COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Unlike Obama, Ali Khamenei and Aquavellvajad don't do, 'Moral Equivalence'.







President Pantywaist latest: Iran unclenches its fist - to slap Barack Obama's face
Posted By: Gerald Warner at Jun 19, 2009 Telegraph


"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." That piece of classic Obamaguff, unloaded during his presidential inauguration, has come home to haunt President Pantywaist, as a consequence of the Iranian election.

Today Iran unclenched its fist - to slap President Pantywaist on the face. It seems, despite the chiding from Barack Obama, that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad feel quite comfortable on the wrong side of history. At Friday prayers - accompanied by encouragingly reformist shouts of "Death to America!" - the Supreme Leader (Khamenei, not Obama) delivered the most intransigently authoritarian speech heard in Iran since the reign of Cyrus the Great.

From behind the stage set on which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir-Hossein Mousavi have been acting as surrogates for the real power struggle between Khamemei and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the Supreme Leader injected a note of politically incorrect reality into the fantasy conjured by Obama and the Western media. The Basij militia will be unleashed on protesters. "If there is any bloodshed, leaders of the protests will be held directly responsible," announced the Ayatollah.

"Make my day!" is the American translation of this uncompromising challenge, to America as well as to the youthful protesters, by a regime emboldened by the patent weakness of President Pantywaist. Americans should realise, having undergone the Vietnam experience, that in the final analysis power does not depend on military hardware but on political will. The Islamic republic is not short of political will.

It could be, of course, that the threat of the Basij militia will turn out to be no more potent than the parading of the Shah's 'Immortals' of the Imperial Guard, shortly before they were annihilated and that a revolution will sweep aside the mullahs. But it does not seem likely. The auguries are not of revolution, but of either civil war or acquiescence by the reformers. Regime change will not be uncontested.

For America and the rest of the world, Iranian nuclear development is the supreme consideration. How many of those superficially Americanised young Iranians, so active on Twitter, does Obama think want to see their country stripped of the prestige of being a potential nuclear power, especially when Pakistan is already in the club?

This is a lose/lose situation for Obama. He is as flaky on Iran as on everything else. In 2004 he favoured "surgical" missile strikes against Iran. In 2007 he did not rule out force, but preferred "aggressive diplomacy combined with tough sanctions" - but that was for the ears of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Since he moved address from Chicago to Washington, his stance has become more nuanced (ie he hasn't a clue what to do).

He is trying to steer a course between appeasement and rhetoric about the Iranian "threat", while knowing he may eventually have to knuckle down and accept a nuclear Islamic republic, since Barack doesn't do war. If the Israelis do the job for him, that will be ten times more provocative in Middle Eastern terms. Look forward to change you'd better believe in.


65 comments:

  1. I find it amusing that the BBC and the New York Times, after diving the tea leaves (organic and decaffeinated of course) are seeing the nuanced power in The One's words.

    It is necessary that us one's as opposed to The One pay attention to the importance of what is not said. An intellectual extrapolation will come to the conclusion that the power of Obama is in his silence. His very muteness, a minimalism of decibels, ear piercing silence, a reduction of reverberation stuns the Iranians into instant revolt.

    So says the pukes of punditry.

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  2. 'Tis in the deep sounds of silence between words where the deep meaning lies for those with eyes to hear, 'tis true.

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  3. Saigon
    Budapest
    Suez
    Iraq
    ...
    ...
    ...
    I ran

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  4. Gotta make a quick in and out, but something that duece posted, in the last thread caught my eye

    The media driving this event is twitter and youtube and tens of thousands of tech savvy twenty somethings. it is as unique a use of technology as was the spur, bronze swords, the saddle, armor and gunpowder.

    What we are seing, is the next step in the use of cell phones and text messages, as was implemented by the rioters during the car-b-que episode, in Paris, a couple of years ago.

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  5. Israeli Minister: Iran Revolution Coming

    Saturday, June 20, 2009



    Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon predicts the unrest in Iran will lead to a full revolution.


    "Since I was head of Military Intelligence, I have said, and I say it again now, that some 70 percent of Iranians are opposed to the ayatollah regime," Ya'alon said, according to the Jerusalem Post. "[Opposition leader Mir Hossein] Mousavi and his wife have brought a new spirit of openness, and so I repeat -- there will be a revolution in Iran."


    "It's impossible to hide the energy there now, and the Iranian regime is going to have to take that into consideration. It makes no difference regarding the nuclear issue, but this regime will fall."


    Despite the violence over the disputed presidential election, Ya'alon believes "What is happening now will not change the nuclear issue, but it is still an encouraging development for the West."

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  6. Something trish said last thread kept me awake most of the night.

    Trish sees Israel as well placed and sourced to aid the Iranian opposition...So, how does Israel get guns from point "A" to point "B"? It's a long, long way to Tipperary.

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  7. I'm still pushing the Jericho 941F as the sidearm of choice.

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  8. I see speculation all over about what might be done, seems there's a lot, if we had the will, but nothing is going to happen, we've got the O.

    ---

    5. gpc31:


    “Rulers who are unsure what to do, but want to avoid immediate dangers, generally end up staying neutral and usually destroy themselves by doing so.”

    Machiavelli, Chapter 21 of The Prince

    As usual Old Nick nails it. Interested parties should read the rest of the chapter for the reasons why, along with various subtleties and qualifications.

    Obama is in some ways audacious (mostly in his self-regard) and in others very timid. I don’t believe that he possesses Machiavelli’s “virtu” or Aristotlean or Christian virtue.


    Jun 20, 2009 - 9:07 pm
    --
    -/

    Little Kim's ship is sailing along. May well be empty. May have a nuclear bomb. We can't board it. We can't stop it. We can ask some friendly port to impound it, and search it, when it stops to fuel up. Under the UN sanctions.

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  9. Twitter on the Barricades: Six Lessons Learned

    What the Iranian protests are revealing about the power and weaknesses of the social-networking tool.
    Video: Citizen Journalism in Iran

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  10. Senate unanimously follows House--

    The House approved the resolution by a vote of 405 to 1, and the Senate unanimously followed suit hours later. The only lawmaker to vote against the resolution was Texas Rep. Ron Paul.

    505-1

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  11. From last thread...

    I recommend the Glock 22....

    15 shot clip, 40 cal...

    made from 4 parts....

    I can field strip and reassemble in 25 seconds in the dark..

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  12. wio,

    Yes, but the Jericho will be more profitable, and that is what we are all about ;-)

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  13. I'm recommending an underground bunker deep in the backcountry, location undisclosed. There's a Native American firm near here that builds portable bunkers, and fuel bladders too. Got the generator, the whole works.

    They actually sell quite a few of them, mostly for disaster situations. Which, come to think of it, we may be facing.

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  14. without further comment by me, you would be amused at who has been lurking at the EB the last week. (No one who has ever commented.)

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  15. allen...

    I forgot that we "zionist cocksuckers" are all about the penny...

    But profit aside..

    I love my Glock 22, In fact I bought 2 of them...

    I also just got a Mossberg 500 shotgun, again, my redneck special forces friend told me I spent to much and i should go and trade it in for a few shotguns from the used rack...

    Maybe he's a zionist cocksucker also?

    I just went to Dick's Sporting Goods last night and got another case of 12 gauge 2 3/4 for inventory and another few boxes of 40 cal hollow points...

    oh and I guess I paid retail....

    I am a disgrace to my race...

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  16. wio,

    You paid RETAIL! OMG!

    When I think of that beautiful girl bludgeoned...

    ...my daughter packs either a Zig 229 (40) or, when dating, a sweet little S&W 38 (laser grips)...no girl's boudoir is complete without a Mossberg 410, with pistol grip and 000 buckshot...

    She is an excellent shot, but you never know how someone will react to stress until the moment arrives...

    What must the parents of that poor girl be feeling?

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  17. Mousavi's official news site GhalamNews in now available in English thanks to @GOOGLE, see http://is.gd/16b2j #Iran

    Imagery update for Tehran in Google Earth http://bit.ly/CFwOl #Iran

    RT @youtube See a recap of CNN's live broadcast from YouTube today: http://bit.ly/vUqY2 #iranelection

    Flickr mousavi1388's Photostream

    MirHossein Mousavi (mousavi1388) on Twitter

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  18. Obumble has been reading our stuff?

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  19. The Head of Homeland Security?

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  20. Ancient Chinese secret, I guess.

    Happy Father's Day to all.

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  21. I think this is the first time Obama has been in the negative in this tracking poll--

    The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 32% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-four percent (34%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -2.

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  22. Correction: Sig 229

    ...the "Z"...could have been thinking about smoking...could have been a German Freudian slip...

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  23. If you read the comment it said, "without further comment by me." I think that pretty much means he's not going to tell you.

    But you can keep trying it's amusing.

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  24. "without further comment by me."
    ---
    We categorically reject that,
    right al-Bob?

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  25. We want the truth.

    We'll call a board meeting.

    A waterboard meeting.

    Nobody likes to be wateboarded, eh, al-Doug?

    Rafsanjani's Daughter Arrested--Action Moves To Qom--
    /

    Actually some of those clerics sound like they might have a tinge of sanity.

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  26. Separating Wheat from Clift's Chaff.

    In 1979, when the Iranian revolution was unfolding, Haqqani was in college in Karachi. In a show of solidarity with the Iranian people protesting the shah and shouting "Death to America," Pakistani students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad and set it on fire. As president of his university's student union, Haqqani was pressed to lead an attack on the consulate in Karachi, but he resisted. "What I never said out loud is that burning down the consulate would have wrecked the wonderful library there, and deprived me of access to all the books I found so useful for my studies in international relations," he later wrote.

    Haqqani recalls how audiovisual aids suddenly appeared in the consulate library after Ronald Reagan was elected and invigorated U.S. propaganda efforts abroad. Reagan named Charles Z. Wick, a flamboyant movie executive, as director of USIA, the U.S. Information Agency. The media made fun of him; among his biggest Hollywood hits was Snow White and the Three Stooges, and he seemed bent on turning the world into a Disney movie lot. Reagan doubled the USIA budget, and Wick used the latest technology, which at the time was satellite television, to broadcast and market American ideas and values. Democrats were skeptical, and a decade later—when the Clinton administration was in power and having to placate Sen. Jesse Helms, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who hated anything that smacked of foreign aid—USIA got kicked to the curb, folded into the State Department. It's been moribund ever since, along with the network of consulate libraries that Haqqani credits with helping shape his world view. You reap what you sow—another biblical admonition that seems appropriate.

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  27. Tell the boss. He's the one withholding information.

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  28. Hmm...I linked the elephant bar to a university...hope that's it...good experience for the kids to see various styles of debate and blather.

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  29. heh, I just got my Father's Day present, the omelet flipper I gave her for Mother's Day.

    She wasn't impressed.

    Happy Father's Day to all dads. It's a hard job, but somebody has to do it.

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  30. Happy Father's Day

    Today 50% of all black kids know no father....

    For all of those that are in the black voting block (98%) might I suggest you get off your asses and start reaching out to YOUR kids and teaching them:

    A. A work ethic

    B. How to wear a pair of pants

    C. How to speak clearly

    D. How NOT to knock up women...

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  31. According to Chris Matthews the Obama honeymoon continues and the biggest growth of fans of Obama?

    ARAB WORLD...

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  32. What Neda's father said. The image of Neda, a young Iranian woman, being shot and killed in the streets yesterday has become a rallying cry for Iranian reformists and their allies internationally.

    A reader who couldn't quite make out what her father was saying in the video understood after learning that her name is Neda. He sent in the transcript:

    "Neda, don't be afraid. Neda, don't be afraid. (There is yelling and screaming.) Neda, stay with me. Neda stay with me!"
    --
    -/

    Atlas Shrugs

    --------

    He's right too, WiO. The arab legs are tingling.

    Though he's losing support at home, the American Ayatollah.

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  33. You could do worse than tracking the EB. You won't get Anyone's Party Line, here.

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  34. Except for Hitler Loving Multi-Fueled Fascists!

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  35. Talk of a general strike seems to be in the air. The next logical step.

    heh :) Flex-Fuel Fascists

    FFFers

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  36. Fuckin Flex-Fuel Fascists
    FFFFers

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  37. The answer to Deuce's riddle?

    Fox News

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  38. Fox watches the Fuckin Flex-Fuel Fascists.
    Fw/t FFFFers

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  39. Li'l Kim's comin, Dougie Boy. Li'l Kim's comin.

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  40. I didn't have the heart to inform al-Bob that I've always lived in a Lava Tube.

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  41. One of those Tubers, eh?

    Well, you don't have far to go when the sirens wail.

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  42. When the Sirens Sound,
    I stay here and Pee in a Jar.

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  43. (kinda neat, they've multipurposed the Hurricane Sirens to cover the Little Guy)

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  44. "Many of the Shiite clerics in Qom never embraced the idea of either a supreme leader or a central role for clerics in the new Islamic republic. Iran's revolution represented not just a political upheaval. It was also a revolution within Shiism, which for 14 centuries had prohibited a clerical role in politics. With clerics taking over government, many senior Shiite clerics feared that Islam would end up being tainted by the human flaws of the state. "
    ---
    UPDATE

    UPDATEAP is reporting the arrest of Rafsanjani's daughter (mentioned above) and 4 other relatives of the powerful former president.
    Um...they're not being very subtle, are they?

    They know full well what Rafsanjani is up to and are making it clear to him that there will be consequences unless he ceases what he is doing.

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  45. Think a blogger strike would get the truth out of deuce?

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  46. One report I read said the Council of F...ing Experts had backed the Grand Ayatollah K, another said something else.

    Expect a strike, though. I bet that's coming.

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  47. Ya mean we stop posting here?

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  48. Just like the Iranians are going to do--Wednesday through Friday--we shut the place down, go on strike, say we are in mourning, following an Ayatollahs orders.

    Just joking.--

    12:57 PM ET -- Understanding Ayatollah Montazeri's statement. A reader who has been very helpful over the last week sends in this note about today's statement (highlighted below at 12:28 PM) by dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Montazeri (slightly edited for clarity):

    Just had call with Iranians who read the whole Montazzeri statement (I have not myself - note - my farsi is not good enough to get all the nuances of the thing). But the main point I think you should be aware of is that he's asking people this coming Wed-Fri to mourn the people who have died. The people I talk to suggest it's his covert way of asking people to strike.

    As point of reference - in the '79 Revolution, it was the strikes that did it. This is super important - because roughly right now you have some of the population that are hitting the streets, while others are Ahmadinejad people -- and it's the silent 30-40% they are after. Each day this silent majority is slowly stepping towards the reformists.

    One important point with strikes -- they cannot shoot people who are striking. That will leave them in a bind -- and more people dare to strike than hit the streets. Again, this is in reference with what happened in '79 - strikes are the most potent weapon.

    Also - what is happening now with regards to spreading information to the people. They are going back to 79 strategies. basically they are printing papers having people distribute them all over the country. twitter/net etc is not effective right now - they are going back to old-fashioned style.
    --
    -/

    Daily Dish


    Tennessee, of course

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