Wikileaks - transparency or secrecy?

[widow_twanky]

Re: Wikileaks - transparency or secrecy?

When was the last time you went through airport security and weren't made to feel like a criminal incase you had a bottle of water in your pocket?

Maybe it's just me but i actually find the airport security ok. Remember working in Belfast in the late 90's where you had to queue up at the international airport to put your bags through the scanner and the vast majority of people got frisked by hand. That was before you even got to check in and you also had to go through the airport security to get into the departure lounge.

[craig_colliass]

Re: Wikileaks - transparency or secrecy?

Wikileaks reminds me that all people who live in some sort of free democracy have a duty to those that will in
time follow, to maintain scrutiny of the elected leaders, and there actions, and bring them to account if they transgress.
As our representatives in the global arena. We as a nation are jugged by others on what our government do.

Always remember when you say I won't bother to vote,

someone died to give you that privilege, freedom was certainly not free for them!!

Democracy can survive war, tyranny, starvation, natural disasters and much much more, but it can not survive prolonged periods of apathy.

If you can vote then vote every time.

[psychostorm]

Re: Wikileaks - transparency or secrecy?

All damn good reasons to vote.

Unfortunately, I must stick up for someone's choice not to vote, as I do for anyone's right to vote. It is free will that our forebearers fought for not people telling others what to do - in this case vote.

However, as an electoral canvasser, there is one thing I cannot stand which is not signing yourself onto the electoral roll. Before anyone starts whining, it is the citizen's duty, not the state's. If you turn up at a polling station without a polling card - it is not their problem, it's yours.

Also the polling box locks @ 22:00, it is still your responsibility to get your vote in by then, queue or no queue!

Ok rant over.

[widow_twanky]

Re: Wikileaks - transparency or secrecy?

Also the polling box locks @ 22:00, it is still your responsibility to get your vote in by then, queue or no queue!

Ok rant over.

Yeah but you just don't understand why we can't apply for a postal vote and post it up to two weeks before hand or why when they open at 7am we can't get there before 9.45pm even though we normally have at least six weeks notice.

I really do tink I'll be struggling to vote before 10pm in the may elections, just not enough time to organise anything!!

But yes, it's probably more important for the student fees thread but if you don't register than you're not entitled to a say!!

[craig_colliass]

Re: Wikileaks - transparency or secrecy?

I quite understand the argument of the people not wanting to vote, the reality of political freedom, would require this point to be accommodated,

My point to those who put this argument forward is, if too many people take this line, then democracy is weakened as the politicians do not have a strong mandate to govern, and the apathetic attitude of the ordinary voter takes us back to the dark ages of fighting factions split on cultural, economic, religious or ethnic lines. thenthe corporate lobbyist vermin take hold.

My response to those who don't know who to vote for, is to go and spoil the voting slip this shows you can be bothered to vote, but none of the candidates are worth voting for in your opinion, I wish they would put on the voting slip none of the above box.

For those who can not be bothered to put a cross on a bit of paper once every 4 or 5 years don't bother to complain if you don't like the government you end up with.

[john_frizell]

Re: Wikileaks - transparency or secrecy?

I have greatly enjoyed the revalations from Wikileaks and look forward to more. It is very instructive to see that our representatives were telling us one thing and telling the American government something quite different. You might say' no big surprize. I knew all along that they re devious bastards' but there is a world of difference between suspecting something and KNOWING it. An example from my line of work. The UK government announced that it wanted to create the largest marine sanctuary in the world, around the Chagos islands in the Indian ocean. This is the site of the Diego Garcia base and building it involved expelling all the Cahgos islands from their homeland. Among environmentalists there were two schools of thought:
1. A big marine sanctuary is a good thing and we should support it.
2. It was intended to make it impossible for the Chagoseans to ever return.
We dismissed 2 as overly paranoid and went with 1. We now know, thanks to Wikileaks, that the entire purpose of the sanctuary was to block return of the Chagoseans and it was intended to use the the environmental lobby against them.
We won't get fooled again!

[anukhet]

Re: Wikileaks - transparency or secrecy?

Those unfortunate people with no political clout whatsoever (I had never heard of the Chagos Islands before) not being able to return to their homes for the sake of some far-off superpower to gain what I can only describe as envirnmental brownie points. It stinks!