Be Excellent To Each Other

Can anyone tell me why I should really give a shit?

It seems one eprson didn't win, some people came out on the streets and then pissed off men with guns and it all kicked off from there.

And then the bleeding heart liberals jumped upon it.

Our guy didn't win. The guy who did win, we don't like. So if international pressure can be put on the guy who did win, then maybe he won't win, and our guy will.

And then in two years time, when we realise that our guy wasn't actually on our side after all, we'll go in and kick their arse.

I'm just concerned about the effect it will have on the rather excellent ski scene there.

Generally, when messages about Iran and things like that start appearing on Facebook, I start to ignore it. Or get suspicious.

Although it does seem there may be some genuine cheating here, districts with >100% voter turnout for instance.

That said, basically, this. We're all for democracy when they elect the people we want.

Indeed. Ask the democratically elected terrorist organisation that is Hamas, for instance.

And the Taliban.

And Saddam Hussein. He was one of ours.

When they say "our guy" they mean "the other guy who has been part of the same government that we don't like for years, but is marginally less arm-knawingly insane than that Ahmadinejad guy"

Ah the old "dead & pet" voters trick.

I think the world needs more batshit crazy dictators. it makes the news a lot more entertaining for me.

Col Gadaffi's the only one who does it right. Regiment of highly-trained, extremely loyal, and highly attractive female body guards. If you're dictator, you might as well do things like that.

Shame he's running a pissant little country on the sphincter end of Africa with fuck all chance of doing anything interesting. Maybe he should take over Iran? The Natinal Unity candidate, or something.

Why is Armoured Diner Jacket always dressed like Roger Moore in A View To A Kill ?

No.

That's the point. We need leaders of pissant little countries on the sphincter end of Africa with fuck all chance of doing anything interesting with regiments of highly-trained, extremely loyal, and highly attractive female body guards launching satellites into space which play revolutionary songs.

And we need it today.

How can he afford to build a super army when he can't convince half of us to pay two quid a month?

That's my point - after expenses for the Gadaffi Attack Vixens, he hasn't got enough money to put a man in a tracksuit up a ladder, let a lone a satellite into space. Apart from allegedly paying some people to blow up a jet plane, he's no real threat to anyone. And that's just dull. And dull is the worst crime there is, when you're a dictator.

He's dull, but he's dull with legions of loyal tottie. Face it, he's got it made.

Gadaffi isn't dull. Ask John Simpson. Who spent three weeks trying to secure an interview with him, and when it finally came to it, Gadaffi sat down, smiled, said nothing and farted.

Or the press conference where Gadaffi entered by one door, walked to the podium, waved at the assembled hacks and then walked out of another door.

But he could have legions of loyal totty *and* nuclear weapons, if he was running Iran. Granted he'd not know how hot the totty was, but you can't have everything.


That's just eccentricity, though. He's not threatening to wipe Sardinia off the face of the earth unless they stop making fish, is he? So: Dull.

Isn't the other guy a bit of a bastard as well? Wasn't he in charge a while back and like generally not all the nice, or am I getting confused?

But then you'd risk NATO coming in and stealing all your tottie, which would be daft.

He's been part of Ahmedinejad's government, yes.

Craster - you say that, but that North Korean guy's been left well alone. And the Americans have kindly given him a billion landmines as fealty. Granted they've given the gift as a sort of Easter egg hunt, but still, it's the thought.

His son is a footballer of sorts, isn't he?

There's a careful line to tread though, between doddering eclectic nutbar and full-on loonbag. Kim-Jong Il will get his toys taken away pretty soon, I'm thinking.

Rightly so. His haircut is dreadful.

When i was in London on Friday, peering up at Grim..'s tower (or what I thought was, it's a buggar to throw gravel up to the penthouse window), I saw an advert for something or other starring "Alec Baldwin" but I read it in the Kim Jong voice from team america.

Are you *sure* you meant "eclectic", there?

Heh, no I meant eccentric. But I left it in because I liked it.

I'm surprised people are being so flippant about Iran. We get really cross on this forum about, say, photographers of street scenes in the UK being hassled by the police, or anti-capitalism protesters maybe being hit by police trunchens, and yet here we have clear evidence of a rigged election coupled with, daily, dozens of protesters beaten and left to bleed to death in the streets and people are cracking jokes.

To be fair, people were cracking jokes about the hippies here, too. Equal opportunities apathy.

We have clear evidence of a rigged election in a country that has no history of any kind of transparency of government, that's the difference. I think we'd be astonished if there was a straight election.

Doesn't that make it more astonishing that these protesters are clearly putting their lives on their line to complain about it?

Yes, but we're a bit further down the road of "how to behave" than Iran. If we really did give two shits about stuff like this, we'd have invaded Zimbabwe by now and reinstalled a governor, rather than going "mr mugabe is a bad person".

Well, I'm not surprised people are being flippant, but I'd hope they're not seriously being flippant, if you see what I mean.

Stolen elections and secret policemen slashing random people in crowds with razors isn't cool, even if (as has been rightly pointed out) it's none of our business.

I'm not sure about the whole "turn your twitter avatar green to show your support for Moussavi (sp)" bit though.

That does strike me as stupid. Someone I follow wrote: "hey, guys, Iran called. They're really stoked about the green avatars but they'd like some actual help now please" which I think summarises it nicely.

Of course - but you were commenting on a lack of outrage, and that's the reason. Who expects fairness and tolerance out of the rulers of Iran?

As has been pointed out, of course - is Mousavi actually any different?

I'm quite against people dying, but I'm also fairly against the idea that this other dud is better than the current dude, due to him not coming first and people dying, and people not really knowing who the other dude is, or why he's going to be a better dude than the other dude. Dude.

It does, but then what help are they after? I can't see fullscale military intervention being welcomed, and what other options are there? International observers to oversee a re-election would be about as useful as Hans Brix's weapons inspectors, and sanctions are practically a badge of honour.

"Fuck the English middle classes are piqued! They've organised a bake sale and a sit in at a university which has some tentative connection with us. I think we'd better call it a day now, lads."

The media are making much of twitter and other modern forms of communication being able to get word out about oppression and brutality, and perhaps even prevent it in some cases.

That and an impartial BBC Persia seems to be about the limit of influence we can (or should) have.

Gordy B was suggesting the Rwandan genocides wouldnt have happened if Twitter had been around then.

I'm with The Great Doku Tree on this one.

'Our Guy' isn't much better, but he's a little better and slightly more liberal in his views on the rights of women etc, but not really any different in international politics. Still pro them getting nukes etc.

But it's not about whether we like the guy, it's about whether a nation stays democratic, and that should be pretty self evidently a good thing.

Also, in a strange way I think the biggest benefit of this is a lot of idiots have seen the footage of the Iranians and gone 'oh, the people who live in iran look like us, and not like cartoon villains.'

I'm not sure how possible it would be to have a decent election without a free media. But apart from the ski scene, and the highest amount of post operative transexuals, I know next to nothing about Iran.

When you say "stays democratic", you mean "gets to vote for one of the candidates that were handpicked by the religious overlords who actually run the country", right? Because that's all that's being lost out here - there are much bigger problems with Iran than whether in a vote between Interchangeable Establishment Nut 1 or Interchangeable Establishment Nut 2 the first one really won the election.

Exactly, there 'democracy' can either move towards figurehead religious leaders and an elected gov (i.e us) which was, I believe, very, very slowly becoming the case, or towards a a full theocracy.

it obviously has bigger problems, which is why this is important.

That was like when I went on the Stop The War march in 2002(?) and people were flying flags with Yasser Arafat on them. Brrr.

That is because the Guardian would claim Twitter cures cancer if it could get away with it.

I've gotten more and more pissed off with the guardian nowadays. It's jsut sheer wank , I'm going to get the Times today, instead.

A couple of years ago the Grauniad was spouting on about how 'Second Life' had changed the world forever.

Well, quite.

I think it may actually be a valid point on this one though. It's ahead of the curve in terms of stuff they can block / track you down and punish you for using.

Daily mail for you, Sky boy.

Heh. I'm quite excited over that. Can't wait until Thursday.