Charlie Caruso

Charlie Caruso

Citizen Journalist and author/editor of Understanding Y, who obsesses over the idea of re-engineering the political system, Charlie was head of global growth for MiVote, is an avid #auspol Tweeter and passionate about political disruption and improving the way we make decisions in Australia. "Right now, we’re all on a plane, and we've realised the pilot is drunk. The election is our opportunity to get the drunk pilot out of the cockpit and hand over to one that’s flown the plane before and can get us down safely," she said.
Charlie Caruso
What I am REALLY interested in is re-engineering a new kind of plane that doesn't allow drunk pilots to even get into the cockpit. One that requires a new kind of pilot, new kind of pilot training, more fuel efficient and goes longer, feels better etc. You’ll hear a lot from me on this, once #ausvotes2019 is over. Disclaimer - I’ve been a member of the Liberals, Labor, Greens, and have preferenced the Independents and minor/micro parties almost exclusively. I don’t see political colours, but I keep an eye on the actions and try to fight against the dysfunction across the political rainbow.

This podcast has no interviews, it just comes straight from the heart. A heart that is a little bruised and battered from what feels like a persistent and blatant attack on our freedom and our rights.

Fellow Australian Julian Assange was arrested yesterday by British officers and now faces a very real threat of extradition to the United States.

Australia’s caretaker Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has ruled out intervention in a potential US extradition of Australian citizen Julian Assange on a charge of computer intrusion conspiracy.

Today we discovered that a Swedish software developer living in Quito, who is allegedly close to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has also been arrested.

I wouldn’t say Julian Assange is popular, but despite what we might think of his character, or what judgements we make of his actions since being deprived of his human rights in the Ecuadorian embassy over the past nine years, he deserves justice, a fair trial and I am not confident he will be guarenteed this basic human right. We are watching this unfold to a fellow Australian, and the fact we aren’t marching on the streets today in protest, kind of breaks my heart.

If you feel as helpless as I do, there is this petition you can sign fighting the extradition of Assange. The organisation behind the petition has put a call out for people to Join DiEM25 as a member in order to actively participate in our decision-making and actions. There is that option too.

But, as I describe in today’s podcast, it’s not just the fallout and consequences of what’s happening to Assange that makes me feel like we are at war, its:-

In the podcast, I refer and promise to link to this epic cartoon created by Patrick Alexander.

But whereas both the USA and the UK use ‘first-past-the-post’ voting systems for their national elections, Australia’s system is more elegant than that. In elections for the House of Representatives, we use preferential voting — also known as instant-runoff voting, ranked choice voting, or ‘the alternative vote’ in the UK.

Patrick Alexander

So here’s Dennis the Election Koala to give Ken the Voting Dingo an important lesson in civics!

Image By: http://www.chickennation.com/voting/
Image By: http://www.chickennation.com/voting/
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