Posted on 06/15/2009 6:48:30 PM PDT by nuconvert
It was a crudely stage-managed insult to everyone involved.
By Christopher Hitchens
For a flavor of the political atmosphere in Tehran, Iran, last week, I quote from a young Iranian comrade who furnishes me with regular updates:
I went to the last major Ahmadinejad rally and got the whiff of what I imagine fascism to have been all about. Lots of splotchy boys who can't get a date are given guns and told they're special.
It's hard to better this, either as an evocation of the rancid sexual repression that lies at the nasty core of the "Islamic republic" or as a description of the reserve strength that the Iranian para-state, or state within a state, can bring to bear if it ever feels itself even slightly challenged. There is a theoretical reason why the events of the last month in Iran (I am sorry, but I resolutely decline to refer to them as elections) were a crudely stage-managed insult to those who took part in them and those who observed them. And then there is a practical reason. The theoretical reason, though less immediately dramatic and exciting, is the much more interesting and important one.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
I’m not convinced that you can call what happened in the US in November an election either. Comparable event, and an equally complacent media.
We are being misled into giving a crap, this is leftists vs religious fanatics fighting over two fake candidates in a fake election.
Haven't heard much of that one from the folks who proclaimed the Iraqis aren't ready for democracy. It's almost as if...as if throwing out a murdering dictator and making it stick lit a beacon or something, isn't it?
It's a pity 0bama only wants to deal with the goose-steppers. It is change, but it isn't hope.
I think the tendency is to think of Iran as a rather evil place. And I’m certain things can be pointed to, to buttress that opinion. I still look back at the Shah, and what the nation was like under him. It was a different nation back then. It wasn’t fully westernized, but it wasn’t your run of the mill hate America in total either.
Iran could be important to us again as an ally IMO.
Guys like Hitchens believe democracy to be the panacea that will save the world from itself - and when it fails to produce good results such are left clinging to their empty ideology for comfort. Ahmanutjob isn't a dictator, he wouldn't have the power to fake an election if he wanted to; nor do real dictators win by 30 points, they win unanimously, just like Castro and Kim.
Democracy is still the worst form of government except for every other.
No, there is a better. See: US Constitution.
Bellevue WA protest/rally yesterday occupied two corners. Pictured is the agreed Mouzavi corner (though some other folks were there for a short time before crossing the street to where we were). Notice the old (Sun&Lion) and new ("Allah"?) flags.
Not according to my Iranian friends. Your assessment is incomplete. A lot more wish both those groups would, well... I'm not going to quote them.
Fortunately that's still working out really well these days. / s
Thanks for the post. It looks like you had a good crowd. Did you get any media coverage?
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