Because

Day 4,753, 19:58 • Published in USA USA • by George Barker

Vote Blacksheep

Because there are currently 13 countries occupying our regions, and it seems more arrive every day.

Because our real GDP has declined considerably since we've given away so many of our regions, and when provided with evidence of this and simple remedies, the leadership refused to do anything about it, instead, blamed the citizens for policies they themselves implemented, despite warnings about what would happen.

Because the leadership of this country, buoyed by its bots and multis, believes it can disregard the desires of many of the real people who play this game. I've seen what goes on inside, and they never -- literally never -- talk about things like retention or outreach. They almost never write articles about anything except around election time, when they ask for enough votes to supplement their bots and multis to keep them in power -- so the whole thing can start over again next month.

Because we have the potential to have an excellent military, but the leadership of this country has so divided and embarrassed the population with its single-minded focus on bowing down to Asteria that few people want to fight in the degrading wars they start. I watched with some interest -- and more than a little bit of cringe -- their airstrike against Slovenia -- tiny Slovenia! -- and almost no one fought for the eUS besides the insiders and their multis. At one point literally every point of damage had been done by this small group of people accounts. People need to be given something that makes them want to fight, and being toadies to a bully alliance isn't something that most people get excited about. At least, not people with a sense of shame. Our leadership obviously does not fall into this category.

Because for many years now, Blacksheep has been the only party willing to say, "Hey, this doesn't make sense, and I'm going to oppose it out of principle." And then actually opposed it out of principle. I have not always agreed with the stands Blacksheep took, but I have always respected their willingness to stand up for what they think is right. I joined Blacksheep after many years in WTP, because I saw their position as a top 5 party being threatened by the sham Mandalorian Party, and thought the country would have been done yet another disservice by its bumbling leadership and its dumb plots to silence opposition voices* had they succeeded. BSP has so far survived that challenge, thanks to the hard work of its members. They didn't use bots, didn't create multis, instead, they went out and got in touch with former members (some of whom had quit the game) and got them to rejoin. Imagine that. They did the hard work of getting real people to re-engage with this game. I'm staying in the Blacksheep party because I found I actually liked the members. There are lots of talented guys in there -- Vincent Garibaldi, Kobble, Henry William French, Arrden, that rare thing in eRepublik, a new voice who writes good articles, zvid, to name a few. The more of them we can get into congress, the better, especially now, when the leadership has demonstrated it has such complete contempt for the public that it blames the public for the failure of its own policies.



Vote for Blacksheep. Vote for accountability. Vote for a responsive government that doesn't take you for granted. Vote for principle. Or if you like, look at the state of the country, with embarrassing, pointless wars, a shrinking economy, shrinking borders, a confusing array of occupiers running around like they own the place (which they do, far more than you do) and leaders who arrogantly refuse to do anything about it -- look at this and vote for anyone who hasn't enthusiastically gotten us into this mess, and stubbornly refuses to even try to get us out. Because this mess is their fault, not yours, no matter how much they try to refuse owning up to what they've done by blaming you.









*They have time to create and administer multis, time to sit around gossiping and bickering on discord, time to endlessly cater to Serbia -- but no time at all to message real citizens telling them why their regions have been occupied by three different countries in the past week, and what they can do about it. They have time to pull off the krapis scam on the nation (really one of the scummiest things I've seen in this game; at least everyone knew Ajay Bruno was duplicitous garbage upfront), but no time to actually look at GDP and resident tables and realize they are about to make a terrible, but easily avoided, blunder. Because they don't think they have to care. They have their multis, their bots, and can depend on getting enough votes from real players to allow them to keep lazily doing what they are doing, regardless of the consequences to you.