To my Iranian friends, I hope the day comes soon when you can safely start building a better future in Iran.
South Africa had Mandela, India had Gandhi and Chile had Aylwin. We only have "Reza Pahalavi" being pushed by United State and Israel. He is nowhere qualified to run the country and hasn't stepped a foot there for decades.
None of these movements are going to succeed, unless someone from within the country forms a strong party and unifies everyone.
Either way, I'm afraid that Iranians are going to be suffering for a long time.
The Chinese army crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests killed at least 10,000 people, according to newly released UK documents.
The figure was given in a secret diplomatic cable from then British ambassador to China, Sir Alan Donald.
The original source was a friend of a member of China's State Council, the envoy says.
Oh right, it was memoryholed.
https://time.com/7347090/iran-protesters-trump-help/
For a commander‑in‑chief, as well as the military leadership, I find this behavior dishonorable.
I will always be a friend of the American people, but it gets harder each day to watch the irreparable damage unfold the president is unleashing on the whole planet. Midterms will show what Americans are made off, you still have a choice and a voice. Use it wisely.
You don’t think it was the genocide, starvation and mass murder of over 70,000 civilians in carpet bombings. Or the mass torture and rape?
Israel is absolutely drowning in blood and human misery. It gobbles it up. It relishes it. There’s really no need to manufacture outrage.
Anyone who has selective outrage about the suffering of innocents does not actually care about the suffering of innocents.
Same observation from my third world country
Edit: Take a look at The Intercept as an example. Protests began three weeks ago. The only posts TI has on Iran basically amount to "Israel bad" and "Son of Shah likes Israel and Israel is bad, therefore son of Shah is bad". That's it. This is a moral failure of the highest order and it underscores, for me at least, that most of these faux-progressives' activism is purely performative.
But, friend, with love -- shit talking about what people are doing or not doing is not the answer. Lead by example.
Why do you assume I'm not doing? Having said that, my options are limited to obtaining the lion and sun flag and participating in a demonstration. Quiet solidarity in other words. Shit talking about people who have a platform and are not using it because Israel is absolutely valid and legitimate.
That by the way is the danger with a singular obsession with one conflict, which, objectively, is not even the deadliest conflict in its region, let alone the world. Everything is either viewed through the Israel prism, as in "we're not going to express any solidarity with Iranian protesters because the fall of the theocracy might benefit Israel", or, it gets ignored entirely because there's no clout to be gained on social media.
It is worse than that. Faux-progressives will also play into antisemitic conspiratorial tropes that this was all perfectly and precisely planned.
Now perhaps there is an interesting academic discussion about whether if we had done more to direct Demented Donnie towards Iran, that he wouldn't be attacking the rest of NATO trying to steal Greenland to create some dipshit's idea of a legacy. But that is hardly definitive with the kind of moral clarity that you're asserting.
I will say however, as someone born in a country ruled by a totalitarian regime, that the US is nowhere near that, and claims to the contrary offend me personally because they trivialize authoritarianism and totalitarianism.
Like sure, it's certainly possible that we will have a domestic US outcome of "mission accomplished" sometime over the next couple years, ICE is drastically wound down and goes back to only being at the border, there is a full accounting of whom they deported and to where, the US citizens and lawful residents who were harmed by their extremely-urgent overzealousness are compensated for their damages, and so on. Just from everything we've seen, it's not very likely.
People should have the ability to resist or overthrow a tyrannical government.
This is what happens when the population has no guns.
The second amendment is just an individual's ability to shoot someone ... why or when they choose to do so (if at all) is no sure thing.
Moreover there's a fundamental issue in the US that quite a large proportion of the population supports what is going on. This varies by location of course but that just exacerbates the issue - there are places in the US where the vast vast majority of people have no objection to what is happening.
Plenty of countries have people with lots of guns and plenty of rights violations, genocide, so on.
The example fails for the same reason. There's no way to rule out the possibility that there would be more rights violations in said countries if people possessed fewer arms on average. There's also no reason to expect violations to go to zero, only for them to be deterred to some extent on average.
It's similar to the MAD doctrine. That doesn't predict no war, just less war and smaller wars in general. It doesn't even predict no use of nuclear weapons, merely that any use is rarer, more judicious, and more deliberate.
Estimates for counterinsurgency are that an occupier needs ~20 soldiers for 1000 occupied civilians. The US army has 1.3M troops - the entire might of the US military would be needed to pacify just CA alone, and that would leave the rest of the country virtually defenseless. It's easy to bomb a building from a jet; it's much harder to kick in doors and arrest dissidents _even if_ there is no armed resistance.
The hard truth that allows democracy to survive is that it is not possible to govern without the consent of the governed. It is certainly not possible to occupy a rich, productive region and have it remain rich and productive unless the occupier has overwhelming force.
Winning a war is so much more than expensive, shiny weapons.
Is that accurate or just Ukrainian propaganda like the Ghost of Kiev?
Granted, I'm not in the U.S. so I don't know what it's like on the ground, but I'm surprised to not hear about any armed resistance despite how gun-happy many Americans are.
I’m just glad President Trump didn’t start Iraq War 2.0 with this unrest as his WMD excuse.
Do I become a terrorist if I defend myself against government agents who are attempting to murder me? Certainly said government agents would label me as such but hopefully a neutral third party wouldn't.
I'm a gun owner and think it's abhorrent, but c'mon: who do you think is stepping up to the plate right now?
I’d encourage you to be rigorous with this assumption.
The line between even folks who will cheer on a Gestapo on TV and those who would materially aid it in their own communities is bright and wide.
That's a very disrespectful way to recognize and appreciate them.
Many of us own guns precisely to defend ourselves and our countrymen in the event of civil chaos. That's what the second amendment is for.
Most true leftists I know are armed. Don't forget what Karl Marx said about an armed populace. We are in some serious shit and this kind of divisive attitude is not productive.
> I just wish gun owners were honest. You're not here to defend anyone or anything. You just like to make small holes in paper targets.
You literally know nothing about me and are making assumptions about how I think and operate based on a single fact you think you know about me. That is textbook prejudice. All you're doing is showing that you don't understand the point of the Bill of Rights or what checks and balances it takes to uphold a fair government.
I'll pull the Karl Marx quote for you.
“Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary”
You have some deprogramming to do.