8 ms·

All around my neighborhood is the graffiti of "Free Assange, Oz hero". Just this morning I saw a large amount of it in a new place. Was thinking "I really hope

All around my neighborhood is the graffiti of "Free Assange, Oz hero". Just this morning I saw a large amount of it in a new place. Was thinking "I really hope one day it happens but I am doubtful". And then I just saw this... wow! I am so glad to be wrong, to see my pessimistic side be completely wrong. Julian is free!

noahlt 2y ago
What part of the world is your neighborhood in?
- bryanrasmussen 2y ago
  I'm thinking OZ hero implies Australia.
  - fsckboy 2y ago
    we're certainly not in Kansas, at least not any more!
    - hoyd 2y ago
      :-)
  - oska 2y ago
    It's actually quite rare for Australians to refer to Australia as Oz, at least in my experience. Seems to be much more a thing in the US and, to a much lesser extent, the UK. If that graffiti were written in Australia, I think it would be far more likely written as 'Aussie hero'.
    - RoyalHenOil 2y ago
      I am from the US originally, and I literally never heard anyone call Australia "Oz", and didn't even know what it meant, until I moved to Australia. Americans — at least all the ones I encounter — are almost always confused by the designation (they think you're making a reference to The Wizard of Oz). I think that's because "Oz" comes from "Aussie", which Americans mispronounce (they say something like "ossy" rather than "ozzy"). It's uncommon for Australians to say "Oz" in my experience, but it's still definitely a thing (albeit mostly in ads/marketing rather than daily speech). And even the ones who never say it still know what it means. I don't know what people say in the UK because I have never been there.
      - oska 2y ago
        Thanks for your comment. I don't know how ordinary US Americans refer to Australia and whether they use 'Oz' to do so but I am not surprised to hear from you that they generally don't. What I was talking about, and where I should have been more specific, is how Australia is referred to in the US media where I have quite often seen it called 'Oz' (and perhaps for the mundane reason of making for a shorter headline). This isn't nearly so common in the Australian media. Btw, I agree with you that US Americans often mispronounce 'Aussie', but I can understand why, if they encountered the word in print before hearing it spoken.
madaxe_again 2y ago
What’s the actual view on him in oz? We’ve got exiled Aussie politicians here in the U.K. saying that he’s universally reviled, and that nobody even sees him as a “real” Australian, and that Australians will never forgive him for violating their privacy (oh, the bleeding irony). No alternate viewpoints, looks like 100% of sampled Australians hate him?
- contingencies 2y ago
  Oz is like most places, there's a large number of people for whom thinking for themselves from an even vaguely informed position presents too much of a logistical challenge (re. literacy, education, breadth of interest, pretense to regular reading, range of sources, adequate life experience to judge bias, ready echo chamber availability, swamp of familiarity, etc.). The minority of people who are educated, do hold broad enough interests and are capable of critical thinking are almost all in support of Wikileaks, IMHO. Some of them have been done in by the smear campaign, unfortunately.
  - lazyeye 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - contingencies 2y ago
      Naturally. I'd suggest that - not in a hard-line way but in a soft centrism kinda way - there's certainly a core set of moral perspectives that one can really hold with any critical integrity, if really living with any awareness of one's surroundings, and many thinking people tend to converge on that set of morals through some avenue or other, and that tends to drive their take on the world above inane factors like nationalism and religion. It's not a superior or single view per se, but it's probably a set of closely aligned views tempered by a greater breadth of thinking in terms of not being totally stuck in an isolate ghetto spacetime wallow / populist moshpit.
      - lazyeye 2y ago

noahlt 2y ago

What part of the world is your neighborhood in?

bryanrasmussen 2y ago
I'm thinking OZ hero implies Australia.
- fsckboy 2y ago
  we're certainly not in Kansas, at least not any more!
  - hoyd 2y ago
    :-)
- oska 2y ago
  It's actually quite rare for Australians to refer to Australia as Oz, at least in my experience. Seems to be much more a thing in the US and, to a much lesser extent, the UK. If that graffiti were written in Australia, I think it would be far more likely written as 'Aussie hero'.
  - RoyalHenOil 2y ago
    I am from the US originally, and I literally never heard anyone call Australia "Oz", and didn't even know what it meant, until I moved to Australia. Americans — at least all the ones I encounter — are almost always confused by the designation (they think you're making a reference to The Wizard of Oz). I think that's because "Oz" comes from "Aussie", which Americans mispronounce (they say something like "ossy" rather than "ozzy"). It's uncommon for Australians to say "Oz" in my experience, but it's still definitely a thing (albeit mostly in ads/marketing rather than daily speech). And even the ones who never say it still know what it means. I don't know what people say in the UK because I have never been there.
    - oska 2y ago
      Thanks for your comment. I don't know how ordinary US Americans refer to Australia and whether they use 'Oz' to do so but I am not surprised to hear from you that they generally don't. What I was talking about, and where I should have been more specific, is how Australia is referred to in the US media where I have quite often seen it called 'Oz' (and perhaps for the mundane reason of making for a shorter headline). This isn't nearly so common in the Australian media. Btw, I agree with you that US Americans often mispronounce 'Aussie', but I can understand why, if they encountered the word in print before hearing it spoken.

madaxe_again 2y ago

What’s the actual view on him in oz? We’ve got exiled Aussie politicians here in the U.K. saying that he’s universally reviled, and that nobody even sees him as a “real” Australian, and that Australians will never forgive him for violating their privacy (oh, the bleeding irony). No alternate viewpoints, looks like 100% of sampled Australians hate him?

contingencies 2y ago
Oz is like most places, there's a large number of people for whom thinking for themselves from an even vaguely informed position presents too much of a logistical challenge (re. literacy, education, breadth of interest, pretense to regular reading, range of sources, adequate life experience to judge bias, ready echo chamber availability, swamp of familiarity, etc.). The minority of people who are educated, do hold broad enough interests and are capable of critical thinking are almost all in support of Wikileaks, IMHO. Some of them have been done in by the smear campaign, unfortunately.
- lazyeye 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - contingencies 2y ago
    Naturally. I'd suggest that - not in a hard-line way but in a soft centrism kinda way - there's certainly a core set of moral perspectives that one can really hold with any critical integrity, if really living with any awareness of one's surroundings, and many thinking people tend to converge on that set of morals through some avenue or other, and that tends to drive their take on the world above inane factors like nationalism and religion. It's not a superior or single view per se, but it's probably a set of closely aligned views tempered by a greater breadth of thinking in terms of not being totally stuck in an isolate ghetto spacetime wallow / populist moshpit.
    - lazyeye 2y ago