[lbo-talk] Support Bloomberg and Rafsanjani? (was Re: Rafsanjani to lead key Iran body)

Yoshie Furuhashi critical.montages at gmail.com
Sat Sep 15 06:41:35 PDT 2007


On 9/14/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Sep 14, 2007, at 8:33 PM, uvj at vsnl.com wrote:
>
> > BBC News
> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/
> >
> > Last Updated: Tuesday, 4 September 2007
> >
> > Rafsanjani to lead key Iran body
> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6977451.stm
> >
> > [Rafsanjani is considered a rival to President Ahmadinejad]
> >
> > Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been elected
> > speaker
> > of a powerful clerical body responsible for supervising Iran's Supreme
> > Leader.
> >
> > The Assembly of Experts has the power to dismiss the Islamic
> > state's highest
> > authority, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6977451.stm
>
>
> This was the news hook for my interview with Ervand Abrahamian; I'll
> post the audio to the web sometime soon....

It looks like the demand is now not so much "oppose the US government and the Iranian regime" as support the rich men of both countries who are advertised as "moderates" by the corporate media, rooting for Bloomberg* and Rafsanjani**.

* <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20070910/017379.html> Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com Fri Sep 14 14:02:45 PDT 2007

I don't think Bloomberg makes much difference for how the NYPD operates. Instructions for the RNC 2004 almost certainly came down from the White House, and I doubt things would have gone much differently under Mark Green. As a rabid anti-Dem, surely you must see the wisdom of this. But things like 311 make routine daily life easier. And you can be sure that FEMA would have responded well to Katrina had Bloomberg been president. The passport office wouldn't be backed up for three months like it is now. The capitalist imperialist system would still go on, for sure, but for your average Joe or Jo, things would run more smoothly.

** <http://i.hoder.com/archives/2007/08/070821_016364.shtml> Excerpt: Suddenly there is media strom in defence of Rafsanjani as a moderate saviour.

<http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/016301.shtml> Jahanbegloo advocated Rafsanjani in Wilson centre

The other day I asked you to take part in a guessing game, based on some quotes. Now, here is the answer.

The person who, in a speech at Woodrow Wilson's centre in 2003, said those words was Ramin Jahanbegloo.

Jahanbegloo also said in his speech, titled ' Iran: From Political Gridlock to Crisis of Legitimacy' that "[t]oday, what is certain is that democratic developments in Iraq are taking a slower pace than what was expected and the Iranian population has no hope of a future American intervention in Iran." (And note, thanks to my friend Mo, that Jahanbegloo used the word 'hope,' not 'fear'.)

He later went on and and by his three scenarios of a) the centrist Rafsanjani's win b) Revolutionary Guard's coup and c) wide-spread urban chaos, effectively called the US liberals to stand behind Rafsanjani in the then forthcoming election, if they didn't want to see those two other scenarios.

This is a further evidence for me about the ties between the neo-liberal regime change plans and Rafsanjanist reformers. -- Yoshie



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