[ni'k]

ok firstly, just because the vote was rigged and there was rebellion does not mean the character of that rebellion is simply a desire for democracy, whatever that is. they want their votes to be counted right. they would be insane to want the utter fucking joke idea of democracy in the US, which is just a media spectacle of lobbyists hiring and bribing celebrity parliamentarian millionaires to pass whatever legislation the corporate interests want. it's a game that only the rich can play. all i see is a desire for the votes to be counted, it would be insane to want any of the ultra corruption of western style democracy, the very democracy that invades and murders a million people, but, you know, you have a right to disagree so its democracy so its good. i'm sorry but that's like if hitler gave his people a right to disagree with the concentration camps, but they still went on, and the people saying that their democracy is worth preserving. if democracy means that genocide happens but i get to be pissed off and vote either labour or tory (or democrat or republican) then democracy is not good enough. it seems to me that all the evil qualities of facism/ totalitarianism that democrats abhor are happening in democracy right now. all democracy is is a fantasy of a system that is keeping us from totalitarianism, that's its threat, that if it goes away the bad guys take over, so you better be grateful for the bad guys in charge now and forgive all their evil. not exactly difficult to see through this.

remember, in 79 they had a revolution to get rid of the US backed shah and replaced him and his modernising and westernising tendencies with a theocracy! this hardly reflects a particularily strong desire for democracy amongst the people. i do not accept your logic that rebellion was not possible because of saddam being in power. And the idea that the wars in iraq and afghanistan give the iranian people a feeling of "increased safety" and "liberation" is absurd, if not insane.

i don't disagree with you that there is not a strong desire in iran for democracy but i think anyone in a position to have an imminent chance for revolution is dreaming of a type of democracy so utterly beyond what the west has as to consider western democracy as one of the worst possible outcomes.

again, the idea that the iranians could not have rebelled until now i don't buy. look at 79, it was fast and i don't believe that it posed a signifcant blindspot for a possible invasion. if anything, considering the mobilisation and taking up of arms at the time, it was probably in a stronger position to fend off an invasion than before. a

I'm going to pretend you didn't use the phrase liberal media and just say that most of my knowledge of iran comes from zizek's comments on it, the book "we are iran" which is a collection of english translation of iranian blogs, wiki and various english and american blogs of people who visit it, loads of different articles in various magazines and sites etc. you do know that the cia/nsa/corporate interests routinely plant or hire people to write pro invasion propaganda and it gets published in the the likes of the nytimes/gaurdian etc. newspapers, that the mainstream media, online, in print and on tv is heavily censored by its governments (and this is legal due to war time restrictions on the press) and that if there is money to be made then there will be money spent on media efforts to persuade and set the agenda and frame of reality so the money can be pursued? you do realise that the coverage of iran on the bbc and the like could favourably be considered as crap?

What you said about freedom does not sit well with me. george bush logic. the idea that the west is in a position to give freedom to iran is a complete delusion. if i was iranian, i would say tell that nation of genocidal polluters to shove their freedom up their fat assholes. i don't like the way you have phrased freedom as something you can "get". i think the notion is just a neo con buzzword. whatever it is i know i as a westerner don't have it and if i was a non westerner i wouldn't want it and would be worried when i heard the word. of course it's a stretch to accuse you of equating freedom with bush's conception, which was the freedom of iraqis to get bombed and murdered and have washington and the corporations fucking them instead of having to tow the party line in public about saddam and live in relative peace, so i won't assume that's what you're trying to say.

as for iran's hostility to america, you know nothing of it. after what america has done to iran this century and considering what it is doing now the actual attitude of the people (not the leaders who have their statements to make in public of course) is in many cases REMARKABLY less than it deservedly should be. of course i am anti nuke, but the west has nukes aswell. what the west is saying to iran is basically "we can have all the nukes and all the missles pointed at your country (america does) but you can't have any". now OF COURSE this is does not mean i want the iranians to have nuclear bombs, i don't want nuclear bombs to exist, but it is utter hypocrisy for obama to make a speech about wanting nuclear disarament and then just ordering more. to me, that's what western democracy is, there's a market demand for a parliamentarian to deliver an anti nuke speech, so he does, and there's a market demand for this same politician to order more nukes, so he does. you think the iranians are hostle? to a country that is threatening to invade them? to one that would have had it not fucked up so spectacularily in iraq and afghanisatan and totally misjudged it's chances at success? at one whose sanctions affect the prosperity of its people? i suggest you take a cursory glance at american and british escapades in iran this century and see for yourself. as for the argument that the wars show iranians that we in the west REALLY oppose dictatorship, that's insane. we in the west FUND dictators and put them in power when it suits our interests. the invasion WAS NOT to rid the people of dictatorship, it was to get the oil, get a strategic foothold in the region and stop the saddam from moving away from the US currency. the removing dictators thing was a neo con propaganda lie that your supposed democracy has given you the right to believe in. the democracy that elected cheney, a man on the boards of oil corporations who wanted to keep their profits high, and was paid off by them for the invasion. if thats democracy then democracy is not working and not good enough and not worth preserving in its current form. to me this is merely a form of totalitarianism that is democratic only in the sense that you can be in charge if you have enough cash, so admittance to the leadership is based on finance, which you will loose if you do not follow the ideology of pure profit.

What i love about Iran, is that the people there are actually happy in a way that our freedom denies us. They are at a stage when drinking alcohol, partying, listening to music or watching certain films are prohibited in such a way as to run real risk (not all the time of course but the social prohibiton is still there) and thus ACTUALLY BE ENJOYABLE, because you have the feeling of accessing prohibited knowledge and opening up new feelings of liberation and wonder! unlike us in our over saturated brain dead fug obesity of permanent entertainment and pleasure. there is actually a bad father figure holding back enjoyment, thus creating enjoyment in transgressing him. we in the west LONG for this, but the truth is we don't have it. eat drink fuck smoke drug yourself to oblivion, say and do what you want, nobody cares, you're living utter conformity and people are making money off your consumption, when it drives you mentally ill they can make money selling you medications too. your only freedom comes in destroying the self you work so hard at mainting in order to compete to stay alive. all your art and fashion and radicality means nothing and offends noone. but imagine something like punk happening in iran!

as for western revolution. it's pretty obvious we need to be able to stop the genocide. dismantle our armies, get rid of the nukes, stop polluting and destroying the world, because we are not only making ourselves sick and dead, we are ruining it for future generations. the massive poverty and crumbling infastructure? the fact that we spend billions a day on wars instead of, oh i don't know, curing diseases handing out aid building sustainable and long lasting energy supplies transport and architecture using our wealth knowledge and equipment to take people out of poverty... i could go on. of course i'm omitting lots too, like TRUE democracy (something were their is actual collective power and everyone has a say), (communism, whatever you want to call it).

we need to overthrow the elite who are running things now, the people who are ruining our lives for their own profit. that is all it comes down to and it is that imperialism that is ruining things.

and everyday the gap between rich and poor gets more uneven, more people starve, the western infastructure crumbles, and wealth is funneled to an even tinier elite who own even more. it's insanity. we all know it. but it's a democracy so we have the right to ignore it and believe whatever we want, as long as we keep consuming and don't utter resistance, in which case we will be killed.