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

bbc.com

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

#391

Post by ordu »

zyxzevn wrote: post #203

[flagged]

> Based on independent journalists in Iran, the protests were related to economic problems. The violence came from people with smuggled weapons who organized with satellite telephones. These people were planted by Mossad and CIA.

The funny part of this narrative that I'd expect pro-protest journalists and anti-protest journalist to like it. It shifts responsibility from both parties to some outside parties. But still for pro-government journalists the narrative is more convenient: government just likes to blame outside players, it just can't resist it. So my bet is the journalists you refer to are working for the government.

> Israel is far more extreme. They do have nuclear weapons. Their president is kept in power with eternal war.

Changing the topic by pointing at someone who is presumably worse is a classic technique of propaganda. It is the technique people learn to use in kindergarten, trying to shift responsibilities and to distract adults from their failings. It is the technique Adam and Eva used when trying to shift responsibility and to distract God from their own failings. The technique so simple, that propagandists just can't stop using it.

So my bet, that you are from the same group as journalists you mentioned. Maybe they and you are the same person, really.

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

#392

Post by don_esteban »

martin-t wrote: post #279
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't say sadly...It is a tool, it cannot be good or bad It's not just a tool, it's also a human action. An action that exacts consequences on its victim and its wielder. Necessary and regrettable aren't exclusive.

Why "victim" and not "target"? What are the input variables which dictate the morality of an action (generally or in this particular case)?

Because 'target' dehumanizes the victim and makes the violence easier to justify?

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

#393

Post by ebbi »

fortzi wrote: post #385
ebbi wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The definition of genocide has been fluid lately. Can you clarify what you mean, exactly?

> The definition of genocide has been fluid lately.

Has it? Interesting. Wasn't aware of this phenomenon.

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

#394

Post by cardanome »

reliabilityguy wrote: post #357
cardanome wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the oppressive regime is called Israel.

Yeah, the one that forced Hamas to do that: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna21742496 What is funny to me is that as long as some group is anti-west, they can commit any atrocity, and get a blank check for it. Like, they had to do it, there was not other choice. Completely stripped of any agency not to commit atrocities.

So the worst you could find is a story from 2007 where Hamas killed five collaborators?

Not to mention that it was in the context of a coup attempt against democratically elected Hamas.

Fatah decided to betray its own people. In the West Bank it is helping Israel to oppress their own people and actively fights against Palestinian resistance.

Hamas works perfectly well together with all Palestinian resistance groups from Islamic Jihad to secular ones like the PFLP.

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

#395

Post by ch4s3 »

jfengel wrote: post #260
fortzi wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Any subsequent government isn't likely to be a friend of Israel, either. They might decide to stop actively funding attacks and put the money to better use, but I wouldn't be so sure of that. It's the basis of a lot of ally relationships that they will want to maintain.

Iran had good relations with Israel prior to 1979 and never persecuted or expelled its Jews after 1948 unlike every other country in the region. In fact there’s a great degree of very old cultural affinity between Persians and Jews. A secular Iran is likely to have very close ties with Israel if for no other reason than as a backlash to the excesses of the cleracy.

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

#396

Post by padjo »

reliabilityguy wrote: post #386
padjo wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not genocide, it's a special murdering operation.

No, it’s a war. All the typical “proves” of a genocide based on arguments that make any other war genocide as well, which in turn completely devalues actual genocides that did happen, and desensitizes the public so that when an actual genocide will happen no one will react.

Ah great so when the ceasefire came into effect then people stopped being killed? Like would happen in a war, right?

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

#397

Post by reliabilityguy »

cardanome wrote: post #394
reliabilityguy wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the one that forced Hamas to do that: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna21742496 What is funny to me is that as long as some group is anti-west, they can commit any atrocity, and get a blank check for it. Like, they had to do it, there was not other choice. Completely stripped of any agency not to commit atrocities.

So the worst you could find is a story from 2007 where Hamas killed five collaborators? Not to mention that it was in the context of a coup attempt against democratically elected Hamas. Fatah decided to betray its own people. In the West Bank it is helping Israel to oppress their own people and actively fights against Palestinian resistance. Hamas works perfectly well together with all Palestinian resistance groups f…

> Fatah decided to betray its own people. In the West Bank it is helping Israel to oppress their own people and actively fights against Palestinian resistance.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/10/23/palestine-authorities-cr...

Does Israel also force Hamas and PA to violently suppress dissent too?

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

#398

Post by reliabilityguy »

padjo wrote: post #396
reliabilityguy wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s a war. All the typical “proves” of a genocide based on arguments that make any other war genocide as well, which in turn completely devalues actual genocides that did happen, and desensitizes the public so that when an actual genocide will happen no one will react.

Ah great so when the ceasefire came into effect then people stopped being killed? Like would happen in a war, right?

Both can be true in war:

(1) war

(2) ceasefire that doesn’t hold

For example, there was a ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia, and then it was violated.

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

#399

Post by m4rtink »

watwut wrote: post #356
martin-t wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article is on my to-read list and I am a great fan of Mr. Devereaux's work. But I also feel like promoting non-violence outside the context of western democracies is misleading and potentially dangerous. Maybe he addresses it somewhere in the article but I have yet to read it so forgive me if he does. But how does he explain the failure of peaceful revolutions in Belarus or China? My understanding of social dyna…

> But how does he explain the failure of peaceful revolutions in Belarus or China? Does that need special explanation? Violent revolutions fail too ... revolution does not guarantee a success.

You mean how Russia shipped in Wagner thugs to protect Lukashenko in Belarus ?

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

#400

Post by odiroot »

ViktorRay wrote: post #304
injidup wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the only viable solution becomes giving the movement its demands. This interpretation reeks of Western naivete. Students were not merely arrested — they were gunned down en masse in the streets and even in hospitals. They were provoked by the U.S. president, who promised support to take on the institutions, but that support never materialized. The likely endgame of this current gunboat diplomacy is similar to Venez…

”This interpretation reeks of Western naivete.” The essay you are responding to was written by a historian. The ideas actually described in the essay were not developed by a Western person. They were first implemented successfully by a non-Western person. Mahatma Gandhi. And Gandhi developed these ideas from reading the writings of another non-Western person. Leo Tolstoy. More information can be found here. https://e…

> Mahatma Gandhi.

I daresay the Brits were not as willing to gun down peaceful protesters as today's regimes are.

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