Clearly, the way to prevent horrifying violence in Iran is to rain down God’s own thunder on them.  What exactly are we supposed to do?  Like, say we mounted a bombing campaign, what exactly are the targets?

And most of all, fucking boo Trevino and all his ilk, who could not have made it clearer that “going Green” is not about freedom for people living in Islamic countries, but all about scoring political points.

So, your interpretation of this one person’s motive is QED that “going Green” is a complete sham on the part of everyone who has done it?  Auguste, that’s not just mistaken: it’s absurd, insulting, and unworthy.

Josh Trevino?  Is he still alive?

So, your interpretation of this one person’s motive is QED that “going Green” is a complete sham on the part of everyone who has done it?  Auguste, that’s not just mistaken: it’s absurd, insulting, and unworthy.

Who’s gone green outside of the right reactosphere? Show me some; maybe I’m hanging out in the wrong lefty blogs.

As for the right-wing, the driving force behind this “color my blog green movement”, the one Jesse commented about that started all the furor, no. Not a single one of them, from Sullivan and Instapundit down to some random member of the LGF brigade, gets a sliver of benefit of the doubt from me.

Auguste, you criticized people’s desire to do nothing useful while feeling self-righteous about it.  This, of course, is blasphemy, which our buttons here show we really oppose.

I don’t even understand that Tweet. Feeling dense.

Also, painting everyone who responds with the “going green” think with the same brush does smack a bit of guilt by association. I do see the concerns about inadvertently supporting a movement on the right that we would not want to support. But I’m still not seeing the calls for war in any influential quarters, so so far I haven’t really seen any reason to worry about somehow helping out in a 2003-like pro-invasion propaganda campaign.

On the other hand, writers here seem to have gotten the impression that some of us think you don’t care about Iran because your posts have been more about US responses to Iran. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m not impugning your motives. I just was interested in slightly different content, which I got elsewhere, and was a bit sad at the tone that seemed to inspire a lot of finger-pointing instead of constructive dialogue.

Maybe it’s a problem in me that I feel okay when the sarcasm/smugness is directed at the rightwingers but not so good when it comes out in mutual recriminations on the left. Will have to think on that.

[H]olding your nose and agreeing with the conservatives is a fool’s game.

And by the way: I don’t claim to speak for anyone else, but I didn’t hold my nose and agree with “conservatives” on this at all.  I think it’s the right call, period, or at least not harmful to do so and possibly helpful.  Everyone soiling themselves over how horrible it is that some elements of the right have “gone Green” and how we can’t possibly do the same thing on our own initiative needs to take a long hard look in the mirror and ask yourselves why you care so much about what they think.  You certainly spend a lot more time thinking about it than any of us who have in good faith advocted going green here have.

So.  When are all those so eagerly “going green” going to do what the far left did during the Spanish Civil War? 

I mean, these bloggers are taking real risks with this ... just like the Iranian Soccer team and their green armbands!  Using their logic, shouldn’t we blame St. Ronny for not using the end of the hostage crisis as a good reason to whupass ourselves - oh, right, that was what he was paying his buddy Saddam Hussein to do for us!

Yeah, well, maybe you should have spent even thirty seconds more thinking about it, because that’s all it should really take to realize that we’re using “going green” as a signifier for the hypocritical grandiosity that the right is engaging in, while subtly (as proven by the tweet I quoted) hoping for - at minimum - political points.

Felix:

I hope the demonstrators get their re-count; I really do.  However, this isn’t about us.  There maybe nothing more to this than competing Ayatollah factions.  There may be, or not. 

I think a lot of people have “gone green” before they know what they’ve gone for.  I’m not sure this is about democracy or whether it’s about our guy v. their guy.  I don’t think this is necessarily good for America.  There are a lot of bizzare dynamics going on over there.

I do know this, every time we’ve played in the Iran game, we’ve been disappointed.

I’m not so sure that it’s entirely harmless to work your ass off at associating the protesters with Western imperialism.  That, from what I understand, is the sort of thing that justifies violent shut-downs.  We all sympathize with resistance in Iran, but putting “patting yourselves on the back” ahead of considering the delicacy of the situation—-and the rapidity that people get accused of being Western imperialists in Iran—-is ill-advised.

Felix, I suppose you don’t think before you pink, either.

“Going green” is superficial without a clear concept about what is really going on.  That “concept” seems to have eluded the CIA, the military, several presidents, the pentagon ... It may not be in bad faith, but it is naive and, in many cases, more like putting on your team colors and chanting than anything actually useful like, say, keeping twitter up.

I mean, it may be right or wrong, but the fact that the American right has started/hijacked it does in fact mean that there’s guilt by association, something that the pro-government folks would be fools not to exploit.

Oh, and Felix?  How old are you?  Old enough to remember the last uprising and takeover in Iran?  Old enough to realize what happened when St. Ronnie decided that ANY enemy of our enemy was our friend and proceeded to bankroll Saddam Hussein?

Shouldn’t that tell us to be very careful who we support here?

I thought all of our problems could be light-sabered away.

And apparently, Auguste, I have not been clear enough that neither you nor anyone else here has proven that “going green” is some horrible wingnut conspiracy to somehow trap us.  I don’t think they think that deeply: and of course they were going to hypocritically use these events in any way they could.  You are mistaking coarse malice for insightful deviousness.  Just doing a google search on going green, I have been able to find plenty left and center blogs taking up this mantle.  Continued accusations of bad faith and anecdotal evidence offered as revealed truth are not helpful.  You usually do better than that.

Because it’s not like our military is bogged down anywhere.  Nooooo.

One example of how McCain was too unstable to be POTUS was his insistence that our military was not too overtaxed to take on yet another engagement.  I mean, Christ, he was trying to rattle his saber against RUSSIA.

There are two actions at work here.

The first is supporting Iranian protests, which makes you feel good. 

The second is changing the color of things to green, which also makes you feel good, and lets other know how good you feel about feeling good.

The point is that the second is neither necessary nor particularly beneficial to the first, and in fact serves to lump in the myriad rationales for the first into one movement that’s already in the process of being hijacked to take down Barack Obama and justify intervention in Iran.

It’s a solidarity movement that’s fundamentally infirm.

I know Wingnut Lucy has snatched the football away every single time before, but I have a feeling things have changed.  I, Charlie Brown Liberal, will be able to run up to that football and give it a mighty kick with all my might, confident that Wingnut Lucy will politely hold for me…

Felix, let me direct your attention to a little democratic uprising that took place before even I was born.  There was popular uprising features, charismatic leaders, and a successful revolution which quickly turned into a totalitarian regime.

Welcome to Cuba.  Lots of people of good faith put their energy into ousting a hated and criminal regime, too naive to realize what was really going on.

See, these things are much more complex and often nasty than we want to know.  We project our freedom fighter image on it all, but IF we don’t understand what our good guys really stand for, we may just make things far worse.

Ms Kate:  I am 33 years old.  Which, as I understand it, makes me older than some of of the regular contributors to this blog.  I suggest we drop age as a relevant factor on this one.

No one, least of all me, has said we shouldn’t be “careful,” nor has anyone (in this venue at minimum) been anything but cognizant of the history of American imperialism in Iran and elsewhere.  We have advocated a simple solidarity gesture, and specifically NOT advocated intervention in Iran or anything remotely of that nature.  I myself have attempted to use my Facebook page to disseminate information on this subject.  I would love to be able to join the Abraham Lincoln Brigade on this one—except of course, that would precisely be seen as direct western intervention in events on the ground in Iran.  As I have said throughout multiple threads on this now, I think going green does not harm, and possibly some good.  Of course I disagree with Trevino’s tweeted “analysis” of this, but I really don’t spend that much time worrying about it.  It’s par for the course for wingnuts, and I do not like allowing them to dictate to me what my position should be.

I’m not afraid of being trapped into anything. I am worried that softness towards the warmongering of someone like Sullivan, just because “we” happen to agree with him in the short term, will lead to eventual heartbreak (and/or slaughter) if we fail to notice that it’s transforming into US policy. But that doesn’t mean I think Sullivan is running some massive scam, except inasmuch as anything Sullivan (or Instapundit) ever say is a massive scam to make people believe they have anything but eternal war in mind.

To invert this argument, it’s almost as if we should stop mocking a wingnut for being a wingnut, just because the cause they claim to be championing happens to coincide with ours.

Clearly, the way to prevent horrifying violence in Iran is to rain down God’s own thunder on them.  What exactly are we supposed to do?  Like, say we mounted a bombing campaign, what exactly are the targets?

The Bad Guys of course, hippie.  Remember - the US does not deliberately bomb civilians (which is why it always and eternally Good), so any that die while it bombs the Bad Guys are unfortunate collateral casualties.  Really, it’s all the fault of The Bad Guys for hiding in the middle of the cities.

“The Bad Guys of course, hippie.”

...um, you forgot Terrists, who are above and beyond mere Bad Guys…

Look Auguste, I agree with you as to bad faith on the part of Instapundit, the NRO crowd, and so forth.  I dusagree with you on Sullivan, but reasonable people can have disagreements.  I am all for mocking wingnuts…on the subjects and in the things in which they are actually wrong.  One pays a terrible price for tarnishing one’s own credibility, and when you mock people for things which you do not believe are incorrect, I think you erode your own bona fides.

The Trevino tweet you quote is reprehensible, and he should be excoriated for it.  I note it makes no reference to going green: it is a typical winger attempt to blame whatever is happening, wherever, for whatever reason, on Obama and “libruls” without regard or thought as to what is right or correct.  I apologize if I implied you had not thought these things through, but I do in fact disagree with you, and I have a case.

Welcome to Cuba.

Cuba?  Wasn’t Tony Montana supposed to be from there?  Or am I thinking of one of Picasso’s phases?

I think where we disagree, Felix - maybe, but forgive if this oversimplification is unfair - is this:

I am all for mocking wingnuts…on the subjects and in the things in which they are actually wrong.

Because of their motives, they are actually wrong, no matter if we agree with them on the surface.

A liberal who turns their blog green out of a sincere desire to see Iranian freedom is not wrong. We can differ about whether they’re playing with fire by using the method of showing solidarity mainly proposed by wingnuts, but that’s not the main point of my use of the phrase “going green”, as I indicated above.

And again, Auguste I think we lose credibility by sneering at someone for saying the sky is blue on a clear and sunny day because that person is otherwise an idiot.  Idiots generally give us enough legitimate rope to hang them with, and I think an important difference between them and us is that we try…we don’t always succeed…but we try to be fair. 

I think we have a legitimate difference of philosophy on this one though, yes.

“But that doesn’t mean I think Sullivan is running some massive scam, except inasmuch as anything Sullivan (or Instapundit) ever say is a massive scam to make people believe they have anything but eternal war in mind.”

I’m reading a bunch of posts like these:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/the-agenda-of-danielle-pletka.html#more

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/the-nuttiness-of-mccain.html

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/neocons-for-ahmadinejad.html

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/malkin-award-nominee-5.html

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/will-the-neocons-never-learn.html

and others praising Obama’s “going it slow, no meddling” approach and chastising those who call for a more activist approach, and I really don’t see much difference between these comments and what others here are saying about our need to stay the hell outta the way.  Now it’s possible he’s preparing a double-ninja backflip ju-jitsu move and will come out guns-a-blazing calling for war now, war tomorrow, war forever, but the gulf between Sullivan’s statements and the asshat brigades’ statements is miles wide.  I understand the hesitancy to recognize that gulf, but it exists nonetheless.

Yup. But I’m still going to take one more run at it:

We can sneer at someone for saying the sky is blue if they’re also global warming denialists. Because they’re probably setting themselves up to claim that the sky will be blue forever, no matter what we do.

I prefer to smile and nod at them and say, “By George, so it is!  Isn’t evidence based on observation a wonderful thing!”

I think there are two different things going on here.  The warmongering Sullivan and Trevino are one group. Then we have thousands of well intentioned, less influential individuals who are changing their profiles to green as an act of solidarity with the people of Iran.  Some strangely seem to believe they are doing some kind of good buy doing this, as if Ahmadinejad is going to log into twitter and say “hey, look all these American hipsters have turned their profiles green, well that seals if for me, I should call for a fair and honest recount”.

Who is with me to make “slactivism” a trending topic?

Clearly, the way to prevent horrifying violence in Iran is to rain down God’s own thunder on them.  What exactly are we supposed to do?  Like, say we mounted a bombing campaign, what exactly are the targets?

Based on past performance during the 2003 invasion of Iraq cheerled by young Trevino, if there were to be a military campaign I can guarantee you that this pissant would (like his hero Cheney during Vietnam) find other places to be than in uniform.

Josh Trevino?  Is he still alive?

In a way—most of us die only once, but a ChickenHawk neoCon dies a thousand deaths.

And yes, this is exactly what Jesse was discussing in earlier posts: the PNAC fantasists latching onto this for political gain. Sullivan couldn’t come close to Trevino’s childishness and ignorance and incoherence if he tried, but put the prospect of an American military invasion in the Mideast in front of him and he’ll be cheering right along with ChickenHawk. Fortunately, the grown-ups now hold power in the legislative and executive branches.

Superficial expressions of support for the pro-democracy demonstrators are wonderful, but a little more effort (e.g. setting up a proxy or just setting your Twitter location to Teheran) can yield more substantive results. Especially if we continue to bear in mind that this is not about us.

Hey, nicely done! And your point is not moot by any stretch of the imagination, although it’s also as likely to work as telling a neocon “By George, look at Iran! Isn’t regime change and acceptance based on internal activity with no influence from the United States a wonderful thing!” This very day I observed a global warming denialist completely ignore that exact observation in favor of their private agenda; same deal with the neocons.

And hey, as per TF79: If Sullivan really has changed, good on him. My inability to trust the guy who beat the drum for Iraq (and North Korea, come to that) will not have a bearing on whether the Iranians succeed.

Talk about old….

I remember scrawling Dubcek!  Svoboda! and a Czech flag on my notebook the first day of HS.  I remember the Soviets’ paranoia over western support for them and using it as an excuse to crush the “Prague Spring.”  Amanda is right.  The Iranians are already accusing us of “inerventionism” thanks mostly to the Rethug’s mouthings.  You join them at your peril.  Good motives and a buck will get you a cup of coffee.  It truly is a time, if there ever was one, to STFU.

So, your interpretation of this one person’s motive is QED that “going Green” is a complete sham on the part of everyone who has done it?  Auguste, that’s not just mistaken: it’s absurd, insulting, and unworthy.

No, they’ve fooled themselves, too.  A big part of understanding conservatives is understanding their capacity for cognitive dissonance—they deeply believe whatever completely nonsensical thing they’re saying, even if it directly contradicts whatever nonsensical thing they said five minutes ago.

All that matters is that they hate liberals.  Whatever they’re saying, that’s what they’re saying.  That they hate liberals.  The words on top of it are irrelevant—in fact, the more they’re self-contradictory or foolish, the more they successfully convey the underlying theme.

Auguste, I think your last graf was missing two words that would have made your point crystal-clear to the forces of derail:

And most of all, fucking boo Trevino and all his ilk, who could not have made it clearer that “going Green” is, FOR THEM, not about freedom for people living in Islamic countries, but all about scoring political points.

It should be understood in advance that if eating my black bean burrito ends in a fart, Obama is somewhat discredited too.

The neocons are cheering on the protests because their best-case scenario for Iran is having Ahmadinejad still in power after a massive bloodbath of dissidents. Just having the status quo is clearly not doing enough to bring about war with Iran, while the opposition candidate (or the people clamoring for change, which very well may be more radical than even the alternative they were provided with during this election) are going to defuse the situation by just not being as much of a good figurehead for Ultimate Evil.

They are irresponsibly playing with people’s lives.

But even the most irresponsible people on our side of the aisle are into this because they actually care about the Iranian people and what they want. Don’t forget that.

Jupiter, I think for others it may just be self-stroking that merely has the side effect of bolstering the Iranian government’s claims about their fragile revolution. Good intentions/path to hell applies here.

[S]elf-stroking that merely has the side effect of bolstering the Iranian government’s claims about their fragile revolution.

Not proven.  I also think all sides of this argument have been guilty of some level of onanism.

Felix:

Proven and already happening…

From the AP (today)...

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran accused the United States on Wednesday of “intolerable” meddling in its internal affairs, alleging for the first time that Washington has fueled a bitter postelection dispute. Opposition supporters marched in huge numbers through Tehran’s streets for a third straight day to protest the outcome of the balloting.

The Iranian government summoned the Swiss ambassador, who represents U.S. interests in Iran, to complain about American interference, state-run Press TV reported.
The English-language channel said the government called Western interference “intolerable.”

Several other ambassadors were called in to listen to government complaints about their “interference.”

Stop looking at this through Western eyes.

You think that’s a result of people putting green links and banners on their blogs?

Magis: the Iranian was going to claim this regardless of the facts.  The argument here has not been that “Washington” has fueled this, but bloggers and tweeters and such have.  I don’t see that in the story anywhere: and again, regardless of what was done (or not done) the Iranian government would probably claim it given the opportunity.  This story proves nothing.  Stop looking at this through blinders.

Did Trevino blame Bush Sr. for the events of Tiananmen Square? It was on GHWB’s watch that a totalitarian regime crushed citizens’ hopes of reform there.

Felix:

I might be misreading you but it appears as if you’re saying that making common cause with the righties on this deal is harmless.  The Iranians can claim what they want to claim; whether those claims have validity in the court of public opinion does depend on what we do.  Making common cause with the righties is aiding and abetting idiocy.

Dymphana:

To some extent, yes.  The higher the level of visual support for the protesters the higher the level of paranoia on the part of the Supreme Leader.  We encouraged the Hungarians to revolt in 1956 and then stood by while the Soviet tanks crushed them; we didn’t lift a finger.  We didn’t lift a finger when the Iraqis revolted in 1992 or the Chinese in 1989.  If the government sends the tanks into the streets all of our ‘solidarity’ won’t mean shit.  And make no mistake; we will not intervene.

President Ahmadinejad has been well demonized by the American press, which explains the knee jerk reaction of support for his presidential opponent and the protesters of the election results by mainstream Americans. Ahmadinejad’s opponent, Mousavi, however, would be no less belligerent to US and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East than his predecessor, if he had won election. Many of the Americans claiming to support Mousavi today wanted to nuke Iran yesterday and will again tomorrow, killing the very people they claim solidarity with. Regardless of which candidate would have won the election, there would have been little change to Iran’s policies regarding the US, Israel or even the development of nuclear arms.

What has not been discussed much in America is the class divide between Ahmadinejad’s supporters and Mousavi’s. Mousavi is Iran’s bourgeoisie candidate, while Ahmadinejad represents the lower classes. Mousavi’s supporters have cell phones and web access, while Ahmadinejad’s supporters do not. Since most Americans with Twitter accounts and high speed internet access are also bourgeois, they have a natural class affinity with Iran’s supporters of Mousavi and little in common with the Iranians who have to wait in queues to receive potato handouts from the government to feed their families. No one really knows what has happened in Iran, but it is certainly not Americans’ privilege to make determinations about it based on what main stream media allows them to know.

Of course it should be understood as well that if Iranian democracy hopes end in the overthrow of the religious fuckwits and ushers in an era of peace and prosperity for not just Iran, but all the people of the world, that would discredit Obama just the same. Obama can do nothing right. Nothing. Unless maybe he kills himself and his family and somehow arranges for Rush Limbaugh to be president. Then, maybe.

And the idea that anyone would look to what the wingnuts pretend to think on any given day and take the opposite approach is beyond stupid. That’s precisely the way wingnuts think. I can see that pretty soon we’re going to have to make distinctions when using the word “wingnut.” It’ll be wingnut (R) and wingnut (L). Bitching about anyone hoping for more freedom in Iran because of what some other side thinks is definitively wingnut, L or R. Let’s hope the best for the Iranians, no matter who wins the day’s news cycle. Duh.

This article from Time by Trita Parsi points out that reducing the divide between candidates to a class divide is a big oversimplification:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1904989,00.html

Also, the issue is quite clearly much deeper than candidate x vs. candidate y. My understanding from what explanations we have been able to get from demonstrators through various media channels is that in general the protestors really see this as being about the way their system operates, not about being for one candidate or against anoher.

I might be misreading you but it appears as if you’re saying that making common cause with the righties on this deal is harmless.

Not quite: it is a balancing act, certainly.  I think on balance individual “private citizen” gestures do no harm, and possibly some good.  Certainly, if they help spread awareness of what is going on, they help to that extent even if they do not directly support the students in Tehran.  (Certainly, the traditional media outlets have been close to useless on this subject.)  To do these things is not to make common cause with righties: I don’t care what they think, and my opinion on anything is not contingent on their approval or disapproval.  I am aware of the possibility that the Iranian authorities can try to point to this blogger or that blogger and say, “See, western interference!”  So be it, it all goes into the calculus.  I think any such “bad blogger!” claims on the part of the Iranian authorities are patently absurd, and will not be accepted (even in Iran) by anyone who does not have a vested interest in supporting the regime.

Not so with overt statements or actions from the government, and I agree Obama must tread carefully and err on the side of keeping quiet.  He is, unlike me, a head of state, and we are all cognizant of the bad history of US Government interference in Iran.

One forest we all appear to be missing for the trees here on Pandagon is that, however all of this turns out, this whole saga proves that the nucleus for truly international movements may be forming.  Twenty years ago, a la Tiananmen, the state was able to clamp down entirely on the protestors, and information trickled out (if at all) slowly andwell after the movement had been crushed.  The internet has to some degree neutralized this ability, and as time goes on this should only improve.  I find this to be something worth celebrating, regardles of how events play out.  In other words and contrary to many accusations that have been flung around here: we do not believe it is “all about us.”  It’s all about everyone, everywhere.  Or should be.  Going green, after all, is not limited to the United States, n’est pas?

What has not been discussed much in America is the class divide between Ahmadinejad’s supporters and Mousavi’s. Mousavi is Iran’s bourgeoisie candidate, while Ahmadinejad represents the lower classes. Mousavi’s supporters have cell phones and web access, while Ahmadinejad’s supporters do not.

The street protests (or riots, let’s not mince words) seem to have gone beyond simply Mousavi’s supporters and to be widespread amongst a lot more of Iranian society than the bourgeois class that supports Mousavi (in particular, it seems to inflame a lot of youth in the country, who have had enough of clamp downs on their underground lifestyles). That these protests are recuperated by Mousavi supporters is only to be expected, of course, for the very reasons you give (the face of the movement in the West is that given by its bourgeois citizenry).

I think we forget too easily that the first revolution against the Shah had a non-negligent support from the Iranian far Left (communists and others). It was later recuperated by the theocrats. History might repeat itself again, but my solidarity goes out to the people of Iran, in particular its working class, which seems to be showing itself to be as combative as it was in the past.

“The Iranian government summoned the Swiss ambassador, who represents U.S. interests in Iran, to complain about American interference, state-run Press TV reported.
The English-language channel said the government called Western interference “intolerable.””

“You think that’s a result of people putting green links and banners on their blogs?”

Probably not.  But things like finding out the State Dept. requested Twitter put off scheduled maintenance to Iranian tweeters can continue… that plays right into it.

OTOH, it’s probably also true that even if the US government had clean hands (and I don’t think there’s bleach and soap strong enough for that) the Iranian government would still find it useful to blame the Great Satan for whatever is happening.

We will not be given the benefit of the doubt for decades, if not centuries…

Personally, I could give a shit one way or another about the whole green thing.  I will not judge a blog or website based on whether or not it has opted to use a green color scheme but rather based on the actual message they are spreading.

The color green is not the problem.  It’s a freaking color.

If a lefty wants to use a green color palate to show their support for Iranian democracy, go for it.  If they don’t, that’s fine too.  In the end, a blog does not gain credibility by changing it’s colors, but at the same time, a blog also doesn’t gain credibility by NOT changing its colors.

I would think most people reading blogs are capable of… umm, actually reading them… and a lefty should neither be drawn towards the color of the blog nor should they be automatically repulsed by it either.

I don’t hate Glenn Reynolds for turning Instapundit green.  I hate Glenn Reynolds because he’s a rightwing douchebag who pushes failed rightwing douchebag ideology.  Whatever color scheme he uses or doesn’t use isn’t going to change the fact that he is fundamentally a rightwing douchebag.

Now, that said, I don’t think whatever color a certain group of blogs choose to use should make blogs on the other side of the political spectrum feel apprehensive about their color choice.

Why the fuck do they get to own the color green?

This is the same thing that happened with the American flag itself after 9/11.  Somewhere along the line, we allowed the right to hijack the concept of patriotism to the point where we became revulsed by the appearance of our own fucking flag.  It’s a fucking flag.  It doesn’t make one more or less patriotic than anyone else that they choose to wear it or display, but I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna let rightwing assholes decide what symbols I’m allowed to use or not use.

What happens if rightwingers start adopting a rainbow colored flag as their own?  They just decide that they are going to use the rainbow flag as a symbol of all that they believe in.  Should the LGBT movement suddenly abandon something that has been theirs for decades because rightwing fucktards are trying to hijack it as their own?

Anyway, I have no problem with whatever any blogger chooses to do in regards to the color green this week. 

The bottom line… a color is not a political ideology.  It’s a fucking color.

Not proven.

But a realistic enough read, especially if you know anything about the political bullying tactics in Iran, that one should consider if one’s self-righteousness is more important than not giving the government ammo.  If we want the protesters to succeed, we need to quit making this About Us.  It’s not about us.  The sooner we get that—-left or right—-the better.  Since day one of the Iranian revolution, the way to stifle your political enemies is to accuse them of Western sympathies.

You think that’s a result of people putting green links and banners on their blogs?

People can’t have it both ways.  Either it’s a meaningful gesture to help escalate the impression that the U.S. backs the protesters, or it’s so meaningless that it’s not worth doing, just in case the former matters to you at all, as well as the impression that you’re helping out right wingers who think the way you “help” Muslims is bombing them.

Amanda: I addressed these concerns in my reply at 6:17.  I only add that I do know a few things about political bullying in Iran, and I am aware of the potential for in regard to the concerns you have raised.  I opt on the side of private showing of solidarity being, at worst, harmless.  You have made abundantly clear that you do not agree. Fair enough.

Since most Americans with Twitter accounts and high speed internet access are also bourgeois, they have a natural class affinity with Iran’s supporters of Mousavi and little in common with the Iranians who have to wait in queues to receive potato handouts from the government to feed their families.

I have to defend the It’s All About Us-ers a little on this.  Iran appears to have a similar divide between sophisticated urbanites and rural fundies that we have, though it plays out differently.  I’m not especially inclined to think that our rural fundies are the salt of the earth, or pay lip service to their nasty prejudices because they’re isolated.  They still suck 15 ways to Sunday for taking their problems out by turning all Bible-thumpy.

Well, Felix, the problem is those of us who really don’t want to feed the mania are now moving into the “guilty until proven innocent” of supporting Iranian theocracy column.  I can see how this will play out, especially when we start to hear that “even the liberals” think this is so bad that we have to bomb Iran.  Or that’s the right wing hopes.  Hopefully this time “even the liberals” will remember how well that worked out with Iraq.  In the meantime, I do think it’s not harmless at all to feed the It’s All About Us narrative.

Again, either “solidarity” is pointless self-stroking, or it’s effective, in what case, it’s a danger.

I had thought that years of bona fides on human rights issues would have gained Pandagon the benefit of the doubt in terms of hoping people fighting for democracy, freedom, a better life, would succeed. I had thought that years of making it a mission to discredit the conservative blogosphere - or, more specifically, to point out when the conservative blogosphere is discrediting itself - would have gained Pandagon the benefit of the doubt in terms of spotting hypocrisy from a mile away.

Last I checked, being a super nifty blog was not enough for you to be automatically right on everything all the time.  I know being right matters a lot to you Amanda.  But not everybody is right all the time.  And if being right all the time is important, the best way to insure that you always have all your liberal bona fides in order is to wait before you just jump into “haha stupid liberals actually believe in something!” bullshit. 

Look, I’m sorry it’s a complicated world we live in, where kneejerk reactions against anything any conservative ever says, ever, aren’t enough to make sure you really have a handle on the world around you.  But them’s the breaks.

I don’t hate Glenn Reynolds for turning Instapundit green. 

I do.  It’s such self-satisfied bullshit, especially from someone who’d have these people bombed to hell as soon as not, that it makes me want to slap his face right off him.  He doesn’t care if this undermines the protesters or gets them killed.  He just wants to wank off.

I’ll be sure to tell the Iranians on Twitter who have expressed appreciation for shows of support around the world that they’re wrong because wingnuts are doing it…

Yes, there’s a danger of it being used to associate them with Western imperialist interference. There’s also a danger in any outside individual (not government) being told they shouldn’t open their mouth because it might associate people there with Western imperialist interference. People there are risking their lives to get these accounts and images out, so I’m more inclined to trust their judgment that it will do some good for people to pay attention over your judgment that it will be a disaster because our government’s past actions.

I am so fucking sick of these sneering posts about how everyone who isn’t prepared to form an Abraham Lincoln Brigade is just engaging in political masturbation. The one thing you’ve got right is that it isn’t about us. It also isn’t about the wingnuts. I realize you guys spend a lot of your time in the thankless task of battling them, which I appreciate, but in this case, posting about nothing but what the wingnuts are doing (and anointing them as the originators of every action they latch onto) is nearly as narcissistic as the wingnuts themselves.

Actually, being right doesn’t matter to me.  If I’m wrong, so be it.  That’s not why I believe what I do.  If I wanted to be right, I think the most easy and appealing thing would be to wrap myself in the banner of self-righteous solidarity to get that easy glow of self-righteousness without asking the hard questions about whether or not that helps.

Whoops - for some reason I thought this was an Amanda post.  Sorry.

See, not everyone is right about everything all the time.  And that’s OK.

You know, the solidarity thing might have been harmless support showing or solidarity if the right didn’t get involved, and that’s what I think a lot of people eager for that glow are missing.  Now that people whose solution is “bomb them all to hell” are involved, going along is epically more complicated.  Unbelievably more complicated.  Now your good intentions are implicated in straight up imperialism.  Now it’s time to step back and do more thinking, less reacting.

Opop, your read on my “desire to be right” is so 180 degrees from reality, you have no idea.  My first inclination was to put up a bunch of knee jerk solidarity stuff, to wrap myself in that glow.  But I held off because I’ve just seen way too many times how good intentions create problems….how we wanted to help Afghanistan push off the Soviets and we got Osama bin Laden….how we showed solidarity to Iraq resistance and it got them all brutally massacred because that empowered them…..how we allowed our hatred of the Taliban to give us common cause with the Northern Alliance….how we allowed the stories of rape rooms let us believe that invading Iraq had to come to some good…..

And I thought about it.  And decided that, when in doubt, the best thing to do is to not make this all about us.

Well, Felix, the problem is those of us who really don’t want to feed the mania are now moving into the “guilty until proven innocent” of supporting Iranian theocracy column.

Not at all Amanda: I certainly have no question as to your good faith on these issuess.  Nor does anyone whose opinion matters.

I can see how this will play out, especially when we start to hear that “even the liberals” think this is so bad that we have to bomb Iran.  Or that’s the right wing hopes.  Hopefully this time “even the liberals” will remember how well that worked out with Iraq.

Under a Bush administration, this might possibly have happened….though I remind you the neocons wanted to invade (or at least bomb) Iran even before the election.  They pissed away the whole so called “even the liberals think…” argument long ago, and I do not fear it.

In the meantime, I do think it’s not harmless at all to feed the It’s All About Us narrative.

I reject your premise here, as I think I have been clear about.  To attempt even ineffective displays of solidarity is not about “us,” and in fact, I believe it is the whole “the-wingers-are-allegedly-doing-this-so-we-need-to-be-against-it-ab-initio” argument that is truly self-absorbed.  As I said: I guess we disagree on this, though I do not question your good faith.

Again, either “solidarity” is pointless self-stroking, or it’s effective, in what case, it’s a danger.

So solidarity, if in fact useful, is “dangerous”?  I can buy that, I just think it’s usefulness is not outweighed by its potential danger—which is, at the risk of repetition, not proven.  If the mullahs really want to go out and start complaining about pesky international bloggers changing their pages/tweets/what-have-yous to green, and if that gains traction in the court of Iranian public opinion and actually assists them in suppressing this movement—well, then it never had a chance to begin with.

Amanda, see above.  I shouldn’t have addressed that to you, because you’re not the author of the post. 

I have no opinion about whether Auguste “always has to be right”.

Re your own tendencies in that department, I reserve the right to mildly disagree.  I guess, to rephrase a little, I’ve noticed you seem to see the world as a place where there is Right and there is Wrong.  And of course you like to be on the right side of that. 

Also, I never said you were self-righteous.  You just like to be right.

the solidarity thing might have been harmless support showing or solidarity if the right didn’t get involved, and that’s what I think a lot of people eager for that glow are missing.

1.  I refuse to start aligning my personal politics such that it is impossible that I could ever be inadvertantly agreed with by a conservative, or such that a conservative could develop some bizarre nonsensical spin on the issue at hand by coopting my view.  That’s just not how I decide what to believe, sorry.

2.  I think it’s really fucked up and wrongheaded to decide that anyone who ever openly becomes interested in any political cause is doing it for self-serving or narcissistic reasons.  As opposed to, y’know, actually acting in good faith.  I’m sure there are plenty of bloggers and talking heads (in all positions on the left/right continuum) who are milking this for all it’s worth.  That doesn’t mean that everyone is.

I refuse to start aligning my personal politics such that it is impossible that I could ever be inadvertantly agreed with by a conservative, or such that a conservative could develop some bizarre nonsensical spin on the issue at hand by coopting my view.

Fine, but how about stopping and thinking really, really hard about how buying into their narrative (aka the trap they’ve laid out for you by implying that if you don’t loudly join with the protesters, you must love theocracy) creates the illusion both of more political will for intervention than there is, and conversely gives the Iranian government the excuse they need?

I didn’t say everyone or every cause.  But I do think that empty gestures of solidarity do set off that alarm, and deserve a lot more reflection.  Is this gesture actually helping?  Is about the need to show off?  Is the need to show off creating a situation that does more harm than good?

Either it’s a meaningful gesture to help escalate the impression that the U.S. backs the protesters, or it’s so meaningless that it’s not worth doing, just in case the former matters to you at all, as well as the impression that you’re helping out right wingers who think the way you “help” Muslims is bombing them.

I hope I’m not deluding myself when I say that my own reaction was a third option: a meaningful gesture to raise *awareness* of a huge event that the media was not even paying attention to.  I wasn’t advocating anything, nor for one second did I think any green-tinted font or userpics were “helping” the protesters—or hurting them.  It wasn’t about me in any ego-boosting maneuver; it was about “wtf, there is a huge important thing happening that no one seems to know about!  can I, insignificant as I may be, do anything to get people interested?”

On Saturday, I was riveted to the only two sources of information I could find: Huffington Post and yes, Andrew Sullivan—simply because there was no other source of info, however much I might despise his past and present views on certain issues.  I was amazed that every time I checked mainstream news sites, lefty or central blogs, or any other normal source of world-event news, that there was—and I am not exaggerated—*nothing* being mentioned about Iran.  By Sunday, I had become aware of Twitter as well as a few other sites that were covering the protests in minimal ways, but there was still no coverage from any professional media outlet.  Seeing the astounding crowds, the violence and human struggle and yes, the struggling-against-oppression elements that touched and amazed me, made me feel humble and small and useless—I was completely flabbergasted that not a word was to be found from any of my commonly trusted news sources.

I started mentioning to friends by Saturday night that I was riveted to Iran coverage: invariably, I got blank looks, puzzlement, or at best some “oh, there was an election, wasn’t there?  who won?”  I took to mentioning it every chance I got, and by Monday I decided, yes, I’ll wear a green shirt—maybe someone, somewhere, will notice the prevalence of green and wonder what it’s all about, maybe I can, in some tiny miniscule way, raise awareness of an issue that seems extremely important and relevant to me.

I didn’t know until yesterday that Instapundit had “gone green” and I still don’t know anything about what right-wingers are saying about this whole situation; I don’t read their blogs and generally don’t care what they have to say about anything.  Quite honestly, I usually rely on Pandagon to distill their nonsense into bite-size snark that I can digest, rather than suffering even a glance at the primary source.

I have no idea where the “going green” movement began, but for me, I first saw it on Twitter late Saturday, when international users and Iraqis both were trying in vain to get the world media to even deign to recognize and provide coverage of the protests.  It came, in my observation, from the #cnnfail tag.  It seemed helpful, at the time, to have a ‘mass-movement’ of green that might grab headlines on CNN, just to get them to provide ANY information about Iran.

By Monday, as we’re all aware, the news coverage finally kicked in.  At this point, I don’t feel any need to ‘go green’—I may not like the tone of the coverage, and I may seek other opinions and analysis, but at least the world is aware of what is going on.  It saddens me to realize that the “green” is (apparently) being co-opted for purposes completely contrary to the “raise-awareness” campaign that it started out to be, and that I do now carry guilt-by-association.

I still feel insulted when I’m told that ‘going green’ means I want to bomb Iran, or some such nonsense.  But at the same time I’m reluctantly grateful to the posters and commenters here who, in the midst of vehement and sometimes very frustrating confrontational threads, have made me realize several key facts, above all: at this point, there’s no need for more awareness-raising, and what started with good intentions may, now that it’s Wednesday and not Saturday, have negative effects.

Sorry to be long-winded on only my second-ever post, but I am thankful to have commenters and posters who are willing to look at both sides of the coin, and not jump to rash judgments.

Sigh. Amanda, the major thing that’s pissing me off here is that you keep portraying the argument as “thinking” vs. unthinking/knee-jerk/reacting. That’s just offensive. I accept that you’ve thought about it and come to your conclusions honestly, and I would appreciate it if you could accept that those who disagree have done the same.

Fine, but how about stopping and thinking really, really hard about how buying into their narrative (aka the trap they’ve laid out for you by implying that if you don’t loudly join with the protesters, you must love theocracy)...

Why should I give a flying fuck what they “imply”? I’m not demanding that anyone “loudly” join with the protesters, and I’m not doing what I’m doing because of anyone’s demands (which I’ve never even heard, since I don’t read wingnuts), so how am I “buying into their narrative”? It seems to me that pointing out how idiotic the actions they’re pushing for are, and how disastrous similar actions have been in the past (you know, the kind of stuff we’ve done a lot of through the years, with some success) will make a lot more difference in preventing them from rolling the ball in that direction than berating people for not immediately abandoning any area of action the wingnuts attempt to co-opt.

My first inclination was to put up a bunch of knee jerk solidarity stuff, to wrap myself in that glow.  But I held off because I’ve just seen way too many times how good intentions create problems….

I’m sorry, but this really gets to the heart of the very reason I’d guessed Pandagon was so apathetic about #iranelection.  The fear of jumping on a bandwagon.  “I support political revolutions that don’t even exist yet!”

In order to argue that this is all propaganda to lure us into war in Iran, there has to be something substantial outside and above just the talking heads.  The Bush Administration used propaganda about the horrors of Iraq under Hussein to pressure people into supporting a war he already wanted. The pundits didn’t start the war, Bush and his people did. 

That scenario couldn’t be further from the truth right now within the executive branch, unless the Obama administration are the most badass machiavellian schemers in the history of politics.  If they’re putting up this big front of being more diplomatic with Iran and the Muslim world, openly admitting and apologizing to Iran for past meddling, and being super careful not to say anything that might even vaguely sound like we want to get involved, but secretly scheming a big war over this whole thing (and mending fences with the rightwing wackjobs who spend most of the rest of their time trying to undermine the administration), we better be fucking SCARED, is all I’m saying, because if they’re that all-powerful, there’s really nothing we can do at this point but cower.

lynkali once again says pretty much what I’m feeling.

—-

“the trap they’ve laid out for you by implying that if you don’t loudly join with the protesters, you must love theocracy”

I don’t think that any of us here on either side are buying in to that trap.

I’m getting two impressions of the motives being ascribed in a general way to folks who do something overtly to respond to the Iran issue:
1) we are trying to get a self-righteous “warm glow”
and/or
2) we are trying to avoid being seen as people who “love theocracy”

I don’t think that’s an accurate characterization of the intentions of anyone I’ve encountered on these threads. I don’t even think that’s a completely accurate characterization of Sullivan’s motives.

While I can understand the arguments against overt displays of solidarity on the grounds that they may do harm (though I tend to disagree with those arguments), the conversation seems like it keeps trending toward the impugning of motivations. Perhaps I’m reading into things or projecting or something, but why the defensiveness? On both sides, I mean.

Who is calling anyone “guilty until proven innocent”? Guilty of what?

The implication is already being floated—-see the above Tweet that Auguste copied and pasted—-that those of us who are not buying into the solidarity movement, either because we’re allergic to empty gestures (admittedly my prejudice) or because we’re seriously concerned about feeding the long-standing and not-without-merit claims about American imperialism, are de facto supportive of Iranian theocracy.  It’s just a matter of time before that moves from innuendo to being stated outright. 

I can’t believe how quickly people forgot how American feminism was used as a political football to justify invading Afghanistan and Iraq, which is working out REAL WELL.  Like MikeEss said earlier, Lucy keeps setting up that football and we stupidly keep kicking at it, because the alternative is to be baselessly accused of ad hominem.

This is not a game or a fashion statement.  I don’t resent people providing material aid to the protesters, since they’re actually doing something productive, instead of feeling good about themselves while feeding a right wing narrative about how Iranian protesters are standing up for “our” values.  Material aid to any resistance against tyranny just strikes me as a completely different thing than standing in solidarity without really doing anything at all—-first and foremost, because aid actually makes this about them and not about us and our moral purity and righteousness.

Here’s the ugly reality: The Iranian theocracy can really only be overcome if Iranians decide that secular democracy is an Iranian value, not something borrowed from/imposed by Western imperialists.  It’s not helpful to stand in solidarity and give more fuel to the wrong narrative. 

I think that the world would be a much better place if Americans, both left and right, practiced saying, “This isn’t about us, about us spreading freedom and democracy about us us us and how great we are.”  When in doubt—-and there’s a lot of doubt here—-I suggest erring on the side of humility.

Fine, but how about stopping and thinking really, really hard about how buying into their narrative (aka the trap they’ve laid out for you by implying that if you don’t loudly join with the protesters, you must love theocracy)

I’m unaware of how I could possibly “fall into a trap” that was never laid for me, or buy into a narrative that didn’t exist at the time I started following the events in Iran. 

Last night, after thinking a lot about some of the merits of the arguments here, I asked my roommate, who first told me what was going on last weekend, where he heard about it, and what his early sources were.  He is, after all, a little more politically moderate than I am, and he does have a bad habit of trusting sources like Drudge and Politico.  Turns out he’s been following it independently from back before the elections even happened, and hadn’t got any of his information from any blogs.  Had no idea Sullivan was even talking about it.  All his more conservative sources were either pro-regime or totally silent.

You guys seem to be under the impression that the American right wing created this story, broke this story, and has dominated coverage of this story, and that the whole thing is just a trumped up bit of propaganda that no other sources are covering.  As if it were just an exotic Tea Party.  Which is the most fucking ignorant thing I’ve ever heard, sorry.  The right can’t even get together unified talking points about what any of this means—half of them are still working the “Ahmadinejad won. Get over it” angle, and none of the rest can decide what they think outside of “let’s spin this so Obama looks bad”.

Felix

You got bent out of shape because you foolishly jumped on the right wing bandwagon without questioning their reasons and the consequences of your solidarity.

Own up to it.

I can’t believe how quickly people forgot how American feminism was used as a political football to justify invading Afghanistan and Iraq, which is working out REAL WELL.  Like MikeEss said earlier, Lucy keeps setting up that football and we stupidly keep kicking at it, because the alternative is to be baselessly accused of ad hominem.

Except that tactic didn’t work to make us support the wars.

And what are you suggesting?  That in the face of feminism-as-football, we should stop being feminists?  That any political idea that is ever coopted by the right (even if it’s unsuccessful) is anathema?  That it really is more important to oppose whatever the right says, no matter whether it’s rational or not?

gives the Iranian government the excuse they need?

They already have rioters burning shit up, you think they need ‘American imperialism’ as an excuse to crackdown?

I find it ironic that it is us being accused of making this All About Us when we’re not the people claiming that this movement may make or break simply because enough American liberals may post something in solidarity to the people revolting in the streets of Teheran.

And if you think I’m cheering this on because it might only lead to ‘secular democracy’, you’re clearly underestimating my hopes for this new movement. At the risk of my anarcho-commie friends accusing me of being an insurrectionist anarchist.

For what it’s worth, and to make it very clear, I absolutely do not think anyone here is necessarily supportive of the current Iranian theocracy, whatever way they choose to respond to this issue.

And I absolutely would not be interested in this movement if it seemed to be imposed from the outside. Democracy of any kind seems to me to be valid only if homegrown. And I don’t think the folks who are crying “Allahu Akbar” from their rooftops are interested in an American-style secular democracy. I’m excited to find out what they are interested in having.

Opo: Amanda also seems to forget that the real, on the ground feminists (RAWA) in Afghanistan were denouncing the cynical attempts of the Bush administration to make this about ‘women rights’.

The Iranian theocracy can really only be overcome if Iranians decide that secular democracy is an Iranian value, not something borrowed from/imposed by Western imperialists.

This, by the way, is exactly why I just can’t fucking wrap my brain around the concept that #iranelection is a right wing meme.  Or especially that I support the protesters because I fell into a right wing trap - I support the protesters because I support any genuine popular movement towards secular democracy*.  Not because Jonah Goldberg said if I didn’t turn my facebook avatar green I must hate freedom.

*I don’t even care if it’s Western-centric or not.  Mousavi actually doesn’t align well with American interests in Iran.  This particular uprising doesn’t even seem to be anti-Islam (or secular in anything but the most rudimentary sense)—most of the major players in the oppositions are, themselves, clerics.  I really couldn’t care less whether Iran wants to lick America’s asshole or not - to be honest with you, I’d really rather they didn’t.  What I care about is that they have legitimate political self-determination.

They already have rioters burning shit up, you think they need ‘American imperialism’ as an excuse to crackdown?

Not to mention that they always cast any form of dissent as American Imperialism.  And, like I said in one of the other threads, Americans are hardly dominating the discourse on this.  It takes a pretty heavy dose of It’s Always About America to assume that the issue is American bloggers meddling in Iranian politics.

I was amazed that every time I checked mainstream news sites, lefty or central blogs, or any other normal source of world-event news, that there was—and I am not exaggerated—*nothing* being mentioned about Iran.

Washington Monthly has been following it from the beginning.  I’ve posted several essays and posts by them discussing Iran.  Since they’re a news blog, that’s where I’d expect to see news about Iran.  I wouldn’t expect to see news on Pandagon or Tbogg or Balloon Juice because they’re not news blogs.  However, Balloon Juice did, in fact, start talking about events Iran as soon as the news broke.

Sorry, I’m not buying the “no lefty blogs were talking about Iran!” argument.  The lefty blogs that you read may not have, but major blogs like Washington Monthly were.

I wouldn’t expect to see news on Pandagon or Tbogg or Balloon Juice because they’re not news blogs.

FWIW, my annoyance wasn’t that Pandagon wasn’t covering #iranelection.  I had no reason to believe that they would, if they even had the sort of firepower that big for-pay blogs like HuffPo have, because it’s somewhat outside their area.  I think that it’s actually for the best for the blogs to wait to get involved, if only because in the face of a scarcity of good information, it becomes what the right wing blogs have turned it into, a vacuous exercise in navel-gazing. 

My annoyance was that, when Pandagon decided to weigh in, their response was embarrassingly fucked up.

My annoyance was that, when Pandagon decided to weigh in, their response was embarrassingly fucked up.

Did you at least read the John Cole post that Jesse linked to and was specifically referencing?

Felix

You got bent out of shape because you foolishly jumped on the right wing bandwagon without questioning their reasons and the consequences of your solidarity.

Own up to it.

Mom?  Shouldn’t you be off picketing David Letterman or something?

I find it ironic that it is us being accused of making this All About Us when we’re not the people claiming that this movement may make or break simply because enough American liberals may post something in solidarity to the people revolting in the streets of Teheran.

THIS.

But of course, as empty gestures go picketing Letterman is right up the alley with dying your underwear green

Or baselessly questioning people’s motivations or intellectual honesty, Renmiri.

Opopanax, you do realize that you are making regular excursions into holier-than-thou concern trolling. 

Archive these threads and read them later, and you might see how you are coming off as “I’m oh so expertly disappointed in all of you apathetic chumps”.

Americans should support Iranian limited democracy, even if it is limited by theocracy. Interfering in Iran’s internal politics should be off limits to Americans, who almost certainly still have some US special forces there. Who are sending the tweets? America’s democracy is limited, too, but by capitalist ideology. Of course freedom of speech, assembly, religion, etc. are dear to Americans, and it would be nice if everyone all over the world had them, but that is no reason to condemn Iran’s limited democratic experiment. The US mass media coverage of Iran’s current election dispute is receiving much greater, and graver, coverage than the recent Mexican disputed presidential election, which was a bit different than Iran’s, where the candidate representing the wealthy beat the explicitly socialist candidate under questionable circumstances. There were huge demonstrations in Mexico City, yet the news was not the lead nor saturated for days. America’s fascination with Iran is dangerous, and equating their lower classes with America’s for supporting conservative regimes has little in common with the issues and contingencies. Iranian lower classes do not express desires to invade other countries or nuke ones belligerent to their control. Iranians want electricity, roads, jobs and enough to eat,  not dominance over someone else’s natural resources. Iran’s villagers are more like those Mexicans who supported Obrador than Bible Belters who voted for W. Bush. However, they are all salt of the earth, susceptible to demagoguery, which is what drives popular US opposition to Ahmadinejad.

Actually you picked a perfect example Felix.

A woman who denied rape kits for REAL rape victims is asking us to join her circus condemnation of a sexist joke. Wisely all people who really are against sexism declined to join in, while condemning the joke.

People who were wanting to turn Iran (and “green Iranians”) into a glss parking lot are now asking us to join their circus and paint our web pages green. Wisely - most - people who really worry about Iran’s people are declining to join while supporting the protesters.

So leave the picket lines for Letterman and stop giving into the right wing drama. They never cared about Iranians they just are using real facts and real people to further their goals. As usual. Stop being part of it.

feminist blogswarming about the terrible state of womens’ rights in Iraq/Afghanistan allowed the chickenhawks to claim that there was broad, bipartisan support for blowing the fuck out of Baghdad several times over.  Even though there wasn’t.  Your empty gestures fed their narrative.

riiiiiight.  ok.  So from now on i’ll stop having political opinions, and just squee about So You Think You Can Dance, because godforbid some conservative try to coopt them to convince someone of something.

The right can’t even get together unified talking points about what any of this means—half of them are still working the “Ahmadinejad won. Get over it” angle, and none of the rest can decide what they think outside of “let’s spin this so Obama looks bad”.

The only thing the right is having a hard time agreeing on is whether the proper response is for the US to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, or should Israel do it?

Because, heaven knows, an election that maintains the status quo in Iran is intolerable. Besides, did you know “Achmadinnerjacket” denied the Holocaust?

Watching Iran now, all I can think about is how different it would be if we’d let Mossadeq stay in power. When we interfere based on what we think we want at the time, it ends up going to hell, especially in the Middle East, and people in the Middle East are well aware of that. I wish the protesters well, and hope the young people of Iran get the democracy that they really want in the near future. But we have to stay out of it.

So from now on i’ll stop having political opinions, and just squee about So You Think You Can Dance, because godforbid some conservative try to coopt them to convince someone of something.

I’m pretty sure they can find a way to spin that too…

I think we all pretty much agree about staying out of it and merely disagree about what consitutes rightly and properly staying out of it. But I could be mistaken.

It’s gender politics suck but So You Think You Can Dance is my weekly guilty squee. I can do both, right?

riiiiiight.  ok.  So from now on i’ll stop having political opinions, and just squee about So You Think You Can Dance, because godforbid some conservative try to coopt them to convince someone of something.

Yes, because there’s absolutely no middle ground between obsessively following tweets from Iran 24/7 and watching junk TV.  I guess I should stop checking Yahoo! News for updates since if I’m not completely plugged in to the entire event 24/7, I shouldn’t even bother to pretend to be interested.

In case you missed it, feminist blogswarming about the terrible state of womens’ rights in Iraq/Afghanistan

This alone shows that you do not know what you’re talking about.  Women had about as many rights in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as they have anywhere in the developing world.  There was no “feminist blogswarming” about women’s rights in Iraq.

Women’s rights, on the other hand, were worse under the Taliban than pretty much anywhere else in the world, according to RAWA and other women’s rights groups in Afghanistan.

So fuck you for this:

allowed the chickenhawks to claim that there was broad, bipartisan support for blowing the fuck out of Baghdad several times over.  Even though there wasn’t.  Your empty gestures fed their narrative.

I mean, seriously, fuck you.  I supported RAWA and other initiatives to help women in Afghanistan, and fuck you for calling it an “empty gesture” to fund schools or support starving widows. I guess I should have just said “No” to the appeals for help from Afghani women because of the danger that some neocon might spin my support of them.

Woo, protestors/revolutionaries! Boo, Ahmadinejad! Woo, in-depth coverage of events in Iran! Boo, history (and probably future) of US interventionism in the Middle East!

Just to remind people who think Iranians’ demonstrating is an unalloyed good—the last time the people, especially young people, demonstrated in the streets was when the Shah was ousted and replaced with the Ayatollah Khomeini.

For the record, the thread originator is unapologetically pro-So You Think You Can Dance. Let’s celebrate our similarities as we hash these issues out :-D

Just to remind people who think Iranians’ demonstrating is an unalloyed good—the last time the people, especially young people, demonstrated in the streets was when the Shah was ousted and replaced with the Ayatollah Khomeini.

In fact, it was exactly 30 years ago this year.

It occurs to me that my real phrasing mistake was earlier in the post, and I should have said this:

Trevitus, above, inadvertantly explains why holding your nose and pretending the conservatives are on our side is a fool’s game.

For the record, the thread originator is unapologetically pro-So You Think You Can Dance.

So what’s the politically acceptable alternative to “retarded” these days?

Why the fuck do they get to own the color green?

It’s particularly ironic—all the wingnuts are “going green”.  Green is the color of the banner of Mohammed, the symbol of militant Islam.

Just to remind people who think Iranians’ demonstrating is an unalloyed good—the last time the people, especially young people, demonstrated in the streets was when the Shah was ousted and replaced with the Ayatollah Khomeini.

If we’re going to go about confusing correlation and causality like this, can we start discussing how the last time youth protested against the WTO it resulted in the election of George W. Bush?

So leave the picket lines for Letterman and stop giving into the right wing drama. They never cared about Iranians they just are using real facts and real people to further their goals. As usual. Stop being part of it.

Renmiri, I really don’t know how many times we have to say that we are not giving in to, or even considering, what the wingers think on this.  I understand they think the Iranians are evil sub-humans.  I understand they will spin anything and everything out of all resemblance to ordinary, logical, and decent menaing.  I don’t care, and I refuse to preemptively limit what I believe to be useful—even if only somewhat so—gestures on the basis of the inevitable response of the bad faith brigade.  I act—or decide not to act—without regard to what they are doing.  You are unwilling to accept that, while we all agree some level of restraint is necessary, we seem to have legitimate differences as to how restrained that can be.

When the wingers start clamoring for war, or whatever, I will oppose them vehemently.  In the meantime, I again suggest that the immediate and almost shrill reactions in response to the alleged winger origin of the going green stuff is far better evidence of self-absorbed “it’s all about me” mentality than anything I (or those like minded) have said.

August, your edit makes a lot of sense to me. And I really appreciate that you are willing to post that. It helps make it clear that we are listening to each other, even if we passionately disagree at times. Thank you.

[Total side note, “Felix Culpa” is an awesome username. My guess, from what I know about the phrase in context, would be that gratitude and humility are really important to you, Felix.]

Well, I know you think you can hop off the bus when it starts going somewhere you don’t like but will it slow down for you?

We encourage demonstrators
Regime uses our support to justify counter-revolution
Tanks go into streets
Hundreds killed
Right wingers have causus belli or at the very least a huge stick to beat Obama with.

This isn’t harmless.  Those are real live people.
I hope I’m totally wrong and have to apologize but I’m getting very very scared.

We don’t encourage demonstrators
Lack of international protest emboldens regime by showing them nobody cares about they take care of internal affairs
Tanks go into streets
Hundreds killed
Right wingers have causus belli or at the very least a huge stick to beat Obama with.

If we’re going to go about confusing correlation and causality like this, can we start discussing how the last time youth protested against the WTO it resulted in the election of George W. Bush?

I’d rather discuss other surprising coincidences:

Movement to oust the Shah—Shah ousted.
Movement to secure civil rights for blacks—de jure segregation and discrimination made illegal.
Movement to end US intervention in Vietnam—US pulled out of Vietnam.

Mmmm….perhaps.

Probably, actually, it’s a silly discussion at this point.  The die is already cast.  We shall soon see.

Well, I know you think you can hop off the bus when it starts going somewhere you don’t like but will it slow down for you?

Magis, if it comes to a need to hop off the bus, speaking for myself, I will hop off regardless of whether it slows down, and will just have to take whatever bruises and breaks I incur as a result.  I think BlackBloc elegantly made the point there that wingnuts and neocons (and the Iranian regime for that matter) will lie and distort in their own perceived interest NO MATTER WHAT WE DO.

[Total side note, “Felix Culpa” is an awesome username. My guess, from what I know about the phrase in context, would be that gratitude and humility are really important to you, Felix.]

Thanks, Dymphna.  I do believe gratitude and humility are essential…alas, I am rarely either grateful or humble enough when I should be…but the name comes primarily out of a love of Latin and Roman history.  “Felix Culpa” as a tem is usually primarily associated with the notion of original sin and how “fortunate” it was that it allowed later redemption through Christ…it’s kind of ironic that I use it actually, since I am about as irreligious as it is possible to be.  Let me also add I have enjoyed and appreciated your contributions to these conversations.

Movement to oust the Shah—Shah ousted.

There’s an unspoken assumption here that the movement to oust the Shah was theocratic in nature, rather that the outcome was an accidental, not an essential, component of that movement.

Movement to end US intervention in Vietnam—US pulled out of Vietnam.

That’s a joke right? More like “completely ineffectual movement to end US intervention in Vietnam followed by the complete military collapse of the Vietnam campaign—US pulled out of Vietnam”.

When the inevitable withdrawal of US troops from Iraq happens due to the complete failure of the intervention, I hope we won’t be so cheeky as my parents’ generation so as to tell our children and grandchildren that it was *OUR protests* the resulted in this withdrawal rather than the cold reality of military defeat.

That’s a joke right? More like “completely ineffectual movement to end US intervention in Vietnam followed by the complete military collapse of the Vietnam campaign—US pulled out of Vietnam”.

Not a big fan of historical revisionism. Consider peace movement milestones along the way such as the success of McCarthy in the early 68 primaries and the withdrawal of an incumbent President from the campaign. Only the suicide of the Democratic machine attempting to keep control of the party kept the pullout from occurring four years earlier. By the time the Paris Peace accords were finally signed, all of America was sick of the war.

In Iran in 1989, the young people wanted to get rid of the Shah. Who would fill the power vacuum was not as much a concern.

ummm, 1979.

Not a big fan of historical revisionism. Consider peace movement milestones along the way such as the success of McCarthy in the early 68 primaries and the withdrawal of an incumbent President from the campaign. Only the suicide of the Democratic machine attempting to keep control of the party kept the pullout from occurring four years earlier. By the time the Paris Peace accords were finally signed, all of America was sick of the war.

So how would you call a movement that was unable to stop one of the most unpopular wars in history except “ineffectual”? How’s that for a milestone: was the war stopped before it was lost? Hell, was the war stopped before it could occur? How about another milestone: how many dead Vietnamese and Americans due to the war? Is that number higher than 0? How can this be called a success otherwise?

When troops pull out because it’s no longer feasible to continue the conflict (due to cold economic / supply chain constraints), that’s not a victory for anti-militarism/peace protesters. That’s called “a military defeat”. Unless you give into the right-wing cannard that peace protesters want their country to be defeated.

Of course, maybe your measure of success is just how people *feel* about the war, rather than something so basely materialistic as to whether it actually happened and how many people got killed because of it.

How’s that for a milestone: was the war stopped before it was lost? Hell, was the war stopped before it could occur?

When our involvement in Viet Nam began, during the Eisenhower administration, the left was still licking its wounds, after McCarthyism decimated its ranks. The war was lost from the get go, so the two points are the same.

a movement that was unable to stop one of the most unpopular wars in history

Don’t you think the anti-war movement had the teeniest bit to do with why the war was unpopular? This is like asking why does Coca-Cola need advertising—after all, is it not the most popular branded beverage in history?

The anti-war movement brought down a sitting President—that’s success enough for me.