Celebration of the Election Results in Iran (Pics) and a Video Recollection of the very First Occupy

The unexpected win by moderate cleric Rouhani, a former nuclear negotiator who wants to be "friends with every country", backed by former president and reformer Khatami, the attempted leader of Iranian "glasnost" (and the guy who Bush snubbed after the Iranian high command offered to ally with America against the Taliban, making him look like a fool) and leading to the election of Ahmedinejad, the Iranian version of George W. Bush.

This is also the culmination of the Green Revolution, the very first Occupy movement, which was backed by both Western
leaders and the online activist movement. One of the rare times they both came together on an issue -- aside from Syria.
It was a movement to challenge the contested re-election of Ahmedinejad (sound familiar?)

This video (^^) may remind you of the pictures and videos that led up to Occupy two years later. Probably because they were
made by similar activists that later went on to start the Twitter campaigns elsewhere.

It's also the source of my old sig pic, circa 2010.





Note that Iran is the single-most spied on country under our current foreign policy (Lieberman and a bunch of fellow hawks just wrote an editorial calling on Obama to promise to go to war with Iran.) Glasnost in Iran would make the currently frightening military buildup and abuses of power in both countries feel obsolete and they would be forced into dick-measuring contests with rival government agencies.

There is the very real threat that the entire rationale for spying and terrorizing the American people will become obsolete if they can't keep
the hatred up on both sides.

Of course, meanwhile the carnage in Syria continues, our own government having blown its load on securing Libya's oil instead of helping the
Syrian people.




Interestingly, Rouhani is a friend of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, but is allegedly much more progressive than the current high command. He has called for the creation of a Ministry of Women's Issues in Iran. The current high command campaigned heavily against him (and against Ahmedinejad's chosen candidate, since he had managed to piss off everybody, both the democratizers and the clerics).

Bush and Ahmedinejad are certainly similar in more ways than one.




Pictures via HuffPost. Click here for original version (slideshow). Unfortunately DU doesn't allow me to link the images, which are all press corps.