there's some really amazing nonviolent footage coming out now.

http://www.freehumans.org/

almost all the clips on here. the top video in particular shows HOW MANY iranians are taking to the streets. i've never seen anything like it.

what happens in this neda video?

she bleeds to death

I think it's actually as funny as it is disturbing. The resolution is just business as usual. A miniscule and insignificant exercise of "political pressure" that means more to the politicians' PR than to the situation. So no matter if you vote for or against it, you're still using the situation as a means of profiling yourself.

It's not so much the insignificance of it which renders it meaningless, it's the whole history that the US has had with Iran that makes the whole thing a pretty infuriating sick joke.

Iranian guardian council admits there are irregularities in the votes

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/6/22/after_a_day_of_deadly_protests

yeah except they dont give a shit and followed up this announcement by stating that the irregularities they found (in 50 cities more people voted than eligible to vote) weren't enough to swing the election in any manner

I dont know what they're saying in the western media or on aljazeera even but the death toll is now in the hundreds and thousands have been arrested or detained unlawfully

the basiji are fuckin all over the place on motorcycles and riot police have been using live rounds to disperse crowds since friday so yeah its getting uglier

gooya has been so fucking gory the last couple days christ

I honestly dont know, but I wouldnt be surprised one way or the other

the other issue with that is, even if it is illegal to own firearms or other weapons people probably still own them en masse anyways

it also doesnt really matter because the protestors and such (the word the news keeps using means demonstrators, protestors and opposition(ers) all at once) are trying their damndest to have peaceful protests in the first place but its kinda hard when you're gettin fired at with water cannons, tear gas, and rubber/wood/live rounds. dont expect civilians to try an armed insurrection (or even carrying arms to protect themselves) just yet. they are still working within the framework of the islamic republic, so as a movement they want to maintain as much legitimacy as they can until there is a final ruling on the election (which there pretty much already has been, but mousavi and karroubi are far from giving up). they will only resort to violence themselves once far more serious lines have been crossed on the part of the police, the army and the militia. the situation isnt there yet, but its coming if shit stays the same way it was this weekend

also: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/17/743478/-Ahmadinejad-Rally-Photoshopped-to-Appear-Larger lol

well if you were iranian you'd always have that whole shia martyrdom obsession goin for you

I can only imagine the high those people must get from gettin the shit beat out of them by the riot police ALLAHU AKBAR EFTEKHAR O JELAALAMMMM

    Yea, this group is unlikely to begin a full scale revolution.  In effect, the current protests seem to be more symptoms of a power struggle within the Islamic Republic itself rather than an expression of revolutionary feelings.  That being said, there are other groups in Iran that have those capabilities, but I don't think the results would be too favorable for Iran.  Although, I do not know how the situation has changed since the election, as I have been cutoff from my sources of information. (feel kind of helpless)

yeah I dont see the protestors doing much other than getting killed honestly

cause right now whats goin on is mousavi is like 'elections were bullshit, we're gonna protest till you (guardian council) fix the problem' and khameni is like 'ahmadinejad won I'm gonna swear him in' and rafsanjani is like 'oh no you didnt bitch, I'm goin to qom to get all the other ayatollahs in a tizzy' and larijani is all over the place though its hard to say what exactly hes doin but yeah there is a serious shakeup goin on inside the actual functioning body of the islamic republic and ahmadinejad basically has his hands tied cause he doesnt actually have any power (whoops lol)

the only way a full scale revolution would start is if the protests swell and the military and the militias decide to exclusively use lethal force to contain the protests, and then you will see the exact same thing that happened in 1979. all the soldiers and militiamen will say fuck this I'm not going to slaughter my countrymen and they'll lay down their weapons and join the opposition. I think thats a ways off yet though. people forget that the islamic revolution started in 1978 and didnt finish until 1981. its a blunt and rather heartless way of putting it, but a lot more people have to die before there will be a regime change

wash cycle you should post some sources man because i havent heard anything about a death toll in the hundreds and if thats true that paints a significantly different picture from what i have been told

so yeah dude where you gettin this shit

uh, wc's the ayatollah guys

I love your reports WC, keep them coming. I take it you're translating Iranian news sources?

I was surprised when Ali Khamenei backed Ahmadinejad completely and people still went on like nothing, the rallies got only bigger. I thought the supreme leader was a big enough authority to at least cool people down a little. What's up with this?

yeah directly from iranian news

theres a news collective called 'gooya' which means 'saying' or 'speaking' (both nouns) and they are basically like google news but in persian, they take all the most important stories from the various news outlets in persian and put them all in one ticker and I just read them in my free time

but yeah the reason people didnt listen to khameni is cause they know the whole election was a sham and they dont really give a damn what he has to say because they know he no longer stands for the people, but instead for his own interests

its become rather tedious in the last couple days translating this stuff though cause its really starting to get repetitive

karroubi/mousavi makes a speech saying "down with tyranny, stand up for your rights, protest peacefully, re-examine the election, take into consideration the irregularities'
ahmadinejad says nothing
khameni says 'reformists do not have any legal right to be protesting the way they are, they are in direct defiance of the islamic republic and should be punished'
a shitload of journalists get arrested
a bunch of people get killed
riots are ongoing
the (fill in ethnic group) are attempting a general strike (last week it was the Lurs, this week its the Kurds)

the only thing right now thats really up in the air in my opinion is whats goin on with Rafsanjani and Larijani, they seem to be the only ones capable of really pulling any strings for the reformists and they have been fairly tightlipped about what they've been up to, though they have been making frequent visits to esfahan and qom to meet with senior clerics and other officials so I dunno. it remains to be seen what will go down from here, but one things for certain, the iranian people wont put up with needless bloodshed for too long before they are spurred into action