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Dictators Fear Iran News
Nothing to see here, folks. Authoritarian regimes around the globe are censoring internet reports of Iranian protests out of fear it could antagonize their own repressed citizenry, the Washington Post reports. In China, bloggers and Twitter users have tinted their sites and user profiles green in support of Iranian demonstrators and some observers have noted parallels between the protests and China's own clashes in Tiananmen Square in 1989. "The Iranian people face the same problems as us: news censorship and no freedom to have their own voices," 28-year-old blogger Zhou Shuguang told the Post. China's Communist Party is reportedly trying to echo Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's accusations by portraying unrest in Iran as a Western conspiracy rather than a homegrown movement. In Cuba, President Raul Castro has blocked all news coming out of Iran, though information still is finding its way into the communist country, while Burma also is working to stop Iranian reports from attracting attention.
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Irony...
Morning Hawnzz, I think the people should have a lot of hope and the tyrants have a lot to worry about, no matter where they are, the gig is up, the news is out and that is half the battle.
Morning... insomnia on this end. I sure hope that is true.
Hope nothing serious, I am dry from the single malt last night but life goes on.
Hair of the dog
Squigg.
Do you really think this is true?
I would love to agree with you, but my opinion of the human race has been slowly waning over the past decade.
People WANT to be led... they WANT to be told what to do, watch, think, feel. It makes living easier, apparently.
I don't think the 'gig is up' being that I don't think most people even know there is a 'gig'.
Morning Kirb, I know what you mean with the human race, more centered on the here and now and not tomorrow but as the few who rule make the here and now more difficult for the many I think the tide will change. I also think the few in charge feel they have been chosen to lead and when people get savvy the tide will turn and they will find out they should be following our lead, look at blue dogs, look at rise of independents, look at the Dem base and look at GOP debris. Things are changing now.
I'll see your "gig" and raise you a "jig." In general terms, your POV on the human race is supported by every history book, as well as the Bible. Where I would disagree with you is the motive. IMHO, it's less wanting to bed told what to do (although there's a big component of that) and more good old-fashioned greed and selfishness. Those that grab the most for themselves rule, so long as they can hold onto their goods. Whatever the reasons, the history of man is not about to veer in another direction because of this week.
@squig
I'm not thinking the majority are aware enough and have enough desire to even care what is going on on an everyday basis. There is too much on TV, sports is being played, the kids have a play to be in, the PTA is meeting, work is a hassle, the kids have the flu... but it's sure nice talkin' to you, squig, it's sure nice talkin' to you.
;-)
Kirb,
Every hear the actual translation of the "Peace on earth. Good will toward men" Line from the bible?
it's actually, "Peace on earth, to men of good will"
There are men of good will on the earth. They are not outnumbered by the greedy, selfish, and murderous, but they are outnumbered by the the fearful, apathetic, and faithless.
We need to stick together, and not lose faith in one another.
People of good will
Always outnumber the bad.
But the greedy selfish and murderous
Always get all the press.
Only because the fearful take note Rita. It's the passive masses that either make or break any revolution. They are seeing 24-7 repression and propaganda.
We have refused to vigorously counter that message. The opposition is being driven underground. And the masses made fearful. This is becoming an opportunity lost.
I have been carping on this for days. It is an information campaign. It is giving hope to the fearful, and helping those that are on the edge of indecision decide to act.
We screwed this up, and I am disgusted with the fear in our leader's hearts that won't even allow them to speak with conscience and confound these murderers.
Ayatolla Khatemei (regime hard-liner) is now pronouncing that all protester's should be executed, as an interpretation of Islamic Law.
"They should be treated as mohareb - people who wage war against God - and deserved execution. "
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6583797.e ce
It's starting to look like we have failed the Iranian People. I'm still hoping for the 9th inning Grand Slam, but that seems unlikely.
Dear Women of the World.....
How long will you stand for the slavery that Islam imposes upon you?
In most free countries, it's clear that in Iran, and in our great ally, Saudi Arabia, woman are simply slaves.
When's the frickin' revolution?
Stand up for yourselves already.
It's like an ongoing holocaust, and nobody says anything.....
Sad.
Rob Littell
The women of Iran are the ones in the front lines of the pro-Democracy movement and they are being murdered, beaten and arrested for protesting against the political and cultural strictures of the "Islamic Republic."
Somebody is saying something very important right now about the anti-women biases of Islam.....if you will just listen.
Hey all, GOOOd saturday to all my daily beast friends....! This story has some Reagan kinda tone of tear down that wall.But will the people of world being held hostage by dictatorship anwser the call of "FREEDOM" what started with the speech of commen sense where not your enemy snowballed.But its was up to the people of Iran to take there own destiny into there own hands and they did people should look at that speech as Reagan did.But there missing it,it went right over there heads.There has been a shift in the hearts and minds of the people in the middle east will it catch on in other place's......! have a GOOOOd day all
Afternoon matt, yeah, people will just have to keep fighting, leaders aren't going to give in easily or accept defeat like Gorbachev did.
We sit here watching other countries struggling to cast off their bonds for freedom and at the same time we're going along with a president that wants this nation placed under the same restrains as theirs. WTF
The suppression of information can't go on in this age. News will filter in and out and these regimes will eventually fall victim. Hopefully sooner than later...
That seems to be a major dilemma for many dictatorships, which need an educated middle class to keep the economy running, as well as the state itself, yet this middle class often has liberal aspirations and demands more personal freedom and individual rights, as well as more political, social and economic freedom.
Not all members of the middle class are liberals or democrats, of course, and not all of them are united in which types of freedoms they value most. Not all of them believe in laissez faiire, for example, or feminism, and so on. Nevertheless, the authorities in any authoritarian state often have a problem with this discontented class, especially if certain elements of it unite with the discontented among the workers and small farmers, who also have their own grievances--especially economic. If that happens, then any regime is in very great trouble and distress.
There are ways of controlling a population than brute force, to be sure, and most governments in the world resort to all of them. They can buy off dissent and discontent down below with various subsidies and social welfare programs, and any country that can afford to does so. They can also use nationalism, religion, xenophobia, and so forth to appeal to the masses and blame the troubles of the society on outsiders, unbelievers, unpopular minorities, or spies and saboteurs.
All authoritarian and totalitarian regimes of both the far Right and far Left resort to this routinely, and it even happens in the US, such as McCarthyism in the 1950s, for example, or in the right-wing backlash against the counterculture, feminist, civil rights and antiwar movements of the next decade. (Nixon's "Silent Majority", which wasn't so silent at all.) Certainly the regime in Iran sounded almost hysterical as it tried to pin the blame for all the troubles of its own making on some evil outside force. Indeed, it sounded almost like a parody of itself as it blamed the US, Israel, George Soros, the Jews, Britain, the CIA. Part of the problem was that it had almost too many of these, and looked a little comical, as if the propaganda organs of the state were all out of tune, not singing out of the same song book. In their panic and haste to find "reasons" for the uprising against them, the people running whatever passes for the Ministry of Propaganda in Iran could not get the story straight.
It was almost like their efforts to fix the election. Obviously they thought they had it all set up in advance so that "No Count Ahmadinejad" would win by more or less the same percentage he did last time, against opposition candidates who were expected to be a sham. This whole election was simply for show, and the rulers of Iran obviously had decided the "results" well in advance.
This is how we know that No Count lost overwhelmingly, and that the bosses of Iran were stunned by how badly he lost, against a candidate who was supposed to offer a very tame "alternative" in just be there as a kind of stooge. But No Count Ahmadinejad lost so badly that it threw the whole machinery is disarray, especially when they announced the pre-arranged "result" before they could have even possibly counted the votes.
I have often compared this regime to Nazi Germany or Franco's Spain, but in this case it was acting more like the bumbling, inept fascist machine in Mussolini's Italy--comical if was not also so tragic for the country and its neighbors. At any rate, the Supreme Fuehrer stepped in, declared martial law and insisted that No Count had one in the face of all evidence to the country. The Fuehrer instituted martial law, blamed sinister outside forces for stirring up trouble, and threatened to kill anyone who dared to question him or get out of line.
I suppose that he and No Count are dumb enough to believe that this will be the end of it, but I don't. It's just the beginning. It's not only the fact that Iran is run by a brutal, corrupt, brutal police state that puts great controls on the personal, political and economic freedom of the middle class, while also badly mismanaging the economy and the state. It's also the fact that this dictatorship has showed itself to be very clumsy and inept, spewing propaganda that most finds as ridiculous as anything coming from Robert Mugabe or the Dear Leader in North Korea.
In short, millions or intelligent, educated Iranians are ashamed and embarrassed to be living under a regime like this one, which much of the world finds not only brutal and dangerous, but also downright silly.
Let's see, with the dems pushing the fairness doctrine, Obama hinting at a private national security force, and most media unable to report anything negative regarding the policies of the current administration, I would say we're following a similar path. Watch what you tweet on Twitter, comrads.
It's not lack of info or education in this country vinnyB, it's lack of people to take advantage of it! No one thinks beyond their day to day and when something like the things hit them they are unprepared and they can't react. Long term planning and thinking is lost on so many.
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The biggest irony in all of this is what stories have been bigger than Iran this week here in America, home of the free press?
-Gov. Sanford
-Michael Jackson
We have the attention span, as a nation, of a housefly. You said it well, 'dragon, thank goodness for the inet!
There is nothing we can do but open up bandwidth and let them know we support them. Obama is not going to be aggressive and get involved directly and that is that. We have not forgotten. There is nothing else we can do. Let your President know how you feel. You can push him but I don't think he is interested. I support covert operation from Iraq to help the Iranian people but that doesn't seem to fit into his program either.
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'dragon's right, squig, the last rev took the better part of a year and succeeded DESPITE our intervention. I know it's tempting and you want to help the side we think is with the angels, but that's not the way. You're right, bandwidth.
And he's OUR president, squiggy, unless you stopped being a citizen.
www.torproject.org
Anyone got a better way?
Thank you.
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