Via Alternet comes this:
First, from an American media perspective, here was another great moment for folks to demand what they wanted to see covered on national news media. What a moment of media dissonance: As protests erupted — and in some cases, turned violent — in the streets of Tehran and elsewhere in Iran, major broadcast media in the U.S. had little to no news on the events at all. By using the hashtag1 #CNNfail to collect all of the dissatisfaction on Twitter, Americans were able to shift the focus of the conversation and eventually influence CNN’s decision makers to start covering stories by Sunday.
Okay, I’ll admit I haven’t really seen the point of Twitter until now. Those crazy kids and their desire to change things, both here and in Iran!
Good on them.
UPDATE from Geov (9:12 AM)
Translations from: http://twitter.com/alirezasha
“I just talked to my cousin in Azadi Sq., there are more than three million people there.”
Azadi Square is a famous main square in Tehran, a city of about ten million people. Make no mistake — these protests are a serious threat to the regime.
By ANNA JOHNSON and ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writers Anna Johnson And Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press Writers – 12 mins ago
Geov spews-
Apparently exaggeration runs in the bloodline!
Just a word of caution about trying to filter through reports from Iran.
Politics in Iran is inordinately complicated. You have hundreds of regional loyalties and issues. You have generational divides – those that remembered fighting in the streets to depose the Shah in the late 1970’s tend to be the hard-liners against younger elements who see those old revolutionaries as the new establishment. But then you have the religious and social issues – some Iranians want to drink liquor, display fashionable clothes, and otherwise take actions which offend the Mullahs and hard-line Shi’ite clerics and religious students. Then also, there are the economic issues – the Mullahs and the REvolutionary Guard control a large portion of the economy, dispensing priviledge, jobs, and money to some, but withholding it from others, and crushing competition. Finally, you have the urban vs. rural divide, which in some ways parallell similar issues here in the U.S.. Add to all this is the general global economic contraction, which tends to favor the challengers in any election.
These complicated political divides are not easily set forth in a left-wing/right-wing dichotomy, such as the Western Media likes for easy organization. Reports from Iran may deal with one aspect or another, which might give quite a lot of information about one “tree”, but may be only marginally helpfull in understanding the nature of the “forest”.
Also, estimates of crowd size are notoriously difficult for untrained observers, and those on both sides have lots of incentive to either inflate or deflate numbers.
Finally, there is the discussion about whether this could develop into an anti-Mullah revolution along the lines of the 1979 revolution. I doubt it, at least for now – lots of Iranians may not like the current President, but almost as many like him, and even more who wouldn’t dare go against the Mullahs even if they dislike the current President.
Ultimately the question will come down to whether the military, including the Revolutionarly Guard, will support the current regime or the revolutionaries. In the revolutions of the late 1980s – 1992 in Western Europe, you saw regimes fall in the Soviet Union, Romania, etc. when most of the military ultimately backed the reformers. In China you saw the opposite, when the military ultimately backed the regime over the students in Tiamen Square. If you ended up in a war between the Iranian military and the Revolutionary Guards, it would be a very bloody one indeed, and I wouldn’t want to bet against the RG in that conflict.
The current generation in Iran doesn’t seem to want major changes. They’ve had a rough history since 1979, between the revolution and the war with Iraq. Most just want the economic and social issues adjusted a bit more in their favor. That probably means they don’t want a revolution – they would rather back off, and try again later for incremental reforms, if confronted.
It will be interesting to see what happens over the next week. Current reports seem to indicate the Mullahs are offering concessions, with an “investigation” into the voting.
cyn, who’s side are you on anyway? Why do you strive to dismiss the forces of democracy and change?
This is from Huff Post.
http://images.huffingtonpost.c....._large.jpg
Good sized crowd.
Iran Militia Fires At Crowd, A Protestor Is Killed
The Associated Press reported a few minutes ago a Revolutionary Guards militia opened fire on a crowd and at least 1 protestor is dead and several more are wounded.
Apparently Ahmadinejad doesn’t know how to steal an election. None of this would be happening if he had “won” by a couple of percent. Getting greedy for “votes” he didn’t need was like shining a spotlight on a parked car he was trying to break into.
Yes Pelletizer, when you implement ACORN-like tactics people become agitated and wary.
@1 Hey Cyn, it’s not my cousin, dimwit. Besides which, you missed the point. Remember that the regime refused a permit for that rally. That crowd estimate may well have been off by a factor of ten (though looking at video, I doubt it), and if so it’d still be a major political earthquake in a country where a few hundred people holding an unpermitted rally is a rare and life-endangering event.
@8 At some point today BBC also reported 1 – 2 million.
The Teabaggers got 300,000 across the U.S.A.! Top THAT Iranian losers!
Poor Puddy says:
hahaha – Acorn has never been indicted for voter fraud. You are really going far rightwing nut site on us Puddy. Don’t you even know the difference between voter fraud and illegal voter registration – are you THAT ignorant?
By the way., I love how the non-racist GOP keeps having so many racist members:
Yup, these are the racist that Puddy loves and refuses to denounce. Nice friends you hang out with Puddy. Nice moral relativism.
Tel us again how the democrats back in the 50’s were racist….that is just soooo relevant to today and the racist Republican party.
Yes, it was only because of TWITTER that we know anything at all about what’s happening in Iran!
ALL HAIL TWITTER & give me wisdom in 140 character chunks!
I DEMAND to know each & every time Ahmadinejad takes a dump!
Poor NutsTooTight: he barfed:
Where did Puddy say “voter fraud? Fool, it’s their workers who are indicted.
Google ACORN registration fraud. They bring illegal registration ballots to the polls. All you need to do is to have illegal registered ballots and then the “magic votes” appear. As it said in the Nevade complaint illegal registration fraud. ACORN “invented” it.