China was one of only 11 countries who have officially congratulated Ahmadinejad on his "victory." The other big player on that list - Russia. The Beijing government needs Iran's oil, and these days seems a tad less sinister than the Russian government, who do not need the oil but want the influence.
In a possible concession to Chinese netizens, Beijing today appeared to back down on its plan to have "Green Dam Youth escort" filtering software bunlded into every new computer.
Tomorrow, a huge pro-democracy march is planned, held every July 1 since Hing Kong became part of China again.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Stand up Sit Down
Here is probably the most cogent commentary I've seen on the situation and what America should or shouldn't do now. "This movement has been decades, if not centuries, in the making. And it needs no American money to sustain itself. The only thing it needs is the moral voice of the American civil rights movement to come to its aid."
Stand Up - this person, who has family in Iran, has written a very thoughtful letter to US Senators.
Asia Times: Ahmadinejad had replaced 10,000 key government bureaucrats with his cronies during first term, including those responsible for elections. Also, "Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, known as 'the crocodile' in Iran...issued a fatwa legitimizing any means necessary to keep Ahmadinejad in power."
Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad purges officials with ties to opposition candidates and lets it be known "he won't tolerate dissent" in his second term. The Ghosts of The Chain of Murders hang over this election and the repression. Many of those involved in the events of ten years ago now serve with Ahmadinejad.
Stand Up - this person, who has family in Iran, has written a very thoughtful letter to US Senators.
Asia Times: Ahmadinejad had replaced 10,000 key government bureaucrats with his cronies during first term, including those responsible for elections. Also, "Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, known as 'the crocodile' in Iran...issued a fatwa legitimizing any means necessary to keep Ahmadinejad in power."
Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad purges officials with ties to opposition candidates and lets it be known "he won't tolerate dissent" in his second term. The Ghosts of The Chain of Murders hang over this election and the repression. Many of those involved in the events of ten years ago now serve with Ahmadinejad.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Betraying the Planet
Thomas Friedman on the urgent need to address climate change here, and reduce demand for foreign (esp. iranian) oil.
Ways to Help Iran
Don't let the Ahmadinejad/Khamenei regime get away with their barbaric military coup. Here are a few simple things which could make an enormous difference:
1. Join impartial groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, sign their petitions and send their letters -- they make it very easy, usually one click will do it. These groups have taken on both the Bush-Cheney administration and the Iran government -- they don't play favorites and so have credibility. They are also worldwide.
2. Continue to write/call/fax companies who do business with Iran as well as Iranian embassies and consulates abroad. Harass them with annoying questions if all else fails. Sign them up for magazine subscriptions/give their names to telemarketers. Whatever works. This guy has set up links and a sample letter to make it easy to protest to Statoil. Let them know we continue to watch.
3. Most importantly... The only truly effective way to get at the Ahmadinejad regime is to hit them where it hurts - in their oil revenues. The only people in Iran getting rich off oil are Ahmadi and his cronies. They distribute it in usually small amounts to Basiji, greater amounts to IRG, to keep their support. We can't stop Russia and China from buying their oil, but if enough people cooperate, we might be able to bring down the price of oil and give Ahmadi less money to buy loyalty. How about one day a week NOT driving if you usually do? Take public transportation, or walk or ride a bike (good excercise too). If you're a community organizer, organize a Don't Drive Day each month or week. Make it fun, get as many people involved as possible. The side benefits are great, less dependance on oil, reduction of pollution and greenhouse gases, reduction of noise pollution, good exercise and better health and best of all, less money for the tyrants in Tehran.
1. Join impartial groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, sign their petitions and send their letters -- they make it very easy, usually one click will do it. These groups have taken on both the Bush-Cheney administration and the Iran government -- they don't play favorites and so have credibility. They are also worldwide.
2. Continue to write/call/fax companies who do business with Iran as well as Iranian embassies and consulates abroad. Harass them with annoying questions if all else fails. Sign them up for magazine subscriptions/give their names to telemarketers. Whatever works. This guy has set up links and a sample letter to make it easy to protest to Statoil. Let them know we continue to watch.
3. Most importantly... The only truly effective way to get at the Ahmadinejad regime is to hit them where it hurts - in their oil revenues. The only people in Iran getting rich off oil are Ahmadi and his cronies. They distribute it in usually small amounts to Basiji, greater amounts to IRG, to keep their support. We can't stop Russia and China from buying their oil, but if enough people cooperate, we might be able to bring down the price of oil and give Ahmadi less money to buy loyalty. How about one day a week NOT driving if you usually do? Take public transportation, or walk or ride a bike (good excercise too). If you're a community organizer, organize a Don't Drive Day each month or week. Make it fun, get as many people involved as possible. The side benefits are great, less dependance on oil, reduction of pollution and greenhouse gases, reduction of noise pollution, good exercise and better health and best of all, less money for the tyrants in Tehran.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Mousavi Arrested?
Reports that Moussavi was arested appear to be false echoing denials from Moussavi's facebook Page.
(I can't believe I just typed that sentence.)
Wonder what the trumped-up charge would be? Agent for the CIA? MI6? Zionism?
Putting aside the fact that after the last administration the CIA can hardly find its collective ass with both hands and failed to even inform President Bush there was a difference between Sunni and Shi'a until 6 months after the Iraq invasion....
After close study, I believe Moussavi has become an agent of only one major foreign influence, and that from India, Gandhian nonviolence. Anyone who has watched the long struggle of the reformists for the last 30 years knows that the reformist movement came to life at a time when there was virtually no contact with the West. It draws on a deeply rich culture and intellectual tradition and draws its inspiration from Iran's Constitutionalists of 1908 and from the 1979 Khomeini revolution. It is both cynical and insulting of the Ahmadinejad regime to claim the protests are the result of Western governments, as if Iranians are dim children who have to be led by the hand to the well. He himself knows it's not true and I suspect most Iranians do as well.
This revolt is homegrown, from the ground up. No foreign government nor the world itself is leading the demonmstrators. It's the other way around.
The protesters have said and shown for years that they do not want to be anything but Iranians. They want various degrees of democratic reform and they want to be part of the world again, the whole world, to engage and be engaged. If they wanted to be part of another country most of them would have emigrated years ago. This comes up again and again in conversations with Iranians. The spies who have influenced the demonstrations are domestic spies for the regime who infringe on people's liberty and privacy. They do the job of alienating Iranians so much better and more effectively than any foreign government could. Iran is said to be lousy with them. Twitter sure is.
Here's a good story about the dire lack of western intelligence on Iran
(I can't believe I just typed that sentence.)
Wonder what the trumped-up charge would be? Agent for the CIA? MI6? Zionism?
Putting aside the fact that after the last administration the CIA can hardly find its collective ass with both hands and failed to even inform President Bush there was a difference between Sunni and Shi'a until 6 months after the Iraq invasion....
After close study, I believe Moussavi has become an agent of only one major foreign influence, and that from India, Gandhian nonviolence. Anyone who has watched the long struggle of the reformists for the last 30 years knows that the reformist movement came to life at a time when there was virtually no contact with the West. It draws on a deeply rich culture and intellectual tradition and draws its inspiration from Iran's Constitutionalists of 1908 and from the 1979 Khomeini revolution. It is both cynical and insulting of the Ahmadinejad regime to claim the protests are the result of Western governments, as if Iranians are dim children who have to be led by the hand to the well. He himself knows it's not true and I suspect most Iranians do as well.
This revolt is homegrown, from the ground up. No foreign government nor the world itself is leading the demonmstrators. It's the other way around.
The protesters have said and shown for years that they do not want to be anything but Iranians. They want various degrees of democratic reform and they want to be part of the world again, the whole world, to engage and be engaged. If they wanted to be part of another country most of them would have emigrated years ago. This comes up again and again in conversations with Iranians. The spies who have influenced the demonstrations are domestic spies for the regime who infringe on people's liberty and privacy. They do the job of alienating Iranians so much better and more effectively than any foreign government could. Iran is said to be lousy with them. Twitter sure is.
Here's a good story about the dire lack of western intelligence on Iran
Quote of the Day: Them Shoots of Beauty
"Grunt work somewhere between dream and duty
poking through with all them shoots of beauty"
Video from Sunday's protest in Tehran, which the Ahmadinejad-Khameini government manfully "allowed," a cheap, transparent PR move by A-K to pretend to honor their Islamic duty and try to defuse some opposition anger while pretending to tolerate some measured protest (even as they were rounding up more protesters and opposition members in night-time raids last night). The protesters, however, did make the most of it. The Iranian opposition is incredible.
poking through with all them shoots of beauty"
Video from Sunday's protest in Tehran, which the Ahmadinejad-Khameini government manfully "allowed," a cheap, transparent PR move by A-K to pretend to honor their Islamic duty and try to defuse some opposition anger while pretending to tolerate some measured protest (even as they were rounding up more protesters and opposition members in night-time raids last night). The protesters, however, did make the most of it. The Iranian opposition is incredible.
Good morning, and welcome...
.... to the new fascist world, soon to be a nearly uninterrupted arc stretching from Vladivostok to Dakar if Ahmadinejad gets nukes, which he probably will, thanks to North Korea and its sponsors and Pakistan.
Extreme?
I don't believe Ahmadinejad could get away with his brutal repression without the consent of Moscow and Beijing, both countries with a great deal of experience in unlawful detentions, torture, murder of honest journalists, and the cowing and silencing of their captive populations.
You can thank Bush and Cheney in part for, among other things:
Our best hope now? Conserve energy, drive less, walk, ride a bike, take public transportation, and bring the price of a barrel of oil down. Go green, in every current sense of the word, in every way possible. Promote and use alternative energy whenever you can, even if it means solar heating your water in black barrels or garbage bags. If we have the political will to do this, we'll all be happier later.
That Green wave in Tehran? They are marching for all of us.
-----------------------***-----------------------------
A good analysis today of the internal workings and current fractures in the Iranian government here.
Extreme?
I don't believe Ahmadinejad could get away with his brutal repression without the consent of Moscow and Beijing, both countries with a great deal of experience in unlawful detentions, torture, murder of honest journalists, and the cowing and silencing of their captive populations.
You can thank Bush and Cheney in part for, among other things:
Making Iraq the threat, creating a weak Iraq that is no check at all on Ahmadinejad's ambitions and strengthening the Shi'a hardliners in both countries;
Destroying America's credibility on issues like unlawful detention and torture;
Looting the treasury and resources of America and putting it in hock to the Chinese government; and
Not pressing forward with an urgent alternative energy plan that would deprive oil rich faschos of revenue (which is understandable, given that Bush and Cheney are oil-rich faschos themselves).
Our best hope now? Conserve energy, drive less, walk, ride a bike, take public transportation, and bring the price of a barrel of oil down. Go green, in every current sense of the word, in every way possible. Promote and use alternative energy whenever you can, even if it means solar heating your water in black barrels or garbage bags. If we have the political will to do this, we'll all be happier later.
That Green wave in Tehran? They are marching for all of us.
-----------------------***-----------------------------
A good analysis today of the internal workings and current fractures in the Iranian government here.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Alikhani rocks the Majlis (Iranian parliament)
Here is one of the esteemed and wise Mullahs of Iran, one of many who are calling for new free and fair elections in Iran, (Ironic, ain't it, that our best hope in this world today might be a handful of Ayatollahs):
The Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani of Iraq, who snubbed Ahmadinejad big time last year, is reported to be lined up against the regime as well. Ayatollah al-Sistani has tremendous moral authority in the Shi'a community worldwide, which is reported to be deeply fractured by the violent crackdown on protestors.
The Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani of Iraq, who snubbed Ahmadinejad big time last year, is reported to be lined up against the regime as well. Ayatollah al-Sistani has tremendous moral authority in the Shi'a community worldwide, which is reported to be deeply fractured by the violent crackdown on protestors.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Weapon X - Time for a Change
Of all the music videos done to mark the Iranian protests, this was my favorite:
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Iran
Obama may have to walk a fine line in dealing with Iran, but individual Americans and others, and most foreign governments, do not. (In the words of one pundit, pro-American is no longer an insult in the world, thanks to the Obama election, and this is credibility we can use here.)
International presssure can make a difference, as noted by peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi, who was herself saved by international pressure after being arrested, when commenting on the Roxana Saberi case:
More here
International presssure can make a difference, as noted by peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi, who was herself saved by international pressure after being arrested, when commenting on the Roxana Saberi case:
MULLINS: But can you explain how the government thinks in cases like this because one day Roxana gets an eight-year sentence in prison then not long after that she is released. Can you tell us what the thinking might have been there?
EBADI: After Roxana received the eight-year sentence, the international world showed a great reaction. As you know, the journalists in our borders went on a hunger strike for three days and also there was other international talk about it. So that's why Roxana was released.
MULLINS: Very often, though, we have the impression that Tehran is impervious to international pressure. How much of a difference do you think pressure by individual groups, journalist groups, even Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, how much of that had a bearing on what Tehran decided in Roxana's case??
EBADI: I can promise you that if not all the international noise were made, that Roxana would still be in prison today.
MULLINS: What is it that Tehran was afraid of then? Is it just developing an increasingly poor reputation internationally, this on top of the controversy about its nuclear program? I mean, what is it that Iran was afraid of in terms of international pressure because it certainly bucks it in other instances??
EBADI: Iran is not an isolated island in the world. Iran pays attention to the public opinions or the international opinion, and therefore when something like this happens, it wants to attract the public opinion to an extent. And let's not forget that in December of this year '09, there will be a report on human rights in Iran, and I think that Iran does not want to be convicted for the fourth time regarding violations of human rights.
More here
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