A federal judge today blocked many of the key provisions of the Arizona Immigration law. Score one for the Constitution and rationality.

Aside from the aspects of this law that institutionalized racism (giving BS lip service to, “We won’t racially profile while we’re racially profiling.”), this law created a huge government intrusion into Americans’ lives.

For the Repubs, yes, Mexican Americans, Arab Americans, etc. are Americans too even though they’re not Anglo Americans.

But the buzz among the MSM is less about the details and more about, “Does this hurt the Democrats in November?” “Does this hurt Obama?” So, though the MSM wants to shove every issue into the political horse race meat grinder, the judge seems to have actually considered the practical ramifications of the AZ police arresting a massive amount of people and having to verify their citizenship or else be sued by citizens for not fully enforcing the law.

The net result would be innocent Americans being detained for undetermined amounts of time though they did nothing illegal, enormous costs to the AZ taxpayers and a squandering of law enforcement resources to house and process all of the people caught up in this poorly thought out law.

Meanwhile, McCain and Kyl block any attempt at a sensible immigration law wailing “NO AMNESTY!”, along with the rest of Republicans, because it’s to their political advantage to rile up the RW who hate “ferners” and non-whites…while attacking Congress for not passing reform. As with gay marriage and abortion, they don’t want a solution, they want the issue to continue because it helps raise money for their campaigns and rally their voters to the polls.

When the SCOTUS rules in favor of corporations, the GOP heralds the judicial process. When a state’s immigration law is found to conflict with federal jurisdiction, the judicial process is corrupt.

It’s like playing Monopoly with a self-centered eight year old brat, when things go his way, it’s great. When they don’t, he knocks the pieces around or kicks the board over. He doesn’t respect the rules unless they work for him. He isn’t there to play a game, he’s there to win a game and anything that gets between him and winning is the enemy.

Just as with the RW/Rove method of calling those who complain about racism, “racists”, we continue to be spiraling down in the world of public discourse, we seem to now matter-of-factly accept that one party (and one news network) are openly racist but because they make a strong argument for why they shouldn’t be viewed for what they are, many let them off the hook.

Will open racism end when a white man is president again? Sadly, I think it may decrease when those who are racist “feel” like white people are in control again.

We can thank The Founders for not making federal judgeships elected positions, one can only imagine how much worse this nation would be with judges pandering to Tea Partiers and Birthers.

The first years of Obama’s presidency may be remembered for many things but one of the inescapable results has been a renaissance of racism.

We have become far too familiar with the racism spewing from those on the right including the Teabaggers, all of the racist references, accusations, images and statements.

Now, it has become further institutionalized (unfortunately, instead of those on the Racist Right becoming institutionalized) by the state of Arizona which the extremists have hijacked.

This racist legislation comes as the piece de resistance in a recent string of…well, extremist…and socially destructive policies and laws rammed through by the Republican Party in AZ including, as appears in a TPM article:

• June 29, 2009: From the annals of desperate measures, the state considers a plan to sell the House and Senate buildings to raise some quick cash. Under the proposed plan, the House and Senate would lease the buildings over a number of years before buying them back again. Though not actually a piece of legislation, the state’s plan was so bizarre that it prompted The Daily Show team to run a segment on it.

• September 30, 2009: The state passes a law allowing those with concealed weapons permits to bring their guns into bars and restaurants. The law stipulates that any establishment with a sign prohibiting guns is off-limits for those packing heat, though it also provides plenty of loopholes to keep toters from having to disarm too frequently.

• February 9, 2010: State Rep. Frank Antenori (R) introduces legislation, co-sponsored by twelve other House members, to cut off welfare funding to any recipients who spend money on cigarettes, alcohol, cable TV packages, a car, or anything else he deems of “the niceties of life.” Antenori said of his proposed legislation: “If you’re basically hungry and can’t afford to feed yourself, then I don’t think you should be able to afford to buy cigarettes.”

• March, 2010: Arizona votes to repeal KidsCare, a health insurance program for poor children. Not only did the repeal cut health care for about 38,000 kids, but it also may have violated a provision in the recently passed health care reform bill that requires states to maintain its previous standards of eligibility. The move thus jeopardes the billions of dollars the state receives in Medicaid funding from the federal government.

• April 7, 2010: Arizona’s Attorney General, Democrat Terry Goddard, refused to join the lawsuit to repeal health care reform that was brought by a number of other state AGs, so Gov. Jan Brewer is on the lookout for other ways. The conservative-backed Goldwater Institute helpfully offered to bring the suit, and Brewer is reportedly considering the offer.

• April 15, 2010: The Arizona House approves a bill to strengthen abortion requirements, following its passage in the Senate. If signed into law by the governor, the bill would require abortion providers to report on the individual abortions they perform. Though the names of the women would remain confidential, the bill would also require statistics on how many times courts bypassed parental consent laws, among other things.

• April 20, 2010: A bill that would require presidential candidates to prove their citizenship before appearing on Arizona’s ballot wins initial approval from the Arizona state House. The bill still needs final approval from the House and state Senate before it gets sent to Gov. Brewer, but if it passes it would require President Obama to present his birth certificate if he hopes to get on the Arizona ballot in 2012.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/crazing-arizona-how-a-state-went-from-swinging-in-08-to-out-on-a-limb-in-2010-1.php

Under this wack Repub government, AZ sounds like an Orwellian police state run as an Idiocracy, like a Nazi occupied Casablanca (“Show me your papers…and your Letters of Transit!”) where the Nazis are played by angry cavemen.

The silver lining in this is that these would seem to be the last throes of the need for white supremacy in America. Maybe it’s not a coincidence that AZ hosts a large amount of retired people, it is the older white people who percentage-wise are most fearful and prejudiced towards minorities. They remember the comfort of white supremacy, of black people averting their eyes and sitting at the back of the bus.

The concept of AZ, let alone America, not having a white majority that is superior is upsetting to them. But that is the clear course of the future.

This may have been a blessing in disguise. Most of the country, even some Republicans, have banded together to confront such racism. Talks of boycotts, legal action and even renewed immigration reform legislation in Congress has resulted from this outrage.

The ironic outcome could be to both taint the RW and Baggers as the racists they are while possibly establishing immigration reform that will treat human beings who have been good members of society humanely while restricting hateful white people from using the law to oppress those who aren’t white.

Apartheid is not American, it will not be tolerated.

I came across a site that contained a test Harvard created for a study which tries to measure your conscious and even subconscious biases. The have bias tests for race like black and white, ethnicity, religiosity, gender preference, sexuality, disability, age, weight, weapons and ever your preference towards President Obama. I took three tests and thought my results were pretty interesting.

In the test for racial preference between African Americans and European Americans I showed a preference for African Americans.

In the test for religions I showed a strong preference for Islam, below average feelings for Christian and Jewish faith equally and well below average for Buddhism. Now I still don’t think I have any preferences toward any religion and I can probably explain my “scores” based on the words they used. I was familiar with the Muslim, Christian and Jewish terms the most and to me the Muslim terms were most recognizable while I think I subconscious conflated the Christian and Jewish terms in my mind a bit that slowed my responses. Whereas I was just not as familiar with the Buddhist terms accounting for that outlier.

In the test involving President Obama I showed no preference for him over President FDR. I think since I got all the responses “right” in this case there was no preference. You will see what I mean if you take a test.

It’s called Project Implicit^® and you can click here to take a test or two.

Cher did an interesting piece about a test that measured liberal and conservative leanings about a week ago that inspired this post.

I think we all recognize that poverty in our nation has increased in the past three years, but what is not so much discussed is that it has been increasing steadily over the past 10 years.  In the past 10 years, millions of Americans who work full-time have consistently fallen below the poverty line and it is almost as though they are unemployed as well.

Any person who works full-time responsibly in this country should be able to earn enough to rise above the poverty line and have decent healthcare.  Our President and the Democratic congress took care of the latter and now it is time to address the former.  No economic system based on having 37 million of it’s citizens(as of 2007) living in poverty or only 1%-5% holding the most wealth can survive.  There needs to be an honest critique of capitalism in this country.  The McCarthyism that derides anyone who dares to question the perfection of unbridled capitalism needs to be confronted and soon.

Shortly after LBJ took office, he declared a “war on poverty”.  Through his efforts of abatement our country implemented Head Start, Medicare and Medicaid.  This war was fought on many fronts by people who recognized that poverty has many causes and consequences and it was a noble war that spoke to the deepest spiritual beliefs of the American people.  How much more successful would George Bush and his Republican led congress have been had they declared a “war on poverty” instead of their “war on terror”? 

Since the days of LBJ the war on poverty has gradually mutated into a war against the poor, a punative approach that places pressure on the “least of these”, our fellow Americans.  Today we need a 21rst Century version of the War on Poverty.  And we cannot just expect the government to fight it alone, it needs to be a partnership between the Private sector and Government.  With Healthcare signed into law, we now need to look at seriously reforming education(which President Obama has already started) and we need to deal with the minimum wage.  We need to learn to deal with poverty more agressively when it arises and to prevent poverty before it starts. 
Why is it that some people will excuse their lack of action by replying, “there will always be the poor among us”?

The injustices of an individual working full time at minimum wage, only to be rewarded with poverty, is not what this nation was founded on.  An individual working full time at the current national minimum wage, $7.25 per hour as of summer 2009,  will earn $15,370.00 prior to taxes.  Forget benefits because most employers who pay minimum wage do not provide benefits.  Add to that single worker the scenario of a single mother with two children and I think the picture becomes quite depressing very quickly.  What is the cost of a healthcare premium for one year, what about food, clothing and shelter?  It is very clear from the chart of minimum wage increases since 1955 which party has done the most on behalf of the workers, and it still has not been enough.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html

Far from getting ahead, minimum wage workers have been steadily falling behind for at least the past 10 years.  As of 2006, the minimum wage had not been adjusted since 1997, so for 9 years it steadily lost it’s value.  During this same time pay for Congress went from $133k per year to $174k in 2009.  The increase alone amounted to nearly triple the annual income for a full time minimum wage worker(using only 2009 figures), if you go back the numbers are worse, much worse.  Tom Delay, an ardent opponent of increasing the minimum wage, made this statement in 2005 on a pay raise for congress

“It’s not a pay raise,” said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. “It’s an adjustment so that they’re not losing their purchasing power.”  and made this plea on the floor of congress, “Mr. Speaker, I will tell you something, Members of this House have families.  They have 2 homes, in most cases.  Some members are living in their offices because they cannot afford a second residence…..I am not making excuses or apologizing, it is difficult to raise a family and serve in Congress….My wife and my children suffer enough.”

Really?  Are you kidding me, Really?  At least we don’t have knowledge of DeLay staying at C Street, because that would make his plea even more insidious.  What about the purchasing power of millions of Americans, do they not count?  I am sure the members of Congress have a hard time making it but a fast food worker cannot even afford one home, much less two.  I doubt if Congress’ suffering is going to make America’s top 10 list of America’s most disadvantaged groups.  I am not saying they do not deserve the pay they get, and some might disagree with me on that, but don’t deny the same fair treatment to other Americans.

If corporations had been stagnant during this time period, you might be able to justify the mimimum wage, but that is not the case.  In fact when the “to big to fail” Banks nearly took our economy over the cliff they received attention within days and not much discussion was allowed prior to the “bottom falling out of our economy”.  And despite the tax benefits to Corporate America, they have been steadily moving operations offshore where they can pay a worker $0.50 an hour, if that.  Our manufacturing base has nearly disappeared and the United States is quickly turning into a “service industry” society.  Toga parties, conferences at posh resorts, parties in Las Vegas, have all been taken on the backs of the poor in this country.  Inequality, we  all know, is surging.  This erosion is neither an accident nor the product of apathy, it is the result of  a deliberate policy choice of the right.

Maury Weidenbaum, one of Ronald Reagan’s Economic Advisors once said:

If we had our druthers, we would have eliminated the minimum wage. 

Former Congressman from Pennsylvania, Bob Edgar, commented on this saying:

Since that would have been such a “painful political process”, he and other officials were content to let inflation turn the mimimum wage into an “effective dead letter”.

My question is where and how did the United States breed such distasteful and evil people?  Like Teddy Kennedy asked of the Senate, “Have you no shame?” Look at the Republican record(link above) when they hold the majority in congress.  What about the recent extension of unemployment, their stand on the recent jobs bill?  Do these members of Congress really have a bead on the public sentiment or have they spent so much time in the Beltway that they are immune to what happens in the real world?  Do they ever wonder about that worker who hands them a sandwich for their lunch and how they might be surviving?  The Right has two myths regarding the minimum wage; 1) increasing the minimum wage would destroy millions of jobs and 2) nobody actually earns the minimum wage, except for teenagers.  The contradictions of these two myths is amazing.  Millions of jobs have been sent overseas anyway and far more adults in this day are making minimum wage, and for millions more the minimum wage sets a floor that determines their pay.  Sometime when you have a few hours to spend, peruse the want ads, you will find entry level jobs for college graduates with at least a Bachelor of Arts starting not much higher than $30k a year, for High School graduates, it is around $20k, if you can find many these days.

Those working at or below minimum wage perform some of the most important jobs in our society, home health aides to the elderly and daycare workers for our children.  What about the hospitality industry?  Without them, these CEO’s couldn’t sleep in their “heavenly beds” in a hotel room that is clean as a whistle, nor could they entertain their important clients at the many restaurants in this country.  Who would stock the shelves in our stores, keep the offices clean, clean the pools, keep their golf courses groomed, provide the laundry services for their hospital beds?  Who would do all of this in the absence of minimum wage workers?  You can bet the wealthy would be complaining if these workers were suddenly gone and they would not feel the least bit bad about it, in fact they would find a 1000 ways to justify their whining and complain about the welfare roles.

Rewarding a hard day’s work with poverty is an abomination, but what we have not done is to frame a living wage as a “values issue”.  These workers work as hard as any other American.  We see them everyday, we smile, they smile back but the heartache and sturggles they face at home are invisible to us.  The minimum wage should be framed as a values issue in that it must be a living wage that properly reflects the cost of housing, food and other needs in individual markets.  A living wage in Arkansas would not be a living wage in New York or Los Angeles and should be adjusted based on the demographic. 

In some states responsible people have stood up for these people, led by grassroots activists, and minimum wage increases were passed by overwhelming margins.  In California the minimum wage as of January 1, 2008 was $8.00 an hour, $.75 above the national wage but still not enough.  There is an old African proverb that reads:

If you want to walk fast, walk alone.  If you want to go far, walk together.

The 9th Psalm verses 17-18 says:

The wicked bought a one way ticket to hell. For the needy shall not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the poor perish forever.

Government and Private Industry need to work together, they need to “go far” not “go fast”.  So when the far right pulls out their “government is not the answer”, tell them it is the only institution capable of compelling corporations and individuals to observe the rules of fair play in the marketplace.  I don’t think the poor and middle class in this country want a big share of the wealth redistributed, they just want a fighting chance.

I. History of Nowruz

Imagine it’s the fifth century before the Common Era, on a plain bejeweled with a magnificent palace complex and flowing gardens, with the coffee brown Zagros mountains in the distance, and a sky the color of lapis lazuli. Colorful tents and scents all around, wafting in the breeze. Trumpets; drums and bustle. Nobles astride steeds with their retinues, and representatives from thirty nations line up to present the King of Kings, the Shahenshah, with gifts from their lands, be it neighboring Babylonia, or far-flung Ionia, Egypt, Libya, India and anywhere in between. In ancient times, as to the Iranian mind today, Iran truly was the center of the universe.

We are at Persepolis, the Hellenization of what the ancient Persians called Parsa. Today it is known in Persian as Takht-e Jamshid, the ‘Throne of Jamshid,’ after the mythical King of Persia in Ferdowsi’s national epic, the Shahnameh, which kept alive the earlier Yima (cf. Vedic Yama) of the Zoroastrian holy book, the Avesta (itself absorbing the earlier Indo-Iranian myth). This is how the Persian name took root over time in the root of the Iranian imagination and folklore as the past was half-forgotten and mythologized. In reality, the initial completion of Persepolis was finished under Darius the Great.

Please take a few minutes at your leisure to view part of this video, from the documentary, “Persepolis Recreated,” which also digitally recreates, as the name suggests, what Persepolis would have looked at at the time:

It is Nowruz, and the Shahenshah is hosting the greatest empire in the world at his ceremonial capital in the foundation of the first great Persian Empire, the Achaemenid Empire, in the modern province of Fars (approximately 45 miles northeast of the city Shiraz). We know that the actual administrative center of  the Achaemenids at that time was Susa (also home to the Tomb of Daniel and the setting of the Book of Esther). Persepolis was officially a summer residence, but moreover, it appears to have been built for purely propagandistic and ritual purposes, but also housed a great treasury and library.

Nowruz (transliteration varies greatly), Persian for ‘New Day,’ is New Year’s Day on the Iranian calendar, beginning on the first day of the month Farvardin. It is celebrated by peoples and nations with a heritage of Iranian ancestry or links to Persian culture: Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, the Caucasus, Kurdish regions (an Iranian people), India, even in the Muslim Balkan countries.  Over the years in recent history Nowruz has been banned by the Soviets in Azerbaijan, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and there was even a campaign by the most radical Islamists after the 1979 Islamic Revolution to erase it from the calendar.

Nowruz, since at least the time of Persepolis, has been celebrated on the vernal equinox, March 21^st in the Gregorian calendar [1]. This vernal celebration, of course, is not unique. In the West we are all familiar with the successor to the pagan commemoration of Ostara; Easter. However; this not limited to Indo-European cultures, and it appears as if Nowruz is not entirely of Aryan origin at all.

The roots of Nowruz in the pre-Islamic religion of Persia, Zoroastrianism, is generally assumed and recognized by Iranians. In Zoroastrianism to this day it is observed as the highest of holidays, commemorating the creation of fire, the spirit of Highest Truth (Asha Vahishta), and is symbolic of looking towards Frashokereti, when the Savior will come back to destroy Evil and the world will be Renovated to a perfect state. (If this eschatology sounds familiar, it isn’t coincidence. But, that’s a whole other subject!)

Mary Boyce, the late authority on Zoroastrianism, said that it was likely that the Prophet Zarathushtra (known in the West as Zoroaster, c. 11^th century BCE, Eastern Iran) was “re-dedicating what was probably an ancient celebration of spring .” [2] Zoroastrianism made it the highest of all seasonal festivals (Gahambars), the seventh and final of the year. R.C. Zaehner, an earlier philologist and specialist of Zoroastrianism, like Boyce, wrote,

The feast of Noruz survives as the greatest by far of all the national holidays in Iran even now because it is genuinely national, a survival from a long-forgotten pagan past, as little influenced by Zoroastrianism as it is by Islam. [3]

In 539 BCE, Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon. He was invited by the priests on his march south to Babylon, conquered it, and proceeded to return plundered idols and relics to their home city’s sanctuaries, in addition to decreeing that Jews return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Second Temple. As such, Cyrus is the only Gentile in the Bible referred to as ‘God’s annointed’ (messiah). This is also when the first charter of human rights and religious freedom was written, in the Cyrus Cylinder. [4]

On the Babylonian New Year festival of 538,  he had his son, Cambyses II, ceremoniously installed as king of Mesopotamia. On the vernal equinox, the Babylonian king would have the idol of Marduk removed from the temple next to the great Ziggurat and paraded through the streets.  This ceremony was enacted for the first time in many years by the new prince, under the directive of Cyrus. Rule was again restored after a period of strife.

In the Babylonian belief, this annual rite would ensure that order prevailed over chaos; that the seasons for the coming year would remain in sequence, and that they would be fruitful. In similar fashion, Cambyses was installed as the son of Re in Egypt. Michael Axworthy writes,

This was an empire that always preferred to flow around and absorb powerful rivals, rather than to confront, batter into defeat, and force submission. The guiding principles of Cyrus persisted under Darius and at least some later Achaemenid rulers. [5]

As such, several authors [6] suggest that Nowruz was borrowed from the annual Semitic Babylonian politico-religious ritual symbolizing the sovereign’s victory over anarchy, of life over death. This is also found in the Avestan concept of kingship; the victory of asha (Divine Order; cognate with Sanskrit rta, precedent of dharma) over the Druj, The Lie, associated with Angra Mainyu, the Zoroastrian Devil. The famous motif of the Lion overwhelming the Bull at Persepolis captures the essence of both, sans any overt religious iconography or message.

Whatever the source, or combination of sources of Nowruz, by the time of Darius, the first stage of Persepolis was completed and host to one of the grandest celebrations of power in history. In reliefs added later by Xerxes on stairways leading to the central Apadana Palace and the Throne Hall (completed under Xerxes’ son, Artaxerxes), can be seen delegates from nearly every nation with their gifts of tribute, to be followed by wine, music and dance. Persepolis was known as the richest city under the sun, and indeed its treasury was overfull, even though it appeared to serve little other purposes than these. This ended only when it was razed and looted by Alexander the Great in 330 BCE (considered by some as revenge for the razing of the Acropolis in 480 CE under Xerxes). [7]

In the later Parthian (246 BCE – 224 CE) and Sassanid (224-651 CE) Empires, more rituals would be added, though little is known under the Parthians. In the Sassanid, twelve temporary pillars (some say seven) were erected nearly a month before Nowruz day, with different kinds of seeds placed on top of each, sprouting greens by the time of the celebration. The Sassanid Empire, the second great empire, comprised many religions, and although Nowruz was officially a celebration of a Zoroastrian state, it was secular enough to be celebrated by all – including Jews and Christians. At all times it is assumed it was celebrated by all social strata, as well (though history tends to not record the common classes).

Then, 636 CE, fifteen years after the Hijra of the Prophet Muhammad, an Arab Muslim army routed the superior Persian army at Qadisiyyah, near Kufa, Iraq. Such is the humiliation of this event that Saddam Hussein purposefully named his invasion of Iran after it. By 651, the Muslim conquest of Persia was complete. The Persians fiercely resisted culturally (not to mention a few insurgencies), and Islamization took centuries longer, until the 10^th-11^th centuries. It is during this time that many Zoroastrians fleeing persecution emigrated to India, where they are known to this day as Parsis (Persians).

However; unlike across today’s modern Arab world, Arabization never took. In fact, the new Caliphate was increasingly giving way to the superior bureaucracy of the Persians, as it was to the Persian arts. Iran did as it always did, it absorbed its conquerors, adapted, and in turn conquered them culturally.

Around the dawn of the 11^th century the poet Ferdowsi completed a grand translation in an early form of Modern Persian (Farsi). It was a collection of surviving Middle Persian (Pahlavi) texts entitled the Shahnameh (Book of Kings). Ferdowsi is credited for preserving Persian cultural heritage and its language. Not only is knowledge of the character of Iran incomplete without knowing whom Ferdowsi is, I dare say it is impossible.

In the Shahnameh, Jamshid (pictured above) ruled for 700 years as the archetypal ruler in a mythical golden age after defeating the divs (demons). He was endowed with farr (the Zoroastrian khvarena), a Divine Glory. The investiture of farr was like a radiant sun (a nimbus), himself seated a golden throne. This idea, known to the Achaemenids, can also be seen in many solar crowns and tiaras to this day (cf. Sol Invictus). It was this coronation for which Nowruz was first celebrated, according to Ferdowsi’s national tome. In the pagan version of Jamshid (Yima), he his immortal and never dies, but disappears underground. Thus, mankind is made mortal until his return (cf. Persephone).

In the Shahnameh, many myths are shown to have survived, including interpretations of Yima, which do not adhere to what was the orthodox doctrine of what was the Zoroastrian Church, nor to surviving scripture and beliefs of remaining Zoroastrians today. In a similar fashion, forthcoming centuries of Islam would prove unable to alter what transcends formal religion altogether. Nowruz has never successfully been transformed such as Christmas was by Christians. Nowruz, above all, is Iranian. Not only that, as a celebration of joy, like Zoroastrianism, it is a much needed respite from the dour pall a strict state-imposed version of Shi’ism can bring. Outside Iran, and to all people, it is an annual reaffirmation of life, fit for all humanity to appreciate.

II. Nowruz Today

Prior to Nowruz it is custom to buy new clothes, plant green sprouts in an earthenware dish (such as wheat, barley or lentils) and clean the house (khane tekani, which symbolically, was preparing the house for ancestors, traditionally done on Chaharshanbeh Souri; more on this day below). On the streets a minstrel-like character fills the air with boisterous singing announcing that the New Year is coming, “it’s only once a year!” He wears red clothing and conical cap and blackface. [8] He roams the street, alleyways, markets and parks, sometimes with a crew. Watch a just such pair of busking performers in this video.

He is known has Haji Firouz, or Mr. Victorious (successful, et cetera). The origins of this character are obscure, and unrecorded until after the Muslim conquest. Several theories abound though. One is from the Shahnameh, which traces itself back to a Mesopotamian ceremony surrounding the god Tammuz, whom died and was reborn every year, according to Iranist Mehrdad Bahar.

Another is that he represents a Zoroastrian priest who tended the holy fire. The cap does actually suggest the dress of the priests of ancient times with their hood-like caps, adopted from Scythians (picture above). The reasoning here is that the red represents fire, and black-face, ash. However; I am not aware of any colors being worn by the priesthood other than white. This part appears to be fancy.

Among the Parsis in India, colorful new clothes, often red, including caps for boys are worn on New Year’s day there (photo), so there may still be credence and clues to be found in this Iranian custom of Haji Firouz wearing red. In Iran too, underneath chadors, a wave of vibrant (and defiant) color of sleek dresses may catch one’s eye with a slight gust, and indeed, all other lands still paint the town, so to speak (in a good way), with festive clothing. Watch videos of Norouz celebrated around the world.

The Haji Firouz origin story I find most interesting though, is of a Persian soldier named Pirouz Nahavandi, whom was captured by the armies of Caliph Umar at the battle of Qadissiyah. He was brought back to Medina as a slave, where he pretended to convert to Islam. Having gained the trust of Umar, he assassinated him in 644 during morning prayers at the Medina mosque (built upon the site of Prophet Muhammad’s house), as retribution for the Muslim conquest of Persia.

The historicity of this account varies, and as so often happens, elements of truth have surely been embellished over time. It is generally agreed that Umar was assassinated by a Persian plot, though. Such is the curious contradictions of Iran, that a Shi’a country which mourns Umar’s assassination, could also celebrate Pirouz as a national hero. A presidential decree signed by Ahmadinejad in 2007 to destroy the Firuzan tomb near Kashan, where he is popularly believed to be buried, was met with protests. There are layers of symbolism in the legend of Pirouz Nahavandi. And it can be readily seen why opponents to the Islamic Republic sometimes disparagingly refer to the victory of the Islamists as “the second Arab invasion.”

Whatever the origin of the Haji Firouz tradition, it, like Nowruz itself, is emblematic of the nature of Iran itself. The relationship of an enduring Persian nationalism and heritage, with that of the Islamic faith. This is not to suggest that Shi’ism and all other religions cannot in fact be Iranian; but that with the state in the hands of hardliner Islamists, Iran’s pre-Islamic history can present a problematic reality to the foundations of their own legitimacy.

Of the events associated with Nowruz most opposed to by the hardline Islamists is Chaharshanbeh Souri (Red Wednesday). It is begun on the eve of the last Wednesday of the year, and thus celebrated on Tuesday. It consists of trick-or-treating, banging spoons together loudly, fireworks, and bonfire jumping. Among the concerns of the regime has been its roots in “superstition.” But, moreover, is the propensity towards mischief. Since the Islamic Revolution, as one of the few events where mixing of the sexes is relaxed, it has become rowdier and rowdier. The concerns are not unfounded, and there have been numerous tragic accidents, especially since the late 1990s.

This event, generally five or six days before Norouz, occurred this year on the 16^th. It is rooted in the sixth Zoroastrian festival of the year, Hamaspathmaedaya, the Feast of All Souls. According to Zoroastrian belief, on the days from this day until the New Year, guardian angels and the souls of the dead visit the earthly realm. As such, nowadays, divination is still practiced on this night (there is also a Shi’i form, known as estekhareh). Bonfires are lit, often just alone, the idea being not to not let the sun set and to be vigilant against evil. Two views of this year’s Chaharshanbeh Souri can be seen in videos here.

Jumping of seven fires while chanting to them “zardi-ye man az to, sorkhi-ye to az man” (my sallowness is yours, your fiery red color is mine), are attested to only after the Islamic conquest (now often just one or several). The Zoroastrian’s veneration of fire would likely have considered this act of fire-jumping blasphemous. But, in the recurrent Zoroastrian number of seven, this act (according only to my deductive power of intuition) likely preserved symbolically the journey of the year over the seven great festivals of the year (Gahambars) to the Zoroastrians.

Not counting these preceding days, the festival of Nowruz lasts thirteen days. During this time the country of Iran shuts down. Family travel home, marriages are performed, coworkers and acquaintances exchange sweetmeats, gifts are given, and hidden wine bottles appear from the back of cupboards. Amou Nowruz (Uncle Nowruz), who kicks the winter out, is a Santa Claus type figure who also gives gifts to children. The days are filled spending time with family, outings, and eating traditional meals and treats, such as Sabzi Polo Mahi (an herbed fired fish dish with pilaf), on Nowruz Day or the night before. Koukou Sabzi (herbs and baked eggs) and Reshteh Polo (rice and noodles) are other typical dishes. A sweet mixture of nuts, berries and raisins known as aajil is consumed throughout the remainder of Nowruz.

By far the most iconic aspect of Nowruz is the sofra-ye haft sin, the haft sin spread. Haft means seven [9], and sin, the Perso-Arabic letter corresponding to s. The Haft Sin is set on a table, over a dining cloth (sofra). It can be elegant and luxuriant, or fairly simple. But, more social conscious households will arrange more aesthetically pleasing ceremonial spreads, as this is the time to entertain visitors, as well as family.

The exact moment of New Year has a bit of a countdown like in the West. Before it, the family is assembled around the Haft Sin (as with the Christmas Tree) and poems or scripture are recited. The second the New Year strikes is called Saal Tahvil. Elders’ hands may be kissed out of respect, and kisses and hugs all around! This is when presents are exchanged. After this the house may be purified with the burning of esfand, sprinkling rose water, and walking around the house with a mirror and candle as a blessing. Candles are left to drip away and burn out on their own.

In addition to the essential seven items beginning with s, are several other common additions. No Haft Sin need be identical, and will differ to taste and by regional custom. In fact, there isn’t even any consistent essential seven s items. While containing elements of much older symbols, the custom of arranging them this way is only attested to as being a little over a hundred years old.

The following are among the most popular items, their Persian, its meaning, and what they represent. Every spread will contain most of these, varying by combinations thereof:

• sabzeh – greens – sprouts of wheat, barley, mung beans, or lentils in an earthenware dish. This is the one essential item.

• samanu – a sweet pudding made of germinated wheat – affluence and ingenuity.

• senjed – dry fruit of the oleaster tree -- love.

• sepand – esfand – seeds of the Syrian Rue – protects from evil eye.

• sir – garlic cloves – medicine, protection.

• sib – apple – health, beauty.

• somagh – sumac – the color of sunrise; triumph of good over evil.

• serkeh – vinegar –age, patience.

• sonbol – hyacinth flowers – spring.

• sekkeh – coins – prosperity, wealth.

Other items commonly found, which don’t start with ‘s’ in Persian:

• goldfish – life, the animal world; Pisces.

• mirror -- reflection.

• candles – illumination.

• decorated eggs -- fertility.

• book – wisdom.

These are but the most common. Several other items can be found, starting with ‘s’ or not. While the practice of spreading the table is relatively new, the symbols that comprise it are ancient. To go into each one could easily take a page. An apple is seen in the Persepolis reliefs. Esfand seeds are burnt like incense to ward off the evil eye. The very heptad itself, can be seen as Zoroastrian (related to the Amesha Spentas, like Archangels).

The book is often a Qur’an, but depending on one’s respective religion, it can also be a Torah, Bible, Avesta, or Kitáb-i-Aqdas (though given persecution of Bahá’í’s, this would not likely be left in view for just anyone to see). More secular families will have the Shahnameh, or the Divan-e Hafez. While Rumi is among the greatest poets revered in Iran, it is Hafez, a 14th century Sufi poet of Shiraz, whom Iranians turn to for guidance and inspiration more than any other.

Or, there may be two of each. The table is also kept stocked with fruits, such as apples, pomegranates, and quinces; and pastries and nut flavored nougats or mixes. A fruit not for eating that can be found is a bitter orange floating in a bowl of water, symbolizing the world.

Though the table spread is not itself Zoroastrian, there are several unique layouts for them, as well. (One such assertion claims that it may have started in Zoroastrianism, as seven metal trays.) In this layout they will put the candle in front of the mirror, to spread its radiance. Look in the most holy Shi’i shrines and you will see a splendid reflection of light refracted to infinity. A Shi’i philosophy, known as Eshraghi, can be traced itself to Zoroastrian thought. The thing that distinguishes the Zoroastrian spread, though, is that it is not a Haft Sin, but a Haft Shin. All items beginning with the letter sh.

Yazd, smack dab in the heart of Iran, is the largest center of Zoroastrianism surviving in Iran. It has one of the most famous Fire Temples in the world (picture above), or the most photographed, at least. It is a custom of Iranians, regardless of religion, to visit it on Nowruz. A particularly apropos time, would be on the sixth day of Nowruz, what is known as Nowruz-e Bozorg (Great Nowruz) in general, and Khordad Sal to Zoroastrians -- the date Zarathushtra’s birthday is honored. Author Paul Kriwaczek, tells of a conversation he had with a Zoroastrian when visiting the Yazd area,

Before Islam, Noruz was celebrated with a haft shin not sin table. We put on seven things beginning with ‘sh.’ We put sharab (wine) for celebration, shir (milk) for nourishment, sharbat (sherbet) for enjoyment, shamshir (a aword) for security, shemshad (a box) for wealth, sham (a candle) for illumination, and shahdaneh (hemp seeds) for enlightenment. So that these things would be ours for the coming year. [10]

The Parsis of India do not celebrate the Haft Sin, though they still do Nowruz. Among Zoroastrians it is still customary to settle outstanding arguments, put on new clothes, exchange presents, and visit the Fire Temple. Going to the Fire Temple, unlike other religions, is not a central feature of the faith, and reserved by the laity for such special occasions. Another noticeable addition to a Zoroastrian spread, as on the Fire Temple walls, will be a framed portrait of Zarathushtra.

At the end of the Nowruz period, on the last day, Sizdah Bedar, ‘Getting Rid of the Thirteenth’ is observed, though ‘observe’ is not the right word! Not only does it sometimes overlap with April Fool’s Day, it is also filled with pranks and fun. It is the day for everyone to go outside, play, and picnic at the local park, or go for a hike. For school children who didn’t complete their homework packets over the break though, it is a day of torment!

In the old days, the goldfish from the Haft Sin would be released into a creek, but nowadays most keep the goldfish. The sabzeh from the haft sin table is still taken outside though, and scattered, having collected all the bad that could befall the family in the coming year. The ancient roots in Zoroastrianism to this day also signified the victory over the demon of drought for the coming year.

And with that, life in Iran once again resumes the next day, until the next Nowruz, the biggest, and notably un-Islamic, holiday of Iran.

III. Politics of Nowruz

Tomb of Hafez in Shiraz, on Nowruz Day Eve

After reading this far, you will have readily seen the political significance of green, sabz, its not only being the color of Islam, but of rebirth, growth and new hope. The Islamic government has never been able to crush this holiday’s spirit, and attempts to co-opt it are meager and farcical, at best. Each year it is customary for the Supreme Leader to name the next year. One year was the “year of Imam Ali,” and last year, it was “Saal-e Eslah-e Olgouyeh Masraf” (the year of reforming consumption patterns).

It is also a time for all figures, to give Nowruz messages. This is typically the president, but this year, the year of 1389, included messages from all the Green Movement leaders, including Zahra Rahnavard, Mir Hossein Mousavi’s wife (Iranian women keep their surnames). In a speech to the Iran Participation Front (Reformist organization), Mousavi ended with this,

In regards to the future, I feel that the movement that has begun is irreversible. We will never again return to the conditions that were a year ago. We have to value these change in ideas. I am very hopeful for the future, we must encourage hope and patience; patience meaning faith. This movement wants nothing for itself, it wants freedom and prosperity and progress and better days for all people and it will surely achieve these aims. The move after the election, and the election itself raised people’s awareness about their rights. We must invite people to fortitude and perseverance. We must name and know the coming year as the year of fortitude and perseverance. A year of perseverance for the green movement to reach its aims.

Mousavi declared the year as one of “patience and perseverance.” Supreme Leader Khamene’i, for his part, declared this the year of “redoubled diligence and redoubled work,” after congratulating the country for crushing “the foreign plot” on 22 Bahman, that conspired against the Revolution after an “unprecedented” and “outstanding” election.

As to anything Ahmadinejad had to say, this sums that up:

President Obama issued his second Nowruz address not only to the government, but more to the people of Iran, this year. An excerpt from his address,

Last June, the world watched with admiration, as Iranians sought to exercise their universal right to be heard. But tragically, the aspirations of the Iranian people were also met with a clenched fist, as people marching silently were beaten with batons; political prisoners were rounded up and abused; absurd and false accusations were leveled against the United States and the West; and people everywhere were horrified by the video of a young woman killed in the street.

The United States does not meddle in Iran’s internal affairs. Our commitment – our responsibility – is to stand up for those rights that should be universal to all human beings. That includes the right to speak freely, to assemble without fear; the right to the equal administration of justice, and to express your views without facing retribution against you or your families.

I want the Iranian people to know what my country stands for. The United States believes in the dignity of every human being, and an international order that bends the arc of history in the direction of justice – a future where Iranians can exercise their rights, to participate fully in the global economy, and enrich the world through educational and cultural exchanges beyond Iran’s borders. That is the future that we seek. That is what America is for.

As John Limbert, the former Iranian hostage now with the State Department said during his lecture I had the pleasure of attending, Obama is here offering himself up not as an enemy, but as a rival to the regime. To its people, John Limbert joked about him being a houvi, the prettier and younger wife. All in all there is no way to measure if this is the case, but taking Mousavi out of the equation, it’s hard not to be more attractive than Khamene’i!

On a positive note, in February the United Nations General Assembly voted to recognize March 21st as International Day of Nowruz. In the United States House and Senate both also passed Nowruz Resolutions. In the Senate, it was unanimous and a who’s-who of co-sponsors. In the house, there were two votes against it. Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) had written an open letter to the two naysayers prior to the vote, even gifting them flowers and the book Funny in Farsi, by Firoozeh Dumas (in fine Nowruz spirit). I’ll let you in on who these racist fucking bastards are: Jeff Miller, representing Joe Scarborough’s old district, and arch-Birther (who’s mother may or may not be a crocodile), Bill Posey. But, as Nowruz teaches, good overcame evil.

In this house,

May obedience overcome disobedience!

May peace overcome discord!

May generosity overcome avarice for wealth!

May reverence overcome pride!

May the true-spoken word overcome the false-spoken word distorting truth!

- Zoroastrian blessing [11]

Endnotes

1. The date has crept over the years in India according to two of the traditional Parsi calendars, with insufficient intercalation, and falls in late August!

2. Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices 34.

3. R.C. Zaehner, The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism 138. Zaehner was also a British intelligence officer during the Iranian coup d’état of 1953.

4. Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology 215-216.

5. Michael Axworthy, A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind 21.

6. John R. Hinnells, Persian Mythology 98-108, is inconclusive on the depth of influence, but suggests some level of syncretism was likely, at the very least.

7. The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago has a Persepolis complex map and archive photographs from their groundbreaking archaeological expedition in the 1930s here. Another site, Persepolis3d.com reconstructs a virtual Persepolis in full color and detail. A brief complex overview from Iran Chamber Society, here.

8. Before the Pahlavi dynasty, folk theater also featured a jester-like character in black or white face whom defied convention. I wonder if the two could be connected.

9. For any fellow etymology enthusiasts, think of Greek hepta, Latin septem. It is from the Avestan hapta, which was closely related to Sanskrit, sapta. All Indo-European languages, of course.

10. Paul Kriwaczek, In Search of Zarathustra: The First Prophet and the Ideas that Changed the World 216.

11. From a Fezana Nowruz prayer book [PDF]. Adapted from this prayer.

Happy Nowruz!

If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two they would cut each other’s throats, but there are thirty and they live in peace and happiness.

Voltaire

If you take a few dozen Catholics, mix them up with a large pack of conservative evangelicals, throw in a former Nixon official who went to jail for obstructing justice, and add the woman who is the leading activist trying to keep marriage rights away from LGBT people, you get what’s now better known as the Manhattan Declaration.  If that sounds like a recipe for disaster, it is. It’s the right-wing’s new call to arms that is not only reviving the buzzword “culture wars,” but is a sign that conservative religious leaders will stoop to the lowest levels imaginable to make sure that LGBT people are pushed back into the closet and that women’s rights are sent back to the days of back alley abortions and “Mad Men” housewives.

What is the Manhattan Declaration? It’s a statement put forward by upwards of 150 religious leaders — from Catholic bishops including the Archbishop of New York, to conservative political legends like Dinesh D’Souza — that says conservative religious folks are called by God to go nuclear in order to prevent abortion, same-sex marriage, stem-cell research and a host of what they call “fundamental truths.”

Going back to the earliest days of the church, Christians have refused to compromise their proclamation of the gospel. In Acts 4, Peter and John were ordered to stop preaching. Their answer was, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” Through the centuries, Christianity has taught that civil disobedience is not only permitted, but sometimes required. There is no more eloquent defense of the rights and duties of religious conscience than the one offered by Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Writing from an explicitly Christian perspective, and citing Christian writers such as Augustine and Aquinas, King taught that just laws elevate and ennoble human beings because they are rooted in the moral law whose ultimate source is God Himself. Unjust laws degrade human beings. Inasmuch as they can claim no authority beyond sheer human will, they lack any power to bind in conscience. King’s willingness to go to jail, rather than comply with legal injustice, was exemplary and inspiring.

Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming thetruth as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family.  We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar’s what is Caesar’s.  But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s. 

We have moved on to a new era in politics with the election of President Barack Obama, however one thing you can always count on, the Religious Right will always try to make a comeback, they have over and over again.  Remember this, they are working from a “revisionist historical vision” when they frame theoconservatism as a recovery operation.  They simply ignore or distort the complicated religious views of our founding fathers as well as their [justified] fears of religiously inspired tyranny and sectarian violence.  George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison were all either deists or liberal Christians inclined to doubt the divinity of Jesus Christ and the possibility of revelation.  The US Constitution, in itself, is famously silent about God, as are the the essays that make up the Federalist Papers.  One exception is two passing references by Madison, in fact in article 11 of the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli signed by Washington and endorsed by Adams, unamimously ratified by the Senate it clearly states that the United States was not founded on the Christian religion:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

February 1, 1979. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s fourteen year exile was finally coming to an end. From Neauphle-le-Château where he had spent only a few months after being kicked out of Najaf by Saddam Hussein (accounts differ on the Shah’s role in this) he had chartered an Air France 747 and was finally entering Iranian airspace. On board were a cadre of Western journalists, including Newsweek‘s Elaine Sciolino, who wrote of this exchange between ABC’s Peter Jennings and Ayatollah Khomeini in her book, Persian Mirrors:

“Ayatollah, would you be so kind as to tell us how you feel about being back in Iran?”

“Hichi,” the ayatollah replied. “Nothing.”

“Hichi?” Ghotbzadeh asked him. Even he seemed incredulous at the response.

“Hich ehsasi nadaram,” the ayatollah said for emphasis. “I don’t feel a thing.”

While stoicism is characteristic of a mojtahed of his rank, this laconic reply has nonetheless been the subject of  debate and speculation to this day. (Unbeknownst to me at the drafting of this writing, someone thought of the same opening for their short piece. So, I’ll briefly add that Elaine Sciolino says Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, Khomeini’s aide and translator, innocently flirted with her).

A month earlier, after losing several close confidants and seeing the tide of history mounting against his crumbling regime’s edifice, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi announced the decision to name long time opposition National Front politician, Shapour Bakhtiar as Prime Minister and invited him to form a new government. It was a desperate concession of an autocratic monarch in failing health to salvage his dynasty.

Prime Minister Bakhtiar promised to disband SAVAK, relax martial law, and did lift restrictions on the press and free political prisoners and further promised to hold free elections and determine the future of the monarchy. On the 16th of January, Bakhtiar convinced the Shah to go on holiday. The Shah would never see Iran again; and with him, 2,500 years of royalty was banished. Yet all this was for naught. Too little, too late. And all was made moot by his most fateful mistake: relenting in allowing Khomeini’s plane to land at Mehrabad Airport. After arriving, Khomeini went to Behesht-e Zahra cemetery (sort of like a mix of Père-Lachaise and Arlington) to honor martyrs whom had lost their lives in confrontations with the Shah’s security forces. In a speech before a large crowd there, he vowed to “smash in the mouth of the Bakhtiar government.”

Four days later, Ayatollah Khomeini declared technocrat, Mehdi Bazargan, as the “true” Prime Minister of a provisional government. Of Bakhtiar, Khomeini said in a radio address, “Why do you talk of the Shah, Mossadegh, money? These have already passed. Islam is all that remains” (without any sense of irony that Bazargan was also an admirer and former public servant of Mossadegh). The demonstrators on the streets chanted to effect that Bakhtiar was a servant with no power. They were right. He had alienated both the most loyal military royalists and his erstwhile revolutionary comrades, whom had expelled him from the National Front as a traitor for dealing with the Shah.

To this day some in the Iranian diaspora bemoan President Carter for not supporting Bakhtiar more; but I have doubts there was anything to be done, and fear much of this is emotion (though understandable). On the 4th of January, General Robert “Dutch” Huyser had been dispatched to Tehran. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski had advocated a coup (I know, right?!). In the weeks he was there, General Huyser concluded and reported back that with troops peeling off at nearly a 1,ooo a day to desertion and defection and the officer corps divided, no such military reassertion of power was practicable.

The evening of February 9, Bakhtiar decided to air the Peter Jenning’s interview to discredit Khomeini. It backfired. At Doshan Tappeh Air Base, southeast of Tehran, Homafars (Air Force cadets and technicians) rebelled. Word reached the Feda’iyan and Mojahedin guerrillas, whom helped fend off the Imperial Guards. After this routing, Tehran became a war zone and the next two days were spent opening up armories and prisons, and overtaking police stations and military bases in Tehran and provinces. There were over two-hundred casualties. At two p.m. General Abbas Gharabaghi declared the Army’s neutrality and they pulled back to their barracks. Around four hours later the national radio station was seized and the victory of the Revolution declared, “in sedaye enghelab-e mardom-e Iran ast” (this is the voice of the Revolution). It was 22 Bahman 1357, the day which would be in symbolism the “4th of July” of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

22 Bahman 1388. Thirty-one years later, this celebration would also occur eight months after protests first erupted in the wake of the contested reëlection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Since the Ashoura protests, the pressure and preparation had been mounting from the security forces and hardline politicians, with principlists issuing similar warnings to lesser and varying degrees; executions, rounding up and detaining opposition, etc. Much of this I outlined in my previous article and won’t go into much depth again here. Although Jason Shams did an excellent summation on the government’s gearing-up,

It tries to deny our existence in the provinces far from the cities, with oil dollars, Chinese tear gas, and Russian hackers helping make the point; telephones are tapped, activists imprisoned, a stroll down the street and we are faced with gangs of Basij and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iranians can watch MTV and pornography on satellite television, but the BBC and Voice of America have been jammed. The Internet has been reduced to a trickle, newspapers shut down.

Many in the diaspora were hyping this up to be the last stand. Even Reza Aslan miscalculated. I demur that I may have not made this clear, but I had my skepticism and worry and generally agreed in tone with Geneive Abdo’s prediction. Of all days on the Iranian calendar, the government was not about to be humiliated on this day of all politically charged days. The Greens also risked being too easily  branded counterrevolutionaries. In the weeks that have followed, it has been difficult for me to figure out just what transpired that day in confirmed protests in Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Mashhad and Ahvaz (see videos). Ali Arouzi, reporting for NBC, says he was transported straight from his bureau to Azadi Square for Ahmadinejad’s speech, not allowed to talk to even pro-Government supporters, and driven straight back. Other journalists gave the same account.

So what really happened? I still don’t know. I would agree with Scott Lucas at Enduring America though, that “The Regime Won Ugly“,

There was nothing hopeful in the rows of security forces who, having been prepared after the humiliations of Ashura, were not going to countenance another retreat. There was nothing of glory or Islamic value in the confrontations with Mehdi Karroubi (wounded, his son missing), Zahra Rahnavard (beaten), Mohammad Khatami and Mir Hossein Mousavi (forced into retreat), let alone the thousands of encounters in which chains, batons, and flying-squad detentions trumped hope and determination.

Muhammad Sahimi from Tehran Bureau, added his own positive spin,

First, the very fact that on the thirty-first anniversary of the Revolution, the hardliners had to saturate Tehran and other large cities with security forces just to prevent peaceful demonstrations by the opposition represents a significant victory for Green supporters. This is the day when the people are supposed to come out freely and celebrate the establishment of the political system that the hardliners claim they support, and yet there was an unofficial state of emergency, with tens of thousands of security forces patrolling the streets.

While I wouldn’t call it a “victory” for the Greens (maybe a tactical retreat, at best), this all, of course, make the Leveretts jump for joy. I and other Green sympathizers are often chided to go and join those in Iran. I shoot back that the armchair Basiji fan club have no place telling us that. I’ve been to pro-Green demonstrations here in the states. Maybe for them to show solidarity they could come at us with tear gas and crack a few of our skulls; or take pictures, track us down, and intimidate our friends and family?

As Mir Hossein Mousavi recently said in his first comments since 22 Bahman on February 28th, “this year’s rally was engineered” and,

The green movement missed a historic chance because the regime eclipsed its presence,” he said. “However, it was much more harmful to the regime than the movement because covering up the reality will never result in [the movement’s] elimination. I’m sure that this massive crackdown will deepen and broaden the movement.

Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mohammad Khatami were prevented from joining protests, or for only a brief time. Khatami’s brother, Mohammad Reza Khatami and his wife Zahra Eshraghi, the granddaughter of Ayatollah Khomeini, were detained then released after trying to join protests. Mehdi Karroubi’s car was again attacked and he is reported to have shed blood. Karroubi’s son, Ali, was allegedly beaten in a mosque after trying to protect his father, whose security detail never showed. His other son, Hossein Karroubi gave an interview expanding upon that here. Further, there was word of shots fired in Sadeghiyeh Square north of Azadi Square, where opposition was to meet, but whose numbers were disappointing.

IRIB, the official media organ of the Islamic Republic broadcast this helicopter footage. The original did not, of course, have that pro-government hip-hop, which struck me in similarity to this techno infused Mousavi campaign song. In any case, most rap is banned, especially under Ahmadinejad, so forgive me if I roll my eyes at that. State media also reported the day saw fifty million regime supporters demonstrate according to this live-blog. Iran’s population is approximately seventy million. If I were to define this day as celebrating the overthrow of the Shah or just enjoying a picnic with family and friends, well, that’s not hard to believe. I don’t think that was the expressed intent nor implication though.

From the Green sites now. A video with text commentary, from inside Azadi Square during Ahmadinejad’s speech. There are several significant things in it, including a man sitting on a picture of Supreme Leader Khamene’i and at the end, the Coat of Arms of the IRI, is cut out of a flag and on the ground. Most notably, this (zoom) satellite image went viral:

It was taken when Ahmadinejad was giving his speech, as seen on state television. Compare camera angle there with the picture above. Pro-government supporters contest that these are doctored (by the usual suspects: Hypocrites, Monarchists, Zionists and American Imperialists, of course). This rings hollow with me from those whom cite IRIB and post their own videos with Persian rap, though. A dose of skepticism is always healthy, on both sides. But having said that, IRIB and IRINN’s coverage was suspect most notably in one regard. No live sound. Instead, they played patriotic songs, and their “live” coverage was very canned. This was reported by more than one observer, but Pedestrian gives the most entertaining account (if I can even use the ‘e’ word regarding state propaganda).

Setting up loudspeakers to drown out any eghteshahgar, “attention seekers creating disturbance”, doesn’t match up with a secure government who brushes off the opposition as marginal elements, with decreasing numbers due to “radicalization” (which is admittedly a worry to keeping broad support on the streets, and not confined behind proverbial Persian Walls). Numerous accounts abound of security forces searching people for any green contraband or cell phones and rounding them up into alleys and whisked away. Truth is, there is no telling how many opposition supporters actually made it in and around Azadi Square, and any guesses one way or the other is mere speculation.

There is also the possibility, that given the five day weekend this year, that many more affluent went to Dizin (a ski resort) or the Caspian coast. Of course, there are class undertones in these assertions, but they are not altogether untrue. On the other side, were pictures such as these:

These are the infamous buses the government uses to bring in pro-Ahmadinejad and otherwise conservative supporters to regime rallies and events in Tehran from outlying villages. These supporters are what are pejoratively referred to as sandis. The term comes from a fruit drink handed out to regime supporters by Pasdars and others. The condescending implication here is sometimes that they are poor and are bribed to come to these events with a lunch and drink. Aside from the appeal of a free meal, I would say that’s the wrong way to look at it. This hospitality is common to the Middle East, and Iran is no exception! Except for the fact that while the so-called sandis get refreshments, anyone with green gets a beating (or worse).

Ahmadinejad’s ramp up to this day was full of talking about sanctions, nuclear rights and a failed rocket launch into space. Some speculate that this focus on issues that unify all Iranians could have had an impact in softening opposition. His speech, replete with a rocket centerpiece (paging Dr. Freud), had little of substance. Blame Israel, blame America, blame MeK, and cartoonish gholov (braggadocio), yada yada. He also declared Iran a “nuclear state” boasting they’d reached capability to enrich uranium to medical isotope levels of 20%. Funny thing though, they appear to be having trouble with this. Even Robert Gibbs said that,

“The Iranian nuclear program has undergone a series of problems throughout the year. We do not believe they have the capability to enrich to the degree to which they now say they are enriching.”

For once, when not complicit in manufacturing cable news hysteria and pandering to AIPAC & Co. hawks, the White House had a moment of honesty which was in line with such differing experts as David Albright, Flynt Leverett and Reza Aslan on PBS Newshour, during which Reza Aslan said,

But we have to under — we have to recognize that the statement that Iran is going to start enriching uranium at 20 percent, that it’s going to build 10 more enrichment plants in the next year, are, frankly, laughable. I mean, it took Iran years to build its one site in Natanz. It can barely keep that up and running.

So, this is not just for domestic consumption, but, more importantly, it’s designed to get a response from the West, because, if there’s one thing that all people in Iran, despite their politics or piety, whether in the Green Movement or the pro-government movement, agree on is Iran’s inalienable right to enrich uranium.

Of course, the cable news networks seized upon the “nuclear state” headline like addicts to a crack pipe. Rudi Bakhtiar, former CNN and FOX News anchor now with the Public Affairs Alliance of  Iranian Americans (and niece of Shapour Bakhtiar) being interviewed on CNN called out their coverage and said what I have said so many times. In so many words, she basically accused CNN and other networks of collaborating with Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad counts on this response, and instead of keeping the focus on the Green Movement and human rights, they take the bait every time, and muddle the message. I almost stood up and clapped when I saw her do this.

The “Green defeat” analyses have been endless. Juan Cole is included in those that were blunt about it. The government seems to have finally caught up to the calendar battle, and the asset of online social networking and SMS communication has become a liability through monitoring and phone tapping (though this has been overblown, as word still spreads like fire the old fashioned way from alley to alley). This includes exiles like former regime insider Mohsen Sazegara publishing detailed protest routes; and, Karroubi calling to meet at Sadheghiyeh Square and march towards Azadi Square. Security forces just had to close off such routes and again prevent the opposition from forming any large group. From here on, broadcasting rallying points and plans has to be reëxamined and alternatives found.

On the eve of 22 Bahman, amid sporadic Allah-o Akbars (view World Press Photo of 2009), Hashemi Rafsanjani leaked a letter on his personal website which he had sent leader Khamene’i before the June ’09 election day. In it he warned of Ahmadinejad’s lies (most likely referencing presidential debates, which hearken back to the 2005 presidential election), and against potential election fraud. Before moving forward, I’d like to take a brief excursion back to over a dozen years ago.

On May 16, 1997, a week before election day, delivering his sermon at Tehran University Friday Prayers, Rafsanjani warned, “treachery is an unforgivable act, and I do not consider any sin greater than someone giving himself the right to rig the votes of the people.” Goaded by Rafsanjani, Khamene’i assured a free and fair poll. The following needs to be quoted in full, from Geneive Abdo and Jonothan Lyon’s 2003 book, Answering Only to God,

But Khatami and his aides were well aware that pressure was mounting steadily on President Rafsanjani and the leader to prevent him from winning a clear majority in the first round. They worried that a second round would allow plenty of time for dirty tricks, sabotage, or even a coup by hard-liners in the Revolutionary Guards and their volunteer auxiliary, the basij. If the establishment were ever tempted to defraud the voters, then this was surely the moment; the threat from Khatami to the social, political, and theological order that had settled over the country since the revolution appeared simply too great.

These Khatami aides telephoned Rafsanjani to ensure the integrity of the count on election day. His daughter, Faezeh, arrived at the Interior Ministry with a retinue of armed security to ensure no shenanigans (though this could be interpreted as one in itself, she can handle herself. Watch this recent verbal confrontation with Basijis where she is cornered). In elections, while counts are taken locally, a second counting is undertaken when they are collected at the Interior Ministry (which does not have to match up with the first form’s tally). Before this year’s count, there were allegations from officials in the ministry warning of the possibility of tampering and pointing to a supposed fatwa from Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, Ahmadinejad’s spiritual advisor and member of the Assembly of Experts, that rigging the vote was okay for the greater good of preserving the Islamic system (this would correspond to rumors that he is part of the Hojjatieh, an anti-democratic “C Street”, it might be put).

The Interior Ministry’s count is then validated by the Guardian Council. The Guardian Council is notoriously conservative. It is made up of six clerics, appointed by the Supreme Leader, and six jurists, nominated by the Head of the Judiciary, who is himself appointed by the Supreme Leader. Notice a pattern here? (It is also the Guardian Council which selects candidates in the first place.) To claim that their recount was impartial begs incredulity; quis custodiet ipso custodes? And, finally, the Supreme Leader can nullify the results. Mohsen Reza’i, then still Chief Commander of the Pasdaran had hinted in 1997 he was prepared to crush an uprising should Khamene’i have asserted this power.

This past election, as a candidate himself, Reza’i expressed initial doubt over the election results. An additional irony to all this is that I am not one of those convinced Ahmadinejad necessarily couldn’t have actually won. The institutional power and stacking of provincial power and influence in the Interior Ministry involved in administering elections did nothing to engender confidence though. Nor did the clumsy handling of election announcements. Any ‘Zionist instigation and sowing of doubt’ would frankly be redundant, and those claiming this is part of the imperialist MSM demonizing the IRI need to do their homework to disabuse themselves of this adolescent reductionism. Correcting all these institutional inequities in the system constitutionally have been core planks of the Reform platform since its inception, as the name would imply.

What now though? Questioning the election results are now regarded as a “sin” by Khamene’i and hardliners. Even conservative foes like MP Ali Motahari, opposed to Ahmadinejad have suggested Mousavi drop this issue and stop protests altogether, additional overtures of allying against Ahmedinejad and addressing compromised solutions to the problems, blaming both sides of stubbornness. This, of course, would remove leverage which Mousavi gets from the streets. Also to be taken into account is the eternal pragmatist, Rafsanjani, who in his recent praises of the Supreme Leader and condemnation of “sedition” cast a little worry, though one must consider the art of Persian riddle talk that I’ve mentioned before. It may be triangulating, hedging and deal making behind-the-scenes to be read here. It is widely assumed that Rafsanjani still covets the title of Supreme Leader for himself. Ousting Khamene’i via the powers invested to the Assembly of Experts, which Rafsanjani chairs, is not happening. Rafsanjani is playing his own game, where the opposition serves not only his more moderate positions, but perhaps more importantly, his own ambition. Mousavi is still safe, and Rafsanjani’s fingerprint can be assumed in that circumstance.

My humble advice would be to sideline the election issue, as Mousavi has done, and focus on the human rights and constitutional violations of the past eight months. There is plenty of material to work off of here, as outlined in this lengthy Iran Human Rights Documentation Center Report, “Violent Aftermath: The 2009 Election and Suppression of Dissent in Iran” (PDF). Just recently, this video from June 15th, thought to be leaked, came out capturing a Tehran University dormitory raid (one can only wonder what may come out in months and years to come). Regime defenders are more comfortable debating numbers and math, rather than blood. Even the now ubiquitous, “I didn’t vote for Ahmadinejad, but…” posters on the internet (taking a cue from arch-apologist and Leverett BFF, Tehran University professor, Dr. Mohammad Marandi) try to compare riot control tactics of the West and Iran, or Iran under the Shah. The crackdown isn’t as brutal as under the Shah, and therefore this isn’t a real movement (only they use the straw man of “revolution”), goes the line of reasoning. How facile! You think veterans of the ’79 Revolution don’t know what affect a public massacre like Black Friday has?!  The riot comparisons can be interesting, though, and I take note of the valuable perspective. But stretched too far and ignoring the broader societal context can take it to levels ad absurdum. Kent State, Seattle 1999 and G20 crackdowns of free assembly are not to be celebrated, and the deflection employed by the IRI hardly lives up to their utopian boasting. What are they trying to say? That they’re Western-lite and still backwards in their repression? In addition, we’re not talking about sound cannons here, and the backdrop is of a much more authoritarian state apparatus. Patriot Act? eat your heart out. Freedom of Information Act? …Hold on, let me stop laughing. Sorry, but no, it’s not the same thing.

One of the more interesting articles on riot tactics compares 2009 Iran with 1960′s America. This suits me just fine, as my contention is not to think of this movement as about sore losers, but the election as a spark for a long simmering civil rights struggle and shifting demographics of the Children of the Revolution, as Hamid Dabashi contends in his series of webcasts, “This Week in Green,” and as was written in an article by Ian Morrison, “An Iranian Civil Rights Movement?” which pivots to economic policy,

Aside from comparisons to the Civil Rights Movement, one finds in the discourse on Iran a great deal of squabbling about the class character of the Green Movement protesters and what that means for its future. Early on, Ahmadinejad sympathizers heaped scorn on the Green Movement, claiming that protesters were all from the affluent neighborhoods of northern Tehran. This account is parochial at best; while nobody has contested that people from northern Tehran participated in various demonstrations, the Green Movement has an amorphous and complex makeup that belies easy classification along the lines of this or that political allegiance, especially given the suffocating repression of the Iranian state. Calling the demonstrations “middle class,” as though this alone amounts to a “political analysis,” circumvents any consideration of the potential for working class and labor issues to be taken up by the movement over time.

Indeed, when discussing where the movement goes from here, everyone looking back to the years of 1978-1979, look to the crucial aspect which organized labor played through strikes. Ian Morrison previously did a piece entitled “Iran’s New Labor?“, an interview with trade unionist, Homayoun Pourzad, who described Ahmadinejad as “profoundly anti-Left and anti-working class.” Four labor organizations listed ten minimal demands before 22 Bahman with the reminder that,

A nationwide strike lead by workers at the National Oil Company, the vanguard of the Iranian working class, shut down oil pipelines, ultimately tearing the despotic regime asunder. Masses of people chanted, “Our oil workers! Our resolute leader!” Power fell to the people.

This is a not so subtle reminder of the Left’s crucial role in overthrowing the Shah. On February 19th, 600 workers at Bandar-e Abbas went on strike for a common complain: unpaid back wages. Other strikes can be found in Hamid Farokhnia’s “Ahmadinejad’s import mania” which has this passage full of symbolism,

Today, even women’s traditional attire like chador comes from abroad, all government agencies have been instructed to use imported food staples for employees’ meals, and many Chinese goods are cheaper in Iran than anywhere in the world outside China itself. No wonder domestic producers can no longer effectively compete with the flood of foreign goods.

Ahmadinejad is importing to offset inflation and benefits from an artificially high exchange rate for the rial. As such, the article points out only 9% of tea is domestically produced (Iranians take great pride in their tea), and over the past four years sugar production has been halved. Such hard numbers are hard to come by, though, to substantiate this, and economics generally makes my eyes glaze over. The article’s title of “import mania” though, is a reference to the same phenomenon of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the 60′s and 70′s. One should be aware of trying to draw too many conclusions in attempts to make comparisons for an agenda. It doesn’t make it untrue though. It would also explain what jumped off of my computer screen as a stretch when I read Reza Aslan’s review of 22 Bahman,

If the mullahs and the merchants begin joining forces with the protesters, even as the Revolutionary Guard becomes more entrenched in the political sphere, a civil war may be inescapable.

While I’d ask Reza to watch it with loaded talk of civil war (his track record is still pretty good though), he points to an article by Jamsheed K. Choksy about Ahmadinejad moving more from the clerics and doing triangulating of his own. Ahmadinejad is a maverick, and shrewd politician, whom has cultivated real appeal to a good segment of Iranians. From Choksy’s Newsweek article,

As a result, together with the IRGC and Basij (a volunteer paramilitary group that has attacked opposition protesters), Ahmadinejad and his ilk are turning to totalitarianism, rather than the fundamentalism of Shiite clerics, to suppress the steadily growing democratic aspirations of the Green Movement. Yet the mullahs have strong allies too, not only in the legislature, led by Ali Larijani (who hails from a family of well-known clerics), but even among the president’s own clan, whose members remain divided on abjuring theocracy.

I realize I’ll need to decode all this economic factionalism. Let me try to piece this together. As Nikki R. Keddie put it in Roots of Revolution,

Governmental favoring of nonbazaar trade and industry and various plans of “modernization” or dispersal of the bazaar … were partly designed to weaken the bazaar’s politico-economic cohesion.

That was during Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s reign. Now consider the following from Robert Baer’s The Devil We Know in light of Ahmadinejad’s “import mania”,

[T]he Revolutionary Guards are, in a sense, a state within a state. They own more than a hundred companies and control as much as $12 billion, possibly more, in assets.

Reza Aslan contends that it was part of the Obama Administration’s strategy, in targeting the Pasdaran (which may control as much as a third of Iran’s economy) in sanctions, to send a message to bazaaris (traditional merchant class). The bazaari-ulema (merchant-clerical) relationship is deep, their networks complex, and go back centuries. Along with the intellectual-professional class and labor on the Left they formed the indispensable Right flank that brought down the Shah. Clerics often come from the bazaari class, and mosques are often situated in or near bazaars at the heart of a city.

The bazaari-ulema constituency is most often associated with the principlist conservatives like Speaker of the Majles Ali Larijani or commercial pragmatists like Rafsanjani. The first general bazaar strike since the Revolution occurred in 2008 in response to a proposed tax by Ahmadinejad. Taken all together, Aslan’s view is a good angle to take on deciphering the purpose of these new sanctions. Because, other than appeasing AIPAC and hawks in both the Republican and Democratic parties who want to “be tough” on Iran for domestic consumption (even if only with empty and counterproductive measures), the sanctions will likely have minimal effect on an organization which operates significantly like a mafia; on the black market. However; even if words of Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey (whom Press TV always subtly has a prominent picture of) to the effect of helping ordinary businessmen over a “select group of insiders” never makes it past the filter of Iranian state media (unlike Secretary of State Clinton’s “military dictatorship” comment and Iran’s response), at least Obama’s policy team is sophisticated enough to get the internal dynamics of Iran when they’re not concurrently pursuing the same old failed Washington-Tel Aviv-Riyadh line. As Shirin Ebadi suggested, sanctions on Siemens Nokia Networks would also be appropriate, even if sanctioning a Finno-Germanic venture is less palatable to US lawmakers.

Of course, Newt Gingrich compares the policy of the Obama Administration to the appeasement of Hitler. If anyone is Neville Chamberlain, it is George W. Bush, who created the political vacuum with which Iran could implement the Lebanon model of proxies and utilize long established Shi’a political allies (many who were exiled in Iran under Saddam). The upcoming Iraqi elections will be a good measure of the level of their success in effectively annexing the chunks of the country in all but name. In any case, Newt, take it up with Iranian-Americans, who in a PAAIA poll conducted by Zogby International, approve for the most part of Obama’s tact.

My cautionary take in regard to the bazaari-ulema class is to see it through the prism of parliamentary factional maneuvering and not to put too much hope in a general strike, and certainly not in them joining the ranks of the Green Movement (at least not any time soon). Such is reminiscent of speculation that the Artesh (regular army) might step in in the height of the summer protests. To their credit, they have remained professional and neutral, honoring Khomeini’s injunction on the armed forces (unlike the Pasdaran).

In any case, aside from fundamental sociological factors, looking back upon the ’79 Revolution, which 22 Bahman commemorated, as a blueprint for another revolution is specious. What the Green Movement represents, officially, is a simple aspiration for there to be respect of a plurality of opinion and civil society within the framework of the Islamic Republic. This is expounded by Mousavi in his most recent interview published on his personal site, Kaleme. While pointing out that bussing in supporters was done by the Shah among other repressive tactics, the headline was when Mousavi stated that “[t]his is the rule of a cult that has hijacked the concept of Iranianism and nationalism.” I would highly recommend reading the full translation.

He also echoed Karroubi’s request that dueling rallies be allowed (I even recall the suggestion that they could be held outside the city) and a referendum on the Guardian Council’s role in future elections. The translation cites Art. 54, but I believe it is Art. 59. This would mean going through Art. 177 to change Art. 99, if I am not mistaken. That requires going through Khamene’i, Ahmadinejad and the Expediency Council after which, a Council for Revision will be formed (which is required to consist of members of the Guardian Council itself, among representatives from every other key institution and branch of government) to discuss the proposal. Then, the Supreme Leader approves of the referendum, to be put to the people to vote on (how many problems could you count in that formula?). This was only done once before in 1989, at the behest of Khomeini, who tailored it to his successor who had neither the charisma, following, nor religious credentials he had. Members of that council included Karroubi and Mousavi. They are posturing here. They know full-well the hurdles and equilibrium of power is decidedly set against them. But, so do those whom identify with the Green Movement. Maybe the task here, with this specific goal, is to unify the movement in pressuring the Supreme Leader to entertain it or implicitly highlight the faults in the current system to the most ardent and apathetic alike and mobilize them around a coherent message.

As to the Supreme Leader jettisoning Ahmadinejad, in what was from the start of his first election, an awkward alliance, I would ask this: can he afford to do this without further risking the legitimacy of his own position? It would be tantamount to a concession and desperation mirroring Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s scapegoating of Prime Minister Hoveyda in 1977. It would be possible, I suppose, to hold Ahmadinejad in breach of Art. 113, stating that the president must be held to uphold and protect the constitution, and under Art. 130 “voluntarily” issue his resignation. But, since elections are “divine tests” of Allah’s will, and the Supreme Leader is Allah’s proxy on earth who already validated the election, how could he pull this off? And, more importantly, is the Supreme Leader really in complete control anymore? It goes to the core of the inherent contradictions of a Theocratic Republic, which is critiqued at length by Islamic scholars such as Mohsen Kadivar, and bemoaned with sad regret by the writers of the original draft constitution from the liberal Freedom Movement like Nasser Katouzian, whom had their work mangled and the exaltation of the position of Vali-ye Faghih enshrined beyond symbolic mediator and into a turbaned shah. I have a pet theory on why since Banisadr, no president has ever lost reëlection, but it’s more of the musing category, and I don’t really feel comfortable sharing it in this piece. There are also other perfectly reasonable explanations regarding state media and elections being personality-driven.

But, if the opposition’s goals seem doomed, then what does that leave us with? On CNN Newsroom, Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment and Trita Parsi of the National Iranian-American Council were interviewed by Don Lemon (for a humorous look at this pairing read this!). Trita Parsi made this point,

And the mere fact the game continues is in and of itself a defeat for the government because eight months, nine months after the fraud in elections this is still going on. Sometimes demonstrations are bigger, sometimes they’re smaller. But any sense of normalcy the government is yet to be able to find.

With all the talk of disappointment, or squabbling over the true size of the movement, perspective is lost. Even by the most conservative estimates, this is the largest social upheaval and challenge to the institutional establishment of the IRI in certainly twenty years; the length of Khamene’i's tenure. Larger than the original 18 Tir student protests in 1999 or their commemoration in 2003. Comparisons to anti-war demonstrations starting in the spring of 1985 which intermittently continued until 1988 (when Mousavi was Prime Minister, by the way) as the Iran-Iraq war needlessly dragged on before Khomeini drank the “poison chalice” would be more tenuous. But it would validate Mohsen Kadivar who said in 2000 that, “if more Iranians are willing to suffer, the establishment will have to give in.” Except, in that case the suffering was more immediate and affected everyone. As I said, tenuous comparison, and hardly an analogous circumstance. Although, it sapped the original revolutionary zeal in the public which Ahmadinejad and his coterie of mid-ranking Pasdar allies pledged to restore in 2005.

For additional perspective, one only need look at Mousavi’s history itself, such as in this article from The New Republic by respected scholar of Iran, Abbas Milani; or this one from Tehran Bureau’s Muhammad Sahimi. Who would have thought that Mousavi; a soft-spoken regime insider selected by the Guardian Council to run, would have stood up to his old rival Khamene’i this long? And can they afford to arrest him? Apparently their current line, from an Assembly of Experts’ statement is that the “sedition” is crushed and are more successfully changing the subject yet again with the capture and “confession” of Jundallah leader, Abdolmalek Rigi (this is actually newsworthy, unlike most manufactured distractions). Jundallah is a Sunni Baluchi terrorist group, which has had support from America in the past. Figure out the implied message here. And yet, Mousavi will not be cowed.

In Mousavi’s Kaleme interview on the path forward, he was asked about the floated idea of using Cheharshanbeh Souri, a secular sublimation of the Zoroastrian Jashn-e Sadeh (links of which I included at the bottom of my last article “Keeping the Fire Burning“). It is an evening celebration like Guy Fawkes Night mixed with Halloween. Bonfires are made, and jumped over saying “sorki-ye to az man, zardi-ye man az to” to the fire (your red color is mine, my sallowness is yours). Any reader of the Golden Bough or with any knowledge of similar Indo-European practices will instantly recognize parallels here. In present day Iran, it is one of the few times the sexes can freely interact socially and includes a Persian version of trick-or-treating. It also involves fireworks and has developed a reputation as a night of mischief and tragedy, reminding me of scenes of Devil’s Night in The Crow. Blogger Pedestrian thought it a horrible idea, and Mousavi concurred,

The ritual on this day reminds us of the defeat of darkness by light. But the supporters of the Green Movement, while respecting such national and religious occasions, do not want them to be used to harass and hurt the people, especially since those who oppose the Green Movement may have planned to use the occasion to bring the Movement into disrepute.

However; the grand Iranian holiday which it precludes offers hope. While 22 Bahman commemorated a Revolution which occurred before approximately 70% of the population was even born; Nowrouz, the Persian New Year, will provide a test of the Green Movement’s creativity and vigor, and is more ideal in its timeless ancient symbolism than any revolutionary anniversary.

Robin Wright, interviewed by Council on Foreign Relations,

[There's] the graffiti that is showing up on walls and fences and buildings that berates the regime or calls for a new public demonstration; posters that go up in the dead of night with pictures of political detainees demanding their freedom; and shouts at the subway stations [and] in soccer matches that erupt spontaneously, shouting, “Death to the dictator,” or “Down with Khamenei.” These things are playing out on a daily basis. There is a lot of energy behind this movement, not just on the days that people turn out on the street. It is arguably the most vibrant and imaginative civil disobedience campaign anywhere in the world today.

With more creativity to be seen, hopefully, as in the “wall dialogues” mentioned above (1), (2), or as in the fluidity of Persian Rap:

Ghogha ft. Shahin Najafi -- Enghelab-e Tafakor

As always, my disclaimer. I am not an expert. I do my best to interpret current events in Iran, that is all. Corrections are welcome. And nothing is more appreciated than questions on anything Iran-related (even if you don’t make it through the whole article). To prove I don’t take myself too seriously:

Appendix: BBC’s helpful flow chart on the political system of the IRI to help you follow parts of this article.

The Southern Poverty Law Center counted 926 active hate groups in the U.S. in 2008—that’s a 54% rise since 2000.  And those are only groups, lone wolves—no one knows how many. Statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation report the incidence of hate crimes showed an eight percent increase between 2005 and 2006. Over 50 percent of these crimes were race-related, with the remaining incidents triggered by sexual orientation, religion and gender differences.

FBI counterterrorism expert John Perren said of “lone wolf” domestic terrorists, “It could be anyone. It could be the guy next door … on the Internet just building himself up with hate … to a boiling point and finally using what he’s learned.” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 14, 2009

Who are these people who hate? What do they want? What do they believe? It’s hard to lump them all together, as they have different ideologies and display different characteristics, and they all have different objectives. The white supremacists want whites on top of the food chain, want a white Nordic world; the militias are paranoid about the New World Order, or the ZOG, or the federal government coming to put them in FEMA camps or some such takeover; the KKK wants Jews and African American banished from our shores forever, or dead; The Christianists want dominion over--and forced conversions of-- the entire planet, and they want gays killed or at least imprisoned. Some of these groups have imagined grievances; some just hate everyone who is not them.  But they all have one characteristic in common: Intolerance.

Intolerance is generally defined as the state of being unwilling or unable to endure the beliefs, perspectives, or practices of others. It also involves a lack of recognition for the fundamental rights and choices of others.

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF HATE

Are they really mentally disturbed, mentally impaired, downright crazy? Some are, but most are not. As far as hate crimes go, one would think individuals who commit these acts to be mentally unstable, however a study carried out by the University of California showed differently. Out of 550 hate crime criminals profiled, researchers found aggression and antisocial behavior to be prevalent, but no personality disorders. Perpetrators were described as typically “normal” with a high tendency towards destructiveness and violence.

Mary H. Guindon, PhD, Alan G. Green, PhD, and Fred J. Hanna, PhD from Johns Hopkins University say that there should be a new designation in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for people who hate irrationally.

“It is our intention to explore the possibility of an intolerant personality disorder as a previously unrecognized and unacknowledged type of psychopathology that causes harm to people from many cultures and has been destructive in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and disability. Antisocial, borderline, paranoid, and narcissistic personality disorders are examples of personality styles that are or can be harmful to others. The question is as follows: If intolerance of others in certain forms is indeed destructive and a source of pain and anxiety to its victims, should it not also be categorized as a mental disorder?”

They are part of a growing movement in the mental health community. They do not want to medicalize intolerance or to make it a disease.  But they and others believe it is important to name extreme intolerance as pathology.  They want to document and research the problem in order to develop treatments that can be part of the solution to profound social injustice concerns. Labeling intolerance as a personality disorder has the potential benefit to rehabilitate these people and lead to increased tolerance, which helps us all.

Whether feelings of hatred are rational or irrational, the logic system behind these feelings is distorted. Sigmund Freud classified all forms of behavioral expression as defense mechanisms used to protect one’s self-image. As such, hatred expressed inwardly or outwardly becomes a self-protective measure that works to maintain one’s sense of identity. Intolerance can also be viewed as a defense against change, acting as a form of self-protection. It is a sick defense mechanism.  Suspicion and distrust are perceived as necessary protection against a threat of harm.

The Johns Hopkins team lists these

Symptoms Of Intolerant Personality Disorder:

(a) holds a rigid set of beliefs that assert the intrinsic superiority due to race, religion, culture,or gender of the person’s own group ;

(b) lacks empathy for one or more particular populations, such as Latinos, African Americans, gays, lesbians, or women;

(c) exhibits interpersonal behavior that ranges from covert or overt antagonism and hostility to exploitation toward one or more specific or targeted populations;

(d) seeks to overtly or covertly block, deny, impede, or cancel the social, organizational, psychological, or financial advancement of someone of a group believed to be inferior;

(e) uses power or other means to inhibit or prevent free expression of contrary or intolerable ideas;

(f) has a sense of entitlement based on membership in a privileged group and believes that others should recognize his or her superiority without commensurate achievements or valid credentials;

(g) manifests a pervasive pattern of disregard for the human rights of members of particular populations; and

(h) shows lack of remorse as indicated by being callous or indifferent to having hurt, restricted, mistreated, or maligned members of selective populations.

A study carried out by the University of California on persons who committed hate crimes also revealed that the majority of the participants had a family history of violence and abuse. With this type of background, individuals are more prone to internalize feelings of self-hatred as a part of their overall self identity. As far as defense mechanisms go, one type in particular—projection—is attributed to the experience of hatred directed towards another.

Projection is a defense mechanism in which a person unconsciously directs feelings felt about oneself onto another person. This is a coping mechanism put in place to protect a person from harmful thoughts and feelings felt toward the self. The antagonistic feelings by someone towards the target of his hatred are, in effect, the same feelings he has with himself.

Understanding hate groups is essential for successful intervention strategies, which depend on an understanding of the hate process. According to FBI profilers, their observations show that hate groups go through seven stages in the hate process. Unless stopped, haters pass through these seven successive stages without skipping a stage. In the first four stages, haters vocalize their beliefs. In the last three stages, haters act on their beliefs. A transition period exists between vocalization and acting out. In this transition period, violence separates hard-core haters from rhetorical haters.

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin/March 1, 2003

Stage 1: The Haters Gather

Irrational haters seldom hate alone. They feel compelled, almost driven, to entreat others to hate as they do. Peer validation bolsters a sense of self-worth and, at the same time, prevents introspection, which reveals personal insecurities. Further, individuals otherwise ineffective become empowered when they join groups, which also provide anonymity and diminished accountability.

Stage 2: The Hate Group Defines Itself

Hate groups form identities through symbols, rituals, and mythologies, which enhance the members’ status and, at the same time, degrade the object of their hate. For example, skinhead groups may adopt the swastika, the iron cross, the Confederate flag, and other supremacist symbols. Group-specific symbols or clothing often differentiate hate groups. Group rituals, such as hand signals and secret greetings, further fortify members. Hate groups, especially skinhead groups, usually incorporate some form of self-sacrifice, which allows haters to willingly jeopardize their well-being for the greater good of the cause. Giving one’s life to a cause provides the ultimate sense of value and worth to life. Skinheads often see themselves as soldiers in a race war.

Stage 3: The Hate Group Disparages the Target

Hate is the glue that binds haters to one another and to a common cause. By verbally debasing the object of their hate, haters enhance their self-image, as well as their group status. In skinhead groups, racist song lyrics and hate literature provide an environment wherein hate flourishes. In fact, researchers have found that the life span of aggressive impulses increases with ideation. In other words, the more often a person thinks about aggression, the greater the chance for aggressive behavior to occur. Thus, after constant verbal denigration, haters progress to the next more acrimonious stage.

Stage 4: The Hate Group Taunts the Target

Hate, by its nature, changes incrementally. Time cools the fire of hate, thus forcing the hater to look inward. To avoid introspection, haters use ever-increasing degrees of rhetoric and violence to maintain high levels of agitation. Taunts and offensive gestures serve this purpose. In this stage, skinheads typically shout racial slurs from moving cars or from afar. Nazi salutes and other hand signals often accompany racial epithets. Racist graffiti also begins to appear in areas where skinheads loiter. Most skinhead groups claim turf proximate to the neighborhoods in which they live. One study indicated that a majority of hate crimes occur when the hate target migrates through the hate group’s turf.

Stage 5: The Hate Group Attacks the Target Without Weapons

This stage is critical because it differentiates vocally abusive haters from physically abusive ones. In this stage, hate groups become more aggressive, prowling their turf seeking vulnerable targets. Violence coalesces hate groups and further isolates them from mainstream society. Skinheads, almost without exception, attack in groups and target single victims. Research has shown that bias crimes are twice as likely to cause injury and four times as likely to result in hospitalization as compared to nonbias crimes.

In addition to physical violence, the element of thrill seeking is introduced in Stage 5. Experts found that 60 percent of hate offenders were “thrill seekers.” They seek an adrenaline high. Each successive anger- provoking thought or action builds on residual adrenaline and triggers a more violent response than the one that originally initiated the sequence. Anger builds on anger. The adrenaline high combined with hate becomes a deadly combination. Hard-core skinheads keep themselves at a level where the slightest provocation triggers aggression.

Stage 6: The Hate Group Attacks the Target with Weapons

Several studies confirm that a large number of bias attacks involve weapons. Some attackers use firearms to commit hate crimes, but skinheads prefer weapons, such as broken bottles, baseball bats, blunt objects, screwdrivers, and belt buckles. These types of weapons require the attacker to be close to the victim, which further demonstrates the depth of personal anger. Attackers can discharge firearms at a distance, thus precluding personal contact. Close-in onslaughts require the assailants to see their victims eye-to-eye and to become bloodied during the assault. Hands- on violence allows skinheads to express their hate in a way a gun cannot. Personal contact empowers and fulfills a deep-seated need to have dominance over others.

Stage 7: The Hate Group Destroys the Target

The ultimate goal of haters is to destroy the object of their hate. Mastery over life and death imbues the hater with godlike power and omnipotence, which, in turn, facilitate further acts of violence. With this power comes a great sense of self-worth and value, the very qualities haters lack. However, in reality, hate physically and psychologically destroys both the hater and the hated.

Symbols, Rituals, and Mythology

Fully understanding hate groups involves identifying and defining their unique symbols rituals, and mythologies. Symbols give greater meaning to irrational hate. Haters use symbols for self- identification and to form common bonds with other group members. Additionally, they often swear allegiance to these symbols.

Symbols, however, are not enough to unify a group; therefore, more organized hate groups incorporate rituals, which serve two functions. First, they relieve individual group members from deep thought and self-examination. Second, rituals reinforce beliefs and fortify group unity.

The hate group’s experiences, beliefs, and use of symbols and rituals combine to create group mythologies. Mythologies unify disparate thoughts and act as filters through which group members interpret reality. Group mythologies can have profound effects on its members. A group with a powerful mythology results in one resistant to ideological challenges, and, therefore, it is more dangerous.

RECRUITMENT

Hate groups have always been interested in getting brighter people into its ranks.  They are looking for is its future leaders, its tacticians and strategists who can create a second revolution—as opposed to those who can just beat up a few people. The internet really helps them meet this goal. Their primary target is often teenagers. In their view, impressionable youth represents the only hope for the future of the “white race.”

Leaving aside the intergenerational, within-family recruitment, the young are being actively recruited in large numbers and through specific tactics. Many adolescents today find themselves alienated from their families. Occasionally this is because the family is brutal or alcoholic, but more often the alienation arises in a home where the parents possessed no other values than the pursuit of money; where the parents are psychologically absent. The fascist youth group in particular offers these alienated kids a substitute family, an environment of mutual concern, and a substitute set of values. For many young people, a fascist group may provide their first real exposure to commitment, to courage, to unity of thought and action, to the motivation of non-materialistic values. Like any good gang.

RECRUITMENT STRATEGIES

Hate groups concentrate their recruiting efforts primarily in high schools and, to some extent, in colleges and universities. They even offer scholarships.  And the Internet seems tailor-made for reaching disaffected young people: teenagers spend far more time on it than their parents do, and many teens consider the virtual world of the web their “home away from home.”

Hatemongers now target young people directly, through hate “music” and special web sites. Young people may be susceptible to online racist propaganda because they don’t have the experience or facts at hand to refute the lies and myths being fed to them.

Although the Internet is a relatively new way to reach young people, the techniques hatemongers use to attract them are still very traditional. Here are some of the strategies hate groups use to attract young people on the Internet:

Music

The rise of white power rock ‘n’ roll has been very important to the racist movement. It’s extremely violent in its rhetoric and lyrics. The songs call for murdering black people or creating a racial holy war or a whites-only revolution, and they’re increasingly being sold to teenagers and people in their early 20s. It’s a great strategy--music is a compelling way to influence young people. When kids surf the Net for music, they may chance on sites that sell hate music, or even offer it free for downloading. Such Web sites often also provide links to hate-promoting brochures, pamphlets, newsgroups, chat rooms or Web sites.

Every year in North America, more than 70,000 white power CDs are sold. Resistance Records (the largest North American distributor of hate music) gross more than $3 million in 2007. Resistance Records has a stable of a dozen high-quality Skinhead bands like a cute girl-band that takes up the mantle from the defunct groups Prussian Blue. Their products can be ordered directly over the Internet. Resistance Records, as well as such established organizations as Aryan Nations and the Christian Identity Posse Comitatus, hold Aryan concerts, Aryan Youth festivals, or annual Aryan Youth Congresses.

Another white power music broker, Byron Calvert, distributed 30,000 CDs in 2007. The campaign is dubbed “Project Schoolyard Volume II” and targets teenagers with a 25-song sampler that features tracks such as “White Power” and “Some Niggers Never Die.” “Remember,” he wrote, “we don’t just entertain racist kids, we create them.” The CDs are on sale for 30 cents each, but Calvert is including several free with each order from Tightrope, his Arkansas-based website that offers hate music and other racist merchandise.  He said he also uses multiple MySpace accounts that are not overtly racist to reach white students at schools where racially charged incidents have occurred.

Skinhead Girl Warrior (Les Vilains)

Militia : May 17 Patrol & training music video

“Let’s see out the Fuhrer’s dream/To break the back of the eternal jew/Rid the world of the evil we’ve seen/Make it safe for me and you.”
— From “Under the Hammer” by Brutal Attack

“When the battle is over and the victory is won/And the White man’s lands are owned by true white people/the traitors will all be gone.”
— From “White Warriors” by Skrewdriver

And there are a few thousand more music videos! If you thought such unabashedly bigoted music was available only from underground sources, you’d be as surprised as I was. At Apple’s iTunes website you can buy albums and songs from white supremacist groups. But iTunes it’s not the only mainstream music distributor selling racist and offensive tracks. Amazon.com also sells music from many of the same white supremacist bands.

Games

Another strategy used to attract young people is white-power versions of popular computer games. Teens may go online looking for the latest cool game, and may find the “hate version” instead.

For example, Resistance Records has produced Ethnic Cleansing —a computer game whose object is to kill “subhumans” such as Blacks and Latinos, and their “masters,” the Jews, who are portrayed as the personification of evil. Players can choose between dressing as KKK members or skinheads. Even very popular mainstream games, such as Resident Evil5 have definite racist overtones.

Books

Many sites have chat rooms and I’ve noticed members often ask about books that promote their ideology. Stormfront and the Nationalist Coalition, to name just two, offer books for teens.

Activities for kids

Some hate sites offer special sections for kids containing games and activities. For example, on the “Creativity for Kids” section of the neo-Nazi World Church of the Creator Web site, children can try their hands at crossword puzzles with racist content. The purpose of the children’s section is ”to help the young members of the white race understand our fight.” Of course, most hate groups home-school their kids, and the bigger sites, like Stormfront.com provide learning materials.

Re: Join the SCOOTS Reading Club…..Promoting Childhood Literacy!

Hail All!

I just wanted everyone to know that the program is a free program for children 2-18. The sponsorship portion is for those that don’t have children, but still want to contribute to early literacy, the love of reading, and family togetherness.

I highly encourage participation from all our children ages 2-18 years of age. It is free and when you meet the goals you have the ability to choose your prizes carefully selected with our Folkish children in mind!

What better satisfaction than to help a child to form a love for reading, or for those avid readers, what better way to get rewarded for a job well done! If you teach a child to read, he or she can truly do anything!

I look forward to hearing from everyone for this program!

__________________
For Faith, Folk, and Family
Lucy

(Stormfront chat room)

Cartoon spokescharacters

Some hate sites use cartoon-like or animated characters, similar to (or identical to) those used in children’s media to attract young audiences.  They don’t even have to invent new ones, as Disney and many other old cartoons provide many racist characters.

OTHER COMMON STRATEGIES

Racialism

White power and white supremacy sites typically deny that they are racist organizations. Instead, they focus on the need to protect white people from assimilation and/or direct threats from non-white groups.  They call this perspective “racialist” as opposed to racist.

The 14/88 Society is a good example of this dynamic. The site’s name combines two hate slogans popular in the white supremacy movement:

• 14 refers to the 14-word slogan: “We must secure the existence of our race and a future for white children”

• 88 represents HH (H being the eighth number in the alphabet), which stands for Heil Hitler

Overtly racist sites, like 14/88, are the easiest to identify because they conform to the mainstream image of the neo-Nazi skinhead hate group. However many hate sites attempt to conceal a racist agenda behind a more moderate message.

Pseudo-Science and Intellectualism

Many hate-mongers use pseudo-scientific intellectualized language and incorporate the work of university-based academics to make their views seem more credible. Canadian professor Phillip Rushton’s work on the different intellectual and physical abilities of different “races” is a case in point. In addition, the late Dr. William Pierce operated a publishing company that released a steady stream of neo-Nazi literature. Pierce’s fictionalized account of racialist revolution in The Turner Diaries is said to have inspired the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.

Historical Revisionism

Holocaust denial is a frequently used strategy. Haters who “revise” history argue that the Holocaust either did not occur, or was less significant than the historical record indicates. And they are insidious. Let’s say your child is given a school assignment to write about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Most likely, he or she will go to the internet and search for Martin Luther King. What they could easily find is pretty scary—and despicable. On one site I found this Discovery Channel movie trailer claiming that whites are the indigenous Ice Age North Americans.

ANTI GOVERNMENT SENTIMENTS AND RECRUITMENT

At a deeper level, recruitment into the neo-fascist movements is based on the on-going crisis of capitalism, especially in North America.

Worsening economic conditions, political instability, a perceived sense of injustice, or a struggle of groups for self-identity or power are among the conditions that may precipitate planned or spontaneous outbursts of violence by groups against individuals, other groups, or the state.

Research on genocide, group violence, and hate crimes have shown that such factors as economic problems, political conflict, or rapid and substantial social change interact with group characteristics such as the need to scapegoat or devalue other groups, the inclination to hinge a better future on identifying enemies who stand in the way, and a pattern of aggression.

Corporate downsizing, declining real wages, changing technology, increasing gap between the wealthy and everyone else, and the steady decline in manufacturing jobs replaced by lower paying, less secure jobs in the service sector, have all combined to leave the average American worker feeling vulnerable and betrayed. For rural Americans, economic uncertainty is compounded by threats to traditional rural industries like logging, mining, ranching, and farming. These are the conditions in which hate groups thrive.

NEXT—HATE IN AMERICA, Part 4:  What Can Be Done

The last month in Iran has been full of little clues and a few intrigues. I will try to pare them down. This update has been long coming, and before I become even more overwhelmed, I’ll try to do my best.

The beginning of the Gregorian year, January 1st, 2010, following the Ashura demonstrations, the most violent since summer, Mir Hossein Mousavi issued this statement. This included five primary conditions, giving structure and form to the Green Movement.

1. Accountability for the current Ahmadinejad administration. Real application of the checks and balances of the judiciary and majles as outlined in the Constitution.
2. New election laws, passed by the majles, to ensure lack of interference at all levels of government.
3. Release of all political prisoners.
4. A free media. Letting foreign press report, reopening banned newspapers and ceasing internet censorship and signal jamming.
5. Upholding the peoples right to demonstrate without fear.

As was predictable, Kayhan, the Iranian Pravda, says in a headline (Farsi) that it was written by the CIA and Mossad. Five noted expatriate reform intellectuals issued their own ten demands. I would not put too much importance upon this, though, and offer it merely for your perusal.

On taking stock of the movement the day after the statement, Muhammad Sahimi stresses this “is a Marathon, not a sprint.” That the trio of Mousavi, former President Khatami, and two time Majles Speaker Karroubi, are no longer merely symbolic leaders. Sahimi continued:

Up until recently, the jury was still out on whether the trio truly led the Green Movement. It was particularly unclear whether Mousavi was truly interested in fundamental changes, or even had what it took to stand up for anything. Two important points about Mousavi must be considered. … by all indications, he is recognized by most of the supporters of the Green Movement inside Iran, as well as the hardliners, as the symbol and the leader of the opposition.

The fact that even the reticent Khatami has stepped more into the fray and that Karroubi says that even the shah would not have transgressed Ashura by creating such crimes demonstrates that they are taking their stand, and not backing down half a year into the movement.

The increased pressures, threats and attacks on the offices of heir apparent to Montazeri’s mantle, Grand Ayatollah Sane’i, and Karroubi; in addition to, increasingly empty promises to arrest the three and a full-on crackdown, give all the evidence I need that this is not the meaningless movement the hardliners and their Western apologists here claim. Indeed, this was an interesting article by Borzou Daragahi on the opposition movement in the heartland from the Los Angeles Times and the spread of DVD’s with footage of demonstrations. I, of course, caution against reading such sources with too much confidence in their representative nature. The one fact that we are certain of is that press access is extremely restricted, so wherever one’s sympathies lie, hard information is hard to come by. That is why Iran has become such a contested debate among policy experts and online bloggers alike (*ahem*), with the last line of refuge among apologists often coming down to these polls. My response? I wouldn’t care if they were a few dozen. Even if I were to accept the polls, it is irrelevant to the issue of human rights. That, too, is apparently controversial to the woo-woo. I’ve had more than one scoff at Amnesty International as an organization which is apparently part of the Zionist NWO conspiracy.

On that note, perhaps the highest profile apologists: the Leveretts. In a New York Times op-ed on January 5, they called on Obama to proceed on course, and ignore the Green Movement. In this they also went out of their way to simplify history, distort information, peddle conservative Iranian propaganda and construct straw man after straw man in what seemed like spite for inconvenient internal developments which complicated their pet cause: détente. While I do not entirely disagree with their call to proceed on a vigorous diplomatic track with Iran or their goals of rapprochement regardless of government (Nixon, China and the Cultural Revolution are often brought up to support this view, and indeed, Sen. John Kerry’s request to visit Iran got little notice), I thought that their blithe dismissal of those risking harm for human rights (click here for a recent roundup) was petty and unneeded to make that case. And their construct of arguing against this as an overthrow of the Islamic Republic by the secular elite was unbecoming to experts of their caliber. They often fall into the mire of Western foreign policy debate rather than addressing the situation in Iran directly - though in their follow up to criticisms, they doubled down on their rationalizations and ostensible objectivity. Juan Cole read my mind when he wrote:

Being someone who has spent his life studying Iran, I am of course frustrated by what I see as significant flaws in the debate as conducted by policy thinkers in the NYT. But I have long since concluded that the New York – Washington – Tel Aviv discourse about the Middle East is not about the Middle East but about New York and Washington and Tel Aviv, and that it is virtually impenetrable because it is driven by powerful interests rather than a dispassionate consideration of facts on the ground, a sense of proportionality, and a textured knowledge of the target country (and I do mean target).

Such policy debate is understandable, as this was the motivation that drove them to dispel such fanciful notions, often reverberating amongst the monarchist expat diaspora and neocons alike, that the régime is on its last legs. However; in this they misjudged and missed the mark. In the Jan. 1 demands of Mousavi, did they see a phantom call to annul the election? Since writing “Ahmadinejad Won. Get Over It” they themselves haven’t gotten over the fact that this moved beyond the election quite some time ago (though Karroubi did allude to “respecting the electorate”). And they shill fatalism of the Reformist’s eventual failure almost gleefully (which is in a sense okay, given the emotional connection Iranians have for Imam Hossein, or Rostam). The apologists online seem to be clinging to that argument desperately, as if it abridged the Constitutional rights of Iranian citizens to gather. Furthermore, they, along with the Leveretts, see it as a vast minority and dwindling, comparing those whom risk considerable violence to assemble with those whom are given the day off, fed, and handed banners. While many of these apologists try to deride the opposition as a “Tea Party Movement” for its inchoate message (as if anti-war marches during the Bush administration practiced message discipline) or as North Tehrani ‘Birthers’; a more apt comparison could be found in the upheavals of the Civil Rights Movement of 1960′s America. As Hooman Majd said in Foreign Policy:

What is evident is that if we consider Iran’s pro-democracy “green movement” not as a revolution but as a civil rights movement — as the leaders of the movement do — then a “win” must be measured over time. The movement’s aim is not for a sudden and complete overthrow of Iran’s political system. That may disappoint both extremes of the American and Iranian political spectrums, left and right, and especially U.S. neoconservatives hoping for regime change.

Their sin is that the Leveretts know better, and in their attempt at dispassionate analysis, they’ve overcompensated, downplaying the hardline response and Principlist maneuverings which is, in my mind, implicit evidence of a more than insignificant challenge to their political grip on power – though this is not imperiled so long as hardliners and conservatives hold all significant levers of power. I also take note of Flynt Leverett’s friend, Mohammad Marandi (video). Remind you of anything (video)? Other good responses were from Abbas Milani in The New Republic, Enduring America‘s Scott Lucas and Tehran Bureau‘s Muhammad Sahimi.

While articles like this from the Los Angeles Times with headlines hinting at a government threatened with collapse and the spin from pro-Reform sites such as Rah-e Sabz (Green Path) are to be kept in mind, as should individual first-hand accounts; the alternative is most often Iranian state propaganda – as papers and web sites contradicting the hardline position are methodically shut down and journalists thrown in jail. Last count, going up in past few days, is now 63 at this writing. So, forgive me if I have more faith in Western media (for all of its faults) and Reformist sites than even more reasonable Press TV (comparatively speaking in comparison with other state funded media) whom produced this “exposé” on Neda Agha-Soltan’s death being faked, and spawning a YouTube video or two reminiscent of Oliver Stone’s famous “back and to the left” scene and defended by the same Alex Jones types that believe the moon landing was a hoax. To fully nail home the link between Iranian hardliners and Western woo-woos, is this whopper of a headline: “Report: US weapon test aimed at Iran caused Haiti quake”.

Time and time again, what Hooman Majd describes as “schizophrenic” responses and one-trick pony attempts to control the message, later reports tend to contradict initial denial. This is true of the Kahrizak detention center affair. According to BBC:

Iranian MPs lifted a blanket of official denial on the country’s post-election upheaval today by blaming a ­senior regime insider for abuses that led to the deaths of at least three prisoners in a detention centre. …

Today’s report dismissed a claim from Mortazavi that the prisoners had died from meningitis and ­acknowledged that they had been assaulted.

But of course, the sacrificial lamb they pinned this on, Saeed Mortazavi, claimed he was on vacation when these abuses and deaths occurred. Was the “butcher of the press” also on vacation when Zahra Kazemi, the Canadian photojournalist, was raped and her skull fractured in 2003? As Human Rights Watch pointed out, he was already a serial offender. In fact, after he was found responsible for Kahrizak abuses, the Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister, Lawrence Cannon, called for her case to be revisited (since he, the accused, was put in charge of investigating the original case!) and her remains repatriated to Canada, per her family’s wishes.

By far the biggest source of intrigue this past month, was the bizarre assassination of particle physicist, Masoud Ali-Mohammadi on January 12th. State media immediately hailed him as a faithful supporter of the Revolution and institution of the velayat-e faghih, and reflexively pinned the blame on the US and Israel. Students of Ali-Mohammadi were then quick to point out that he had been a supporter of Mousavi. Am I saying that being true to the Islamic Republic and to Mousavi are mutually exclusive? No. That’s not what I’m saying.

Mohammad Reza Ali-Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour were hung on January 28th, having been sentenced in October for being members of the Anjoman Padeshahi-ye Iran (API, also known as Tondar, whom are a relatively obscure group with the aim of reestablishing the Pahlavi dynasty), for planning attacks on Ahmadinejad and apparently being connected with the 2008 Shiraz terrorist Mosque bombing (even though three others were already tried and executed for that). The AP’s Ali Akbar Dareini (in league with Zionists, mind you) reported:

The two men were arrested before the turmoil set off by claims that Ahmadinejad’s re-election was fraudulent. But Iran brought them to court in the same mass trial in an attempt to show that the political opposition is in league with violent armed groups in a foreign-backed plot to overthrow the Islamic system.

In addition; nine others have been sentenced to death for their role in the Ashura protests on December 27th. Five were confirmed by the MeK to be affiliated with them (though there’s debate whether they were part of a “militant wing” or not). The others were, predictably, tied to the API or unspecified monarchist groups in general. Along with these, seven Bahá’ís arrested (initially thought to be ten) on Ashura have been accused of spying for Israel. This probably has something to do with the seat of the Bahá’í faith being situated in Haifa. It also has a great deal to do with the century of persecution this “heretical” religion has faced in its home country of Iran. This past November, a conservative newspaper was even banned for featuring a photo of this famous temple in Delhi for an Indian tourism ad. Anyone familiar with India knows that this was nothing unusual.

So, the effort to contaminate Mousavi’s followers is indeed concerted, and this would appear to be one of those “schizophrenic” moves, as Hooman Majd has called them. Recently, the Iranian English daily, Tehran Times, claimed February 2nd, that VEVAK’s head, Heydar Moslehi, had found “clues”, but no one has been arrested. Given VEVAK’s track record with assassinations of intellectuals, this strikes me as ironic as placing Saeed Mortazavi in charge of the 2003 Zahra Kazemi inquiry. However; just because IRI propaganda is a one-trick pony, doesn’t mean it is always wrong. As Muhammad Sahimi pointed out in his own speculation (much recommended for a comprehensive overview of the case), Israel does have a self-declared program to assassinate nuclear scientists (might designate it with one of my favorite terms: ‘overt-covert’), as Mossad did in 2007, with Ardeshir Hassanpour. And, NCRI/MeK still has a presence within Iran, as evinced by their uncovering clandestine nuclear enrichment sites in the past few years. One problem: Ali-Mohammadi was not a nuclear scientist, as initially reported in Israeli and Western news. Former Mossad head, Shabtai Shavit, still active in the Israeli intelligence community, said he had no idea who Ali-Mohammadi was. That begs the question why I would believe an arch-spook; but the question remains: why? As Muhammad Sahimi crucially asked, “who benefits?” Given the hotbeds that universities are, it could have been a warning to intellectuals and students. It could have been botched intelligence (after all, why would one go to such lengths to carry out such an attack?). It could have been designed as a false-flag by either the IRI or Western interests. This type of event is the bread and butter of conspiracy theorists. And, of course, it elicits certitude from those who blame Israel for absolutely everything under the sun, as well as the bitterest (understandable as it can be) of the Iranian diaspora cursing the akhoond-ha (mollahs). I myself will admit to joining in with jokes on my theory that it was a yarmulke-wearing elven ET astride a flying unicorn which farts rainbows and can bend the time-space continuum with his magic shofar. Bottom line though – from all initial accounts this was a nice man. And if I were to interpret clues, it would be that while the modus operandi of a bomb was that of exile terrorist groups, the account of Ali Mohammadi’s funeral offers its own clues, as well. Try and rest in peace, doctor.

I would like to make one thing clear here. I do not support terrorism and assassination by anyone – especially of scientists and intellectuals. Whether it be the mojahedin, monarchists, Israel, or the IRI itself. Israeli “fatwas” upon scientists associated with the nuclear program should be held in moral contempt. If you guys really are responsible for any of these acts post-election, knock it the fuck off! You are not helping! If you believe violence is a legitimate tactic, read this essay and make your counter-argument.

And congratulations to you, Sarah Palin. Iranian state-media rejoiced at this:

Say he decided to declare war on Iran or decide to really come out and do whatever he could to support Israel–which I would like him to do.

You just made yourself not only a hardline collaborator with that gem, but proved yourself to truly be ‘fucking retarded’. (don’t worry, I claim the same satire immunity granted to Rush).

But, back to the Iranian domestic front. January 16th saw this statement, from Police Chief Ahmadi Moghaddam (statements such as this were hardly isolated, and Ayatollah Jannati’s was characteristically more fiery, forgive me for only offering one):

“These people should know where they are sending the SMS and e-mail as these systems are under control. They should not think using proxies will prevent their identification,” Mr Ahmadi Moghaddam said.

He warned that those who incited others to protest or issued appeals: “have committed a worse crime than those who come to the streets”.

And this is not limited to within Iran’s borders:

A worldwide movement that has relied heavily on Web sites such as Twitter and Facebook to express opposition to Iranian authorities has found they aren’t the only ones taking advantage of social networking and media coverage; Iranian government forces are apparently using those same tools to hold citizens accountable for their relatives’ actions outside the country.

Also beyond Iran’s boundaries (well, according to International Law, not technically), two diplomats have issued resignations of protest due to governmental violence (well, more like one and a half). Mohammad Reza Heydari, posted in Oslo, and former diplomat Abolfazl Eslami in Tokyo has gone public with some provocative statements on the mood of those in the Foreign Ministry, supposedly. This is why attacking embassies like the Swedish incident is shortsighted.

22 Bahman, anniversary of the Victory of the Islamic Revolution has been stepping up the last week or two. Opposition leaders are full of resolve and defying calls of conservatives and Supreme Leader not to continue their “sedition”. Following are some excerpts from the prime leaders.

Karroubi in late January issued this:

Although today they have shut down newspapers, filtered websites, imprisoned many of our dear friends, closed down the office of [reformist] parties including the Etemade Melli office and even my personal office, although they fired shots at my car, although some are threatening everyday and are insulting Mir Hossein Mousavi, me and the great nation of Iran in every way possible and take our words out of content, but I am firmly announcing that I never compromise over people’s rights and one of the main rights of this nation is their votes that they casted in the ballot boxes while trusting the authorities; and I will be with the people till the very end and will try for holding free elections and eliminating current obstacles.

Khatami’s February 1st statement, while mentioning the elections, drives home the point I am making against those whom willfully ignore, downplay, or rationalize the events transpiring since:

The freedom that we are talking about is the freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, freedom of expressing that opinion, and freedom of employing that opinion and people being asked to give their inputs about that opinion.

The requirement for freedom in its true meaning, which in short is the power of the people over their own destiny, is the freedom of speech and assembly. How could it be possible that there are parties but they don’t have any platform to express their views and cannot hold gatherings?

In a calm and civil environment, people should get a chance to come and then it would be clear what poeple’s tendencies are. And more important than this is the elections that should be free, healthy, and trustworthy.

On February 2nd, Mousavi’s interview with Kalemeh came out. This included 14 points. The election was not mentioned (I realize my earlier claim is muddled, given Khatami’s and Karroubi’s continued skepticism). This is a classic Reformist platform, only explicit in its criticism. Instead of posting it all, I would really, really recommend reading it here. If not that, BBC gives an abstract. In addition; Khatami has a more recent 22 Bahman statement (Reformist plank, largely).

Of course, Ahmadinejad & Co. tried desperately to change the subject. Whether it was its nuclear offer to send LEU abroad or later tantrum to enrich itself (I, by the way thought the West totally misplayed this, and should have put the onus on Ahmadinejad to back up his bluff in a fractious Iranian political climate). Whether it was a failed rocket launch into space or proposed prisoner swap for the three American hikers (sorry, SPIES!). Whether it was again threatening to cut ties with the British Museum over the Cyrus Cylinder after threatening it for weeks (the irony of this is beyond words), or stoning the Italian embassy in Tehran amidst orchestrated cries of “Death to Italy” (WTF?!). And summoning Canada’s charge d’affaires for this? Sentencing Khatami’s former deputy foreign minister to six years and executing proxy Greens, check! Even censoring images and video of the ’79 Revolution itself? why not! Indeed, it’s as if they were trying to exhaust their full bag of tricks…

I will give credit to the MSM for not being completely distracted by the shiny ball tactic from Tehran to leave the slated demonstration completely uncovered. They do appear to have improved their learning curve. They have hysterically exaggerated the nuclear announcement as usual (Ahmadinejad has the MSM and American public at large so trained. He says “fetch” and we froth at the mouth and wag our tails obediently). Juan Cole says “oh noes!” to medical isotope levels of enrichment. I cannot believe I honestly caught a FOX news model saying this was close to the weapons grade level required. Oh wait, yes I can. But, the MSM still fails pathetically in connecting the two stories and taking into consideration the internal dynamics and intended geopolitical misdirection.

Today, the talk was also of sanctions aimed at the Pasdaran. This has been coming for some time. In my own mini-Rashomon entry I’ll treat the issue of sanctions:

• Wall Street Journal: “US Shifts Iran Focus to Support Opposition” (Jan. 9, 2010)
• Tehran Bureau (PBS): “New Sanctions Miss the Target” (Jan. 30, 2010)
• BBC News: “US expands Iran Guards sanctions” (Feb. 10, 2010)
• Press TV: “US blacklists Iranian commander, firms” (Feb. 10, 2010 – notice the picture of Stuart Levey)

Another aspect every sympathetic observer is still monitoring are trade unions and strikes (just one example) and arrests. I hope to have more on this at some time.

Before ending this update in preparation for 22 Bahman, some fun.

• Sexually suggestive logo made up of letters and how the show “24″ was part of the plot to elect Obama! (Pedestrian has some of the most original stuff – my tip o’ the hat)
• The color green in Iran’s flag was replaced with blue at Ahmadinejad speeches.
• Breaking news: Iranian turtle-astronauts defect to the west.

And, my final story, the subject of which was once an intellectual obsession of mine: “Iranians celebrate ancient Persian fire fest”

Thousands of Iranians gathered at dusk against a snowy mountain backdrop to light giant bonfires in an ancient mid-winter festival dating back to Iran’s pre-Islamic past that is drawing new interest from Muslims.

Saturday’s celebration was the first in which the dwindling remnants of Iran’s once plentiful Zoroastrian religious minority were joined by thousands of Muslims, reflecting a growing interest in the strict Islamic society for the country’s ancient traditions.

Video slide show worth watching for any interested in world religions (you just might recognize someone’s avatar in it).

Some music. And yes, this would be an example of the secular “Westoxified” upper middle-class. No a-ha moment here. I’ve also posted noheh videos. And any criticism to how out of touch I am with the “common Iranian on the street” I would say, so what? It isn’t only the élite that consume such Western-style music. And, why is it that the fundamentalists respond not solely with their own music, or their own ideas, but like the schoolyard bully outwitted, resort to bannings, force and intimidation? All should be free to express themselves. That is my conviction.

Hypernova – Viva La Resistance

My apologies for being late with this update, as well as all mistakes herein. For the umpteenth time, I am very adamant pointing out I am not a professional, and I know it. I was getting a little burned out and slacked off the past month in following Iran. I hope to be more prompt with the Revolution Day demonstrations. But, as with demonstrations before, this will take a few days, as that is how long it takes for information, videos and analyses to come out.

WHAT IS HATE SPEECH?

Hate speech is the kind of speech used to denigrate an individual or a group of people because of something about them, such as their race, ethnicity, gender, age, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, disability, ideology, social class, or physical appearance. Speech is considered written or oral communication and some forms of behaviors in a public setting (such as burning a cross).
Some people have trouble defining hate speech. Does it matter whether the speech occurs in a face-to-face encounter, in an online diatribe, in a novel, in a newscast, during a classroom presentation, or as part of a political candidate’s campaign? Can hate speech be defined as a list of words (fag, nigger, kike, retard, fatso, gimp), or does the context of those words count (rap music, Lenny Bruce, a scholarly paper)?  Which is more important in determining hate speech, the intent of the speaker (Rahm Emanuel saying the Democrats are “fucking retarded,”  or the reaction of the audience (Sarah Palin, because of her Down’s Syndrome child)?

The following might be considered hate speech:

In Maryland, at a town hall hosted by Democratic Sen. Ben Cardina, a man held a sign “Death to Obama” and “Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids.”  The man was detained and turned over to the U.S. Secret Service for questioning. It is illegal to threaten the life of a president.

A couple of weeks before last November’s election, a man in West Hollywood, Calif., had a display outside his home of a mannequin dressed to look like Sarah Palin hanging by a noose around her neck. A likeness of John McCain appeared to be emerging from a fake fire.

A liberal radio talk show host, Mike Malloy, said on the air: “I have good news to report: Glenn Beck appears closer to suicide. I’m hoping that he does it on camera. Suicide is rampant in his family, and given his alcoholism and his tendencies toward self-destruction, I am only hoping that when Glenn Beck does put a gun to his head and pulls the trigger that it will be on television, because somebody will capture it on YouTube and it will be the most popular video for months.”

Is this hate speech?

The Two Minutes Hate: August 12, 2009

I am certain this is:

Tempe pastor reiterates wish for President Obama s death Phoenix Arizona

Before a truck bomb took out the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, these people might have been dismissed as cranks. Now, after the deaths of George Tiller and Stephen Johns (the Holocaust Museum guard), it feels as if we should take action.

THE FIRST AMENDMENT

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
— The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

The federal government and state governments are broadly forbidden by the First Amendment from restricting speech. Unique among courts in the world, the Supreme Court has extended broad protection in the area of hate speech—abusive, insulting, intimidating, and harassing speech that at the least fosters hatred and discrimination and at its worst promotes violence and killing. The First Amendment is not, of course, absolute; private institutions, including universities and employers, are not subject to the First Amendment, which restricts only government activities.

There is obviously a direct a direct link between freedom of speech and a vibrant democracy. Justice Louis Brandeis wrote that “freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth.” I ask, is that correct? Is the national debate bolstered when, for example, hate speech is mainstreamed? Or are the real issues pushed to the backburner while we debate nonsense, like whether or not our President is an American citizen?

Americans vigorously dispute the application of the First Amendment. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his famous Abrams v. United States (1919) dissenting opinion, had a shocking opening line: “Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical.” What could Holmes have been thinking?

Perhaps Holmes was saying that all of us have within us a kind of censorship-impulse. Governments are especially prone to censor. As Holmes went on: “If you have no doubt of your premises or your power and want a certain result with all your heart you naturally express your wishes in law and sweep away all opposition.” Censorship is a kind of social instinct. As caring and responsible citizens of society, we are likely to want many results with all our hearts. We want safety, we want freedom from fear, we want order, civility, racial and religious tolerance, we want the best world for our children. We want these things with all our hearts, and when others express opinions that seem to threaten these hopes, we want to enact laws that forbid them to express it.  It is only logical to want to prevent opposition to what we know is good. But that’s the crux of freedom of speech: Who are “we” and how do we “know what is good,” really?

Most people believe in the right to free speech, but debate whether it should cover flag-burning, hard-core rap and heavy-metal lyrics, tobacco advertising, hate speech, kiddie porn, nude dancing, and religious symbols on government property. Many would agree to limiting some forms of free expression.

Many influential American thinkers have often argued that robust protection of freedom of speech, including speech advocating crime and revolution, actually works to make the country more stable, increasing rather than decreasing our ability to maintain law and order. Does that hold true even if a percentage of citizens want to see minority populations disenfranchised; even if they want to see their brand of Christianity become the national religion; even if they government programs labeled fascist? Freedom of speech allows a tiny but vocal group of people to use the megaphone of the media to spread lies, fear, and hate too.

Perhaps if a society as wide-open and pluralistic as America is not to explode from festering tensions and conflicts, there must be valves through which citizens with discontent may blow off steam.

Probably the most celebrated attempt at an explanation to the value of free speech is the “marketplace of ideas” metaphor, a notion most famously associated with Justice Holmes’ great dissent in Abrams, in which he argued that “the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.” The marketplace of ideas metaphor does not assure that truth will emerge from the free trade in ideas, but merely says that free trade in ideas is the best test of truth. Is that true? And doesn’t Holmes make certain assumptions about Americans? For example, doesn’t he presume an educated populace, one taught critical thinking skills?

The connection of freedom of speech to self-governance and the appeal of the marketplace of ideas metaphor still, however, does not tell it all. Freedom of speech has value on a more personal and individual level. Freedom of speech is part of the human personality, a value intimately intertwined with human autonomy and dignity. In the words of Justice Thurgood Marshall in the 1974 “The First Amendment serves not only the needs of the polity but also those of the human spirit — a spirit that demands self-expression.”

Many Americans embrace freedom of speech for the same reasons they embrace other aspects of individualism. The U.S. Supreme Court has often understood the First Amendment in a way that defies the logical impulse to censor. In scores of decisions, the Supreme Court has interpreted the First Amendment in a manner that to most of the world seems positively radical. Those decisions are numerous and cover a vast and various terrain, but consider some highlights. Americans have the right to:

Desecrate the national flag as a symbol of protest.

Burn the cross as an expression of racial bigotry and hatred.

Espouse the violent overthrow of the government as long as it is mere abstract advocacy and not an immediate incitement to violence.

Traffic in sexually explicit erotica as long as it does not meet a rigorous definition of “hard core” obscenity.

Defame public officials and public figures with falsehoods provided they are not published with knowledge of their falsity or reckless disregard for the truth.

Disseminate information invading personal privacy if the revelation is deemed “newsworthy.”

Engage in countless other forms of expression that would be outlawed in many nations but are regarded as constitutionally protected here.

And infamously, now, corporations have the right to make political contributions to increase the influence of money on the political process.

“In much of the developed world, one uses racial epithets at one’s legal peril, one displays Nazi regalia and the other trappings of ethnic hatred at significant legal risk and one urges discrimination against religious minorities under threat of fine or imprisonment,” Frederick Schauer, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, wrote in a recent essay called “The Exceptional First Amendment. But in the United States,” Schauer continued, “all such speech remains constitutionally protected.”

Canada, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Australia and India all have laws or have signed international conventions banning hate speech. Israel and France forbid the sale of Nazi items like swastikas and flags. It is a crime to deny the Holocaust in Canada, Germany and France. By contrast, U.S. courts would not stop the American Nazi Party from marching in Skokie, Illinois, in 1977, though the march was deeply distressing to the many Holocaust survivors there.

SUPREME COURT CASES RELATED TO HATE SPEECH

According to opinions in Supreme Court cases, there are four main characteristics that make hate speech a legal offense: Incitement to imminent lawless action, true threats, a clear and present danger, and fighting words. There are other areas of speech not protected by the first amendment too—obscenity, libel and slander, and conflict with other governmental interests (like gag orders during trials and certain speech during war).

Incitement to imminent lawless action

In Brandenburg v Ohio (1969), the justices upheld the right of the Ku Klux Klan to call publicly for the expulsion of African Americans and Jews from the United States, even though the speech in question intimated using violence. The justices held that unless the speech was intended to cause violence and had a high likelihood of producing such a result imminently it was protected by the First Amendment. The Brandenburg test has proven nearly impossible to meet.

True threats

The Supreme Court explained the definition of true threats in Virginia v. Black (2003) — in which it upheld most of a Virginia cross-burning statute — this way:

“True threats’ encompass those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals. The speaker need not actually intend to carry out the threat. Rather, a prohibition on true threats protect(s) individuals from the fear of violence and from the disruption that fear engenders, in addition to protecting people from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur.”

In Planned Parenthood v. American Coalition of Life Activists (2002), the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that some vigorous anti-abortion speech — including a Web site that listed the names and addresses of abortion providers who should be tried for “crimes against humanity” — could qualify as a true threat. The 9th Circuit emphasized that “the names of abortion providers who have been murdered because of their activities are lined through in black, while names of those who have been wounded are highlighted in grey.”

Even in the speech-restrictive world of the military, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces ruled in United States v. Wilcox (2008) that a member of the military could not be punished for posting racially offensive and hateful remarks he made over the Internet about white supremacy.

A Clear and Present Danger

In 1919, the Supreme Court was first requested to strike down a law violating the Free Speech Clause. The case involved Charles Schenck, who had, during WWI published leaflets challenging the conscription system. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld Schenck’s conviction for violating the Espionage Act. Justice Holmes, writing for the Court, wrote that “the question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.”

The “clear and present danger” test of Schenck was extended in 1919, again by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. The case involved a speech made by Eugene V. Debs, a political activist. Debs had not spoken any words that posed a “clear and present danger” but a speech in which he denounced militarism was nonetheless found to be sufficient grounds for his conviction. Justice Holmes suggested that the speech had a “natural tendency” to stop the draft. Can you imagine this precedent holding up today? I can’t, given the amount of anti-government talk I hear in the media daily.

Freedom of speech was also influenced by anti-communism during the Cold War. In 1940, the Congress made it illegal to advocate “the propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force and violence.” Even though there was no immediate danger posed by the Communist Party’s ideas, the Court allowed the Congress to restrict the Communist Party’s speech.

These cases have never been explicitly overruled by the Court, but subsequent decisions have greatly narrowed its place within First Amendment laws. Now only speech explicitly inciting the forcible overthrow of the government remains punishable.

Fighting Words

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, (1942) that intimidating speech directed at a specific individual in a face-to-face confrontation amounts to “fighting words,” and that the person engaging in such speech can be punished if “by their very utterance [the words] inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.” Say a white student stops a black student on campus and utters a racial slur. In that one-on-one confrontation, which could easily come to blows, the offending student could be disciplined under the “fighting words” doctrine for racial harassment.

Over the past 50 years, however, the Court hasn’t found the “fighting words” doctrine applicable in any of the hate speech cases that have come before it, since the incidents involved didn’t meet the narrow criteria stated above.

Libel and Slander

You do not have a constitutional right to tell lies that damage or defame the reputation of a person or organization. This is a highly inconsistent ruling, as I can provide several examples where president Obama was the object of both lies and slander. Obama is a racist, a fascist, a socialist. Perhaps the President has decided it is not worth it to put these statements to the test. Of course, it is very difficult to prove that the defamer knew his or her facts were lies.

Nonverbal Symbols

Symbols of hate are constitutionally protected if they’re worn or displayed before a general audience in a public place, say, in a march or at a rally in a public park. But the First Amendment doesn’t protect the use of nonverbal symbols to encroach upon, or desecrate, private property, such as burning a cross on someone’s lawn or spray-painting a swastika on the wall of a synagogue or dorm.

In recent decades, American courts have held that public hate speech, such as the Nazi march in Skokie, must be protected under the First Amendment because there is no principled way to distinguish that speech from other forms of political expression. I would argue that this form of speech invades its targets’ rights to personal security, personality, citizenship, and equality. The crucial question then becomes whether this form of speech should be protected anyway because of its political character. The answer to this question turns on our conception of political speech. After looking at the leading theory in this area -- Justice Holmes’s vision of the marketplace of ideas -- I argue that political speech is best understood as discourse among individuals or groups who recognize one another as equals and free, as well as members of the community. By denying recognition to its targets, political hate speech violates the fundamental ground rules that should govern political debate. I believe that this form of speech should not receive constitutional protection. Interpreting the First Amendment in this way would not only allow American law to reconcile the competing demands of free speech and human dignity; it would also approach  political hate speech in the same way that many other liberal democratic nations and the international community does.

It once seemed easier to ignore the haters among us. They held furtive meetings in out-of-the-way places, wrote racist screeds in the guise of bad novels, and when they appeared in public, they wore hoods to hide their faces. Now, they apply for admission to the bar, stand for elected office, appear on radio and television talk shows, and increasingly take their message to the mainstream by using the Internet.

America, we like to feel, has room for everyone. It is a place of tolerance, equality, and justice. Hate is an affront to that vision, and the lengthening list of hate crimes should haunt our national conscience and make us search for a remedy. I am struggling with Freedom of Speech.

Next-- Part 3: The Psychology of Hate Groups and How They Recruit

Choice under new attack from Operation Rescue, led by Troy Newman, the president of the organization.

Operation Rescue has launched a new anti-choice campaign by offering $10,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of OB/GYN doctors that perform abortions.

Operation Rescue has begun an advertising blitz on the radio, over the Internet and by mailings for the latest campaign against choice.

“We have never found an abortion clinic that completely follows the law,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “Specifically, we are looking for information about fraud, including billing fraud, Medicaid fraud, overbilling, double-billing, and things of that nature that defraud the public. We have seen a number of abortionists charged with these kinds of crimes over the years.”
“We are also looking into other violations that directly endanger the lives of women, including sex crimes, the concealment of child sex abuse, unlicensed workers, improper handling of controlled substances, chemical impairment, illegal abortions, falsification of medical records, and other abuses,” said Newman.

http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/1277112809.html

With the conservative SCOTUS, women must never take for granted their right to choose.

Anti-Choice groups have been working steadfastly in overturning Roe vs Wade and those of us who believe in choice must counteract those who wish to force their will on women.

On a side note, CBS is also running a second anti-choice Tebow ad four times during the Super Bowl pre-game show.

I am not against CBS running the deceptive, anti-choice ads, but I am concerned that CBS continues to deny left-wing ads, including two pro-choice ads to counter the Tebow ads.

And it is very disturbing that CBS actually worked with Focus on the Family on their anti-choice Tebow ad, which is something that they’ve never done with other advertisers.

This week, Dana Goldstein of the Daily Beast reported that CBS executives collaborated with Focus on the Family on making the ad fit for airing, giving the group guidance that other advertisers don’t receive. Yesterday, Planned Parenthood posted a pro-choice response ad featuring former college and professional football player Sean James and Olympic gold medalist Al Joyner.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/02/05/focus-pregame/

We must remain vigilant in tracking those who wish to take away the control that women have over their own bodies.

(with apologies to Salvador Dali)

I am bothered by movies, such as “Saw” and “Hostel”, that, to me, serve no purpose other than to depict the extremes of human pain and cruelty. I confess to having never watched a film from either of those series, nor have I watched a Hannibal Lector movie, or a Chucky, Freddy Krueger or Jason movie (which, I imagine, at this point seem almost quaint in their depictions of cruelty), so it is not only what is depicted on the screen, which I haven’t even seen, that disturbs me. It is the very fact that such movies exist, and that they pull in audiences. To me, they are a depraved sub-genre of moviemaking that elevates torture to their prime, even sole, raison d’etre (indeed, they have been dubbed “torture porn” and “gorno” by critics), and that bothers me. Are people really entertained by all that blood and gore? And if that is not the right word, what IS the experience that they crave, as they settle their butts into aisle seats? As to the people who make such films, why on earth do they spend precious hours of their lives depicting demoralizing, black spectacles of the last things that any of us would wish to experience, or even wish upon our worst enemies? Oh, believe me, I know the obvious answer to my question (they DO make money after all, and frankly, how hard can they be to make? We all know what we don’t wish to experience; all one has to do is pick up a camera and film that!), but is even money worth the de-humanizing that I feel must go on in the process of creating such films?

 I am not arguing against the presence of violence in films. Indeed, some of my personal favorites, such as “The Godfather” and “Goodfellas”, contain numerous scenes that are not for the squeamish. If push came to shove, I could probably even be called upon to defend Wes Craven’s notorious, ultra-violent 70′s sleeper, “Last House on the Left” ( which took its plot from Bergman’s “The Virgin Spring” and borrowed heavily from Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange”). One might well ask, what’s the difference? Well, in the case of LHOTL, this was an amateurish film by a freshman director, depicting amateurish villains who epitomize the dumb, self absorbed, amoral, societal outcasts we can easily imagine committing the atrocious crimes we see onscreen (and read about in the papers). They are not the incarnations of sadism one finds in slick gorno movies, creatures right out of our nightmares who are intelligent and irredeemably evil, sparing no expense to devise the most ingenious and horrific methods by which to dispense with their victims, for no other purpose than the pleasure that they get from doing so. To arrive at an understanding of the villains of the gorno movies, to place them in any sort of context, we need to go back to a French nobleman from the Age of Enlightenment whose writing was so over the top that he provides the very name for the “ism” that is out and out cruelty toward another living being.

 Sade’s “libertines” (one should not refer to them as  “villains”, when to him they were heroes) were precisely the kind of monsters we see in todays horror movies. Smarter and more powerful than their victims, they operated without restraint, and with no other purpose than to inflict pain. In Sade’s stories, the only way to escape victimhood was to allow yourself to become corrupted by your torturers, to become just as merciless and sadistic as them. These were the only triumphs he would allow in his nightmarish fables, that some would “liberate” themselves from any moral or empathetic impulses, which he insisted came from society, the real “villain” he himself was at war with. One can read Sade’s stories and accept them as he intended, as all-out assaults on society and civilization, on anything that limited individuals from behaving exactly as they themselves chose to. But that would naturally lead one to ask, if people could do anything they wanted to, why would they do that? Looking deeper, I believe that one can find a more pathological motivation, one which is readily on display in today’s torture porn movies as well; a deep seated hatred of the human body.

 Oh, Sade loathed bodies!  He wanted them sliced, diced, beaten, pulled apart, you name it. The one thing he didn’t want was for them to keep their original, native form, to be allowed to go on about their ways in peace. To him, an intact body was a challenge, perhaps even an affront, to his aesthetic. He treated them with nothing but the utmost disdain. And yet, it is telling that for all the descriptions of cruelty he filled page after feverish page with, he was particularly vicious toward the parts of the body that give birth to and nurture other bodies. Although there is no question that his writings and ideas have spiced up the sex lives of numerous couples throughout the years (and hey, whatever gets you through the night…), in the works themselves sex was anything but a life affirming, life celebrating activity. Genitalia, breasts, pregnant women, and fetuses are mercilessly tortured and destroyed by Sade’s libertines. The family itself is attacked viciously. In his stories, fathers rape their daughters, and corrupted daughters do unspeakable things to their mothers. The very reality of biological life seems to infuriate him.

 What’s going on here? In the face of such depravity, one naturally searches for answers. Even if the knowledge goes nowhere toward ending man’s inhumanity to man, we strive to somehow make sense of things so dark and twisted they seem to defy explanation, for the sake of our own sanity if nothing else. My belief is that we see in Sade’s writing a psychological phenomenon that has its roots in the very nature of our sentience. It is the mind’s hatred of the body, because it can suffer, and take the mind along with it as it does so. 

 It is hard to imagine anything more painful than being eaten alive from the hind legs forward, and yet this is a fate that befalls thousands of our fellow creatures, in forests and savannas, every day. The vast majority of human beings will come to far more benign ends, but the important distinction is that we are well aware of what could happen to us, if we are not careful, or just plain unlucky. The fact is that, unlike animals, we can think about things happening to us that are every bit as frightening and unwelcome as the things that are shown in the torture movies. It is with our minds that we think about them, but it is our bodies that we imagine experiencing the suffering. We are the only species that has a distinct separation, a schism even, between mind and body. We can actually live lives, of a kind, outside our bodies. No other creature can. We can daydream, create stories, make songs, paint pictures, have sexual fantasies, relive memories vividly, conceptualize, invent, etc. We can easily imagine a life involving no body at all! Indeed, we have created science fiction stories where our minds are placed inside computers, thereby living eternal, pain-free lives. People who are stricken with cancer or other long term, debilitating and painful illnesses frequently describe themselves as “prisoners” in their bodies. What I am positing is that there is an element of human consciousness that chronically feels this way. Sade was expressing this, first and foremost, I believe, though he himself was perhaps unaware of it and presumedly would have denied it. It is ironic that he, due to his atrocious behavior as well as his writing (which outraged the Emperor Napolean), spent much of his life as a prisoner, in jails and mental asylums, creating through his mind an outward experience of the very thoughts that drove his writing. 

 The mind is frightened by the amount of pain, seemingly limitless, that the body it is merged with can experience. Although our central nervous system has evolved the sensation of pain to keep us from burning or bleeding or freezing to death, this impeccable biological system renders us horrendously vulnerable. So averse to its demise is our body that it keeps pain sensations active even as we lie helpless, and crushed, under the rubble of an earthquake, or trapped inside a burning room, on the off chance that we will somehow manage to get ourselves out of our predicament. Isn’t it plausible that our minds, aware of the stubbornness of the body, and its survival-at-any-cost imperative, would develop resentment against it? Why can’t we shut the pain mechanism down when we want to (apparently some yogis have developed this very ability, but it takes years of rigorous training)? When there is no hope of escape? Every king, dictator, Grand Inquisitor and mafioso throughout history has exploited this “flaw” in the body’s design. In fact, it is impossible to imagine the worst forms of government even existing without it, as such regimes are propped up by the fear they induce in the common folk. All of that suffering, down through the ages; no wonder the mind is pissed!

 And so, the mind acts this out, through the mediums that it has developed, the “art” that is Sade’s writing and today’s gorno movies. Each time the mind, represented by Sade’s libertines or Hannibal Lector, or any of the demonic, merciless,ingenious psychopaths who fill our screens as well as our nightmares, gleefully tortures to death somebody else’s body, it has its revenge, momentarily. That’s the experience viewers are after, I feel. Though I am disturbed by such movies, and by the large following they have, I ultimately see them as merely symptomatic, and don’t expect them to go away. They, or some similar manifestation, will be with us so long as we have the ability to contemplate, and fear, our fate.

While the subject of hate is complex, hate itself can be divided into two general categories: rational and irrational. Unjust acts inspire rational hate. Who but the most spiritual or the most philosophic of us could argue that hatred of someone who had maliciously harmed us or our loved ones is irrational? Hatred of a person based on race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or national origin constitutes irrational hate. When I talk about hate, I am talking about the irrational kind. Most definitions of hate focus on the ways in which hate-mongers see entire groups of people as the “Other.” For example, Tolerance.org argues that “All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.”

According to the southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League ( SPLC and the ADL) a hate group is any organized body whose beliefs and actions are rooted in enmity towards an entire class of people based on ethnicity, perceived race, sexual orientation, religion or other inherent characteristic. I want to add to this anti-government and conspiracy theorists.

As I wrote in my introduction to Hate In America, I often try to comfort myself by looking at history when I think things have never been worse. I have found that hate in America is as traditional as apple pie—the same as in any country, but because we are a nation of immigrants we have very conflicted attitudes. In some ways it is might be considered fair to consider the United States of America as this country’s original hate group. And it started even before the War of Independence was won.

Racism against Native Americans

During the colonial and independent periods there were many conflicts with the indigenous Americans in order to take their resources. Through wars, massacres and forced displacement and the imposition of treaties, land was taken and numerous hardships imposed. After the creation of the United States, the idea of Indian removal gained momentum. The doctrine of “Manifest Destiny” included stereotyped perceptions of all Native Americans as “merciless Indian savages.” Racial rhetoric increased during the era of Manifest Destiny. In a policy formulated largely by President George Washington’s Secretary of War, Henry Knox, the U.S. government sought to encourage Native Americans to sell their vast tribal lands and become “civilized”, which meant (among other things) for Native Americans to abandon their cultures of hunting and become farmers, and for their society to reorganize and give up clans or tribes.

There are too many incidences and dates to cite, but I have tried to list the main examples of systematic racism.

1776—Thomas Jefferson inserted this sentence into the Declaration of Independence (referring to grievances against King George III): “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

1803 –Louisiana Purchase; Lewis and Clark expedition. One goal: gather information about the Native American tribes to be used against them.

1830– Indian Removal Act passed by Congress; legalized removal of all Indians east of Mississippi to lands west of the river. “Trail of Tears” in which Native Americans suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation while en route to their destinations, and many died, including 4,000 of the 15,000 relocated Cherokee.

1837 –Smallpox epidemic on the Plains. Many historians claim that blankets infested with the disease given to Native Americans.

1862– Minnesota Uprising of Sioux; 38 hanged at Mankato.

1870– First Ghost Dance Movement, Prayer to prevent immigration.

1876 –Battle of Little Big Horn (Custer).

1877– Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce War.

1890 –Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge. Ghost Dance. Last major bloodshed involving Indians and the U.S. Government.

Racism Against African Americans

1641 – Slavery legalized in Massachusetts colony.

1790– 20 percent of the overall population in the thirteen colonies was of African descent. The legalized practice of enslaving blacks occurred in every colony. Slaves were used as a labor force in agricultural production, shipyards, docks, and as domestic servants. In both regions, only the wealthiest Americans owned slaves. Poor whites recognized that slavery devalued their own labor. The social rift along color lines soon became ingrained in every aspect of colonial American culture.

1857—The Supreme Court issues the Dred Scott decision, which decreed a slave was his master’s property and African Americans were not citizens.

1883 – A number of cases are addressed under this Supreme Court decision. Decided that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 (the last federal civil rights legislation until the Civil Rights Act of 1957) was unconstitutional. Allowed private sector segregation.

1896 –Plessy v. Ferguson. The Supreme Court decided that “separate but equal” facilities satisfy Fourteenth Amendment guarantees, thus giving legal sanction to Jim Crow segregation laws.

The 20^th century was nadir of American race relations and saw a hardening of institutionalized racism and legal discrimination against African Americans.    Poll  taxes, acts of terror by groups such as the KKK were not unusual. The first half of this century saw racism in the United States worse than at any period before or since. All expressions of white supremacy increased, including anti-black violence, lynching and race riots.

1908 –Race Riot in Springfield Illinois leads to the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

1913 –Federal segregation. The Wilson administration began government-wide segregation of work places, rest rooms and lunch rooms.

1919–Whites riot against blacks in Washington, DC. The white mob – whose actions were triggered in large part by weeks of sensational newspaper accounts of alleged sex crimes by a “Negro fiend” – unleashed a wave of violence that swept over the city for four days. The Washington riot was one of more than 20 that took place that summer in different states.

Meanwhile, the Ku Klux Klan was being revived in Maryland and Virginia, as racial hatred burst forth with the resurgence of lynching of black men and women around the country – 28 public lynchings in the first six months of 1919 alone, including seven black WW II veterans killed while still wearing their Army uniforms.

1921–The deadliest racial confrontation begin in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The exact number of people killed in the riot, which destroyed a 30-square-block area was never determined. Some historians, citing survivors’ accounts, have put the figure as high as 300.

Racism against Asian-Americans

The first wave of Chinese came here at the beginning of the 19^th century to work as laborers on the transcontinental railroad. While industrial employers were eager to get this new and cheap labor, the ordinary white public was stirred to anger by the presence of this “yellow peril.” Political parties and unions rallied against the immigration of yet another “inferior race”. Newspapers condemned the policies of employers, and even church leaders denounced the entrance of these aliens into what was regarded as a land for whites only.

1882 — Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited immigration from China for the next ten years. This law was then extended in 1892. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the only US law ever to prevent immigration on the basis of race. These laws not only prevented new immigration but also brought additional suffering as they prevented the reunion of the families of thousands of Chinese men already living in the U.S. that had left China without their wives and children.

The Chinese were often subject to harder labor on the transcontinental railroad and often performed the more dangerous tasks such as using dynamite to make pathways through the mountains.  The San Francisco Vigilance Movement promoted mob violence against Chinese immigrants. My husband, who is Chinese and has family that has lived in San Francisco for generations, tells that the Chinese were blamed for the earthquake in 1906.

During World War II, the United States created internment camps for Japanese citizens in fear that they would be used as spies for the Japanese.

Racism against Latin Americans

1830s –The United States first came into conflict with Mexico as the westward spread of Anglo settlements and of slavery brought significant numbers  of new settlers into the region known as Tejas (modern-day Texas), then part of Mexico.

1848–After the Mexican-American War, the treaty promised that the landowners in this newly won area would enjoy protection of their property as if they were citizens of the United States. Many former citizens of Mexico lost their land in lawsuits or as a result of legislation passed after the treaty.

1851– California Land Act enacted, which had the effect of dispossessing Californio owners ruined by the cost of maintaining litigation over land titles for years.

1943–The Zoot Suit Riots were incidents of racial violence against Latinos in Los Angeles. Repeated confrontations over many months between small groups and individuals culminated into several days of non-stop rioting. Large mobs of servicemen would enter civilian quarters looking to attack Mexican American kids, some of whom were wearing zoot suits, a distinctive exaggerated fashion popular among that group.  The disturbances continued and were even assisted by the local police for several days before military commanders declared downtown Los Angeles and Mexican American neighborhoods off-limits to servicemen

1960’s –Mexican-American workers formed unions of their own and joined integrated unions. The most significant union struggle involving Mexican-Americans was the United Farm Workers’ long strike and boycott aimed at grape growers in the San Joaquin and Coachella Valleys.

Anti-Semitism

1800s and early 1900s– hundreds of thousands of Eastern European Jews were escaping the pogroms, and largely arrived at Ellis Island in New York, as my family did. It is thought that as soon as they left the boat, they were subject to racism from the port authorities. (The derogatory term ‘kike’ was adopted when referring to Jews because they often could not write English letters so they may have signed their immigration papers with circles – or kikel in Yiddish.)

1910– Southern Jewish communities were attacked by the KKK, which often used ‘The Jewish Banker’ in their propaganda.

1915– Texas-born, New York Jew Leo Frank was lynched by the newly re-formed Klan, after being falsely convicted of rape and sentenced to life imprisonment.

1924—National Origins Quota Act passed.  Growing anti-immigration feelings in the United States at this time resulted in the quota, which severely restricted immigration from Eastern Europe. It remained in effect until 1965.

In the years before and during World War II the United States Congress, the Roosevelt Administration, and public opinion expressed concern about the fate of Jews in Europe but consistently refused to permit large-scale immigration of Jewish refugees. The United States accepted only 21,000 refugees from Europe accepting far fewer Jews per capita than many of the neutral European countries and fewer in absolute terms than Switzerland.

U.S. opposition to immigration in general in the late 1930s was motivated by the grave economic pressures, the high unemployment rate, and social frustration and disillusionment. The U.S. refusal to support specifically Jewish immigration, however, stemmed from something else, namely anti-Semitism, which had increased in the late 1930s and continued to rise in the 1940s. It was an important ingredient in America’s negative response to Jewish refugees. About 100,000 German Jews did arrive in the 1930s, escaping Hitler’s persecution.

1939–The SS St. Louis sailed from Germany in May carrying 936 Jewish refugees. On 4 June it was also refused permission to unload on orders of President Roosevelt as the ship waited between Florida and Cuba.

Jewish lobbying for intervention in Europe drew opposition from the isolationists/nativists, amongst who was Father Charles Coughlin, a well known radio priest, who was a renowned anti-Semite, believing that Jews were leading America into the war. He preached in weekly, overtly anti-Semitic sermons and, from 1936, began publication of a newspaper, Social Justice, in which he printed anti-Semitic accusations such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as did Henry Ford in his Dearborn, Michigan newspaper.

Anti-European immigrant racism

Several European immigrant groups have been subject to discrimination either on the basis of their immigrant status (“nativism”) or on the basis of their ethnicities.

In the 19th century, this was particularly anti-Irish racism, which was partly anti-Catholic, partly anti-Irish as an ethnicity or race (notably accused of drunkenness), an example being the Philadelphia Nativist Riots.

The 20th century saw racism against Italian Americans and Polish Americans partly from anti-Catholic sentiment, and partly from Nordicism, which considered Southern Europeans and Eastern Europeans inferior. Nordicism lead to the reduction in Southern European and Eastern European immigrants in the Immigration Act of 1924

Racism against Middle Easterners and Muslims

Racism against Middle Eastern Americans arose in the 1970’s following the Iranian Revolution and the taking of Americans during the Hostage Crisis. Following the 9/11 attacks, discrimination and violence has markedly increased against Arab Americans and many other religious and cultural groups.

Iraqis were demonized which led to hatred towards Arabs and Iranians living in the United States. There have been attacks against Arabs not only on the basis of their religion but also on the basis of their ethnicity and even their clothing.  In addition, non-Arabs who are mistaken for Arabs because of perceived “similarities in appearance” have been collateral victims of anti-Arabism.

Iranians as well as South Asians of different ethnic/religious backgrounds (Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs) have been stereotyped as “Arabs”. Ann Coulter called Iranians “ragheads” and Brent Scowcroft  called the Iranian people “rug merchants.”

Homophobic Discrimination

In covering a history of homophobic discrimination, it gives a clearer picture to list the laws that reduced discrimination, rather than to only list laws that were anti-gay. The reason for this is that until the 20^th century in America, gays were mainly in the closet. They had the ability to hide their sexuality for the most part. And they had to—the entire society saw them as deviants. Because of that ability (and necessity) to hide themselves, there was very little institutional homophobia; it was only after the gay community formed and gays dared to congregate that they became hate targets on a larger scale. When reading about these laws that were written for gays, it is good to remember that before they were enacted, they had no legal protections. One more point about the anti-gay groups: Almost all of them are Christian religious organizations, but I hesitate to label them all as hate groups, although some clearly are.

1958– the Supreme Court established a precedent that a homosexual publication was not intrinsically “obscene” and thus protected by the First Amendment.

1967, the Supreme Court upheld the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 which among other things banned homosexuals, as constitutional. This ban remained in effect until 1991.

1969—Stonewall riots in New York. On June 27, the police raided a gay bar, which was a common practice at the time. This type of raid, which was often conducted during city elections, had a new development as some of the patrons in the bar began actively resisting the police arrests. For the first time a large group of LGBT Americans who had previously had little or no involvement with the organized gay rights movement rioted for three days against police harassment and brutality. These new activists were not polite or respectable but rather angry activists that confronted the police, taking their cues from other civil rights movements of the 60’s. This was the beginning of the Gay Liberation movement.

1977– the Supreme Court refused to hear the case of a high school teacher fired for being gay. While this is not an official judgment on the merit of the case, it did uphold a lower court’s ruling that becoming a “known homosexual” automatically impaired his efficiency as a teacher which used various methods to support this claim: 1. Defined homosexuality based on the New Catholic Encyclopedia which deemed the act as implicitly immoral; 2. An “immoral” person could not be trusted to instruct students as his presence would be inherently disruptive.

1985– the Supreme Court let stand an appellate ruling ordering the university to provide official recognition of a student organization for homosexual students. The case set a national precedent by removing legal restrictions against gay rights groups on college campuses.

1986– the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that homosexual sex was not protected under the right to privacy.

1996–the Supreme Court ruled against an amendment to the Colorado state constitution that would have prevented any city, town or county in the state from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action to protect homosexual citizens from discrimination.

1998– President Clinton’s Executive Order  prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation for federal employees.

2000– the Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts of America had a First Amendment right to exclude people from its organization on the basis of sexual orientation.

2003– the United States Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that laws against sodomy cannot be directed at homosexuals alone, and furthermore, that intimate consensual sexual conduct is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Owing to the United States’ federal system and the variety of attitudes toward LGBT rights, the status of LGBT civil rights in the U.S. is at present a patchwork. At the federal level, there is no recognition of same-sex unions and no laws forbidding employment discrimination against LGBT persons. Some states have enacted such laws, however. States in the Deep South still support homosexuality being completely illegal, and overwhelmingly oppose marriage-like rights or same-sex marriage.

State courts also produced a patchwork of court opinions regarding the rights of LGBT citizens to marry, which has prompted calls for a Federal Marriage Amendment, along with state amendments to ensure that courts would not change the civil definition of marriage. As of 2007, the legal options available to same-sex couples depends on what state they reside in.

Hate crime laws (also known as bias crimes laws) protect against crimes motivated by feelings of enmity or animus against a protected class. On April 29, 2009, the House of Representatives passed H.R.1913, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, which would expand the definition of hate crimes in federal law to include gender, sexual orientation, gender-identity, and disability. The legislation would also remove the prerequisite that victims of hate crimes be engaging in a federally protected activity (Matthew Sheppard Act).

Currently, in the United States there is no federal law against housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

From Wikipedia: “As the movement for same-sex marriage has developed, many national and/or international organizations have opposed that movement. Those organizations include the American Family Association, the Christian Coalition, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, the Moral Majority, NARTH, the national Republican Party, the Roman Catholic Church, the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), the Southern Baptist Convention, Alliance for Marriage, Alliance Defense Fund, Liberty Counsel, and the National Organization for Marriage.”  It’s worth a read to see how these groups have embedded themselves into the political discourse. One I’d like to add is the Westboro Baptist Church, infamous for their preaching that “God Hates Fags.”

Other Hate Groups

Militias, white supremacists, tax-protestors, Identity Christians, and Patriots often intertwine ideologically and it is hard to unravel these groups.

The Militia movement is a paramilitary movement with roots from the Survivalist movement, tax-protester movement and other movements in the United States. It inherited paramilitary traditions of earlier groups, especially the conspiratorial, far-right antigovernment “Posse Comitatus” which took its moniker  from the government Act of the same name. The formation of today’s militias was influenced by the historical precedent of existing paramilitary movements such as the Posse Comatitus. The County Rule (posse comitatus literally means the power of the county) movement and the militias share an ideological kinship, revolving around the idea that the county is the supreme level of government and the sheriff the highest elected official. Posse comitatus refers to the authority of county sheriffs to conscript able-bodied males to keep the peace or arrest felons. The power still exists in states that have not repealed it by statute.

1878–Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the use of U.S. troops for civil duties like domestic law enforcement short a declaration of martial law. The Act provides two exceptions: those expressly authorized by the Constitution; and those Congress expressly authorizes. For instance, Congress expressly authorized the Coast Guard to carry out drug law enforcement duties during peacetime.

1970s– Richard Butler, a neo-Nazi from California carrying out a self-described war against the “Zionist Occupational Government,” or ZOG, relocated to the Idaho panhandle to establish his Aryan Nations compound. He saw the Pacific Northwest, with its relatively low minority population, as the region where God’s kingdom could be established. Butler also believed that a racially pure nation needs an army.  .

1990s. The militia movement grew following controversial standoffs with the federal government. The militia movement claims that militia groups are sanctioned by law but uncontrolled by government; in fact, they are designed to oppose a tyrannical government. Adherents believe that behind the “tyranny” is a left-wing, globalist conspiracy known as the New World Order.

1991 –Publication of Pat Robertson’s book, “The New World Order.” Members of the Christian right who subscribe to the conspiratorial world view presented in Robertson’s book are part of the  far-right milieu home to a variety of movements, including Identity Christians, Constitutionalists, tax protesters, and white supremacists.

The militias have close ties to the older and more broadly based Patriot movement, from which they emerged, and which supplies their worldview. According to Chip Berlet, an analyst at Political Research Associates in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who has been tracking the far right for over two decades, this movement consists of loosely-linked organizations and individuals who perceive a global conspiracy in which key political and economic events are manipulated by a small group of elite insiders. On one flank of the Patriot movement are white supremacists and anti-Semites, who believe that the world is controlled by a cabal of Jewish bankers.

At the other end of this relatively narrow spectrum is the John Birch Society, which has repeatedly repudiated anti-Semitism, but has its own paranoia. For the Birchers, it is not the Rothschilds but such institutions as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the U.N. which secretly call the shots.  Berlet estimates that as many as five million Americans consider themselves Patriots.

1991—End of the cold war. While the Patriot movement has long existed on the margins of U.S. society, it has grown markedly in recent years.  Three factors have sparked that growth. One is the end of the Cold War. With the collapse of the Soviet empire, their search for enemies turned toward the federal government, long an object of simmering resentment. The other factors are economic and social. While the Patriot movement provides a pool of potential recruits for the militias, it in turn draws its members from a large and growing number of U.S. citizens who oppose the federal government.  This predominantly white, male, and middle- and working-class sector has been buffeted by global economic restructuring, with its attendant job losses, declining real wages and social dislocations. While under economic stress, this sector has also seen its traditional privileges and status challenged by 1960s-style social movements, such as feminism, minority rights, and environmentalism.

1992– Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Two events inflamed Patriot passions and precipitated the formation of new  militias. The first was the FBI’s confrontation with white supremacist Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge, in which federal agents killed Weaver’s son and wife.

1993—Waco, Texas. The second was the federal government’s destruction of David Koresh and his followers at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. Key promoters of the militia movement repeatedly invoke Ruby Ridge and Waco as spurs to the formation of militias to defend the citizenry against a hostile federal government.

1993 –Passage of the Brady Bill (imposing a waiting period and background checks for the purchase of a handgun).

1994 –Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (banning the sale of certain types of assault rifles). To the Patriot movement, these laws are the federal government’s first step in disarming the citizenry, to be followed by the much dreaded United Nations invasion and the imposition of the New World Order.  But while raising apocalyptic fears among Patriots, gun control legislation also angered more mainstream gun owners. Some have become newly receptive to conspiracy theorists and militia recruiters, who justify taking such a radical step with the Second Amendment: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Right-wing organizers have long used the amendment to justify the creation of armed formations. The Ku Klux Klan began as a militia movement, and the militia idea has continued to circulate in white supremacist circles.

It has also spread within the Christian right.

Christian Patriot Movement

The Christian Patriot movement is a movement of political commentators and activists. Their interpretations of history and law aver that the federal government has turned against the ideas of liberty and individual rights behind the American revolution and America’s Christian heritage.

In the early 1990s, the Coalition on Revival, an influential national Christian right networking organization, circulated a 24-plank action plan. It advocated the formation of “a countywide `well-regulated militia’ according to the U.S. Constitution under the control of the county sheriff and Board of Supervisors.” (Sheriff Joe Arpaio ?)

(It is at this point that I find myself on unsteady ground. Do Christian dominionists belong in this category? Do right-wing churches? It’s a quivery line, but I want to present only those groups delineated as hate groups by the SPLA and The ADL, even though I personally feel that Christian radicalism, like radical Islam, contains threads that can be categorized as hate. But in general, I will leave religious hate for another discussion.)

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Obviously, I have left out scores of examples of institutional racism and discrimination in the United States, and I hope you will see this as a limitation of space, and not as insensitivity. I also left out many specific groups that I will address when discussing the rise of hate on the internet.

We like to think that we have made progress, that we are different from the unenlightened people of an earlier age, and most of us are. But hardly all of us. We can make allowances for Thomas Jefferson the slave owner and anti- American Indian Founding Father—after all, he was from a different time.  Most people have changed and evolved. We can see by looking at the history of hate in America how far we have come. And we can see by the rise of hate in the media and on the internet how far we still need to go. The roots of bigotry and hatred run deep in our national experience, but while I think we need to stay vigilant, I came away from this exercise more encouraged than despondent.

(Next—Part 2: Hate Speech and the First Amendment)

 “Throughout the history of the human race, even up till the present moment, one of the most potent forces which men use to rally oppressed peoples together, in their drive towards freedom and emancipation from their oppressors, is religion. Men who have successfully led their enslaved peoples from bondage and servitude to freedom; have at one point or the other, mobilized their people with a rallying cry and an appeal to a deity, which had its origins in the subconscious of their people; for deliverance from slavery, servitude and oppression.”

From: Dutty Boukman – Samba Boukman by Edrys Erisnor

http://www.articlebiz.com/article/143351-1-dutty-boukman-samba-boukman/

“Pact With Devil”

“The god, who created the earth, who created the sun that gives us light. The god who holds up the ocean; who makes the thunder roar. Our god who has ears to hear. You who are hidden in the clouds; who watches us from where you are. You see all that the whites have made us suffer. The white man’s god asks him to commit crimes. But the god within us wants to do good. Our god, who is so good, so just, He orders us to revenge our wrongs. It’s He who will direct our arms and bring us to victory. It’s He who will assist us. We all should throw away the image of the white men’s god who is so pitiless. Listen to the voice for liberty that speaks in all our hearts.” 

 These are the famous words of  the slave Dutty Buckman, a high priest of vodou and leader of the Maroon slaves, during a religious ceremony at  Bois Caiman on August 22,1791… This ceremony included an animal sacrifice of a pig… This was the beginnings of the Haitian Slave Revolt for Freedom… 

  After watching Pat Robertson’s “Pact With the Devil” video I decided to learn more about it… I was unaware of Dutty Buckman as in “school” I was taught about  General Toussaint L’Ouverture when we studied the Haitian Slave Revolt…  I don’t believe it would be a far stretch to say that  there was no way a young man in Oklahoma going to school in the 60′s was ever going to be taught that an  African Voodoo Priest  conducted a Voodoo Ceremony to the God “Ojun“  and that was the spark the led to the only successful Slave Revolt in recorded history… 

   ”Drums, Zombies and Dolls” 

When most of us think about Voodoo we conjure up secretive Nocturnal Rituals of  rhythmic dancers around flames of fire soon to become possessed with trances from the gods… We can picture the Drums fashioned from human skin calling out to the Zombies to do the evil bidding of the Priestess who when paid the right sum will gladly provide you with a love charm, mojo bag or the dreaded Voodoo Doll…(maybe even a monkey paw claw)

   In fact Voodoo is an ancient religion that may have ties to Judaism… I am still learning all I can about Voodoo and am providing several informative links… To understand Voodoo is to understand Haiti…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A1019666

  http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/index-faa.html

http://www.wehaitians.com/haitian%20voodoo.html

http://www.wehaitians.com/main.html

“Preventing The Next Disaster”

 Soon the world be taking on the task of re-building a nation that has historically been one of the poorest, if not the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere… A nation founded by Africans enslaved in a faraway land that once Freedom was realized once again became an enslaved population by a class system based on skin color  and kept enslaved by lack of Education…    Haiti is our neighbor, Haiti is our Sister, Haiti deserves our best efforts to allow the dreams of those longing to be free to see that the generations that followed them have Freedom…

http://news.aol.com/article/why-haiti-keeps-getting-hammered-by/855207

“Why is Haiti So Poor”

http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/misctopic/leftover/whypoor.htm

“Hunger and Rage”

http://www.photoshelter.com/gallery-slideshow/G0000KvhMnD3qR3o/

Courtesy of  KQuark : HaitiAction.net is more topical to the issues that Haiti faces in our time…  http://www.haitiaction.net/

 U.S. Department Of State

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/1982.htm

http://www.travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1134.html