things are getting interesting again

today huge numbers of people poured into the streets after the guardian council issued its final ruling on the election, they claim ahmadinejad won obviously and the demonstrations and protests are starting up in earnest again

fuck yes I thought they gave up

So I dunno if any of you guys follow this thing on Twitter but I have been for the past couple of weeks.  If you haven't been following but you have the resources, please consider setting up proxy servers to help combat the government's attempt to regulate internet usage.

I've also set up a log of websites that are openly trying to expose the identities of protesters.  There are a lot of these floating around out there and word is the Iranian government is using them as a resource to pinpoint protesters and detain/torture/kill them.

WhoIs Log of Attack sites

Message Board set up by Anonymous

Here's an example of one of the attack sites and a crude translation of the text on the page:

Disturbances and riots in the foundation that recently launch by disruptive elements is organized crime study center of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards called on the perpetrators and sedition should introduce insecurity.
This site reported, quoting the vortex (gerdab.ir) as is:
Unfortunately, this holiday Vhdtman enemy sign is gone and the control effort and maximum destructive hypocrites, monarchists and counter-revolutionary and terrorist groups in cyberspace and the media are nothing but disrupt the country social security and not for any other purpose to achieve this aim to get every weapon, even a terrorist strike actions to create wealth and lives of discontent and disarray use.

Therefore, all users hereby and Iranian families are expected if the personal data of any of the following photos and any news and information including photos, films, articles, news, email, web address, or complaints about the flow of disturbance of trade and demand of each group in cyberspace actions are destructive to stimulate activity through the site should have a purse to review information center organized Jzaym ordered.
See the photos in original size on they click.

There's a hosting company in Oakland, California called OnlineNIC.com that is hosting a couple of these.  If you're feeling froggy, check out the WhoIs log for contact infos and give these people a shout about it.

lol I'm already on enough fbi and cia lists as it is for taking farsi in the first place

but yeah, for those of you looking to get better coverage of iran than what is given in the western media, here are two websites in english you can check out to get translations of statements and speeches by mousavi, karroubi, ahmadinejad, khameni etc as well as all kinds of news and commentary as well

http://tehranbureau.com/
http://niacblog.wordpress.com/

any updates on this stuff?  i'm trying to watch the news but it's wall-to-wall michael jackson still.  it seems like they've dropped this story altogether even though it's obviously important!

yeah check out those links I posted above and read al-jazeera

al jazeera? heh.. like im gonna read a terror monkeys site

yeah, they're better than uh lets see every major news source produced in america anyway

ohio im pretty sure

haha yeah.. I just have access to the internet and my persian professor is very well connected in iran and through him and a friend of mine who translates the news for a special wire service translating company I get access to first hand sources and the news as its happening

I mean half the sites I go to would be worthless to you guys cause they're in persian so yeah, but you will hear about these sometimes on CNN or whatever when they're like 'according to Ghalam/Tabenak/Ilnah/Gooya/IRIB/Mehr/Sarmayeh/Amir Kabir/Radio Farda/Kayhan/whatever' all these are newspapers/websites/wire services coming out of iran and I just read them in my spare time (which cause I'm only working part time is a lot of time)

good sites to use to see what the fucks up in english:

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/latest-updates-on-iran-election-protests/
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-protest10-2009jul10,0,622206.story
http://niacblog.wordpress.com/
http://tehranbureau.com/

tehran bureau especially is excellent, because not only do they present the news but they also have high quality analysis and discussion of events, wheras the others are more liveblog kind of style, but on days like today they are so much better because you get up to the minute reports of whats going on straight from the horses mouth a lot of the time

speaking of today, today was crazy. thousands of demonstrators, shitload of allaho akbars and ya hossein mir hossein and marg bar khameni and marg bar diktator (but no marg bar amrika lol) bunch of people gettin the shit beat out of them by basijis and plainclothes cops, some deaths probably, but most of the dead arent making it to hospitals, they are just disappearing (militiamen and police carrying them off the streets to locations unknown) so its really difficult to get an accurate count of the dead, but more than likely todays count was less than 10. bunch of cars got lit on fire though and all of tehran was an absolute clusterfuck from noon till sunset

but yeah one interesting thing going down that they may or may not have reported in the western media, but the city of qom is practically under martial law. there are police patrolling the streets 24/7 and all the higher level clerics are being 'guarded' by police and the army (they're more than likely being watched rather than guarded).

as far as looking at the big picture of all this goes, some people say all this action over the last 5 years amounts to a takeover of the islamic republic by militant factions within the establishment, but these people are dumb and dont know their history because the islamic republic was taken over by military elements when the iran-iraq war started in the 80s. but what you are seeing is a huuuuuge rift in the clerical establishment and what I think is going on is that rafsanjani is just trying to get the entire assembly of experts on his side so he can depose khameni.

While this would be a step in a positive direction in my opinion, dont forget that while rafsanjani is certainly more liberal and would probably give the people of iran the liberties that they are crying out for, he is also the richest man in iran and very much in favor of free trade and a neoliberal trade regimen (do not forget... what do you think the Iran-CONTRA scandal was all about (it was rafsanjani buyin a bunch of illegal shit)) so while he is better than khameni, he is no hero. neither is mousavi but thats a different story.

obviously I am simplifying here but yeah baked posting

yeah wasn't mousavi tied to getting a bunch of people killed or something like that?

yeah wasn't mousavi tied to getting a bunch of people killed or something like that?

What kind of political leader would he be if he wasn't?


    Remember, there has never been very much unity among the clerical elites.  As the ideologies of the 79 revolution worked themselves out (and to a certain extent this is a continuing process) there was almost constant infighting.  Khomeini had to fight, kill, and strangely have demoted several prominent clerics before his position really solidified itself.  Khomeini was advocating a rather radical departure from the traditional values of Qom and Najaf and many of the clerics that eventually joined him, did so reluctantly.  Then again the ideological aspects of the revolution could be seen as a clerical response to their weakening role in society.  In other words, it's very possible that their role will soon be relegated to background.  Cannot say whether any of this is good or bad at the moment...

   By the way Washcycle, was Dr. Pourshariati still on sabbatical through the spring semester?  If you still haven't met her, you should get to know her.  I don't know what kind of teacher she is, but she has an absolutely brilliant mind.

I have not had the opportunity to meet professor pourshariati unfortunately, as she has been on sabbatical since I started at ohio state, but since she is basically one of 3 senior faculty in the persian department at osu I will certainly be meeting her this year, as I am the only person at osu actually majoring in persian so yeah haha. I believe I will be taking 'History of Iran' with her winter quarter though. howd you meet her?

while I agree with you teron, I think one thing that is currently uniting a lot of the qom clerics is their opposition to khameni/ahmadinejad. I dont know what they stand to gain by throwing their lot in with the likes of rafsanjani, but maybe they are more pragmatic than I ever gave them credit for lol

    She wrote a fascinating book on the Sassanian/conquest periods.  (I originally looked her up because she was a student of Richard Bulliet, who I am very much fond of)  While I don't agree with everything she says in it, over the course of 500 pages she makes hundreds of compelling arguments.  Almost every page made me stand up and reassess the whole situation. (literally stand up, took me forever to finish the book heh)  I've never had an intellectual experience like that and if I had ended up at OSU's grad program she would have been a big part of it.  But yea, I met her when she spoke at my old school and she was a huge help to me in orienting myself for the grad school application process.  (which is really no fun by the way)

how was getting into the university of chicago btw? cause the most marketable of my interests is in economics and given my persian skills, interest in linguistics and archaeology plus chicago = amazing potential resources for research and funding. only problem is I kinda stand against the chicago school on everything lol. I'm considering getting in contact with the agha khan culture initiative while I'm in tajikistan and seeing if I can work for them for a while and see if they'll pay for a grad degree for me but who knows, I have so many fucking options open to me. luckily for me, farsi speakers and specialists on central asia are in high demand and that need isnt going to be diminished any time soon. I've just gotta deal with next school year, an entire year abroad and then a quarter after that and I am done with my bachelors

but yeah right now for grad school I am considering chicago, u of michigan, uc berkeley and university of hawaii (this is if I decide to get really baked and be an ethnomusicologist lol). chicago sounds like a bitch to get into and hella expensive though, whats your experience been with it so far?

    Yea its been an interesting experience, but Chicago looks like its going to be perfect for me.  I'm very interested (obsessed maybe?  depends on who you ask) in the early Islamic period through to the tenth century.  So there aren't many places in America that offer much in the way of organized programs on that subject.  But Chicago has Fred Donner and a number of other people in their NELC and History departments.  But yea, I don't plan on getting involved in their economics department, but as far as history goes their politics suit me fine.  (not so much in the economics..)  But yea if you want to talk more about the grad school process just pm me your aim or whatever. 

u guys and ur fertile crescents lol