Control freaks, untie [sic] and unpucker.
Iran's unruly majority:There’s been some debate about whether correspondents, caught in an affluent North Tehran bubble, might be underestimating President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s support.
I don’t doubt that his piety, patronage and populism secured him many millions of votes. He personifies a defiant nationalism, symbolized by Iran’s nuclear program. But a genuine victory with almost two-thirds of the vote would not require the imposition of near-martial law to secure it.
In his home town of Aligoodarz, Karroubi was attributed 14,512 votes to Ahmadinejad’s 39,640. Overall, Karroubi’s vote sunk to 300,000 - less than the spoiled ballots - from more than 5 million in 2005.As rigging goes, this looks amateurish.
There's a lot going on in the press about Iran. And we have our own perspectives and judgements that we force upon this election. Yet, the fact that there are so many silently putting their lives on the line speaks to action. And action, being louder than words, is what this is about. Politics is about action; words are rhetoric. And democracy is messy, but the best system that at least the West has come up with. Iran's contradictory system is faltering under the Zeitgeist of its people... a young country who is more globally educated and focused and connected than ever before cannot be controlled. This will happen in China. Tian'anmen II will eventually happen as millions of well-connected, globally, liberated people wrest power from control-mongers.
Even John Kerry, gasbag supreme, is saying we should sort of shut up about things:If we actually want to empower the Iranian people, we have to understand how our words can be manipulated and used against us to strengthen the clerical establishment, distract Iranians from a failing economy and rally a fiercely independent populace against outside interference. Iran’s hard-liners are already working hard to pin the election dispute, and the protests, as the result of American meddling. On Wednesday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry chastised American officials for “interventionist” statements. Government complaints of slanted coverage by the foreign press are rising in pitch.
His take on foreign policy makes me grieve a little for our own flawed elections in 2004. But let's not think in the past; let's just learn from it and apply it to our now. Iran is now. Good luck. However it turns out, you've had an impact!
It makes me think where in my life do I need to have control? Wherever that is, I am trying to exert my will/shoulds upon it. By letting go, I will be free. Our thought-mind is our Ayotollah, our Communist Party leadership: it thinks it has power, but it is all an illusion. Being a control freak only ends badly. Iran is proof. China will be proof. The US Revolution was our historical proof here. And anywhere people are suppressed/oppressed, we feel bad for them. So, don't enslave yourself with being a control-freak. And I'll try to be aware of it when I am doing it as well. Unpucker your butt and be free. Unpucker!
I don’t doubt that his piety, patronage and populism secured him many millions of votes. He personifies a defiant nationalism, symbolized by Iran’s nuclear program. But a genuine victory with almost two-thirds of the vote would not require the imposition of near-martial law to secure it.
In his home town of Aligoodarz, Karroubi was attributed 14,512 votes to Ahmadinejad’s 39,640. Overall, Karroubi’s vote sunk to 300,000 - less than the spoiled ballots - from more than 5 million in 2005.As rigging goes, this looks amateurish.
There's a lot going on in the press about Iran. And we have our own perspectives and judgements that we force upon this election. Yet, the fact that there are so many silently putting their lives on the line speaks to action. And action, being louder than words, is what this is about. Politics is about action; words are rhetoric. And democracy is messy, but the best system that at least the West has come up with. Iran's contradictory system is faltering under the Zeitgeist of its people... a young country who is more globally educated and focused and connected than ever before cannot be controlled. This will happen in China. Tian'anmen II will eventually happen as millions of well-connected, globally, liberated people wrest power from control-mongers.
Even John Kerry, gasbag supreme, is saying we should sort of shut up about things:If we actually want to empower the Iranian people, we have to understand how our words can be manipulated and used against us to strengthen the clerical establishment, distract Iranians from a failing economy and rally a fiercely independent populace against outside interference. Iran’s hard-liners are already working hard to pin the election dispute, and the protests, as the result of American meddling. On Wednesday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry chastised American officials for “interventionist” statements. Government complaints of slanted coverage by the foreign press are rising in pitch.
His take on foreign policy makes me grieve a little for our own flawed elections in 2004. But let's not think in the past; let's just learn from it and apply it to our now. Iran is now. Good luck. However it turns out, you've had an impact!
It makes me think where in my life do I need to have control? Wherever that is, I am trying to exert my will/shoulds upon it. By letting go, I will be free. Our thought-mind is our Ayotollah, our Communist Party leadership: it thinks it has power, but it is all an illusion. Being a control freak only ends badly. Iran is proof. China will be proof. The US Revolution was our historical proof here. And anywhere people are suppressed/oppressed, we feel bad for them. So, don't enslave yourself with being a control-freak. And I'll try to be aware of it when I am doing it as well. Unpucker your butt and be free. Unpucker!