Alloh-O akbar

Alloh-O akbar 15 June 2009

Posted by marisacat in DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Iran, Political Blogs.
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Mir Hossein Mousavi suporters protest in Iran. Supporters of leading opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi protest the election results in Azadi square in Tehran, Iran. (AP)

Taking this post in toto from Angry Arab. Life is so complex, esp when listening to events carried out in a different language. So many ”helpful” Farsi translators about… (no embedded link, as it is his own ramble, I did insert breaks)

Iranian developments

Have not had time for posting especially about Iran: I just woke up at 2:30AM Oslo time. Not fun if you value sleep as I do.

Typically, I support neither side in the Iranian situation: but I support those Iranians who are struggling against both sides. I have worried before about the impact of Ahmadinajad’s stupid rhetoric on the Iranian public attitudes toward the Palestinian question. I worried that in the long run it will move the public away from solidarity with the Palestinians. Of course, there is so much hypocrisy in the Western coverage and official reactions to the developments.

Most glaring for me was the statement by the secretary-general of the UN who insisted on the respect of the will of the Iranian people. Would that US designate utter such words, say, about Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and other dictatorships that are approved by the US? The role of Faqih in Iran undermines any claim of democray in that country: but I am in no way sympathetic to Moussavi. He is a man who suddenly discovered the virtues of democray. When he was prime minister back in the 1980s, he presided over a regime far more oppressive than Ahmadinajad’s.

And why has no Western media really commented on his rhetoric during his own campaign: the man kept saying that he wants a “return” to the teachings of Khomeini. I in no way support a man who wants a “return” to the teachings of Khomeini. But Western media are always quick to pick villains and heroes: especially when one side is identified against Israel. I don’t know whether the elections in Iran was stolen or not, and I would not be surprised if such a regime did that. But why do Western media express outrage over a stolen electin in Iran but they don’t even feign outrage over lack of elections in Saudi Arabia? So it is not about democracy or respecting the will of the people any way.

Posted by As’ad at 6:15 PM

And so we mush onward…

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1. Madman in the Marketplace - 15 June 2009: Break Your News

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marisacat - 16 June 2009: for what it is – or is not – worth… one of the gurus of Dem Blogging 4.0.. 😆 is saying the evidence is not there.

Right, Nate Silver of Five Thirty Eight.

One thing that makes me leery of assumptions (and certainly elections are stolen all the time, in many ways) is how many of the big pushers of one story line are the heavy Pro Israels.

gah. we are all so trapped.

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2. marisacat - 16 June 2009: Fisk has a new one up in the Independent… Iran’s Day of Destiny

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3. marisacat - 16 June 2009: Oh those sneaky Canadiens… what they are up to when not launching their WMD anti-aircraft strike geese.

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catnip - 16 June 2009: Damn. Our cover’s been blown. Bastards.

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4. marisacat - 16 June 2009: hmm from Lenin:

[S]o, the first question that occurs is, why should the ballots be rigged? This is skated over in a lot of the commentary as if the answer were obvious – Mousavi advocated reform, duh! However, Mousavi is hardly a dangerous candidate for the Iranian ruling class: rather, he represents a powerful faction of it. True, he was once on the ‘Islamic Left’ back in the 1980s, and it was due to the support of the left-leaning majles that he was made prime minister against Khomeini’s preferences. Today, however, he is a centrist allied to the ‘Modern Right’. His solutions to Iran’s problems of accumulation and development are impeccably neoliberal. This is why he got the backing of the old crook, cynic, capitalist and Iran-Contra arms dealer, Hashem Rafsanjani. He supports privatization, and wants to reform Article 44 to assist the process. He supports strong counter-inflationary policies. Of course, he would like to take a slightly less ‘hard line’ with respect to the US. Indeed, like other would-be ‘reform’ candidates, his campaign tried to channel Obama – with some success since his wife, who spearheaded some important reforms in the late 1980s, was cast as the Michelle Obama of the campaign. Still, he isn’t an outsider by any means. His candidacy wasn’t struck off, while those that offend the Council of Guardians usually are. He wasn’t excluded from the debates, as far as I can find out. He wasn’t excluded from the polls, some of which put him ahead, and some behind. Why should he have suddenly become so dangerous that the Iranian state, or powerful sectors within it, would risk a stupid fix? The answer could only be that by tapping a popular demands for reforms, the candidacy might have unleashed a movement that seriously frightened some factions in the ruling class. snip

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5. marisacat - 16 June 2009: Too funny! A commenter at Lenin popped up with this.

June 8, 2009

Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s Iran/Contra Connection?

What do Michael Ledeen (the American ‘neo-conservative’), Mir-Hossein Mousavi (the Iranian presidential candidate of ‘chagne’) and Adnan Khashoggi (the opulent Saudi Arabian jet-setter) have in common?

They are all good friends and associates of Manuchehr Ghorbanifar (an Iranian arms merchant, an alleged MOSSAD double agent, and a key figure in the Iran/Contra Affair, the arms-for-hostages deals between Iran and the Reagan administration). In one or two, at most three, degrees of separation, these people hung out in the same circles and very likely drank to the same toasts.

…

Seeing how we cannot ignore his ‘neo-con’ credentials and that Michael Ledeen maintained his very good relations with Ghorbanifar, (who at least used to be) a good friend of Mir-Hossein Mousavi (the ‘candidate of change’ in the Iranian presidential elections); and given the support that Mousavi’s candidacy has been receiving from the American ‘moderates’, maybe this kind of ‘change’ is the ‘regime change’ the Americans have had in mind for Iran?

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6. catnip - 16 June 2009: Kos, Turn This Site GREEN!

by RandySF

Oh puhlease.

And I don’t recall seeing a “Kos, Turn This Site Rainbow Colours” diary to show solidarity with the gays Obama’s thrown under the bus.

So much easier NOT to deal with that.

Funny how so many of them are all excited about the Iranian protests but when it comes to supporting protesters at home (antiwar etc.) they’re the first to insist that protests are useless. What a bunch of hypocritical wankers.

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7. catnip - 16 June 2009: The diarist is obviously clueless:

Andrew Sullivan on the center-left and http://pajamasmedia.com/… of the center/left and right ends of the blogosphere have already made the change.

Sully – center-left? WTF?

And Pajamas Media? Home of Michelle Malkin and the wingnut brigade?

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marisacat - 16 June 2009: more like,

Reactionary thatcherite gay blade. And “no born Englishman has ever tortured”.

That threw me for a loop that exclamation of his… what a fucking loon

Etc.

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8. lucid - 16 June 2009: Looks Like Ob is gonna make CA beg…

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catnip - 16 June 2009: From the comments:

The Emperor of Ice Cream (profile) wrote on Tue, 6/16/2009 – 7:17 am

*
Maybe California should become a bank.

lol

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marisacat - 16 June 2009: Better a bank than a car dealer!

😆

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marisacat - 16 June 2009: Axelrod to Cali: drop dead!.. see ya in ’12.. suckahs.

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lucid - 16 June 2009: They’ll give in eventually – I just think they’re trying to force some structural changes [i.e. prop 13 and the psermajority to levy taxes]…

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marisacat - 16 June 2009: both of those will be enormous struggles… big big big ones…

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9. marisacat - 16 June 2009: Speaking of Kos someone jsut sent me this.. with no link…

This is from a front page diary by Kos. Note the second paragraph:

Millennials have grown up more connected to the world around them than any previous one. The internet and television (like MTV and Bravo) have erased geographic boundaries while creating greater tolerance for people previously outside of the mainstream (like African Americans and homosexuals). Being exposed to people with different cultures and experiences sparks that “empathy” thing into action. It’s much harder to wrap yourself up in a cocoon and dismiss other people’s real needs when you are communicating with them on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and other social nets.

I was a Republican in large part because post-immigrating to the US, I grew up in a lilly white suburb, Schaumburg IL (this was in the early 80s. I hear the place has changed quite a bit). Everyone was a Republican, and most of my worldview was shaped by those around me. Given how outside that suburban mainstream I already was (short, skinny, particularly young looking Latino with a funny accent), I wasn’t looking for additional ways to stand out negatively from the crowd. And having a house with a decently sized yard and a fence around it, it was easy to block out other people’s problems and issues. There was no need for empathy because I rarely came in contact with other people.

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lucid - 16 June 2009: I remember that diary. He wrote it when I still hung out there… puke-o-rama…

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marisacat - 16 June 2009: he must issue it periodically, the emailer said it is on the FP now.. I did not bother to go look…

🙄

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lucid - 16 June 2009: I think you’re prolly right – Twitter didn’t exist when I still hung out there. I’ve definitely scene large chunks of the first and second graphs in previous diaries though – word for word.

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catnip - 16 June 2009: And having a house with a decently sized yard and a fence around it, it was easy to block out other people’s problems and issues.

Yes, because everybody knows that your house and yard are your brain.

There was no need for empathy because I rarely came in contact with other people.

Shorter kos: my parents tied a pork chop around my neck so the dogs would play with me.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 16 June 2009: I had a summer job in Schamburg in the early ’80s. It was one of those horrible suburban sprawl nightmares where souls go to die.

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10. catnip - 16 June 2009: More kos (or “I Still Don’t Get Out Much and My FPers are Blithering Idiots”):

Every so often, a major international incident occurs and people start kvetching that it’s not being covered on the Daily Kos ‘front page”.

Let me reiterate — this is a site about US domestic electoral politics. Sure, we stray on occasion, but the core of the site is solidly defined. It’s what we’re good at, and it’s what we focus on. There are plenty of people out there who know their Iranian stuff inside out. We don’t. So we leave that sort of thing for the people who focus on it rather than try to be an all-encompassing news information source. We don’t see ourselves that way, and it’d be stupid to do so given the quality and expertise available internet-wide. If you want to follow that story closely, visit one of the sites that is focusing on that story. We’re always happy to let others take the lead.

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11. marisacat - 16 June 2009: LOL This story is up at NPR running under a headline that HHS Sec says “Obama could back single payer”.

I am so tired of Ob Knob and Snob, as I call O, Biden and MO. What a bait and switch at Macy’s… 🙄

STEVE: What’s been the hardest thing for you to explain, and why?

SEBELIUS: I think that the whole idea of the public option has been difficult in part because I think some of the opposition has described it as a potential for a draconian scenario that was never part of the discussion in the first place [that would be singl payer! Mcat].

So disabusing people about what is not going to happen is often difficult because there is no tangible way to do that.

INSKEEP: Can you say flat out that it’s just never going to be single-payer health insurance and we’re going to try to write it if we can so it won’t ever be?

SEBELIUS: Oh, I think that’s very much the case. And again, if you want anybody to convince people of that, talk to the single-payer proponents who are furious that the single-payer idea is not part of the discussion. And the president has said over and over again that what we need is an American solution to an American problem. What we have is a situation where most private insurance is provided through a workplace, through a connection with somebody’s employer. And what we don’t want to do as we’re trying to solve the problem of insuring all Americans is dismantle a system that works well for a lot of people.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 16 June 2009: that interview was horrible, and the afternoon “All Things Considered” had SEVERAL segments about forcing people to “be responsible” and mandate insurance (young people were described as “the invincibles” with dripping sarcasm). Orzag and some flack from the hospitals.

Appalling.

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marisacat - 16 June 2009: it’s not going to be affordable.

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12. lucid - 16 June 2009: And what we don’t want to do as we’re trying to solve the problem of insuring all Americans is dismantle a system that works well for a lot of people.

Who, exactly, does this system work well for?

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catnip - 16 June 2009: a lot of people

Get with the [corporate] program!

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13. catnip - 16 June 2009: John Ensign (R- I had an affair)

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14. Madman in the Marketplace - 16 June 2009: On PBS tonight: Ask Not

ASK NOT exposes the tangled political battles that led to DADT and examines the societal shifts that have occurred since its 1993 passage. Since the law’s implementation, more than 12,000 personnel have been discharged including linguists and others whose skills are critical to military operations. In ASK NOT, current and veteran gay soldiers reveal how the policy has affected them during their tours of duty as they struggle to maintain a double life, uncertain of whom they can trust.

The film also explores how gay veterans and youth organizers are turning to activism to challenge DADT. From a national speaking tour of conservative universities to protests at military recruitment offices, these public events question how the U.S. military can claim to represent democracy and freedom while denying a significant segment of the population the right to serve. Conducted in 2006, the Call to Duty tour featured gay, former military personnel speaking to communities across the country about their own service histories. The Right to Serve Campaign targeted military recruitment centers: Individuals attempted to enlist, openly declaring their homosexuality, and when they were refused enlistment, the would-be recruits and supporters held sit-ins and were arrested for trespassing.

More than 15 years after DADT was passed, scores of retired and active military officers support doing away with it. As attitudes change, expectations that the policy will be repealed are growing. But as Rear Admiral Alan Steinman points out in the film, only an act of Congress can repeal the law and replace it with a recruitment policy based on merit and ability, as many other countries have already done. ASK NOT looks at the history of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and examines its ramifications for gay and lesbian individuals and for the military itself.

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marisacat - 16 June 2009: Clinton so screwed up. After he failed the congress made it impossible to integrate the mil by Ex Order.

So now we get this game playing again…

Reading Americablog it seems a few “big Gays” have puleld ot of the Gay Fundraiser (with Joe Biden? LOL) next week. But according to Aravosis, not a peep out of Barney or Tammy or … no wait the third gay congresscritter did speak .. think his name is Solis.

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15. Madman in the Marketplace - 16 June 2009: Mich. lawmaker seeks to recognize gay marriage

LANSING, Mich. – A Michigan lawmaker said Saturday she wants to change state law to recognize gay marriages.

The proposal announced by State Rep. Pam Byrnes faces an uphill climb. Michigan voters in 2004 passed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman, effectively banning the legal recognition of same-sex marriage.

But Byrnes launched an effort to repeal that provision at the annual gay rights Michigan Pride event at the state Capitol.

The joint resolution by the Democrat from Washtenaw County’s Lyndon Township would have to be approved by two-thirds of the Michigan Legislature before it would be put to voters in the 2010 election.

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16. catnip - 16 June 2009: Under the last president, (20+ / 0-)

my marriage meant nothing to the country in which I live, the state in which I live, the county in which I live, or the city in which I live.

Under this president, not only does my marriage still mean nothing in my country, state, county and city, but the guy I worked my ass off for in multiple states thinks my marriage is like pedophilia and incest.

So, yeah, things have changed. Ask me how happy I am about this change.

We hold these truths to be self-evident that all heterosexuals are created equal and are endowed by their Creator to certain inalienable rights; gays however…

by ultrageek on Tue Jun 16, 2009 at 04:14:05 PM MDT

*
You are the reason Democrats have lost (1+ / 0-)

so many elections – its called the Tyranny of Victimhood – or if you don’t agree with me 100% and do what I want then I can lie and distort your ideas.

by Moonwood on Tue Jun 16, 2009 at 04:48:41 PM MDT

Nobody said they were anything nearing enlightened over there…

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marisacat - 16 June 2009: ultrageek has been there a long long time… one of the few sane Jews to post in israel issues. (At least as I recall)… And speaking of “victimhood” she specifically posted several times, in her childhood home it was emphasised over and over that Hitler killed so many millions — not just Jews.

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marisacat - 16 June 2009: of course we killed a few million too. Let it not go unsaid. that war took down civilians. Like they all do…

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17. catnip - 16 June 2009: Today’s new word: hopium (hope + opium)

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18. Madman in the Marketplace - 16 June 2009: CNBC’S Cramer and Burnett tie Iranian election to Employee Free Choice Act

The stupid, it burns!!!!

Hey Catnip, did you guys actually kick her out because she’s such a dumbass?

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catnip - 17 June 2009: Hey Catnip, did you guys actually kick her out because she’s such a dumbass?

Who? Burnett? She’s a yank, afaik.

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19. marisacat - 16 June 2009: LOL… air kiss air kiss..

Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:

President Obama to Extend Benefits to Same-Sex Partners of Gay and Lesbian Federal Employees [9:30 PM EST]

For more on this and other breaking news go to ABCNews.com: http://abcnews.go.com?nwltr=bn

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Madman in the Marketplace - 16 June 2009: aren’t soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines fellow employees?

jus’ sayin’.

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marisacat - 16 June 2009: LOL and to ask for coverage would be TELLING… 😈

He (and his masters… ) so needs to be pummeled with ripe tomatoes. In public.

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marisacat - 16 June 2009: have to love his weaselly ass:

Chuck Todd also says its just a memorandum not an executive order which he thinks means it only is in effect while Obama is in office. Its not got any lasting teeth.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 16 June 2009: typical

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20. Madman in the Marketplace - 16 June 2009: Perrin: How it Works

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marisacat - 16 June 2009: it’s hard to believe that Letterman has 13 writers. THAT is the joke.

I stopped watching him in the early 90s, so I don’t know what his lame schtick is these days…. He reminded me of too many attys i knew. The big dumb nasty ones.

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21. catnip - 17 June 2009: President Obama: Not Much Difference Between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi

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marisacat - 17 June 2009: I just finsihed reading that over at Tapper. Sully’s head will explode if he ever gets to it…

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catnip - 17 June 2009: We can only hope.

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marisacat - 17 June 2009: The Pope of Hope leads us.

More’s the pity.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 17 June 2009: it’s sound just like a lightbulb after you drop it, when the vacuum is breached.

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22. marisacat - 17 June 2009: Up Up and Away! 😈

The American Empire Is Bankrupt

Posted on Jun 14, 2009

By Chris Hedges

This week marks the end of the dollar’s reign as the world’s reserve currency. It marks the start of a terrible period of economic and political decline in the United States. And it signals the last gasp of the American imperium. That’s over. It is not coming back. And what is to come will be very, very painful.

Barack Obama, and the criminal class on Wall Street, aided by a corporate media that continues to peddle fatuous gossip and trash talk as news while we endure the greatest economic crisis in our history, may have fooled us, but the rest of the world knows we are bankrupt. And these nations are damned if they are going to continue to prop up an inflated dollar and sustain the massive federal budget deficits, swollen to over $2 trillion, which fund America’s imperial expansion in Eurasia and our system of casino capitalism. They have us by the throat. They are about to squeeze.

There are meetings being held Monday and Tuesday in Yekaterinburg, Russia, (formerly Sverdlovsk) among Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and other top officials of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The United States, which asked to attend, was denied admittance. Watch what happens there carefully. The gathering is, in the words of economist Michael Hudson, “the most important meeting of the 21st century so far.” snip

And, of course, Mahmoud A is there as well…. wave a green scarf and declare him dead…………. etc.

and, moving right along……………………….

[I] called Hudson, who has an article in Monday’s Financial Times called “The Yekaterinburg Turning Point: De-Dollarization and the Ending of America’s Financial-Military Hegemony.” “Yekaterinburg,” Hudson writes, “may become known not only as the death place of the czars but of the American empire as well.” His article is worth reading, along with John Lanchester’s disturbing exposé of the world’s banking system, titled “It’s Finished,” which appeared in the May 28 issue of the London Review of Books.

“This means the end of the dollar,” Hudson told me. “It means China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Iran are forming an official financial and military area to get America out of Eurasia. The balance-of-payments deficit is mainly military in nature. Half of America’s discretionary spending is military. The deficit ends up in the hands of foreign banks, central banks. They don’t have any choice but to recycle the money to buy U.S. government debt. The Asian countries have been financing their own military encirclement. They have been forced to accept dollars that have no chance of being repaid. They are paying for America’s military aggression against them. They want to get rid of this.” snip

Meanwhile Ob has a palace guard of ineffectual, thumb sucking “czars”. Debris of the US corporate era.

Perfect.

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Arcturus - 17 June 2009: shorter Hudson, in his last 3 sentences:

If China, Russia and their non-aligned allies have their way, the United States will no longer live off the savings of others in the form of its own recycled dollars, nor have the money for unlimited military expenditures and adventures.

US officials wanted to attend the Yekaterinburg meeting as observers. They were told No. It is a word that Americans will hear much more in the future.

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catnip - 17 June 2009: They were told No. It is a word that Americans will hear much more in the future.

Ramen. Pass the plate.

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23. Arcturus - 17 June 2009: wonder how many bloggers busy writing post after post every day about Iran’s election protests ever managed even one notice of Mexico’s last elections

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24. catnip - 17 June 2009: What? Hillary Rosen on CNN just said the prez will announce today that he wants to repeal DOMA.

Oh really?

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25. NYCO - 17 June 2009: I just read that the NY Senate Democratic Campaign Committee is now robocalling GOP voters with messages that label Pedro Espada a guy who robs old ladies. (Espada is a Democrat) You can’t make this up.

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26. catnip - 17 June 2009: We’ve got weapon-weilding gorillas here. Yikes.

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27. Madman in the Marketplace - 17 June 2009: Change you can choke and die on: Obama’s Plan Would Cut Payments to Teaching Hospitals

Washington — Teaching hospitals’ fears were realized this past weekend, when President Obama said he would cut subsidies to hospitals that treat large numbers of the uninsured to help finance a sweeping expansion of the nation’s health-care system.

The proposals, which the president outlined in his weekly radio address on Saturday, are included in more than $600-billion in cuts that he has proposed making in Medicare and Medicaid spending by 2019.

Last year the federal government provided $27-billion in “disproportionate share payments” to compensate hospitals for the costs they incur by treating large numbers of low-income patients and people who are uninsured. States matched some of that money.

The administration argues that the need for such payments will decline as more people become insured under the president’s plan. But teaching hospitals, which provide almost three-quarters of the care for the uninsured, fear they could end up worse off than they were before the overhaul, particularly if the law does not cover undocumented immigrants.

Of the 45.6 million Americans who are uninsured, 10 million are undocumented immigrants, and many of them seek treatment at teaching hospitals. —Kelly Field

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marisacat - 17 June 2009: Madman.. will move this forward to the next thread… 😉

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28. marisacat - 17 June 2009: gnu …

LINK

.. 😯 ………

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