International Campaign of Iraninan Presidential elections is indicating that Moussavi won the elections but Ahmadinejad was declared the victor.
(13 June 2009) The international community should not recognize the results of Iran’s 12 June 2009 presidential election, which gives all signs of having been manipulated by government authorities to produce a massive victory for incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. The Campaign further recommended that the existing results be voided and new elections held in order to establish legitimacy.
As the Campaign reported earlier, the leading challenger to Ahmadinejad, Mir Hossein Moussavi, was informed by Iran’s Interior Ministry at 23:00 on 12 June that tabulated results showed him to be victor, and he was asked to wait on celebrations until Sunday.
A few hours later, the Ministry inexplicably reversed itself declaring a massive victory for Ahmadinejad. Iran’s religious Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ignoring turmoil in the Ministry and rising protests, announced the victory and declared the process finished.
“The international community cannot accept such questionable election results, and should withhold recognition of these elections,“ stated Hadi Ghaemi, spokesperson for the Campaign.
“All must help the authorities understand that there will be no social peace in Iran and no credibility for the government abroad, without a re-run to discover which candidate actually deserves to govern,” he said.
At this time, Iran has been thrown into an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy. Thousands of Iranian citizens expressing their outrage, shock, and humiliation are facing the extreme danger of lethal violence at the hands of police and security forces in Tehran and throughout Iran.
“The stage has been set for a Tehran Tiananmen, in which massive violence will be unleashed in an attempt to intimidate the citizens from pursuing their dream of democracy,” Ghaemi said, referring to the 1989 massacre of many hundreds of Chinese pro-democracy demonstrators.
The Campaign called upon all of Iran’s partners in the international community to strongly denounce not only the election process, but the government’s violent attempts to quash legitimate protests.
The Campaign believes that a government can neither serve the Iranian people at home nor represent them abroad under the cloud of suspicion that exists at the present time. Only new elections, conducted with transparency, accountability, and with independent observers can rectify the situation. The international community must do its responsible part to bring about this solution by withholding recognition of the 12 June results.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Cosmic Circus in NYC
Science and it's interconnections with Art, Commerce and Museums is transforming NYC this weekend.
Science, the Extravaganza
Stephanie Berger
Yo-Yo Ma, with giant ants, honoring the biologist Edward O. Wilson, on backdrop, at Alice Tully Hall on Wednesday.
The second annual World Science Festival, a five-day extravaganza of performances, debates, celebrations and demonstrations, including an all-day street fair on Sunday in Washington Square Park, began with a star-studded gala tribute to the Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson at Lincoln Center Wednesday night. Over the next three days the curious will have to make painful choices: attend an investigation of the effects of music on the brain with a performance by Bobby McFerrin, or join a quest for a long-lost mural by Leonardo Da Vinci at the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Learn about the science behind “Battlestar Galactica” with actors from the show, or head to one of various panels of scientists and philosophers arguing about free will, alternate universes, science and religion, time and what it means to be human?
On Saturday there’s a chance to play naturalist, scouring a pair of New York parks under professional guidance in what Dr. Wilson calls a “BioBlitz” for flora, fauna and “all things crawly.” On Sunday you can get your hands in a variety of experiments at the street fair, including a “CSI”-style crime scene.
The festival is the brainchild of Brian Greene, a Columbia University physicist and mathematician and best-selling author, and his wife, Tracy Day, a former producer for ABC. They say they thought of the project after attending a science festival in Genoa, Italy, and being impressed by seeing science bubbling through the streets and cafes.
The idea is to mix up art, theater and music with the inevitable talking heads and professional interlocutors like Charlie Rose or Alan Alda, who can keep the discussion moving and down to earth, in order to entice an audience that didn’t know it was interested in science. Ms. Day likes to describe the strategy this way: “Bring them in for the art and have them leave with science.”
Last year more than 100,000 people stood in block-long lines to watch dancers reinterpret string theory, Oliver Sacks interpret his own failing eyesight, scientists debate quantum mechanics and what it means to be human. There were about 46 events, including a daylong street fair in Washington Square Park. In the end everything sold out, the organizers said.
“We learned that there is an untapped hunger in the public for a way into science.” said Dr. Greene, who recently sat down with Mr. Alda (who was accompanied by a ghost Twitterer), to discuss the festival.
Mr. Alda, perhaps best known as Hawkeye Pierce in “M*A*S*H,” is also longtime science buff and admits to wanting to be an inventor as a boy. Asked about the famous cultural divide between art and science he said that they are mutually reinforcing: “Art needs rigor, and science needs creativity.”
In a sort of smackdown between the two, art, represented by Mr. Alda, got the better of science, represented by Dr. Greene. Challenged to explain string theory, Mr. Alda produced a serviceable explanation: the smallest entities in nature are wriggling strings that take on different identities depending on how they vibrate. But Dr. Greene was stumped when asked to hum the theme song from “M*A*S*H.”
This year, because of the leaner economic climate, the festival offerings have been scaled back a bit to 40 events, including the street fair on Sunday in Washington Square Park. Ticket prices have also been reduced, Dr. Greene said. (Information on family activities: Spare Times, Page 24.)
The festival is sponsored by 18 organizations, including the Simons Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.
One of the biggest differences this year, Dr. Greene said, was symbolized by Wednesday night’s gala in honor of Dr. Wilson. In addition to celebrating science, Dr. Greene explained, “we also need to celebrate great scientists — people who’ve profoundly changed our lives but are often barely known.”
He said that future editions of the festival would feature other scientists: “When kids look up to great scientists the way they do to great musicians and actors, civilization will jump to the next level.”
Dr. Wilson, an expert and lover of ants, certainly qualifies. He has spent his career taking seriously the notion that the behavior of creatures is just as much a part of nature as hair color or cholesterol counts and so founded the field known as sociobiology. For his troubles he has won two Pulitzer prizes and had a pitcher of water dumped on his head by political activists worried about the implications of his work for human societies.
Dr. Wilson’s imprint on this year’s festival extends beyond the opening gala and a dramatization of his life on Thursday by the actress Anna Deavere Smith. He will also be featured Friday night on a panel discussing what it means to be human. The topic this year will focus on altruism, a problem that has engaged many evolutionary biologists and philosophers over the years. On Sunday night Dr. Wilson will give a talk on his adventures “BioBlitzing” the world in search of new species.
On Wednesday, speaking at a rapturous reception after his birthday gala, Dr. Wilson called attention to what he called a lopsided emphasis in the current movement toward all things green on preserving the physical environment. More emphasis, he said, needs to be put on preserving the diverse forms of life on this planet, which are dying out at a shocking rate. If we devote ourselves to saving them, we will automatically fix the environment, he said.
“Species are dying,” he said, “while we stand here nattering.” More Here from the NYT.
Science, the Extravaganza
Stephanie Berger
Yo-Yo Ma, with giant ants, honoring the biologist Edward O. Wilson, on backdrop, at Alice Tully Hall on Wednesday.
The second annual World Science Festival, a five-day extravaganza of performances, debates, celebrations and demonstrations, including an all-day street fair on Sunday in Washington Square Park, began with a star-studded gala tribute to the Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson at Lincoln Center Wednesday night. Over the next three days the curious will have to make painful choices: attend an investigation of the effects of music on the brain with a performance by Bobby McFerrin, or join a quest for a long-lost mural by Leonardo Da Vinci at the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Learn about the science behind “Battlestar Galactica” with actors from the show, or head to one of various panels of scientists and philosophers arguing about free will, alternate universes, science and religion, time and what it means to be human?
On Saturday there’s a chance to play naturalist, scouring a pair of New York parks under professional guidance in what Dr. Wilson calls a “BioBlitz” for flora, fauna and “all things crawly.” On Sunday you can get your hands in a variety of experiments at the street fair, including a “CSI”-style crime scene.
The festival is the brainchild of Brian Greene, a Columbia University physicist and mathematician and best-selling author, and his wife, Tracy Day, a former producer for ABC. They say they thought of the project after attending a science festival in Genoa, Italy, and being impressed by seeing science bubbling through the streets and cafes.
The idea is to mix up art, theater and music with the inevitable talking heads and professional interlocutors like Charlie Rose or Alan Alda, who can keep the discussion moving and down to earth, in order to entice an audience that didn’t know it was interested in science. Ms. Day likes to describe the strategy this way: “Bring them in for the art and have them leave with science.”
Last year more than 100,000 people stood in block-long lines to watch dancers reinterpret string theory, Oliver Sacks interpret his own failing eyesight, scientists debate quantum mechanics and what it means to be human. There were about 46 events, including a daylong street fair in Washington Square Park. In the end everything sold out, the organizers said.
“We learned that there is an untapped hunger in the public for a way into science.” said Dr. Greene, who recently sat down with Mr. Alda (who was accompanied by a ghost Twitterer), to discuss the festival.
Mr. Alda, perhaps best known as Hawkeye Pierce in “M*A*S*H,” is also longtime science buff and admits to wanting to be an inventor as a boy. Asked about the famous cultural divide between art and science he said that they are mutually reinforcing: “Art needs rigor, and science needs creativity.”
In a sort of smackdown between the two, art, represented by Mr. Alda, got the better of science, represented by Dr. Greene. Challenged to explain string theory, Mr. Alda produced a serviceable explanation: the smallest entities in nature are wriggling strings that take on different identities depending on how they vibrate. But Dr. Greene was stumped when asked to hum the theme song from “M*A*S*H.”
This year, because of the leaner economic climate, the festival offerings have been scaled back a bit to 40 events, including the street fair on Sunday in Washington Square Park. Ticket prices have also been reduced, Dr. Greene said. (Information on family activities: Spare Times, Page 24.)
The festival is sponsored by 18 organizations, including the Simons Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.
One of the biggest differences this year, Dr. Greene said, was symbolized by Wednesday night’s gala in honor of Dr. Wilson. In addition to celebrating science, Dr. Greene explained, “we also need to celebrate great scientists — people who’ve profoundly changed our lives but are often barely known.”
He said that future editions of the festival would feature other scientists: “When kids look up to great scientists the way they do to great musicians and actors, civilization will jump to the next level.”
Dr. Wilson, an expert and lover of ants, certainly qualifies. He has spent his career taking seriously the notion that the behavior of creatures is just as much a part of nature as hair color or cholesterol counts and so founded the field known as sociobiology. For his troubles he has won two Pulitzer prizes and had a pitcher of water dumped on his head by political activists worried about the implications of his work for human societies.
Dr. Wilson’s imprint on this year’s festival extends beyond the opening gala and a dramatization of his life on Thursday by the actress Anna Deavere Smith. He will also be featured Friday night on a panel discussing what it means to be human. The topic this year will focus on altruism, a problem that has engaged many evolutionary biologists and philosophers over the years. On Sunday night Dr. Wilson will give a talk on his adventures “BioBlitzing” the world in search of new species.
On Wednesday, speaking at a rapturous reception after his birthday gala, Dr. Wilson called attention to what he called a lopsided emphasis in the current movement toward all things green on preserving the physical environment. More emphasis, he said, needs to be put on preserving the diverse forms of life on this planet, which are dying out at a shocking rate. If we devote ourselves to saving them, we will automatically fix the environment, he said.
“Species are dying,” he said, “while we stand here nattering.” More Here from the NYT.
Friday, June 12, 2009
George Tiller
Prospect has an article on George Tiller and the violent nature of the conservative radicals.
I shouldn't have been shocked to see the news that Dr. George Tiller, an outspoken advocate for abortion rights and one of the nation's few late-term abortion providers, was gunned down yesterday morning as he attended church. Despite the fact that it's been more than a decade since an abortion provider has been murdered in America, I pay enough attention to hard-line anti-choice groups to know that a violent incident like Tiller's murder was all too predictable.
Tiller's clinic, Women's Health Care Services, was bombed in mid-1980s. In the '90s, it was the subject of blockades, bomb threats, and a shooting attack -- Tiller sustained gunshots to both arms. Just this month, Tiller's clinic was vandalized, with security cameras and outdoor lights damaged and the downspouts plugged, causing rain to pour through the roof. Protesters routinely gathered outside Tiller's church. In 2007, two men were arrested for disrupting services to speak out against him. Tiller often had a bodyguard by his side.
For workers and volunteers in clinics that provide abortions, the threats don't stop once they drive away from work. They extend to their private lives.
"Being a provider (or working for one) in this city is difficult. It involves people going through your trash, talking to your neighbor kids on the street and asking them if they know the lady down the street works for a baby-killer," says Stacy Tiemeyer, a volunteer with Planned Parenthood in Wichita. "It's not a small town, you wouldn't know private details about someone's life just because you see them in the grocery, at church, in the post office. Publicizing and targeting people takes work. It takes following them from work, taking pictures of their license plates, watching their house."
From the immediate post-Roe years to the mid-1990s, clinic violence and blockades were a constant threat. After Dr. David Gunn was assassinated in 1993, Congress passed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which specifically banned such acts as blocking clinic doors, trespassing, making violent threats, arson, vandalism, stalking clinic employees, and other forms of violence. Many of these acts were illegal already, but the law made clear that targeting a clinic with these crimes merited a federal response.
While FACE improved the situation (the number of clinics experiencing severe violence dropped from 52 percent in 1994 to 20 percent in 2000), it didn't succeed in ending the violence. Attacks against women's health clinics -- both those that provide abortions and those that do not -- continued throughout the Bush years. According to the National Abortion Federation, since 2000 abortion providers have reported 14 arsons, 78 death threats, 66 incidents of assault and battery, 117 anthrax threats, 128 bomb threats, 109 incidents of stalking, 541 acts of vandalism, one bombing, and one attempted murder.
Add one murder to that list.
The last time an abortion provider was murdered, when Dr. Barnett Slepian was killed in 1998, it was a wake-up call to the fact that passing the FACE Act wasn't enough. Attorney General Janet Reno established the National Task Force on Violence against Health Care Providers, which committed the Department of Justice to enforcing FACE, coordinating information on national anti-abortion extremist groups, funding clinic safety efforts, and training local law enforcement. The following year, the White House budget requested $4.5 million to beef up security at abortion clinics. But other than finally bringing James Kopp, Slepian's killer, to justice in 2003, the task force was largely dormant for eight years under the Bush administration.
Attorney General Eric Holder released a statement responding to Tiller's murder, promising that "Federal law enforcement is coordinating with local law enforcement officials in Kansas on the investigation of this crime, and I have directed the United States Marshals Service to offer protection to other appropriate people and facilities around the nation." He also pledged to take steps to prevent related acts of violence. Obama expressed that he was "shocked and outraged" by the killing. Neither mentioned the FACE Act or reviving the task force.
Tiller's death is a wake-up call to the fact that our existing laws and regulatory bodies to protect against clinic violence aren't working as well as they should. As written, FACE provides a lot of protection for reproductive health providers. But we need an active task force -- or some other means of accountability -- to make sure the law is fully enforced. This is something Obama's Justice Department could commit to doing tomorrow, sending a strong signal that this type of domestic terrorism is not acceptable.
It's apparent that we need someone at the federal level who is paying attention. After all, Tiller's assassin was not acting in vacuum. Even if no national anti-choice group directly ordered him to fire that gun, he is a product of a culture that thrives on systematically threatening reproductive health care providers and women who seek abortions. Militant anti-choice groups like Operation Rescue -- which has endorsed intimidation tactics in the past -- released statements yesterday condemning Tiller's assassination.
But after years of sending the message to its avid base that Tiller was a sub-human monster, a press release expressing dismay at the killing does little good. On the sidebar of the Operation Rescue blog, near where the press release appeared, was a small image featuring Dr. Tiller's face, some very sinister-looking flames, and the words "America's Doctor of Death," linking to a detailed dossier about all of Tiller's offenses. Other groups keep databases of reproductive health providers' addresses and phone numbers, all but daring their members to conduct harassment campaigns.
Letting FACE go unenforced is not just bad for clinic staff. This pattern of intimidation can affect the quality of care women receive.
The threat of violence is reflected in the very construction of Tiller's and other clinics around the country: high concrete walls, few windows, a secure entryway with bullet-proof glass. They look like bunkers, not doctor's offices. This sort of security would not be necessary if clinics only had to deal with peaceful protesters exercising their right to free speech. (FACE explicitly protects the right to protest peacefully outside abortion clinics.) Acts of vandalism also make it harder for clinics to provide a professional and inviting atmosphere for patients. Every dollar that Tiller put into fixing his water-damaged roof and replacing broken windows was a dollar not spent, say, upgrading medical equipment.
These harassment campaigns also have a chilling effect on medical students who are considering whether to become abortion providers. Would you choose a profession in which death threats simply come with the territory? A full 57 percent of abortion providers in this country are older than 50, and scant few provide late-term abortions. I was in Nebraska several years ago to interview Dr. Leroy Carhart (whose challenges to abortion-restricting laws went all the way to the Supreme Court), and Carhart and Tiller were the only two late-term providers in their region. If one wanted to go on vacation or got sick, the other had to fill in. There was no one else.
As abortion providers retire without replacements, women in most areas of the country are forced to drive further and further to access abortion. In a majority of cases, women who seek late-term abortions do so because they face serious health risks. Driving hundreds of miles to find a doctor -- and the usually facing harassment outside the clinic once they arrive -- makes what is already a difficult medical situation into one that is even more painful.
The only way to ensure that there is someone to take Tiller's place in the future is to find a way to actively combat the daily violence faced by women's health providers in this country. That doesn't mean ending the abortion debate, which is impossible. It means convincing all Americans, even those who don't feel they have a stake in this battle, that it's important to ensure women can access legal medical services safely -- and doctors can perform them safely, too.
I shouldn't have been shocked to see the news that Dr. George Tiller, an outspoken advocate for abortion rights and one of the nation's few late-term abortion providers, was gunned down yesterday morning as he attended church. Despite the fact that it's been more than a decade since an abortion provider has been murdered in America, I pay enough attention to hard-line anti-choice groups to know that a violent incident like Tiller's murder was all too predictable.
Tiller's clinic, Women's Health Care Services, was bombed in mid-1980s. In the '90s, it was the subject of blockades, bomb threats, and a shooting attack -- Tiller sustained gunshots to both arms. Just this month, Tiller's clinic was vandalized, with security cameras and outdoor lights damaged and the downspouts plugged, causing rain to pour through the roof. Protesters routinely gathered outside Tiller's church. In 2007, two men were arrested for disrupting services to speak out against him. Tiller often had a bodyguard by his side.
For workers and volunteers in clinics that provide abortions, the threats don't stop once they drive away from work. They extend to their private lives.
"Being a provider (or working for one) in this city is difficult. It involves people going through your trash, talking to your neighbor kids on the street and asking them if they know the lady down the street works for a baby-killer," says Stacy Tiemeyer, a volunteer with Planned Parenthood in Wichita. "It's not a small town, you wouldn't know private details about someone's life just because you see them in the grocery, at church, in the post office. Publicizing and targeting people takes work. It takes following them from work, taking pictures of their license plates, watching their house."
From the immediate post-Roe years to the mid-1990s, clinic violence and blockades were a constant threat. After Dr. David Gunn was assassinated in 1993, Congress passed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which specifically banned such acts as blocking clinic doors, trespassing, making violent threats, arson, vandalism, stalking clinic employees, and other forms of violence. Many of these acts were illegal already, but the law made clear that targeting a clinic with these crimes merited a federal response.
While FACE improved the situation (the number of clinics experiencing severe violence dropped from 52 percent in 1994 to 20 percent in 2000), it didn't succeed in ending the violence. Attacks against women's health clinics -- both those that provide abortions and those that do not -- continued throughout the Bush years. According to the National Abortion Federation, since 2000 abortion providers have reported 14 arsons, 78 death threats, 66 incidents of assault and battery, 117 anthrax threats, 128 bomb threats, 109 incidents of stalking, 541 acts of vandalism, one bombing, and one attempted murder.
Add one murder to that list.
The last time an abortion provider was murdered, when Dr. Barnett Slepian was killed in 1998, it was a wake-up call to the fact that passing the FACE Act wasn't enough. Attorney General Janet Reno established the National Task Force on Violence against Health Care Providers, which committed the Department of Justice to enforcing FACE, coordinating information on national anti-abortion extremist groups, funding clinic safety efforts, and training local law enforcement. The following year, the White House budget requested $4.5 million to beef up security at abortion clinics. But other than finally bringing James Kopp, Slepian's killer, to justice in 2003, the task force was largely dormant for eight years under the Bush administration.
Attorney General Eric Holder released a statement responding to Tiller's murder, promising that "Federal law enforcement is coordinating with local law enforcement officials in Kansas on the investigation of this crime, and I have directed the United States Marshals Service to offer protection to other appropriate people and facilities around the nation." He also pledged to take steps to prevent related acts of violence. Obama expressed that he was "shocked and outraged" by the killing. Neither mentioned the FACE Act or reviving the task force.
Tiller's death is a wake-up call to the fact that our existing laws and regulatory bodies to protect against clinic violence aren't working as well as they should. As written, FACE provides a lot of protection for reproductive health providers. But we need an active task force -- or some other means of accountability -- to make sure the law is fully enforced. This is something Obama's Justice Department could commit to doing tomorrow, sending a strong signal that this type of domestic terrorism is not acceptable.
It's apparent that we need someone at the federal level who is paying attention. After all, Tiller's assassin was not acting in vacuum. Even if no national anti-choice group directly ordered him to fire that gun, he is a product of a culture that thrives on systematically threatening reproductive health care providers and women who seek abortions. Militant anti-choice groups like Operation Rescue -- which has endorsed intimidation tactics in the past -- released statements yesterday condemning Tiller's assassination.
But after years of sending the message to its avid base that Tiller was a sub-human monster, a press release expressing dismay at the killing does little good. On the sidebar of the Operation Rescue blog, near where the press release appeared, was a small image featuring Dr. Tiller's face, some very sinister-looking flames, and the words "America's Doctor of Death," linking to a detailed dossier about all of Tiller's offenses. Other groups keep databases of reproductive health providers' addresses and phone numbers, all but daring their members to conduct harassment campaigns.
Letting FACE go unenforced is not just bad for clinic staff. This pattern of intimidation can affect the quality of care women receive.
The threat of violence is reflected in the very construction of Tiller's and other clinics around the country: high concrete walls, few windows, a secure entryway with bullet-proof glass. They look like bunkers, not doctor's offices. This sort of security would not be necessary if clinics only had to deal with peaceful protesters exercising their right to free speech. (FACE explicitly protects the right to protest peacefully outside abortion clinics.) Acts of vandalism also make it harder for clinics to provide a professional and inviting atmosphere for patients. Every dollar that Tiller put into fixing his water-damaged roof and replacing broken windows was a dollar not spent, say, upgrading medical equipment.
These harassment campaigns also have a chilling effect on medical students who are considering whether to become abortion providers. Would you choose a profession in which death threats simply come with the territory? A full 57 percent of abortion providers in this country are older than 50, and scant few provide late-term abortions. I was in Nebraska several years ago to interview Dr. Leroy Carhart (whose challenges to abortion-restricting laws went all the way to the Supreme Court), and Carhart and Tiller were the only two late-term providers in their region. If one wanted to go on vacation or got sick, the other had to fill in. There was no one else.
As abortion providers retire without replacements, women in most areas of the country are forced to drive further and further to access abortion. In a majority of cases, women who seek late-term abortions do so because they face serious health risks. Driving hundreds of miles to find a doctor -- and the usually facing harassment outside the clinic once they arrive -- makes what is already a difficult medical situation into one that is even more painful.
The only way to ensure that there is someone to take Tiller's place in the future is to find a way to actively combat the daily violence faced by women's health providers in this country. That doesn't mean ending the abortion debate, which is impossible. It means convincing all Americans, even those who don't feel they have a stake in this battle, that it's important to ensure women can access legal medical services safely -- and doctors can perform them safely, too.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Iranian Elections
Bani at Iranian.com:
The youth in the streets are mostly demanding social liberties and less oppression, and I'm not sure why they believe that Moussavi actually defends these wishes. It may be because he has the official support of ex-president, Mohammad Khatami, who is still a strong symbol of reform for people, but I sense a more complex ideological game that is proving successful, despite the loopholes.
The fact is that these young supporters of Moussavi are not in a state of revolt. The chanting, the slogans, and the antagonism are not directed at the state, but towards their adversaries, the supporters of Ahmadinejad who have gathered across the street to counter their joyous campaign enthusiasm. As the Moussavi supporters laugh, sing and cheer together, Ahmadinejad's followers stand transfixed and speechless, holding Iranian flags and photos of the current president kissing the Supreme Leader's hand, hoping to intimidate the reformist crowd with their grim appearance. They also use intimidation techniques like riding their motorbikes through the joyous crowd or making faces. Here and there, they are joined by older Bassijis (Islamic militia) who are dressed in plain clothes, or by agents of the secret service whose Iranian-made polyester suits and earpieces make them hard to miss. The Bassijis walk around monitoring the situation, as the secret service systematically photographs each and every demonstrator, surely saving these images for a rainy day.
Representing the most traditional and conservative line of thought in the country, this pro-Ahmadinejad crowd has become completely frustrated and angry these last few nights.
From 3QD
The youth in the streets are mostly demanding social liberties and less oppression, and I'm not sure why they believe that Moussavi actually defends these wishes. It may be because he has the official support of ex-president, Mohammad Khatami, who is still a strong symbol of reform for people, but I sense a more complex ideological game that is proving successful, despite the loopholes.
The fact is that these young supporters of Moussavi are not in a state of revolt. The chanting, the slogans, and the antagonism are not directed at the state, but towards their adversaries, the supporters of Ahmadinejad who have gathered across the street to counter their joyous campaign enthusiasm. As the Moussavi supporters laugh, sing and cheer together, Ahmadinejad's followers stand transfixed and speechless, holding Iranian flags and photos of the current president kissing the Supreme Leader's hand, hoping to intimidate the reformist crowd with their grim appearance. They also use intimidation techniques like riding their motorbikes through the joyous crowd or making faces. Here and there, they are joined by older Bassijis (Islamic militia) who are dressed in plain clothes, or by agents of the secret service whose Iranian-made polyester suits and earpieces make them hard to miss. The Bassijis walk around monitoring the situation, as the secret service systematically photographs each and every demonstrator, surely saving these images for a rainy day.
Representing the most traditional and conservative line of thought in the country, this pro-Ahmadinejad crowd has become completely frustrated and angry these last few nights.
From 3QD
Words of Wisdom
=== JKrishnamurti.org - Daily Quote ===
A mind that is no longer concerned with change has no fear
Humility implies total destruction - not of outward, social things, but complete destruction of the center, of oneself, of one's own ideas, experiences, knowledge, traditions - completely emptying the mind of everything that it has known. Therefore, such a mind is no longer thinking in terms of change. ...
A mind that is no longer concerned with change has no fear and is therefore free....Then it is no longer trying to change itself into another pattern, no longer exposing itself to further experiences, no longer asking and demanding, because such a mind is free; therefore, it can be quiet, still. And then, perhaps, that which is nameless can come into being.
So, humility is essential, but not of the artificial, cultivated kind. You see, one must be without capacity, without gift; one must be as nothing, inwardly. And, I think that if one sees this without trying to learn how to be as nothing...then the seeing is the experiencing of it and then, perchance, the other thing can come into being.
Collected Works, Vol. XII - 200
A mind that is no longer concerned with change has no fear
Humility implies total destruction - not of outward, social things, but complete destruction of the center, of oneself, of one's own ideas, experiences, knowledge, traditions - completely emptying the mind of everything that it has known. Therefore, such a mind is no longer thinking in terms of change. ...
A mind that is no longer concerned with change has no fear and is therefore free....Then it is no longer trying to change itself into another pattern, no longer exposing itself to further experiences, no longer asking and demanding, because such a mind is free; therefore, it can be quiet, still. And then, perhaps, that which is nameless can come into being.
So, humility is essential, but not of the artificial, cultivated kind. You see, one must be without capacity, without gift; one must be as nothing, inwardly. And, I think that if one sees this without trying to learn how to be as nothing...then the seeing is the experiencing of it and then, perchance, the other thing can come into being.
Collected Works, Vol. XII - 200
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
I suggest that every one of you should try - oh! not for long, just for one hour a day - to say nothing but the absolutely indispensable wor...
-
Who and What Is Buddha, Really? What's Your Reaction: Amazing Inspiring Funny Scary Hot Crazy Important Weird Read More: Buddha , Budd...
-
Sivananda's Message of the Day for Wednesday, April 14, 2010 Kindness does not consist in gifts, but in gentleness and generosity. -- S...
