Created by Hendy Sukarya, Aaron Chiesa, Toru Kageyama and Lisa Temes as a student production, this film offers interesting information about the revolution of young people in Iran who have made the repressive Islamic nation the third largest nation of bloggers in the world. It is very well done and packs a good informational punch. Young bloggers getting their words out from under the watchful eye of an extremist religious government is admirable. But a nation that becomes a fanatical religious state run by clerics who kill people for speaking out cannot be trusted even a little. That goes for its young bloggers too. I am wholly unconvinced by the urge to ‘freedom’ in Iran. It requires a fire much stonger than a blog to burn religion out of a government.
Category Archives: Opinion
Iran Protests Are Irrelevant
The rallies and protests in support of opposition presidential candidate Hossein Moussavi or current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran are totally irrelevant. The president of Iran is purely a middle-management position that reports to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenie who is an Islamic religious leader of a theocratic state. The protesters in the current uprising are arguing for their votes to be counted in a meaningless election which does nothing but support a theocratic regime that rules the entire country by their interpretation of the word of god. The religious government of Iran completely suppresses anything that might pass as free speech, it treats women like animals who have no rights and who count as only one half of a man. It also threatens to wipe other nations off the face of the globe.
If I were a crowd of a few million protesters in Iran (after all, crowds often act as a single entity), I would not bother about protesting presidential votes. I would remove the Supreme Leader and the Guardian Counsel completely and by any means necessary. I would eliminate the religious government entirely. Only then would the protests have any meaning. Only then would there be any possibility of a free election. And only then would I take the protests seriously. It’s all or nothing, folks. If you don’t like your government, get rid of it. Meanwhile, you’re just a side-show.
Iran Election Fraudulent Because of No Free Press and No Free Women
The protests raging over the recent presidential election in Iran are an expression of distrust of the official election results that seem to declare the current and totally insane president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the overwhelming victor. Riots are becoming extremely violent, with police beatings in the streets and clouds of black smoke rising above Tehran. However, the arguments over whether or not the election was fraudulent are a complete waste of energy. No election in any country that does not have a free press can ever be legitimate. Without a free press to report on an election and possible election fraud there is no one to hold a sitting government accountable to the people. You cannot have a democracy or an election in a country that does not allow reporters freedom to write whatever they want. It’s impossible. Iran’s election is fraudulent because Iran’s government is controlled entirely by Islamic clerics who have absolutely no respect for freedom of expression, freedom of information, freedom of religion, freedom of education, or freedom of women.
I define as barbaric any country anywhere on the planet that forces women to wear specific attire. Iran is a barbaric nation with a population of extremely fearful males lacking in an essential self-confidence. This is what drives male-dominated Islamic governments to require certain codes of conduct and dress for women. In countries where elections are legitimate women wear shorts and makeup. Think I’m just being glib? Go check it out.
Iran has cut off internet services, cell phone service, and texting services in order to prevent discussion and organization of opponents to the religious government. It has arrested journalists, shut down newspapers, and confiscated television cameras in a crackdown on activities of the international media in Iran. These are the actions of a total dictatorship.
In fact, there is almost no hope at all for the protesters in Iran. Even if they succeed in overturning the election, they would not be able or willing to eliminate religious control of their government. Countries ruled by Islam are permanently and hopelessly barbaric. It’s like a law of physics that’s completely unbreakable.
The root of the problem with Iran is the root of the problem for almost every single government in the Middle East: religious control. There is no possibility of the slightest freedom of expression or freedom for women in any country controlled by a religious entity. None whatsoever.
Photo from AFP/Getty
Author Toni Morrison Talks About Free Speech
In a time when we have a president who is actually attempting to hide photos purported to show United States military personnel allegedly raping prisoners during torture sessions in Iraq, author Toni Morrison is speaking out in support of free speech. The two things are related because of the government’s use of fear to justify hiding the photos of brutal criminal conduct by U.S. personnel.
Over the years, Morrison, author of Beloved and Song of Solomon, has had several of her novels threatened with being banned for their content.
Here’s a sampling from an Associated Press article about the launch of the Free Speech Leadership Council which includes Toni Morrison:
Morrison said the problem was fear — fear of information, dating back to the book of Genesis and the fatal temptation of the Tree of Knowledge.
“Knowledge is bad” is the Bible’s message, Morrison said, while being interviewed by author-humorist Fran Lebowitz. “It is sinful. It will corrupt you and you will die.”
Freedom of speech and information is under far greater threat these days than most people seem to realize. It is extremely important for well-known authors to discuss the issue openly.
The photo is from AP’s Seth Wenig.
20-Year Anniversary of China’s Public Massacre
Twenty years ago, on June 4, 1989, the Chinese government ordered its military to kill the unarmed peaceful student protesters for democracy gathered in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The army then shot the students and ran them over with tanks. In its murderous effort to suppress any form of free expression or protest, the Chinese government and its military murdered the people in Tiananmen Square while the entire world watched. China is now preventing any sort of commemoration or discussion of those events or the twenty-year anniversary by almost completely shutting down internet access to any material that could possibly mention the murder of Chinese people in Tiananmen Square.
You can see the police with umbrellas blocking the view of the BBC news cameraman in the embedded video. The entire square is closed to the press on this important day in Chinese history. The government does not want anyone in China to know anything about or understand what happened in 1989.
It is an honor to have a web site banned in China. Candlelight Stories receives a large number of visits from China and is actually used in English classes there. However, Candlelight Stories urges the citizens of China to wake up in the morning and completely overthrow and eliminate their oppressive government. It would be enlightening to see the government officials of China dragged by Chinese citizens into the middle of Tiananmen Square where the world could serve as witness to the end of this horrendous period in Chinese history. Why any company or country does any business at all with the brutal despots ruling China is a complete and pitiful mystery to any rational thinker. And people who site see in China would have probably been perfectly comfortable touring concentration camps in 1944.
Now, China, press the red button and ban me.
California Supreme Court Legalizes Bigotry
The California Supreme Court has upheld a recent statewide vote that amended the state constitution to define marriage as only between a man and a woman. This is the same court that only months ago ruled that any ban on gay marriage was a violation of rights. Their recent ruling, however, focuses on the legality of the vote to amend the constitution to rule out the possibility of same sex marriage. If it is legal for voters to take away the right for gay people to marry by passing a constitutional amendment, then it would be just as legal for those voters to amend the constitution to say that marriage is only between a white man and a white woman. That’s what California’s Supreme Court has ruled in all its wisdom. They have legalized rampant bigotry.