I was thinking on the way to work today and asking the question “How much of a revolution is Irans current regime different from the Shah’s regime?” and I had a tough time answering that question.
On one hand Iran was ruled by the Shah, a dictator.
Iran is now ruled by another dictator, Ali Khamenei.
The Shah of Iran was seen as a puppet of the west, namely the CIA and United States. while Ali Khamenei is clearly a puppet of the of Islam (which cannot be held accountable the way ‘the west’ can). So both are puppets in essence.
The Savak or Iranian Secret Service was the Shah’s tool of choice for the oppression and subjugation of political opponents.
The Basij (i think) now take on that responsibility for the sake of oppressing opposition to Islam.
So from my point of view, and as an outsider, its seems to me that this revolution wasn’t very revolutionary and has in fact simply replaced one dictatorship with another.
In 1862 Abraham Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation which freed African Americans from confederate slavery.
The similarities between Barack Obama’s intended presidency and that of Abraham Lincoln have been the subject of discussion and comparison but who will be the subject of Obama’s Emancipation Proclamation?
Domestically the inequality of same sex relationships will be an issue with a constant drumbeat. There are environmental concerns which required an even hand and equalizer in the face of economic priorities. Additionally, there are millions of Americans in private jails languishing under the weight of draconian drug laws.
The final and most corrosive inequality within America’s sphere of influence is U.S. backed and sanctioned treatment of the Palestinian population in Gaza and the West Bank.
Certainly one might say “well Palestinians are not a domestic issue, so forget about it” but it in fact is a domestic issue when tax payers fund, law makers endorse and our administration insulates Israel endless bombardment and economic strangulation of millions of Palestinians.
It is a domestic issue just as our laws and taxes are used to enforce discriminatory marriage laws, exploitative environmental laws and jail non-violent drug offenders.
Where is the “change” that Barack Obama campaigned upon if he parrots the past 60 years of U.S. foreign and drug policy. How can he hope to establish an ounce of credibility when the U.S. spites world opinion on the matter much like Bush did in Kyoto?
Same difference. Same irrationality. Same disdain for world opinion and equal human rights.
This is Obama’s chance for change.
This should be Obama’s Emancipation Proclamation:
1. Equal rights and the freedom to marry for same sex partners.
2. Equal rights and freedom from environment exploitation.
3. Freedom for millions of non-violent drug offending Americans from jail.
4. and finally, Equal rights and freedom for Palestinians.
Do the right thing Mr. Obama. The time is now.
There is a lot of talk since Israel’s recent strike on Gaza about Israels withdrawl from Gaza in 2005 but what is forgotten, or at least not discussed when assigning blame or framing victimhood is Israels never ending economic siege on Palestinians. Granted, borders may have changed but this change is merely cosmetic in the shadow of the stranglehold Israel retains and tightens on the lives of every day Palestinians for one reason or another.
Providing land is a metaphor for economic, social and personal prosperity. In and of itself land does not accomplish anything if it is inaccessible for development and agriculture. This ovation was yet another disingenuous whitewash by Israel to masquerade the banner of “good faith” to world while simultaneously choking off access to food, water, electricity, supplies and adequate health care.
Do Israeli’s forget the ghetto’s of Warsaw that were created for them or is their memory only focused on the wholesale slaughter of Jews? Were the open air prisons and ghetto’s not a crime in and of themselves? Didn’t Hitler consider Jews to be a conspiratorial threat much like Israel considers anyone that threatens Israels security?
Barack Obama declared “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.”
Really? Is that all you’ve got Mr. Obama? Is that the depth of your understanding of the situation?
What if someone was denying your child access to food, water or health care? What if your democratically elected government were under constant military and economic siege by outside forces that only held their own interests at heart.. would you do nothing? Would YOU have the right to defend yourself Mr. Obama?
Are only the powerful permitted the right of self defense?
The situation is maddening and Obama’s selection of Hillary Clinton appears to promise more of the same.
I’ve been hearing this over and over lately.
“We’ve got to act!”
“We’ve got to act now!”
“There are no guarantees, but the cost of doing nothing will be catastrophic!”
Sound familiar? It’s the same mantra the likes of Al Gore and scientific community have been saying for quite a few years now and what was the response? Republicans scoffed, jeered and derided them. They held up a handful of questionable scientists with dubious credentials and financing to mobilize their constituency against “acting now” and instead do nothing.
So here we are in the wake of An Incovenient Truth and now its a Republican administration along with its appointed multi-multi-millionairre Henry Paulsen that are watching billions wither away in the stock market and all of a sudden they’re waving the same flag except this time its in defense of speculators.
They say 50% of Americans are vested in the stock market, yet 100% of Americans will participate in the bailout and 100% of future Americans will be invested in this short term bail out. We could make money on this deal tho! Ya right! Just like when Iraq was going to pay for their own war? Cmon. How stupid do you think we are? Oh ya - pretty stupid.
The administrations crystal ball is so clear when it comes to money isnt it? Its unfortunate that this crystal ball was tucked away in a closet somewhere while everyone was in ‘buy! buy! buy!” mode and raking in billions.
Why would I trust a single thing this administration recommends? Frankly I dont. I’d rather do nothing than let this administration do a darn thing.
If the Democrats had an ounce of backbone, they would tie climate change directly to any proposal by Secretary Paulsen and for once, level the playing field.
Have you ever met a more meek and gullible set of indidivuals in your life than the congress of the United States?
Just a few years into the wake of the biggest blunder our country has seen in decades, once again the executive branch is at with its Shock and Awe fear campaign this time directed at the economy.
You would think that Wall Street is a fourth branch of government the way they seem hell bent on handing over even more money the government cannot afford. Maybe Wall Street is a fourth branch of government. Maybe the millionaires club that sits in congress is very much worried about their investments much as they are about their own raises and health care.
It takes this group little to no factual information to get rocked to the core. We’ve heard time and time again about the doom and gloom on wall street - yet life goes on.
Add to the equation another cult of personality figure the likes of which we have not seen since Colin Powell and you’ve got an almost identical formula as we did in 2003.
Ambiguous facts, extreme blunders that were “not our fault”, fear and loathing and of course our benevolent knight in shining armor Secretary Paulson and you have the perfect recipe for an economic coup.
Maybe if we sit this one through we can rebuild our economy on more than a house of cards that it seems to be. Maybe we’ll spend what we actually earn. Yes, maybe we’ll have to do without for a time, but I think the result will be better than a further reinforcement of the illusion that is the American economy.
The “lack of unity” that permeates on both the left and the right exemplify the oversimplified and obsolete two party system that exists today. Beginning with Ross Perot and continuing with Ralph Nader and now alive and well with Hillary Clinton, we continue to see example after example of how irrelevant a two-philosophy political system really is.
Its no use now or in the future to suggest that one party can reflect the ideals of all republicans or democrats. To force or require nuanced positions to accept the majorities rule just leads to more and more disenfranchisement in both political parties.
The current political dominance is simply unsustainable and results in American versus American rather than freedom and liberty for all.
There is no political freedom in the United States as long as two parties monopolize rule over our economy, politics, health care system, tax system and other major positions.
If two companies ran all of our health care, all of our air travel, all of our power plants, all of our phone systems we simply wouldn’t stand for it and would probably legislate against it - but thats not possible in this case because we’ve let the wolves guard the hen house.
Devils advocates will say that nothing requires people to be Democrat or Republican and that freedom exists for other political philosophies but that’s not the point I’m talking to. I’m talking about these two parties imploding on themselves because there’s no room for the Hillary Clinton’s of the world. There’s no room for the Huckabee’s and Romney’s of the world and therefore all Americans suffer (and so do the two major parties) from this oversimplified system that simply-does-not-reflect-the-will-of-all-Americans.
The defections on both sides exemplify this effect and result in a diluted politik.
With the recent collapse of companies that participated in high risk mortgage lending both republicans and democrats have been fairly united in picking up the task of bailing out companies that participated in these risky transactions. I’m fairly perplexed by the near universal agreement on both sides of the aisle to bail out companies that make bad decisions while effectively ignoring Americans that made bad decisions by taking on these loans.
When an individual makes a catastrophic financial mistake when and where does the government step in to bail them out? In fact legislators and credit card companies took on the effort to pass bankruptcy laws that further hold individuals responsible for their bad debts by making it harder to disavow themselves of their loans. Where is the justice for Americans?
Bad businesses get bailouts while bad Americans get the finger? How long will Americans continue to stand for this abject favoritism?
If I were to go bankrupt and lose billions would the government turn around and lend you or me MORE money? Up is down and down is up but nary a peep from congress or the american people.
and almost always defers judgment when it comes to Republicans.
Theres nothing people and the media appreciate more than a rise than a fall. Its what sells advertising and the only time you’re going to see monolithic style reporting is when someone like George W. Bush pulls out the “us against them” nationalism that puts the fear of tyranny in our hearts. We can already see the media skeptical and nuanced tone when it comes to reporting on Barack Obama.
When the republicans put the price tag out there for the war in Iraq the media barely scratched its head. Every time a democrat proposes a change to health care you get a ‘behind the numbers’ look at just how americans are going to pay for it!
Everyone loved the underdog story when Barack was up against Bill and Hillary Clinton but now you can see they’re already struggling to create a horse race kind of drama out of the election with McCain.
Its sad that the media doesn’t have a Prime Directive like they do on Star Trek or a “Do No Harm” oath like physicians have because if they did I think the “news” product would be far more informative and less National Enquirer.
Can the media help itself but to raise doubts about someone like Barack Obama? The temptation must be palpable. Will they use their unconditional support for George Bush’s war against Iraq as “the lesson” they learned to apply more skepticism to Barack Obama?
Heres and example of the AP’s “hard hitting” reporting on Barack Obama while ‘non” reporting on George Dubya.
These are the things I fear from such a fickle system.
Long story short - Barack Obama is going to win in 2008 but the question is, how hard will the media make it for him and how much of a dramatic horse race will the media require to peddle their pathetic wares are questions that scare me.
In the final months and years of Clintons presidency all we heard about was how Lame Duck his presidency was and how inneffective he was going to be. Have we heard a single thing about GW’s uselessness?
The media has clearly forgotten what its role is within a functioning democracy and thrown its girth in with the ranks of The National Enquirer in order to sell advertising.
Every great nation needs an enemy.
Every advantage delivered by a vast and ever growing military must have a purpose.
With Iraq occupied, Afghanistan maimed, N. Korea “disarmed” and partners being made of China, Saudi Arabia and every other hostile (but commercial) marketplace, that clearly leaves us with no alternative besides Iran.
Population: 65 Million
GDP: $287 Billion (US is $13.8 Trillion)
Military Personnel: 345,000 active (US is 1.2 Million)
Navy: none to speak of
Airforce: none to speak of
The United States Military budget in 2007 was twice the amount of Iran’s entire GDP yet somehow between Isreals might and Americans might, this small weak nation is a “threat”.
To be sure Iran seeks to influence activities within its sphere of influence no different than the Arab conquest of the middle east, no different than American and Soviet activities globally. China does the same with Tibet and its neighbors. And no doubt Iran like every other nation has ideological principles that it wishes to extend much like Americans never ending mantra of “Democracy” (translation: open markets, access to your natural resources and capitalism)
Iran may support a few idealogical organizations in the middle east but how does that even begin to compare to the endless number of dictatorships and tyrannies that are supported around the world by the United States? Cmon.
What we have here is a well oiled propaganda machine that justifies its brawn by making monsters out of mosquitoes.
Besides a litany of sabre rattling by a few powerless politicians what has Iran actually done to anyone? Who has it attacked?
I’ve never heard of Iran attacking anyone with its weak and nearly obsolete military. The only thing i hear is the BBC and American media outlets tagging “backed by Iran” to every mention of Hamas or Hizbollah but where is the proof? Where is the smoking gun? There isnt any and you will never see any. What you will see however, is the slow and meticulous demonization of Iran layed out as the groundwork to find some provocation (usually faked) as a cause for agression.
Are we to going to be dragged into another useless and expensive war by the propagandists and chicken hawks?
For a country that talks about wanting peace so much we sure have a knack for creating and sustaining endless amounts of war.
http://www.warmadeeasythemovie.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_military_history_events
When will the complaining stop from the Hillary campaign and their whiny group of supporters? How has sexism resulted in her becoming one of the most powerful women in the senate exact? On one hand Hillary talks left and right about her experience and qualifications…wait…how can you accumulate all of this experience if you never had any opportunities because you were discriminated against? On the other hand she complains that she cant “get it done” because she’s a woman!?
You cant have it both ways Hillary….or can you … because you’re a woman… and you’re a Clinton.
To be sure, the charge of sexism is not entirely a false one but “discrimination” is part and parcel with any type of election process and in her vast experience she should realize that whether you’re black, jewish, mormon, named funny, old or whatever… you’re going to get picked on. To claim that sexism is the only “ism” thats at work here and that HILLARY is the only victim is a cry in the wind and its time for Hillary and her supporters (who are proving the pundants right) to grow up and do something positive rather than cry about it.