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Iran's Elections: A Show Designed to Delay Democracy
Walid Phares
Iran's presidential elections are over and — as predicted by the unapologetic regime's experts and the real opposition groups in exile — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the "pure son" of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, Pasdaran, won, and won big. For the connoisseurs in Khomeinist politics, the win was a given from the beginning. No result would be permitted that would contradict the principles upon which the "Islamic Republic" was founded. There should not be a shred of doubt about the complete control that the supreme ruler, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had on the process and the result. As detailed by many specialists on the regime's tentacles, the selection process of a new president for the Republic has multiple security mechanisms that ensure the "elected" leader is in line with the Khomeinist ideology, platform, and long-term goals.
Iran, Gucci anti-imperialism and movement anti-intellectuals
Gabriel Ash
We know what a movement intellectual is, but perhaps we need a new category for James Petras, a movement anti-intellectual. Here is how Petras describes the social-economic dynamics behind the split in Iranian society:
The great majority of voters for the incumbent probably felt that national security interests, the integrity of the country and the social welfare system, with all of its faults and excesses, could be better defended and improved with Ahmadinejad than with upper-class technocrats supported by Western-oriented privileged youth who prize individual life styles over community values and solidarity. -The demography of voting reveals a real class polarization pitting high income, free market oriented, capitalist individualists against working class, low income, community based supporters of a ‘moral economy’ in which usury and profiteering are limited by religious precepts. The open attacks by opposition economists of the government welfare spending, easy credit and heavy subsidies of basic food staples did little to ingratiate them with the majority of Iranians benefiting from those programs. The state was seen as the protector and benefactor of the poor workers against the ‘market’, which represented wealth, power, privilege and corruption. The Opposition’s attack on the regime’s ‘intransigent’ foreign policy and positions ‘alienating’ the West only resonated with the liberal university students and import-export business groups. To many Iranians, the regime’s military buildup was seen as having prevented a US or Israeli attack. (James Petras)
"Give Me Liberty ..." Iranian People Demand Democracy
"Give Me Liberty ..."
Iranian People Demand Democracy
Iranian citizens charge police with courage, their bodies, and a few rocks to secure their rights to self determination and clean elections. Image
Neoconservatives and other con artists are now claiming to support the Iranian people. Some are the same people who pushed to bomb Iran preemptively just a few years ago. Others, who stood on the sidelines to see who would "win," are now defenders of clean elections. It doesn't matter to the Iranian's demanding respect and self determination. For them, the real victory will be to emerge as a free nation that's outside the "great game" of the major powers.
The 1979 Revolution Was Lost — Start the Next One
Maliah
This was written as part of the discussion that has erupted over A Question Over Iran: Can the People Make History or Not?
Redflags wrote in another thread: “Proletarian internationalism, not this ‘anti-imperialism of fools’… The world is bigger than America. Learn this basic fact, deal with its implications. Our revolutionary duty isn’t some bonkers Oedipal rage against Daddy Yankee that ends us up supporting a murderous, capitalist theocracy.”
Yes yes yes. -Wake up people. If the left can’t come to terms with the reality that the world is more complex than the “us” vs “them” cold-war framework we perhaps memorized in our past indoctrination sessions…. if we can’t wake up and face the reality that people’s struggles are local, complex, powerful, real, and dynamic within the larger polarized international context, then we are doomed to be a crusty tired dogmatic non-movement that is so rigid it is unable to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances of todays world. If we can’t wake up to the fact that people could be BOTH rageful at the theocracy, tired of living in oppressive bullshit, AND anti-US, anti-imperialist, deeply aware of the violent role of the US in the world, than we don’t know the people of the world at all. Have ANY of you met people from the Middle East?!
Reviewing F. William Engdahl's "Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order:" Part I
by Stephen Lendman
For over 30 years, F. William Engdahl has been a leading researcher, economist, and analyst of the New World Order with extensive writing to his credit on energy, politics, and economics. He contributes regularly to business and other publications, is a frequent speaker on geopolitical, economic and energy issues, and is a distinguished Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Engdahl's two previous books include "A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order" explaining that America's post-WW II dominance rests on two pillars and one commodity - unchallengeable military power and the dollar as the world's reserve currency along with the quest to control global oil and other energy resources.
Engdahl's other book is titled "Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation" on how four Anglo-American agribusiness giants plan world domination by patenting all life forms to force-feed GMO foods on everyone - even though eating them poses serious human health risks.
The Undeniable Desire for Freedom
Ogaden Online Editorial
The legitimate struggle for the self-determination of the Somali people of Ogaden led by the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), has it's roots not in the organizations that preceded the ONLF but rather in the villages, towns and rural areas of Ogaden where a people denied educational opportunity, health care and the freedom to associate formulated a vision of what life would be like when their aspirations would be realized. This vision has been speculated on by many foreign pundits but very few have asked the people it most affects for answers.
ON BEING AN IMPERFECT FATHER AND CELEBRATING IT
Allen L Roland
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and he bends you with his might that his arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; for even as he loves the arrow that flies, so he loves also the bow that is stable : Kahlil Gibran / The Prophet
I am the bow that has sent forth four children, as living arrows, into this imperfect world. I have been far from perfect as their Dad but I have always loved and cherished them on their separate flights.
Israel is losing the PR war so badly that even evangelical support is eroding
Brian Schrauger
[RE this Jerusalem Post article: The Zionists know they're loosing their global propaganda war. So they have to find someone, something to blame, because it could not possibly be their mass murders, the endless house demolitions, the torture and their out-and-out theft of Palestinian land. It has to be something else, something much, much more serious than that. This interesting Jerusalem Post article now has The Answer: Replacement theology! This ideology is why Israel is loosing what Jerusalem Post considers to be her "war for truth". This nefarious teaching asserts among other things that "Jews are no longer God’s chosen people, and God does not have specific future plans for the nation of Israel". (How terrible!) This means that the Zionists disapprovingly see Jesus & the New Testament as ersatz, as a substitute, as a replacement for something of superior quality. (This superior teaching would presumably be Judaism/Talmudism.) -This Post article is complete rubbish, of course, but readers might find it interesting if they would agree to approach it as a study in pathology, as an autopsy performed on the conjoined twin body of Talmudism & Zionism. (Editor)]
SECURITY and Loose Canons
eileen fleming
USA, June 21, 2009-All that remains of the Orwellian "PEACE BE WITH YOU" sign on the Jerusalem side of The Wall that is choking Bethlehem are a few tatters at the top edge of the thirty foot high concrete edifice. The Israeli Minister of Tourism is replacing the image captured on the cover of my second book with bland views of the Old City.
One can even travel to Ben Gurion Airport and remain oblivious to the concrete separation wall which is obfuscated from view in Israel by faux painting and buildups of massive landscaping.
Ahmadinejad Re-elected: Israel and Obama’s Iran Puzzle
By Ramzy Baroud
The election victory of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is likely to complicate US President Barack Obama’s new approach to his country’s conflict with Iran. The reason behind the foreseen obstacle is neither the US nor Iran’s refusal to engage in future dialogue but rather Israel’s insistence on a hard-line approach to the problem.
Iran’s presidential elections on June 12 were positioned to represent another fight between Middle Eastern ‘moderates’ vs. ‘extremists’. That depiction, which conveniently divided the Middle East – according to the prevailing US foreign policy discourse - to pro-American and anti-American camps was hardly as clear in the Iranian case as it was in Palestine and most recently in Lebanon.
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