On Julian Assange:
He's accused of rape. He's actively avoiding extradition to the country where he is accused of rape and is wanted for questioning.
That's it, for me. The rest is a side show.
The thing about sideshows is that they are ephemeral, and illusory. The discussion at The Standard reflect this in spades. Extensive threads of people with entrenched positions that they will never budge from. It makes for dull reading.
What I saw in the sideshow is:
- Wikileaks is not Julian Assange, nor vice versa.
- "I'll get extradited to the USA and will face the death penalty" is just "the dog ate my homework" on amphetamines.
- Ecuador have offered asylum on the principle that "my enemy's enemy is my friend". More often than not this is wrong.
- Britain must respect the Ecuadorian Embassy, under the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
- Avoiding the justice process on outlandish pretexts is cowardice, not the actions of a freedom fighter.
I really don't care how the sideshow turns out.
On David Shearer:
I'm merely someone who votes for Labour, occasionally. Usually the electorate vote, in a rural electorate where the National candidate regularly wins by more than 10,000 votes.
The issues that are beguiling the Labour Party seem to be complex. And Scott at Imperator Fish helpfully compiled a list of what to do about it.
Since I'm not nearly as clever as Scott, I'm tempted to leave it at that. But I can't, so I'll observe that the Greens seem to have got themselves together and are working coherently, without frightening the horses. I think that copying the Greens or stealing all their policies is not a good idea for Labour. But maybe asking them how they do it might be a start. And it's a lot more palatable than asking to be a junior coalition partner with the Greens in a few elections time.
The Clean - Odditties, 1982
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