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Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

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Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#341

Post by thomassmith65 »

roysting wrote: post #329
thomassmith65 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but the war machine relies on fools to fun smoothly There is nothing new under the sun. Interwar pacifists made these arguments 100 years ago. They have some merit, but they weren't then and aren't now the full picture. You do realize though that you are morally and ethically and spiritually culpable and responsible for the murder Inaction also results in death. colonial puppet Shah regime There is no point arguing f…

I'm not at all a pacifist. If you knew something about me, you would realize just how wrong that is. I am merely opposed to being used, manipulated, played, conned, scammed, f-ed, and more colorful language I will retain for myself. And sure, inaction may or may not result in death, but inaction is not morally obligated, especially when I am not even remotely involved or it does not remotely concern me. If I am under…

  If you knew something about me, you would realize just how wrong that is.
Yes, that dawned on me half-way down the comment, at which point I - maybe unfairly - put you in the radical box and gave up on communicating. I can tell we'd find each other's positions equally inhumane and naive, and the whole thing would be irritating for us both.

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#342

Post by dataflow »

remarkEon wrote: post #283
dataflow wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not that I'm a political activist, but I'm constantly disturbed that all my friends who posted non-stop about supporting Palestine have NEVER made one mention of supporting the Iranians protesting that regime. There are many extremely significant differences between the situations Iranians and Palestinians have been in. The only similarity you're looking at is the number of deaths, it seems. But Iranians and Palest…

I think the reasons are a little more complex. The geography and history dimensions are plainly and obviously different, but criticizing Iran is wrapped up in layers of criticism of political Islam, which is harder to do for the people who tend to prioritize the plight of Palestinians. The Islamic Republic of Iran is the logical end state of the governing ideology of Hamas, and it's probably just easier to ignore the…

> it's probably just easier to ignore the inconsistencies here

For people who actually actively think of both, that may be the case?

But "ignoring" presumes the comparison feeling potentially valid to them in the first place. It's not ignorance or even an inconsistency if the comparison would feel so apples-to-oranges that it doesn't even occur to them.

Maybe my view is distorted here, so here's a question to check that. Among the people you see complaining about how little attention is being paid to Iranians compared to Palestinians, (a) what fraction of them are themselves Iranian (excluding those with, say, loved ones in Israel), and (b) if you feel part (a) is small, then what is the largest group of people (and what percentage would you say it constitutes) that you would say you most often find making this comparison?

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#343

Post by pydry »

weatherlite wrote: post #160
pydry wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So there are no circumstances where armed rebellion is justifiable What circumstances has Iran created that demand armed rebellion?

How about killing 30k people (vast majority unarmed as far as I can tell) in a week or two?

The US lies through their teeth in the run up to launching military action. What else is new?

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#344

Post by xenospn »

pphysch wrote: post #278
fortzi wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran is not an adversary of Israel, as much as the IRGC is.

Are Iranians supposed to believe that after Israel destroyed every hospital and university in Gaza? Insulting. The IRGC is under every brick and pebble.

I have an ex-colleague from Tehran and he told me that people actually throw parties whenever Israel bombs Iran or assassinates one of the IRGC leaders, because they consider Bibi the only person in the world who is actually standing up to the regime. Make of that what you will.

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#345

Post by pydry »

Rover222 wrote: post #206
pydry wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Activists tend to care most when it is their government participating in inflicting the suffering. The people taking a dump on those activists for how they "allocate" their activism not only dont care about the suffering their government participates in, they usually cheer it on. This can be seen the most clearly in the case of the gazan genocide.

[flagged]

I insist, as does the United Nations.

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#346

Post by reliabilityguy »

ebbi wrote: post #336
magic_hamster wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice try, Khamenei. Good to know you managed to power on your router today and visit HN. Seriously though, Iran has repeatedly declared that the U.S. and Israel should cease to exist. It funds militant groups across the Middle East. It claims its nuclear program is for “peaceful purposes,” yet has produced highly enriched uranium at levels far beyond what is needed for civilian energy - levels that could only be used…

Your comment seems to suggest you support the idea of Iran regime going down? Yet in the same breath, you criticize Iran for saying that 'US and Israel should cease to exist'. Given Israel currently has nuclear weapons, Israel is currently committing genocide (helped and funded by the US), the atrocities that Israel have committed over the last 70 years (setting aside the fact that it is an apartheid state, and is an…

> Israel is currently committing genocide

Israel does not commit genocide by any objective metric.

> the fact that it is an apartheid state

And it is not an apartheid state as can be evidenced by the fact that Arabs and other cnthincal minorities, e.g., Druze or Cherkessians, reach highest positions in politics, academic, and private enterprises. You can simply google things like "notable israeli arab judges" and get results that disprove this whole idea of "apartheid".

> and the fact that the US has killed more innocent civilians in recent history (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) than Iran has...

This is strange argument. So, if US did bad things, others should do them to?

> And before I get accused of being a Khamenei supporter (Westerners tend to not like nuance on these topics) - I hate the Iranian regime. I agree there needs to be a regime change. At the same time, I also think there needs to be a regime change in Israel, as no government since it's inception has been for peace - the only PM they had that was doing the bare minimum towards it was killed by an Israeli.

You do not have to be Khamenei supports, it is enough to have double standards. From your own comment it is clear that you see the whole IP conflict without any nuance. For example, you ignore all the injustices jews suffered from the hands of Palestinians even before 1948. So, I will ask the same question you asked:

Why the double standard?

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#347

Post by don_esteban »

Wytwwww wrote: post #112
santoshalper wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. We absolutely have the option to let things play out in Iran and refuse to intervene. There are many regimes in Africa that are as bad or worse than Iran. We seem to have little interest in "regime change" there. You should think about why not.

Well it's not black and white. Sometimes doing the right thing even if you have ulterior motives is better than doing nothing. Africa is tricky due to historical reasons, though. Any western power that would intervene there without the explicit invitation of the local government would be accused of neo-colonialism etc.

You know, doing the Syria and Libya (and Iraq and Afghanistan) thing was the 'right thing', right?

Do you really believe that after the violent regime change Iran will become the beacon of prosperity in the ME?

Yes, I believe if the things are really out of hands (like Khmer rouge in Kambodia), external intervention is warranted.

That can be done against small/weak states where the result can be achieved fast and without too much bloodshed (compared to what is already going on), and when agreed on by UN. Will most definitely need boots on the ground.

It is an entirely different matter against a 90million vast state like Iran. Note that boots on the ground is not in the cards, and most probably will never be. The approach is 'bomb and hope'. Which guarantees misery and bloodshed of Iranian blood. And if the result is fall of the ayatollah regime, and replaced by nationalists with socialistic tendencies, that would not really cooperate with USA (= sell oil rights and totally dismantle their military) then what? Bomb more? How can you honestly believe this is the best for Iranian people?

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#348

Post by Fuzzwah »

martin-t wrote: post #335
buran77 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His is a very idealistic take which weirdly omits that every major example of non-violent protest working to topple a regime involved some foreign super power spending trillions of dollars to wage very much violent wars for the purpose. The insight that he's missing in so many words is that you need to crack the door open just enough for a foreign (super)power to want to come barging in for some reason. Non-violent p…

> learn from failure to coup-proof themselves faster than the population can keep up Institutional memory is longer than individual memory. What drove this point home for me was an article about how the police on London can predict whether a protest will turn violent and that they know how to corral people depending on which outcome they want. But for now, institutions still at least rely on individuals to retain the…

Do you recall the article? Was it this https://netpol.org/2025/03/01/this-is-repression-annual-stat...?

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#349

Post by reliabilityguy »

cardanome wrote: post #311
e-khadem wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[citation needed]. Not really though, you're just spewing the regime's propaganda. You might as well directly quote Khamenei on this one. I'm really restraining myself by not swearing at this comment. Have you seen a dead body in your life? Have you seen a street stained with blood being washed with high pressure water? Have you seen parts of the brain of a fellow citizen on the sidewalk, the same guy who was standin…

The only mass protests in Iran I saw video evidence of have been the millions of Iranian people in the streets in the PRO-governments protests that were against the foreign intervention. The will of the Iranian people is clear: The don't want to become slaves of Western Imperialism. Do you really think we we Iranian government would be able to keep in power despite a brutal economic blockade, despite foreign agents c…

> The will of the Iranian people is clear: The don't want to become slaves of Western Imperialism.

I think if you ignore all the videos where you clearly see police and other regime forces gunning down people on the streets, then yes. Otherwise, I would say that Iranian people are tired of Islamic colonization project.

> You are completely delusional if you believe that number. Just the logistics of killing so many people would be insane. You are falling hard for Western propaganda.

Here are the logistics: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewIran/comments/1qknmkn/a_father_s...

you can find plenty of videos like this. Of course you would prefer a 4k live stream of the crackdown on the protesters but its kind of hard to make given that the internet was shut down during that time, and only some videos made it out.

> for the end of the Israeli regime that is committing the best documented genocide in history.

War is war, and is completely different from genocide.

> How you are not criticizing Western allies like the UAE for fueling the bloody civil war in Sudan.

Are you saying that Saudis are not western allies that fueling the civil war in Sudan? I'll remind you that the war in Sudan has backers from many gulf nations, which back opposing forces.

Re: Iran students stage first large anti-government protests since deadly crackdown

#350

Post by martin-t »

froggy wrote: post #318
martin-t wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't say sadly. Don't further the indoctrination that violence is bad. It is a tool, it cannot be good or bad. States are the most prolific users of violence (even more when you also count potential/threatened, not yet materialized). Anyone who wants to claim that violence is bad has to oppose the existence of states. Violence is risky, dangerous, unpredictable, costly, etc. But those are practical and legal, not mo…

“If we lived in a world where dictators and their flying monkeys get regularly shot or droned to death, we wouldn't have dictators” While I agree with the sentiment, the groups who support dictators (oligarchs, religious extremists) would decide to also use violence. So both dictators and the leaders on the side of the people would be murdered and society would be destabilized.

That's why anonymity is important.

We need reliable anonymous communication as yet another source of friction (drink!) which the state needs to overcome to subjugate the people. And that's why so many states, even western democracies, are trying to oppose it now using children or terrorists as an excuse. The authoritarians and wannabe-dictators (most of whom will never achieve their goal or even publicly state it) are already in government positions, always have been.

There are two upsides:

- There are more normal (good or neutral) people than there are authoritarians (bad people - who want to exercise unjustified control over other people's lives). If the leadership attributes are evenly distributed, then they need to kill more of us than we need to kill of them.

- I don't think people should need to be led. It's a symptom of submissivity many have been taught since childhood ("do what I say and don't talk back") and to some extent is it probably natural but hopefully it can be reduced through better upbringing. Teach your children to question everything and to guess people's incentives and motives. What we need need is enough independent thinkers who are able to communicate and self-organize.

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