I haven't heard anything from you in the department of criticism of Iran that I haven't heard from the White House, Congress, corporate media, etc.
The question is if the public are getting information that they are _not_ getting from dominant discourse and that can help them counter the US campaign to economically isolate Iran.
The US power elite are united on the points that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, is out to destroy Israel, supports "terrorist organizations" abroad, and is killing US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that therefore it must be stopped. They repeat these points _over and over and over again_, and they are beginning to stick. The sad truth is that no one in the audience, presumably educated people, laughed when Lee Bollinger, too, hammered on them as facts.
On the Left, in contrast, there is no "message discipline," as we lack consensus on what to do about Iran and what our main talking points should be.
On one hand, regarding human rights, what the public hear from leftists is just about the same as what they hear from Bushes and Bollingers, so repetition, amplified by the Left as well as the Center and the Right, really works in favor of the empire. On the other hand, the public hear, from the Left, a confusing cacophony of contradictory views about Iran's nuclear program, Iran's relations to Iraq, Israel, Hizballah, Hamas, Washington's economic sanctions and "democracy assistance," etc., so nothing really sticks in their mind.
> > Now, about the rhetoric of fear of a Caliphate and political
> > Islam. . . .
> >
> > If you want an example, look into a mirror: spreading a fear of a
> > Caliphate, urging people to look to Fred Halliday for a history of
> > "The Left and the Jihad," recommending a book review that
> > misrepresents Joseph Massad's work as if it were the same as
> > Islamists' message. . . .
>
> I read the essay the book is based on, and the review seems like a
> fair representation of his argument to me.
Is Islamist-baiting of Joseph Massad a fair representation of his view?
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood>
> >
> > The Muslim Brotherhood advocates the creation of Islamic governments
> > eventually unified in Caliphate
>
> They don't? Osama bin Laden doesn't long for that?
What's the chance of the second coming of the Caliphate? You wanna bet? By my calculation its odds are as low as the second coming of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. So I know I will win if you bet on the other side.
In any event, Bush tells Americans to fear the coming of a Caliphate because Osama bin Laden wants one. When the American public ask liberals and leftists, they often get told the same thing. Where's counter-discourse?
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/05/AR2006090500656.html> President Bush Delivers Remarks on the War on Terror
CQ Transcripts Wire Tuesday, September 5, 2006; 2:25 PM
WASHINGTON, D.C.
SEPTEMBER 5, 2006
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
SPEAKER: GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES They hope to establish a violent political utopia across the Middle East, which they call caliphate, where all would be ruled according to their hateful ideology.
Osama bin Laden has called the 9/11 attacks, in his words, "a great step towards the unity of Muslims and establishing the righteous caliphate."
BUSH: This caliphate would be a totalitarian Islamic empire encompassing all current and former Muslim lands, stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
We know this because Al Qaida has told us. -- Yoshie