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Tear Down These Cyberwalls!

By David Peterson at Jun 24, 2009

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It will interest all of you to learn that the total number of mentions on the pages of the New York Times of the terms 'Tudeh Party', or the 'Communist Party', or the 'Workers' Party', in relation to events inside Iran from June 12 through today, June 24, has been zero.  (The actual Factiva database search parameters were rst=nytf and iran and (tudeh or communist or workers party) for the dates specified. -- The results are reliable.)

Some kind of revolutionary spirit is shaking the foundations of Islamic Republic of Iran, runs a recurring refrain. 

Yet, even if true -- and I'm not buying -- but, even if true, the necessary Left - revolutionary components of any such spirit miraculously have failed to "tweet" or video-stream or blog their way onto the pages of the Newspaper of Record in the country whose regime is the most powerful actor on the global stage.

Another triumph of the Free Press. -- Don't you agree?

So where is Thomas Friedman's "Virtual Mosque" to be found, anyway?  Or Nicholas Kristof's demand not only that the government of Iran "tear down this cyberwall" -- but that his newspaper and his state do likewise?

Where for that matter is Henry Giroux's "dangerous lesson" that what the world is witnessing inside Iran is "not simply generational discontent or the power of networking and communication sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube but...an experience in which power is shared, dialogue is connected to involvement in the public sphere, hope means imagining the unimaginable, and collective action portends the outlines of a new understanding of power, freedom, and democracy" -- in real-world terms, I mean?  ("The Iranian Uprisings and the Challenge of the New Media," CounterPunch, June 19-21.)

Good questions.


"Beijing cautions U.S. over Iran," M.K. Bhadrakumar, The Hindu, June 22, 2009
"The Iranian Election and the Revolution Test," George Friedman, Stratfor, June 22, 2009
"Iran: This Is Not a Revolution," Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, MRZine, June 23, 2009
"Hyping Iran, Ignoring Mexico: The New York Times and Stolen Elections," John Ross, CounterPunch, June 26 - 28, 2009

"Iran and the Americans," ZNet, June 22, 2009

 

Update (June 24): The following two commentaries belong in my previous blog (June 22).  But as the blogging software adamantly refuses to let me incorporate them where they belong, and really screws-up whenever I try, I'm posting them here instead.  The Richard Seymour especially is a little gem.

 

"The Third Side Also Exists: Regarding the Likely American Attack on Iranasser Zarafshan, MRZine, April 21, 2008," N

"Iran" Richard Seymour, MRZine, June 16, 2009 : What Can the Opposition Win?

 

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