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Julian Assange To Run For Australian Senate
New submitter bozman8 writes "Announced recently on social networking platform Twitter, Julian Assange has found a way to run for the Upper House of the Australian Senate, despite being detained under house arrest in Britain. Along with Julian's candidacy, WikiLeaks has announced that they are going to run a nominee against current Prime Minister Julia Gillard in her local electorate."
Go Assange! I wonder if they would trust him with secret documents!
An attention whore who gets said attention by exposing the flat-out evil things all of our governments do on a near-daily basis.
At least he does something for society compared to any of those reality show retards.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
By definition, a whistleblower IS part of the organization he blows the whistle on. Sometimes the muck needs a close up raking.
That doesn't eliminate the need for outside muckrakers as well in case the insider goes over to the dark side.
Whistleblowers and muckrakers shouldn't be a part of the government.
Neither should liars and assholes. But guess what?
I think he's the real life version of Gaius Baltar. Do whatever will get you popular and get you women.
I live in the next electorate across from Ms Gillard's electorate, so I won't get the privilege of helping stir the pot... but if I could I'd definitely vote for anyone promising the level of transparency Wikileaks represents.
The other important point here is that Julia has done a shameful job of supporting a high profile Australian in trouble, pretty much towing the pro USA line (Australia traditionally lives in the US of A's pocket) which means she hasn't acknowledged the important community service roll that whistle blower organisations such as Wikileaks fill in a open and honest democracy. Good luck to Julian, he's a national hero!
He has no chance of winning but the number of votes he gets will be noticed and may influence policy. Runing for the senate in Australia is not the Billionaire's game that it is in the USA. Last election I recall something like six canditates standing on shooting and fishing issues in my state, as well as a few other single issue canditates. You could just about use the senate ballot paper as a tablecloth.
I hope he runs in Vic. I'd vote for him.
The senate has proportional voting.
Everyone ranks all the candidates, then they start counting. As soon as a candidate has enough to get elected, any further votes move to the second preference. You can end up with some funny results if everyone puts the major party they don't like last.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
Being a British criminal has never kept anyone out of Australia, quite the contrary. ;)
And what better place than with all the other criminals that run the country?
The Upper House of the Australian parliament is the Senate, "Upper House of the Australian Senate" doesn't make any sense.
Close! He's an attention whore who gets attention by exposing the things all governments do on a near-daily basis and pretending that they're flat-out evil. If they don't seem evil enough, just edit the videos until they do. Journalistic ethics should never stand between a whore and his attention.
Just like mainstream journalists then. Yet they aren't being detained, because they tell the right lies.
While wikileaks is in no way immune to this, mainstream journalism is much worse.
You shouldn't just trust any information, whether that's your local newspaper or wikileaks. Get all the facts from all sources, and make up your own mind.
That said, think about this : if all goverments are doing such a good job, and aren't evil at all, why is there so much suffering,poverty and violence in this world.
And what can YOU do about it ?
I'm sorry, did you forget about the part where the US government covered it up and lied to Reuters about the investigation? Do you particularly think it's all ok just because it was in their "Rules of Engagement"? If the government says that torturing and killing your family is part of their "Rules of Engagement," is that ok with you? Weekly Standard is neoconservative propaganda founded by News Corp and supported solely by people like Rupert Murdoch (according to Wikipedia the magazine has NEVER been profitable, citing the NY Times), the same liars who spread the same government propaganda that started the Iraq War (remember those WMDs? Whatever happened to those, hm?). US apologists make me sick.
Whistleblowers and muckrakers shouldn't be a part of the government.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes and all that rot.
Dude - Maxine Mckew winning Bennelong off John Howard was one of the sweetest moments in Australian politics.
In case you've already forgotten - she also was a journalist, and has definitely been a muckracker and whistlebower in her time at the ABC.
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
Attention whore, maybe. Idealist, certainly.
Maybe he gets in the senate, get's on a committee (doubt that but anyway) and learns why secrets are kept.
I personally agree with everything he's done. If we were all completely open about everything we have done that directly effected at least one other human, I don't reckon there would be war. If there were, they would be very short. Courts can be great things when they're not bogged down in IP law and drugs.
spoken as someone with no direct interest in the money for killing tea towel heads consortium.....
I don't therefore I'm not.
Yeah! right! And you are also confused about the drones in pakistan, when they crash a terrorist wedding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan). But good thing that the U.S could make us those magic drones, somehow, whoever those drones kill, they magically become terrorists post mortem. So, these drones are only used for antiterrorist purposes!
I wasn't aware that anyone actually took those allegations seriously. They basically amount to a condom having broken and claiming that he intentionally broke the condom, or that he began having sex with them while they were asleep. IIRC, after originally issueing the warrants (or whatever) in Sweden, a higher up judge later dismissed it for lack of evidence, which was then later overturned by another higher up. These women were openly bragging about their relationship with him only days before filing charges, and only did so once they found out he was involved with both of them. They were both seen attending one of his speeches and comfortable watching (this is on video) a few days later. It's rather transparent that the US government (among others) are using BS sex-crime allegations to try and silence someone blowing the whistle on their corrupt practices. Try this, if you'd actually like to hear the other side of the story (that doesn't involve the political motivation to shut down wikileaks and scare off other whistleblowers).
Oh trust me, I am aware. I've been arrested (case later dismissed) because of women lying about me, and even had to call the cops three months ago to explain how another girl I'd been involved with was trying to spoof emails to frame me for "harassment" in order to avoid paying me the money she owed me. But the US government has wanted to get Assange extradited to the US so they could try him under the Espionage Act ever since the Collateral Murder video. I don't see how they'll be able to do that just from this, maybe they think they can put more pressure on the Swedish government than the UK, or maybe they think discrediting him as a rapist or putting him in Swedish jail is satisfactory. Sure, I admit I can't prove it's part of an ochestrated smear campaign or conspiracy, but given the fact that the accusations are based on an apparently obscure and rarely used "surprise sex" law, the timing of the incidents, the fact that at least some people in the Swedish legal system wanted to just throw the case out when it originally happened (this is from memory, sorry I couldn't find a link), I think I'd have to be gloriously naive to think the US didn't play a role in all this, even if they weren't directly involved with the two women making the accusations.
If this is unreasonable, call me out on it, but honestly how can anyone take these charges seriously?
I think he's the real life version of Gaius Baltar. Do whatever will get you popular and get you women.
That might be the case, but even though Baltar was a whore for popularity and generally spineless, he served humanity well when it was needed and although not all people liked him for the most part (in the show and in the audience) he played an important part in making things better.
I don't care if the guy sleeps with a newly imported Swedish prostitue (sorry, friend) each night. If he brings some accountability and causes the Australian government to go in a better direction, then I can't say that I am anything but delighted. I don't care what the hell politicians do once they are off the clock - I want my politicians to work and do their best for me as a faceless, anonymous member of the public.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Just like mainstream journalists then. Yet they aren't being detained, because they tell the right lies.
That, and they aren't charged with unrelated crimes. The ones that are charged with unrelated crimes tend to be arrested and tried.
If the power structure wants to find crimes, they will find crimes.
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. "
- Cardinal Richelieu (Prime Minister of France, 1624-1642)