Why are we so obsessed with Iran a third world country?

retire@40 said:
Can't we make it a rule that responding to your own threads does two things:

1. Allows moderators immediately to lock the thread.

2. Bans from the forum the person responding to himself under a different identity.
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I gotta give newguy credit, he doesn't know when to give up..........:D
 
Hmmm - I've been talking to myself since last night's game - I will to try to forget serious stuff and get more frivolous like pontificating how to save the world, lead Iran to enlightenment via the two step boogie, and picking a few individual stocks.

heh heh heh - I just know my sister is gonna call from the PacNW and say I should put New Orleans behind and move out there and BTW New England Patriots are doing ok. Heck I rather save Iran!
 
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I find it frightening that they have no homosexuals in Iran. Maybe our own religious fundamentalists have something to learn here.
 
Do you think that the president of Columbia University need fear a Rushdie-style fatwah against him due to the things he said about Amanutjob?
 
The guy is a nut, but he's a duly-elected nut (not a "dictator" as the Columbia guy maintains). Whadda they teach there? Sheesh.
 
ladelfina said:
The guy is a nut, but he's a duly-elected nut (not a "dictator" as the Columbia guy maintains). Whadda they teach there? Sheesh.
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Iran's elections are interesting things. They have real campaigns and there's a real fight for votes. There's not much evidence of corruption (vote stealing, etc), so in many ways the elections appear more legitimate than many in the world, and certainly better than most of the Middle East.
However, all the candidates have to be approved by the clerics in a formal process. No secular candidate could ever be approved, and even more moderate Muslims are excluded. So, the electorate gets their choice from a bunch of extremists. The system is designed to produce "duly elected nuts." Looks like it's working pretty well.
 
Here are a couple of interesting takes from my friends on the left.



NOT MUCH, BUT ALL MINE
Jews sans frontieres
ImpeachBush / VoteToImpeach:
Raising Yousuf, Unplugged: diary of a Palestinian mother
If Americans Knew - what every American needs to know about Israel/Palestine
StopWarOnIran.org -- Stop the War on Iran Before it Starts!
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism (ANSWER):
Lawrence of Cyberia
Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL):
Whatever It Is, I’m Against It
Under The Holly Tree
Answers
Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) -- Broadening Public Discourse
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Politics in the Zeros
"Just Wondering"
DG Diary
Jonas in Palestine
American Leftist
Common Sense Comments
LENIN'S TOMB
Best of the Blogs A Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land
Annie's letters
International Action Center homepage
skippy the bush kangaroo
Abed Hamdan
Savage Justice
Rolled-up Trousers
Left I on the News
National Committee to Free the Cuban Five
BloggerRadio.com
Ben Heine - Cartoons
DesertPeace
A Poetic Justice (Don't burn the flag. Wash it!)
PostSecret
Welcome to Baqa'a Refugee Camp
Angry White Kid
DetainThis
Bethlehem Bloggers: Voices from the Bethlehem Ghetto
Dusty Doggie
The Inner Voice of the CrazyComposer
Bike Rides In Brooklyn ...And Other Matters.
PEACENIK
"Just Wondering"
American Wars
Radical Muslim
The Luna Park Gazette
SOCIALIST UNITY
thoughtstreaming
Antiwar.com
Cursor.org - Table of Contents page
Common Dreams | News & Views
Welcome to WorkingForChange
CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
Democracy Now!: radio and TV news
Workers World
The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب
American Palestinian New Generation
Green Left - Australia's radical weekly newspaper
granma.cu - Granma International English Edition
ei: The Electronic Intifada
Minimum Security
In Contempt Comics: Political Cartoons of Kevin Moore
PostSecret
Enduring Freedom in the "Just" War
Filasteen
LEFT IN EAST DAKOTA
Peace For Palestine
MUNICH - AND A LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING
Brian's thoughts
Word of the Left
Mirah's Reflections
Noticeable Changes
Sim-O's Random Thoughts
 
[-]Iran's [/-] The USA's elections are interesting things. They have real campaigns and there's a real fight for votes. There's [-]not much [/-] a certain amount of evidence of corruption (vote stealing, etc), [-]so[/-] yet in many ways the elections appear more legitimate than many in the world, and certainly better than most of the Middle East.
However, all the candidates have to be approved by [-]the clerics[/-] James Dobson in [-]a formal[/-] an informal process. No secular candidate could ever be approved, and [-]moderate Muslims[/-] all non-Christians are excluded.

>:D :angel:
 
Why are we so obessed with Iran a 3rd World Country?

TromboneAl said:
Do you think that the president of Columbia University need fear a Rushdie-style fatwah against him due to the things he said about Amanutjob?
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Maybe yes and maybe no - hopefully he will be getting a good night's sleep.

I believe that the only thing that poor devil was fearing was losing his job that's why he was so rude and critical of the Iranian President or Mr A. as he is referred to. All the poor devil was trying to do was to cover his rear end, because of the public outcry against Mr. A.

In the end the President of Columbia University did not look like the brightest cookie in the cookie jar because one does not INVITE a person into one's house as a GUEST and then turn on him like that. It is just not the SOUTHERN thing to do. The poor devil should have shown a little more class and let Mr. A have his moment in the sun because it is better to know what your alleged enemy is thinking then to have him pat you in the back as a friend and then find out that you have a knife in your back.

PR SCORE
-Mr. A - 10
-Columbia University President - minus 5

As for the answer to the question - We are not obessed with Iran. It is Old George W, Cheney and the NEACONS that are obessed with Iran for the OIL. Old George W's obession is with bulding his LEGACY as a WAR TIME PRESIDENT. He has not been able to get the job done in Iraq so the poor unfortunate fool thinks that invading and attacking Iran will work out better and cement his place in American history as a man amongst men.

GOD BLESS AMERICA
 
Bollinger is just the last in a long line of Columbia presidents who courted controversy. Just look at the 60's Black Panther fiasco.

Columbia lost probably 10 really big donors for letting an avowed anti-Semite take a stage that has repeatedly been denied to far right Jewish groups. It has been an ongoing theme here in NYC that Columbia, left to it's more zealous fringe groups, will always support the Ahmadinejad, Chavez, Castro, Idi Amin, Charles Taylor, H. Rap Brown, etc., for bolstering our world's diversity of thought. All should be heard. I agree.
 
Well one interesting thing was at least he got asked tough questions unlike another president who screens everyone he comes in contact with first for political purity and compliant (and easy) questions without too many big words. ;-) Bush could not face a random group of seniors from Poughkeepsie unaided and unshielded.
 
Iran's The USA's elections are interesting things. They have real campaigns and there's a real fight for votes. There's not much a certain amount of evidence of corruption (vote stealing, etc), so yet in many ways the elections appear more legitimate than many in the world, and certainly better than most of the Middle East.
However, all the candidates have to be approved by the clerics James Dobson in a formal an informal process. No secular candidate could ever be approved, and moderate Muslims all non-Christians are excluded.
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Well put.
 
To be fair, the University president didn't say he was a dictator. He said he exhibits "all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator."
 
OldAgePensioner said:
Bollinger is just the last in a long line of Columbia presidents who courted controversy. Just look at the 60's Black Panther fiasco.

Columbia lost probably 10 really big donors for letting an avowed anti-Semite take a stage that has repeatedly been denied to far right Jewish groups. It has been an ongoing theme here in NYC that Columbia, left to it's more zealous fringe groups, will always support the Ahmadinejad, Chavez, Castro, Idi Amin, Charles Taylor, H. Rap Brown, etc., for bolstering our world's diversity of thought. All should be heard. I agree.
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Isn't Columbia the "Ivy League Hotbed" of media training, didn't most of the bigshot anchor folks in the national media get degrees from Columbia? So then, bringing in a nutjob who hates America and Israel makes perfect sense............:bat:
 
Well, didn't they have the Minuteman guy speak there and there was a big flap? If you are running a faculty for International and Public Affairs are you going to stick only with the "safe" speakers? Do people really fear that Columbia students, New Yorkers, or Americans in general are going to run out and buy headscarves and Korans? I mean, it was worth it to hear people laughing at his remarks on homosexuals so maybe free and open exposure will help "our" side, too. I do agree 100% that "women are the best creatures created by God"!

Finance Dude, are you referring to Pat Buchanan and Norman Podhoretz?
 
Yes, Columbia fancies itself an upscale learning institution but it appears to be more of a community college version of Harvard and way down from Bush's school, Yale. Didn't Gore Vidal graduate from there or am I thinking Tipper Gore. Some Gore was a graduate.

And there are a lot of Columbia students that got some inspiration from Ahmadinejab. Many seemed really proud to associate themselves with him. My building has 30-40 students from Columbia and a few from Fordham and the differences are easy to spot. No Fordham jihadists.
 
ladelfina said:
[-]Iran's [/-] The USA's elections are interesting things. . . .

>:D :angel:
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I >>knew<< someone would do it! Good on 'ya! Still, to have someone who lives in Italy (of all places) throwing spitballs at the US political process . . . "Mr Pot, meet Mr Kettle. . . ." :)
 
Oh Italy is farrrr worse in many ways, except they don't have their finger on any nuclear triggers. What was the quote about "concentrating the mind wonderfully"?

Samuel Johnson:
"Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."
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Being a US citizen, I vote in US federal elections, and pay US taxes. Not an Italian citizen, so I can't vote here. If I could I would be out there with Beppe Grillo.
Beppe Grillo's Blog
N.B. I don't agree with his labor views (they are just part of the entitlement problem) but his attacks on the protected classes of politicians and journalists are spot on. No one has publicly talked this way in Italy. It's a feudal society that has found continued museum space in the modern Siamese twins of communism and fascism.. and everyone has their protected, inflexible, "role".
 
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samclem said:
I >>knew<< someone would do it! Good on 'ya! Still, to have someone who lives in Italy (of all places) throwing spitballs at the US political process . . . "Mr Pot, meet Mr Kettle. . . ." :)
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Isn't Italy the country where an "ex" porn star is in the Parliament? Or am I dreaming?? :D
 
Si. Ilona Staller - La cicciolina.
 
Iran is not much of a threat at present in the traditional military sense. But in the sense that national security is now so (unfortunately) intertwined with energy (read: oil) availability, any hiccup of supply from the region could bring some Western nations to their knees, no matter how economically and militarily powerful they may be.

If the U.S. and its major allies didn't need their oil supply, the region would be largely irrelevant in terms of national security on several levels.

Beyond that, though, someone developing nukes who has called for Israel's extermination and denies the Holocaust isn't someone you want to see get too powerful.
 
ziggy29 said:
Iran is not much of a threat at present in the traditional military sense. But in the sense that national security is now so (unfortunately) intertwined with energy (read: oil) availability, any hiccup of supply from the region could bring some Western nations to their knees, no matter how economically and militarily powerful they may be.

If the U.S. and its major allies didn't need their oil supply, the region would be largely irrelevant in terms of national security on several levels.

Beyond that, though, someone developing nukes who has called for Israel's extermination and denies the Holocaust isn't someone you want to see get too powerful.
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Didn't recent Bible theologians say tha the "Antichrist" was alive, and living in the Middle East??
 
I smoked some Columbian in college... O0

Nutjobs come in all varieties... :bat:
 
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