Another Bloody Anniversary

Fifty years ago, humanity continued in its endless quest to purge its ranks of anyone who tries to make the world a better place. A man was murdered in cold blood by another person for the crime of wanting everyone to be nice to everyone else. This was no crime of passion. The killer laid in wait for his target, and shot him from a distance. Coldly. Without remorse. Without shame or regret.

The victim was Dr. Martin Luther King. He was murdered for the sin of insisting on equality for everyone. A white person was so offended at the prospect of treating humans equally- regardless of skin color or religion or political inclination or wealth- that he murdered a man who was publicly shaming the country for not doing so.

Let that sink in. Someone in this country decided to kill because the he did not like what the victim had to say.

If that doesn’t make you simultaneously furious, frightened, and sad, you need to immediately apply for a clue chit. It is the twenty-first fucking century. Humans have been supposedly “civilized” for roughly ten thousand years by now, yet we’re still resorting to violence to silence those we disagree with.

For those not paying attention, here’s a short primer on the use of deadly force. Ready?

Deadly force must only be used to defend yourself or another person from violence.

Pretty simple, isn’t it? No complicated rules of engagement here. It’s very fucking simple. Violence is a shitty way to solve problems, not least because violence almost always creates more problems whenever it is used. If you or another person are not faced with violence in the immediate near-term, violence is wrong. Kill only when it is the only way to protect yourself or another person from violence.

Dr. King was not offering violence- even rhetorically. He and those who followed him allowed their opposition to beat and imprison them without resorting to violence, even though resorting to violence would have been justified (in my opinion, using the rule promulgated here). Turning the other cheek to those who are literally baying for your life’s blood takes a level of self-confidence and courage which beggars belief. I am certain I do not have the guts to remain non-violent when confronted by violence, yet Dr. King and those who followed him did just that.

Those who opposed Dr. King and his message offered violence in response to the idea everyone should be treated equally. They were willing to kill to prevent Dr. King from publicly calling for equal treatment under the law.

In case you haven’t figured it out, here’s a little bit of information for you: liberty and equality are not diminished by being shared. Like love, sharing equality, tolerance, and liberty creates more. Treating other people equally does not take equality away from you, any more than loving someone reduces the amount of love in the world.

Equality is not a zero-sum game.

How hard is it to treat everyone equally? Apparently a lot of people in this country think it’s just too difficult, and they’re willing to kill anyone who thinks different.

That last word up there is the major factor in the opposition to liberty and equality. “Different”. Someone who isn’t exactly like you and your family is “different”, and therefore scary. This pathological terror of “different” is fucking stupid on just about every level, and invariably results in violence against the “other”- however “other” is defined.

Worship a different god? Wear different clothes? Worship the same god but on a different day? Speak a different language? Worship the same god on the same day but while wearing different clothing? What about worshiping the same god on the same day in the same way wearing the same clothes but using a different language? OHMYGOD, you’re different! Eeeeeeeek! Flee! Flee for your lives!

Let us examine these scary differences, shall we? Genetically, every single human on the planet is almost indistinguishable from every other human. To illustrate this idea, I call your attention to the fact humans are genetically 97% identical to chimpanzees. Any given Kalahari Bushman and the Great Green Dipshit of the KKK are 99.97% identical.

Yet the supposedly “civilized” leader of the KKK is willing to kill over a minute .03% genetic difference between his DNA and the man from Africa.

Why? What is so fucking special about those protein combinations in that random .03% genetic variation? There is no innate superiority built into those tiny fractions of differences, despite what many supposedly “superior” people like to tell themselves.

If your personal sense of self-worth is based solely on feeling superior to other people, you’re the one with problems- not the “other” people. And let’s not forget they’re people, shall we?

So, a white person was so upset a black person was asking for his fellow Americans to treat everyone equally, this white person felt he just had to shut the black person up. With a gun.

With that bullet, the white man did more than murder an innocent man in cold blood. He also shot a hole through all pretensions of equality and civilization in America.

It has been fifty fucking years. I’m having a hard time believing we’ve made any progress at all. Hatred of “other” is out there in the open for all to see. Millions of Americans are happy to fuck over their fellow Americans based on ephemera such as skin color or religion or politics. Millions of Americans are perfectly fine with other Americans being beaten, imprisoned, or killed based on similar minuscule differences.

This is not right, or just, or even American. Equality is the promise of America, but too many supposed Americans don’t want to live up to that promise.

Time to start acting like Americans are supposed to act. Hell, time to start acting like fucking adults. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We cannot tolerate those who hate and act on that hatred. If for no other reason than sheer self-interest, we must put this antiquated ideas back in the garbage can where they belong.

Remember- if you get to cause harm to other people for their differences, then you will find yourself on the receiving end of this same attitude when someone decides YOU are “different”.

 

Current status: Disillusioned

Current music: Mrs. Robinson by Simon and Garfunkel

Wounded, Old, and Dangerous

I have a fundamental problem with the religiously deluded- far too many of them aren’t willing to leave me alone. It isn’t just me, you understand. There’s a minority among religious types in this country- almost exclusively some flavor of christian- which is incapable of keeping their puritan noses out of everyone else’s business.

I honestly don’t care much if you worship some god or -ess. Zeus, Yahweh, Buddha, Hubbard, Flying Spaghetti Monster- all of these are equally nonsensical in my eyes. You can worship any god or conglomeration of gods to your heart’s content until such time as that worship infringes on the rights of another person. You may deeply believe that everyone not belonging to your own special version of god-bothering is going to be devoured by the Great Green Arkelseizure at the end of time and be denied the companionship of the Winslow in the afterlife, and I will support your right to believe it- even if I think it’s a load of dingo’s kidneys. You can even feel smug and superior about the fact that you have a ticket to the forever beer party at the Pirate Volcano with the blessings of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and all us lesser mortals will miss out. Your privilege. Where I draw the line is when you try to get your mythology codified into law, or force others to act and believe as you do. I am not willing to live in a theocracy, and I refuse to stand by while a bunch of fanatics do their utmost to turn my country into one.

The fanatics in question happen to be a particularly virulent strain of evangelical christianity which has been working for decades to get fellow-believers elected or appointed to positions of authority in hundreds of school districts, county commissions, and other local offices across the country. From these seemingly-minor vantage points, the neo-puritans have been carefully trying to make their mythology the law of the land. As small-time officials in various local political organizations, these pernicious god-botherers have been making policy for schools, city and county ordinances, and local election boards. As the numbers of fellow believers has grown in these seemingly minor positions, a host of deeply un-American legislative excesses have begun appearing in the national spotlight. One need only look at Super-Puritan Rick Santorum’s baffling rise to prominence to see how far their power goes. In a rational world, Santorum would have been laughed off the stage at the first political rally. The fact that he actually made it into the primary process is a demonstration of the power of the religiously deluded over our political processes.

But wait! There’s more.:

Oklahoma doctor refuses to provide rape victim with emergency contraception due to his religious beliefs.

Pregnancy Begins 2 Weeks Before Conception’ Now The Law In Arizona

Wisconsin State Senator wants to outlaw divorce

Kansas passes bill allowing doctors to lie about life-threatening conditions if it would prevent abortion

Indiana lawmaker claims Girl Scouts are a front organization for militant lesbians

New Hampshire lawmaker wants married couples to practice abstinence in lieu of using birth control

Tennessee wants to protect anti-gay bullies from “persecution”

And of course, there’s Kitzmiller v Dover

What do all of these documented examples of public idiocy have in common? The idiots pushing these agenda items are all firmly convinced that they have the moral authority and duty to force their version of their religion onto the rest of us. It’s telling that in Kitzmiller, the evangelical judge lambasted several members of the Dover school board for resorting to  misrepresentations and outright lies in their crass attempt to force every student in their district to submit to their mythology.

It’s always helpful to use their own words against them. Here is the source for this image.  Those quotes from Phillip Johnson, one of the founders of the so-called “intelligent design” movement, reveal the extent of the god-botherer’s willful refusal to allow anyone to have an opinion or belief contrary to his own. The unstated meaning of those quotes is that most of the US is not stupid enough to fall for their bullshit, so the fanatics have to sneak around and try to brainwash the children to perpetuate their religious delusions.

Allow me to repeat that: Fanatical christians are forced to resort to trying to subvert the children of America because the adults aren’t quite stupid enough to fall for it.

That brings me to the headline for this post. Every time the religious fanatics have tried to stand up in the public eye, they have been soundly smacked down by the courts. Even in Mississippi, where education is often more fundamental than scholarly, these pernicious fanatics failed to get a majority of voters to approve their bullshit legislation. Evangelical leaders have long been calling for increased recruiting, as the bulk of their followers are largely elderly, but traditional recruiting has not been keeping up with the number of fundamentalist loons who’ve been dying or otherwise losing their usefulness. They’re old, and getting older. The bulk of America’s youth don’t care about most of the evangelical core issues, and the leaders of the evangelical movement are starting to face the real possibility that their free ride at the expense of their gullible followers may be coming to an end.

The evangelical movement never did have a majority among American christianity. If you separated all the protestant denominations individually, the largest christian group in the US would be catholics. Even granting that most Americans self-identify as christian of some flavor or another, this means that the fundamentalist evangelical movement is- at best- a tiny minority of the US population. All of the major religious groups are shrinking, mostly due to a seemingly-endless string of scandals involving senior leaders of various denominations. There is also, of course, the fact that the core tenets of their mythology are often profoundly unpleasant to everyone except puritans.  By far the fastest-growing philosophical demographic in the US are agnostics and atheists. This does not bode well for the fundie-loonies.

Realizing that they’re on the wrong side of the demographic bulge, the fanatics are growing desperate. They’ve tried and failed to get their mythology turned into public policy, their membership is dwindling and/or growing less useful due to age, and the new generation of Americans think that they’re a bunch of hypocritical fuckwits. They’re like a wounded animal, and fanatics rarely just go quietly into the night. Perhaps that is why the recent flood of extremist legislation coming from various states has a feel of desperation to it. Instead of realizing their dreams of power to punish the unbelievers, the religiously deluded fanatics are starting to realize that they’ve only managed to piss off everyone outside their particular circle of fellow believers- specifically including the more tolerant christians who make up the overwhelming majority of American christianity.

What will these imbeciles do when their already-tenuous grip on authority is finally sundered? If we are all very lucky, they’ll slink back into the shadows and dream up some new long-term conspiracy to somehow convince and persuade the rest of the country to let them have the reins of power. We can deal with that pretty easily by bringing up their own statements and previous failures whenever one of these nutballs pokes his or her nose into public. Some of these fanatics have actually complained that they’re being “persecuted” whenever their own words are used against them, which ought to show you how divorced from reality they are.

What I worry about is the possibility that they’ll decide to go down fighting. Even thought they’re only a tiny minority of Americans, and only a fraction of those might be willing to use violence against their neighbors, this has a lot of recent precedent in other countries. Our version of religious fanatics are often referred to as “American Taliban” for a reason.

They wouldn’t win any such contest, of course, but they could do a lot of damage before we put the last one in prison. The best way to help prevent this troubling possibility is for the rest of the christians in America to deal with their fellow religionists. Cut them off from their support network- the mild sympathy one naturally feels for those who have something in common with you. Unless you are a rabid christian dominionist, it is highly unlikely that most christians share any philosophical traits with their fanatical brethren. When someone tries to use their understanding of scripture to justify atrocities (like the “Good News Clubs” teaching children why unbelievers should be exterminated), feel free to tell them to fuck off. Pay attention to what the fringe worshippers of your religion are saying and doing, and make it clear to the rest of the world that those violent shitheads don’t speak for you. Staying silent only creates the impression that you are fine with what the fanatics are doing. This distresses everyone with functional logic systems and encourages the fanatics.

My religious philosophy is pretty simple:

Current status: Disgusted

Current music: Some Nights by fun

Chickens, Home to Roost

Looks like the Revolution will be televised this time- despite the efforts of Egyptian police and security forces, who are doing their best to muzzle anything resembling a free press both inside and outside of Egypt. Journalists and reporters have been beaten and arrested whenever they are found.

Even in the face of this media crackdown, Al Jazeera has been doing excellent reporting from inside Egypt- especially from the chaos in and around Tahrir Square in Cairo. MSNBC has been carrying excellent video from Cairo and Alexandria, and Reuters and the BBC have been doing yeoman’s work getting the word out to the rest of the world in defiance of Mubarak’s attempts to shut down anything even loosely related to the truth.

For those who have been living in a cave for the past couple of weeks, the people of Egypt, inspired by the so-far-successful revolt in Tunisia, have been protesting against Egypt’s de-facto President-For-Life, Hosni Mubarak. After more than a week of ever-larger protests throughout the country, Mubarak went on Egyptian TV and vowed to not run for re-election in the upcoming September elections, and asked the protesters to stop protesting. The protesters thought about it for about 30 seconds and decided that wasn’t good enough. They want Mubarak out immediately, if not sooner.

Mubarak is now in a tough spot. If he orders the Army to crush the protests, there’s a very real chance they’ll tell him to pound sand. So far, the Army has shown a lot of sympathy for the protesters, and the protesters share the average Egyptian’s reverence for their professional military. Worse still, most of the Egyptian military officers have deep ties to the US military. Many of their officers are graduates from US military academies, for example, and US troops routinely practice desert warfare with Egyptian troops in Egypt. Furthermore, most of Egypt’s military budget is based on the more than one billion dollar military aid provided by the US, and Congress has been not-so-silently warning Mubarak that using equipment purchased with US money against the protesters will cut off the money tap.

What to do? What to do? Mubarak took a lesson from the Green Revolution in Iran and brought in a bunch of thugs to attack the protesters. Mobs of supposedly pro-Mubarak protesters gathered in Cairo and assaulted the anti-government protesters in Tahrir Square. Unfortunately for Mubarak, he didn’t have enough secret police to dress in civilian clothes and send into the streets on his behalf, so he was forced to hire a bunch of regular Egyptians to augment the disguised police. Several hundred “Mubarak supporters” piled into Tahrir Square with whips, clubs, fists, and Molotov cocktails … and found themselves facing several thousand very angry anti-Mubarak protesters.

Oddly enough, when the anti-government protesters captured some of these “Mubarak supporters”, they found Police ID cards on them. Despite the violence, the anti-government protesters refrained from tearing the now-revealed police limb from limb and just turned them over to the Army around the Square. The Army, for its part, did try to keep the two groups separated, but were sort of hampered by their desire to avoid taking sides. The troops around the Square did act forcefully whenever one of the “Mubarak supporters” started using firearms, but not quickly enough to prevent a half-dozen deaths and hundreds of injuries among the anti-government protesters.

The protesters improvised barricades and shields and weapons from what they had on hand, and drove the “Mubarak supporters” out of the Square. Injured protesters were carried to improvised aid stations and clinics set up inside the Square and in some of the buildings nearby. Doctors from the area joined in helping patch up the wounded, and protesters have been amassing medical supplies, food, water, and shelters to keep up the fight.

Mubarak really stepped on his dick with this move. All this little stunt has done was harden the protesters’ attitudes toward the regime. The deaths and violence have demonstrated to the whole world that Mubarak has no intention of giving up his rule, and he’s willing to spill the blood of his own people to stay in power against their will.

I have already stated my dislike for the US government’s habit of cozying up to ruthless murderers and despots in the interests of “stability” or in support of international political interests (however defined). Let me amplify that opinion a bit: The US government should pull its collective head out of its ass and call for Mubarak to resign. Immediately. The US government and military should apply pressure on the Egyptian military to force Mubarak out of the country and hold immediate elections. I submit that allowing the people of Egypt choose their own destinies is better than continuing to support a brutal dictator. If the Egyptians vote in a bunch of radical Islamists to run their country, that is their fucking business, and interfering in their right to choose their own government is absolutely in violation of the principles this country supposedly supports. Half-hearted calls for both sides to play nice aren’t going to cut it. If America really stands for liberty and self-determination, then we need to let Egypt choose its own destiny- whether or not we agree with their choice.

Here are some excellent sources of information and opinion on the situation in Egypt:

Pictures of the clashes in Tahrir Square

An article from the Washington Post

Excellent article from the Guardian UK

Democracy in the Arab World from the Economist

Mubarak holds Egypt hostage from Foreign Policy.com

Remember the Green Revolution in Iran from a while back? I mentioned it above, and said that Mubarak seemed to be trying to copy Iran’s moves in dealing with the crisis. Here is what the protesters have to look forward to if they lose: while the rest of the world has been fixated on Egypt, Iran has been quietly executing scores of people who were arrested during the unrest after the elections. Mubarak has already demonstrated his willingness to shed other peoples’ blood to keep Egypt in his grip. If he succeeds in crushing the protesters, the survivors will likely envy the dead. If for no other reason, that is why Mubarak must not be allowed to remain in power.

So, what can we, the People, do about it? Write and email and call your Congresscritters. Now is not the time for stupid partisan hackery. Now is the time for the US to speak out in favor of the right to self-determination. Tell your Representatives and Senators and the White House to cease their bickering long enough to take care of something really important: the possible birth in blood and fire of a new Egypt.

 

Current status: Hopeful

Current music: Cold Wind to Valhalla by Jethro Tull

Lest We Forget

With the US population essentially abandoning the rest of the world to its own devices in pursuit of domestic politics, it could be easy to forget that there are lots of people out there who don’t follow our rules of behavior. Or any rational rules of behavior, for that matter. These people are all too happy to blow up scads of innocent passers-by in the idiotic belief that this will somehow effect the ridiculous changes they seek to impose upon everyone around them.

Case in point: two women walked into a Moscow subway during rush hour this morning and blew themselves up, killing dozens of people and wounding dozens more. A similar atrocity took place in the UK a few years ago, as well as several attacks in various forms of public transportation over the past few years in Russia and Spain. For those of you not paying attention, let us examine the fact that these attackers deliberately targeted civilians. Innocent people going about their daily lives are considered legitimate targets by these animals. By contrast, the US military goes out of its way as a matter of policy- even to the point of sustaining avoidable casualties- to avoid targeting civilians. When the inevitable mistake happens, and civilians are nonetheless attacked by US forces, US public opinion and military doctrine mandates exhaustive investigations into the circumstances and the arrest and trial of those responsible.

While many of our enemies see this as evidence of American weakness, we’re really doing it for their benefit. We are all aware- at some level- of the violence lurking deep within us, and we take great pains to avoid letting it out. With the equipment and training available to the US military, our self-restraint is the only thing keeping large portions of planet in a habitable condition. We know this about ourselves, and try very hard- as a people- to prevent our killer instincts from getting loose … because we don’t much like what happens to others when we do let our darker natures free. I invite all and sundry to imagine what would happen if we- the People- ever told our military to take their gloves off. The last time that was permitted to happen, we ended up with the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo, and the dawn of miniature suns over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The US military has no equal at this time. Our Navy can park several thousand troops and hundreds of aircraft off any coast on Earth and keep them there indefinitely. Our Air Force can strike literally anywhere on the planet from deep inside the continental US. Our eyes and ears in the sky and in space can listen in on almost every communication in the world. Our Army and Marines are superbly trained, equipped, and supported by all those other services, making them more than a match for any other military on Earth. US missiles can deliver deadly payloads- including nuclear warheads- anywhere in the world with unbelievable precision and on extremely short notice. Other militaries may be larger, and many countries boast military units of exceptional skill and professionalism, the US literally has no military equal.

And yet, in the face of horror and barbarism from our enemies, we refrain from unleashing our justified wrath upon those enemies- for their sakes. Our enemies once claimed to desire a war between the US and Islam, and many have asked if the US could possibly fight a billion Muslims. The answer is, yes. Were we to treat our enemies as they treat us, there would be death and carnage on a scale the world has never seen. Were we to unleash our might without restraint, there would no longer be a billion Muslims. That restraint is not for our benefit, it is for the benefit of our friends and allies and even our enemies.

For those among us who sneer derisively at the activities of our enemies and claim that we are somehow superior to them- guess again. From the upper midwest comes a tale of a Christian militia group which planned to murder a local police officer and then attack his funeral with improvised explosive devices. Sound familiar? These are exactly the same tactics used by our Islamic enemies. I’d link to the group’s website so you could see for yourself what sort of animals we’re dealing with, but it seems to be offline. Here’s the Wikipedia entry, for as long as it stays up.

These self-described “christian warriors” have decided that they’re perfectly fine with murdering innocents in the name of their “holy war”, and they come from right here in the USA. Tell me again why we’re different from our external enemies.

I’ve already told you the answer: we have resolved- as a people- to keep our killer instincts in check. We have resolved- as a people- that we are willing to expend the lives of our young men and women to fight our enemies on our terms, rather than stoop to their level. We are better than our enemies for these reasons.

But there are those among us who are willing to unleash terror on their fellow citizens in the name of their god. Remember always that our killer instinct is always with us, lying dormant beneath the civilized veneer. Remember, too, that our enemies are not muslims or christians or atheists or albigensians, but fundamentalists and fanatics. Never forget that extremism leads always to atrocities.

Time to re-visit McDonaough’s Song:

Whether the State can loose and bind
In Heaven as well as on Earth:
If it be wiser to kill mankind
Before or after the birth-
These are matters of high concern
Where State-kept schoolmen are;
But Holy State (we have lived to learn)
Endeth in Holy War.

Whether The People be led by The Lord,
Or lured by the loudest throat:
If it be quicker to die by the sword
Or cheaper to die by vote-
These are things we have dealt with once,
(And they will not rise from their grave)
For Holy People, however it runs,
Endeth in wholly Slave.

Whatsoever, for any cause,
Seeketh to take or give
Power above or beyond the Laws,
Suffer it not to live!
Holy State or Holy King-
Or Holy People’s Will-
Have no truck with the senseless thing.
Order the guns and kill!
Saying –after–me:–

Once there was The People- Terror gave it birth;
Once there was The People and it made a Hell of Earth
Earth arose and crushed it. Listen, 0 ye slain!
Once there was The People- it shall never be again!

Current status: Annoyed

Current music: Meet Me On the Equinox by Death Cab for Cutie

Revolution Calling

The die has been cast.

What passes for a government in Iran has unleashed terror upon its own people. For those of you just learning about this, it is no longer about the possibly fraudulent election lsat week. Now it is about a government treating the citizenry as enemies. Now it is about the death of innocents. Now it is about a nation of warrior poets reclaiming their souls. Now, it is about a young Iranian girl named Neda.

Neda may not be her real name. It means voice in Farsi. Neda was standing next to her father in Tehran this afternoon when a bullet struck her in the throat. She died almost instantly. Her death was captured on camera by people standing nearby. That image has been sent around the world- recently even showing up on CNN.

The people in Iran who had been protesting are now on the ragged edge of open revolt. Gangs of Basij have taken to storming into houses by night, beating everyone within and arresting hundreds of people thought to be close to the leaders of the protesters. Doctors have been beaten or shot for trying to protect the injured from the Basij. Foreign embassies have opened their doors to the wounded, because the hospitals are no longer safe.

Here are some images from today’s violence in Iran.

Here is a report from Anonymous Iran.

What follows was written by Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish.

So here’s what we have:

They’re afraid of murdering too many protesters all at once. Eventually the protesters will come to understand how to work around this. They can’t open their telecomm pipes, because the minute they do 3 million people will know how and where to gather, and the world will get to see thousands of videos showing horrific instances of state violence against its subjects.

They have to open their telecomm pipes, because their economy cannot function without telecomm.

They can’t repress too much, because the cleric support base will tip against them.

Rafsanjani is waiting to find out who’ll keep his financial empire running. He’s going to come to conclude the current leadership’s promises cannot be trusted; the country is now being run by a Fascist Islamic Mafia.

So what do they do?

They turn this into a keystone-cops gulag, and still, no matter how they try to block it, the entire world is watching, and international disapproval is growing. At some point even life in Syria or Egypt will start to look better. The leadership will become ostracized in the Muslim world, and a large and influential Islamic country like Indonesia will come out with a public condemnation. Then other nations will feel emboldened. Even worse, Ahmadinejad, and to some extent even Khamenei, will now have a difficult time making uncontrolled appearances where the crowds are not bused from towns 100 miles away; every time they show up, crowds will chant them down.

These citizens are done with their leadership. The trust has completely and irretrievably dissipated, and the fear, although present, is not sufficient, especially as it becomes more clear the army will remain on the sidelines. And the mullahs have opened all the playbooks on repression and crowd control simultaneously; it’s a smorgasboard attempt at blocking the rising tide of resentment; if you’ll recall, that’s called the mullah’s-ass-on-a-pressure-cooker-lid-to-retard-fulmination rule. If things look bad with the pressure cooker, piling more mullahs on the lid will only result in a more spectacular finish.

If the Warsaw Ghetto uprising had been broadcast to the entire world, Hitler’s demise most surely would have come several years sooner. The mullahs have no way out. They are, essentially, fucked. It’s now only a matter of time. And Iran’s negotiations on their nuclear program? Suspended indefinitely due to lack of credibility; nobody will believe anything they say now.

TICK, TOCK, MOTHERFUCKERS…

I wish I could have put it so well. I will have to let the contrast between the following images speak for me.

Current status: Disgusted

Current music: Pavane for a Dead Princess by Ravel

Sic Semper Tyrannis

For those of you who get all your news from the regular media sources, this may come as a bit of a shock: There is widespread civil unrest throughout Iran in the wake of their election on Friday.

The oafishal Iranian media has declared Mahmoud Ahminadinnerjacket the clear winner. Everybody else is declaring shenanigans. Protesters were out in the streets last night and this morning (US Eastern time), shouting “Down with the dictator!” The government has shut down most internet and phone communications, and has ordered all foreign journalists out of the country. BBC Persia- a satellite broadcast into Iran- is reporting multiple jamming attempts by someone within Iran. Thousands of Iranians are posting videos and real-time reports of the chaos via Twitter.

But the regular media outlets in the US are silent.

The news is out there. Here are a few links I’ve managed to get from FARK.com:

Protesters vs police.

Police attacking protesters.

Call for a general strike.

Reports in Farsi from Iran.

Khatami’s brother arrested.

Here are some Tweets from the same source:

RT @Change_for_Iran: Students fighting back a large group of police & Basij right now at university of physics! I’m going to join them. 15 minutes ago from twhirl
RT @StopAhmadi: “some anti riot forces are speaking in Arabic! apparently imported from Lebanon” #IranElection
20 minutes ago from twhirl
News: Source in Rasht say there are many police w/ civilian clothing, and ppl getting beaten up badly #IranElection
4 minutes ago from Seesmic Desktop
NEWS: Source in Rasht say person w/ Asthma got killed by teargas. #IranElection

solidadrocks Huff Post: “Sharif Univrsty…riot police firing rubber bullets,storming thru dorms.” (not yet confirmed) #IranElection http://bit.ly/3x210o half a minute ago from Tweetie

A very big student and alumni demonstration against the fraud in the election started in Sharif University of Technology from 3 hours ago. (367 دقیقه قبل)
Mousavi asked for permission to set up a demonstration on Monday #IranianElection (369
Basij militia members chanting God Bless Hezzbullah (1141 دقیقه قبل)
Mobile network is back, please reset your phones. (1149
Mir Hossein Mousavi is house arrest, has no access to anywhere. (1252 دقیقه قبل)
Basij Militia attacking people with teaser, stone, stick and knife like rabid dogs. (1272 دقیقه قبل)
Top members of the National Participation Front (the most important reformist party) arrested. (1305 دقیقه قبل)
Northern part of Tehran is on fire, people attacked a gas station to explode it (1306)
My Internet is back again. Things outside is horrible, people fighting with stone, Basij Millitia armed with cold weapon (1328

I’m just a regular guy with a computer hooked up to the internet. If I can get this stuff, what the Hell is wrong with the alleged “journalists” here in the US? This is one of the pivotal moments in history, and very few people in the US are getting told about it.

Current status: Concerned

Current music: Bad Company by Bad Company