Eccentric Flower talk:200906/While They Werent Looking

Patrick:

I think the old business model is certainly going to have to change, but I don't think that means that professional reporting is dead. I think there will be a few years in which the blogging/twittering/amateur reporting style will be what captures the most up-to-date news with the immediacy the world is clamoring for, but I think media outlets will eventually catch up and find a way of bringing a new way of having both -- trustworthy, professional reporting and the unlimited access that the new modes of media allow.

-- 20:06, 14 June 2009 (BST)

ProfRobert:

Someone on the list said it feels like 1978-79 in Iran. To me, it feels like 1989. But what I don't know is whether it's 1989 in East Berlin, or 1989 in Beijing. After 30 years of mullah-watching, as much as I wish it were otherwise, I suspect it's the latter. This is a regime that will kill as many people as it takes to stay in power, and unlike Honecker's army, the Revolutionary Guards are fanatical enough to carry it out.

-- 01:26, 15 June 2009 (BST)

Columbina:

It's gonna be Beijing. Reports are coming in of beatings and killings, most of them university students. Sullivan has a picture of a student's dorm room that has a 1' diameter hole machinegunnedclubbed through it. Several photos from attacks on Isfahan Technical University here. Warning: Gruesome. The students are the ones on the front lines and they are suffering for it. The twitter comments he's reprinted from the various sources (he has a list of feeds in one entry) are simply appalling. Sample:

I agree with your assessment of this regime. And they have been cornered this time and they know it. This is when they will show their worst.

-- 03:44, 15 June 2009 (BST)

Columbina:

P.S. He had official confirmation of some of this from Tehran Bureau but it has been subject to a denial-of-service attack from the government. Those Twitters are essentially the only information now coming out of Iran, except for a couple of web sites hosted outside Iran (I have no idea how the university site above got updated) ... until the cell phones go down.

-- 03:47, 15 June 2009 (BST)

Columbina:

Another P.S. It may not turn out to be the Guard that is the big weapon of the mullahs. A lot of the Guard seem to be surprisingly conflicted; guess the indoctrination didn't quite take. Some of them have openly broken. Some are essentially refusing to participate.

It's telling that what a lot of students are worried about is not the police or the Guard but Ansar (see the first item I quoted above). Several others I didn't quote refer to them too. They're talking about this political group. They are apparently the unofficial militia and attack dogs of the clerics - the nutcases. At least one student post has said directly that it's not the police attacking in the dorms but Ansar.

-- 04:19, 15 June 2009 (BST)

Columbina:

Well, so, while we were sleeping: The rally was held, making everyone who attended it a potential criminal. Despite this, and some shootings and violence, the police pointedly did NOT move in to break up the rally/protest.

All sorts of voices within Iran, some in unexpected places, are decrying the fraud - but meanwhile, in the rest of the world, governments are either accepting the clearly rigged results* or are basically waiting until the dust settles to do so (the US position is apparently that we think there was cheating but we'll go with the anointed anyway, which is absolutely wussy).**

American neocons are outdoing themselves with the usual flow of crap because they want Ahmadinejad to be the winner, for dubious reasons of their own.

And the conventional media has been seen to have really, really fallen down on the job - except for the BBC. (Natch.)

Sullivan has been sterling, despite the Atlantic site crawling to a near standstill (which has not yet been confirmed to be related to this mess, but with the Iranian govt. trying frantically for denial-of-service on any site expressing skepticism of the election results, it's plausible). Here's his weekend recap page with lots of links. Warning: Graphic photo at top.

* It's not the Tehran and city results that are so implausible, it's the regionals. Most blatant example:

As Sullivan says, this would have been like California voting overwhelmingly for McCain.

** I agree with Sullivan:

But so far the American govt. has shown no signs of wanting to question the results, or even look too closely. We are in effect covering our eyes and pretending to see none of it.

-- 18:29, 15 June 2009 (BST)

ProfRobert:

I don't know if you saw the item that Khamenei has called for an investigation into whether there was vote fraud. I interpret that as one of two things: Either it's to mollify protesters to buy time while things quiet down with a whitewash at the end of the day, or the ayatollahs are genuinely worried about losing *their* control and are willing to throw Ahmadinejad under a bus.

-- 19:33, 15 June 2009 (BST)

Columbina:

I saw it and I am going with the placate/whitewash explanation. Until proven otherwise.

-- 19:45, 15 June 2009 (BST)

ProfRobert:

This is a pretty good, concise explainer from Time.com: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1904729,00.html?cnn=yes The wild card here is Rafsanjani.

-- 04:12, 16 June 2009 (BST)