if not, any other takers? send me your address.
love,
useful idiot
At 12:40 AM 7/1/2009, Sean Andrews wrote:
>On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 19:50, Doug Henwood<dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I fear it would greatly diminish the bikini constituency.
> >
> > Yuk yuk guys. Let's cut the bikini thread, ok?
>
>no kidding. I've been trying to catch up on these posts and have no
>fucking clue what any of this has to do with anything substantive
>going on in Iran.
>
>My question is: why single out Iran for a country lacking western
>liberal norms or even a country where people are struggling to gain
>some democratic control over their government? This is my main
>suspicion with all the mainstream coverage of this issue. To choose
>another event in the same time frame, a couple of weeks ago Peru's
>army opened fire on protesting indigenous communities, killing at
>least 30, likely more, as they tried to force them off their land in
>order to make way for some US imposed FTA vis a vis oil. I heard
>nothing about it from the endlessly excitable US media and the focus
>here seems to be following their lead as well--or did I miss the
>thread about Peruvian women wanting to wear bikinis? Point being: of
>the two, the Peruvian thing seems to be a much closer to home (i.e.
>reaction against actual US norm being imposed--one which contradicts
>those basic democratic freedoms which are implicitly presumed to exist
>within the good ol usa) yet Iran carries the day, both here and in
>broader US culture.
>
>Possible reason for this:
>1) ongoing: fine I'll give you that. But what made it go on? Why now?
>2) graphic images: Iranian gov't vs. web 2.0
>3) incredibly powerful forces w/in US/Israel that would like to see
>Iran re-taken
>
>I mean, seriously, we could be having this discussion about virtually
>any country on the planet, including the US on some level. I'm highly
>suspicious of it coinciding with a serious US policy discussion. I
>have been since reading Danny Postel's affirmation of the liberal turn
>in iran a few years ago, and finding it wholly arbitrary in what he
>saw as "liberal" i.e. everything that wasn't to the right of his
>already rather conservative understanding of liberalism.
>
>cf: http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2007/2007-February/003124.html
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2007/2007-February/003104.html
>
>Lenin's Tomb had a good post on his website about this at the time and
>I've missed what he's had to say about this hubbub (though I've not
>been keeping up w/ his blog as I should lately). Anyway my question
>to the list ultimately is, what is so special about Iran and why is
>there all this banal bickering over that society rather than any
>other? I ask this especially because it doesn't seem that anyone is
>all that concerned with the rather clear evidence that the US
>government is involved in aiding the destabilization. Is it because
>there is some potential that a more liberal society would emerge from
>the chaos of a collapsed Iranian state thus we're more willing to give
>the covert operations a free ride? After watching what transpired in
>Iraq, does anyone really believe that? I'm seriously confused here
>and after a good faith effort to trace back these threads I am none
>the wiser as to how this conversation is dominating this list--and
>resulting in such internecine squabbles. It really seems to be about
>attacking other list members for being morally bankrupt, but I've yet
>to see anyone articulate the morality to which we should be adhering.
>
>s
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
"let's be civil and nice, but not to the point of obeying the rules of debate as defined by liberal blackmail (in which, discomfort caused by a challenge is seen as some vague form of harassment)."
-- Dwayne Monroe, 11/19/08
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