Riverwood Presbyterian Church

Politics

What’s Going On In Iran

by Clay Staggs

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the political left in this country has either (a) lost its stomach for advocating freedom or (b) doesn’t even recognize true repression when it happens. Witness the events going on right now in Iran. Actually, that’s a fairly difficult thing to do now, isn’t it? There simply isn’t a whole lot going on right now in the mainstream press about it. A visitor to the NY Times website this morning will be greeted by this picture:

The associated story, at the top of the webpage, is about last night’s Fashion Awards. This while one of the most repressive regimes in the world is on the verge of being toppled. It is not inconceivable that the aversion of nuclear war is on the line here, and yet, the lefties’ paper of record can’t seem to be bothered to post a picture of the beatings and killings of the protesters.

Why is that? As I speculated above, one explanation is that they just don’t really have the stomach for the fight. After all, the Iraq affair has been a long and draining experience. None can realistically deny this. Yet, for the US, the question should be whether we care to be, if not an active agent for freedom and democracy, at least its cheerleader. What does it cost anyone here in the US, left or right, to say publicly that nonviolent protesters shouldn’t be beaten and killed by government hit squads?

I suspect that the true explanation is that the left has lost the ability to recognize true repression when it sees it. Over the last seven years especially, the left has been so engaged in trying to paint the US as some type of fascist state that they’ve lost the ability to know what one truly looks like. Well, the folks in Iran know. That’s why 2 to 3 million people took to the streets of Tehran yesterday to protest this ridiculous sham of an election. And while those protesters are beaten, killed, and the government tries its best to shut off the flow of information to the outside world, the best that President Obama can do is to say that he is “troubled” by the situation. Super weak. Can he not at least muster the decency to say that no government should murder its own citizens in cold blood for participating in political protest? Pathetic. We’ve come a long way from Reagan’s daring Gobachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.

But, nature abhors a vacuum. Almost miraculously, Iranians are still able to use Twitter, and are letting the rest of the world know what’s going on, one 140-character tweet at a time. If you’re interested go here or here to read the tweets yourself. Also, as is increasingly the case these days, new media is beating the pants off mainstream media. The very best I’ve found is Michael Totten, a freelance journalist/blogger, whose posts are here at the Commentary magazine blog. Another good roundup is provided by (of all bloggers) Andrew Sullivan. Finally, if you’d like to read some interviews with some people who aren’t TV talking heads or administration shills, but instead actually know what they’re talking about, then check out Hugh Hewitt’s links here.

I hope this rotten regime follows the Soviets and Saddam right into the dustbin of history. If that happens, it will be no thanks to President Obama or the American left.