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Iranian Government Cuts Off Internet Access Again
AlbionTourgee writes "It is reported that Gmail and Yahoo mail at least have been blocked in Iran, along with many English-language sites. While news of demonstrations seems to be getting out of the country, the government appears to be trying to prevent people within Iran from communicating and from learning what's happening. It remains to be seen whether TOR and Freenets can be effective to combat this sort of effort to block communications, and whether the general circulation of information about the protests around the world will help."
They are the Government of that country, whether or not we happen to agree with their policies. If they want to ban automobiles and have everyone ride around on horses, it is their perogative. We can get our undies in a bunch as much as we want, and hem and haw and harrumph about the situation. They are a sovereign nation and may make their own laws as they please. If you don't like it, revolt. Oh that's right, you don't live there but would like to impose your views and laws on them.
The only people who do care, are gullible, interventionist Americans.
I'm fed up with the Middle East. The region is this planet's equivalent of a high school oval. It's the traditional venue that pretty much everyone goes to when they want to have a fight. There is conflict of some sort happening there constantly, on a literally second by second basis.
These endless conflicts also are not ours. The rest of the world very rarely has any real stake in them, for the most part. Oil is about the only legitimate interest anyone else has there. Semitic monotheism, and who owns a particular mosque or church or whatever, is utterly meaningless as a legitimate incentive for war.
If the Iranian government wants to completely exterminate its' constituency, let it. If the Arabs and Jews want to mutually remove each other from human memory, let them.
At least if that were to happen, the rest of us might finally get some peace and quiet.
I just don't think they would tolerate becoming prisoners in the their own nation.
People who preach unquestioning submission would *never* tolerate becoming prisoners. Riiight...
Their religion tells them to oppress and be oppressed...
Uh, I don't think that's true. At least not from what I've read in the Qur'an, there wasn't anything detailing what's going on in Iran right now and saying that that is how you must run your nation state. In fact, if you look at a lot of laws like the extreme forms of Sharia they are more founded on what leaders after Muhammad's death decided he meant. In my mind I liken it to the perversion that several Popes have put in place ... in the name of The Bible. Despite the Popes calling themselves Christians, they spent their lives very comfortably unlike Jesus Christ. Similarly certain leaders today call themselves Christians and Muslims yet do not live their lives like either Christ or Muhammad. Usually it's not safe to compare religions like this but I'm trying to illustrate that these historical religious figures suffer distortion today across the world in Iran and the United States. Perhaps one is worse than the other but your criticism of "mudslums" religion telling them to be oppressed is no more apt than me saying that Christianity tells Christians to be oppressed. Indeed, speaking for any religion that has hundreds of diverse sects is a ridiculous act in and of itself.
... much less most of "The Middle East." Because we weren't paying our media outlets to disperse that, we were only rewarding them on shock reporting mostly spurred by the Iranian hostage crisis. That's all we saw of Iran on the news and for a while that's all Iran was to us, a hostage crisis ... not a country with millions of citizens doing a lot of the same stuff we do here in the states.
I might also warn you that Western media (especially in the United States) concentrated on only the bad things from "The Middle East" from the 1980s to the 1990s. Although it's recently become much better, I read a book by Edward Said called Covering Islam that itemized a few publications and looked at the hilarious slant. Granted, he cherry picked those works and the book was not as even handed as I had hoped, he did point out to me that I do not know the average life of a regular citizen in Tehran
My work here is dung.
Sorry, no. Moral relativism is complete bullshit. Some things are morally wrong ABSOLUTELY. One of them is supressing your populace's ability to communicate. I'm sick and tired of people justifying morally corrupt behavior just because it's state-sanctioned. Sorry, forcing women they have to wear a head-dress is absolutely not acceptable. Denying them basic human rights is absolutely not acceptable. Persecution of homosexuality is absolutely not acceptable. EVEN IF ALL THESE THINGS ARE STATE SANCTIONED. I'll take that one step further and say that it is even absolutely morally unacceptable for a radical state to possess nuclear weaponry, even more absolutely morally unacceptable for such a regime to have such unabashed hatred based on another people's religion.
The difference between a state and a mob is that one controls the military and one does not. Simply being a group does not magically grant anyone moral superiority or the ability to redefine basic human rights. Saying that its ok for ANYONE to do that is fucking retarded, and something that is continued by apologists. Your moral 'relativism' is the reason why atrocities like this are allowed to perpetrate.
ver since secular authority stopped them from torturing and burning people for disagreeing with them.
Yes, only the secular authorities are allowed to do that nowadays.
how is it related to Michael Jackson?
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Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
I just don't think they would tolerate becoming prisoners in the their own nation.
People who preach unquestioning submission would *never* tolerate becoming prisoners. Riiight...
Quite possibly "riiight". Its not necessarily the people teaching unquestioning submission that would tolerate becoming a prisoner to the state, its that those same people coming to power may use the state to force that unquestioning submission on others. I fear that America has far more in common with Iran than a lot of us would like to admit.
tell me again, how is this different than the bill to allow the president of the united states to "shut down the Internet" in case of emergency? or is this simply a case of different intentions?
The United States government saying ANYTHING about Iran silencing dissent is hypocrisy of the worst kind.
What makes you think I have anything to do with the United States Government? Nice bit of redirection ya got there though.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Iran hasn't committed a war of aggression in more that 200 years.
One could argue that their sponsorship of Hezbollah represents acts of wars against Israel and Lebanon.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
... he supported terrorist attacks on the US like the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing.
Words have specific meanings. A 'terrorist attack' is not any attack perpetrated by your enemies.
It refers to an attack on civilians for the purpose of creating fear.
The bombing of a military installation like a barracks is not a terrorist attack.
One could also argue that United Nations sponsorship of Israel represents an act of war against the entire region that didn't want Israel put there in the first place.
Fixed that for you.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Especially the bombing of a military barracks in a war. One side of which we were, in fact, supporting. (Granted, we weren't actually fighting yet, but that just means their actions were, duh, a declaration of war against us for supporting their enemies.)
Remember kids: Bombs dropped from airplanes on civilian targets to kill military personal that might be inside, and certainly kill a bunch of civilians: Normal war.
Bombs driven up in trucks to military barracks to kill only military personal: Terrorism.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
California is in a financial crisis with 20% + unemployment
What does that have to do with Israel? California's problems are largely self-inflicted.
Welfare for the nation's own people? Well they made their own bed, didn't they?
Why are you confusing people with the State Government of California?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Well, there is a third category detailed in the Quar'an, the People of the Book (Christians and Jews, primarily). These people are not enemies of the Muslims and should not be persecuted nor should conversion be sought (though it is welcomed). According to that writing the safest place in the world for a Israeli Jew to be would be the streets of downtown Tehran. I think Iran's secular authority might disagree, though.
Ultimately the followers of a religion dictate the perception of a religion. Sharia laws and the oppression of women are two things practiced in many Muslim countries that lead to a negative perception of Islam by the West, though if you meet a practicing Muslim in New York or London they would be unlikely to follow Sharia law at all...
To be fair, the bible isn't all sunshine and roses, either. While the moral lessons that Jesus Christ sought to teach are excellent regardless of your religious background or beliefs, very few people truly practice them. Instead we are regaled day after day with Old Testament scripture that persecutes sexual preference or would have us kill a woman for adultery. Apparently not punishing them makes me "wicked". If you are outraged that I would write that, and feel it is unfair that I characterize an entire religion based on what is clearly a minority viewpoint then I congratulate you, for you have gotten my point.
Wow, videos that talk to random people on the streets. That's convincing. Why don't you link to a KKK rally next and use that to support the argument that the United States is like South Africa in 1979?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Or we could argue that the Arab countries and associated terrorist organizations declaring wars of extermination against Israel are acts of war against Israel, which has a right to be there whether or not the Arabs want it.
"which has a right to be there whether or not the Arabs want it"
Of course, the Palestinian resistance movement could argue that the Palestinian state has a right to be there instead, whether or not the Jews want it.