The revolution will not be televised

Reflecting some of what I wrote below, my friend Howie Klein offers his most recent take on the events in Iran:

While bloodthirsty vampires on the political right, your McCains, Pences, Liebermen and Cantors-- whose only desire is to see blood running in the streets of Tehran-- do whatever they can to inflame emotions and offer Iranian patriots false hope, the entire world is viscerally mourning for Neda. And Twitter is part of that at #neda. Mousavi, no friend of the West by a long shot, says he's prepared for martyrdom-- he tweeted it-- but Neda is already dead. Unlike him, she never ordered the deaths of 30,000 political prisoners or funded Hezbollah. President McCain, President Graham, President Lieberman are wrong-- always... about everything. But it is their cranky, crackpot voices-- voices Charles Pierce explains so very well in Idiot America-- that dominate the incendiary, trivial, ratings-hungry mass media.

And who is Neda, of whom Howie speaks? This young woman (WARNING: graphic video):



More at this Iranian blog: http://iranianriots.wordpress.com. This is what happens in revolutions, sadly. Allegedly shot by Basiji paramilitary thugs, Neda is becoming a martyr to the Iranians in the street.

Clearly rabid reality-challenged U.S. politicians didn't cause this, Supreme Leader (yes, that's his actual title) Khamenei did with his response to the contentious election in Iran. But is there anything the U.S. can do to help? Back to Howie:

They need to hear exactly what Obama is saying. But that isn't what the neo-Cons want. They want a message like the one George H.W. Bush gave the Iraqi Shi'a in 1991-- or the CIA gave the Hungarians in 1956: rise up against your oppressors and we will help you. They rose up-- and were slaughtered by the thousands.

Irresponsible inciters, safely back in Washington, shed a collective crocodile tear for them. Meanwhile, without McCain and without Mike Pence and without Howard Berman, the Iranian people-- or at least the middle class of North Tehran-- may well be delegitimizing the fascist dictatorship and the Supreme Leader. And if Al Giordano is correct, the revolution is spreading from the middle class to the working class.

So President McCain, President Graham, President Cantor, Rabbi Lieberman, Press Sec'y's O'Reilly & Hannity: sit down and shut the hell up. You're not helpful, no one cares what you say.

Oh, and in case you forgot: Iran, 1953, Mossadeq, CIA. Every Iranian remembers. Sad that you don't.

Bastards.