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The Green Revolution is Electrifying in Its Courage on the Streets: America Needed Such Public Demonstrations in 2000

Submitted by mark karlin on Sat, 06/20/2009 - 12:39pm.

EditorBlog

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

BY Mark Karlin

If the American public who was outraged by the theft of the election from Al Gore in 2000 were as courageous and defiant then as the Green Revolution in Iran is now, we may not have had to endure 8 years of destruction to America and the world under Bush and Cheney.

That's not to say there weren't public demonstrations in the U.S. in 2000 -- as the much underrported oppostion protests during Bush's first inauguration proved in January of 2001 -- but they paled by comparison to the sense of longing and outrage demonstrated not just in words, but with bodies, in Iran.

For all practical purposes the "Supreme Commander" and his puppet Ahmadinejad are really the Shah and his Savak in new clothing. The "Supreme Commander" uses religion in a way that all overbearing and pompous theocrats who want to preserve their power do, as a way of invoking alleged divine authority.

I recently wrote an editor's blog supporting the United States staying out of the conflict directly, but supporting the right of the Green Revolution to protest freely. Obama is playing this exactly as he should.

The clergy in Iran came to power because the Shah, a puppet of the U.S., wouldn't pay his due to the mullahs. So they took their revenge against a corrupt regime that came to power in a CIA coup against a democratically elected leader of Iran in 1953. The recent special criticism that the "Supreme Leader" had for Britain was in large part due to the reason for the 1953 CIA organized coup, the preservation of British "sovereign" control of the Iranian oil fields for the West.

But whatever the motivations of the Iranian Revolution against the Shah, the mullahs have turned into political hacks seeking to preserve their power: absolute power corrupts absolutely as it did for the Shah, for Cheney and for Bush.

The theft of the 2000 election was a seminal event for BuzzFlash readers and made our website, at the time, one of the top ranked Internet destinations. There was a palpable sense in our reader commentaries that democracy had been betrayed, as it had been.

But we did not take to the streets in electrifying waves.

Iran has a distinct culture, and Mousavi, who was one of the leaders of the revolt against the Shah understands what he is up against, because he was one of them. He is not naive.

To those who are being beaten and dying today in Iran because they believe in breaking off the chains imposed by tyrants, we stand with you -- and we hope to learn from you to have the courage of our convictions.

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

IRAN IS RELEVANT NOW IN THE U S

Submitted by Jan ward on Sun, 06/21/2009 - 1:51pm.

Forget the 2000 elections, we need to know WHERE OUR CITIZENS ARE when it comes to health care for all: Single payer, public option. Our health care is in crisis mode and we remain silent as the insurance industry, with our money, buy our government and corporate media and convince our citizens that we cannot have health care as all other countries have for their citizens. We've all heard some of our Senators say " We have the best health care in the world." Well, if that's true, then why hasn't any other country modeled their health care after ours. Not one has in all these decades, not one. Health care is not a privilege it is our right. Everyday I wonder when the american people will rise up and say ENOUGH... AND DEMAND WHAT WE ARE ENTITLED TOO. What is it that causes the Iranians to stand up and we remain silent and take whatever the insurance companies, big pharma and worst of all our government dishes out? I don't get it.

WHERE OUR CITIZENS ARE

Submitted by PacoC on Sun, 06/21/2009 - 2:44pm.

Does it matter where citizens are when it comes to health care for all? In a functioning democracy it would, but I'm not sure it does here and now.

Congress cares what their campaign funders want and so, to a great extend does the executive. The media wants what their owners want. Not much room seems to be left for what citizens want.

health care

Submitted by Jan ward on Sun, 06/21/2009 - 8:31pm.

You are of course correct, we do have the best congress that money can buy. However, I don't know how we can give up. It has been and will continue to be to our serious detriment to give up. Their will no longer be a middle class in this country. As Roosevelt said to his public, when they needed something done, he said, "Make me do it". And they did and he did. Must not believe what the insurance companies are saying.....there is no chance for single payer, public option and no money to pay for it. Do not believe it and keep up the good fight.

Al Gore did all he could in 2000

Submitted by GoAl on Sun, 06/21/2009 - 11:18am.

Contrary to an agitator, Al Gore spent 36 days fighting alone to have the uncounted Florida votes counted. I wonder where an agitator was during this time? Also unlike anagitator, I spent 15 years volunteering on election campaigns when I lived in Florida. Because of my personal experience in Florida, I know the laws that Bush the thief and his election stealers broke and the disputed territory like the back of my hand. Anagtator has no such personal experience. I used to know many of the people form the Gore campaign who were involved in the Florida 2000 campaign. The Gore campaign's request to have the uncounted Florida votes counted was a routine request that I'd watched play out in a number of close local elections when I was in Florida. Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris were determined to not count all of the uncounted votes despite the fact that Florida law clearly required that they be counted and that's exactly what they did. The very same crooks on the U.S. Supreme Court who rubberstamped this broad daylight Bush coup d'etat just the other day gave Alaska the right to keep a most likely innocent man in jail for rape on the basis of states rights but in 2000, they said that Florida didn't have the right to conduct an election even though that right was given to Florida by the U.S. constitution. Anagitator, I really wish you would get the actual facts before you make statements that have no basis in fact. The "inconvenient truth" is, pun intended, Al Gore did all he could in 2000 to have the uncounted Florida votes counted short of starting a civil war. I think it's now a cruel irony that the technology that's now being used in Iran to stop another election theft was made available to the world by the person who's election was stolen in the U.S. and in the same manner in 2000.

Gore should have demanded Federal troops in Florida

Submitted by Norm on Mon, 06/22/2009 - 6:24am.

Contrary to popular belief, Bill Clinton was president of the United States during the 2000 election. Al Gore should have gone public and demanded that Bill Clinton do his job and send Federal troops into Florida to guarantee an honest and fair recount of the votes. Screw the US Supreme Court! They don't command troops on the ground. Al Gore had the power of persuasion to shame Bill Clinton to do the right thing. Gore didn't demand Federal troops and Bill Clinton didn't do his job of sending Federal troops. I don't know if it this would have effected the final outcome, but at least it would have shown Bill Clinton as a tool of the Bushes and would have discredited the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), who Al Gore likewise disavowed for being closet Republicans.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL ......

Submitted by Yman on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 4:05pm.

I know you were trying to be serious, Norm, but Geeeejuz, ....

this might even top your white males are being persecuted by the divorce industrial complex conspiracy theory.

You may be one toy short of a Happy Meal, Norm, .....

.... but you are seriously funny.

Another Point of View

Submitted by PacoC on Sun, 06/21/2009 - 7:56am.

One understandable interpretation of the events in Iran is to observe how much more concerned the Persians appear to be about protecting what shreds of democracy they have compared to the embarrassing way that Americans largely failed to react to the transparent thefts of the 2000 and 2004 elections.

But another viewpoint is to take notice that the Persians had the opportunity to watch the utter disaster of the Bush administration. They had eight years to ponder the consequences of inaction and to think about how they might have done better in similar circumstances. Perhaps they learned something useful from our disappointing example.

I Hope Some Of That Green Rubs Off On Us

Submitted by Hillbilly on Sat, 06/20/2009 - 10:43pm.

Iran Green The Whole World Is Watching

There were huge demonstrations, but no twitter, or cell cameras

Submitted by Freedem on Sat, 06/20/2009 - 10:39pm.

I was at some of those Demonstrations. No matter how big the demonstrations were the news media shot the footage and trashed it.

More importantly the demonstrations would have been a lot bigger if the actual facts were known. During the Y2k Fiasco there was a lot of knowledge on the Internet, but there were fewer people able to tell what was happening and more importantly, still fewer who were able to learn what was known.

Had the Internet been at current levels of use and technology the whole Bush v Gore fight would have been a lot different. Even as late as 2004 senior Democratic Leaders in Florida were not aware of knowledge, commonplace on the Web, of how they had been snookered.

If the Gang Of Pirates think that the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat, it is not any part of Bipartisan to accommodate them and roll over and play dead.

But unlike Moussavi, Al Gore

Submitted by anagitator on Sat, 06/20/2009 - 7:49pm.

(and later John Kerry) put their tail between their legs and bowed down to the Rove opposition. Had they demanded a recount it would have happened. Don't blame the lack of guts and civil uprising on the people. Blame it on Gore and Kerry who in the end put the interests of the elite money changers at heart, not the election results and honesty. Imagine what would happen to the US dollar and Wall St. and the big money capitalists if the USA started having uprisings questioning the elections. Money always usurps reality.

Absolutely

Submitted by anagitator on Sat, 06/20/2009 - 7:32pm.

The Goldman Sachs crowd / Paulsen / Geithner and subordinates crowd has field stripped our treasury to their benefit and at our expense of three generations of Americans and we do nothing. Our corrupt media covers it up so we don't become enraged. We should be on the streets demanding that heads roll and that includes major players in Wall Street, Congress, Goldman, ratings agencies, Federal Reserve, SEC, etc. They have all screwed us to the benefit of a select gang of the same "elite" that caused the problem. http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/06/18/the-greatest-non-apology-of-all-time/

The Federal Reserve is only a symptom of the disease

Submitted by Truth on Sat, 06/20/2009 - 6:51pm.

Mark Twain wrote The Gilded Age in 1873, Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle in 1906, and Jack London wrote The Iron Heel in 1908. The Federal Reserve wasn't created until 1913. Those three books describe, accurately, a life that was hell on earth for the average citizen. The Federal Reserve as you pointed out allows bankers to unfairly profit off of other people's labor. While the federal reserve harms the nation as a whole, and banking/credit usury harms individual borrowers, the fundamental concept of the idea of profiting off of other people's labor, or off of the works of mother nature, is in fact the very heart of capitalism. As long as you have a system where some people reap the rewards of other people's labor you will have people who aren't reaping the full rewards of their own labor. On one continuum of that scale is full on chattle transgenerational birth to death slavery, followed shortly behind by endentured servitude and Jim Crow laws, all the way to modern day usury, and of course simple wage slavery where the workers don't own the means of production and distribution, and the owners reap the rewards and live the lavish lifestyle off the blood sweat and tears of their wage slaves. While I'm glad that there are people like Ron Paul to report on what their fellow Republicans are up to, I'm really grateful that they aren't allowed to unleash the hell on earth that unregulated capitalism would bring.

You are almost as bad as

Submitted by Barry Schwartz on Sat, 06/20/2009 - 6:36pm.

You are almost as bad as Pete Hoekstra in your attempt to co-opt the Iranian unrest on behalf of things that aren't even close to being the same.

(And I say that despite having been at one time a major funder of Votermarch.)

The Matrix

Submitted by bassybob on Sat, 06/20/2009 - 5:05pm.

People often draw allegories between the movie and our current "condition" in america, where people are enslaved to a system that is for all people invisible. there is a hand at the wheel of our enslavement, and it's not heat they are stealing form us, its labor. The forced compression of our economic system, with the full complicity of the Federal reserve bank , the banking system, and the international banking cartel, is , unfortunately real. By charging our economy for every dolalr that is loaned to us, and then creating layers of interest apon those already borrowed dollars, we are in fact enslaved by a credit system that is not the part of the natural world, but in fact a man made fiat system built on air, and a fuedal belief system. Until we can remove the fed and teh banking cartel from the dealings o four business system, as Benjamin Franlkin, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, and John F Kennedy tried to do, we will all be slaves to an increasingly hostile media, and a complicit government that is not" by and for the people", but designed by lobbyists, media whores, and bankers to benefit only a small, small minority of the American people. WE must take back the airwaves which is our soveriegn right, and dismantle this archaic feudal banking system which is imprisoning not only all of us regular folk, but in fact the bankers as well. It is sick, broken, and needs fixing, just like our healthcare system, another product of a profiteering over humanity model. If we as a nation do not take to the streets and demand an end to this ongoing system of exploitation, our children will pay the price, as slaves of a silent and complicit corporotocracy. We are in fact in way worse shape than Iran, at least they are aware that there is an enemy, and who they are!

The "Democrat" Party is, at every turn, Complicit in treachery.

Submitted by veritas on Sat, 06/20/2009 - 3:10pm.

Buzzflash is absolutely correct, but the problem is quite simple: "Democratic" elected officials, too cowed & institutionalized to fight the good fight to DEMAND public financing of elections - or AT LEAST that some portion of TV time every campaign season be DONATED to candidates from both sides - every election MUST TRY TO AVOID BECOMING a TARGET of the Right-Wing media lords who own the media conglomerates & airwaves. In good times, Americans learn almost everything they know about candidates from TV "news" and TV campaign ads.
This creates an institutional bias in Dem "leaders" to DEFER to RIGHT-WING MEDIA LORDS.

As a result - Democrats INSTITUTIONALLY DEFERING to Right-Wing media lords - Dem "Leaders" often DEFER to Right-Wing talking points. For example, Al Gore selecting Joe Lieberman as a "Moral Values" VP candidate - Gore was just too blinded by the relentless (corporate) media JIHAD against Bill Clinton to see that Lieberman has even less "moral character" than Clinton!
Then there is Bill Clinton himself -
"TRIANGULATING" - shoving Right-Wing Talking points down Democratic voters throats, knowing that Democratic voters had no where else to go.
With the Democrats continually producing CORPORATE LOBBYISTS "leaders" like Clinton, (NAFTA, WTO, China MFN), Lieberman, Daschle, and Baucus (even uber-"Environmentalist" Al Gore bowing to Right-Wing talking points) it's no wonder that Democratic voters can't muster up the enthusiasm to take to the streets to support these clowns.
And as tragic and appaling as this record (of Democrats' defering to Right-Wing talking points) is, haven't even touched on the Neo-Con Democrats (such as Lieberman, Feinstein, Harman, Emanuel, et al) blatantly supporting the full Neo-Con agenda: expanding wars, police-state war-powers, and loot-the-treasury "economics" !!

(In sum of the above: without extremely charismatic leaders the Democratic Party is NOT UP TO THE TASK of PROVIDING LEADERSHIP in an America where MASS MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS _DOMINATES_ the election process: almost every dime that Democratic voters sends to their candidates, gets spent buying air-time on RIGHT-WING CORPORATION OWNED media companies!
Modern mass-media communications powered the rise of the pre-WWII dictators, and with all media corporations now owned by bean-counters and profit-maximizing executives, Democratic voters end up funding THEIR OWN POLITICAL OPPOSITION.
Today in the Obama presidency, even when we do have a "charismatic" leader - he has been CO-OPTED by the Big Finance & pro-wars lobbies!

Apples and Oranges

Submitted by Maezeppa on Sat, 06/20/2009 - 2:50pm.

No valid comparison to Iran. In our case, our theives were smart enough to steal by only a few votes and not announce results before it was physically possible to actually tally them. We had a process, laws to follow. We had an attempted recount. We were patient. We trusted our system.

i'll tell you why

Submitted by leadfoot on Sat, 06/20/2009 - 2:31pm.

First, there were demonstrations but our news media imposed a total blackout on them. Second, we live under a more repressive regime than Iranians. Certainly a larger percentage of our population is in jail. Protesters here are regularly beaten and jailed then their names are put on a list available to the FBI and NSA to be spied on. They'll find a way to steer you into the legalized slavery that is the U.S.A.'s penal system, where corporations like AT&T and Victoria's Secret pay inmates pennies an hour and weaker inmates are sold into sexual slavery with the tacit approval of the powers that be. If we keep pretending we are living in a free country and are represented in government and still have the right to protest meaningfully, then the important work that needs to be done under cover of darkness will never be done.

Iran won't become Chile [an Iranian protest chant]

Submitted by mike1138 on Sat, 06/20/2009 - 2:30pm.

or the US? We had the Supreme Court.... and they have the Guardian Council. mmm no real difference you say? may be true... But they still have a spirit to be free--to be free of political and religious oppression. We Americans, now, are too damn complacent!

are we?

Submitted by leadfoot on Sat, 06/20/2009 - 2:42pm.

I disagree. Everyone I know, even lifelong Republicans, are and have been aghast at what has become of our country over the last eight years. Everyone has strong feelings about it. We are not represented in government, we are not represented in media. The problem isn't complacency, it's complicity. Complicity between government, big business, the media, and the justice system to maintain the big-money status quo at the expense of working Americans. Any attempt to criticize this very real axis of evil is labelled (by the rich)"class war" when it is the rich waging class war against the poor who are defenseless. Even the vote means nothing when your choice is between conservative, pro-business Democrats and far-right radical Republicans, both of whom are dead-set against everything the American people want.

Different Republicans

Submitted by PacoC on Sun, 06/21/2009 - 6:27am.

Sadly, the Republicans I know still watch FOX and believe everything they hear. They still bash Gore, still bash Clinton and they think the worst thing that has happened in the last eight years is the election of Obama.

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