uhhh.... i didn't claim there weren't young men in both pictures. It's what's not in the 2nd pictures that is relevant.

In the first pictures, I see:
- women
- signs in English
- tons of cameras, cell phones, and video cameras
- color


in the 2nd pictures, I see..... religious fanatics

the last picture isn't "out of place" - it's at the same event as the 2nd to last picture. That's Khameni in the pit and Ahmadinejad behind him.

6/22/2009 7:40:15 PM

without a doubt there are young men, even women, who are very strongly pro-regime. These people usually have a direct ties via family members to the revolution 30 years ago.

Keep in mind though that they represent a very small percentage the youth in Iran. They tend to live in rural outskirts and, for the most part, are uneducated.

6/22/2009 8:39:32 PM

are the "pro-regime" pictures from the friday prayer? if so that would explain the lack of women.

6/22/2009 9:03:31 PM

^i think they are.

6/22/2009 9:05:41 PM

the same trends are generally represented in these photo sets too
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/06/irans_presidential_election.html
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/06/irans_disputed_election.html
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/06/irans_continued_election_turmo.html

6/22/2009 9:18:17 PM

She is becoming a martyr and a symbol.



[Edited on June 22, 2009 at 10:10 PM. Reason : das56]

6/22/2009 10:09:20 PM

saw that on saturday

once was enough

it'll be in my brain forever

6/22/2009 10:11:11 PM

my god.... that's so much worse than any special effects on the movies make it seem.....

6/22/2009 10:21:49 PM

Quote :

"saw that on saturday once was enough it'll be in my brain forever"

.

6/22/2009 10:35:07 PM

video collections here
http://www.youtube.com/citizentube

here's the featured one now
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ACPz8_el2o
that's nuts. I can't even wrap my mind around being in the middle of all that.
Watch to the end - the army turns and runs from the protestors

6/22/2009 11:18:49 PM

Quote :

" uhhh.... i didn't claim there weren't young men in both pictures. It's what's not in the 2nd pictures that is relevant. In the first pictures, I see: - women - signs in English - tons of cameras, cell phones, and video cameras - color in the 2nd pictures, I see..... religious fanatics the last picture isn't "out of place" - it's at the same event as the 2nd to last picture. That's Khameni in the pit and Ahmadinejad behind him."

Dude, you are taking two pictures and drawing outrageous conclusions from them. No women, because in Islam they pray apart, no matter what country you are in. Groundbreaking. Really.

While some that oppose the government are pro-West, the vast majority are just anti-current regime. Honestly, we don't know what is going to come of this mess, we could end up with something worse that what we've had for the past 30 years.

One thing that I would be very surprised to happen would be the current regime just giving up.

6/23/2009 2:09:35 AM

whoops, a rare instance of honest from the government could spell trouble for them
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/98711.htm?sectionid=351020101

Quote :

"Iran's Guardian Council has suggested that the number of votes collected in 50 cities surpass the number of people eligible to cast ballot in those areas. The council's Spokesman Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, who was speaking on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) Channel 2 on Sunday, made the remarks in response to complaints filed by Mohsen Rezaei -- a defeated candidate in the June 12 Presidential election. "Statistics provided by the candidates, who claim more than 100% of those eligible have cast their ballot in 80-170 cities are not accurate -- the incident has happened in only 50 cities," Kadkhodaei said. "

6/23/2009 11:55:03 AM

^yea and they quickly followed that up and said something along the lines of "but yea even if that hadn't have happenned it still wouldn't have made a difference in the results."

one of the things i can't seem to understand about this regime is their blatant disregard for any intellegence outside of their government. My point being, they make outstanding conclusions about something and expect everyone to just nod their heads and agree. I've seen this attitude of theirs time and time again.

I mean do you really think that by telling the protestors that the election was fair, people would just turn and say "Oh, well shit, for a second there i thought it was rigged. Well, on with our lives now."

The whole thing is rediculous. understatement of the year.

6/23/2009 12:13:45 PM

First of all let me give you guys some perspective. At the peak of this whole thing, there were 1 million protesters. 1 million in a country of 70 million is hardly a "revolution". Theres no debate that these people want the current regime ended but the same can be said about a small % of the population in any country, even America.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2274529/posts
http://www.turnerradionetwork.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=60:iran-election-turmoil-financed-by-cia&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=50

Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints. All they had to do was find a small group of anti Iranian Iranians and create intel that they had been cheated out of the election. The final polls showed similar results as the election and it wasn't even a close election. These people were likely lead to believe they had been cheated and from there all you needed to do was allow the Western media machine to run away with it and give them hope that the government was in danger. A few people get killed and suddenly dominoes fall and the nation loses all stability. Its not hard to believe because it almost naturally happened here when Bush stole the election. Not very long ago peacefull protesters were being killed in our streets.

This small number of protesters in places like LA and Hamburg aren't representative. We already know they hate Iran which is why they left. The goal of this operation is to at the very least turn the world against Iran and make them look bad for the future.

6/23/2009 1:31:31 PM

who the fuck let this broad into the soap box

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

Quote :

"Its clearly obvious this is the work of the CIA. I took a class on it, I know the CIA's fingerprints."

did the cia steal your car too

you fucking moron

[Edited on June 23, 2009 at 1:43 PM. Reason : ...]

6/23/2009 1:43:05 PM

Quote :

"I took a class on it"

isn't that cute.

Quote :

"We already know they hate Iran which is why they left. The goal of this operation is to at the very least turn the world against Iran and make them look bad for the future."

my goodness, just stop while you're way behind.

6/23/2009 1:44:24 PM

^,^^. You took it the bait. Way to go.

6/23/2009 3:00:58 PM

i really hope i did, but odds are someone read that and agreed with what was said.

6/23/2009 3:05:00 PM

Quote :

" i really hope i did, but odds are someone read that and agreed with what was said."

"she" has been trolling SB. Look at her post history and read some of "her" other gems.

6/23/2009 3:26:38 PM

No, I'm pretty sure that's genuine dumb.

6/23/2009 3:37:41 PM

You better be careful mamba...The CIA can read the whole internet with software they invented like google but more powerful and now they know you know which is bad for you.

6/23/2009 3:41:52 PM

not to mention how they faked the moon landing

6/23/2009 4:43:52 PM

Haven't read but a few of the recent posts. Other than the oddly correlating vote counts to a perfect straight line in slope and the accounts of some Iranians who feel cheated, what other evidence do we have that this was completely rigged?

Ahmadinejad gives out a shit ton of money to many of the citizens in Iran. It's natural to think they would continue to vote for him.

6/23/2009 4:48:05 PM

more suspicious is the incredibly low vote counts of some of the candidates in their home regions. also, there are lots of regions that supposedly voted for a-jad who had overwhelmingly not voted for him in the last election. and lots of kurds (who typically don't vote and are very anti-establishment) who voted this time. conveniently in large number for a-jad.

and there's that whole pesky bit about 50 cities having >100% turnout.

6/23/2009 4:55:28 PM

^ 100% turnout? Wow, Ahmadinejad is more popular than Obama.

6/23/2009 5:02:28 PM

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3154713

6/23/2009 5:04:28 PM

Quote :

"what other evidence do we have that this was completely rigged?"

that in Iran, the ballots must be hand written, and supposedly 60 Million hand-written ballots spread across a giant country were counted within hours of the polls closing, and the numbers haven't changed or been updated since.

6/23/2009 5:08:36 PM

^that and mousavi apparently got word of his coming election victory minutes before the entire story changed.

and there were leaked actual results from some provinces in the hours after this thing all went crazy.

none of the pieces themselves are QUITE enough to convince me. but taken together it's a pretty compelling argument for some sort of massive (and honestly poorly done) manipulation of the vote (whether it was ballot-stuffing or straight inventing the vote totals).

6/23/2009 5:11:39 PM

Ok, not trying to purposefully play devils advocate here, I'm trying to come up with some sort of scenario that makes the vote counting plausible.

Wikipedia tells me there are 246 cities in Iran.

What is a fair average to assume for vote counters across the country? 10? 30? 50?

If we use 30, that gives up 7380 vote counters.

This gives 8130 votes per counter.

How many hours did it take to get the results out? Was it 3?

That would be 45 votes counted per minute. Not very likely without some errors, but not out of the realm of possibilities.

But then, what if their were 50 counters and 5 hrs?

Then that is about 16 per minute. Certainly achievable.



What I don't, is if that many people really did vote for Mousavi, why were the protest somewhat tame?

6/23/2009 5:20:55 PM

+100% turnout. Lol. I heard the reasoning that was given behind that on the radio. Still kinda funny. You'd think it would be miraculous to have a 75% turnout. There was what, a 55% turnout for the 2008 elections. I guess things are different in Iran, maybe they always have a turnout in the 90s.

Still impressive to get a turnout of over 100%.

6/23/2009 5:38:34 PM

^^ What gave you the impression that these protests are "somewhat tame"? Do you expect everyone that voted for Mousavi to arrive in Tehran and march in the streets, despite the Basij and riot police beating organizers with impunity? Were you expecting more violence from the protesters, higher turnout, what? The protests have been nonstop since the election, and they are the greatest show of dischord since the Islamic revolution. I'm not sure what else you were looking for.

They had a turnout over 100% back in 2001 as well. People regularly vote from beyond the grave over there, this is nothing new.

[Edited on June 23, 2009 at 6:02 PM. Reason : 2]

6/23/2009 6:01:22 PM

^^^ I know you're counting in aggregate to get rough averages, but I don't think the numbers still add up, especially considering how big the country is (about the size of the Western US) and how many rural districts there would be, requiring ballots to be driven miles or hours to be tabulated in cities or district centers.

Even in the US with ballot counting machines, elections are "called" on election night only because of exit polling and early returns of 5-10% in a district. The official numbers aren't available for a couple weeks.

--

and yeah, i also would argue the view that the protests are "somewhat tame".
You can only expect a certain percentage of people who are dissatisfied to come out and protest, because of many reasons - 1) some people just don't have the inclination to participate, 2) many may not be that "into" the political process, 3) they may be stuck in rural areas or can't get to cities because of transportation, or duties in their own towns, 4) even if they voted for Mousavi, they may still respect the Supreme Leader's demand they stop protesting, 5) they may be, reasonably, scared of being hurt/killed in a protest, etc.

I mean, think about the US - think about all the fuss that was made over the amount of people that went to DC for Obama's inauguration, but when you look at the actual amount of people who made the trip, it was a tiny percentage of Obama's voters. But does that mean the celebrations were "somewhat tame"?

[Edited on June 23, 2009 at 6:10 PM. Reason : .]

6/23/2009 6:06:20 PM

i know the thread title is about the election and if it was rigged, but this whole ordeal in Iran right now is a lot bigger than the election.

for the past, say 25 years, people have been oppressed by the strict rules set forth by the establishment. over that span, nothing in Iran has happenned without some sort of disappointment associated with it. These frustrations have piled up on the shoulders of the people and they just can't carry the load of all these limits on their lives anymore. That's the root cause of what we're seeing there today, the election was just the tipping point.


by the way, i can't seem to find the link right now, but I read an article somewhere that reported floods of election ballots being found in the mountains around a bridge somewhere, all of which were in support of the opposition. the ballots were validated by the election authorities, as seen below (the stamp on the bottom left means the ballot has been authenticated)



[Edited on June 23, 2009 at 6:22 PM. Reason : ]

6/23/2009 6:13:51 PM

^ yeah, and speaking of that - i bet the demographics of Iran have a lot to do with that, considering how much the people have changed in 25 years, or since the Revolution (and even since the Iran/Iraq war).

I've heard several statistics that are almost hard to believe, but I've heard them in several places. Things like, the median age in Iran is 18, 65% are less than 30, stuff like that.
1) I'm not sure how that's even possible - like, where did all the old people go.... (killed in the wars in the 80s? started reproducing like rabbits after the revolution and the wars so much that it made a gigantic young generation?)
2) If Iranian youth are anything like American or European youth, they have radically different views of the world and their country than their parents and especially grandparents, and apparently being in such a majority now, they would want to take the country in a completely different direction than the older people currently running the country

---

i couldn't find any data to back up the stats that I have heard recently, but it is undoubtedly a very young country. Here is info from the CIA World Factbook for 2008

Quote :

"Age structure 0-14 years: 22.3% (male 7,548,116/female 7,164,921) 15-64 years: 72.3% (male 24,090,976/female 23,522,861) 65 years and over: 5.4% (male 1,713,533/female 1,834,816) (2008 est.) Median age total: 26.4 years male: 26.2 years female: 26.7 years (2008 est.)"

and from a few years ago, but the graph would still be very skewed to young people. I bet there is a huge population who were able to vote for the first time this year


[Edited on June 23, 2009 at 6:34 PM. Reason : stats]

6/23/2009 6:22:53 PM

Quote :

"1) I'm not sure how that's even possible - like, where did all the old people go.... (killed in the wars in the 80s? started reproducing like rabbits after the revolution and the wars so much that it made a gigantic young generation?)"

well actually, i believe those numbers.

As a result of the Iran/Iraq war, the iranian govnernment advocated procreation, sort of a safety in numbers deal so they could potentially build a formidable military. In fact, they offered incentives like cars, televisions, and appliances to families that had a lot of kids. Today's youths protesting in the street are those same babies.

Quote :

"2) If Iranian youth are anything like American or European youth, they have radically different views of the world and their country than their parents and especially grandparents, and apparently being in such a majority now, they would want to take the country in a completely different direction than the older people currently running the country"

yep. And what really solidifies their passion for change is how they constantly see life in America and yearn for it so deeply. Satellites and receivers that get feeds from channels like cnn, bbc, mtv/vh1/fuse/etc, movie channels and so on, began to become a common household item about 6 years ago. People buy these recievers and satellites illegally so they can watch the same channels we can watch here in the US and also in Europe. Today's youth grew up watching the same television we saw over the past 6 years so they know what life here is like, what the fashions are, all the lingo and new hip-hop songs, and they desperately want to be a part of it. When they watch their satellite tv, it's a constant reminder how they're being left in the dark. you can imagine how watching such programs on television and then going back to reality and living life under the ayatollah can be so demoralizing. All of this has built up and now we see the ramifications of the limits set forth by the government.

[Edited on June 23, 2009 at 6:46 PM. Reason : ]

6/23/2009 6:45:00 PM

ahaha. Iran is claiming that the video from earlier was staged. Lawl. This ought to be good, no matter which way it turns out...

6/23/2009 7:25:42 PM

Quote :

"I know you're counting in aggregate to get rough averages, but I don't think the numbers still add up, especially considering how big the country is (about the size of the Western US) and how many rural districts there would be, requiring ballots to be driven miles or hours to be tabulated in cities or district centers."

Why would they have to be driven anywhere to be tabulated? They can't count them locally and then make a phone call with the results?

Quote :

"Even in the US with ballot counting machines, elections are "called" on election night only because of exit polling and early returns of 5-10% in a district. The official numbers aren't available for a couple weeks. "

Right, because we check, recheck, recheck, and check results again.

Quote :

"You can only expect a certain percentage of people who are dissatisfied to come out and protest, because of many reasons"

What certain percentage? This isn't Americans we are talking about here. I guess my point is, if this election were as disputed and tense as is being claimed, I would have expected more violence and death. This tells me a couple different things

1) Things aren't as bad as we are led to believe as evidenced by the relatively few number of people willing to die to make a point
2) Things are as bad as we are led to believe but people still voted for Ahmadinejad anyway (because he gives them money) leading to the low turnout of protesting.
3) Some other reason

Quote :

"I mean, think about the US - think about all the fuss that was made over the amount of people that went to DC for Obama's inauguration, but when you look at the actual amount of people who made the trip, it was a tiny percentage of Obama's voters. But does that mean the celebrations were "somewhat tame"?"

Umm, apples to oranges.

6/23/2009 7:45:56 PM

they had the biggest protests that they've seen in 30 years. i'd say that's a pretty big deal.

plus with communication effectively cut off for many people, organizing protests has become much more difficult than i the first few days.

and what world are you on where what we saw in the past week was a LOW turnout for protesting?

note: the mourning protests occur 3, 7 and 40 days after a death. this was a cornerstone of the '79 revolution. there would be a protests, some deaths and then 40 days later the process would repeat itself. this revolution took a year to come to fruition.

so in conclusion: wtf are you talking about?

^not to mention the law in iran states that an election can't be certified for three days, yet they certified it in less than 24 hours.

[Edited on June 23, 2009 at 7:56 PM. Reason : .]

6/23/2009 7:51:19 PM

Quote :

"Why would they have to be driven anywhere to be tabulated? They can't count them locally and then make a phone call with the results?"

Mainly because in your contrived scenario, in order to count all of the votes, the votes must be concentrated in a central area. How do you propose a vote-counter in Tehran count the votes in timbuktu? It is almost implicit in the way you laid out your scenario. Or, are you going to imply that you are distributing the vote counters with respect to population figures?

Basically, it's a natural question to ask.

6/23/2009 7:53:05 PM

Quote :

"Why would they have to be driven anywhere to be tabulated? They can't count them locally and then make a phone call with the results?"

you (and I) are making assumptions and drawing conclusions on basis that we know nothing about, really. Ultimately, neither of us has anywhere close to the amount of information needed. I am tending to be on the side of "it's not that easy. something always goes wrong", though, where you seem to be making assumptions that "hey, how hard can it be? just count the votes and call it in!"

Quote :

"What certain percentage? This isn't Americans we are talking about here. I guess my point is, if this election were as disputed and tense as is being claimed, I would have expected more violence and death."

so..... because they're, what - Middle Easterners? Muslims? Persians? - they should be more inclined to get together and protest? Unlike us sophisticated white-folk in America?

How much violence and death would you expect, exactly?
Furthermore, we have no way of knowing exactly how much violence there has actually been. All of the "official" numbers put out by the Iranian state-run media system are certainly false and underestimated. Foreign journalists have been all-but kicked out of the country, and the gov't is doing their best to shut down the voice of its own citizens, so we have no way of really verifying how bad or how big the protests, or the put-down of the protests, really are.

Quote :

"Umm, apples to oranges."

ok, fine - take the 2000 election. It was claimed by lots of people that the election was, literally, stolen. People were furious, and many still are. And by American standards, the protests were large during Bush's first inauguration. But even so, the amount of people who were actually out there was tiny compared to the amount of people who thought they'd been wronged.

My overall point is, in the US, Iran, China, Cuba, wherever, the actual number of people who are willing to put their life on the line and go toe-to-toe with government forces will always be a fraction of the number of people who support said cause.

6/23/2009 7:56:36 PM

Quote :

"1) Things aren't as bad as we are led to believe as evidenced by the relatively few number of people willing to die to make a point 2) Things are as bad as we are led to believe but people still voted for Ahmadinejad anyway (because he gives them money) leading to the low turnout of protesting. 3) Some other reason"

well it's definitely not 1, in fact it's worse that we're led to believe. A lot more people are dying than is being reported. I spoke with a few friends and cousins of mine just last night and they've all lost a friend or someone that lives on the same street as a result of the violence brought on by the basij.

2) i'm not sure exactly what you're trying to say with this point but i'd really appreciate it if you expanded on it.

Quote :

"plus with communication effectively cut off for many people, organizing protests has become much more difficult than i the first few days."

very true.

[Edited on June 23, 2009 at 8:10 PM. Reason : ]

6/23/2009 8:07:41 PM

Quote :

"My overall point is, in the US, Iran, China, Cuba, wherever, the actual number of people who are willing to put their life on the line and go toe-to-toe with government forces will always be a fraction of the number of people who support said cause."

I buy that. I recall seeing a statistic somewhere that only around 15% of colonists were hardline pro-revolution against the British, while only around 15% were hardline torries.

6/23/2009 8:11:52 PM

I don't think anyone worth responding to is seriously arguing that the active protesters are the only ones who want the election thrown out. By that logic, only the counter-protesters want the election results to remain, and the other 98% of the population doesn't care.

6/23/2009 8:34:35 PM

Quote :

"you (and I) are making assumptions and drawing conclusions on basis that we know nothing about, really. Ultimately, neither of us has anywhere close to the amount of information needed. "

Obviously. But don't you think it seems at least more plausible that they can count the votes locally and call results in to a central agency?

Quote :

"I am tending to be on the side of "it's not that easy. something always goes wrong", though, where you seem to be making assumptions that "hey, how hard can it be? just count the votes and call it in!""

I'm just trying to find the story between what we assume - that this election was completely and utterly rigged - and what the real story is - that it might have been a little rigged, but that a large swath of the country actually does support Ahmadinejad.

Quote :

"so..... because they're, what - Middle Easterners? Muslims? Persians? - they should be more inclined to get together and protest? Unlike us sophisticated white-folk in America?"

Has nothing to do with skin and everything to do with a group of people that are poor, unemployed, and have been oppressed for 30 years and were just strong armed by a dictator and the ruling elite over the election.

Quote :

"How much violence and death would you expect, exactly? Furthermore, we have no way of knowing exactly how much violence there has actually been. All of the "official" numbers put out by the Iranian state-run media system are certainly false and underestimated. Foreign journalists have been all-but kicked out of the country, and the gov't is doing their best to shut down the voice of its own citizens, so we have no way of really verifying how bad or how big the protests, or the put-down of the protests, really are. "

We'll just have to wait and see, but it really felt like Iran was on the cusp of their Tiananmen Square and then...nothing.

Quote :

"But even so, the amount of people who were actually out there was tiny compared to the amount of people who thought they'd been wronged. "

You're still comparing the American people who are lazy as it is to a different group of people. We are lazy, but we also have work to go to, kids to take to soccer practice, and lattes to drink. It wasn't like we wanted one alternative and got one that was drastically worse.

Quote :

" My overall point is, in the US, Iran, China, Cuba, wherever, the actual number of people who are willing to put their life on the line and go toe-to-toe with government forces will always be a fraction of the number of people who support said cause."

Indeed, and I don't disagree, but even at those low numbers that are willing to go toe-to-toe, I expected more out of this story.

Quote :

"I buy that. I recall seeing a statistic somewhere that only around 15% of colonists were hardline pro-revolution against the British, while only around 15% were hardline torries."

And yet, we went to outright full scale war. So, are things really not quite as shitty as we think they are in Iran that after 30 years that the best they could muster was around 4-5 days of protest?

6/23/2009 9:07:54 PM

Quote :

" And yet, we went to outright full scale war. So, are things really not quite as shitty as we think they are in Iran that after 30 years that the best they could muster was around 4-5 days of protest?"

i've thought of this myself, and frankly after thinking about it throughout the day when i'm "idling," i just ended up where i started.

maybe we're not seeing a follow through because the protesters are intimidated.

maybe it's because they're waiting to hear where to go from here from Mousavi (a point brought up in an article in CNN today)

maybe they're trying to drag it out with the least bit of effort in hopes of having a foreign body come to the rescue and both parties follow through with a full-swinged effort.

maybe they're starting to lose hope of any real results they wished to have seen.


I think it's very unlikely that they've lost hope, doubtful almost. I'm positive that intimidation has taken a toll on the protesters. One thing is absolutely certain, and it's that this "uprising" will have a significant, long-term impact on the way 1) the country will be government henceforth and 2) how other nations view Iran.

[Edited on June 23, 2009 at 9:46 PM. Reason : spehling]

6/23/2009 9:46:32 PM

There was a great piece done on the people of Iran, part 3 of Jason Jones' interviews, on the daily show just now.

I checked comedy central and they haven't posted the clip yet, but it should be up by tomorrow. If i don't remember to post the link to the new clip before i leave for work tomorrow, you should be able to check for it here. http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/videos.jhtml

6/23/2009 11:19:51 PM

yeah, some of the Jason Jones/TDS videos have fallen a bit flat comedically, but nevertheless - it's crazy they actually sent him over there for 2 weeks before the election to do some real "fake reporting" on Iran's leaders, people, religion, etc. It's sad that Comedy Central had a guy over there who got kicked out after the elections, but many "real news" organizations didn't even have people there

6/23/2009 11:25:58 PM

The outcome of the Boston Massacre was just a few days of rioting, if that. It takes time for such opposition to organize. What we've seen, I guess, is just the first stirrings of anger. As time passes, and everyone calms down, anger will be replaced by cold calculation and maybe a real revolution will be sparked. Afterall, from here on, everything the government does will be treated as an insufferable crime and treated accordingly.

6/24/2009 1:11:03 AM

anyone else feeling incredibly inspired by all of this?

does raleigh even notice what's going on?

6/24/2009 2:49:20 AM

^so inspiring. When i read and watch all these articles/videos i get such an overwhelming feeling of joy to see people my age fighting so hard for one another and banding together against what has been a formidable opponent to anyone who's battled with the regime over the past 30 years. I've always been proud to call myself Iranian. These protests are what the real Iran is all about, Unity, Respect, and Humbleness, it's all just been masked by the government for the last couple decades.

I changed my fb pic the other day to reflect in honor of people who had died in the protests, and i got a message from someone asking what the picture meant. I couldn't say i was too shocked to hear her ask that. To be honest there have been plenty of stories like this Iranian election in the past that i haven't felt the need to keep up with, and I guess that's just like in America.

The thing that bothers me is seeing as many "Jon and Kate plus 8" links up there in big letters beside all these Iranian election articles and it just makes me shake my head, but really there's nothing new here. That's just the media and we at NCSU hate the media by default as it is so i'm really just beating a dead horse.

The comedy central link hasn't been posted yet, but it should be listed under 2/23/2009 if you sort by date at this link http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/videos.jhtml

6/24/2009 7:15:48 AM