Let’s face it: many of you are more interested in the fate of democracy in Iran than you are in John’s pet stories or my attempts to make clever allusions to song lyrics.
So, based on a brief — and, as long as I’m being honest, semi-drunken — perusal of some of the internets, these seem to be the major developments in Iran today:
(1) “Iran’s Guardian Council has admitted that the number of votes collected in 50 cities surpass the number of those eligible to cast ballot in those areas.
“The council’s Spokesman Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, who was speaking on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) Channel 2 on Sunday, made the remarks in response to complaints filed by Mohsen Rezaei — a defeated candidate in the June 12 Presidential election.” (link; via)
(2) “The information war is one war. But [the regime] is much more concerned about a real war. And the only people who are armed in this country, in Iran, are most of the ethnic minorities — the Baluchis, the Kurds, the Arab populations. So if this protest movement spreads deeply into those areas, then you have a real significant threat against the regime. That is why you are seeing the regime try and say don’t participate, this is a foreign-inspired coup, these people in the streets are rioters and terrorists who will be dealt with accordingly.” (link)
Nico Pitney is doing a fantastic job of aggregating this stuff, so much so that I’ve almost stopped confusing him with various indie musicians.
Update.This is interesting too:
A bitter rift among Iran’s ruling clerics deepened Sunday over the disputed presidential election that has convulsed Tehran in the worst violence in 30 years, with the government attempting to link the defiant loser to terrorists and detaining relatives of his powerful backer, a founder of the Islamic republic.
[….]Mr. Rafsanjani was deeply critical of Mr. Ahmadinejad during the presidential campaign, and is thought to have had a strained relationship with Mr. Khamenei for many years.
But he remains a major establishment figure, and the detention of his daughter, albeit briefly, came as a surprise. In his sermon on Friday, in which he strongly backed Mr. Ahmadinejad and threatened a violent crackdown on further protests, Ayatollah Khamenei pointedly praised Mr. Rafsanjani as a pillar of the revolution, while acknowledging that the two have had “many differences of opinion.”
Comrade Stuck
Hell no. I aspire to allude to song lyrics as good as you, someday/ It’s what keeps me coming back, that, and to publish lame jokes.
AnotherBruce
Nico-he? I thought he was a she.
I think I’ll take a walk on the wild side.
JMN Is Now asiangrrlMN's Official Stalker
Does this mean we can stop the discussion over *whether* the election was rigged?
Edit: “The spokesman, however, said that although the vote tally affected by such an irregularity is over 3 million, “it has yet to be determined whether the amount is decisive in the election results,” reported Khabaronline.”
THREE MILLION OVERVOTES?
Craig
@AnotherBruce:
I believe the appropriate allusion here is, “He’ll be your mirror.”
kommrade reproductive vigor
Clearly they’ve studied the BushCo method of dealing with dissent.
DougJ
That’s good. I’m using it in a future post.
Although I confuse him more with Nico Case than with Nico.
4tehlulz
@JMN Is Now asiangrrlMN’s Official Stalker: Oh come on. It’s probably just a math error….
MissKG
Nico + Pitney is the only way I remember the name. One of those age-benefit thingies.
mgordon
You’re not the only one buddy.
D0n Camillo
Next they’ll be herded into “Free Speech Zones” out in the countryside.
demkat620
I will admit to being fascinated by the Iranian protestors. They are amazingly brave. I never expected to see this.
I hope the bloodshed ends and they can find a way to democracy that works for them.
Comrade Stuck
First rule on rigging an election. Learn to count.
Martin
Well, there are 3 degrees of success here, all of which involve more bloodshed, unfortunately:
1) New and fair elections under the current system.
2) New supreme leader, and all that follows from it, but with the old semi-democracy in place.
3) New system of government.
We’re well into the public demanding #2 with plenty of suggestion that #3 is necessary for even a semi-democracy to work there. I think this is going to suck for quite a long time, sorry to say.
Little Dreamer
All of Ahmadinejad’s supporters voted twice.
;)
D0n Camillo
I think these protests will finally help to kill the image of Iranians that has held sway since the Embassy hostage crisis. I think more than a few Americans had thought of Iranians as being rabidly anti American religious fundamentalists. That’s been shot to shit by the events of the past week. It’s going to be much harder for neo cons to rum up support for bombing the shit out of the Iranians now.
KCinDC
DougJ, it’s Neko Case. Don’t know whether that lessens or adds to your confusion.
Little Dreamer
@D0n Camillo:
Let’s not kid ourselves, those who support Khameini and were shouting “Death to America” ARE rabidly anti-American religious fundamentalists… but Iran contains more than that, just as America contains more than white supremist skinheads who stockpile guns and listen to rabid right wing radio.
Rosali
I’ve been glued to CNN. It’s doing a better job this weekend after being criticized for doing a poor job last weekend.
Yutsano
Not to mention how pissed of Avigdor (you know, the other Lieberman) and Netanyahu have to be now that it’s been shown that Iranian are, well, people.
Carol Duhart
Of course, we should also remember the lessons of Eastern Bloc Communism/North Korea/Nazi Germany about such “demonstrations”. Attend or else. Even if you have a choice, your lack of enthusiasm is duly noted by the Party/Mullahs.
It’s probably all a facade, and the regular Iranians feelings towards America and the West is probably a mix of admiration, resentment, and curiosity.
Is it me, or is it that the neocons are getting a bit whiny over the fact that their “Middle East-Extreme Makeover” project could run into a permanent roadblock called a democratic Iraq?
Yutsano
Slightly OT: I don’t have Netflix, does anyone who does know if they have a rating system? If so, have they given any sort of totals for the increase in rental requests for Persepolis? I’m gonna talk to my movie watching buddies and see if I can’t talk them into watching it with me when they come back into town.
Comrade Stuck
@Yutsano:
Yes. it’s based on customer ratings plus the kind of movies your past viewing suggests/
Comrade Stuck
Here is the netflix link
@Yutsano:
DougJ
Thanks. I’ve only heard it said, not written.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@JMN Is Now asiangrrlMN’s Official Stalker:
Why not? There were at least that many undervotes in the 2004 residential election here.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
Won’t let me edit, but is “residential election” a great typo or what?
gbear
When I thought of what musicians could be mistaken for Nico Pitney, my mind immediately went to Gene Pitney and Town Without Pity. I am vewy vewy old.
Litlebritdifrnt
OT – but pissing me off royally, I have legally lived in this country for a little under 20 years. Tomorrow I have to drive to Durham (between 2 – 3 hours depending on traffic) to renew my green card (at a cost of $370 not including gas) at what point does the US say “okay yeah you have been here long enough you were not a convenience marriage, we will give you a permanant status” just asking?
Little Dreamer
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
It was a magical freudian slip. ;)
gbear
@Craig:
I would have gone with ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’.
Little Dreamer
@Litlebritdifrnt:
As of 911, the answer to that question is: “never”.
Sorry hon. :(
jl
Whose side is that big giant dude on, from 300, the guy with the wacky sword-hands? I aint seen him yet.
But seriously, from what I have read, this was never just about vote rigging. Even before election day was over, there was intimidation of any campaign opposed to Ahmadinejad, interference with opposition campaign communications, preemptive announcements for no apparent reason that any guff after the election would be considered provocative and would be quashed. Ahmadinejad said that the clampdown on social and political freedoms would be “firmer” in his next term.
From the perspective of an Iranian voter who opposed Ahmadinejad, I think you would have to be stupid not to see signs that an authoritarian regime was getting ready to go despotic and was going to be coming for people.
Serious statistical studies of the results show very suspicious results. Probably rigged. Always have a statistician help you when you want to fake data. I think it’s probably impossible to hide faking, since psychological biases will sneak in somehow, but if you just make up numbers, which I think they did, then you will be nailed.
But, too bad. It is getting very late for the old thugs to save their regime. As commenter said above, it is going from demands for a new election, to demands to get rid of the crooks who have taken over the political and the religious establishment. Don’t know how long it will take, but probably irreversible damage done already.
Let’s hope that the old fool Khamanei has alienated so many people high and low with his crimes and bumbling that the reformist forces win soon and they can move on to something better.
Articles on Iran election results. I think the WaPo piece is the most convincing approach, since it simply asks whether the election numbers are believable as random numbers that resemble other election returns. It seems kind of goofy to ask whether there are too many ‘7’s at the end of a number, or too many ‘195’s as opposed to ‘123’s -but statistical properties of random numbers from election returns are what they are from historical data. The WaPo piece is a very simple preliminary analysis. I am eager to see more.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/20/AR2009062000004_pf.html
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wmebane/note14jun2009.pdf
http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/publications/papers/view/-/id/755/
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0906/0906.2789v2.pdf
Brick Oven Bill
Ask-Imam on Democracy. It is suggested to read it all. Persia fell to Islam in 644.
“Legislation is the right of Allāh Ta’ala. Man is bound to the legislation of Allāh Ta’ala. The democratic system has taken the right of legislation from Allāh Ta’ala and given it to man, whereby man has the power to invent laws to suite himself. This is purely un-Islāmic. Supporting democracy is tantamount to supporting the laws invented by man and abandoning the laws of Allāh Ta’ala. Allāh Ta’ala strongly condemns such action and has labelled its perpetrators as Fāsiqūn (transgressors) and in another verse as Zālimūn (oppressors).”
Little Dreamer
@Brick Oven Bill:
And Islam, just like all religion, is a tradition of mystical ideas based on faith and nothing more tangible, and as such it has no basis in reality. So?
I guess this means you believe in theocracy? How do you feel about the “Death to America” chanting supreme leader?
Rosali
It’s good that people here want to learn more about the Iranian people and are renting Persepolis. I know I took my unread copy of Reading Lolita in Tehran off my bookshelf today. Are there any other movie recommendations?
Yutsano
Iran, especially post-1979, has a long and rich movie making tradition. I wish I could just spout off good directors but any decent movie rental place should have a foreign films section that should have a few Iranian selections in it. Correct me if I’m wrong but one was up for an Academy award last year for best foreign film?
Brick Oven Bill
Jesus said “Leave to Caesar what is Caesar’s”. This is one significant difference between Christianity and Islam. Christianity is not in and of itself a political system.
We need to get out of the Middle East. The Neil Young lyric “I don’t feel like Satan, but I am to them.” (Rockin’ in the Free World) was inspired by images of the 1979 revolution.
Our political class does not understand the core texts. They project their own Belief Systems onto others. This is an arrogant act.
Fulcanelli
The courage of the Iranian protesters makes me ashamed as an American and a Democrat in that we who didn’t believe Bush was legitimately elected sat at home and whined instead of at least trying to change the outcome.
No, we Dems sent a bunch of fucking chad waving lawyers, instead of millions of us getting off our asses and shutting down Washington, DC. How’d that work out for us? 9/11? Let’s ask the 4000+ dead soldiers and their families and the +100,000 dead Iranians. A trillion+ dollar war kept off the federal budget by Republicans? Who reading this doesn’t have a job, any health care or has lost their home?
At the very least we should have had the heads of the 5 Justices who facilitated this 8 year long travesty on a pike. Politically the US has become the textbook definition of Epic Fail. Watching the bought and sold, ass-hatted limp dicks we elect on both sides of the aisle bumble around from day to day in Washington is depressing black comedy.
Those protesters have solid, polished fucking brass balls, and my eternal respect. Especially the women.
jl
I’ve always wanted to read Ferdowsi, and Rumi, and Hafez in the original, but figured Farsi was too hard, even the modern version. But now I see people saying that Farsi isn’t that hard a language, just no one in US has bothered to learn it since, where is anyone going to use it?
So, I am thinking of ordering a Farsi intro book. Probably need one with tapes or CD. Learning the alphabet will be a pain, though.
Might be a good way to monitor US opinion on likely success of this uprising. See how many people are ordering Teachyourself Farsi.
El Cid
@Fulcanelli: Maybe, but in fairness, remember that all the decent people in America had been convinced by generations of media assistance that protesting was for America-hating coward traitor fifth column hippies, and also shut up.
Zach
I’m hoping that this admission by the Guardian Council is a prelude to a new, internationally monitored election. It gives them an excuse for not calling for one earlier as well as sufficient reason to override their constitutional requirement to recognize the announced results. It’s really the only way out of this where the regime might remain in power without resorting to levels of violence far beyond what we’ve seen… which would cripple trade in Iran. The United States doesn’t have much leverage left with Iran, but other countries do.
Yutsano
A name will come out of all of this, and I can tell you the moment when Ayatollah Khamaeni was in trouble. She is only known as Neda. Her death went around the world in a flash. She was only a bystander, but she was gunned down by an unknown force. She has become a new rallying point for the protesters and when her death is remembered in seven days and forty days the wounds will fester again. This is not going away quietly. More blood is guaranteed to be spilled. But the one name on all their lips now will be Neda.
Oh and BoB I can haz betr trollz plz?
kdaug
@Brick Oven Bill:
Blow it out your oven, Bill.
The “separation of mosque and state” movement is growing.
The Other Steve
I’m surprised none of the reporting has asked where is Katherine Harris?
Fulcanelli
@Yutsano: I saw the short video of the young girl who was shot and died in the street with blood running from her nose and mouth and for about 30 seconds I felt like I had ice water in my veins and I couldn’t breathe. Was that Neda?
Yutsano
Most people assume Farsi is as difficult for English speakers to learn as Arabic is. It’s actually related to English in a distant fashion. Of course due to the strong Arabic/Islamic influence on Iran there are quite a few Arabic elements, but for the most part the language is structurally similar to most European languages. About the only practical usage for Farsi in the US is either with the State Department, the CIA, or the military (I actually have a friend who’s a Farsi speaker for the Army) so it is not a skill that has been cultivated in the US. A shame really, since Iranian literature goes back thousands of years.
kdaug
@Fulcanelli:
Yep, that’s the face of the revolution.
A new “Supreme Leader” at this point isn’t an option. There’s no going back.
Yutsano
Fulcanelli: that was Neda. I’m still at work so I haven’t watched the video yet but I’ve seen a couple of graphic images from it. From what all I have heard the video is chilling and it’s going to inflame passions in Tehran even more now.
Punchy
Just not caring one bit about Iran. Maybe the unpopular sentiment, but the honest one.
Rosali
I googled and found this: The Top 10 Iranian Movies to Netflix This Weekend.
freelancer
Nice Try to retcon lefty folk rock music, but sadly, no Bob. While the title was inspired by Young and a friend commenting on images from Khomeini’s funeral, in reality, entire song is one big Middle Finger to H. W. Bush.
Wait, did I just feed the goddamned troll? I need a drink, I’ll be back later.
mai naem
@Litlebritdifrnt:
As long as they can keep on getting $370 out of you every so often, nevah. Plus you aren’t guaranteed on your SS or medicare so you care screwed on that too but the way things are going here your EU passport may be a handy thing to have in a few years. OT I have a good friend who’s lost his citizenship papers and never got a passport. He now needs proof of citizenship for his state licensure for his job. To get a copy of his citizenship papers is going to cost him $380. Just copies of 2 or 3 pieces of paper that are computerized that somebody just has to pull up and print out and mail to him. Hell, he is willing to go pick them up. $380. This government has gone off its rocker. BTW, the final paperwork for a new citizen is around $2K. We aren’t talking the initial paperwork where they do background checks,physicals etc. etc. This is the very last formal paperwork you do before you pledge allegiance to this country. Give me your tired and hungry indeedy.
kvenlander
@Litlebritdifrnt: That permanent thing is called citizenship by naturalization. If you’ve had the green card for that long, and feel that the burden to renew every ten years is so onerous, why don’t you apply?
Yeah, I’m in the same boat and I’m gonna.
Brick Oven Bill
I will again quote Benjamin Franklin:
“Force shites on reason.”
I hope that throwing rocks at the Supreme Leader with the tanks works. Perhaps this will teach the Supreme Leader about the separation of Mosque and State. Mohammed did not understand this separation however, and he wrote the book on Islam. Maybe he was a slow learner.
Until the time of this separation, Iran is none of our business. Americans should not be egging these protesters on, in my opinion. They will be killed.
Little Dreamer
@Brick Oven Bill:
I think the Vatican would highly disagree with you, and many people seem to think Jesus’ church resided with and continued in Peter’s leadership (the supposed first pope).
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you wrote this, even my deceased father’s favorite watch which hasn’t been wound in over 20 years is correct at least twice a day.
burnspbesq
A movie that’s going to get a ton of attention is “The Stoning of Soraya M.,” which opens in about 20 cities in the next few weeks. It won a bunch of prizes at last year’s Toronto Film Festival. And it stars Shoreh Aghdashloo, who can seriously act.
MikeJ
There was some talk on 538 about Benford’s law and whether or not it applied in all cases to elections. This had to do with the excess sevens in the distribution.
I can’t tell you what it means, but if you’d like to compare the already published curves for the Iranian election with the 2008 US presidential election broken down by county, here’s the results from the US:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=raobMMvDv1JyrpSykXD-EJQ&single=true&gid=0&output=html
Election results by county taken from the xml files that drive CNN’s flash maps. If this is gibberish, don’t worry. Probably impossible to prove anything either way with it, but this is another data point.
jl
I think being informed about Iran is our business as citizens because there has been an opinion campaign waged to get us to bomb it up real good, or at least for to allow Israel to bomb it up real good. If the current reformist campaign cannot dislodge the Khamanei-Ahmadinejad government quickly, that campaign will rev up again.
It will have to take on a new tone, and won’t be able to demonize the Iranians as one mass of medieval goons anymore. It will have to be more like “Well, too bad their ‘good’ people didn’t win, but that is water under the bridge. The clock is ticking. Horrible thing to do, just breaks my heart, but we gotta do what we gotta do”
So, I think everyone has to inform themselves, and ask themselves what they will do when that day comes. I think people are hoping for some breakthrough that topples the goofballs and thugs. But the reformers could be crushed anytime, and it may be a long drawn out standoff that takes years and moves by inches.
I think the neocons will start banging the war drums as soon as they see their chance.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@jl:
Of the entire Indo-European family, Farsi, Bulgarian, and English, in that order, have gone the farthest in eliminating the original inflectional apparatus that makes learning Latin or Ancient Greek, for example, so difficult.
Just hope they never have a revolution in Lithuania!
jl
@MikeJ: Benfords law requires assumptions about the probability distributions that produce the observed vote totals. So, it requires more assumptions that just asking whether the numbers have the properties of random numbers (ie, the totals) that have appeared in other elections. If the underlying distribution of the totals is logarithmic, then you can infer the distribution of the first digits of the each total from each reporting district, or region.
demimondian
BOB, you’re a bigoted ignoramus — but you know that.
Christian tradition has never held that the state should be separate from the church, but rather that the church should not be subject to the state. There’s a huge difference between those two things — one is a notion of parity in separate magisteria, and the other is the notion of a superordinate magisterium (the church) and a subordinate magisterium (the state).
MikeJ
I’m not convinced that any of the numbers presented by anybody actually mean anything in a statistical sense. That goes double for the numbers I just threw up, but they exist for anybody who wants to argue/masturbate over them.
(on edit) I’m not trying to sound obnoxious (although it’s difficult for me). Some were wondering about the “excess sevens” and if election results would actually follow the expected distro. The only other data I’ve seen presented was the Franken/Coleman election. This is just another data set with a few more precincts (3114 counties ). Do with it what you will.
geg6
Fuck you, BOB (I seem to say this a lot and am frankly sick of it). You’re just fine and dandy with your wingnut Christianist nutcases running the show, so your devotion to separation of church and state is suspect at best. So just shut your piehole with your bigoted shit about Islam, a religion for which you have demonstrated no understanding or actual knowledge. What I really want to say is I feel the same as Fulcanelli. The sheer bravery I am seeing from the Iranians takes my breath away. And their use of peaceful resistance is so powerful and beautiful to me. And I wish people like me had been a quarter as brave back in 2000 in similar circumstances. We suck. I hope like hell they get through this without too many more Nedas and can build the Iran they are dreaming of and deserve.
Little Dreamer
Question:
CNN keeps showing Christiane Amanpour’s special regarding the Iran vote and showing A-jad dropping what looks like a handwritten paper in a ballot box. If so many people voted, and it looks like it was a write in ballot, how were the votes counted so quickly?
Also, I could have sworn I heard that there was supposed to be a required period of three days before the vote was announced, does anyone know anything about this?
jl
Oops. Looks like more than logarithmic distributions can produce Benford’s law. Totals taken from a random selection of distributions can follow Benfords’ law too.
(tphill.net/publications/BENFORD%20PAPERS/TheFirstDigitPhenomenonAmericanScientist1996.pdf)
No excuse for not checking with Wikipedia around. The reference above is from the Wikipedia article on Benford’s Law.
Sorry. I popped off when I shouldn’t have. But, another reason why I think the WaPo approach is more reliable.
Yutsano
You’ve basically broken down two of the big reasons why the Iranians are thinking the whole election was bullshit. All of the ballots were hand-written, yet the results were supposedly counted within two hours. Also, rather than wait the legal three days for any election challenges to come before the Guardian Council, the Supreme Leader the very next day declared Ahmadinejad the winner. After that Tehran went boom.
gbear
Jesus said “Leave to Caesar what is Caesar’s”. This is one
significant difference between Christianity and Islam.example of the ways people trot out Jesus to try to win arguments, as if they give a flying frito about him the rest of the time. Seems like most of Jesus’ BFFs are manipulative assholes. Poor guy.Yutsano
DNFTT folks. I mean, it’s laughable enough when BoB uses a Sunni website to say how the Shi’a should be acting, that’s Grandpa McCain laughable.
BoB, you DO know the difference between a Sunni and a Shi’a right?
Little Dreamer
@Yutsano:
Thank you Yutsano. I’ve not seen this information posted on BJ, I only found the info about the three day requirement on another site. I never realized that the vote was counted so quickly (and all hand written, hmmm, those are some fast readers they got there in Iran!).
tammanycall
@Yutsano:
Jafar Panahi is a brilliant independent Irani filmmaker. “The Circle” is taught at the big four film schools.
PeopleAreNoDamnGood
@Yutsano:
Bob thinks that Sunni is a sports drink.
Yutsano
This, honestly, is why I blog. The amount of information I have learned at the blogs I frequent, I could almost defend a PhD.
jl
Just checked out Farsi on Wikipedia. NO Grammatical Gender.
“Persian nouns have no grammatical gender. Persian nouns mark with an accusative marker only for the specific accusative case; the other oblique cases are marked by prepositions.”
Looks like most verbs follow simple rules (don’t want to fuss with a whole bunch of irregular verbs)
OK. I’m in. Pimsleur, I guess, see how hard it it pick up the spoken language. A short Pimsleur course is cheap.
Maybe not totally in yet. Where am I going to use it? But thinking about it.
Note on election fraud: I don’t think the government claimed to have counted the whole 40-something million votes. I don’t think they said how many they counted, then later claimed it was just 15% or 20%. But geez, that is still 8 to 10 million paper ballots in a few hours.
There are a lot of things about the election that are very suspicious. And I think even without the evidence of rigged voting, there were things I mentioned above that would cast the election in doubt as being invalid.
People also forget about the run-off. Nate Silver’s fivethirthyeight had a collection of polls. Not one poll before the election showed the A-man winning 50%. So just saying that the A-man would have one does not do it. He had to win big enough to avoid a runoff. This is about a lot more than sore losers. That myth needs to be laid to rest.
demimondian
For a quick reality check, the passage from Matthew which BOB misquotes is actually a fascinating one. In Matt 20:15ff, a group of Pharisees sends a catspaw to ask Jesus a trick question: “Is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar?” In doing this, they think they’ve asked a fine “have you stopped beating your wife?” style question — say “no”, and Christ has made an excuse for the Romans to nail him to a tree; say “yes”, and affirm the right of Rome to rule Judea, thus denying being the Messiah.
But Jesus dodges the trap, by reframing the question legalistically. Instead of talking about the right of ruling, He talks about the nature of money. “Whose image and superscription are these?” “Caesar’s” “Then give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and give unto God that which is God’s.”
The verse has nothing to do with the relationship between church and state. It is, however, important in the modern world: in what He says, Christ directly rebukes those who would use religious posturing to evade taxes.
Brick Oven Bill
Hey Yutsano;
There are 57 Islamic States. Name one in which ‘The Circle’ is being played. I suspect that this film is meant for people like geg6.
burnspbesq
More very smart stuff from Larison:
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2009/06/21/no-denunciation-required/
burnspbesq
We need a better troll. Can we package up BOB, a first round draft pick, and some cash, and trade him to Balkinization for Bart DePalma?
matoko_chan
No.
George Bush made democracy a dirty word in MENA.
Those brave people are devout shi’ia muslims living under the rule of law in a republic, rule of islamic law in an islamic republic.
All they want is for the rule of law to be followed.
Trust meh….they don’t want your stinkin’ democracy.
kdaug
@burnspbesq:
Seconded. The counter-argument cupboard is feeling pretty empty these days.
Fulcanelli
Alas, Brick Oven Buffalo Bill queers another BJ thread with his Jabberwocky posts.
BOB, did you get your new pet goat yet? And did it rub the lotion on itself, or did it get the hose? Or both? Does the Imam approve of the lotion on a cloven hoof animal?
FTW
Brick Oven Bill
Yutsano?
I do not have my prospective goat yet Fulcanelli, but I am enjoying a nice pasta dish with pork sausage and onions.
Elie
I think that the guts of the Iranians is making a real impression around the world and will have real impact — though how specifically is unknow…
Just in our country, I think that among the left and progressives — there seems a palpable sense of regret for our not “taking to the streets” in ’00 — whether that would or would not have worked is unknowable but it makes for good romance…
The Middle East — both Islamic and the Israelis are nervous and not knowing how the passion in their peeps will play out..Saudi Arabia has GOT to be feeling nervous.
The Shia in Iraq were coqs of the walk — now the Shia glow may be dimming some..
This nocked North Korea off of the front page
Lots of other interesting geopolitical consequences still to be revealed…
Fair to say, the Mulah system is in great jeapardy in Iran but unclear how long it will limp along. The Genie is pretty much out of the bottle as far as making people mind without shedding so much blood that they no longer fear anything…
As I said, very very interesting times…
Comrade Stuck
@matoko_chan:
From what I can gather, you are largely right. Although there are a fair number of secularists who disagree, they are far from a majority.
The basic theme of Mossauvi’s campaign was for a return to the tenants of Islamic Law that had been corrupted by the Mullah’s for holding on to power above all else, and finding a way to live in the modern world and remain devout Muslim’s. If you read his recent manifest, it centers around this theme. You won’t here this on Fox News, or even much on CNN.
Iran, by and large, is a very conservative country and always has been, even most of the people in the streets, though they are probably the most liberal in the country at large.
iluvsummr
@Yutsano: Abbas Kiarostami is one well-known Iranian director. I saw one of his films at a festival in Philadelphia in the early 90s. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name.
I liked Persepolis in graphic novel form better than the film.
mr. whipple
Exactly. Thank dog we will not ever have another ‘presidential’ candidate making ‘jokes’ using sick, mutated beach boys lyrics.
It won’t mean they won’t stop trying. Just tonight I saw Blitzer interviewing that fucknozzle Wolfowitz. In a just world, he’d be in prison. But they’ll have to be much more circumspect, and people will remember their incompetence for a long time.
Yutsano
Does this mean we can feed him to the slivey toves gyreing and gimbling in the wabe?
Comrade Stuck
@mr. whipple:
But not the Israeli’s/ It gives them cover of “look at that crazy motherfucker Achmeniajad and the blood thirsty Mullah’s. Can’t let them get the bomb.
Zach
@Yutsano: The speed of the returns is a reason for suspicion, but not a fantastic one. There’s an AP article on this somewhere… the returns were totally in within 12 hours with chunks of 5 million votes coming in every hour or so after polls closed. If you work that out (and I did because I’m a dork), you’re talking 10,000 poll works at a 300 votes/hour counting rate. That’s apparently twice as fast as previous elections, but given that both candidates were claiming victory and even before polls closed it looked like unrest was likely… good reason to hurry up.
The problem wasn’t that the returns were in incredibly quickly (quicker than usual though, which should be explained), but that the government announced who won before announcing the votes, and that both major candidates announced that they’d won by huge margins before the polls were even closed.
Chuck Butcher
@matoko_chan:
So very sorry asshole, your beloved holy men made it into a cheat and deceit all by them little ole selves. Yep, home grown religious horseshit via your little tin heroes – lying cheating whores fit to be wapped in a pig’s stomach and pissed on by menstrating women.
Theocratic apologistic shit.
Comrade Stuck
@Chuck Butcher:
A little over the top there Butcher.
tc125231
@Little Dreamer:
tc125231
@Yutsano:
tc125231
@Little Dreamer:
Fulcanelli
@Yutsano: Yes. With some Fava beans and a nice Chianti.
With this Iranian election clusterfucque I shudder to think what would be happening now if the Real American War Hero (TM) and his half-baked alaskan Venus in Furs were elected last November.
Comrade Stuck
The stuff of nightmares.
Yutsano
It can be explained away, if not for the bigger context of the election. The fact that Khamaeni wanted to announce for Ahmadinejad so quickly coupled with the announced margin of victory just strained credulity. The more the Supreme Leader tried to assert his version of events the more incredible it became to the Iranian people.
Chuck Butcher
@Comrade Stuck:
Oh, OK, I suppose there’s some real polite way to express my utter contempt for those who murder their helpless fellows and hide behind religion to do it.
Nah, that’ll have to do.
Yutsano
“And hast thou slain the BoBerwock? Come to my arms my beamish boy! Oh frabjous day, calloo callay!” he chortled in his joy.
BTW I’m trying to see if I can get his head to explode just from ignoring him.
Fulcanelli
BoBerwock. Very appropriate.
Yutsano
I feel like I insulted the pedophiliac doctor there. Well maybe not so much.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
A little late, and I’m sure everyone here who finished grade school has heard this ad nauseum, but for BoB’s benefit: In Islam, calling someone the “Great Satan” doesn’t carry nearly the same impact as if a Christian fundamentalist said it.
Most Christian sects have spent the last 2000 years skirting the ragged edge of Manichaeanism, and some, like the Cathars, have gone over it. (If in fact they ever were Christian and not a Persian Dualistic religion that adopted some Christian terminology.) Most Christians think of Satan as a nearly co-equal evil god, like Ahriman to YHWH’s Ahura-Mazda.
In Islam, Satan is a kind of Trickster, more like Loki or Coyote. Calling someone “The Great Satan” is almost belittling them. Maybe that’s why they added the “Great”, so it wouldn’t sting too much!
iluvsummr
Has anyone seen the Jason Jones segments filmed in Iran for the Daily Show? I hear that some of the Iranians he interviewed have been arrested.
Comrade Darkness
@demkat620, demographics made this inevitable. The regime set themselves up for this by encouraging families to have lots of children. How they thought having a house full of unruly teens teased by glimpses of foreign glitter and opportunity would lead to anything but upheaval of a stagnant status quo of power is beyond me.
Yutsano
Another point on the demographics: there was an almost an entire generation wiped out because of the Iran-Iraq war. There are very few males of a certain age but many many more who were born right after who suddenly find themselves jobless in a country with the third largest recoverable oil reserves in the world.
Chuck Butcher
@Comrade Darkness:
Once you’re god’s tool it will all work out, no matter how stupid or dishonorable.
Yutsano
And just when you think the Iranian government couldn’t make things any worse:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/21/iran.election/index.html
It’s gonna get a lot bloodier in the next few days.
Comrade Darkness
@The Other Steve: Heh heh. Better yet, we should just refer to Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei (the head of the Guardian Council that just insisted the election was fair) as “the Katherine Harris of Iran”.
Tattoosydney
@Brick Oven Bill:
Bullshit.
cosanostradamus
.
Death to the Great Satan!
Oh, wait. That’s us.
You know what? America should just stay out of other people’s elections.
In fact, America should just stay out of its’ own elections, until it develops political Parties that actually represent the interests of a majority of the population.
And Gene Pitney & Nico were not “indie” musicians. Way before.
Some of these are, though. Especially Sylvia Plath. No relation to Oliver Platt. Or plaster & lathe. Or Sylvio Platsconi.
.
Bill E Pilgrim
@cosanostradamus: Plaster and lathe?
That would be a new twist on an old technique.
Sylvia Plath was an indie musician?
bago
From HuffPo:
BruceK
Divine intervention all right. The dead arose from their graves to vote for Ahmadinejad.
And if you believe that, we need to talk, because I’m short on cash and need to liquidate some of my assets: specifically, a very nice bit of neo-Gothic architecture spanning the East River…
geg6
matoko_chan: I guess that the people who started this over the fact that they didn’t feel their votes were counted don’t want a government that allows the people some say then? Then what has this been all about, pray tell? I really don’t think they want a Jeffersonian democracy, but they want whatever it is they consider democratic. It seems ridiculous to me to say they don’t want democracy simply because it isn’t the same as what we have. If they want their religious leaders as the main center of power with secular government popularly elected to carry out the more practical respnsibilities, then that is their form and they should have that. Which, it seems, they currently don’t. And they are willing to give their lives to get it. GWB didn’t ruin democracy in the ME, he only ruined America’s reputation. And, as 2000 illustrates, we can’t brag too much about how fabulous our democracy works for ourselves, let alone anyone else. There is no doubt that the Iranians protesting wanted some reforms, some social and some economic. And their votes for that went uncounted. That is a form of democracy they are advocating and that is what I hope they get. Sheesh, I’m not GWB, cluelessly trying to make America’s way the way everybody should go.
Comrade Darkness
@geg6: These sorts of elections are supposed to be merely symbolic reinforcements of the current power structure. Trouble is, that somewhere along the line the young lost touch with the origins of the propaganda and started believing it had more substance. I suspect that what they want is for what they were told to actually be true. But what they were told was not actually the truth, ergo, what they actually want is as ephemeral as those promises.
(sorry, touch of food poisoning today, so while I do have a point, it may not be clear…)
Added: so I think the protests will have reached a real turning point when they cease to be about demanding the powers that be holding up their end of a false bargain and begin to be about what should the new bargain be.
harlana pepper
The Neda video made me cry. I knew I should stay away from this. Too late.
harlana pepper
But couldn’t their love child be an aging indie musician with perfect hair and a lead-heavy German accent?
rh
A little late in the thread, but this (A Moment of Innocence) is absolutely one of the best Iranian films I’ve seen. Like most of the greatest Iranian movies, I don’t believe it’s commercially available, sadly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FT3hjDGUsU&feature=PlayList&p=2496182521619CD1&index=0
although it’s on Youtube, if you select high quality and watch it in full screen mode, it’s completely watchable.
matoko_chan
geg6, I am sorry, but you are clueless about this.
Mousavi’s speech.
The Greens already live under the rule of law….just not our law.
They live in an Islamic repubublic, like we live in a secular republic.
The protestors are protesting constitutional violations, saying the regime broke Islamic law.
Bush made democracy a dirty word in MENA. That is why Obama says “freedom” and “justice”, and deliberately doesn’t use the d-word. The true meaning of democracy has been corrupted by GW’s “democracy promotion” aka the Epic Fail of the Manifest Destiny of Judeoxian Democracy in MENA.
Democracy means triumphalist colonialism, western meddling, and the War on al-Islam to them.
Little Dreamer
@Yutsano:
Wow, since they only found voting irregularities in 50 cities I guess that means they found nothing.
I can almost hear them now if the challenge had a much closer number “you said 55 cities, we only found 50, sorry, we find nothing wrong with this election”.
I was speechless on Friday when I heard the Supreme Leader say “Look what you’re making me do’ in regards to the actions that would be taken.
Sorry Ayatoldja, you are CHOOSING these actions.
Cain
You know, in Iran after 911, Iran held a candlelight vigil for the victims. For their trouble, they got labeled as part of an Axis of Evil. *sigh*
It might be interesting to organize such a thing here.. U.S. citizens showing empathy by praying for justice is probably a nice way gesture.
cain
Chuck Butcher
@matoko_chan:
This person likes to cheer lead theocracy which may be something I disagree with but where we truly part ways is lying stupidity on his part. I have no idea what form of government most Iranians want but what is getting people killed started out as a protest about VOTING. The asserted wrong doing was on the part of HOLY MEN, something this twit denies as possible on the basis of … wait for it … their theocratic form. Now we are to understand that voting is a bad word because of BushCo and that isn’t what was up.
These folks might quite properly spit on GWB and not want something like the US form of government but that doesn’t mean they don’t understand what words are.
BoB makes more sense than this version of fingers in the ears while screaming, “lalalalalalala.”
Tom
Interesting take on the election. video: Iran Election Questions: Noam Chomsky’s Speculation
http://www.tinyurl.com/IranElectionSpeculation