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Iran Moves To End "Facebook Revolution"
We've had a few readers send in updates on the chaotic post-election situation in Iran. Twitter is providing better coverage than CNN at the moment. There are both tech and humanitarian angles to the story, as the two samples below illustrate. First, Hugh Pickens writes with a report from The Times (UK) that "the Iranian government is mounting a campaign to disrupt independent media organizations and Web sites that air doubts about the validity of the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the nation's president. Reports from Tehran say that social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter were taken down after Mr Ahmadinejad claimed victory. SMS text messaging, a preferred medium of communication for young Iranians, has also been disabled. 'The blocking of access to foreign news media has been stepped up, according to Reporters Without Borders. 'The Internet is now very slow, like the mobile phone network. YouTube and Facebook are hard to access and pro-reform sites... are completely inaccessible.'" And reader momen abdullah sends in one of the more disturbing Ask Slashdots you are likely to see. "People, we need your urgent help in Iran. We are under attack by the government. They stole the election. And now are arresting everybody. They also filtered every sensitive Web page. But our problem is that they also block the SMS network and are scrambling satellite TVs. Please, can you help us to set up some sort of network using our home wireless access points? Can anybody show us a link on how to install small TV/radio stations? Any suggestion for setting up a network? Please tell us what to do or we are going to die in the a nuclear war between Iran and US." Update: 06/14 18:32 GMT by KD : Jim Cowie contributes a blog post from Renesys taking a closer look at the state of Iranian Internet transit, as seen in the aggregated global routing tables, and concluding that the story may not be as clear-cut as has been reported.
On one hand, we have the freedom and lives of millions of people. On the other hand we can help bring Twitter down. Tough choice...
Sometimes in some situations the only real answer is unyielding violence. Sure you can hedge on the bet that eventually enough old people will die off that Iran could become a free country but at the rate they can find new help... sometimes a peaceful revolution just isn't a realistic expectation.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Leave. Now. While you still can.
Anybody want my mod points?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio HAM Radio.
you are not smart politics-wise are you ? hardliners stole the election - they got 55%+ vote even in places that never voted for anyone except their ethnic candidates. election fraud has been committed. and now the government of ahmedinajad is trying to suppress discussion. thats it.
Read radical news here
That's right Mr. theocratic dictator. Go ahead and keep pushing down the relatively minor calls for reform and watch in horror as the demands for freedom and civil discourse grow more and more demanding, and more and more "extreme". This is how true democracies begin.
We got rid of our idiot leadership, now Iran looks to be doing the same.
(Bush was terrible by just about any measure - I'm an independent voter and have voted for Dems and Repubs)
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Does he really set policy?
Aren't all the presidential choices pre approved?
Will a different choice change any meaningful policies that might make a difference in Iran getting nuked?
Seems Iran needs another revolution, not just another figurehead.
The extent of the fraud perpetrated is clearly intended to send a message. If the powers that be in Iran just wanted Ahmadinejad reelected, they could have done so subtly. Give him 45% or so in round 1, to Mousavi's 39%, and then have him win round 2 with 52% or so. People wouldn't like it, but it'd at least be believable.
No, by giving Ahmadinejad ~67% of the vote, even in Mousavi's hometown, they are very clearly sending a message to the people that their votes do not count. After such a high turnout, after so much enthusiasm, this is a clear move to disenfranchise the Iranian people, so that they don't even try to vote against the entrenched powers in the future.
Some are looking for proof of fraud. But unless anyone is expecting Ahmadinejad to admit that he cheated, no solid official evidence is going to show up.
On the other hand, they:
Here's a clip from Corriere Della Sera on police attacking protesters.
If what is disrupted are specific sites, and not the whole internet, you can use it to get anonymous/encrypted communication with wherever you want.
In the other hand, tor sounds too much like Thor, and if Iranian government things you are of another religion you could be screwed.
But unless anyone is expecting Ahmadinejad to admit that he cheated, no solid official evidence is going to show up.
Especially since he had help from his pal Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The man disregarded the post-election buffer (three days, IIRC) used to look for any discrepancies in the presidential election, and declared Mahmoud president immediately after the vote counts were announced. Unfortunately for the peoples of Iran, the supervisory group that holds any sway over the Ayatollah was neutered to begin with, so yeah - those folks are fucked.
they're not asking for an army, they want tech advise...
I think that what momen abdullah is asking can be achieved using ham radio. Look for PSK31 for low-bandwith digital communications. Maybe "truckers" in Iran are using CB radio? You can use that as well, maybe hack it a bit. Anyway, building a simple 80-100MHz FM band transmitter is very easy to build, just hook it into a power amplifier for better coverage.
Look at the first search result on google for "fm transmitter", this is what i found. seems easy enough to build with easily attainable components.
4Z5TX
I'm afraid if you want change, it has to come from within. The Iranian people will have to rise up and displace their government, by force if necessary. Chatting about it on the net won't help, and the US is not going to at all be interested in forcing change at this point. As with pretty much any real change in life, at has to come from within. If this really matters to the people of Iran, then they have the power to change it. You CAN overthrow a government, history has plenty of examples.
As for nuclear war, I wouldn't worry too much about that. The US isn't going to strike first, and Iran lacks the technology to deliver nuclear payloads to the US. Also, as a practical matter while Iranian leadership seems to be oppressive and such, they aren't insane. I'm sure they full and well understand what the US response to a nuclear attack would be, and nobody wants to be the ruler of a glass parking lot.
So I wouldn't worry about nuclear war, but I would worry about Iran becoming a whole lot more oppressive. If you are Iranian, the only real solution to that is to displace your government. Sorry, but that just seems to be the fact. They've made it quite clear they aren't interested in democratic change, and the president of the US isn't interested in starting another war that the military can't sustain, nor would the US population go along with it.
So if change matters, you'll have to do it yourselves, and yes it may be bloody. That or get out of the country, which is probably what I'd opt for. I'd like to think I could stand up and fight but realistically I'd just run away, I don't have the guts to be a revolutionary I think.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
--Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States.
I thought the idea of kicking out a dictatorship and allowing a democracy to flourish was a good idea.
Yeah... that rarely works. You can't forceably make a democracy from the outside. A country has a dictatorship for a reason: when fear is the only path to stability. This is understandable in places where there are major social problems such as ethnic or religious strife combined with low standards of living. A dictatorship achieves stability at the cost of freedom.
A better idea might be to work with the dictator to improve the standard of living. Bring in education and technology in exchange for diminishing the brainwashing. Once the society rises to a standard of living where they are enlightened enough to live in peace, under the rule of law instead of the rule of the fear, then democracy can begin.
Ironically, the idea of invading other countries for humanitarian reasons is a very leftist concept. And one that George Bush denied during his bid for the presidential election. He said something like "If we'd just leave people alone, they might not hate us so much. We should stay out of their business." But the warhawks flipped his opinion 180 degrees, and the "conservatives" followed them. To this day, I am amazed when I hear American Republicans support the war. It is the exact opposite of their platform, but they blindly follow it even against their own philosophy.
If the people of Iran want to get rid of their government, they can do it themselves.
If they want help, I could understand the UN deciding to assist them. That is similar to what happened in Afghanistan - the UN forces assisted the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. But that is different from ousting the dictator without having been asked to assist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimized_Link_State_Routing_Protocol
http://www.olsr.org/
That is one option, it is however that of a completly mad dictator. A more human answer is that the goverment is afraid. Afraid that a closer more realistic faked result would spark revolution. Its soldiers might be willing to shoot on citizens if they think they represent a minority. If the are a majority, then things could be different. Think China vs Russia. The russian soldiers sided with the people recently, the chinese soldiers with their leaders. The reason? Simple, the russian soldiers knew the truth of who was winning the popularity contest.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If the people of Iran want to get rid of their government, they can do it themselves.
Dude, pay attention, that's what they're doing. There's a huge difference between us invading Iraq to unseat Saddam and the Iranians standing up to overturn a massively corrupt election. The Iranian people are pissed, and this is their first step toward something less like a dictatorship.
Nobody is calling for substantial outside help (that I've heard of), like asking us to invade Iran to help a revolution. The "left" has nothing to do with this, and the western media seems not to care all that much about the situation. Even the guy who sent the Ask Slashdot only wanted advice on communicating with others!
Regardless of what happens, this whole shebang was started and led entirely by Iranians who are upset with their government, and they're not looking for some foreign power to send in the cavalry, which I have to respect.
Some ways to subvert the censorship.
1) anonymous web proxies that only accept inbound connections from Iran IP space.
2) TOR servers.
3) Ad-Hoc WiFi networks could be used to create a Mesh networks.
4) Multicast information, documents, video over the Mesh.
Read the article titled "The Ugly Side of Truth".
The Chaos Computer Club made a "FreedomStick" for journalists traveling to China to cover the Olympics. It includes software that automatically uses firefox+tor etc.. More Info Here: http://chinesewall.ccc.de/index-en.html
Hard time filtering a constantly on connection to the big satan when any mechanic can just plugin a headset and hear nothing but the noises modems make and no voices.
Iran is a dictatorship, it doesn't have to obey laws or niceties. Anyone who follows your advice is risking death if the iran goverment is really doing what people here are claiming it is doing.
The first victim of dictatorship is plausible deniability.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
In the absence of an external interfering force (e. g., the army of the Soviet Union), the fate of a nation is determined by its people. Period.
I didn't know you could win an argument by appending a "Period." after your thesis.
Specific: Saddam Hussein was supported by Gerry Healy's Worker's Revolutionary Party. He helped to fund them, and in turn, they published favourable articles about him.
General: The Left advocates international socialism, a political ideology based on totalitarian oppression of dissent, whether practised by hardline tyrants such as Stalin or by supposed "moderates" like Leon Trotsky. When did the Left advocate tyranny? Constantly.
The tao of democracy: the government you can vote for is not the real government.
... The Iranians created this horrible society. It is none of our business unless they attempt to develop nuclear weapons. We in the West are morally justified in destroying the nuclear-weapons facilities ..... Cultures are different. Vietnamese culture and Iranian culture are different. The Iranians bear 100% of the blame for the existence of a tyrannical government in Iran. We should condemn Iranian culture and its people.
You seem to be missing out the part when the US helped overthrow the democratically elected government in 1953 and installed a brutal despot. Nope, nothing to do with how that changed Iranian society at all.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Right now, the overwhelming majority clearly oppose the creation of a liberal Western democracy. The Iranians love a brutal Islamic theocracy.
While it's (probably) true that a lot of Iranians support the current government, I don't think you can say the "overwhelming majority" support it. The current situation proves this -- the people are pissed. They tried to do it the right way and they still got screwed by, what seems to be, a rigged election.
I carefully read your post before responding, just to be sure. One element you didn't mention: FEAR. Sure, I'll buy that the Iranian people facilitated the mess they're living in now -- much in the same way that the German people facilitated the Nazi movement. However, remember that power seeks to perpetuate itself; now that this extremist regime has both feet firmly planted, it isn't going to go away simply because the populace doesn't like it. It'll threaten them with imprisonment, torture, death, and threaten the friends and family, even children, of dissidents. It'll threaten with people disappearing in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again. Stories will circulate about someone merely speaking out against the government in casual conversation, yet that person and his whole family will disappear in the middle of the night, never to be seen or heard from again. Some people may have such strength of their convictions as to take up arms and fight against this, but MOST WILL NOT! I'm sure many (most?) Iranian citizens regret the regime they're living under now, but they don't want to see everyone they care about brutally murdered before their very eyes before being murdered themselves!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The topic was posted by kdawson. 'nough said.
Even a stopped watch is right twice a day.
I actually found this line very intriguing. Is it really possible to set up an autonomous network using any sort of commodity wireless routers? It might be a not bad idea at all in a densely populated metropolis. Probably none come with the firmware allowing to do that, but there might be open firmware alternatives. So, 3 questions:
1. Is it technically possible to connect two wireless routers together to form a network?
2. Is there readily-available software needed to set up a centralized/hierarchical network in this way?
3. P2P?
Whoever has the biggest stick, or the most buddies/lackeys with big sticks.
It's left as an exercise for the reader to work out whether that's better, worse, or no different than the system we have now.
At the bottom of the
Except with the fact that the Iranians did actually overthrow the brutal despot that the US helped establish, and replaced him with what we see today?
AFAIK, the Iranians already had their chance to end tyranny and establish a democracy... but instead, they chose tyranny by different hands.
Nonsense.
The white minority in South Africa was able to hold power for decades. Why? They had the guns.
I don't know what percentage of the population supports the Iranian dictatorship. But so long as its supporters are armed and its opponents are not, it doesn't matter how many of them there are.
Building a nuke has nothing to do with "revenge". Since the U.S. has demonstrated its willingness to engage in wars of aggression, any state not closely allied with a nuclear power can only secure itself by obtaining a nuclear deterrent.
Ah, ignorance of history is bliss, ain't it?
Iran was a becoming a modern, secular state. But it's elected prime minister has the temerity to nationalize its oil reserves, which didn't sit well with the U.S. and U.K., so we backed the Shah.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Do you realize how offensive it is to lump all the Iranian people under one label when ascribing motivations or actions to them? If you want to make the state sovereignty argument, fine, but leave it at that. Don't be all, like, "Those damned brown people."
This is extremely uninformed and offensive. You obviously know very little of Iranian culture.
To rule, you need a majority of power. People aren't equally powerful, so you do not necessarily need a majority of people to rule.
Minorities can and do keep majorities hostage. When some classes, like veterans, priests, businessmen or people of inherited wealth command more raw power than regular people, and differ significantly from regular people in their political preferences, this is the rule rather than the exception.
This is true even in democracies, because although voting power may be equal, it's far from the only power there is, or even the most important. If the Iranians rise up against this disenfranchisement, there will be bloodshed, because while the clerics and the revolutionary guard are in a minority, they have more than enough power to match the majority.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
He also refers to "the Iranians" as if they think in unison, like some giant borg-like collective. It is this exact mindset that aids government in their endless quest for not only more revenue, but more power over the people. This is exactly how every government around the world wants you to think.
Come on, this is 2009. If you still can't wrap your head around the truth that people are unique, thinking individuals, each with a unique perspective on life, liberty, and happiness, than you're part of the problem, not the solution.
Unfortunately, setting up large-scale adhoc networks with 802.11b/g hardware is kind of difficult. What you'll want to look at is what's called "wireless mesh networking". Mesh networking is basically the peer-to-peer of networks. The difficulty with using 802.11b/g for mesh networking is that 802.11 standard doesn't really include any concept of a mesh. There are two types of devices: access points and clients. Access points cannot communicate with other access points. It is however, possible for clients to communicate with other clients by switching to ad hoc networking mode. So your options are thus:
1) get a lot of people with 802.11g-capable computers to switch into ad hoc networking mode. This will allow them to connect to each other if the density is high enough (that is if there are enough people close enough). Unfortunately, the range is on the small side, so, unfortunately, this may not work that well. Part of the problem is that clients often have a lower broadcast strength than access points.
2) set up a specifically designed mesh network. To do mesh networking in infrastructure mode, there are going to be four different types of nodes which can be used. 1) AP nodes 2) Client-Client nodes 3) AP-Client nodes 4) Client nodes
AP nodes:
An ordinary wireless access point can act as a hub node.
Client-Client nodes:
There have to be two radios for each client-client node. Both will act as clients to other networks. You'll either need one computer with two wireless cards or two computers which are connected together using some other means (or, if you happen to have an access point which can be switched to client mode (which very few can) then you could use that as a client). You can connect the two computers using an ethernet hub, ethernet cross-over cable, null modem cable, or possibly firewire (although I've never done that). The computers should each by set to bridging mode. Basically, each client will connect to a different access point and they'll then serve to connect the two access points to each-other, bridging the networks. Generally these should be on different frequencies. Although there may be some circumstances where the same frequency can be used.
AP-Client nodes:
There have to be two radios for each AP-client node. One will work as a client to another access point and one will act as an access point for other nodes. Generally, this will mean one computer and one access point connected together by ethernet, but there are a few other ways to do it. The computer should be set into some form of bridging mode which differs some based on operating system. The two radios will always use different frequencies unless there's a long cable-run between them (opposite sides of a building or some such).
Now, you need to figure out how to put this together. You need at least an initial group of people to help build the network. And then you'll lay out a basic topology. You'll plot out the nodes you have available on a graph and then try to connect them together. Client-Client nodes can connect to two nodes, either AP nodes or AP-Client nodes using infrastructure mode or to other Client-Client nodes in ad hoc mode. AP nodes can have multiple Client-Client or AP-Client nodes connected to them. AP nodes cannot connect to other AP nodes unless both AP nodes have wireless bridging modes (very rare) and you can get them to work (even rarer). AP-Client nodes can connect to one AP node (infrastructure) or one Client-Client node (ad hoc) and can have multiple AP-Client or Client-Client nodes connected to them The Client nodes can be used only as stepping stones in an ad hoc connection. I.e. if two client-client nodes want to connect, but are two far from each other, you can put a Client node in between in ad hoc mode and it'll help them connect. This can be done with a string of client nodes.
You'll want to draw all this out on a map, and possibly rearrange equipment as needed to fill in the gaps. You'll also need to decide frequencies so
Actually, the line between a "genuine democracy and a free market" on the one side, resp. "bandits take advantage and set up their warlordistans" on the other sometimes IS a rather thin one.
Especially regarding the "free market" issue.
Well, I don't pay attention to MSNBC, as they're nearly as bad as Fox, just in the opposite direction.
CNN and the NY Times have been covering this story non-stop since the voting started a couple days ago. In fact, it's the front page story on the Times.
If Fox says that its competitors aren't covering the story, that's just because Fox wants you to stay tuned to their station.
The Iranian people will have to rise up and displace their government, by force if necessary.
Been there, done that. That's how we got the present situation. In 1979, Islamic militants overthrew the 2500 year old monarchy. Before, they had an oppressive right-wing monarchy. Now, they have an oppressive Islamic theocracy.
But we both know they're all noise to cover the same ol' non-stop war for power between two kinds of creep, who keep reappearing in Mexican history under different names: the "charismatic guerrilla" leader like Villa and Zapata, who always turn into sleazy dictators once they get power, and the plain old rich landlord elite, who start out as sleazy dictators and so don't have to pretend they're anything else from the get-go. If you live anywhere in the tropics, let's face it: those are your choices, always have been and always will be. Don't blame me, I just work here. - "Gary Bretcher", the "War Nerd".
You are either unbelievably ignorant or a troll. 1) the vietnamese kept POWs for decades after the war, and 2) they are still suing for monetary compensation to clean up the ecological mess left by agent orange. America put the despot in power in Iran. Most Iranians in the past have actually been very pro-American. This is still true of most of the younger Iranians in spite of the fact that we've fucked them pretty hard in the past.
Reporter, I strongly suggest you learn A LOT more about history. If you want to talk about the difference of cultures, you need to actually learn about them. For starters, you need to learn that Americans have the most violent culture of any first world country. Start there, life is not black and white, wake the fuck up, and grow up. Oh, and I'm American.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
they are saying election is stolen, because in azerbaijani parts of iran, ahmedinajad got 55%+ vote. never in iran's history ANYone other than an ethnic azerbaijani got that kind of vote there.
let me put it in american context - ahmedinajad getting 55% vote in azerbaijani parts of iran means barack obama getting 55%+ vote in any part of redneck midwest with little black population.
Read radical news here
This is ignoring the history of Iran since the 1950s. Iran had a democratically elected prime minister, Dr Mossadegh in 1951. He nationalised the oil field. As a result, he was overthrown during a West-supported coup. The western-friendly Shah came to power, installed an autocratic dictatorship, which was overthrown by the theocrats in 1979, who were the most vocal opponents of the Shah. Ayatollah Khomeny came to power, installed an even more brutal and repressive, West-unfriendly theocracy. The West tried to overthrow it by staging a war by cutting a deal with Saddam Hussein in Iraq (remember him?), who lusted after Iran's oil fields. After many years of war and nearly a million deaths, a stalemate was reached in 1988. Since then there is an election system in Iran but it is closely controlled by the theocrats. Even though reforms were made, the most progressist of elected leader, Mohamed Katami, did not succeed in freeing the press and installing a real democracy.
Given all the above I would not say the problems of the Iranians are purely their own fault. The West including the US have been meddling in Iranian policies for a long time.
In ideal world maybe - but let's not forget that it was Eisenhower administration and the brits that conspired and overthrew democratically elected government of Iran in the fifties, after the said government was determined to nationalize oil industry of Iran, which sounds too familiar to what's going on in the Middle East today.
Then Iran had endured twenty or so year of brutal dictatorship imposed by the west, until every extremist and not so extremist group was up in arms against it, finally, when the revolution was over religious fundies managed to marginalize everyone else and thus we have Iran of today.
So you're saying that West has nothing to do with it is kind of self-serving, dumb and naive.
Oh don't tell me about genuine democracy in eastern Europe after the fall of Soviet Union, what they had for about a decade was a truly free market, and please don't confuse any kind of democracy especially genuine democracy with free market. For your reference: democracy - Switzerland, free market - Somalia.
Also, please google "1953 Iranian coup d'état" and "Iranian revolution of 1979" so the people around here would stop getting impression as if you're talking out of your ass.
What difference do you perceive between the government of Iran now and that following the Islamic revolution in 1979? The same people are in power, with a few public-facing figureheads being changed out. It is the mullash, Imams and clerics that are running things there and have been since 1979.
A good part of the people of Iran put these folks into power back in 1979. We had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen back then and, gosh, it has happened. The people that didn't agree with the direction then didn't do much to stop it. The people still aren't doing anything. Our ability from the outside to distinguish between the majority wanting this type of Islamic government and the majority being intimidated into accepting it is approximately zero.
So we have a choice. You apparently would like to believe the majority are intimidated into accepting things. I'd say the majority is pretty happy about their government. Maybe they would like some different mullah in charge but would still like some mullah. About the same difference as wanting Obama vs. McCain when people outside would prefer someone more like Buddha or Hitler. Sorry, I do not agree that the Iranian people would even be interested in anything other than a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy. And our ability to understand their desires in this area are extremely limited.
What does it take to understand that not all people yearn for freedom?
The US installed one brutal despot who beast the shit out of the populace. The only respite they had was in the Mosques, which guaranteed that any movement against the government was going to be theocratic and violent with a large amount of anit-west thrown in for good measure. And Iran has had to suffer that ignominy continually for the last 50 years.
The West cleared the land, tilled the fields and planted the seeds of a theocratic and violent society. To then claim that the Iranians are responsible for their predicament today is plain out disingenuous.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
AFAIK, the Iranians already had their chance to end tyranny and establish a democracy... but instead, they chose tyranny by different hands.
Tomorrow is another day.
If we truly believe that democracy is desirable, then we ought to help them, or just STFU. The shape that help takes is another issue, but this is not a cry for military aid, only for some information.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
>> n the absence of an external interfering force (e. g., the army of the Soviet Union), the fate of a nation is determined by its people.
Wrong. An internal interfering force is even more able to determine a nation's fate. That's the nature of totalitarianism. It is naive in the extreme, and ethically deficient, to blithely assume that unarmed civilians can bring down a regime willing to slaughter its citizens to retain power.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Where are you getting your information? Ahmadinejad only received 64% of the vote.
Participation = voter turnout....
That was only because the only opening allowed to them was a bunch of strongly theocratic radicals hell bent on purging out the previous regime. Not a recipe for happy families. In this case you can't rely on the elephants freezing to death in the winter.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
"The folks running the government are Iranian. The president is Iranian. The secret police are Iranian. The thugs who will torture and kill democracy advocates are Iranian."
There is no "Iranian" Iran is a hegemony like the United States. From Wikipedia - The main ethnic groups are Persians (51%), Azeris (24%), Gilaki and Mazandarani (8%), Kurds (7%), Arabs (3%), Baluchi (2%), Lurs (2%), Turkmens (2%), Laks, Qashqai, Armenians, Persian Jews, Georgians, Assyrians, Circassians, Tats, Mandaeans, Gypsies, Brahuis, Hazara, Kazakhs and others (1%).
Languages - Persian and Persian dialects 58%, Turkic and Turkic dialects 26%, Kurdish 9%, Luri 2%, Balochi 1%, Arabic 1%, Turkish 1%, other 2% - https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/IR.html
So its hard to compare what is or isn't happening in Iran to what happened in the Warsaw Pact states, they are not cultural melting pots. Its also not proper to call Iran a "failed state", Pakistan, Zimbabwe, and it looks like Mexico are going down the road to "failed state" while Somalia is one and Afghanistan was one until NATO showed up.
They did end tyranny by replacing the shah and they did establish a democracy when they voted for Mossadegh - only when that didn't work (i.e. the CIA undid all that and restored the shah) did they resort to more radical means.
The Iranian people are pissed, and this is their first step toward something less like a dictatorship.
That's our assumption, because we want the present head of Iran to be the bad guy. But, for all we really know about Iran, it could be that these dissidents are actually worse in some way, that they are making a lot of noise to get world sympathy, and pretty much any support we show them might actually put Iran in a worse state because we don't know if they would be worse than the present regime.
For that matter, we don't even know if the opposition's arguments are political or merely economic. Iran has taken a beating in its domestic economy and it might well be that the present government is popular except for economic issues.
This is my sig.
"Even the guy who sent the Ask Slashdot only wanted advice on communicating with others."
Which is critically important if you are trying to organize a resistance movement.
Absolute statements are never true
This is ignoring the history of Iran since the 1950s. Iran had a democratically elected prime minister, Dr Mossadegh in 1951. He nationalised the oil field. As a result, he was overthrown during a West-supported coup. The western-friendly Shah came to power, installed an autocratic dictatorship, which was overthrown by the theocrats in 1979, who were the most vocal opponents of the Shah. Ayatollah Khomeny came to power, installed an even more brutal and repressive, West-unfriendly theocracy. The West tried to overthrow it by staging a war by cutting a deal with Saddam Hussein in Iraq (remember him?), who lusted after Iran's oil fields. After many years of war and nearly a million deaths, a stalemate was reached in 1988. Since then there is an election system in Iran but it is closely controlled by the theocrats. Even though reforms were made, the most progressist of elected leader, Mohamed Katami, did not succeed in freeing the press and installing a real democracy.
Given all the above I would not say the problems of the Iranians are purely their own fault. The West including the US have been meddling in Iranian policies for a long time.
Does that mean we can go in and fix it then? Please say yes, we could stop by on our way back from Iraq. I'm tired of tolerance. "Lawful good" alignment is suicide for the rest of the world. We need to be actively involved in the affairs of the world. WW1 and WW2 just called and want us to promote democracy across the world. Look at how nice Germany and Japan are now, they are 1st world nations. This is where Iraq will be in 70 years, too.
Lets go ahead and seal the deal on the rest of the radical Islamic middle east.
The truth is we had to meddle to prevent WW3 with the Soviets. Using the middle east to wear down Russia was necessary. Yes, it created problems. But we do what we must and which we deem best, and are forced to worry about the consequences later. Given this country brought an end to both World Wars and prevented the 3rd, don't you think it's a little time we were cut some slack? We're not malicious about it. If we were we would taken all the oil fields for ourselves. Which we could have done. You forget history, my friend; among all the "dictators" of history, the USA is a teddy bear. Stop fussing, you have no idea how horrible life can be under a REAL superpower that isn't afraid to rampantly abuse their authority.
Dude, pay attention, that's what they're doing. There's a huge difference between us invading Iraq to unseat Saddam and the Iranians standing up to overturn a massively corrupt election. The Iranian people are pissed, and this is their first step toward something less like a dictatorship.
They won't be successful on their own, unless they have outside support or there is some tremendous economic calamity that motivates people. At best we'll have a Tianeman square event and in a few years after that everyone will keep buying from the dictators..
For the most part, the historical record is pretty clear, once you have a dictatorship, you aren't going to "undictatorship". Just the natural order of things. From a stability of government perspective, democracy is better because it imposes rules about how regime change within the country should take place, but, there's never been a democracy that's been historically stable. The Atheniens cratered themselves. The Romans cratered themselves, and probably we'll crater ourselves. Meanwhile some asian style despot monarchy could have governments that last for a thousand years.
This is my sig.
The outcome of this current situation is not yet certain, at least in the short term (in the long term, revolutions are inevitable - remember what happened in Iran the last time).
But one thing is clear: If the USA or Israel had attacked Iran, as we have basically been anticipating for the past three to four years, then this would mever have happened. An external, immediate threat would have magnetized the country and unified it behind its nationalist leader. Remember Bush's approval rating the week after 9/11?
Contrast this with Iraq, whose oppressive regime has been eliminated by military force, and whose citizens are still engaged in a guerilla war with their "liberators".
Sometimes, things work out only if left alone.
No, this is an opportunity to find out that:
1. Most "nerds" on this site don't know shit, and
2. anyone who honestly thinks people in Iran could possibly, in the most wild far-fetched fantasies, set up an ad-hoc network and successfully use it to communicate to some useful end, within the next few days, is a complete god damned idiot.
ResidntGeek
most people on here seem to knock twitter but as has been mentioned it is pretty much the only source for news right now. Follow updates on the #IranElection hashtag here: http://hashtags.org/tag/iranelection/messages For what it's worth I don't even use twitter, but it's times like this that I realise it kicks the ass of TV news for real-time coverage.
Stealing back their own natural resources, when the Anglo-Iranian company refused to split the profits with them. What did they expect would happen?
You are either unbelievably ignorant or a troll.
Now now, why can't he be both?
election votes do not 'often surprise and disappoint' in places there is ethnic nationalism. ethnically nationalist populations vote, ETHNICALLY. thats what they have been doing in azerbaijani iran in the last 29 years. they AGAIN did the same. yet, somehow, ahmedinajad got 55%+ vote there too, JUST LIKE EVERYWHERE ELSE.
if you still cant realize what's going on, ask yourself how it is possible that a candidate can get consistently and UNIFORMLY 55% vote everywhere in a country. EVEN in hatemi backing tehran districts.
its also clear you have no idea of how middle east politics is. this is not america.
Read radical news here
If a "western democracy" overthrew your nation's government and put in a despot, would your first thought be "hey kids, let's overthrow it and install a western democracy!!"
This thread contains lots of great perspectives on Ahmandinejad, election fraud, and the Iranian presidency. Unfortunately most of the world is missing the point.
I'd like to point that Ali Khamenei has been the supreme leader (dictator) of Iran for 20 years. During an EconTalk podcast on August 11 2008, expert Bruce Bueno de Mesquita comments that after interviewing over a dozen Iranian political specialists, his research concludes that Ahmandinejad is the 18th most powerful person in Iran.
The Iranian president is an important and powerful person in absolute terms. In relative terms it's a public relations office. So yes, election fraud was committed. Yes, their disinterest in concealing the fraud conveys the extent to which they believe it makes a difference.
However, everyone just take a deep breath, and understand that the electoral system and eligibility of candidates is up to the complete discretion of Ali Khamenei.
Except with the fact that the Iranians did actually overthrow the brutal despot that the US helped establish, and replaced him with what we see today?
AFAIK, the Iranians already had their chance to end tyranny and establish a democracy... but instead, they chose tyranny by different hands.
Of course that is a VAST over simplification.
If we include a little more detail it becomes far less clear-cut. For example, what happened was that the democratic reformers joined forces with the religious radicals because as separate groups they did not have enough power to overthrow the brutal despot. By now, through our own experiences, we (the US) ought to know that the philosophy of "Mine enemy's enemy is my friend" rarely works out in the long run. The democratic reformers in Iran, those of whom are still left alive, have learned that lesson too.
So after the revolution, the literally cut-throat religious radicals get the better of the democratic reformers and the country ends up trading one brutal regime for another. That's far from the country choosing tyranny in any sort of representation of the people's will.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
To then claim that the Iranians are responsible for their predicament today is plain out disingenuous.
The US is responsible for what intervention we have engaged in, in Iran. But, the Iranians are responsible for how they have responded to it.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
This is ignoring the history of Iran since the 1950s. Iran had a democratically elected prime minister, Dr Mossadegh in 1951. He nationalised the oil field. As a result, he was overthrown during a West-supported coup. The western-friendly Shah came to power, installed an autocratic dictatorship, which was overthrown by the theocrats in 1979, who were the most vocal opponents of the Shah. Ayatollah Khomeny came to power, installed an even more brutal and repressive, West-unfriendly theocracy. The West tried to overthrow it by staging a war by cutting a deal with Saddam Hussein in Iraq (remember him?), who lusted after Iran's oil fields. After many years of war and nearly a million deaths, a stalemate was reached in 1988. Since then there is an election system in Iran but it is closely controlled by the theocrats. Even though reforms were made, the most progressist of elected leader, Mohamed Katami, did not succeed in freeing the press and installing a real democracy.
Given all the above I would not say the problems of the Iranians are purely their own fault. The West including the US have been meddling in Iranian policies for a long time.
Does that mean we can go in and fix it then? Please say yes, we could stop by on our way back from Iraq. I'm tired of tolerance. "Lawful good" alignment is suicide for the rest of the world. We need to be actively involved in the affairs of the world. WW1 and WW2 just called and want us to promote democracy across the world. Look at how nice Germany and Japan are now, they are 1st world nations. This is where Iraq will be in 70 years, too.
Lets go ahead and seal the deal on the rest of the radical Islamic middle east.
The truth is we had to meddle to prevent WW3 with the Soviets. Using the middle east to wear down Russia was necessary. Yes, it created problems. But we do what we must and which we deem best, and are forced to worry about the consequences later. Given this country brought an end to both World Wars and prevented the 3rd, don't you think it's a little time we were cut some slack? We're not malicious about it. If we were we would taken all the oil fields for ourselves. Which we could have done. You forget history, my friend; among all the "dictators" of history, the USA is a teddy bear. Stop fussing, you have no idea how horrible life can be under a REAL superpower that isn't afraid to rampantly abuse their authority.
I know this is thrown around a lot, and Godwin's Law, etc. but Adolf Hitler was elected democratically. Democracy guarantees nothing.
Germany is only nice now because they were beat into submission TWICE, with catastrophic damage done to them and the entire western world. Are we willing to go through the same thing with the Middle East?
The current administration in Iran is a democracy. A fixed democracy (or so it's reported), but a democracy nonetheless. Are we going to keep on poking in whenever someone's elected that we don't like? Is http://ask.slashdot.org/story/09/06/14/183200/Iran-Moves-To-End-Facebook-Revolution?art_pos=2#Iran not a sovereign nation?
It would seem so, wouldn't it? Perhaps you should at least try to see how this tragic situation could arise?
It began of course with decades of tyranny that fueled fundamentalist and Soviet-friendly views. But the revolution itself did not rest upon the different socialist fractions or the different religious fractions, neither was it the work of any ethnic group in particular. The revolution happened out of a desire to stop the tyranny, but a lot of people had not really contemplated what should be in its place.
That is why after the revolution the strongest established movement, the fundamentalist shia muslim fractions, could claim power. They had national networks in place to organize on a national scale. They got rid of the most important competition, the communists (thousands are believed to have been executed in front of their co-workers). They organized an election which looked democratic enough that gave them complete power.
What should the common Iranian do at this point? You have already risked your life to get rid of the pest of an oppressive regime with the support of the strongest army in the world. What is the point of trying to overthrow another oppressive regime without any form of organization of how the Iranian society should develop after another revolution?
You know, there may very well be a damn good point to continue the resistance, and Iranians do so in their own subtle ways every day. But you can't blame them for being cynical. I, however, can blame you for being cynical. These are people that need your moral support, not your ignorant judgments. Keep that in mind.
While I kinda sorta can go along with your general thoughts, you have plenty of details wrong:
WW1 was not about democracy. It was about getting-even and my-fleet-is-bigger-than-yours among European rulers.
A great motivations for the Germans leading up to WW2 was again getting-even. That aside, Germany had been a democracy since 1871, albeit with flaws and limitations.
Also, as far as WW2 is concerned. It was the Soviets, and primarily the Russians, who took down Nazi Germany. The US military did not play a significant role in Europe.
Meddling in the Middle East to keep the Soviets at bay is just too simple a view. Iraq (Kassem) and Iran (Mossadeq) had reasonably pro-western governments, before the US decided to topple them and put the Baath party and the Shah into power. This was mostly about oil, as is well documented now.
And, yes, as far as oil goes: does it not surprise you that of the 4 counties in the Middle East with the largest oil reserves, the US tightly controls 3 now (Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia) and is hostile toward Iran?
Again, read my post above to learn. The only tyranny here is your nation leaders who have lied to their people that "democracy" exist, yeah right! Democracy? What? Mossadegh wanted democracy? I am sorry, are you just dumb or are you trying to ignore the fact that Mossadegh attempted to close the Iranian parliament and wanted to have six months of dictatorial powers? Please let me know! The CIA did not help the Shah - in fact the Shah was NEVER restored. He had always been the Shah, this time whoever he went on vacation to avoid a bloodbath, as always because he loved his people.
Note to modders: this post should obviously be +5, FUNNY not +5, Insightful. It is clearly sarcasm.
Oh, you mean its not sarcasm?
> Given this country brought an end to both World Wars and prevented the 3rd
You mean like in the 2nd world war where the Soviets crushed 3/4 of the Wermacht on the Eastern front before a single boat landed on Normandy's beaches?
> We're not malicious about it.
See modders? +5,Funny right there.
> If we were we would taken all the oil fields for ourselves. Which we could have done.
And in fact have done: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/world/middleeast/19iraq.html
> You forget history, my friend; among all the "dictators" of history, the USA is a teddy bear.
Among all the dictators of modern history, the US has installed or propped up at least half (with the Soviets accounting for most of the rest).
> Stop fussing, you have no idea how horrible life can be under a REAL superpower that isn't afraid to rampantly abuse their authority.
No my (clearly) American friend. It is YOU who have no idea what that life is like. The majority of the rest of the world is very well aware of what the US fist inside the IMF glove really feels like.
I didn't know you could win an argument by appending a "Period." after your thesis.
Actually the correct steps are:
* Present your thesis.
* Exclaim PERIOD!
* Clamp your hands to your ears and run away shouting "lalalalalalala cant hear you!", before any counter-argument can be made.
And there you go, argument won.
The Long Now Foundation
Iran WAS a modern secular state. IRAN could compete with many European nations back then! We had a strong industry, we have great education system. The national currency was stable for 15 years, inspiring French economist André Piettre to call Iran a country of âoegrowth without inflation.". Our military was the 5th strongest and our airforce was the 3rd strongest. Iran was an awesome nation!. Mossadegh was not a "democracy lover". He wanted to close the parliament, he printed bills with his own face on it thus breaking the Iranian currency, he forced women to wear hijab again (this was during February) and he left the Iranian treasury empty forcing the Shah to build Iran again from beginning! You didn't back the Shah in any way (PS: I can later go into how awesome your nation is, maybe we should go into all the torture you do yourself and then attack the Shah for). Operation Ajax did not happen. And guess what, the Shah of Iran said that he is not going to RENEW the British oil contract in 1979 - and see what happened - "revolution" (If you don't get it, British and Americans overthrew him for making Iran independent). Either way, the Shah even refused to renew oil contracts in 1973 and 1976, pissing your nation off. So please, next time you write - don't go on wikipedia where a bunch of uneducated americans hang out together writing stuff to make them feel like journalists. Regards
The following is reproduced from the Stratfor website (http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20090613_iran_text_mousavi_letter).
----------
Editor's Note: The text that follows is a translation of a letter by Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi on June 13, reported by TehranBureau.com. STRATFOR cannot confirm the authenticity of the letter.
"The reported results of the 10th Iranian presidential election are appalling. The people who witnessed the mixture of votes in long lineups know who they have voted for and observe the wizardry of I.R.I.B. (state-run TV and radio) and election officials. Now more than ever before they want to know how and by which officials this game plan has been designed. I object fully to the current procedures and obvious and abundant deviations from law on the day of election and alert people to not surrender to this dangerous plot. Dishonesty and corruption of officials as we have seen will only result in weakening the pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran and empowers lies and dictatorships.
"I am obliged, due to my religious and national duties, to expose this dangerous plot and to explain its devastating effects on the future of Iran. I am concerned that the continuation of the current situation will transform all key members of this regime into fabulists in confrontation with the nation and seriously jeopardize them in this world and the next.
"I advise all officials to halt this agenda at once before it is too late, return to the rule of law and protect the nation's vote and know that deviation from law renders them illegitimate. They are aware better than anyone else that this country has been through a grand Islamic revolution and the least message of this revolution is that our nation is alert and will oppose anyone who aims to seize the power against the law.
"I use this chance to honor the emotions of the nation of Iran and remind them that Iran, this sacred being, belongs to them and not to the fraudulent. It is you who should stay alert. The traitors to the nation's vote have no fear if this house of Persians burns in flames. We will continue with our green wave of rationality that is inspired by our religious learnings and our love for prophet Mohammad and will confront the rampage of lies that has appeared and marked the image of our nation. However we will not allow our movement to become blind one.
"I thank every citizen who took part in spreading this green message by becoming a campaigner and all official and self organized campaigns, I insist that their presence is essential until we achieve results deserving of our country."
Actually, turn Tienanmen, the U.S. government and world intel agencies realized that if you really wanted to destabilize a government, you made sure the unkempt, disaffected masses HAD communications. Remember all the faxes coming out of China back then? I'd be willing to bet that British, American, Israelis and other interested countries are busting their humps making sure comms stay open so they can get the information out and allow Iranians the ability to organize.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
I will say that the British government in the 18th Century did seemingly piss off some of the worst kinds of people (from a public relations viewpoint): Taverns, Tea Houses, and Newspaper Publishers. When referring to tea houses, think of your local Starbucks and you get a kind of idea of how common they were in the 18th Century American Colonies of Brittan.
Still, I'd have to agree with you on calling the above AC poster on his B.S. There certainly was much more involved than a few tea merchants... and the involvement fiscally (and militarily) by the French certainly had a much stronger impact than anything the tea merchants of Venice may have had on American society.
When you vote for the losing candidate in a presidential election are you responsible for the actions of the winner?
Of course. Your vote is an implicit approval of the democratic process, and an acceptance of whatever results follow from the election. By voting, you are responsible for sanctioning the system which elected the winning candidate. That's the concept which separates functioning from non-functioning democracies.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
You would tell these protestors, many of whom were not alive during the revolution of '79, that they do not deserve to have their voiced heard because of choices their parents made?
They won't be successful on their own, unless they have outside support or there is some tremendous economic calamity that motivates people. At best we'll have a Tianeman square event and in a few years after that everyone will keep buying from the dictators..
True, they won't be successful on their own, but they might not need a full invasion to swing things in their favor, maybe just some international support and visibility would be enough (I don't know how helpful that really is, but I'm just saying maybe).
I suspect this will be more consequential than the Tiananmen square protests, since it seems like the anger is widespread and possibly shared by a very large portion of the country (since the polls had the other guy winning by a large margin). Also, Iran's government doesn't seem to have quite the strangehold on information and "public opinion" that China's had/has, though they're trying for it.
For the most part, the historical record is pretty clear, once you have a dictatorship, you aren't going to "undictatorship". Just the natural order of things. From a stability of government perspective, democracy is better because it imposes rules about how regime change within the country should take place, but, there's never been a democracy that's been historically stable. The Atheniens cratered themselves. The Romans cratered themselves, and probably we'll crater ourselves. Meanwhile some asian style despot monarchy could have governments that last for a thousand years.
However, the past few centuries have really been unprecedented in the sheer number and success of revolutions, especially ones which result in some form of democracy. There are certainly exceptions and I'm not saying we'll stay that way for thousands of years, but it wouldn't be incredibly surprising if one more country leans in a democratic direction.
If a "western democracy" overthrew your nation's government and put in a despot, would your first thought be "hey kids, let's overthrow it and install a western democracy!!"
There are no "western" and "non-western" democracies. There are just democracies, and tyrannies.
If a western democracy overthrew my nation's government, I'd assume that it was a national democracy acting in its own interests. A reasonable response to that is to establish your own national democracy which will act in your interests.
Response: Ok, we got rid of the dictator, what could we do to ensure our new government doesn't get into bed with the US?
I think what the guy, who originally started this thread, was trying to say that the answer to that question depends upon the culture of the people in that country. A theocratic regime is not the only answer. That's what the Iranians chose, but not the Vietnamese, Filipinos, Cubans, many former Soviet-bloc nations, or a host of others.
Why not? The cultural differences of the people who live in those countries.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
The English learned the hard way, the US were much wiser to learn from their mistake: Imperialism is cheaper when you let countries govern themselves. You still retain control over their resources, but you don't have to deal with unrest and people are generally happier if they think they rule themselves. Actually, you can benefit from a rebellion, since you can first supply the weapons for the new dictator (especially useful if the old one got cocky after a while), and you have a new buddy in control there after everything's settled. Plus, your industry does not suffer simply because you just "buy" (ok, given the price it's stealing, but hey, that's international trade!) the goods, how they mine and produce them ain't your problem.
Instead, keep an army large enough that none of your colonies step out of line, out of fear that they would get the axe. That Iranian Prez wants to control our oil (yes, our, too precious to leave it to those aborigines!), so out with him, we install a dictator and put enough firepower in his hands to give him the largest army (outside of the western world + the Soviets). Then something really stupid happened: Those soldiers refused to mow down a few thousand protesters. Ok, that could've been easier if we had our army there, but back then we had to keep face as the good guys, so ... no option. And since we can't simply bust in there (right next to Iran the Soviets.... uhoh, they'd come for sure and then those Reds have our oil, no good!), let's arm another friendly guy in the region. He didn't get far, but that wasn't the point, he managed to cripple the Iranian army (and we got a lot of oil for our old weapons that we'd have had to scuttle anyway).
Then that cocky little bastard thought he could sell his oil for Euros instead of Dollars! What cheek! And, well, since we had the "war on terror" spin up already anyway, we just tacked a note onto him saying "terrorist" (note: The Iraq was maybe the ONLY country in that whole region that was secular to the bone, the ONLY country where Al Quaida couldn't get a food on the ground!). That sure taught him to sell our oil for money that's not ours! Imagine what happened if we let that happen and others follow suit, the Dollar goes into free fall.
This is how the foreign policy of the US works. It's not about being the "nice guy". Do you think the US cares about whether some people are living "free"? If so, why no engagement in southeast asia, why no aid in central Africa?
Simple: No necessary resources, no influence, no power, nothing to gain. Simple as that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"I'm tired of tolerance. "Lawful good" alignment is suicide for the rest of the world."
Mmm, chaotic evil. The breakfast of superpowers.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
The ex-Soviet countries have no reason to reject the US. Actually, the US are held in great esteem in a lot of former east bloc countries. It was pretty much the promised land. After all, the US were depicted as the land of the imperialist, capitalist thugs that oppress the working people, and if the average east bloc resident knew one thing, then that whatever the "official" channels tell him is a lie.
What many didn't know is that the opposite of a lie ain't necessarily the truth.
I wouldn't say that Iranians are hellbent on being islamist fanatics who want to live in a sharia state. Not every muslim is an islamist. Saying that is like claiming that every Christian believes in Young Earth Creationism or similar rubbish.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Thanks for cherry picking my most and losing my point. But since you bring it up, the Vietnamese did all kinds of evil shit during the war including using children to detonate grenades by US soldiers. But sure, their culture is so much more peaceful. Given the right circumstances, ANY culture will do evil things.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
What does it take to understand that not all people yearn for freedom?
False. So wrong.
The desire for freedom is a natural human instinct that cannot be rationalized away.
I join you in frustration that the more things change... the more they stay the same. Look at all the countries in East Europe after the "fall" of the USSR. /ALL/ the leaders are the same, they just traded the Communist party for another one with more money and power.
However, Iran has chosen to ignore one fundamental truth: that ALL people desire freedom, especially the freedom of speech, expression, and religion. Once Iran realizes that, then we can take steps toward peace.
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
Win an "argument?" Sorry. This is abuse...
"Democracy." It's just a slogan.
In the words of a US Embassy dispatch "The Shah's picture is everywhere. The beginning of all film showings in public theaters presents the Shah in various regal poses accompanied by the strains of the National anthem... The monarch also actively extends his influence to all phases of social affairs...there is hardly any activity or vocation which the Shah or members of his family or his closest friends do not have a direct or at least a symbolic involvement. In the past' he had claimed to take a two party-system seriously and declared "If I were a dictator rather than a constitutional monarch' then I might be tempted to sponsor a single dominant party such as Hitler organized".
However by 1975 he abolished the multi-party system of government so that he could rule through a one-party state under the Rastakhiz (Resurrection) Party in autocratic fashion. All Iranians were pressured to join in. The Shah's own words on its justification was; "We must straighten out Iranians' ranks. To do so' we divide them into two categories: those who believe in Monarchy' the constitution and the Six Bahman Revolution and those who don't.... A person who does not enter the new political party and does not believe in the three cardinal principles will have only two choices. He is either an individual who belongs to an illegal organization' or is related to the outlawed Tudeh Party' or in other words a traitor. Such an individual belongs to an Iranian prison' or if he desires he can leave the country tomorrow' without even paying exit fees; he can go anywhere he likes' because he is not Iranian' he has no nation' and his activities are illegal and punishable according to the law".[25] In addition' the Shah had decreed that all Iranian citizens and the few remaining political parties must become part of Rastakhiz.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Reza_Pahlavi
I'd say the majority is pretty happy about their government.
Happy enough to get the internet effectively shut down because of online revolts, sure.
Your weak ground is no better than the parent; you're both guessing in a fairly random fashion. You guys (and this entire Ask Slashdot discussion group) could use a great big [citation needed] over it. I wonder why you got Insightful, because I'm at an utter loss as to why such a claim that has no real basis in fact was considered better than yet another claim with at least the story to back its ideas up.
If we truly believe that democracy is desirable, then we ought to help them, or just STFU.
No, we shouldn't. We should meddle if they cry for help, or if their non-democrat government decides it is time to poke us with a sharp stick; otherwise, we should let the people decide what is best for them and not what we think it may be.
Our military was the 5th strongest and our airforce was the 3rd strongest. Iran was an awesome nation!.
Sorry, kid, there was no time when the Iranian airforce was the "3rd strongest". The USA and USSR were always #1 and #2, with Britain, France, China, Canada, perhaps Israel vying for #3. There were also a whole mess of Eastern European countries. Iran was never in the running.
Advice: on VPS providers
Everyone understands what an "American" is though. Nobody thinks the word "American" applies to some specific ethnicity/religious grouping. The word "Iranian" is the same. This is just how the English language works.
Your point is of course very valid though. The OP is foolish to assume there is not some group subjugating another group through force.
Speaking as an Iranian, this is the best thing that could have happened to Iran in a long time. This actually got people into the streets. We're actually seeing T.V. footage from Iran, and there was one incident where four or five riot police officers were beating a protester with their batons. Suddenly, the police all dropped their batons and started running. To the left of your screen, you see about 100-200 ANGRY, PISSED OFF rioters rushing the police. This isn't civil disobedience - this is something that needed to happen for a long time.
In many countries, if you don't like something, you vote. Usually, you'll get a politician with similar goals and values such as yourself who will try to enact legislation to further them. In the case of a democratic country, rioting when something doesn't go your way is stupid. In Iran, the people are oppressed and have been treated like shit for decades. The people get a "choice" of candidates that are hand-picked by powerful, religious clerics who make sure to maintain the status quo. Peaceful protests led to brutal crackdowns where people would either disappear or would be killed on sight. Violent protests, such as the ones that we are witnessing in Iran right now, is the only choice left for a desperate population. You can only hit rock bottom before you go back up. They were at their peak when they had Mossadegh as Prime Minister, and things gradually became worse with the Shah and then the Islamic Revolution. After 30+ years of this regime, many in Iran would take the Shah back in a heartbeat. That's how bad things have been.
This current regime will not last. They ensured their own demise by cheating the system, and now they're going to be taken down. Had they simply allowed Musavi to win, these riots would never have occurred and the powerful clergy would have simply allowed Musavi the role of the President, but would have denied every attempt at reform as they did when Mohammad Khatami was President.
Best "String" Ever!
Please, can you help us to set up some sort of network using our home wireless access points? Can anybody show us a link on how to install small TV/radio stations? Any suggestion for setting up a network? Please tell us what to do or we are going to die in the a nuclear war between Iran and US.
Here's a great guide from an African organization:
http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/index.php/DIY_Mesh_Guide
Good luck!
And, JM2C: I don't think either Barack or Mahmoud will fire the first nuke. Scary as it is, MAD is pretty stable. Think about how it would play out:
America strikes first:
1. Iran destroyed. (sorry to be so blunt, but it is a fact)
2. Global backlash against America.
3. America rapidly destabilizes economically (ie: much worse than now).
4. North Korea senses weakness and takes out Seoul (probably conventional, not nuclear).
And that's not considering anything else that would happen in the Middle East. For example, there's a good chance Israel would be destroyed. Barack understands that whole chain of events - it's not rocket science.
As for Mahmoud? Love him or hate him, think he's good, evil, or has his back against the wall -- regardless of any of that, he's fairly smart. You don't get to his position without having a fair bit of desire for power, and the mental capacity to figure out how to get it. If he strikes first, he loses everything he has built. He knows that.
So, build your mesh network, let's get to know each other through global social networks, and work together to stop the hatred and fear on both sides.
But don't sweat the nukes. It won't happen.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
In the absence of an external interfering force (e. g., the army of the Soviet Union), the fate of a nation is determined by its people. Period. I didn't know you could win an argument by appending a "Period." after your thesis.
What you really mean is you mean is:
tl;dr
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
Yeah...Good luck on that "2nd NRA Patriot Revolution" armed with Glocks and a few AK-47 against Apache gunships and Predator drones.
That's gonna go real well. Where do you want your bloody smear buried after your remains have been squeegeed up?
Nobody is calling for substantial outside help (that I've heard of), like asking us to invade Iran to help a revolution.
Actually, that seems to be more or less what Newt Gingrich is advocating. I don't think he's actually used the word "invade", but the codes he's using really do come to that. He keeps comparing Obama's attempt to engage with Iran with Churchill's attempts to appease Hitler. That's not very different from saying that just as Britain eventually had to fight Germany, the U.S. will eventually have to fight Iran, and the sooner the better.
Particularly disturbing is his claim that Iran is close to developing EMP weapons that could quickly destroy all advanced electronics in the U.S., reducing us to a stone-age economy. Aside from his total lack of evidence, it's hard to see how that's even possible outside a country with a lot more advanced technology than Iran has.
first, i'm very disappointed, angry, saddened, and frustrated by what has happened and what is now happening. i'd very much like to help, but besides setting up rogue dns servers, or distributing pre-filled hosts.txt files (both of which could easily be stopped, if they're not already), i have no clue what sort of advice to offer besides don't trust anyone, encrypt everything, and speak in whispers (online and off) until you're ready to pay for what you have to say.
second, should we really be offering advice in such a public place? if an iranian national can get to slashdot, so can iranian intelligence, or whoever it is that's actually imposing this oppression. there's not even any way to verify this person's identity, it could be some young iranian, supportive of the police state, trying to do his part to silence the dissenters.
no, i'm sorry, i think i'd have to say that we shouldn't be saying anything of any real value, besides "i'm sorry". i hope you are able to figure this out on your own. my only advice is to move slowly, quietly, and deliberately. and good luck.
not only is time travel possible, it's irrelevant.
We already have a large experiment running under this criteria, it's called "quite a bit of Africa".. ask them how well it's working out.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
They have been referred to as part of the "axis of evil" by that insane cowboy the US used to call president. The US has a lot of nukes and the ability to deliver them and while the current president seems peaceful enough, they know that the US system is inherently unstable and another hawkish nutjob could be in the white house in 4 to 8 years.
They also are on bad terms with Isreal, along with every other country in the region. Isreal has more than enough nukes to wipe them out. There is no nuclear power in the region on their side and they feel threatened. Understandably too.
Isreal currently massacres Palestinians, has started wars with it's neighbours and has no problem launching attacks across borders when ever they want, for example into Lebanon. Basically, Iran has a nuclear power in their region which has shown time and again it has little respect for international law or vborders of other countries, who is allied with a super power which thinks it is international law and immune from prosecution and has little respect for other countries soverignty. No wonder they are frightened and angry.
So they figure that if they have nukes, they can hopefully make Isreal think twice before commit the next installment in the genocide and territory building they appear to be attempting. They can't take on the US, but they can put Isreal in check, or at least make themselves heard and taken seriously.
They know full well that nukes are only useful as a deterent. They also seem to think that the Middle East needs a balance of power. I would actually have more concern about some right wing Isreali nutjob starting a nuclear war than Iran.
This is an unpopular view among many in the west, I know, but attempting to understand their fears can lead to peace, which is what most of us want on both sides.
I don't therefore I'm not.
You're right. It clearly has nothing to do with their repeated extremist rhetoric about nuking Israel. You know it's REALLY bad when they refer to their enemy as "the Zionist regime".
ROFL...on our TV we can have all forms of violence that is outlawed or at least looked down upon in most other first world nations but god forbid you show a tit. But hey, Fuck cartoons and TV. We simply kill more and it's not just because we have guns. Look at Canada. They have just as a high a percentage of gun ownership as we do, yet we kill many many times more people than they do (17000 vs. 578). We invade countries that haven't even attacked us. I could go on and on. What kind of fucking evidence do you need? You'd have to be completely delusional to think we aren't the most violent.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
By what objective metric can you say that the American culture is clearly more violent than Japanese culture?
Violent crime statistics?
Take a look at the Assault, Rape, and Murder statistics.
But, no, let's go with what passes for entertainment in those countries. Because that is much more representative of culture than, you know, how people actually act.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Darknets guys
http://msl1.mit.edu/ESD10/docs/darknet5.pdf
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/03/the-new-version-of-p2p.ars
http://msl1.mit.edu/ESD10/docs/darknet5.pdf
They are cheap, easy to roll out and use existing infrastructure. Roll one out to pro-democracy reformers, get a collection of people's actual votes, if possible on a signed petition (e-sig should be fine) then get that to the UN. While you may not trust us, the UN is watching this situation and good luck.
Love, Australia
Wait! Whats a sig?
There is only one thing to do at a point like this (where the election was so overtly stollen - as if Bush had one a 3rd term), and it does not (directly) involve SMS or re-establishing connections to popular communication/news sites.
I mean, seriously. Your country was just taken over, and you're up in arms about communications? You should be, literally, up in arms. AKA, "Revolution". Given Ahmadinejad history with such things as revolution, it's only natural that he'd take steps to shut out the most readily available communication methods for orchestrating one.
"Social networks" and SMS? Please. That is DANGEROUS. Using such things when the network si known to be dangerous - ie, in a "Krystal Knaght" type situation would likely occur after extended monitoring of said networks.
You are now "behind enemy lines", the enemy being your own government. Your networks need to be small and personal - composed of people you know and trust, and who are equally frearful as you. You need to use encryption pads and other mechanisms for passing communication; nothing that stands out or or anything traceable to its source, such as a wifi mesh or packet radio.
And most importantly, you need to take active action against your government. If public protests don't do the job, then consider a popular violent revolution, if there is support for such things. It either happens soon or it doesn't happen at all: the coup leaders will be quick to squash down on un-friendly sentiment and people will acclimate to the atmosphere of fear, becoming comfortable with their new malevolent dictatoriat.
In short, what you need is guns, lots of guns. They should be in fairly ready supply on your southern border; your fellow countrymen have been deporting them to Iraq for some time, and maybe some Kurds or Iraqis would be benevolent to reciprocate (albiet, in a more kind manner).
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Good question (and thanks for the thoughtful post).
I think the best way to "deal" with Iran and future states that may be considering nuclear weapons (as opposed to nuclear power) is as follows:
1. Get China to bring NK to heel. A transition from the cult-of-Kim to a dictatorship-by-committee (like in Myanmar) maybe just enough of a change to make the regime's external stance less volatile. How much leverage we have with China to force this is questionable. The alternative that China faces is surgical strikes on their neighbour, which they definitely do NOT want. This must happen before NK get delivery capability.
2. At the same time, get the 1st world nuclear powers to establish a "civilian nuclear power" board (perhaps under IAEA aegis) to guarantee delivery of tech, advice, construction and low-interest loans for proliferation-resistant nuclear power plants. No country would be refused. This could even be linked to any global climate-change agreements.
3. Get serious with nuclear disarmament. Western powers just cannot claim the moral high-ground while adding to their stockpiles.
4. Raise the stakes with respect to sanctions for proliferation. Enable automatic sanctions if a country refuses 2 (above) and begins a weapons capable nuclear power cycle.
All of these must be done together as part of a package - a kind of global, nuclear "new deal".
Please spare me the "I'm the wise and more worldly European" bullshit. When did I ever say the US was "special" or "all that"? What I love about Europeans is that even when an American is willing to be critical about his own country you attack him for it and somehow construe it into the person having an ignorant myopic view of the world. In other words, from your perspective we're fucking morons no matter what we do or say. It's why so many people in this country don't give a fuck what you people think because your still so fucking bitter about not running the world anymore. Get over it. Maybe one day you assholes will get off your fucking high horses and get a perspective that doesn't involve having a stick up your ass. Until then, I couldn't give a fuck what you think.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
I'm an Iranian programmer. I voted for Mirhusein Moosavi (Ahmadinejad's main opponent, who was Iran's prime minister for 8 years until 1989), to prevent Ahmadinejad get elected once more and cause more trouble for my country and world. but they cheated in elections. I can say for sure that less than 4% of people I know have voted for Ahmadinejad. but they said he earned 64% for him and that's not true. all of elections candidates have doubts about the election, and asked the responsible organizations to cancel the election results. but they won't, because all of them are main supporters of Ahmadinejad.
Here in Iran people hate Ahmadinejad. we lost our SMS system since Thursday June 11 (and still down), our mobile networks were down on Friday and Saturday. total bandwidth usage of Iran's largest ISP has been reduced to 25% and this is not because people did not use it, it is because a shaping system that Iran telecommunications ministry is running on Iran's internet bandwidth. this has caused intense internet connection slowdown. they are filtering most news agency web sites, social networks, and are running DOS attacks on opponent web sites to make it even harder to access them. BBC Persian was filtered here for years, but now the BBC English website is filtered, Facebook, Youtube are filtered again (they had removed the filter some months ago).
Revolutionary Guards are in the streets, wearing SWAT-like guards and weapons, attacking and smashing ordinary people. people who want nothing but their votes' real results. this election is not valid. Ahmadinejad is not our president.
When you kill all of the secularists, you're left with two types of people - the religious, and the religious zealots.
He didn't.
If he'd had 45% against 39%, with a semi-realistic distribution of the votes, fine, I'd have considered it possible. But as it is, with 2/3rds of the votes uniformly, including in areas where he'd *certainly* be losing such as the hometown of his main opponent ?
Forget it. It's not real. It's fraud, plain and simple.
Given the right circumstances, ANY culture will do evil things.
Sure they will. Every culture has a history that includes some evil acts. That's universal. That does not imply, however, that the "right circumstances" for every culture are identical, or that the evil things a culture would do would be identical--or even similar--to the evil acts of a different culture.
If you take two different cultures, and expose them to identical interventionist actions, you'll get two different reactions. That's simply undeniable.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
Yes. Voting is not the only sanction you give to your government. If you pay taxes, if some portion of your labor is consumed by the government, if you patronize or support those who do, or if you contribute, in any way, to the legitimacy of the government, you share in some measure, responsibility for the government's actions.
Right. So your choice is to either support the government or lose your liberty. And don't even try to say "move to a country where you do support the government" - that only works if you are permitted to immigrate and can afford to immigrate everytime you disagree with a government's actions.
And not to Godwin this or anything, but your logic is precisely the same logic Osama bin Laden has used in justifying the killing of American civilians.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
So your choice is to either support the government or lose your liberty. And don't even try to say "move to a country where you do support the government" - that only works if you are permitted to immigrate and can afford to immigrate everytime you disagree with a government's actions.
You are correct about one thing: there is nothing you can do to absolve yourself of partial responsibility for your government's actions, short of leaving the country.
But, that responsibility, which we all share, is what motivates those of us who disagree with the actions of our government to act politically to change those policies. It is what underlies the concept of a "loyal opposition". Without that, there can be no functioning democracy.
And not to Godwin this or anything, but your logic is precisely the same logic Osama bin Laden has used in justifying the killing of American civilians.
Yes, I suppose it is. It's also the logic we use to justify the fire-bombing of Dresden, the incineration of Japan's cities, the dropping of the atom bomb, and Sherman's march to the sea. It's been used as justification in every war in recorded history. Just because bin Laden uses this justification too, doesn't make it incorrect.
To take just one example, consider our destruction of Japanese cities in WWII. Through our ceaseless bombing campaign of the Japanese home islands, we destroyed (read: burnt to the ground) a huge percentage of their urban areas, killing hundreds of thousands, mostly civilians. But, those civilians were the ones making the bullets being fired at our troops; they were the ones baking the bread to feed those bullet-makers; they were the ones who, directly or indirectly, provided every bit of matériel that their government was using to kill our soldiers.
To some degree, those civilians were responsible for their actions. Yes, I understand that people living under a repressive tyranny face extreme punishment for disobedience to the government. But, the fact remains that Tojo would have been completely powerless to do anything, if those people would simply have stopped following orders.
It is universally true, even in the most repressive of tyrannies (when unsupported by external forces, unlike the US and the Shah), that the power of the government depends entirely upon the consent of the governed. Iran today is no exception.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
"To rule, you need a majority of power. People aren't equally powerful, so you do not necessarily need a majority of people to rule.
Minorities can and do keep majorities hostage."
Indeed, people seem to think it's limited to Middle Eastern or South American dictatorships and such too yet here in Britain, thanks to the first past the post system we have a party that got only 35% of the popular voting holding effective 100% of the power due to this being enough to give them a majority in parliament.
Couple this with the party sytem and the whip system and you have one man, Gordon Brown and his inner circle effectively controlling policy of the whole nation against the will of 65% of the people, possibly even more (i.e. those that voted Labour but not Brown) at the time of the election and now possibly against over 80% of the population if some of the polls are to be believed.
A similar point could be made about George Bush's election vs. Al Gore and the dodgy result that got him in.
The point is that power worldwide is held often against the will of the majority even in the most advanced democracies as you say. It's only nations with proportional representation that are really balanced and they're not overly common.
Hello, I'm extrasolar and I don't know much about the subject of this conversation, but I'll take a look anyway and see what I can make of it.
Reporter, I strongly suggest you learn A LOT more about history. If you want to talk about the difference of cultures, you need to actually learn about them.
Wow, that sounds like a reasonable appeal. You get the moral high ground for making such a statement. Because the more we learn about the respective cultures we can make a more comprehensive and subtle evaluation of each and be better prepared to make decisions about foreign policy.
For starters, you need to learn that Americans have the most violent culture of any first world country.
Wait, what? This doesn't sound subtle at all. Where *did* this guy learn his "history" complete with a top ten list of most violent countries? He loses the moral high ground and sounds as wacky as the fellow he's replying to.
Oh, and I'm American.
That explains it.
(Hey, I see Americans all the time. I even live there.)
What first world country is more violent than the US?
Just because I talk about the US does not make me myopic. I am allowed to talk about my own fucking country. Like I said, it doesn't matter because no matter what we say or do, it's all the same to you. Why? Because Europe is filled with elitist assholes whose only way to feel superior is take act like you know everything and we know nothing. It's nothing new and rather cliche at this point.
As for driver's seats, you had your chance. You guys are so fucking brilliant and knowledgeable that you couldn't hang on to it? Poor baby. Cry more. When we are no longer in the driver's seat, it will be China next and not you sorry assholes and I can guarantee you that you will wish we were still in charge when that happens.
Maybe in a few hundred years, you'll get another chance to fuck up the world.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
Cute. Sorry to inform you but I actually studied world history. You created the environment for the Nazis to exist courtesy of the reparations specified in the Treaty of Versailles. So, you fucked yourselves through poor leadership and a complete lack of foresight. And by "you" I mean specifically France which desired especially harsh treatment of Germany. So I'm still waiting to hear how that makes you better than us.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?