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Amelia Andersdotter Pops Fuse

'Another first class idiot.'


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BRUSSELS (Rixstep) — Four days went by without Mattias Bjärnemalm getting much sleep. Trying to spin down his incredible faux pax in the Pirate Party forum, he kept at it day and night for almost 24 hours per day. For four days.

Then his boss, the 25yo politically naïve #2 pirate in Brussels, Amelia Andersdotter, stepped in with a faux pas of her own that eclipsed everything Bjärnemalm had written.

Both Bjärnemalm and Andersdotter understood they had a major political crisis on their hands. Andersdotter had also entered the Flashback forum and outed herself, as Bjärnemalm had done, but now Andersdotter's patience started wearing thin.

'Cooler Than You'

So a bona-fide European parliamentarian, probably on her first and last official assignment to the EU capital, posted the following at noon yesterday. (She's since been suspected - if matters weren't bad enough already - of having her posts removed.)

Hello everyone,

One of my coworkers is answering questions in this thread during work hours. This is not an effective use of our time, and it would be nice if you could stop trolling him because you're otherwise working against what I presume are both your and my political objectives.

I realise that some of your objectives don't coincide with mine, but most of them do and it's in your interests to let me and the members of my staff work as effectively as possible with these objectives. If you want an extra carrot, things are such that if we are occupied with working with constructive matters, then we don't have the same amount of time to work with you in the matters where our opinions differ.

If you want to know more about my areas of political work, I have a thread in the EU section of Flashback where I've constructed a clear overview of the political spheres I find are connected to the Assange case and in which way we in the Pirate Party work with some of them.

Thanks in advance for your cooperation,

Amelia Andersdotter
Member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party 2009-2014
Cooler than you

Hornets Nest

That Andersdotter is a political amateur became readily apparent. Her move could be compared to that of Aaron Barr. Dozens upon dozens of able Flashbackers came out of the woodwork to criticise Andersdotter's hubris, and she ended up staying there most of the day herself.

But the damage had been done, and four days of wasted and desperate work to spin what could easily have been managed by an apology were for nought. The regulars at Flashback, once a stronghold of Pirate Party support, came out and declared they would never again support or vote for such a party.

What's the Fuss?

As seen from this article, the fuss is more than a tempest in a teapot. Bjärnemalm's original statement came in the Pirate Party discussion of whether they should back Amnesty's demand that Sweden guarantee Julian Assange not be turned over to the US.

'Well inasmuch as I don't have any great respect for Assange after having spoken with people who've worked close to him, I don't find it unreasonable that we might find accusations of sexual molestation from all corners of the planet. And should this happen, I don't see why Sweden should refuse to extradite him if the UK would go along with it.'

And after four days of third degree at Flashback, Bjärnemalm finally let fly with some facts.

  • He's always harboured an 'instinctive dislike' for Julian Assange.
  • He's personal friends with Anna Ardin and she's coloured his opinions.

But Mattias Bjärnemalm is laying low now. Instead his boss Amelia Andersdotter's in there.

Where It All Began

The 'transformation' of Sweden's Pirate Party began years ago.

Rick Falkvinge - born Dick Gregor Augustsson - decided to cash in all his chips on New Years Day 2006. A former programming project manager for Microsoft, he tried his hand at consulting and found he was very good at his work but not so good at getting clients to pay. So on New Years Day 2006 he put up the Pirate Party website and gambled on its future.

The idea was to build up the party from scratch, using only his own money to start with, and build up enough momentum to get seats in the Swedish parliament by 2010, at which time state subsidies could take over the financing.

Already a year earlier he got his party colleague Christian Engström into the European parliament - he put Engström at the top of the ballot, Amelia second, Mattias third. Then it was time for party elections again. And Mattias was one of the ones in charge.

The plan had always been for the MEP to channel funds to the local party to keep them going another year. Falkvinge had spent all his money getting the party into the EU parliament. Mattias didn't like it. He called Falkvinge the equivalent of a 'freeloader'.

One thing led to another and Mattias and the other 'parasites' took over. Falkvinge was given a Sophie's Choice. Either insist on retaining party leadership and rely solely on donations, or step aside for the new generation and let Engström send him money.

Falkvinge chose the latter. The parasites moved in. Since then Sweden's Pirate Party - a party that initially refused to discuss anything outside the realm of digital rights - has become a feminist party, just like Amnesty Sweden, with gender quotas within the party often on the table.

The Swedish Pirate Party was the first of its kind in the world. Rick Falkvinge's work is still reverberating everywhere. The pirate MEPs and their staff in Brussels have Rick to thank.

BaalZeBub's Comments

It's rather amusing - and frightening - that pirate after pirate jumps in this thread to express personal feelings about Julian Assange. MoLoK has written 1848 posts since Day One, several others including myself have written as many. But none of us have ever discussed personal feelings about Julian Assange.

We've discussed the legal case, evidentiary issues, the unusually high number of parallel aspects, not in the least in international politics. Things like that.

In contrast we had Johannes Axner from the 'talk about it' coterie whose most enlightened and intelligence observation in the case was 'what I mean is Assange painted himself into a corner by behaving like an ass-hat for the past three years'.

Now we're seeing the same mental level from members of the pirate party who without provocation seem to believe they can make public statements in the matter of 'guilt' based on observations of Assange's person and similar nonsense.

One wonders what they'd talk about if they ever touched on real political issues. Carl Bildt's fringe in relation to patent legislation? Reinfeldt's handicap and how it's affected ACTA?

The statements of leading members of the Pirate Party regarding a legal case now into its 26th month is on the level that they rush to Flashback to talk about their feminist friend in the christian radical role-playing clubs who'd heard that Julian Assange has an 'Australian' view of women.

And so a leading member of the party [Mattias Bjärnemalm] thinks it's a given to jump in and establish the following, based on private friendships with one of the complainants [Anna Ardin] and her closest friends:

• Assange is a sexist.
• Assange's character is influenced by Australian gender roles and the collision with Swedish equality norms was inevitable.
• Assange is a notorious ladies man who mistreats his women.
• Assange is paranoid.

But when things don't turn out so good, what do the pirates do? Does anyone realise their mistake? Try to calm the crew down and get them thinking rationally? No! The whole gang march off to Flashback to support their colleague, to make empty generic statements, to insult the others, and to add to the disaster with faux pas of their own.


It's fantastic how everything falls into place! A personal 'instinctive' dislike of JA, bonds of friendship with the 'queer feminist' socialists Ardin and Axner, the intrigues and the sociopathic attitude towards political work, their key roles in the dirty tricks of the 2010 reelection committee, the palace coup in the party in 2010, the arrogance, the hint of religiously motivated opinions - of course the same thing with one of them also being a member of the bogus grassroots campaign 'talk about it'.

Further Comments

Flashbackers have had it with the Pirate Party. Here are some of their comments in the wake of this latest controversy.

Hejhej, I'm Amelia Andersdotter. I have no intention of replacing Mattias Bjärnemalm, I think your investigation of who he tweets with is childish, and it's completely reasonable that an individual's greatness and contributions in one area (freedom of speech) not excuse this individual from other less acceptable activities such as sexual molestation and violence.
 - Amelia Andersdotter


Not too smart of Andersdotter to try damage control by stating Assange might be a serial sex offender. There are no charges against him, there's no verdict or conviction. Why is Andersdotter being a dupe in this murky game to get Assange convicted? How many members of the Pirate Party share her views?
 - intelle

And Amelia went on to insinuate he'd been violent. Unprecedented.
 - HimlensHemlighet

Bjärnemalm is reckless, is effectively guilty of defamation by claiming Assange is guilty of sex crimes in all corners of the globe. And to support his statement, Bjärnemalm refers to people who've worked closely with Assange - his friend Anna Ardin and Anna Troberg.
 - trenterx

Many of those who've studied the Assange case will not vote for the Pirate Party next time around if there's no change in leadership.
 - Tulpanpernilla

Amelia: You've had more than a year to do something. Instead you pop up here at Flashback and other places for the sole purpose of smearing someone who's only wanted for questioning. You know full well that there aren't any further scorned women around the world queueing up to file complaints, and that the only ones in such case are in the Stockholm area. And it was because of YOU that he came here in the first place. And now this. You beat DDB Daniel Domscheit-Berg hands down. Soon you'll have to change your name to the Traitor Party. There's no way you'll be back in Brussels after the next election. Fix your shit. Support JA. Or else start reading the job ads. And count on ABC's Andrew Fowler contacting you for an interview.
 - duqu

I can understand you don't plan on sacking Mattias Bjärnemalm because here you come with insinuating smears of your own. The allegations against Assange have never been about violent behaviour as you're insinuating here.
 - HappySadHarry

It is completely unacceptable that Bjärnemalm makes a public statement about the 'guilt' of JA, using the motivation that he's a personal friend of one of the 'victims'. As a representative of the Pirate Party, one should be very careful about making statements about things where one is personally involved. This makes all members of the party who don't share the same opinion look bad.
 - MellyX

Right. You're 4-5 pirates who finally find this thread after two years and two months. You post a lot of childish nonsense that has absolutely nothing to do with the Pirate Party.
 - BaalZeBub

Can we please save these poor people [at the Ecuadorean embassy] from JA's patented radically warped Australian gender role thinking? Perhaps Hague storming the embassy solely to free these abused slugs victimised by the Stockholm Syndrome, whose mothers and fathers shake uncontrollably from fright far away in South America?
 - wtfuk

It's frightening how quickly new people - new thinkers - get sucked up into the establishment. When the pirates first entered the political arena, they were something new and many of us put our hopes in them. Young men and women with an eye on the future. But after a few years they're right in the PC mold. Mattias Bjärnemalm is by far the most arrogant person I've ever encountered, in a long long time. His conceit and 'I'm better than you' attitude is bordering on the fascistic. He's heard from people who've heard from people around him that he eats boogers. What a creep.
 - TrumanCapote

How did [Amelia] squeeze violence in there?
 - hoppsann

The current leadership of the Pirate Party showed their true colours long ago.
 - GoodwinStrawman

Thanks to all the investigators in this thread for their valuable insights and thoughts. The Pirate Party turned out to be a superficial and bigoted group where many - as with Lambertz - rush to defend one another without first getting the facts.
 - Carte-Blanche

Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.
 - Eleanor Roosevelt

See Also
The Technological: Mattias Bjärnemalm Pops Fuse

See Also
Justice4Assange.com
Assange Defence Fund
WikiLeaks: Support WikiLeaks
The Police Protocol (Translated)
Rixstep: JA/WL (Assange/WikiLeaks)
Rixstep: Assange/WikiLeaks RSS Feed
Radsoft: Assange/WikiLeaks RSS Feed

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