Let’s get this out of the way: I think it’s great that Sully et al. are so supportive of the twittering Iranian protesters and it’s quite possible that said protesters get some kind of psychological sustenance from it. But it’s important to distinguish between legitimate foreign policy and things your boss might do on St. Patrick’s Day.
John has discussed the narcissism and self-absorption at the heart of the greening of the warblogosphere and Jeff Golberg, of all people, sums up the actual situation quite well:
The overarching goal is to see the birth of a democratic Iran, not to make ourselves feel good, or get in the way….That said, the liberal interventionist/neoconservative position is the easier one to understand, because it is the more human response.
But I think it’s important here not to mock, but to try to understand. One of the few things I’ve really learned about conservatives is that they often really do believe that clapping louder works (and what could be a more obvious example of clapping louder than wearing green ties?). It’s easy to imagine that the focus on clapping louder is really just a way of stifling dissent when a Republican is in power — and make no mistake, that aspect of it is a feature, not a bug — but I think that a lot of conservatives really believe the world be a much better place if everyone cheered harder for Jesus, for Reagan, for freedom. Remember, we would have won in Vietnam if not for the pesky war protesters.
This was driven home for me when I had a conversation with a local Republican official (whom I mostly respect) who told me that she’d vote for Hillary in the general but not Obama because of the flag pin stuff. I told her that struck me as typically conservative because conservatives believe more in symbolic gestures than in policy. She agreed and wasn’t the slightest bit insulted.
Don’t get me wrong, liberals like to clap louder too. But they’re much less likely to believe that they can get the rest of the world to clap along and might never have even entertained the possibility that doing so would lead to world peace.
Where does the faith in clapping louder come from? My feeling is that it comes from the notion that government policies are ineffective in the face of the power of culture, something Brooks yaks about all the time. Once you accept this (not unreasonable) idea, it’s a short step to believing that clapping louder is more important than action.
Update. Michael Berube has a good post dissecting the Brooksian “power of culture” stuff. Money line:
This just makes me want to lie down on top of the Applebee’s salad bar and never get up again.
Jennifer
Well, there’s also the fact that clapping loud enough, particularly when it’s in favor of something simplistic like “patriotism” or “family values”, can distract attention from the fact that they’ve got no idea of what to actually do about anything.
DougJ
That’s probably true, but I think that lot really do believe that clapping louder works.
Jon H
I for one am in the process of setting up a proxy server on a spare MacBook. Hey, why not?
Delia
And so this is why it’s very important to proclaim your faith in Family Values and set yourself on a big high pedestal and condemn everybody who doesn’t meet your very high standards —- and then go have very hot sex with any creature that takes your fancy. All you’re doing is clapping louder.
AZrider
That’s a good insight into Repub, authoritarian mindset. It certainly has been going on throughout American history, and the dichotomy between the clappers and the idealists is probably going to continue forever. Nobody wins.
Plus I like the Elvis Costello reference.
Desargues
Goldberg’s assertion that the election in Iran is about a “more democratic Iran” is delusional. The election was for the office of president — the third man in the hierarchy of national power — not a referendum on constitutional reform. No massive changes to the structure of governance in Iran are forthcoming, even if the Moussavi fellow were to win. It’s an election, not the East-European style revolution most ignorant people around here suppose it to be.
Second, Iran is in some sense democratic — it’s just not the rights-based, constitutional-guarantees, division-of-powers type of democracy one has in the States. But what a lot of Americans fail to simply conceive is that about half of the population in that country are quite OK with that form of government. It’s with corruption and economic underdevelopment that they have an issue, rather than the lack of some freedoms that Americans would like everyone to enjoy.
Comrade Stuck
What’s kind of sad is a lot of the cheesy symbolism was manufactured in the bowels of wingnut think tanks during the building of the Conservative Movement, which also coincided with the cold war. Which is why most of it centers around notions of patriotism, with a little (or lot) of baby Jesus mixed in from the Moral Majority ally.
Most of the symbolism has been with us forever, and when used appropriately is OK!. Every country has it. But is has become a primary plank in the GOP platform as a substitute for practical policy. And now, used as a weapon against their political foes, liberals.
MattF
And yet… the inspiration for the Iranian students is Obama– or, more generally, the notion that, in the end, democracy is better at making rational choices than theocracy or clapping harder. Rejecting policies that don’t work and trying something new. The better man winning.
angler
That was a really smart post.
LD50
Can’t we do both?
gbear
I’m still trying to get my red shoes back from the angels. Damn them.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Note to self: Steal DougJ’s record collection.
Observer
Look – this blog is full of posts on pet’s bowel movements and their latest cute pose. Shut up already about the narcissism of others.
gbear
Ack. My post is stuck in stupid moderation.
edit: Observer. How ironic.
John Cole
@Observer: Nice edit. You looked really stupid there for a minute.
Fern
@MattF:
Why would their inspiration be Obama and not their own history? On what basis do you say that?
DougJ
That’s not narcissism per se.
El Cid
Again — what are the rules and principles followed in this international solidarity efforts? What happens if the enthusiasts’ current avocation fail to achieve what the U.S.-based enthusiasts desire? Are we back to bombing, now in time to punish the regime for repressing the reform movement?
The international solidarity movements I know and I have worked with have worked very hard on understanding what we can and cannot do, what we should and should not do, what we should and should not expect.
That awareness of the limits of our solidarity seem awfully lacking, or perhaps at best not publicly clarified, in the current postings by a lot of people, particularly the liberal hawks.
Comrade Stuck
@Observer:
Better watch it. Hordes of Lily and Tunch lovers will arrive to frack (no more cursing for me today) you up.
different church-lady
What you should have told her is, “That’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
A Cat
“My way of thinking is right and applies to all things, if I clap loud enough they’ll eventually see things my way.”
I seriously doubt any of the clap harder crowd, over the whole spectrum, realize their particular survival strategy and/or ideology may not cover any situation the person you are trying to persuade faces.
I seem to remember the world was flat once, the solution to all that ails you was a good bleeding, and the sun orbited the earth.
Ked
Not gonna argue the whole cons luv clapping hands argument, because I agree.
But I really think there needs to be a distinction made between simply making your banner green, and the sort of full-on advocacy which Sully is doing underneath that banner. Yes, a lot of it is sentimental relaying of what other people are saying, but it’s also an active attempt to drive wider press coverage of what’s going on in Iran. What the US press says still matters, if only in the way that it drives the coverage in the rest of the world. This *does* filter back into the region, and Iran, and may or may not make a difference in what happens there on the ground, but certainly makes a difference in the way that people perceive the conflict there.
Competing frames are not the only thing that matters, and you can’t really create your own reality. But frames and perceptions and media – the story that’s being told – will matter. Linking together and providing information to people in the region… actually does matter.
There was a point last weekend when it wasn’t at all apparent that the old media were really going to run with the disputed election story. There was some serious resistance to treating the reformers as a real force in Iran. Would the protests have gone on anyway? Almost certainly. Would they have grown? Would the powers that be have cracked down on them with global media enabling the coup’s narrative? I’m not so sure what the answers to those questions are.
So, yes. Flag pins = dumb conservative tic.
Compulsive blogging of reality? Not dumb, not meaningless, not worthy of some of the sarcasm I’ve seen directed at it from this blog.
Fern
@El Cid:
Well, yes. Considering that some of this “support” is coming from people who not long ago were thinking happy thoughts about bombing Iran.
Laura W
@gbear: I did not want to post a music link in every thread tonight, I swear. I blame you.
Christ. Could he look any younger there?
LD50
Religion. Clapping louder is a very big deal in Christianity, for instance.
Observer
It is when it’s projection and anthropomorphism. Sullivan projects his angst on entire peoples. Juice projects on furry charismatic megafauna.
I corrected the edit because I did a knee jerk – Cole pulled the same hypocritical crap a couple of days ago. “How dare Sully wear green – now, look at my poor traumatized pound pet tailtucked behind my bicycle.”
I like this blog. Don’t confuse that with fanboism. If you can’t get behind a major global impacting shift that stems from the common native populace because green doesn’t flatter you, but pet BMs do… well expect mockery and suck it up or accept your Morans badge with grace.
I like pussies. A lot. Really.
Death By Mosquito Truck
John may be a lot of freaky shit but he ain’t a narcissist.
Left Coast Tom
Thus the phrase “mental masturbation”.
LD50
That’s how you describe setting your background green on your blog?
DougJ
I totally agree. It was only when all Green Tie about it that I started to have my doubts.
Ked
@Observer:
I’m going to have to borrow that one.
kommrade reproductive vigor
It’s much easier than thinking and once one person starts it seems rude not to join in.
Chris Johnson
I guess the question really becomes, to what extent is this green-twitter-icon business being directed specifically towards- bombing Iran.
It’s easy to forget in all this support of heroic resistance that the resistance is poor Iranian dissident woobies being crushed by- evil Iran.
Just how much of a stretch IS it to ‘we are morally obligated to destroy Iran in order to save it’? And I’m not suggesting we could do it, either- I think we can’t, I think it would be a debacle for numerous practical reasons.
I’m just suggesting that this notion that it’s OUR say is a dangerous and deluded one, it’s powertripping.
Dissidents in Iran would like proxy servers etc. sure. They would like us to be OK with recognizing them in the event that they have successes. They are not looking to have America masturbate with them as the hanky.
DougJ
Good for you. I think that’s quite worthwhile.
Comrade Stuck
@Observer:
with this blog it’s like one minute your in a scene from Doctor Zhivago and the next your on the set of Captain Kangaroo.
Observer
Yes. But then green flatters me even if it makes you look like last week’s soup kitchen dumpster.
Or maybe I meant not mocking folks who change their CSS backgrounds because I’m So Serious And They’re Not.
Gee I get so confused when you asked the tough questions. Where’s my poo ball?
John Cole
@Observer: I don’t think we are both operating with the same definition of narcissism.
DougJ
Did John change the font to brown for the week to commemorate the BM?
eric k
That line from Goldberg is basically the same mentality that you find among the liberal hawks who now acknowledge that the Iraq war was a mistake, but argue that they we’re right to support it because they supported it for the right reasons and those of us who opposed it were wrong because we may have been right, but we were right for the wrong reasons.
gbear
@Comrade Stuck:
Or Dr. Strangelove to Dr. Seuss.
eric k
That line from Goldberg is basically the same mentality that you find among the liberal hawks who now acknowledge that the Iraq war was a mistake, but argue that they were right to support it because they supported it for the right reasons and those of us who opposed it were wrong because we may have been right, but we were right for the wrong reasons.
Tattoosydney
I think it’s a gay thing.
No… wait… that’s clicking your heels together and saying “There’s no place like marriage.”
Carry on.
Observer
Whoa I didn’t expect THAT.
Whoa I didn’t expect THAT.
Hey this is fun guys. Really want to continue? (ECHO CHAMBER continue? continue? continue?)
I think Sully wears his heart on his sleeve. I think you pukes do as well. I like all three of you for that, but… save me the sanctimony, and circle jerk behind closed doors.
LD50
Aren’t *you* the one visiting *here*?
Perhaps it’d be best if you got back behind your major global impacting shift.
steve s
I’m not sure what clapping loudly means. I think a lot of GOP effort is about valuing the ethically-correct appearance over the outcome or results. It’s a demonstration of moral purity, maybe? Examples:
*Supporting Abstinence Only even if it results in more pregnancy
*Denouncing Iran’s government even if it helps the mullahs
*Voting against the bailout even if it would mean a Depression
*Supporting the Cuban embargo even if it strengthens Castro
I don’t know why they do that so much. Maybe it’s to exert some tiny measure of control, or perhaps absolve themselves of any responsibility? “Well, the world still went to sh1t, but you can’t blame me, cause I did what was right.” I’m not sure why they do it so much.
(and it’s not entirely them. I can think of a few examples of liberals willing to sacrifice results for appearences, too. Just seems like more predominate in the other side.)
John Cole
Again, you’re problem here is you aren’t understanding what I’m saying. I wasn’t saying “I’m SERIOUS AND UR NOT” when I discussed the green font, I was saying it isn’t going to do anything, it is just a bunch of feelgood slacktivist nonsense, and stop taking yourself so damned seriously.
The larger point isn’t even about the green font nonsense, it is about the general overall feeling I get, which is that there is one assumed conventional wisdom about Iran and we just all have to act right now and do what everyone knows to be true. It is the same thing I did when I was a warblogger in 2003.
Also, everyone knows Saddam has WMD.
Look- I thought from the beginning that this election would be fixed, and I think it probably was fixed, but we aren’t even allowed to entertain the notion it was not. That gets shot down and treated much the same way anti-war protesters were treated in 2002-2003. I don’t think that is healthy.
Comrade Stuck
@gbear:
Yes, That’s closer.
John Cole
The other thing that is weird about this is that unlike Michael Ledeen and Goldfarb and the rest of the people Sullivan is palling around with these days, I actually like Sullivan. I have to spend a great deal of time defending him in every thread he is mentioned. Now, because I think he is going overboard, I’m a hater.
LD50
@steve s:
I would add: Opposing national health care even if more people die.
Observer
If being a visitor means being someone who reads daily and posts monthly for the last several years, yes I’m a visitor.
Go eat your ovaltine. Twit.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Laura W: Couldn’t resist, could you? Kinda like opening that huge bag of potato chips for a”little” snack.
Glad I’m not the only one who got that. Most of our fellow commenters are too yo … oh, I can’t bring myself to type it.
KG
The clapping louder thing comes from the cultural conservatives more than anything else, those who “stand athwart history yelling ‘stop!'”.
There’s a certain logic to it, as Doug said, if you start from a certain position. If you’re really invested in the culture war (I’m not, leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone), then you have to see it as a push back of liberal decadence (or whatever). It’s an attempt to preserve/rekindle/create the idealistic past (which, deep down, they know never really existed but on 1950s sitcoms that weren’t really all that funny, even in the context of the time period). In a lot of ways, that was a large part of Romney’s “awe shucks” campaign tactics were about. Same goes for Huckabee (by the way, anyone catch the full Daily Show interview with him from last night yet? Looks like he and Stewart actually had a good conversation about it).
Laura W
Maher’s on it.
LD50
Wow, why so much hostility?
John Cole
And another thing, what bothers me about all the cheerleading (even if it is a good cause) and the resolution today is that it sort of seems to imply “Go for it guys! We got your back!”
And we don’t. We aren’t going to do anything. There isn’t much we can do.
Jennifer
You know what this thread needs?
MORE SHITMOATS!!!!
Laura W
@The Grand Panjandrum: Can’t listen to just one!
She’s filing her nails
while they’re draggin’ the lake.
gex
@steve s: Yes, like their Christian faith and their family values – it is all projection. It’s better to look good than to be good. And if it gives them a weapon with which they bludgeon those they don’t like (liberals, brown foreigners), so much the better.
LD50
Indeed. If Iran pulls a Tienanmen Square-type crackdown tomorrow, there isn’t shit we can do. And of course, many people will blame the crackdown on Obama, because he didn’t bomb.
SarahLoving
i think what’s at work here is the same thing that happens when you’re learning another language. you are charlie brown, all you hear is wha wha wha. you don’t understand, you look at the lips of the babbler, and to “help” you, their solution is to Talk Louder at You. but the words are what you don’t understand a no amount of shouting is going to grant you an epiphany as to what they’re trying to get across.
i think there’s a lot of shouting from both sides, conservatives speak from the “gut” and liberals spin themselves into abstract, intellectual tizzies, sure that those conservatives will Understand if they Just Listen to teh Logic.
but, as Gloria Estefan did croon “the words get in the way” even when we’re speaking the same language.
conservatives and liberals get into shout and pout a-thons because we are living and understanding reality beneath very different semiological frameworks.
Comrade Kevin
@John Cole: Like the Kurds in Iraq, the Czechs, the Hungarians, etc, etc.
Jennifer
Abstinence only isn’t about pregnancy prevention – it’s about sex prevention. The clapping louder about how moral it is serves to distract from the distinction.
Iran is the enemy, no matter who’s running it. Helping to promote an internal clusterfuck where a lot of brown people end up dead – at no cost to us – is an example of conservative fiscal responsibility.
I got nuthin’.
Jennifer
@SarahLoving:
I think we can sum it up thusly: it’s the battle between the frontal lobes and the walking brain stems.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Laura W: Momma told me I’d meet girls like you.
Chris Johnson
Actually, that bit I understand perfectly.
To explain why I have to get a hair more personal and reveal that I’m a drunk + drug addict (to me alcohol is much like any drug and that’s what I was on, ‘any’ drug). I’ve been clean and sober for some time- working on counting it in the decades kinda ‘some time’ but certain ways of thinking are natural to me.
The reason to make an outcome happen even when it harms you is, then you’re the one in control. You know what’s going to happen. The world conforms to YOUR picture. It might be a crap picture- so what? To some of us it’s more important that we retain some control, in the sense of knowing what’ll come next.
Even if it’s something TERRIBLE coming next, you still ‘called it’ so you win, kinda. If you didn’t make that effort to make something predictable happen, then who knows what would happen?
So yeah support Abstinence Only even though it results in more pregnancies and abortions, because then you can be clear that sex is wrong. Yeah, do as much as possible to wreck bailouts and economic plans because then you can be clear that Obama was a horrible pick…
It’s really NOT actively wanting the bad things to happen, directly.
It’s needing to say ‘I knew that would happen. It was no surprise. It’s part of my world, which still makes sense to me.’
eric k
Exactly!
I brought this up in a thread on Yglesis site. It is like Bush I telling the Shia to rise up and overthrow Sadaam.
Observer,
I think the point of you being a visitor here is that you are choosing to come here, so if you thought all the dog photos and posts were a narcissistic waste of time you could stop coming anytime you want and you also only read them if you choose to. That isn’t at all in the same category as the narcissism of the neo-cons, liberal Hawks, Sullivan and McCain with his we just need to be steadfast nonsense, they are acting like the very fact of them showing symbolic support for the Iranians means something to the Iranians. As if Sullivan’s green fonts mean shit to some kid in Tehran getting beaten up by Achmad’s goons.
It is really just masturbation, it is all about them.
Left Coast Tom
@John Cole:
In one sense the _system_ seems fixed. As I’ve understood Iran’s system, the clerics (who are chosen by a separately elected body, so I guess we can equate this part of it to the U.S. Senate prior to direct election) decide who can, and can’t, run for President and Parliament based upon the clerics’ view of their devotion to theocracy.
And the “President” doesn’t actually get to make the decisions we’d normally associate with such an office, anyway.
It seems like the point is to dilute the impact of actual votes to the point where they don’t count even if they are counted.
In this case I’d agree with you…the likelihood is they weren’t.
From all of that, I’m uncomfortable with the “clap louder” stuff because I think the apparently stolen election is raising a more basic problem for Iran, which really needs to be sorted out by Iranians. I’m thrilled to see the demonstrations, and I wish them the best. And people doing things the opposition wants, like setting up proxy servers, seem to be really contributing. But the “clap louder” stuff can’t be helping.
The weird thing in Sullivan’s case is he seems to be doing _both_ at the same time! He really seems to be trying to draw attention to what’s going on, and at the same time there’s a fair bit of self-absorption going on. There doesn’t seem to be a lot in between.
Notorious P.A.T.
Sounds like magical thinking to me.
matoko_chan
“The overarching goal is to see the birth of a democratic Iran”
No. Iran is a theocracy now, and it will still be a theocracy even if the election gets rerolled and Mousavi is president, and even if the Assembly of Experts replaces Khameini with Montazeri.
This is not about us.
This about two different versions of al-Islam.
The Stupid it burrrrrns.
gnomedad
@Jennifer:
Fixed.
mr. whipple
The ‘know hope’ and assorted other touchy feely shit is, to me, sometimes over the top. Granted.
But I think it(changing or wearing colors, etc) is a way to give symbolic props to some very, very brave people. I don’t think it has to mean anything other than that, and hey, if that makes people feel good maybe *it should*.
And I’m grateful he latched onto this story, because it interests me and it’s a good clearinghouse for info.
Now, if you wanna get totally cynical about it, I’m certain it’s also good for business and at the end of the month his site stats will bear that out. I’ve seen other blogs build a huge audience thru lesser stories, and much more bullshit.
Chris Johnson
One more Elvis Costello link. Solo performance of Tramp The Dirt Down, from Spike.
mr. whipple
I see it the other way: that people in America(myself included) are woefully ignorant of Iran. It’s much, much easier to bomb Iran when propoganda makes them *all* out to be some sort of primative fundy stone agers that are full of hate. Bomb, bomb, bomb….laughter!
Thru this we learn, hey, there’s some pretty cool people over there, and they aren’t all nuts like their Leader…the same thing I hoped the world would think of us during the Bush years. And bombing them ain’t gonna do shit, except kill a lot of those people we are now rooting for.
SarahLoving
@Jennifer:
***I think we can sum it up thusly: it’s the battle between the frontal lobes and the walking brain stems.***
Yeah, that done nails it good.
For some reason, I’m thinking of L’s and C’s like the barflies in the Budlite commercial arguing over why it’s Superior to all other Lite beers:
Group A : Tastes Great!
Group B: Less Filling!
Never mind the swill is actually bear piss…
cs
Even though it normally annoys me terribly, for once I’m not bothered by the “clap louder” posse, at least in regards to Iran. If they want to wear a green tie, have a green background on their blog, or drink green beer, then more power to them. Everyone wants to feel part of something bigger than themselves and this is a particularly good cause to want to latch on to.
And I would think the people directly involved in the uprising have to be cheered at least a bit knowing there’s strong popular support worldwide behind them.
The Iranian people are not stupid, so they’re not assuming there’s going to be any substantial material support beyond open proxies and spreading the news via blogging and re-tweeting. They have to know they’re on their own beyond that small effort. It’s not as if they are going to take extreme risks because they were egged on by a motley collection of American bloggers.
Krista
Speaking of which, do any of you guys watch “Spectacle”? I’ve started watching it recently, and really enjoy it. His guest tonight was Renée Fleming, who I’ve never heard sing before.
gbear
@eric k:
I don’t think masturbation means what you think it means.
nomo
Peter Pan, of course.
fliegr
Two Costello references in one week?
So we (the U.S.) are supposed to have some sort of trusted status and influence after installing the Shah in Iran and encouraging the rebellion in southern Iraq and hanging them out to dry? Hmm, wonder how that’s working out for us….
latts
It’s not really my area of expertise, but it seems to me that the right relies so heavily on symbolism because it a) discourages critical analysis, and [mostly by extension] b) creates cultural touchpoints that encourage conformity. Almost every non-ideological conservative I’ve ever known has believed very strongly in conforming to societal norms, and symbolism gives them the language to demand it without troubling them by referencing the downsides of their belief systems. Hell, look at the military– all symbolism and elaborate, archaic codes and mythologies; pound those into people’s heads long enough and they’ll see and respond to the world pretty much exactly the way you want them to.
Gina
Applebee’s has a salad bar?
JenJen
Really good Bill Maher tonight. Paul Begala can be one funny mofo when he’s en pointe. He had a moment with Meghan McCain tonight where I just wanted to buy the man a drink. Thanks, Paul!
Funny line from Maher’s “New Rules” segment, while criticizing the Democrats for not supporting Obama on the public health care option: “We now have a center-right party, and a crazy party. Over the last 30 years, Democrats moved to the right, and the Right has moved into a mental hospital.”
He’s not far off.
Phoebe
I have always thought it was creepy to brandish the flag – including after 9-11 – because I thought it went without saying that we are all Americans here and we are loyal and not traitors and etc.
This green thing, though, apparently some of the people wearing it in Iran – do you call them clappers too? – want us to wear it to show support. And if, as some of their rhetoric during the election would indicate, they were at least partly inspired by our own particular unlikely regime change, then welcoming a silent token show of support from us – citizens, not a government, which is what they are themselves – makes perfect sense and is not something I’m too cool to do because it reminds me of flag pins or something. I changed my facebook thingy to a picture of Oscar the Grouch. Do I think I’m noble for this or special? Jesus, please. Of course I don’t. It’s just because they asked – apparently facebook was one of the requests. Fine! They’re getting beat up, not me, it’s their country, it’s their history, not mine.
This is like the ’68 Olympics, when the two black guys made power fists and the other, white dude had a vaguely supportive button on his track suit. They all three talked about this beforehand. White guy didn’t want to horn in on their struggle, but wanted to show his support. Hence button.
This idea that green = narcissism, smugness, whatever – why? Am I a narcissist? I don’t feel that way. I am a sympathizer. Their votes got stolen. Or just ignored, most likely. I sympathize! It’s not my country, but then again, just like they’d like to finally put a grocery separator between themselves and Amadijeridoo, I am not my government. I’m a citizen. A fellow voter. A hopey changey one, at that. They want my shout out? They get it.
AhabTRuler
Australian Peter Norman.
J. Michael Neal
Okay, how do I do this, what are the effects on my computer, and how does it help?
Jess Sane
I can remember when we supported the brave freedom fighters of Afghanistan against the evil Soviet invasion.
Tattoosydney
@Phoebe:
@AhabTRuler:
The documentary about him is supposed to be quite wonderful.
A fine example of a fine quality that we in Australia call “mateship“, and an equally important quality that we call “people being fuckheads”.
He was cute too…
OT music – Did you see this and this?
Tattoosydney
Dammit. Too many links in post. If someone is awake can you rescue me from moderation?
Random nugget to justify posting – Sunspots. Pretty. Quite large.
Phoebe
Tattoosydney, yes, he WAS cute.
eric k
gbear,
Masturbation in this context just refers to people doing something that is all about making them feel good about themselves rather than actually accomplishing anything.
Phoebe, the Iranians in Iran are actually risking something by wearing green.
Th ’68 Olympics example isn’t the same either, the Australian guy was standing right next to the Americans and as the subsequent actions of the Australian Olympic committee showed he was actually taking a risk and paid a price.
I’m not condemning everyone who is showing support for the Iranians, it is the sanctimonious patting themselves on the back of people like Sullivan, McCain and so on that is so annoying. Good lord Sullivan today was acting like the most important thing in the world is getting Google to go green.
drillfork
The neocons believe that if you just bomb these poor brown people, they’ll rise up and overthrow their repressive leaders. (See Lebanon, pancaked by Israel.) We only destroy their homes and cities to give them freedom, after all.
With that in mind, I can’t get too worked up over warbloggers going green and conservative faith in clapping louder. It could be worse…
AhabTRuler
@Tattoosydney: I would now agree that Röyksopp is best in the remixes, otherwise The Girl And The Robot is little much to take.
Suck out half the fluffy lyrics, grind down the beat a little, add in some echo, you start to have a real song.
Tattoosydney
@AhabTRuler:
‘Tis true.
ninerdave
I haven’t read the entire thread, but one of the best things you can do is set up a proxy server for the protesters. Google it, you can even do it from an Amazon Cloud server so you don’t have to compromise your home network (although I’ve done both).
This has tangible benefits beyond the turning your twitter profile green.
What is funny to me is the wingnuts rooting for an overthrow of Ahmadinejad at the same time the wingnuts are rooting for an Ahmadinejad win. All of this is without acknowledging Mousavi, was one leader in the Islamic revolution. He’s not going to be some liberal, DFH that the wingnuts think he is.Nor his he going to be the flaming hate monger Ahmadinejad is.
OF course no matter what the outcome: Obama fucked it up and the NeoCons were right. This will be played out on the Sunday talk shows for a while and also.
Steeplejack
@Chris Johnson:
Thanks. You articulated that mind-set very well.
Steeplejack
@Gina:
David Brooks made a famous gaffe about a year ago in which he said: “Obama‘s problem is he doesn‘t seem like a guy who can go into an Applebee‘s salad bar and people think he fits in naturally there.”
Applebee’s doesn’t have a salad bar, as you rightly surmise, so this shot Brooks’s “regular guy” credibility all to hell. And he’s criticizing Obama because he’s not “regular guy” enough?!
Chuck Butcher
My college room mate was the son of an Army General for the Shah. I reckon things didn’t go well for him after the Revolution. He was a nice kid, but he couldn’t understand why I loathed Nixon and had bad thoughts about the Shah. He spoke excellent English but we didn’t speak the same language.
I turned my little blog green because people are taking real risks to oppose their government, even though in my eyes a different Pres is small change. I’ve been linked to from Iran so maybe it’ll be seen. If one person in Iran feels better because of it, then it was worthwhile. If nobody sees it, which is likely, no harm is done and it cost me nothing.
I’m Democratic Chair in a county that didn’t vote Obama in a State that did but I still fly the colors (blue-donkey). I guess I’m a sucker for long odds.
Xanthippas
I don’t think we should leave out the fact that many conservatives also detest the Iranian regime, and would like to see them ousted. Never forget that to conservatives as far democracy and liberty are concerned, only the deserving may possess them.
aimai
SteveS up above at 45
Makes an important point. The flip side of “clap harder” is also a common conviction that *scolding* and *moralizing* and *shaming* are activities that are important, politically speaking. My one republican buddy has a really good heart and a really good head but he always has to take a detour through “someone should scold that person for their moral failings” before letting them access–the fire department, the police, health care, the UN, etc… He often comes politically to the same conclusions a *green* *libertarian* would come to but the part that made him vote republican for years and years was the desire to see people admonished for “bad behavior” or praised for “good behavior” symbolically.
Its like they are little children and they need to either feel they have the whip hand, or are sucking to daddy/authority before they can do anything politically.
aimai
Tom W.
Or to use another great Costello lyric:
Two little Hitlers will fight it out, until one little Hitler does the other one’s will…
furry charismatic megafauna
Poop is my gift to the world.
Josh Hueco
I’ve always thought that the propensity for clapping louder came from our country’s (oversimplifying here) Protestant background (and this is particularly strong in evangelical Protestant circles), in which you’re saved by faith without works. If all you have to do is believe in order for good things to come your way, then simple gestures like flag pins and green blogs would appear to be all the muscle you have to put into an endeavor.
matoko_chan
ninerdave is right….do what you can.
turn your blog green, set your twitter to tehran timezone, DM a proxy IP, from each according to his/her skillz, write your congressperson to stfu.
Sully is cool…the Dish is a supernode in social network theory, in trusted networks. He just gets data served to him and aggregates it, and the Dish scales up in influence and connections and trust. He is a trusted server node for the Greens, so he gets more and better data feeds than say CNN or (heh) FOX lol.
You all should know….I think the greens will win in the end.
The shi’ia are hardcore at civil disobediance. The bomb at Khomeini’s tomb (if it happened, no pics yet) was likely to prevent Mousavi from symbolically “taking refuge” there, or using it as a rally point. Civil disobediance is how the Shi’ia survived the Ummayyd Caliphate after the martyrdom of Imam Ali. Civil disobediance is how the Iranians overthrew the tyrant Shah.
PeopleAreNoDamnGood
@cs:
Yes, never underestimate the power of magical thinking.
I can hear Khamenei now, muttering under his breath. “Death to Balloon-Juice! Death to lefty blogs!”
Comrade Darkness
This whole thing shows how incredibly short the right wing memory is. I’m not that old, but I do distinctly remember the hostage crisis and right wing calls to turn Iran into a glass parking lot. (I guess because that’s what Jesus would have done. Right after torturing each and every one of them.)
History. Yeah, whatever.
HRA
J. Cole: “And another thing, what bothers me about all the cheerleading (even if it is a good cause) and the resolution today is that it sort of seems to imply “Go for it guys! We got your back!”
And we don’t. We aren’t going to do anything. There isn’t much we can do.”
My sentiments and my senses are the same.
mark robbins
I think people are just sad that they don’t have a presidential election to argue about anymore.
I don’t even understand what this disagreement is about.
Andrew Sullivan changes his background to green and some people who want regime change in Iran are wearing green ties and a thousand pointless dissertations are born.
The idea that the people of Iran are standing up for nascent democratic processes is really exciting. People who can’t do anything directly in support of some of the bravest people on earth (people who won a war with the ‘human wave’) are cheering. And it is nice to have a cheering section.