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HaroldBalzaccio wrote:

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memyselfandi wrote:

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When have I said Iran is exactly the same as the US?

From post 240:

memyselfandi wrote:

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Of course the mullahs in charge are not going to willingly give up any of their power, but then neither did the racists who opposed the civil rights movement yet people protesting made a difference there.

You drew the comparison. Like everything else you've posted about the situation, it's rooted in an ignorance of how things really work in Iran.

What works here is not going to work there. Period. The Grand Ayatollah could step in tomorrow and say, "You know, you guys are right, Mousavi gets to be President," and not one thing would change in the grand scheme of things. The President is a puppet, and the Iranians know it. Women will remain without rights, dissenters will be imprisoned, fags will be hanged, and life will go on. Even most of the protestors are afraid to fucking speak in their rallies, and the best chant they've managed to whip up is "ALLAHU AKHBAR," because just speaking against the mullahs can get you locked up and tortured.

To their credit, they showed up for the game, even knowing the game is rigged.


The original Islamic Revolutionaries had weapons. These Greenpeacers don't, and passive resistance isn't going to fly. No amount of international pressure is going to break that regime. They laugh at trade restrictions, because they're sitting on a shitload of oil. The mullahs have made sure that there's no chance of them losing power in the near-term. It will take decades for the youth doing the protesting today (the median age of Iranians is 27 years) to rise through the ranks of the various bureaucracies and start forcing change from the inside out, but that's how it's going to happen.


Remember the fanaticism of the Revolution? That was only 30 years ago, and the mid-level functionaries of that machine are still fairly young, and they're running the show now.

I drew a comparison. That does not equal saying the US and Iran are exactly the same.

I only brought up the civil rights movement in comparison to Iran because of Bob's argument that protests aren't capable of changing anything when I think civil disobedience was proven by the US civil rights movement as a successful method of effecting change for large masses of unarmed people, which itself wasn't born from American ideas of freedom alone but instead drew much from India's earlier independence movement under Gandhi.

The mid-level functionaries of that revolutionary machine are NOT ALL marching lockstep with Khamenei and Ahmadinejad... hence the former Prime Minister under Khomeini, Mousavi, opposing Ahmadinejad and defying Khameini. Then you have Rafsanjani, another revolutionary from the old days, trying to gin up clerical support for Mousavi. That's why this is more than just a random student protest but actually has people in the streets of Tehran from all ages.

I don't doubt it's quite probable in the end they will fail, but if they do I don't think the young people of Iran have any reason to wait and hope that after they get older they'll be able to change things from the inside because between this rigged election and the brutal violence inflicted on these protesters their country's leaders will have already given up even the pretense of being a republic and will probably no longer even bother going through the motions of trying to make the people forget they are living in a fascist police state.

Oh and as for their chants... do you think the reports and YouTube videos of protesters chanting "Death to Khameini" are hoaxes or are you simply as misinformed about the situation in Iran as you claim I am?

HaroldBalzaccio wrote:

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memyselfandi wrote:

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I drew a comparison. That does not equal saying the US and Iran are exactly the same.

I only brought up the civil rights movement in comparison to Iran because of Bob's argument that protests aren't capable of changing anything when I think civil disobedience was proven by the US civil rights movement as a successful method of effecting change for large masses of unarmed people, which itself wasn't born from American ideas of freedom alone but instead drew much from India's earlier independence movement under Gandhi.

The mid-level functionaries of that revolutionary machine are NOT ALL marching lockstep with Khamenei and Ahmadinejad... hence the former Prime Minister under Khomeini, Mousavi, opposing Ahmadinejad and defying Khameini. Then you have Rafsanjani, another revolutionary from the old days, trying to gin up clerical support for Mousavi. That's why this is more than just a random student protest but actually has people in the streets of Tehran from all ages.

I don't doubt it's quite probable in the end they will fail, but if they do I don't think the young people of Iran have any reason to wait and hope that after they get older they'll be able to change things from the inside because between this rigged election and the brutal violence inflicted on these protesters their country's leaders will have already given up even the pretense of being a republic and will probably no longer even bother going through the motions of trying to make the people forget they are living in a fascist police state.

Oh and as for their chants... do you think the reports and YouTube videos of protesters chanting "Death to Khameini" are hoaxes or are you simply as misinformed about the situation in Iran as you claim I am?

1. I never said that you said Iran was exactly like the US, but nice attempt at deflection. You made an incredibly bad analogy. Own it and shut the fuck up.

I asked when did I say Iran was exactly like the US and you responded with a quote of my post 240 as your evidence of my saying Iran was exactly like the US. Now you're backtracking? What a surprise.

As for the analogy...





Yep... clearly worst analogy ever. LOL. Sorry, I'm not going to "shut the fuck up" just because you don't agree with me.

2. You just made another incredibly bad analogy by comparing Iran to India under British rule. Iran's center of empire isn't half a world away, nor is the country run by foreigners. Own that one in advance.

Are you fucking retarded or just willfully ignorant? I was talking about the concept of civil disobedience. Not that you even care since you obviously are just saying stupid shit to get my attention at this point.

3. I didn't say that all of the old-school Revolutionaries were "marching lockstep" with Khameiei. What I said was that the government itself is being run by those hardcore fanatics. Again, nice try, but most people don't have a stunted sense of context.

What was that you said before? Nice attempt at deflection?

4. What the fuck do you think those young protestors are gonna do, hurl rocks at tanks and win? The Revolutionary Guard doesn't play around. They are hand-picked for their religious fervor, political reliability, and absolute loyalty to the Grand Ayatollah, who is their version of the Pope. If he says jump, they try to fly. Waiting it out is the only way those kids will ever succeed in that ISLAMIC republic (see what I did there?). The Iranians know exactly what sort of government they have. They fought a revolution to prop it up.

No I don't think the protesters are going to hurl rocks at tanks and win, especially since there's not even been any confirmed reports of any tanks going after them on the streets of Iran as of yet. I think if the protesters are successful it will be from turning public opinion against the regime as the body count builds and thus the number of martyrs for this cause grows inspiring more and more people to come out of the woodwork so that these people have no died in vain. I think if the protesters succeed it will be as a result of the protesters on the ground persuading at least some of the police to turn against the regime and the basiji and Rafsanjani pulling some strings to at the very least keep the army neutral or in a best case scenario to align with the people rather than the Supreme Leader, just the same way the 1979 protesters convinced the police and security apparatus to turn against the Shah. It's not like those protesters going into that revolution were by any means the better armed side of that confrontation.

5. Those people chanting "Death to Khameinei" are in the minority (as are the protestors as a whole, despite what you seem to think), and if they're identified, they'll be wormfood. It might not happen tomorrow, or next week, or next month, but the regime has patience. They can afford to wait, because they aren't going anywhere. Let things quiet down, let the world's short-term attention waver (and it will waver), and the arrests will begin. That's why the vast majority of protestors have been doing nothing more than clapping, or holding up signs in English (which also serves to get popular, if not material, support in the US) rather than Arabic or Farsi, or flashing peace signs, or chanting "Allahu Akhbar." They know they're fucked if they get too uppity.

Meanwhile, in the real world and not just Harry Ball's opinion, it's reported the head of the fucking Iranian Parliament was just on Iranian fucking state television acknowledging the majority of people in Iran think the election result was not accurate.

You really should stop. Barring that, I'm willing to bet my boardicide against yours that my analysis will prove to be more accurate when all is said and done. Put your money where your fat fucking fingers are or just drop it.

Ooooh. Tough guy. What if I don't stop? What if I don't drop it? Maybe I'll make you look like even more of an ass? Sorry I am not doing a boardicide bet with you over whose analysis proves to be more accurate when you have already posted a ton of inaccuracies that you have shown you are incapable of acknowledging.

As for the bet, chickenshit, if you're not game, you obviously know your ass can't cash the check. I'll wait for the list of my "inaccuracies."

LOL at all the money analogies over a boardacide "bet." Oh gosh maybe if you call me yellow or start clucking at me in addition to calling me a chickenshit I'll forget that you are incapable of admitting you are wrong and thus you would never honor the bet and actually boardacide anyway.

A not necessarily all-inclusive list of inaccuracies

1. the best chant they've managed to whip up is "ALLAHU AKHBAR

2. I never said that you said Iran was exactly like the US

3. It will take decades for the youth doing the protesting today (the median age of Iranians is 27 years) to rise through the ranks of the various bureaucracies and start forcing change from the inside out, but that's how it's going to happen.

4. Waiting it out is the only way those kids will ever succeed in that ISLAMIC republic (see what I did there?).

5. "just clapping and holding up peace signs"