Socio-political linkspam

[oyceter]

• I have mostly spent the last two days trying to catch up with the protests currently going on in Iran. With the caveat that I'm still piecing together information and what's signal and what's noise, links I've personally found useful have been:
  
  • Fark's summary
  • Andrew Sullivan's live blogging. Yesterday I started around page 9, although I'm sure you have to page back more now. Or try these two archives.
  • I'm currently trying to catch up on the NYT blog
  • Big Picture on elections, protests, and more protests
  • How to set up a proxy (Windows only), though there might be Mac in the comments
  I am too uncertain about the current situation to know who to trust re: information for proxies or what the current state on Twitter is, so grain of salt.
  
  I've been heartened by the number of people who have been saying that this is not about the USian us, but about the Iranians on the ground and demonstrating. I've also been incredibly angry about the people trying to put a spin on it as "Look! They are absorbing the ideas of US democracy!" and the people going on about the social media aspect of it, especially the bloggers. I have no doubt that what's currently going on is different because of how Twitter and YouTube and cell phones and digital cameras have been used to document things, but I am extremely wary of white bloggers using this as a platform to go "Yay new media!" It reminds me too much of how conversations about RaceFail started to be white people talking to other white people about social media. (eta: not just white bloggers, but Western bloggers period)
  
  But mostly, I hope that the people protesting will be safe, that they will get the government they voted for, and that it makes a difference.
• 
  shewhohashope has an excellent post (same post, just DW and LJ versions for comment tracking) on cereta's On rape and men. If you don't read any of it, read at least this:
  When rape culture is being discussed, rape is a product of civilisation itself, not an example of its disruption but a natural result of the principles it is built on.
  
  
  coffeeandink also links to some good posts.

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