Official Statement of Chairman Funkadelia

[Aperi]

On behalf of the citizens of the People’s Republic of Lazarus, it is my somber duty to announce that a state of war now exists between our region and the Osiris Fraternal Order.

The Peoples' Republic was founded on the principle of self-determination; for years our fire was kept low by a succession of outside influences. Last October, we cast out these interlopers and rekindled our flame through revolution. Since that time we have worked tirelessly to ensure that not only our own region but every region is governed by its people rather than those whose loyalties lie abroad.

Regretfully, Osiris has fallen victim to the very same men and women who once put out any spark of expression in Lazarus. Imperialist meddlers and their raider allies have driven a once reasonable region into a reactionary furor, and now they wish to use their new conquest to reign in our revolution.

From showing solidarity with Lazarus through military support not six months ago, the puppet masters of Osiris have taken increasingly hostile moves towards our region. Ever-present slights in public fora devolved into a unilateral, unprovoked closure of embassies. They have now reached the lowest depths of reason: a declaration of war justified only by a deficient sense of humor.

We would urge Osiris to reconsider, but they have made it clear that there is no going back. Their only goal seems to be smothering the flame borne of our hard-won revolution; their greed and lust for power allows them no other course.

Therefore let me say now that they will fail. All the forces of oppression in this world are not enough to extinguish the white light of our region, not while we and our allies stand strong. We shall emerge victorious in this war and in doing so demonstrate the power of revolutionary flare to the chained people of Osiris and beyond.

Our revolution will not be defeated. Our people will not be enslaved. Our fire will not go out.

[The Dourian Embassy]

"...the People's Republic invests a great deal of responsibility in power to its leader, the Chairman, who shall hold sole power over regional affairs and is the sovereign of the region. It is a dictatorship..."

Whatever trappings the Lazarene government and its current chairman attempt to lay over its autocratic rule, it is inherently a dictatorship. The words above, from the Lazarene constitution's preamble, make that much clear. Lazarus has held elections for chairman in the past but those elections are meaningless. The power to choose a successor is solely invested in the Chairman. This is, in the words of their constitution, to "represent the community's popular will without the vulnerability to exploitation that is inherent in democracy". Lazarene elections for chairman are shams, plain and simple.

Milograd, to his credit, did a good job of preserving a democratic ideal for Lazarus. Under his rule there was, for lack of a better term, a "Benevolent Dictatorship" in Lazarus. It was one that I personally might not have agreed with, but as a government it was not in direct opposition to democracy. Milograd's government was followed by Kazmr, and finally replaced by the current Chairman, Funkadelia.

Funkadelia has brought progress towards democracy in Lazarus to a screeching halt. His vice-chairman, Llamas, in the words of one of Lazarus's citizens: "secretly went behind the back of the government, formed a secret group, and made secret plans to try and make Lazarus democratic." This is troubling for two reasons. That the vice-chairman felt the need to perform these actions in secret is telling as to the environment inside the Lazarene government, but of course the primary issue is that this resulted in his removal from the government and his eventually being forced out of the region under the threat of "subversion charges".

Funkadelia has begun ejecting those who oppose him in any manner. Members of the government have resigned in protest of the actions taken against Llamas. The activity of the regional government is at historic lows. Lazarus is in crisis, and the only thing the current Lazarene government cares to do about it is to solidify its hold on power while using an official known as the Chief of State Police to root out "subversives and security threats".

The Osiris Fraternal Order will not stand idly by while the citizens of Lazarus are oppressed in such a manner. The OFO was founded on democratic ideals, and the Osirian government will put the full weight of its military force and its influence abroad towards seeking an end to the autocratic rule of Lazarus. We will not compromise. We will not surrender. We will not stop until Lazarus has a new government with free elections.

And we will succeed.

Treize Dreizehn, Vizier and Scribe of Foreign Affairs for the Osiris Fraternal Order.

[Kazmr]

The lies of our enemies never seem to cease, for their only object is to tear us down.

Take one Treize Dreizehn. On the surface, his impassioned argument for 'Democracy' sounds pleasant; a righteous call for liberation. But beneath their shiny veneer, Mr. Dreizehn's words are no more than a fairy tale.

He claims that our second Chairman, Milograd, preserved some sort of democratic ideal that is lacking in today's leadership, ignoring his own words and those of numerous others during that distinguished revolutionary's own term. Milograd was effective, Milograd was intelligent, but Milograd was not democratic by and definition of the word. If anything, the PRL as it exists today, with an open congress as enacted by Funkadelia and a completely open election is more transparent and relies on the input of more members of the community than Milograd's regime ever was. Yet neither is inherently superior. Milograd achieved great feats through sheer force of personality, Funkadelia leads efficiently through working with a coalition of vanguards; both have been successful at their roles, but each uses a different method.

Mr. Dreizehn insinuates that the fact that two members of government went behind the Chairman's back to secretly form a group promoting democracy is some sort of vivid symbol for the decay of our region, yet he ignores just about every fact on the ground. Llamas and Ikania's attempts to force change are little more than the actions effete young teenagers convinced that their line of thinking must always be correct. Ikania himself has admitted that his main reason for wanting to undo the PRL is simply that he was bored and didn't like the Chairman personally. Nationstates has shown that there are three ways a person acts when they are 'bored'; packing up peacefully and looking for new opportunities, working cooperatively for others for effective change, or ignoring the wishes of the rest of the community to mold it in your image. Ikania has shown repeatedly, through constant adolescent squeals of delight over the 'impending destruction' of the PRL and his imagined triumphant return, that he fits the third case.

Treize even brings out the same old tired criticisms that have been hurled, with no substance to speak of, at the PRL since the October Revolution. He calls us inactive, ignoring the numerous individuals participating on the forum, the RMB, and IRC. He claims that we have made summery ejections a regular issue, and yet of the two (yes, only two) individuals who have left our region because of the Llamas incident, one was Llamas, who did so of his own volition and has had no charges brought against him, and the other was Ikania, who was stripped of citizenship only after he moved his nations out of the region and proceeded to tell everyone who would listen that he was going to take down the government. Not one other soul has left over this, and in fact Ikania may be the first PRL member ever to have their citizenship stripped.

If there is one thing he gets right, it is his claim that Lazarus is a dictatorship. Yes, guilty as charged. Throw us up against a wall... or not. For where is it written that Democracy is the only form of good government? Yes, we are more than willing to applaud our friends in The South Pacific for a decade of Democracy. Yet Lazarus had a democracy for as long as one can remember, but it never did any good. Democracy in our region was nothing but a system whereby two factions sat and stared at each other, both determined not to allow the other any quarter and in the process preventing any productive action in the region. Meanwhile, we have thrived under a dictatorship of the proletariat with more citizens, activity, and relevance now than at any point during the Emerald Kingdom. The longevity, stability, and continued relevance of the New Pacific Order is yet another example showing that Democracy need not be the only path.

[Zaolat]

Lazarus, you made us started a war you cannot win! Us Osiris will win your war! you will be the one who cries! in the end Osiris prevailed!

[Klaus Devestatorie]

Lazarus, you made us started a war you cannot win! Us Osiris will win your war! you will be the one who cries! in the end Osiris prevailed!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIcxqVRLEWI

[United Federation of Canada]

UNITED FEDERATION OF CANADA



IMPERIAL MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Chairman Funkadelia, and our esteemed colleagues of The Peoples Republic,

Please accept the unconditional support of The Federation for your cause! Our hope is that you are finally able to bring the legion to its knees and the tyrant Cormac A Stark will finally be held accountable for the heinous actions of his brutal regime!

Warmest regards,

[the Imperial Crown]

What has Senator Cormac Stark of Equilism done to the United Federation of Canada? :s

[United Federation of Canada]

What has Senator Cormac Stark of Equilism done to the United Federation of Canada? :s

Fixed that, and you know exactly who I meant....

[Tim-Opolis]

What has Senator Cormac Stark of Equilism done to the United Federation of Canada? :s

Let's not play the "duality card", eh?

Marvelous speeches, Comrade Funkadelia and Comrade Kazmr! Hail the People's Revolution, and the Glorious Movement for Unified Prosperity!

[The Dourian Embassy]

You have sown the wind.

Over a week ago I said those words.

But here we are. And there you are Kazmr. A mouthpiece for oppression. The people of your region, including Ikania, are calling out for freedom and the best argument you have is "Dictatorships aren't so bad". Which I'm sure is easy to say when you're the ones in charge.

The past few days have shown the rest of NS just how unstable your government is, with your own people arguing back and forth in your official gameplay threads. Your dictatorship has done nothing but cause Ikania and many other Lazarenes to speak out against your government. But remember, just because they disagree with you, doesn't make them anything other than true Lazarenes.

I can only imagine what your goal was when you removed people from your government for pushing for democracy. Or what the plan was when you moved to a new forum because you didn't trust Hobbes(by the way, terrible call not trusting him, as almost anyone else could tell you). Were these sincere attempts to silence opposition? If so, they've failed.

Lazarus deserves better and the people who trust you with their region deserve better, and Osiris is going to give them that better world. You thought you could threaten us. You thought that you could cajole us into backing down. You thought you could preserve your fragile hold on power with oppression.

There are just a few universal truths. But somehow dictators always forget that the tighter they squeeze an iron fist, the more those who seek freedom will slip through their fingers.

Let these words be on your mind the morning you wake up in The Rejected Realms, wondering where and how it all went wrong.

You shall reap the whirlwind.

[the Imperial Crown]

What has Senator Cormac Stark of Equilism done to the United Federation of Canada? :s

Let's not play the "duality card", eh?

Seeing as I am retired and have absolutely nothing to do with this silly tea-party gone bad, I think I'll play whatever card I like Comrade Tim Variety is the spice of life and being British, who tend to have grey, drab and dull lives so it's important to add plenty of variety.

[Chester Pearson]

Let these words be on your mind the morning you wake up in The Rejected Realms, wondering where and how it all went wrong.

You shall reap the whirlwind.

Considering the people of Lazarus are united, and Cormac couldn't even take back Osiris until Durk finally gave up? My money is on Lazarus....

[Consular]

Let these words be on your mind the morning you wake up in The Rejected Realms, wondering where and how it all went wrong.

You shall reap the whirlwind.

Considering the people of Lazarus are united, and Cormac couldn't even take back Osiris until Durk finally gave up? My money is on Lazarus....

Um... I don't think you fully understand the events you're talking about. Not to mention you're making a rather false sort of comparison there.

[Kazmr]

Mouthpiece for oppression. I quite like the sound of that. As someone who isn't even in the government, it makes me sound rather important!

Of course, your rhetoric again fails to pass any sane standard of truth. You speak of the multitude of Lazarenes who are speaking out against the PRL, yet I see only Ikania, who even Rach hesitates to quote for fear that he's simply embarrassing himself. Perhaps you would care to name them? Or would that blow a hole in your entire argument?

And now you once again go for the cheap political point by bringing up Hobbes. I have nothing to say on the matter except that we have already settled our differences civilly, and the man himself has asked both sides not to bring him into it. Apparently you didn't get the memo, or perhaps you simply chose to ignore it.

I eagerly await the opportunity to send your armies to the halls of our good friend Unibot.

[Chester Pearson]

Considering the people of Lazarus are united, and Cormac couldn't even take back Osiris until Durk finally gave up? My money is on Lazarus....

Um... I don't think you fully understand the events you're talking about. Not to mention you're making a rather false sort of comparison there.

The fact is Osiris couldn't coordinate a good shit of they tried, yet the people of Lazarus are united behind a single cause....

[Consular]

Um... I don't think you fully understand the events you're talking about. Not to mention you're making a rather false sort of comparison there.

The fact is Osiris couldn't coordinate a good shit of they tried, yet the people of Lazarus are united behind a single cause....

The people of Lazarus are united because they purged everyone who didn't agree with their views.

And Osiris is not any less united right now. You're using an example of a conflict that occurred ages ago, in what was effectively a different community.

Your example is ahistorical, you're picking a stable period from lazarene history, and and unstable one from osiran, and comparing them to illustrate a political point.

[Milograd]

But somehow dictators always forget that the tighter they squeeze an iron fist, the more those who seek freedom will slip through their fingers.

Not if you have strong, manly hands.

But that's none of my business.

[Funkadelia]

The fact is Osiris couldn't coordinate a good shit of they tried, yet the people of Lazarus are united behind a single cause....

The people of Lazarus are united because they purged everyone who didn't agree with their views.

I can't believe you people are still going with this line.

[Consular]

The people of Lazarus are united because they purged everyone who didn't agree with their views.

I can't believe you people are still going with this line.

We're quite persistent.

Regardless, I was just trying to show Chesters argument was illogical, not bring up that debate again.

[The Dourian Embassy]

The people of Lazarus are united because they purged everyone who didn't agree with their views.

I can't believe you people are still going with this line.

The truth has a way of sneaking up on you doesn't it?

[Karpathos]

I would like to thank Canada for their support.

Also, I'm really flattered that Osiris decided to go to war over lil' ol me. It's a step up from when Cormac would just ragequit when I'd bust his chops.

[Tano]

I would like to thank Canada for their support.

Also, I'm really flattered that Osiris decided to go to war over lil' ol me. It's a step up from when Cormac would just ragequit when I'd bust his chops.

You're a controversial man