Australia is a penal colony.
Someone left the gate open!
Used to be a penal colony.
I'll start a separate thread about it soon.
A penal colony no more, and a lot of freedom.
Freedom that has seen Assange evolve;
Now a candidate at next weeks's federal election.
How Julian Assange?s Senate Bid Will Change Australian Politics - The Candidate | Guy Rundle | The Monthly
The WikiLeaks Party has the distinction of being the first Australian party to have a leader not merely in exile, but in asylum. Campaigning by video link, Skype and encrypted email, Julian Assange hopes to win a seat in the Senate from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has now spent nearly a year.
Although the party is running a serious Senate ticket, itÂ’s AssangeÂ’s spot on the Victorian list that is at the heart of the campaign.
With a reported membership of 1500 and counting, the party has every intention of becoming a movement. Its leaders are spruiking figures collected by research company UMR, suggesting the vote for Assange and the party might be as high as 26%. Cooler heads doubt this, but the party doesnÂ’t need anything like that level of support if it can create a series of interlocking preference deals.
From 28 November 2010, when WikiLeaks, with the Guardian, New York Times and other publications, released the first of the “cablegate” archives, the Gillard government saw its role as siding with the US, rather than protecting the rights of one of its own citizens.
US politicians and right-wing pundits openly called for Assange’s assassination; Vice-President Joe Biden described him as a “high-tech terrorist”: given the Obama administration’s record of assassinating those it deems terrorists, this was no idle chatter.
AustraliaÂ’s response, via then attorney-general Robert McClelland, was to announce that the federal police were looking for any Australian laws that Assange might have broken.
It turned out Assange was under investigation by the Swedes after two women alleged some non-consensual behaviour within consensual sexual encounters. In February 2011, he was fighting extradition to Sweden in the City of Westminster MagistratesÂ’ Court. He was given standard consular assistance.
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Senator Assange?
My Aunt, a WWII bride from Sydney said Australian men do not respect women there very much. Sad, really.
WW11 was a long time ago.
These days Australian men are basically doormats....women have taken over the workplace and society...and "Happy wife, happy life" is king.
I beg to differ with Aunty, I say Australian men do respect women.
It's the very reason women have been allowed to/been able to, flourish.
My father [born before 1920] never respected my mother [born before 1920][she was beautiful on the outside and within, and deserved better.]
But my 3 favourite uncles, and every other man of the couples in my parents' circle treated their wives with the utmost respect.
I had two uncles though who were utter morons, never respected their wives, used to whack into their kids all the time with belts.
My rancher father in law [now deceased] treated his wife like a princess, much to his detriment...she spoke to him like he was dirt , and bossed him around like a slave.
Today, according to a top PI, the biggest cheaters in Sydney are women.
Today, in Sydney, young women have been treated with so much respect that many of them are spoilt brats who think they're 'exalted goddesses' and 'God's gift to men'.
Not all, but many of them.
Back in Aunty's day though, mostly among the "working class" as far as I can judge, was where the most disrespect for women was.
Married women couldn't work, had no money of their own, were 'trapped' at home raising kids and cooking/cleaning etc.
I saw many happy and respectful marriages from that era though.
The movie 'Shirley Valentine' is instructive...a sign of the times of long ago.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Seg5WAq65n8]Shirley Valentine, Where's My Steak? - YouTube[/ame]
