Why are the protests of IRAN anything different from what has happened here?
can we say: Florida, 2000 or Ohio in 2004?
The American obsession with telling people what to do with their country has reached a fever pitch. With the banner of nobless oblige democracy Obama critics are asking for tough talk. The kind of talk that people do when they bully another people, or want to drive a wedge, divide and conquer.
The USA loves to spread its democracy seed. The main thing bothering me here is this: when we as US citizens show a similar zeal, and passion, responding to a “stolen election” or lost votes, then we are cast as liberal dissidents that are causing more trouble than we are worth.
If you have ever been to a rally in any major city in the country then you know that people are penned in like cattle and expected to stay within legally acceptable limits. Those same right wingers would NEVER get out and protest anything the government has done, unless it was a government run by the most powerful black man on the planet – Barack Obama.
The double standard is glaringly obvious. When we protest we are stuck behind gates and called anti-American. It seems legitimate protest is only for the “other” even here.
I am skeptical that the election results in Iran (eeRaaaan) were any less tainted than here in 2000 and 2004, or even 2008, who knows – the “establishment” is always the clear winner in any election. The banks failed here and were emboldened by Obama, the Federal Reserve gouges people and is given more power. In Iran, the clerics clamp down on the under 30 crowd, forgetting that they were once that crowd and that a true revolution does understand when it is their time to step aside and let another group come to power. Their establishment is still going to be feared by Israel, who could care less who is in power, Israel feels threatened by their own shadow and will continue their drumbeat for war against any and all people who criticize them even if they do have blood on their hands.
This global game of he said, she said. The nobles oblige of democracy… democracy is not the end, it is a process, the end is a just world that we are nowhere near. Iran and the USA are more similar than you think. Amazingly, we are at a crossroads where the past is rearing its ugly head. Now the crowds are losing steam and being described as leaderless, people in the USA are openly calling for the overthrow of the theocracy – but no matter how egregious the USA is the overthrow of our head of state is never anyone elses purview. It does not concern them. That is a USA matter – the same applies to IRAN.
Message to all the right wing pundits. President Obama is staying the right course. American involvement in this fight makes this fight more muddled than it already is. We messed with them in 1953 and that led to the 1979 overthrow. Leave IRAN alone and let them self determine what success and failure and democracy look like – for themselves.
about the photo: supposedly the kid wanted to see if Pres. Obama's hair felt like his
Iran and US are not similiar. If you posted this same post in Iran (eeRaaaan) you be arrested and jailed for 20 years or just shot like the young woman Neda was. The US is a democracy and Iran is not. We allow freedom of press, freedom to petition, freedom to access the internet and most of all the freedom to tell the truth to the world without interruption by the government. You are obviously looking at the revolution in Iran with very foggy glasses. The election in Iran was a sham you know it, we the people of the US know it, and all the world knows it.
The Iranians are telling the world that they are tired of being isolated,poor, and under a authoritarian regime. Let the revolution begin and let it end with democracy for the Iranian people.
Posted by: Freedom For Iran | June 22, 2009 at 01:01 PM
I've been thinking along very similar lines. Whatever happened to sovereignty?
Can you go on CNN and tell them off please?
Hena
Posted by: Hena | June 22, 2009 at 01:44 PM
Good article. I concur.
Posted by: Zingy | June 22, 2009 at 03:06 PM
Freedom for Iran. Study your American history. the USA has consistently killed people that have not believed in the line of thinking. American Media is controlled, no, they will not come for me right now, but they came for people at other times in our history, and certainly it took hundreds of years to uproot slavery from our M.O. Democracy is not the end, it is a means, don't be fooled to thinking it is the antidote to problems, it will only usher in new ones.
Posted by: BB | June 22, 2009 at 03:18 PM
a great video
June 22 - The Iranian people rise up to protest a stolen election. Why didn't the same thing happen in the U.S. in 2000?
http://www.collateralnews.tv/index.php/most-popular/963-cant-happen-here/?utm_source=ni-enews-na-2009-06-23utm_medium=email-htmlutm_content=bodyutm_campaign=new-internationalist-enews-monthly
Posted by: tonita | June 23, 2009 at 10:59 PM