Comments on: Iran and American Imperialism

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:58:24 +0000

I forgot this

http://www.bookerrising.net/2009/06/teachable-moment-blacks-in-iran.html

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:56:17 +0000

Check it out

http://www.afroiranianlives.com/

By: Ty

Ty — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:11:45 +0000

Since when has Iran been a “supposedly democratic” country? Iran hasn’t been a democratic country since Mossedegh was toppled and the Shah installed. Everyone knows Iran is a theocracy ruled by the mullahs and the mullahs decide which people are allowed to run for president. Both the protesters and the government are guilty of violence so neither side is innocent.

By: Reza Fara

Reza Fara — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 13:09:29 +0000

Mosts Iranians do not hate the US, and in fact, they love America and Americans. Don’t be fooled by what you see on TV. They can’t sell ads if they show a bunch of people sipping tea and talking about how they wish they were in the US or that they’re country was free like the US.

By: Padraig

Padraig — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 13:04:09 +0000

Iran had a Close Election. The story is the illegal, murderous coup d’ etat in Honduras.
Where the elected president was kidnapped and deported and then 4 elected gov’t officials where executed.

and now every road of out the capital Tegucigalpa suffers from human roadblocks…..
hundreds of people stopping all commerce, troop movments THEY ARE DEMANDING THAT THE COUP END THEIR ILLEGAL
MURDEROUS OPERATIONS IMMEDIATELY

By: Jack Fertig

Jack Fertig — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 07:45:10 +0000

Absolutely racism is a prop for imperialism. Even Islamophobia is racist. As a white skinned Muslim nobody hassles me about my religion. Brown and black skinned Muslims I see being hassled all the time for it. And during the hostage crisis, a friend was assaulted by a bunch of white guys for being Iranian. Well, actually he was Mexican-American, but the brown skin, y’know…

At the end of your article you suggest that Iranians don’t much like Americans. Having been to Iran I can promise you Iranians like Americans a lot! They just don’t like our government much, nor for that matter are they generally crazy about their own.

Also I don’t think the R’s leaning on Obama are thinking as far ahead as you credit them. I think they really are neanderthals who belive in swaggering and bullying our way through the world, and besides, they’d use any excuse to accuse Obama of failing the Presidency. At least Obama understands that our history of meddling has only backfired and undermined any influence our government ever had. He’s right to stay out. But citizen to citizen contacts are good. Keep the whole world watching and supporting Iranian democracy!

By: hass

hass — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:15:15 +0000

nojojojo — had you bothered to read IranAffairs.com you’d see that more than 100% turnout is NORMAL because Iranians aren’t required to vote in their home districts.

Peaceful demonstrations? Give me a break.

By: Bindicated

Bindicated — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:25:56 +0000

Great post. Not to nitpick, but I have been making a conscious effort lately to stop using the words “America” and “American” to refer solely to the U.S. I wish there were an easier way to do this in English because it’s sometimes very clunky. It seems to work better in Spanish.
B.

By: nojojojo

nojojojo — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:09:32 +0000

Shulamit,

I get that. And I get that I’m not exactly high on the list of welcome subsets of humanity in Iran either. But I think it’s possible to empathize with another people’s struggle even if you’ve got a problem with their politics at other times.

By: nojojojo

nojojojo — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:06:37 +0000

hass, I looked at the blog post you linked. I see claims and counter-claims, but no actual analysis -- this blogger isn't providing any actual evidence to back up the counter-claims. In particular, I'm concerned about the claim that more than 50 Iranian cities had a voter turnout above 100% of the eligible electorate; I've seen a lot of discussion of this on political blogs like FiveThirtyEight, but no clear, believable refutation yet. That said, this really isn't about whether the elections were rigged or not, IMO. My concern is with the fact that peaceful protests in a supposedly-democratic country have been suppressed with violence, intimidation, and murder. In a democracy, people should be free to protest whatever the heck they want without getting shot for it -- or simply walking nearby. And unfortunately, there's plenty of evidence that that's happening.