In years past if you wanted to get somewhere in Australian politics you never mentioned religion, now thanks to John Howard it seems that we seemed to have taken the American route and it has become a part of the Australian political landscape. Most of this isn't obvious unless you really scrutinise the members of Federal and State Government. It makes you wonder how Julia Gillard at first was an Atheist, but now has become a non-practising Baptist. How much influence does religion have in Government? Lets make a list.
Chaplains...no real use except for buying votes from Christians.
State funding of religious schools.
Government refusal to have a Charity commission, only 1st world Gov not to have one.
No tax on profits on Church owned businesses, only 1st world Gov not to do this.
Church exemptions on anti-discrimination law.
No general inquiry into Church child abuse
Evangelical Religious Instruction in schools
Do you really want Global warming denier George Pell, giving "advice" the many Catholic people in the Liberal Party?
How about Jim Wallace from the Australian Christian Lobby, a friend to all Gay people everywhere /sarcasm
When you say your Christian, than your giving these self elected spokesman more influence than they deserve.
Religious creeds encourage some of the craziest kinds of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors and favor severe manifestations of neurosis, borderline personality states, and sometimes even psychosis. - Albert Ellis
I have had this blog for about 4 years now, so I would guess this makes me an established personality, but not established enough for Google+. I jumped into Google+ when it first went live, and enjoyed the way it worked and the people on there. Then the purges began, people started to disappear...gone from my time line. People such as :-
Then I jumped from Google+ as I had seen on twitter that some people had lost access to Gmail and didn't want to lose access to my account. As my name is made up of fairly common words, but not actual names, I guessed the BanHammer was coming after me soon.
I'm rather sad about it as Google+ had the potential for me to stay in contact with friends that aren't on other networks, and to deal with the information overload issue that comes from networks I am on.
Then Botgirl Questi got the ban hammer treatment, and she's not taking it lightly, and is giving it her best parody treatment:-
Then she had to go and talk to Google, as she does....
It's not just just Second Life personalities falling foul of the names policy.
Ex-Google Employee Skud had her Google+ account suspended and has written a great post about it here.
Another post I enjoyed reading was by Danah Boyd "Real names" are an Abuse of Power the article itself is quite good, but the comments show a complete range from total agreement, to those who haven't a clue.
My Name is Me is a site that lets people explain in their own words why they have chosen pseudonymity for their online existence.
A lot have to do with issues of sex, religion, (or lack of), politics,Human Rights and to avoid abuse and misogyny. (If you don't that this is a problem, I refer you to my last post on Rebecca Watson, and the daily amount of abuse she gets)
In the last year, we have seen Twitter, and Facebook become the launchpoint for the biggest shake up in world politics since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Since December 2010 there have been revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, civil war in Libya, uprisings in Bahrain,Syria, and Yemen, major protests in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, and Oman. Minor protests in Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Western Sahara. We can also add the failed Iranian protests.
Remember how Egypt turned off the Internet, to stop the people communicating. I wonder how many people where using real twitter and Facebook accounts. If it had all gone bad in Egypt, well, you can be sure those people with the real accounts would be either dead or missing by now.
Using alternate names is nothing new, it's quite famous for writers, sportsman, actors soldiers:-
Mark Twain = Samuel Clemens Lewis Carroll = Charles Dodgson, George Orwell = Eric Blair Mary Ann Evans = George Eliot John le Carré = David John Moore Cornwell Mary Westmacott = Agatha Christie Dr. Seuss = Theodor Seuss Geisel Tiger Woods = Eldrick Tont Woods Larry Niven = Laurence van Cott Niven Andre Norton = Alice Mary Norton Batman = Bruce Wayne Elvira = Cassandra Peterson Wonder Woman = Diana Prince Banksy = ????
Much to my surprise I just discovered Porn Stars don't use their real names!!
The Electronic Frontier Foundation also support pseudonyms , and this quote sums it up best :-
As Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens put forth in deciding McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n 514 U.S. 334, 357 (1995),
"Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation—and their ideas from suppression—at the hand of an intolerant society. The right to remain anonymous may be abused when it shields fraudulent conduct. But political speech by its nature will sometimes have unpalatable consequences, and, in general, our society accords greater weight to the value of free speech than to the dangers of its misuse."
