Sunday, June 21, 2009

A short thought on Iranian and American politics

by Rich Miles

I don't have much to say here. Just this:

What we should be learning from the Iranians re: the recent elections there is simply this:

We should have done the same.

In 2000 and 2004, we should have had the courage of our convictions, we should have marched in the streets to protest OUR stolen elections. For it remains true that those two presidential elections were indeed stolen. Rigged. Faked.

Stolen.

But we as Americans did NOT protest our stolen elections. There are as many reasons for this as there are people who believe that the elections were stolen. And there are a LOT of those people.

But it is arguable that the Iranian authorities, learning from the experience of America, stole their election too. Seeing how easy it was, they did the same more or less, and are going to install a phony incumbent into the office of president. Just like we did in '04.

One wonders what the Iranian powers-that-be fear about Moussavi. It's probably just that he has an unfortunate tendency to tell the truth, even when it disagrees with the party line of Khamanei and the theocracy under which they live. Perhaps especially when it disagrees.

In short, we have to learn that America is not always the exceptionalist nation we all want to believe it is.

Sometimes, we're just a bunch of pussies.

(And I say that with no intention to insult pussies.)

2 comments:

Jack Jodell said...

Rich, we are apparently a far more passive people than are the Iranians, with the exception of our far-right, who will actively steal elections and start wars for plunder and profit. Alas, far-right wingnuts will be far-right wingnuts the world over. In Nazi Germany, they stifled resistance and threw Jews and political opponents into gas chambers. In Iran, they murder innocent young protestors. And here, they shoot students at Kent State, steal elections, try to trample the Constitution, and set up torture chambers at Gitmo. The paranoid conservative far-right are insane, and are oppressive forces in every time period in every country.

Old Scout said...

Because the only lawless are the far rite-weng nutz, we obliged the rule of law and acquiesed to the ruling of the supreme court. Because of this action, we no longer capialize supreme court as a proper noun. It behaved, acted and ruled improperly ... thereby rendering its status as a proper noun ... improper.