On Protest (Iranian "Election" Update)

Today we had a Flag Day Eve Tea Party protest march in downtown Fort Collins. Thanks to Ray Harvey for organizing it and to all who attended! I would give it five stars for being an extraordinarily well behaved crowd. Because that's who we are of course.

But it should be noted that in Iran things are a wee bit more serious. These people deserve our sincerest sympathy -- and support. They are fighting the same sort of personality cult tyranny that O Duce is assaulting us with. But it's rather more advanced of course. Over there, sham elections have become a kabuki dance art form. Over here they just began in national form with the last one. Wrong headed as public financing is and noting the fact that McCain was a kabuki distraction, did you notice how effortlessly O Duce broke his pledge to use public financing and how big money and foreigners bought the election almost completely unreported by our state run media?

Anyway, watch this video and ponder. When our fellow citizens finally have their TVs turned off because of unemployment, runaway inflation and power shortages, it might start to look like this here.

They’re chanting “Death to this liar government.” Sobering.

UPDATE: Wow. Iran is on fire. Literally.

Even if you're not religious, you need to pray for their success. The implications of a revolution even vaguely directed toward freedom in Iran are absolutely enormous. The two sites you should be watching are Michael Totten and Michael Ledeen.

Ledeen points out that with no more hope an American president might help them any more they might finally take matters in their own hands for good:

Stalin would be proud. But even his Soviet Union eventually succumbed to the dissidents, and while the regime has most all of the guns, the chains, the clubs, the tear gas cannisters, and the torture chambers, there are tens of millions of Iranians who hate the regime. The question is whether they are prepared to face down the Basij, the police, and the Revolutionary Guards. It is usually a matter of numbers in these cases: if a million people gather in front of the Supreme Leader’s palace and demand freedom, while half that number make the same demand in front of the government buildings in Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz and Mashad, they might win.

Until quite recently, the Iranians did not believe they could do such a thing on their own. They believed they needed outside support, above all American support, in order to succeed. They thought that Bushitlercheney would provide that support, and they were bitterly disappointed. But nobody believes that Obama will help them, and they must know that they are on their own.

And here's an electrifying status report passed on by Totten:

"My next door neighbor is an Iranian immigrant who came here in 1977. He just received a SAT phone call from his brother in Tehran who reports that the rooftops of nighttime Tehran are filled with people shouting 'Allah O Akbar' in protest of the government and election results. The last time he remembers this happening is in 1979 during the Revolution. Says the sound of tens of thousands on the rooftops is deafening right now." It's almost four in the morning in Iran.

And my young sons were complaining about how far they had to walk today. They've come a long way but I have much to teach them yet. And I pray the most difficult of the lessons to come won't be learned the hard way.