepared and poised to fight for progressive ideals in every region across the country by being a well-distributed political movement in Atlasia. All current information, events, votes and other announcements will be displayed in this post, making it easier to keep up with all that is going on in both Atlasia and the Labor Party.

Current Members:

National: 41

Mideast: 5
Midwest: 11
Northeast: 11
Pacific: 12
South: 2

Your Party Officers:

Chair – Adam Griffin
Vice-Chair – TNF
General Secretary – Snowstalker
Attorney-at-Law - Bacon King

Your Regional Co-Ordinators:

Mideast –
Midwest – Windjammer
Northeast – Napoleon
Pacific – TheCranberry
South –

Labor Elected/Appointed Members of Government

Talleyrand - At-Large Senator
TNF - Midwest Senator
Bore - Northeast Senator
Tyrion - Pacific Senator

Windjammer - Midwest Governor
DemPGH - Pacific Governor

Njall - Mideast Assemblyman
Arturo Belano - Midwest Archduke
Brewer - Most Serene Midwest Representative
Adam C. Fitzgerald - Most Serene Midwest Representative
Napoleon - Northeast Representative
SomebodyWhoExists - Northeast Representative
The Cranberry - Pacific Councilor

Adam Griffin - Game Moderator

Aggregate PM Score:

-5.26 E
-5.84 S



Ongoing Votes/Events:

[Adam Griffin]

To be fair, looking at this I'd place "center-left" to be within the smaller (5x5) box, and it seems most of your members are outside said box. I'm surprised the average is where it is, it would look as if it would be closer to the bottom

To be fair, this is from some months ago. I remember averaging out the scores and that was the result. If you eyeball it (or break it down into two dimensions and separate clusters that way), it appears that the outer scores are close enough to one 0 or another (and far enough from the larger cluster) to pull the aggregates to where they're listed.

[Adam Griffin]

Welcome back Mechaman!

[Adam Griffin]

The by-laws committee is as follows:

Adam G
Napoleon
Njall

We look forward to having an updated set for review and a vote in the coming days!

[Adam Griffin]

So who would be the Labor candidate in the Special senate election that is coming caused by Malcom X's deregistration tragic dead caused by alien space bats?

We'll have to see if anyone/who announces. If there's more than one interested candidate, then there'll be a quick primary.

[Adam Griffin]

GLORY RESTORED!

After a raucous weekend, the election results are in and Alfred Jones will be our newest Senator!

Since the loss and de-registration of Senator X, Labor's beautiful crown has been missing one of its glorious gems. We are so happy to report that the country saw it fit to restore this fifth ruby to its rightful place after it was found - at long last - so that The People may bask in the magnificence that is our Glorious Five-Member Coalition. The nation could have chosen to elect the first conservative-majority Senate since before dissolution; they chose wisely.

Our new Senator - complete with his fabulous mandate (or man date) - will be making his remarks shortly, so in the mean time, let's celebrate!

[Adam Griffin]

Honestly, I hope he keeps the act up for the remainder of the term. We need more characters in the game.

[Adam Griffin]

Why people hate Hifly so much?

I think its his anti gay positions.

I don't hate Hifly, but his positions probably don't go over so well with a party that - only behind "Labor" and "Liebor" - is often referred to by its members as "Gaybor". Does anyone else remember this?

[Adam Griffin]

So... We now have two Labor candidates for Pacific Governor... Shouldn't we hold a short primary now?

Yes, this is actually in our by-laws.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

We will now have a Labor Party primary for the Pacific Gubernatorial race. This vote will last 72 hours.

[  ] DemPGH (Labor-WA)
[  ] Flo (Labor-AK)
[  ] Write-in:
[  ] None of the Above
[  ] Abstain

[Adam Griffin]

[Adam Griffin]

Voting ended at 5:38 AM ET this morning:


DemPGH wins the endorsement of the Labor Party, 7-3.

[Adam Griffin]

Let's reflect, as today, we celebrate the struggles of the working class as they fight to unshackle themselves from the chains of economic tyranny.

Dear People,

A special message today from the President on Labor Day:

Without Atlasia's workers asserting themselves and without unions to protect wages and to bargain for measures like just cause, I dare say that that we'd be far less removed from Feudalism than what we currently are. Power and wealth are relative, and when power and wealth are exclusively owned by too few people, the democratic processes that ensure our freedom and moreover, the mobility of our people, are severely threatened.

Democracy and equality have been slowly evolving over recorded time, and I feel that as long as Atlasia's workers assert their voice and we hold in check the corporate, we will continue on the path of progress!

Atlasia's workers have a friend in this President. Enjoy your day off, your friends, and good wine (or your favorite beverage!).

--The President

Hoffa and Reds are excellent choices, Comrade President. You're doing a fine job. Don't let the haters get to you. Keep up the good work.

I thank you, Senator! As I mentioned in your thread, you have my endorsement!

[Adam Griffin]

Hello comrades,

With a scheduled convention quickly approaching, we have some business that should be addressed beforehand.

For the past two years, the Labor Party has been the only party that has maintained a consistent upward trajectory in all aspects of this game. It’s amazing to think that we are now the only dissolution party to remain in existence, and possibly second only to the JCP in combination of size, amount of influence and duration of said influence. Many of us can remember back to 2012, when we were a distant third-place party in this game. How far we have managed to go since then.
 
I credit this in large part due to the fact that we had something that no other party truly enjoyed: a combination of close-knit camaraderie and ideological zeal. Both of these elements have been present and potent throughout our rise; every other party we’ve come across has either only possessed one of these elements, or a weak concentration of both. The organizing of our party into something more deliberate also lifted us from the annals of insignificance, but the bonds of friendship and the agreement to show a united front on most policy gave us the ability to dispatch with every opponent along the way.

But as of late, these elements seem to be fading. It saddens me that some of our newer players and members may have missed out on the Glorious Era That Was, as it makes them more susceptible and less aware of the shenanigans that many use in this game – currently with much success against our own party. Because I’ve also made it no secret to many members that this will be my final term as your Party Chair (for good, this time), I’m distressed that I’ll be leaving office at such a tumultuous time given the historical success during my tenure over the past couple of years. It does provide a sense of liberation and introspection, however, in regards to mistakes made and successes won.

We see a wide variety of disagreements on policy in public among members, with no regard whatsoever for what that does to party morale or long-term vision. We see members being influenced by outside forces that have no concern for the future of this party - and let’s be real: we’re talking about the IRC/TPP bloc, which has always been just as content at conspiring against any faction in this game as they are being allied with them; there isn’t a single other entity that has spent more time on both sides of this fence with them than Labor, so please withhold the inevitable rebuttals. We see consistent defections at the ballot box – more than at any point since I joined the party leadership - and in many cases from people who expect to use our party to get elected, but will then refuse to vote for its candidates.

Labor more than anything has been a great experiment: to show that there was no need to be a generic, left-center party in Atlasia in order to rise to power. We didn't get to JCP levels in that regard, but I don't think any of us expected that given the goals. We've done great things, both on the policy front and the partisan front. To be a left-center bloc is to take the easy way forward: yawn, we all know what happens. Anyone who has seen the full rise of Labor knows that practically everyone has always sought to deter us, implicitly or explicitly; we should never expect allies in exchange for selling our party out. We hold our future in our hands, but we must stop giving others the power to exploit us, like the left-center once had over us so long ago.

We must pick one path of the two.

1) I maintain that this Party can still succeed, can still be strong and can still do everything it has and more, but not with all of the fractures and flaws currently present. I blame myself considerably for being lax lately with whipping votes, creating new opportunities for players, recruiting fresh faces, paying appeasement tribute to the IRC precincts and engaging with members like I once did, but the end of my era is quickly approaching. Almost anyone with some semblance of normalcy should burn out after running the Atlasian show for two years (ideally sooner). But if you want to save it, then we must first save ourselves from ourselves, and others must be capable of taking the reins. The attacks against us that are supposedly related to “extreme policies” are not valid; many of us have been around long enough to know that we’ve always been considerably to the left of the rest, and that this line of attack is almost always a suit of armor to shield the attacker from displaying their true personal, ambitious or trollish motivations.

2) But choosing to act like we have been acting, a party cannot stand, and will not stand. We fought against dying, zombie parties and non-ideological cliques and cults because they have no purpose in this game. If our party, too, has reached that point, then it should be accepted. We’re not the Liberal Party. We’re not the Whig-Communitarian Party. We’re not the Imperial Bloc. We’re not The People’s Party. We’re not the Progressive Union. We're not any of the others. We’re the goddamned Labor Party of Atlasia, and if we’re to go down, then we’ll do it with dignity and on our own terms.

As such, you now have a choice, and we will choose which path to take by holding a vote of confidence on the continued existence of the Labor Party.

Only Labor Party members at the time of this publication (43 in all) shall be eligible to vote.

This vote will last for 96 hours.

If there is at least 60% turnout (26 voters) with 75% or more of the voters voting to continue, we will lay this to rest.

If there is at least 60% turnout (26 voters) with less than 75% of voters voting to continue, an additional discussion and vote will be held.

OFFICIAL BALLOT:

Should the Labor Party of Atlasia continue to exist, or should it dissolve?

[  ] Continuation
[  ] Dissolution

[Adam Griffin]

I feel like I skipped a half-dozen chapters of a book, or something. What exactly are some people so upset about? I genuinely don't get it. It seems like there are some people that have these nagging issues yet don't publicly elaborate on them and restrict them to more gossipy avenues.

How are issues to be worked out, it that's the case?

I can only speak from my own perspective, but let's lay it all out here.

For starters, this vote was opened as nothing more than a genuine opportunity for the party to re-evaluate the recent climate we've found ourselves in, and decide where to go from here. Several of us had discussed both recently and long ago what we'd do if the party reached a point where it started looking like the Liberals did in 2013. An unreasonably large amount of unreasonable scrutiny of us has been occurring lately and it's been quite effective at poking and prodding discourse against us and within us.

The root of this antagonizing is coming almost exclusively from within The People's Party, and the water to that root is the IRC. People from other parties who jumping in on it are doing so because they see an opportunity, and I have no issue with them because I understand how the game does and should work. Behind the scenes, a number of rank-and-file Laborites are being contacted in one form or another (either through IRC or PM) in an attempt to continue what initially started with the assassination of the President's administration. If I had to put one date on when this obviously became deliberate and expanded beyond the criticism of windjammer, it'd be August 16th. There have been numerous public "justifications" for these recent smears, where a correlation is drawn to one relatively insignificant act or another. "Labor is bad because windjammer is controlling the Senate!" or "OMG, a bad piece of legislation was sponsored: time for revolution" or "Labor's deciding to keep its doors open or not, it's a Soviet plot", or "Labor is run by a dictator, waaaah" sort of drivel.

Almost everyone involved with these deceptive shenanigans doesn't care about policy in reality. The IRC is a cesspool (one that admittedly I still enjoy to a degree, and one that has a lot of good people who hang out there for various reasons), and I know it well enough to feel its presence in-game even when I'm not in there. Dozens of people would tell you that I spent a good year in there daily for extended periods, so this isn't like someone with no experience discussing its effect. It has a consistently negative effect on the game, and yeah, it's one that this party used quite effectively to its advantage for quite some time. Sadly and unsettling for the prospects of this game, you could create a chart with almost near-perfect correlation to the success of Labor and how much time I was willing to spend in IRC on a weekly or monthly basis. As you can tell, I've been virtually MIA from IRC for the past three months.

A lot of the people in this game who don't go there don't understand it, and it's the biggest "open secret" of the game. A lot of our less-engaged members and players from all over the ideological spectrum don't really get it, but I offer a challenge to them: pick five random times per day over five random days in the next month, and log into what is known as the IRC. Just take a look around and see who all is in there, and you can connect your own dots. Like I said, there are also plenty of people who are in there who have nothing to do with this particular issue or the game itself, and it all can be quite fun. Even the people to whom I'm referring now I have no personal beef with, but that doesn't change the dynamic at all, apparently.

But the IRC runs the game, or at least the part of it that plays the game. That's the other unspoken secret. I'm sure you understand this and many others do, as well. Every single President that has been elected after Napoleon would have not been elected if the IRC had swung in the opposite direction. It’s decided probably around 90% of all competitive elections in this game since I’ve been in it. IRC is a hive-mind that tends to violently gyrate from one frame of mind to another. And with this sudden shift of seeming allies against us – keep in mind, almost all of this happened at a point when party leadership was essentially inactive – there too seems to be little genuine justification. I can’t be clairvoyant and tell you why it’s happening (an epic fit of trolling is a perfectly believable assertion considering the source), but it’s easy to tell both what is happening and what is a bullsh!t explanation of why it’s supposedly so.

So yeah, this vote is the result of some of us are genuinely asking the question of whether or not we want to continue in the face of this sycophantic bullsh!t, and if we are to do so, then how should we adapt. It’s not a way to flush out those who are less likely to toe the party-line, and it’s not a plan to crack down on anybody (this seems to be a common whisper right now). As for me, I’m fine with either option of the original question we're answering about our Party, in so long as our Party makes said decision with an overwhelmingly unified belief that the other option isn’t feasible or a choice. What I wouldn’t be fine with is watching the sperg cabal and the internal dissent it has sowed rot this Party away slowly and painfully. 

[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.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

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.

[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.

[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