No one in Iran calls it a Twitter Revolution except a bunch of English language mainstream media journalists. In fact they started calling it Twitter Revolution because the Iranian government kicked out all the foreign journalists and arrested many Iranian ones, and then the corporate media journalists had to get their news from Twitter. Many people who protest in the streets of Iran and risk or even sacrifice their lives and freedom are members of the working class, the unemployed, the poor students or the under-educated; these are people who don't know how to use Twitter. So we, the Iranians, do not believe that this is a Twitter Revolution. Ahmadinejad's administration has arrested thousands of people and forced some of them to confess. They have used torture and even rape against the prisoners. About 100 have been killed. The family of the killed in most cases could not even hold a funeral or had to do it very quietly. I am sure you don't know Farsi, if you knew I would ask you to read about Kahrizak prison. That would tell you the whole story.
Can Chavez justify his congratulatory letter to Ahmadinejad and his trip to Iran in the middle of murder, torture and imprisonment of the inoccent people by referring to Fox news' ignorance of the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan? My answer is No. Chavez showed himself to be as opportunistic and profiteering as an immoral capitalist politician. Now I might like some of his comments or appreciate his and Ahmadinejad's taste for calling their co-manufactured car anti-imperialist but that doesn't mean I can forget the pain of the mothers of Sohran Erabi, Neda Soltan, Taraneh Mousavi, Ashkan Sohrabi, Amir Javadifar, Kianoush Asa and many others who were killed and who apparently mean nothing to Chavez. Please let me know your source of 99% don't have access to internet, that sounds so wrong to me. On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 6:28 PM, Joaquin Bustelo <[email protected]>wrote: > Mina Khanlarzadeh: "then what is the difference between Hugo Chavez and Fox > news? they both ignore atrocities commited by their favorite governments." > > Another demonstration of how imperialist pressure distorts people's > thinking. To put an equal signs between the white genocide against native > peoples or the crimes of American imperialism in Afghanistan and Iraq today > and the alleged rhetoric of Ahmadinejad around the holocaust or the > supposed > repression in Iran betrays complete disorientation. > > And I say "alleged rhetoric" and "supposed repression" because, as we say > in > Spanish, "a mi no me consta": I do not know these things for a fact. And > I've been in the journalism racket long enough to be suspicious of reports > about an alleged outrageous statement that do not have the direct quote in > the second sentence. And I am also suspicious of alleged "tweeter > revolutions" in countries where 99% of the people don't have Internet and > the local language doesn't even use the same character set as English. That > raises the very interesting question: ¿who are these rank and file > demonstrators who supposedly send reports IN ENGLISH to U.S. and other > imperialist news organizations? > > As to "what is the difference between Hugo Chavez and Fox News," the > difference is precisely this: Hugo Chavez is the president of Venezuela, > Fox > News is a right-wing journalistic outlet. > > This raises the question of why Hugo Chavez is expected to comment on these > matters that in no way involve Venezuela. He isn't a bourgeois calumnist > nor > a talking head gasbag on TV: there is a world of difference between what a > president is supposed to do and what a TV news network is supposed to do. > In > the specific case of Chavez, his commitment is to defend the interests of > Venezuela as a nation and of its working people. I know this is a difficult > concept for many on the left (and especially I think from the Trotskyist > tradition) but commentary from the sidelines is not the essence of > politics. > The essence of politics is relating to real live forces. > > In this regard, Chavez is undoubtedly correct to try to develop and > solidify > a common front of Third World countries and not join in imperialist > campaigns to isolate a country like Iran. Especially at a time when Iran is > under growing imperialist pressure and even threats of military attacks. > > Joaquin > > > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: [email protected] > Set your options at: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/mina.khanlar%40gmail.com > ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
