Iran security forces retreat at cemetery.
Vote for Iran's live-blogging of big demonstrations and clashes in Tehran today.
Ahmadinejad meanwhile has fled once again to Mashhad.
Reformists call for fall of the "coup government."
Enduring America's updates.
The Tehran Bureau has put together profiles of some of the 78 people known to have been killed by the regime. There will undoubtedly be more families coming forward with tales of their dead children in coming days. The stories, photos and medical testimony about unspeakable torture and rape are almost unbearable to hear about, yet iranians live with this every day. We cannot do enough for them, especially after all the ways the West and Russia abused Iran the last hundred years. We owe them all our love, support and cooperation.
Showing posts with label Hour of the Wolf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hour of the Wolf. Show all posts
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Another Martyr, and another, and another...
Almost every day now news gets out about another person killed by the regime in the protests or in prison. Usually, the families don't know the fate of their loved one until they get a terse call from a ministry to come pick up the body. Then, they are not allowed to put mourning banners on their homes or in any way publicly mourn, and cannot speak to anyone about it.
It isn't enough that the regime is cruel in the grandly evil ways, forcing its people to live in sadness and fear, but they are cruel in such petty ways too. Though there is no love lost between the Sunni Taliban and the hardline Shi'a regime in Iran, they have much in common.
Enough martyrs. The world must think of new ways to peacefully fight the regime and obtain the release of all detained protesters, activists, journalists and other political prisoners. Just as the reformists in Iran grow more creative, so must we -- which is not to say I have an idea how to do this, not right this minute, although I still think a targeted and graduated oil boycott is a good idea.
In one of the smaller, and most powerful protests of July 25th, the little town of Revine Lago Italy held a lantern ceremony to honor the martyrs, and support Iran:
It isn't enough that the regime is cruel in the grandly evil ways, forcing its people to live in sadness and fear, but they are cruel in such petty ways too. Though there is no love lost between the Sunni Taliban and the hardline Shi'a regime in Iran, they have much in common.
Enough martyrs. The world must think of new ways to peacefully fight the regime and obtain the release of all detained protesters, activists, journalists and other political prisoners. Just as the reformists in Iran grow more creative, so must we -- which is not to say I have an idea how to do this, not right this minute, although I still think a targeted and graduated oil boycott is a good idea.
In one of the smaller, and most powerful protests of July 25th, the little town of Revine Lago Italy held a lantern ceremony to honor the martyrs, and support Iran:
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
AN-Mashayi-Khameini
Have been trying to get handle on the whole fracas about Ahamdinejad's first VP pick, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaie. Mashaie (aka Mashayi) isn't considered hard-line enough and he said some not completely hateful things about Israelis so the Khamenei gang and their frowning allies want him fired.
Ahmadinejad wants to anger hardliners NOW? Is it to distract people from what's going on in the streets and prisons? Is it a genuine power struggle between AN and Khamenei? Is it all just sheer stupidity? Insights?
It's just a matter of time before this regime falls. The question of course is how many more innocents will be tortured and murdered before this tinpot dictatorship flees the capital one step ahead of the angry mob. Iran deserves so so so much better than these Keystone clerics and their thuggish enforcers. It's just a crime that this great culture has been held hostage by these mentally deficient bullies for so long.
The same story has a good quote from Mousavi about the "elite's" dissatisfaction with the regime, and this might answer the question I had earlier about the Republican Guard, because quite a few of the IRG are technocrats, managers, and other members of the "elites," (which apparently has a less incendiary meaning in Iran than in America). Surely the Guard's interests would be better served by a strong republic with good trade and foreign relations, and one that promotes its people's talents instead of suppressing them and killing them.
Elsewhere on Ayatollah Watch... more influential Ayats join the reformists.
Ahmadinejad wants to anger hardliners NOW? Is it to distract people from what's going on in the streets and prisons? Is it a genuine power struggle between AN and Khamenei? Is it all just sheer stupidity? Insights?
It's just a matter of time before this regime falls. The question of course is how many more innocents will be tortured and murdered before this tinpot dictatorship flees the capital one step ahead of the angry mob. Iran deserves so so so much better than these Keystone clerics and their thuggish enforcers. It's just a crime that this great culture has been held hostage by these mentally deficient bullies for so long.
The same story has a good quote from Mousavi about the "elite's" dissatisfaction with the regime, and this might answer the question I had earlier about the Republican Guard, because quite a few of the IRG are technocrats, managers, and other members of the "elites," (which apparently has a less incendiary meaning in Iran than in America). Surely the Guard's interests would be better served by a strong republic with good trade and foreign relations, and one that promotes its people's talents instead of suppressing them and killing them.
Elsewhere on Ayatollah Watch... more influential Ayats join the reformists.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
The Strange Battlefields of Twitter: Part 2, The Guard
I’ll get back to my hacker story, which is still developing btw, later, when I have put more of the pieces together. This kinda ties into that.
Cyberwar: Iran Government versus Worldwide Hacktivists - it is an incredible story how these guys and girls have worked to keep Iranians anonymous and connected to the web. These people never sleep. @austinheap is the lynchpin of this effort. Follow him on twitter for the whole story.
Yet another thing I love about Twitter is the connection and access to people you’d likely never meet otherwise. Where else could one come in from the garden with an arm full of rhubarb in Ohio or Saskatchewan or Oslo and while it is rinsing, sit down at Twitter and pick up a conversation with a member of the Republican Guard?
The Guard is key at the moment. There are numerous rumors of dissension in the Guard over the election and Khamenei‘s interfering son Mojtaba, and stories (unconfirmed) of arrests of officers allegedly plotting to join reformists.
The Basij of course works for the Guard, officially anyway/ Basij agents online and their admiring wannabees were just as you’d imagine the Basij in the streets to be to be, crude parrots for the party line and the regime’s twisted brand of Islam and patriotism. They were often cruel and preferred clubbing ppl over the head with insults to talking. And they were also young men, time bombs of nsecurity, bravado, unarticulated anger and repressed sexual energy. Compressed might be a better word. It was all channeled, with fearsome strength, into protecting Iran and the revolution from foreign agents and esp. America, just as their forefathers had saved Iran from Saddam and Reagan in the 1980s.
Even among this band of warped Manboys, though, there were people willing to drop the propaganda and engage in a mostly sane discussion, but only briefly, just until they remembered their job was to blast Twitter with gunfire and track down any Iranians who were online. The Basij guys were often held back by poor English, but some spoke it pretty well, and not all were stupid -- the Basij get many of the best places in Iran‘s universities. It was interesting to see too how many Westernisms crept into the Basij tweets, the “Hey Man,” “Dude,” the Hip Hop references, etc. This was done self-consciously, which differentiated the Basij from the Basij fans in the west. These imitators and trolls had done some research and could often ape the Basij for a while, but most outed themselves pretty quickly.
A favorite subject of the Basij was the Neda conspiracy, that Neda was killed by either Mossad or the BBC and the proof of this was that she was shot with a “foreign bullet,” (claims the regime). It was all just a plot to make the Basij look bad.
The Twitarmy (that is what it is called, really), fired back, “If Isr. or BBC wanted 2 kill Neda and frame Basij, wldnt they use Iranian bullet?”
The Republican Guard fellows on Twitter were a cut above, way above. The ones tweeting in English wrote in excellent but formal English switching back and forth between it and Farsi with ease. They liked to quote Persian and western literature and got a bit emotional when discussing Iranian history, the Khomeini revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, and Ahmadinejad. They seemed happy to argue reasonably about various issues, and sometimes raised good points about Gaza or the 2000 US election. Often, they cited literacy and education stats to show how much better Iranian women were doing when compared to most of the world (and when not being clubbed, tortured and killed by Basij), and to show that they weren’t completely against women’s rights. Still, they doggedly stuck by Ahmadinejad and Khamenei.
What gave them pause were appeals to their sense of patriotism and their belief they are working in a noble tradition, because they admire Cyrus the Great, the Constitutionalists, and Prime Minister Mossadegh -- all reformers in their day.
But what stopped them cold was the arrow to the heart. “Mr.R they R arresting torturing killing innocents best and brightest of Iran & World. U know its true. Great loss 4 all.”
I am not an expert on Iran, but someone who got interested for personal reasons 30-some years ago and has followed it, and particularly the reform movement, since. I know and have known a lot of Iranians inside and out, but I am an outsider with all that entails. So please correct me if I'm wrong.
And... this is not a scientific sampling of members of the Republican Guard, obviously (nor the Basij), and what we see in the West, especially online and in English, is usually just the tip of the iceberg. But there were a surprising number of sane Guard supporters on Twitter, and this is backed up by a lot of anecdotal evidence from Iranians, Greens, in the vein of, “My late uncle was in the Guard and he was a wonderful man.” It is just enough to give me hope that the Guard will ultimately turn away from the regime and do what’s best for Iran.
That’s my hippie side talking. My cynical, punk rock side says the only thing that will win the Guard is if their vast industrial empire and Swiss Bank Accounts are more secure under a new government than under the old, crumbling one, that they’ll fight to the last man against the reformists if their iron-clad grip on the economy is threatened.
Maybe it will take both approaches, some compromise on the economy as well as an appeal to the hearts and minds of the Guard to win them to the Greens. If it's true certain popular officers have been arrested, that means there will already be disgruntled rank and file ready to honor the arrested officers.
Cyberwar: Iran Government versus Worldwide Hacktivists - it is an incredible story how these guys and girls have worked to keep Iranians anonymous and connected to the web. These people never sleep. @austinheap is the lynchpin of this effort. Follow him on twitter for the whole story.
Yet another thing I love about Twitter is the connection and access to people you’d likely never meet otherwise. Where else could one come in from the garden with an arm full of rhubarb in Ohio or Saskatchewan or Oslo and while it is rinsing, sit down at Twitter and pick up a conversation with a member of the Republican Guard?
The Guard is key at the moment. There are numerous rumors of dissension in the Guard over the election and Khamenei‘s interfering son Mojtaba, and stories (unconfirmed) of arrests of officers allegedly plotting to join reformists.
The Basij of course works for the Guard, officially anyway/ Basij agents online and their admiring wannabees were just as you’d imagine the Basij in the streets to be to be, crude parrots for the party line and the regime’s twisted brand of Islam and patriotism. They were often cruel and preferred clubbing ppl over the head with insults to talking. And they were also young men, time bombs of nsecurity, bravado, unarticulated anger and repressed sexual energy. Compressed might be a better word. It was all channeled, with fearsome strength, into protecting Iran and the revolution from foreign agents and esp. America, just as their forefathers had saved Iran from Saddam and Reagan in the 1980s.
Even among this band of warped Manboys, though, there were people willing to drop the propaganda and engage in a mostly sane discussion, but only briefly, just until they remembered their job was to blast Twitter with gunfire and track down any Iranians who were online. The Basij guys were often held back by poor English, but some spoke it pretty well, and not all were stupid -- the Basij get many of the best places in Iran‘s universities. It was interesting to see too how many Westernisms crept into the Basij tweets, the “Hey Man,” “Dude,” the Hip Hop references, etc. This was done self-consciously, which differentiated the Basij from the Basij fans in the west. These imitators and trolls had done some research and could often ape the Basij for a while, but most outed themselves pretty quickly.
A favorite subject of the Basij was the Neda conspiracy, that Neda was killed by either Mossad or the BBC and the proof of this was that she was shot with a “foreign bullet,” (claims the regime). It was all just a plot to make the Basij look bad.
The Twitarmy (that is what it is called, really), fired back, “If Isr. or BBC wanted 2 kill Neda and frame Basij, wldnt they use Iranian bullet?”
The Republican Guard fellows on Twitter were a cut above, way above. The ones tweeting in English wrote in excellent but formal English switching back and forth between it and Farsi with ease. They liked to quote Persian and western literature and got a bit emotional when discussing Iranian history, the Khomeini revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, and Ahmadinejad. They seemed happy to argue reasonably about various issues, and sometimes raised good points about Gaza or the 2000 US election. Often, they cited literacy and education stats to show how much better Iranian women were doing when compared to most of the world (and when not being clubbed, tortured and killed by Basij), and to show that they weren’t completely against women’s rights. Still, they doggedly stuck by Ahmadinejad and Khamenei.
What gave them pause were appeals to their sense of patriotism and their belief they are working in a noble tradition, because they admire Cyrus the Great, the Constitutionalists, and Prime Minister Mossadegh -- all reformers in their day.
But what stopped them cold was the arrow to the heart. “Mr.R they R arresting torturing killing innocents best and brightest of Iran & World. U know its true. Great loss 4 all.”
I am not an expert on Iran, but someone who got interested for personal reasons 30-some years ago and has followed it, and particularly the reform movement, since. I know and have known a lot of Iranians inside and out, but I am an outsider with all that entails. So please correct me if I'm wrong.
And... this is not a scientific sampling of members of the Republican Guard, obviously (nor the Basij), and what we see in the West, especially online and in English, is usually just the tip of the iceberg. But there were a surprising number of sane Guard supporters on Twitter, and this is backed up by a lot of anecdotal evidence from Iranians, Greens, in the vein of, “My late uncle was in the Guard and he was a wonderful man.” It is just enough to give me hope that the Guard will ultimately turn away from the regime and do what’s best for Iran.
That’s my hippie side talking. My cynical, punk rock side says the only thing that will win the Guard is if their vast industrial empire and Swiss Bank Accounts are more secure under a new government than under the old, crumbling one, that they’ll fight to the last man against the reformists if their iron-clad grip on the economy is threatened.
Maybe it will take both approaches, some compromise on the economy as well as an appeal to the hearts and minds of the Guard to win them to the Greens. If it's true certain popular officers have been arrested, that means there will already be disgruntled rank and file ready to honor the arrested officers.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Yes We Can
Video made by an unnamed Iranian artist (AFAIK now).
The Opposition, today. Khamenei issues another dark warning, Khatami asks for a referendum, and Mousavi blasts the regime for insulting Iran and again calls for the immediate release of all political prisoners.
What they are up against.
Iran's American Martyr/Ahmadinejad Caught Out in Mashhad/Talking to Wiretappers
Nebraska Howard and the Constitutionalists.
The turnout must have been low for Ahmadinejad in Mashhad Friday. There have been reports that he was jeered by people there, and the NYTimes and others report he was snubbed by the clerical leadership of the city. That may be why Iran's state-controlled media is running this doctored photo from four years ago as if it happened on Friday.
UPDATE: Video of the real turnout for AN (and some of them are wearing green):
"What to say to Brothers who are Listening in to Your Phone Calls." This comes from OnlyMehdi. His father Issa Saharkhiz, a journalist and reformer, among other things, was arrested in Tehran July 3rd and is still being detained along with dozens of other reporters, photographers, editors and publishers.
The opposition was very active over the weekend, according to the latest Green Brief. Green Brief is compiled from Farsi tweets that have been confirmed and translated by NiteOwl and others. It breaks a lot of news before the MSM, and everything I've read here has checked out so far.
Finally, Roger Cohen has been praised by the free Iranian media for his fair and heartfelt reporting on Iran. He doesn't just know a great deal about Iran, he also feels its heart.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Rafsanjani's Sermon/Siemens in Trouble?/How Geeks and Non-Geeks Can Help
Ayatollah Rafsanjani does one for the people here, here and here. Big protests. Protesters condemn China, Russia for their support of regime and meddling in Iranian affairs.
Ahnmadinejad faces unprecedented criticism from hard-liners. He is even losing hard-liner support.
Siemens work with Iran's regime could cost it a Los Angeles Transit contract (YES!) [via Nico Pitney in HuffPost]
Also via Pitney, How Geeks and Non-Geeks Can Help iranians stay Online Anonymously.
More Friday Video here.
Ahnmadinejad faces unprecedented criticism from hard-liners. He is even losing hard-liner support.
Siemens work with Iran's regime could cost it a Los Angeles Transit contract (YES!) [via Nico Pitney in HuffPost]
Also via Pitney, How Geeks and Non-Geeks Can Help iranians stay Online Anonymously.
More Friday Video here.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Powerful forces converge in Iran this weekend after two remarkable acts of conscience:
1. The head of Iran's Nuclear Program resigns, not just from the Atomic agency, but also from the vice-presidency of Iran. He has ties to Khatami and Mousavi, and is believed to have strong reformist sympathies.
2. The head of Iran's national orchestra has resigned too and reportedly made it clear he was doing it to protest the crackdown on reformists, which continues, with more arrests every day.
3. Everyone now waits for Friday, when wild card Rafsanjani, the billionaire Ayatollah and pistachio king, delivers the Friday prayers. He is a wily old guy with a wet finger in the wind at all times, and has been sending mixed messages for the past few weeks. Just yesterday he said that he and Ayatollah Khamenei are like longtime lovers who occasionally have a spat(?!). But his family are strong reformists, his political party has condemned the elections, and he is the head of the Assembly of Experts, weakened a lot since the crackdown, but not out of the game. He is reported to be a big crook, which makes me think of the French elections in 2002, which resulted in a runoff between President Jacques Chirac, a center-of-right crook, and Jean-Marie Le Pen, an ultra-right, racist, xenophobe. Protest signs read, "Votez L'escroc, pas fasho," vote for the Crook not the Fascho. Good advice always. France held its nose and gave Chirac a huge victory, a landslide, but without a mandate.
Rafsanjani has more checks on his power now than when he was President. He has to be more responsive to the people, according to this Iranian, who has the most interesting take on Raffi.
4. And Mousavi has announced he will be attending the Friday prayers.
"Two strong factors are still working in his favour: a divided clerical establishment and the blogosphere, where Iranians are among the world’s liveliest performers." - The Economist
5. Karoubi says he'll be there too.
6. Ahmadinejad will not be in town as he has gone to Mashad to ride this out.
7. The regime thugs will make a good showing at the prayers. But they might want to be careful. The regime has lost a lot of support in places worldwide where Ahmadinejad was once admired for standing up to the West and to Israel, and revolt is brewing in three ethnic areas of the country.
8. Most importantly, Friday's gathering should feature a lot of mullahs holding Korans and heartbroken mothers holding photographs of their martyred children. Try as the regime might to confiscate every cellphone in Iran, block every port and punish in unspeakable ways those who record events, people will videotape and get it out to the world somehow.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Hip Hop: Lingua Franca of the World
If there is one universal language in today's world, it's hip-hop, which has been embraced by musicians and fans in every country, and married to the indigenous music. This one, a protest from Iran (don't have the English translation alas):
I'll get back to the saga of the Hacker soon-ish. Have a crapload of work to do.
I'll get back to the saga of the Hacker soon-ish. Have a crapload of work to do.
The Eyewitness Project
The Eyewitness Project aims to collect all photos, videos and other documents related to the Iranian elections for posterity. Help them out if you can here.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
The Strange Battlefields of Twitter - Part 1
First off, I do love Twitter. As a supplement to the mainstream media, it's vital. But, if anything the last few weeks, it has shown it can't replace it. Citizen journalism in general made its bones recently, but it also became clear how important it is to have trained journalists vetting the material, checking the background, the sources, the assertions. Not that all members of the MSM do this well, but the best are very, very good at clearing the smoke away and getting at some sort of truth.
Still, Twitter proved to be a great listening post on the world -- not just twitter but all the "social media," bringing together a "Twitarmy" worldwide to help and support the Iranian protesters. The Iranians kept the world informed of their view of events, risking everything to bring out videos and photos. The foreigners found proxies to try to protect Tweeters in Iran, organized protests for them, Tweeted and RT'd links to photos, videos, MSM news stories. It was exuberant and invigorating watching this worldwide wave of revolution take on tyrants.
But things got dark very quickly.
People were beat and killed in the streets, hauled off to prison with no word to their families, and arrested in their homes, often after being tracked down online through the social media.
The regime was a little late to the online game but entered it with ferocity, and suddenly Twitter was crawling with spies, intelligence, counterintelligence, pro-regime trolls, ideological warriors, spammers, porn princesses, hackers and other troublemakers. What had been a cyberwar of ideas, information and support turned into a real battlefield in the larger Cyberwar, starring the same players and hangers-on as real world conflicts, and with real victims.
The intelligence people and their supporters blasted forth with disinformation and outright propaganda. Seconds after the Tehran government would announce something, the army of regime tweeters would be hard at work spreading the party line to the world, word for word in many cases, pausing at their long row of databanks at the Ministry of Interior only for Coca Colas and prayers. By now, the Iranian protesters were effectively silenced by the regime, many disappeared, many hiding, internet and phone blocked for the rest. Very little could be confirmed, and this made it easier for the regime to engage in a sickening crackdown away from the world's eyes, and for its counterintelligence to spread their toxins around the internet and create a fog to help hide it.
Very quickly, the obvious agents and spammers were marked as [#trollfail] and [#twitspam, #spam123] and blocked, but not before Green supporters outside Iran, fresh from watching videos of a bloody crackdown, had blasted back, so a lot of people were beating each other over the head with clubs online by trading vicious insults.
The second level was smarter. They set up accounts with green icons and information that made them sound like protesters or their supporters, and their initial tweets were anti-regime and pro-opposition. They gained followers and followed others and once they had their trust, they began to use them to retweet stories that questioned protesters and gave credit to the regime and/or which farmed IP addresses or spread viruses. It took a while longer to weed these people out and by then, a lot of damage had already been done.
At the top of this group they were much, much smarter and much, much scarier. This elite cybercorps emerged a little later, having lurked and studied the #iranelection thread first. That's when some of us met The Hacker and learned way too much about Cyberwar and Disinformation.
To be continued.
Still, Twitter proved to be a great listening post on the world -- not just twitter but all the "social media," bringing together a "Twitarmy" worldwide to help and support the Iranian protesters. The Iranians kept the world informed of their view of events, risking everything to bring out videos and photos. The foreigners found proxies to try to protect Tweeters in Iran, organized protests for them, Tweeted and RT'd links to photos, videos, MSM news stories. It was exuberant and invigorating watching this worldwide wave of revolution take on tyrants.
But things got dark very quickly.
People were beat and killed in the streets, hauled off to prison with no word to their families, and arrested in their homes, often after being tracked down online through the social media.
The regime was a little late to the online game but entered it with ferocity, and suddenly Twitter was crawling with spies, intelligence, counterintelligence, pro-regime trolls, ideological warriors, spammers, porn princesses, hackers and other troublemakers. What had been a cyberwar of ideas, information and support turned into a real battlefield in the larger Cyberwar, starring the same players and hangers-on as real world conflicts, and with real victims.
The intelligence people and their supporters blasted forth with disinformation and outright propaganda. Seconds after the Tehran government would announce something, the army of regime tweeters would be hard at work spreading the party line to the world, word for word in many cases, pausing at their long row of databanks at the Ministry of Interior only for Coca Colas and prayers. By now, the Iranian protesters were effectively silenced by the regime, many disappeared, many hiding, internet and phone blocked for the rest. Very little could be confirmed, and this made it easier for the regime to engage in a sickening crackdown away from the world's eyes, and for its counterintelligence to spread their toxins around the internet and create a fog to help hide it.
Very quickly, the obvious agents and spammers were marked as [#trollfail] and [#twitspam, #spam123] and blocked, but not before Green supporters outside Iran, fresh from watching videos of a bloody crackdown, had blasted back, so a lot of people were beating each other over the head with clubs online by trading vicious insults.
The second level was smarter. They set up accounts with green icons and information that made them sound like protesters or their supporters, and their initial tweets were anti-regime and pro-opposition. They gained followers and followed others and once they had their trust, they began to use them to retweet stories that questioned protesters and gave credit to the regime and/or which farmed IP addresses or spread viruses. It took a while longer to weed these people out and by then, a lot of damage had already been done.
At the top of this group they were much, much smarter and much, much scarier. This elite cybercorps emerged a little later, having lurked and studied the #iranelection thread first. That's when some of us met The Hacker and learned way too much about Cyberwar and Disinformation.
To be continued.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
They Keep Going
Protests all over Iran yesterday, and reports that they continue today, in spite of the vicious crackdown by regime forces.
Meanwhile, The US and South Korea await more cyber-attacks.
Last week on twitter, in the #iranelection feed, someone (or ones) warned/bragged about just such an attack happening, and more. This was reported to authorities. I read it, and it sounded like crazy talk until my computer was overtaken and operated by remote control on Sunday night by a mystery person, who was also posting disinformation about Iran, for whatever that's worth.
This weekend, leave the car at home, wear Green to support the Iranian protesters, and post your pic in the Flickr group. This is the first of four Don't Drive Days this summer. Read the FAQ for more information.
Meanwhile, The US and South Korea await more cyber-attacks.
Last week on twitter, in the #iranelection feed, someone (or ones) warned/bragged about just such an attack happening, and more. This was reported to authorities. I read it, and it sounded like crazy talk until my computer was overtaken and operated by remote control on Sunday night by a mystery person, who was also posting disinformation about Iran, for whatever that's worth.
This weekend, leave the car at home, wear Green to support the Iranian protesters, and post your pic in the Flickr group. This is the first of four Don't Drive Days this summer. Read the FAQ for more information.
Monday, July 6, 2009
It is Now Urgent
The latest from the New York Times here. The regime has made it pretty clear, with us or against us:
The Green Brief has turned out to be one of the most reliable sources of breaking news, and the news that "doesn't fit" in the MSM as well. Read the latest here.
It's difficult to confirm anything right now and the brewing cyberwar makes almost all sources suspect. But given what we know of regime leaders' past actions, we can be sure the people still in custody and those who contiue to defy the regime and protest are in great danger.
One thing is certain. It is now urgent that people everywhere start conserving oil as much as possible because this is the only thing the regime understands, the only thing we can do as citizens to have a strong and positive effect on the outcome. Protests and petitions can help a few people and they give a lot of support to the Iranian protesters. Cutting oil usage quickly and significantly is the only way for people of the world to hit the regime where it will hurt them, barring a military strike, which would be a very bad idea.
It's not about one Don't Drive Day but as many as you can manage, and about convincing as many people as possible to do it too.
“Today, no one is impartial,” said Gen. Yadollah Javani, political director of the Revolutionary Guards, in comments made on Sunday as reported by IRNA. “There are two currents; those who defend and support the revolution and the establishment, and those who are trying to topple it.”
The Green Brief has turned out to be one of the most reliable sources of breaking news, and the news that "doesn't fit" in the MSM as well. Read the latest here.
It's difficult to confirm anything right now and the brewing cyberwar makes almost all sources suspect. But given what we know of regime leaders' past actions, we can be sure the people still in custody and those who contiue to defy the regime and protest are in great danger.
One thing is certain. It is now urgent that people everywhere start conserving oil as much as possible because this is the only thing the regime understands, the only thing we can do as citizens to have a strong and positive effect on the outcome. Protests and petitions can help a few people and they give a lot of support to the Iranian protesters. Cutting oil usage quickly and significantly is the only way for people of the world to hit the regime where it will hurt them, barring a military strike, which would be a very bad idea.
It's not about one Don't Drive Day but as many as you can manage, and about convincing as many people as possible to do it too.
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