"Boycott the Election" Graffiti = Trouble for the Regime

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FG
by FG
09-Jan-2012
 

Pre-election graffiti is spreading in Iran (see link below)  FG suggests this one: "Boycott the election: Don't help those who beat you!"

LET'S TOTAL UP THE DISCONTENTED MAJORITY & SEE HOW THEY GOT THERE

1. BEGIN WITH THE ORIGINAL GREENS--Khamenei will be happy to learn that almost no one still believes in reform anymore. especially not the three million who showed up in the largest protest or millions of their symathizers at home who remain totally convinced the election was stolen.  The bad news for Khamenei is that almost all these people share one conclusion--the Islamic Republic is hopeless and must go.

2. TOTALITARIAN MEASURES DROVE OFF MILLIONS MORE.  Khamenei knows that intimidation requires ghastly and visible crimes to get his point accross: "This is what I will do to you and your wife and your kids if you critize my rule!."  Why does the regime deny its crimes simultaneously?  Because the mullahs sense the permanent and irreversible alienation of a much greater portion of the population. That assures a crisis of Syrian dimensions once Iranians no longer fear death or beatings they are so fed up.  Revulsion produces new and more hostile dissidents like neutral bystanders who found themselves in the wrong place and suffered the consequences to person or property.  New opposition recruits (silent for now) also include kin, neighbors and acquaintances of every regime victim.

Expanded social policing over the last two years makes Iran look more like Saudi Arabis and Iranians resent it. Even people who could care less about democracy so long as they can have their fun will hate a system that steals everyone's satellite dishes and cell phones (cynically selling new replacements afterwards) and that "cracks down" on actors, writers, movies, music, books, newspapers, television, social networks and the internet to deprive Iranians of "western" cultural influences people have come to enjoy. 

3. NOW ADD MILLIONS MORE WHOSE ALIENATION IS PRIMARILY ECONOMIC: Its numbers continue to grow.  The swindled finally see that the Islamic Republic's economy is just as rigged and corrupt as its elections and their company unions.  They watch as Khamenei sells them out.  Instead of fixing what stinks,he hands over most of the economy to the men with the guns and clubs.  It is a "superbribe." In exchange the hated mullahs get protection from an enraged populace  These clerics will not stop at any crime to preserve ill-gained and undeserved privileges, perks and powers. 

LINK: //en.irangreenvoice.com/article/2012/jan/09/3...

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FG

Latest Iran Develoments

by FG on

(courtesy of Enduring America)

 

1. Shargh claims that the the authorities are launching "Chastity and Hijab" programmes in kindergartens. 

(Didn't I just write the regime's goal seems to be Saudi-style islamization?)

2. Former
Revolutionary Guards commander   makes veiled criiticism of Khamenei and post 2009 crackdown.

Hossein Alaei has spoken about the
uprising of 9 January 1978 in Qom, suggesting that others should learn from the Shah's experience.

After the uprising, the Shah's security forces put political opponents under house arrest and shot dissenters, but of course this ultimately failed preserve the monarch's throne.

3. Khabar Online reports the weakening Iranian currency has caused huge losses for Iranian importers, with many goods remaining on board.

The rial crossed the 1700 to 1 dollar ratio today.   

(FG observes: Aside from the blackmail threat and the upcoming oil embargo the likely effect on Iran's currency may provide  one more reason why the regime may not be able to risk going too far in its recent attacks on Ahmadinejad).


FG

Does Khamenei plan to turn Iran into Saudi Arabia?

by FG on

Neither of the two articles which I recommend here are directly concerned with Iran.   Nevertheless I believe readers here will find them relevant.

SYRIA

The question, "When Is the Financial Crisis Coming?," is addressed to Syria but when that crisis comes it will add more pressure on Iran's regime.   If Assad's falls thereafter, that pressure doubles, assuming they have survived their present problems by then.

EXCERPT:

The Syrian economy will soon suffer from what I will call a “financial
crisis”. This will occur as credit write offs mount. The banking system
will soon be hit with a wave of defaults at both the corporate and
retail levels. The former will come about as the larger companies decide
not to pay the banks.

 

LINK: 

//www.joshualandis.com/blog/?p=13134&utm_sour...

***

SAUDI ARABIA 

I think Iranians will love this article.

Are you aware that the Saudi Arabia has recently taken steps to allow movies just at a time when Iran's mullocracy is hamstringing cinema to death?  If the mullahs keep expanding their social policing, it may be hard to distinguish the two regimes.

The Saudis, already well ahead of the Islamic Republic militarily, could end up eventually with far more civil and political freedoms than Iranians who have increasingly less of both.  That supposes Iran's besieged and despised regime can hang around long enough to complete the transformation which is unlikely.

However, this report isn't about cinema.  It offers a second example of how two Islamist regimes seem to be moving--though at a glacial pace--in opposite policy directions.  While Iran's universities are being more "islamized" under Khamenei, the Saudis are beginning to grasp that too much religious education is thwarting advancement.

FG's Informal Law of Society goes like this: Whenever the "road to opportunity" lies through religion (Iran, Saudi Arabia) or ideology (the USSR), the worst dregs of society will naturally be drawn to religious or ideological education.   So here is the report:

 

TOO MUCH THIS NOT ENOUGH THAT

EXCERPT:

 

The perils of focus on Shariah and Arabic are several. First,
graduates unable to find jobs for which they are qualified get angry.
They’ve wasted time, and sometimes money, earning something that is
little valued. Next is the problem that these unemployable graduates
create for both the national economy and society. They end up being a
drain on both government and parental coffers because they are unable to
produce anything worthwhile.

Perhaps the most insidious problem, though, is that having been
educated in a narrow field, these graduates have a tendency to view the
world through the lenses crafted by that field of study. There’s an
adage that goes, ‘Everything looks like a nail to a hammer.’ It applies
here as well: viewing the world solely through the eyes of Shariah law
or historic Arab culture (the goal of Arabic language studies as taught)
necessarily misses out on the broader aspects of life. Diversity of
thought or behavior is certainly not promoted or valued; in fact, they
are seen as dangers, capable of disrupting the ideals of a ‘golden age’
that never was. Further, given the way critical analysis has been
deprecated in Saudi education, we end up with a situation wherein
precious nuggets of false history are protected like a jinn’s treasure.
And thus, the machine to produce better educated religious police gets
fed. They’re ‘better educated’ in that they now hold degrees, but they
are worse educated in that they know less of the world, of mankind, than
almost any other field of study would produce. The only jobs they are
competent to fill are those artificially created by government in the
Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

 

//xrdarabia.org/2012/01/07/too-much-this-not-...

 

 

 

 

 


FG

Khamenei's latest boasts recall Hitler's last days in bunker

by FG on

As Zhukov's huge armies closed in on remnants of German forces in Berlin, Hitler insisted that counterattacks by his 9th and 12th armies (outnumbered ten to one) would turn the tide of war and lead victory the Greater Reich" which by that time had been reduced to scattered remnants.

To read his two boasts yesterday is to wonder if, like Hitler, Khamenei is nutso enough to believe his own words.  If not, what is their purpose since I doubt no one else does? (Let me recommend to readers--and to Khamenei--the German film "Downfall" as a guide to upcoming realities)

YESTEDAY'S BOASTS VS. REALITY

BOAST: Western sanctions have proven futile. There are more victories on the horizon.

(Reality: Iranians say sanctions hurt badly and don't blame the West for imposing them, given the IRI's aggression.   Many Iranians favor even harsher sanctions if it helps get rid of a hated and corrupt totalitarian state.)

BOAST: An upbeat message for March's Parliamentary elections, claiming that the Iranian people would show their presence even though "hegemonic powers and their pawns have been making efforts to reduce" the turnout.

(Reality: Indigenously produced graffiti will discourage most Iranians from  voting by reminding them that elections are worthless and voting only assists those who beat and rob everyone in the name of religion).

PREVIOUS OTHERWORLDLY BOASTS

PARAPHRASED BOAST: "No matter how big a landslide in favor of reforms, I can rig the election and get away with it.  The people won't notice.

(Reality: the rigged election and subsequent crimes permanently destroyed whatever popular support the Islamic Republic had previously).

PARAPHRASED BOAST: "The people of Iran love the Islamic Republic more than ever and in spite of everything I've done to them."

(Reality: It is virtually impossible to pick one single thing to admire about the regime.  By contrast one can find a hundred reasons for disgust).