Elections in Iran are worth a sack of potatoes
People rioting in Teheran (Photo: AP, Politico). The elections were rigged. The ugly dictatorship showed it's true face: Sending police on the street who are beating everyone senseless who doesn't look like he voted 'properly' (that means 'for Ahmadinejad'). That clown can declare victory, continue to spew his nonsense and hatered, while making his country even a bigger joke, but I feel bad for those young Iranians who honestly wanted change. They are influenced by the West, they wanna be part of the world, but have a brutal regime with almost no freedoms (it's basically not allowed that a man and a woman say 'hello' on the street unless they're married). And did you see on TV how Ahmadinejad campaigned? When he came to the country side, people greeted him with 'death to America' shoutouts. And to convince them to vote for him, he was giving some of them sacks of potatoes and cash. Unbelievable! Countryside Iranians can be so stupid sometimes. And if you ask me, these elections are one big fat joke, too!
28 KAFKAESQUE COMMENTS:
Countryside people in Iran do need a sack of potatoes, because they are starving at this very moment. They can't buy anything if they get more personal freedom or whatsoever.
June 14, 2009 7:40 PM
I don't know how many people in Iran are starving in this very moment and were 'saved' with Ahmadinejad's sack of potatoes, but I can tell you if so, they are saved for a month maybe. It's not a long term solution and it's pretty pathetic that a president gives potatoes and cash to people when he campaigns, but when he's elected those regions are fogotten. It's phony and stupid. He doesn't care about those people. That was the point i was trying to make.
June 14, 2009 8:44 PM
For sure, I have no doubt at all that YOU know the word long-term.
I just had a look at Iran using google earth. It's such a beautiful country.
June 14, 2009 9:09 PM
Trying to provoke me? Well, you're not succeeding. I know what you wanna imply, but I have no mood to go into a conversation where I know someone is trying to mock me. And to clarify: One is Iran's beautiful landscape, but his brutal stupid regine is something else. I can distinguish between those two. And my post was talking bout the latter.
June 14, 2009 9:16 PM
I'm gonna have to say that Asshatinajad is... an ass hat.
I somehow can't believe that he legitimately won the election. Rigging is more than common in countries like Iran. Also, he used propaganda and cheap bribes to win votes from the countryside areas.
I'll have to agree that the people in Iran's countryside aren't very bright. They're thinking short-term, instead of long-term. It has nothing to do with freedoms putting food on their plate. It has to do with removing from power a fool that is going to ruin their country with his provocative international stance. If a real government with real leaders were put in place in Iran, the country could open up to the rest of the world, become more modern, and in the long run become a place where businesses would invest. Business investments would amount to more currency in Iran's economy, meaning people would be able to buy more and live better.
Asshatinajad is just another corrupt leader using corrupt methods to maintain his corrupt regime. This is nothing special though. The current Philippines president rigged her election and is now trying to fuck over the people further by trying to pressure the legislature into rewriting the constitution to extend her presidency period.
The reason countries like Iran and the Philippines aren't world powers and are impoverished is not because of a problem on the part of the people, but a problem with the government. As long as a government is overly corrupt, the country can't prosper, and with this guy still in office, Iran will only suffer more.
June 14, 2009 11:19 PM
@Brad, very good comment. I totally agree. What is there to say more :)
June 14, 2009 11:25 PM
Please, I don't want to provoke anyone, I just want to provoke some thoughts.
As You pointed out in Your article "Country side Iranians can be so stupid". Well maybe uneducated would be a better word, I guess. If we have an small educated elite and students in Teheran and a lot of farmers elsewhere, then the result of the elections totally make sense. Both, the votes and the riots.
Unfortunately You cannot change people, people can only change themselves.
June 14, 2009 11:31 PM
Why can't I say the way it is? They can be stupid! I saw it on TV. To salute the president they shouted like 10 times 'death to America', 'death to Israel'. First of all, isn't islam peace? Death to America seems so unislamic then. Anyway, the stupid part is that they buy everything the government tells them. That's not uneducated, it's stupid. Vote for someonoe who gives you cash or potatoes - stupid! Don't need education to see thru these phony gifts. And I did not say I wanna change anyone. I just shared my opinion on the stupid regime in Iran and the phony elections.
June 14, 2009 11:41 PM
@Junjie.. you're always welcome to comment, even if it looks provocative to me, I like to be challenged :)
June 14, 2009 11:43 PM
Sure, it's a pleasure :)
Let me pick an extreme example to explain my point.
In North Korea there are some gulags for those who misbehaved. As You might know, if You do something really bad, not only You will stay in prison, but also You kids, grandchildren and grandgrandchildren. That's the law of the 3 generation punishment.
So basically there a lot of people born in those gulags, working camps or prisons. Basically noone ever escapes. Some guy however did (You can find him on Youtube). He seems like a smart guy to me, but when I heard what he says, something became clear to me.
He said, he was born in the gulag and lived there for several decades. He was told stories from outside by those who newly arrived there. He never believed those stories, yet he wanted to find out if those stories from outside were true. And as he didn't like the life inside the gulag he decided to flee, accepting the risks if he failed.
When he came to the first village outside he was totally confused. He saw people wearing other colors than the regular gray and brown they wear in the gulag. He couldn't believe it's technically possible to wear clothes other than gray or brown in color. This was an world shattering experience to him seeing people wearing red, blue, green and yellow. Can You imagine such a situation?
As he traveled further he learned many things. For example he learned that there is something called "country" and that there are many of those countries in this world. Can You imagine that? You are, say, 30 years old and then someone tells You the world is bigger than the village You live in.
This guy surely was not dumb, but definitely uneducated. The Iran countryside people are not stupid (some are). The government decides what they hear and learn. And they learn this shit from their birth. They are victims of massive brainwashing. Heck, Ahmadinejad might be a victim of his own parents wrong-education. If he grew up in London and his parents as well, he'd be a totally different person. But that doesn't free him of the obligation to change himself, something he can only do for himself.
You, me and anyone else, including the Iranian people, can only make decisions based on the information available. And this makes me consider the possibility, the elections might not be faked at all. On the other hand I agree with Joe Biden: I cannot prove anything, but I do have doubts.
June 15, 2009 6:19 AM
I said: Country side Iranians can be so stupid.
You said: The Iran countryside people are not stupid (some are).
I guess I was pretty clear. I did not generalize or use a stereotype. I said they 'can be so stupid'. This small remark of mine is the whole point of your reply. What you say IS a generalization: 'The Iran countryside people are not stupid' And when you noticed that, you tried to make an exception and add (some are). Well, either you're saying the same as I was or I have no clue what you're trying to proove.
I never said they are all stupid and I will never say all of them are not stupid. I think it's very hard for me to fully judge the stupidity rate of rural Iranians, that's why I said they 'can be so stupid.' I'm saying that because I saw what I saw and I just share my opinion. That doesn't mean they can't be uneducated. They can be both, uneducated and stupid. It's not mutually exclusive. They can even have some education and still be stupid. I'm judging them by the stupid things they do, not by their IQ-tests. That was my whole point of this post: I wrote what I saw on TV. A report on Ahmadinejad's campaign and it showed how he campaigned in villages, where his political base is.
I am 100% sure the elections were rigged! Iran has around 70 million inhabitants. 60% of the whole population is urban (Check Wikipedia). 11% live in Tehran. If those people on Tehran's streets say the elections were rigged, hell yea, I believe them. They wouldn't riot just for fun, wouldn't they?
June 15, 2009 6:53 AM
I think what Junjie is trying to say is that we should exterminate every last North Korean and rural Iranian, to break the cycle of stupidity, since they don't know there's a bigger world outside their village.
Oh, and he doesn't like brown or grey.
June 15, 2009 1:44 PM
quote >> he was giving some of them sacks of potatoes and cash. Unbelievable! Country side Iranians can be so stupid.
<< endquote
That implies to me, that the number of stupid people is equal to those who accepted the potatoes and voted for Ahmadinejad therefore.
My idea is that the percentage of stupid Iranian people is equal to the percentage of stupid German or Slovenian people, which means a very low number. Definitely less than 10%, maybe less than 1%.
Therefore all the trouble :) Sorry, if I got You wrong there.
June 15, 2009 4:46 PM
@Junjie, it's not only that they allow themselves to be bribed with cash and sacks of potatoes, I also said how they shouted 'death to America'. All these things together gave me the impression that those I've seen on TV were utterly stupid. This converstation is getting absurd. I'm sure there's more stupid people in Iran than Germany or Slovenia. I'm not saying that because I thought we in the West are superior, it's because we have free press, better schools, a better system. That's how we tackled our stupidity rate through the decades. A dictatirship wants to have stupid people, so they can manipulate them. We saw that these days. And a very religious country also won't develop science and independent thinking, because 'god' is always nuber 1, the rest is unimportant. It's an environment where stupidity thrives.
@Brad, thanks, you nailed it as always. :) I also think he wants to exterminate stupidity by teaching us we are wrong ;-)
June 15, 2009 5:16 PM
Iran is no democracy. A country run by religious fanatics is not a democracy. America was like for the previous 8 years. Fortunately, we're done with that now.
June 15, 2009 7:04 PM
@not so sure, I am aware of that as I named it 'ugly dictatorship'. These elections are a farse.
June 15, 2009 7:17 PM
well....i dont think so that Ahmedinejad is that bad as people are thinking!!
after all he won by 65% of vote!
and ofcource the muslim countries are also with him!!!
no hard feeling
regards
www.getsalman.blogspot.com
June 15, 2009 10:40 PM
@Salman, noooooooo, he's not that bad. He only lied and bribed during the campaign and now he's keeping his opponent in house arest while the riot police he deployed on Tehran's streets are beating everyone senseless. He's a holocaust denier and threatens to wipe off another country. He can't be bad. No hard feelings ;-)
June 15, 2009 10:43 PM
Uh, not to mention that he rigged the election, so that 65% doesn't count.
June 15, 2009 10:56 PM
@Brad, haha.. yea, I forgot that. It was probaby 65% for his opponent, but we'll never know. Those asshats will let the people riot some more before they send military on the streets and copy the Chinese 1989.
June 15, 2009 10:58 PM
The riots drew a lot of attention, but there's no international support going to the protesters, so you're right. Nothing will come of it. They'll act out for a while and then they'll be put down and things will continue down the same dark road.
June 15, 2009 11:00 PM
We have spoken to Iranian Students in jan 2009, all we will say is they were going to Nottingham Britain, they said unanimously & freely that they want their country free but also without interference from the west as thay saw the system here as corrupt as theirs, & they did have a point, ie if you got money or can pretend you have then everything is yours
June 15, 2009 11:21 PM
@Zoe Realm, hahaha... glad those students saw our Western system corrupt as theirs. That must have been very reassuring to them. LOL. Let's bash the West a little, we ain't much better, you see every election rigged here as well and the police is beating us every day on the street! :-)
June 15, 2009 11:26 PM
I don't know about police beatings, but some would argue that a few recent elections in the US have all been rigged, and I can't argue that our so called democracy is corrupt and out of control. It no longer works for the people. It only works for itself. If the US government worked for the people then we'd never have gone to war with Iraq in the first place, because no one wanted that shit. Afghanistan was fine because it was obvious that they were the Taliban headquarters and the Taliban blew up our shit. Iraq on the other hand... WTF did we go there for again? Imaginary Weapons of Mass Destruction? Wut? Hidden bombs in the sand dunes? Fuck Bush.
June 15, 2009 11:32 PM
@Brad, that's true. The 2000 elections are questionable. Anyway, I still think it's by far not as bad in the West. The US democracy is not only the presidential election, how about governors, senators, congressmen? I'm not saying the West is perfect, but it's a cheap argument to compare what the Iranian regime is doing for the last 30 years. People have no freedom! Before and after these phony elections. I've seen a lot of reports recently on life in Iran. Basically young people are not alowed to hang out in groups of mixed gender. Women have little to no freedoms and rights. It's a fascist fundamentalist police state and even under Bush USA was million times better off.
June 15, 2009 11:37 PM
Oh I never said the US was as bad as Iran. I just wanted to rant about some of the retarded shit that goes on there sometimes.
June 15, 2009 11:41 PM
I didn't mean you, Brad. I meant the Pink zoe Real, the commenttator before you. She said how some Iranian students came to Britain and 'saw the system was corrupt as theirs'. WTF?? How can you see that so fast? Just seemed like a cheap made-up argument. I don't buy it :)
June 15, 2009 11:43 PM
Ah, I see. Well, Iran has a government that leads from the top down, and that's never a good thing. Government should represent the will of the nation, and the nation consists of the people, not the one guy that's been been designated spokesperson (president) and certainly not the ayatollahs. Those jokers have been in power too long, oppressing people with outdated, over-zealous religious law. It's time the Iranian people were exposed to western culture and western government, because it's not the devil Bobby. It's really not.
June 15, 2009 11:47 PM
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