Or to be immune to embarrassment, which is probably the case.
The democratically elected governments of Afghanistan have been rather better than the non-democratic ones in that regard.
Am sorry but this is simply not true, I have no love for the Iranian regime, but it is a marked improvement compared to the SAVAK fanatical regime that was there at the time of the Shah. At least even in its very small form there is some shape of an elected parliament and a quasi independent media. None of this was around at the time of the Shah. Plus the distribution of wealth in Shah era Iran was alot more unequal compared to the basic efforts of some people in the present government to try and alleviate poverty (remember, that’s their main electoral base)
I am. I thought Lybia was too iron fisted for a significant number of people to dare protesting.
But then again, I’m surprised at every turn of these events.
I distinctly remember him stating his support for Ben Ali’s regime during the revolution in Tunisia.
Actually, I think the Communist government of Afghanistan (never elected, but not initially installed by Soviet troops or proxies, either – it was a home-grown revolution, like Cuba’s) was rather good with regard to women’s rights. Or, shall we say, women’s equality.
I was counting that as an elected one. My bad.
Ok…convince me. From what I’ve read in the past, the SAVAK was simply incorporated into the new secret police organizations, and they are as effective under the new regime as they were under the Shah. Things like the rights of women which had been progressing under the Shah have been thrown back to a more fundamentalist mindset. Same with many other laws and rights. Torture seems to be something that both regimes indulge in as well.
As for representation, that’s probably true, but seems to be fairly meaningless to the common people. There seems to be as much (or more) anger today as there was during the later days of the Shah, which seems to be an indication that the rather limited ability of the average Iranian to have input into their government isn’t making a large difference to the public’s perception of ‘better’. As for the media, Iran has a national firewall which limits access to outside information to all but a select few, and from what little I know it’s more ‘quasi’ than ‘independent’ wrt the news available to the common citizen.
As for wealth redistribution, I have no idea. Are there metrics showing whether the average Iranian is better off today from both a salary and purchasing ability perspective? The Iranian government hasn’t exactly played nice with the rest of the world, and has been under a series of embargoes, which tends to make me think that a lot of things are unavailable, but I really have no idea. I’d be interested in hearing about it, since I haven’t really kept current with how good or bad things are in Iran today. On cursory inspection, I’d say they aren’t very good, based on the protests of the last year (and how they were put down) from the threads and blogs I’ve skimmed, and that the feeling that the common citizen is connected to his or her government and can effect change is pretty bad. Perhaps better than under the Shah, but that’s a pretty low bar.
Possibly this isn’t the best thread to get into this, as the thread is more about Libya, but if you feel like getting into it I’d be interested in hearing how Iran is better today for the average Iranian than it was under the Shah.
-XT
Doesn’t quite work . . . Try something with a tattooed lady.
Airman Doors:
George W. Bush and similar neocons, though it didn’t necessarily happen quite the way they might have expected.
Really? And what democratically elected (as opposed to ‘elected’ by massive electoral fraud) might those be?
Which has fuck all to do with the Revolutions, he’s calling for Palestinians to take a run at Israel. He’s been calling for that stuff for years I think. Anyway it’s neither domestic revolt nor internal to the Arabs.
Me too.
Look, America has a long history – all in the past now, I hope – of flagrantly corrupt machine politics, including electoral fraud, with ballot-box stuffing and votes for the dead. Perhaps it’s a stage in democratic development that can’t be avoided. But, within limits, even a government elected that way is in some degree representative of the public will – more so, at any rate, than a government of monarchs or mullahs or generals. Boss Tweed knew very well he had to keep the people of New York happy and actually get some things done for them.
It has everything to do with what I said. Gadaffi promoted mass protests by Palestinians. He’s now eating those words because his autocratic rule is threatened by demonstrations. Gander meets Goose.
Who says he’s “eating his words”? Nobody can hold him to any standard of intellectual consistency, and in any case there is no inconsistency here. He said there should be protests in Palestine, there’s no reason to doubt he meant it, and he implied nothing at all about protests in Libya.
I mean, “Freedom for Palestine!” is just old-hat rhetoric for Qaddafi. Did he ever even pretend to care about democratic government as such?
No, and therin is the consumption of his words. Do what I suggest in other countries but tow the line in my autocracy.
That is not admirable, but neither is it inconsistent.