The Eve of Destiny

Posted by Andrew Sullivan:

“I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed. I’m listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs. I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow! There are a few great movie scenes that I also have to see. I should drop by the library, too. It’s worth to read the poems of Forough and Shamloo again. All family pictures have to be reviewed, too. I have to call my friends as well to say goodbye. All I have are two bookshelves which I told my family who should receive them. I’m two units away from getting my bachelors degree but who cares about that. My mind is very chaotic. I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so they know we were not just emotional and under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism. This note is dedicated to tomorrow’s children…” - an Iranian blogger, with more courage than most of us will ever know.

And this, from another anonymous Iranian:

[T]he green light has now been given to the basij to kick ass and take names. "The way of the law is open," [Khamenei] says. "If people continue to take the other way, I will come back and speak more directly." Qanun, qanun, qanun. Law, law, law. His emphasis on the need for law and order. By the end, uncharacteristically, the leader, gets hot. Interjections from the crowd interrupt him and he tells them to stop and listen. He talks about the U.S. and the West and how the U.S. wanted to launch a spurious velvet revolution in Georgia. He says that these "aqmaqha" -- idiots -- think that they can do the same in Iran.

And then he ends by weeping. He tells Iranians that he loves us more than we can know. Ten years ago, Khamenei wept publicly when students were protesting in the streets. That's when regime loyalists began to crack down. "Our vote is written in blood, and we gave it to the leader," the mosque crowd yells back.

Things do not look good. It is worse than it ever was.

And this anonymous woman in Tehran:

Tomorrow is the Saturday of destiny....Tonight the Allaho Akbar is louder than other nights....Where is this place? A country were people have only God left to reach out to... This is a country where every night people's scream of Allah O Akbar is louder than the night before... Every day I wait till night time comes so I can hear this sound and see if it is louder than the night before or not ... My body is shaking... I wonder if God is shaking himself?

God help them.

Tweet Populi

(click here to view)

Clay Bennett Chattanooga Times Free Press Jun 19, 2009 EditorialCartoonists.com

It's important to understand that even though the millions protesting the fraudulent Iranian election wear Western clothes (most of them, not all) and watch satellite TV and have armloads of technology, they aren't Americans, and they don't want to be just like us in every way. Their most-used slogans and chants are religious ones; their religion imbues their thinking and their daily life in a way that would seem way overblown to most of us, living in a Western society that started becoming secularized more than 300 years ago.

Still, what they are protesting is a patently outrageous fraud, and a government that claims to be the expression of God's will on earth, but has betrayed the clear will of the voters. They want democracy, freedom, and human rights, all within the context of their religious views, but still, it's a start, and it's a fascinating standoff between the rulers and the ruled, a historic moment for democracy - government of, for, and by the people.

I'm not an expert on Iran or politics or any of that stuff. But watching the videos and reading the tweets (once again I recommend Andrew Sullivan's ongoing coverage), a few things are real clear and easy to see. It will be interesting to learn how this plays out - an unarmed populace against a dictatorship; seems like the military would have to get involved on the people's side to overthrow the fascist regime, but what do I know.

The Supreme Leader Khamenei's big speech today seems to boil down to this: How could there possibly be any fraud, when the president won by 11 million votes? This is God's will, and I'm God's mouthpiece, so y'all just go home and mind your own business. Think spiritual thoughts and be peaceful and calm, and STFU - or we'll sic the goons on you, you ungrateful pigs.

Oh my. Such a transparent lie, an obvious deception. It sounds just like our fundamentalist Republican pols here in the Bible Belt, laying down the law and "the Bible says," if they could get away with it. Using God to terrify and control the masses has always been such a great way to stay on top, all down through history.

But sometimes people get wise to the fraud. Sometimes they want to have their own say about how things are run, instead of turning it over to priests and kings, by whatever names they are called.

I forget the exact source of this at the moment, but even in the days of the Roman Empire, there was a saying: Vox populi, vox dei.

The voice of the people is the voice of God.

If Anne Frank Had Twitter

Having posted about Anne Frank last week, I found this reader comment at "Twitter 1, Censors 0: Why It's Still Working" sparks some intriguing thoughts:

Wow! Imagine if they'd had twitter at Tienemen square, or in Nazi Germany. Anne Frank could have been read in real time! What a tremendous gift to the people of the world that there is a way to immediately expose the oppressive tactics of their governments! So much for silencing the masses!

Also, I found this cool image of Iran's blogosphere at "How Iran's Internet Works":



Interactive version can be found at the Harvard website.

While there, I poked around and read a little bit on one of the "secularist" women's blogs; and lo and behold, here is a reader comment opposing her questioning of authority - and it sounds so familiar:

Human rights are not recognized by Islam, period. Religious rights are the only rights women or men are entitled to.
Islam requires total submission to One God, including our sense of what is right and wrong to what God declared right and wrong. If you are not willing to accept that then you are not a muslim. It is not gauranteed that you will understand the wisdom behind each and every command and decree of God and this is the test for us in this life according to Islamic doctrines and true devotees. ergo, your letter in that context is irrelevant and meaningless...

The writer is a Muslim, but danged if he wouldn't fit right in here in the Bible Belt; that's the old "the-Bible-said-it-and-I-believe-it" mentality to a tee. Ain't that right, fellas?

Fundamentalism is the same all around the world, I guess: a wonderful tool to control other people with. It's not about God, it's all about power.

P.S. - if you Twitter, set your location and time zone to Iran to help confuse the fascist regime and protect the demonstrators. The head religious honcho in Iran, the Supreme Leader (what a title . . . I'm not making this up) is about to make a major address to the crowds, so probably more interesting developments are about to happen there.

Pictures from the Revolution

Hope, Change, and the courage of their convictions are all they have to fight with:

More pictures and tweets here. Andrew Sullivan explains the background:

This is more like the American revolution than the French one. They are asking that the regime live up to its own commitments - i.e. an election that is actually fair within the circumscribed rules. They have essentially called Khamenei's bluff. And by remaining silent and peaceful and insisting on a fair election and using neutral slogans like Allah O Akbar, they are avoiding the trap of being dismissed as mere Western puppets.

I do not know where this ends. But I am not sure it ends with either total crackdown or total revolution. What the Mousavi movement wants is a revolution within the system. What they want it perestroika and glasnost. Of course, Khamenei and Ahmadinejad realize that this could lead to what perestroika and glasnost led to in Russia: the end of everything. And this is what the neocons fear: a reformed Iranian leadership that is still devoted to nuclear development.

If the green revolutionaries can hang in, and if some crack in the regime emerges, and if Ahmadinejad is shunted aside, then we have real and measurable progress to a more open and flexible Islamic republic. I think we may be able to do business with that regime and allow for nuclear power with a real inspection scheme in place. It's either that or a brutal military coup and dictatorship by basij and war with Israel. Partly for these reasons and partly because you cannot mistake the obvious democratic forces unleashed in Iran right now, I have not given up on the former. And surely if these are the choices, the mulahs may think twice before giving in to Ahmadi and his thugs. And if the movement prevails in adjusting the regime's leadership, the opening for Obama and the West will be as real as the late 1980s. For Reagan, see Obama; for Gorbachev, see Mousavi. Who Yeltsin will be we do not yet know.

Think of the potential as one of reformation, rather than revolution. But reformation is a vast improvement on what we have now. And unlike Iraq, it will have begun from within and so may have a chance of holding.

AP: "It's not just young, liberal rich kids anymore: Whole families, taxi drivers, even conservative women in black chadors are joining Iran's opposition street protests. . . ."

Tweet from Tehran:

What is a President without a Country?

The Revolution Will Be Twittered

I'm just a singer of simple songs
I'm not a real political man
I watch CNN but I'm not sure I can tell you
The difference in Iraq and Iran

--Alan Jackson, "Where Where You (When the World Stopped Turning)

Although you truckbuddies know that the Administration's huge, hurtful betray of trust has absorbed my attention the last few days, that doesn't mean I haven't kept an eye on the earthshaking events in Iran, and I hope you have too. Sure seems like CHANGE is about to happen in a big way over there.

When it comes to foreign affairs, I wouldn't say I'm quite as naive as Alan Jackson claims to be in his song; but on the whole, things on the other side of the globe don't interest me nearly as much as things here at home because I do realize I don't know enough about overseas matters to speak confidently about them; and in any case, I feel nothing I say or do can make much of a difference over there.

But Andrew Sullivan has been blogging practically nonstop for the last 3 days about it, as have other sites; and it seems this is Twitter's shining moment. The fascist pigs of the Ahmadinejad regime - he's the guy who came to New York and said in a speech "There are no gays in Iran" - after stealing an election in broad daylight, and sending the religious police out to bludgeon or shoot down demonstrators - including women and children - have tried to shut down internet sites and foreign TV and news services in the country, but demonstraters have organized and gotten words and pictures out to the world via Twitter, YouTube, and other social networking tools. Very cool.

And this might spell a revolution in the way we get our news; because that CNN news Alan sang about is woefully, miserably behind the curve on this. I don't have satellite or cable, but I pulled up the CNN news website last night, and watched a few of their little videos on the situation in Iran - and golly gee, it gave the impression that Oh well, there was some election and a few students got out in the street and yelled about it, big deal.

Something's very fishy about CNN - which twenty years ago was the place to go for world news - remember Tianmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first Gulf War? But I noticed last summer when they were reporting on the Democratic convention, as soon as a major speaker got done, instead of doing a little summary and commentary as most networks would, they immediately switched to some Republican machete-mouth, cutting down everything that was just said. I thought then something was very wrong at CNN - now I'm sure of it. Which means, fellas, you can't just sit back in your La-Z-Boy anymore and flip on CNN and think you are getting all the news, or getting it right. That's sad - and scary.

And think about the MSM coverage of gay issues too, in this regard.

A reader of Sullivan's has this to say, which is a wake-up call for all of us:

Reading your blog over the past 30 something hours makes me realize why the MSM is really finished. I mean, this point has finally hit home.You are blogging real time events, with descriptions, evaluation, analysis, and eye witness accounts. You are gathering information from a myriad of sources and putting it out there for a cohesive message. CNN, NY Times, et al are merely running an article about "thousands" of protesters. Its a canned message from just a few stale sources.The revolution is definitely on in Iran. And its on in American journalism too.

Andrew says: "And I'm doing it on the end of a pier in Cape Cod surrounded by two beagles and a water-pistol (to control Dusty's howling)."

I recommend you go stay up to date with Andrew's coverage, which is not as light-hearted as all that. It's democracy versus fascism, and it's not pretty, guys.