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Friday, June 26, 2009

Meanwhile, back in REAL news
Posted by Jill | 12:40 AM
The main page at the New York Times is all Michael Jackson, all the time, above the fold. Scroll down, and we see that the thugs running the nation of Iran have just about succeeded in crushing the opposition:
Step by step, Iran’s leaders are successfully pushing back threats to their authority, crushing street protests, pressing challengers to withdraw or to limit their objections to the disputed presidential election and restricting the main opposition leader’s ability to do much more than issue statements of outrage.

Two weeks after Iran’s disputed presidential election, Mir Hussein Moussavi, the top challenger, issued an angry statement Thursday that underscored his commitment to press ahead — but also his impotence in the face of an increasingly emboldened and repressive government.

Mr. Moussavi does not have a political organization to rally, and during the height of the unrest he attracted a large following more because of whom he opposed — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — than because of what he stood for, political analysts said.

“I am willing to show how election criminals have stood by those behind the recent riots and shed people’s blood,” Mr. Moussavi said in a statement posted on his Web site. “I will not back down even for a second because of personal threats and interests from defending the rights of the people.”

Perhaps the most important question now is whether the leadership can paper over the deep divisions that the election has widened within Iran’s political elite, which present the most serious threat to the system in its 30-year history.

There were still signs of widespread public anger and resentment toward the leadership, but no organization to channel it, political analysts said.


Our blogbuddy Jurassicpork has been nothing short of spectacular in his coverage of the Iran situation, and if you haven't visited Welcome Back to Pottersville in a while, I highly recommend that you do so.

As for the other troubled hotspot of the world, I had dinner last night with a colleague who is originally from South Korea, and we were discussing the North Korea situation. Another colleague wondered why the people of North Korea can't band together and rebel. I think we're seeing in Iran why that's not often possible. As long as these dictatorial strongmen have the army in their pockets, and can keep them by giving them more money and better housing than the rest of the population, any rebellion, unless the population is huge, unified, AND willing to suffer huge casualties, is going to be crushed the way the one in Iran has been. Meanwhile, the thought of people in South Korea sending messages tied to balloons in the hope that they will arrive in the North just breaks my heart.

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1 Comments:
Blogger Bob said...
What's happened is no surprise. But it showed us a broad swath of unhappy Iranians armed with cellphones they aren't giving up. & now we know that the clerical side of the Islamic Republic constitutional structure is not a monolith. Over time, Iran could become more free or less free. But it won't stay the same.
6/26/09, 4:06 PM  
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