Pegasus initiated a discussion on Powerup about options of Your Democracy and Powerup working together.

I'm hoping he doesn't mind that I didn't agree with his conclusions entirely, but I think there's some interesting issues raised about how we see ourselves as citizens/activists/whatever on the internet.

So below is an extract from my reply to Pegasus, so that we may discuss this here if we like, as well as on Powerup.

As I've said before, Powerup is the place to go for those Not-Happy-John!ers who feel that a new political party - some sort of 'party of independents' perhaps - is the way to go. Please don't take this to mean I don't think you should stop engaging in this site, or even vigorously arguing the case for developing a new political party. Your Democracy is for everybody.

What could be more relevant to Your Democracy than the current ANU research program, the Democratic Audit of Australia? Running from 2002-2005, the aim of the audit in relation to Australian democracy is to:

"1) To make a major methodological contribution to the assessment of democracy...;

(2) To provide benchmarks for monitoring and international comparisons...; and

(3) To promote public debate over democratic issues—the Audit will contribute to a dialogue about the ways in which Australia’s democratic arrangements might be improved. With this in mind, the Program will over the next three years be communicating Audit findings through this web site and through discussion papers as well as through academic publishing."

Read on for more...

“Senator [Coleman], in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right, and you turned out to be wrong. And 100,000 people have paid with their lives, 1,600 of them American soldiers, sent to their deaths on a pack of lies, 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies. If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, who's dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened, to President Chirac, who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens, you are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.

Since the states and the the territories are run by Labor governments and the Federal government is only the resulting amalgam of the state's union declared in 1901, I would propose here that the states in a joint agreement declare independence forthwith and form a new federal body...

Alex Hawk, the National President of the Young Liberals, wants to cull the wets from the flock, and send them to Greener pasture. On the latter point, I think he's right. The left of the ALP should do the same.

“The average man, whatever his errors otherwise, at least sees clearly that government is something lying outside him and outside the generality of his fellow men - that it is a separate, independent, and hostile power, only partly under his control, and capable of doing him great harm.

Academic promotes torture for 'extreme' circumstances

Two Victorian academics have sparked controversy by advocating the legalisation of torture as an interrogation method.

The head of the Deakin Law School, Mirko Bagaric, is the co-author of a paper on the moral justification for torture which is about to be published

No No... this is unacceptable. These two people should be submitted to the process themselves to see what it really means.

There can be NO MORAL justification for this kind of behaviour. Call it whatever you will but do not attach torture and morality in the same breath.

I received the below from a North East Forest Alliance list I'm on.

NEFA is close to my heart because it was with NEFA in the 80s that I became an activist and very politicised. And this was just a very YD sort of idea. I publish this with permission from the author George Woods.

The refusal of your government to secure & protect the rights of Mr Hicks confirms its readiness to arrogantly & irresponsibly avoid its obligations under international law & to betray its most fundamental duty: to protect the rights of Australian citizens.