wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Shouldn't these reporters be covering these events whatever happens. I mean, I know it is risky, but it is risky for everyone who attends, I mean...they are journalists, this is a time when they can make a real difference...maybe am being a little romantic about it, but is this a product of the 'embedded' culture in journalism...

11, mc,

I couldn't agree more. I am strongly in solidarity with the Iranian demonstrators - but U.S. involvement would negatively impact their cause. Thanks to our Iraq involvement, our name in the world is now "mud" (apologies to Dr. Mudd where that expression comes from), and will remain so for a while.

Oddly, in our current state, we can offer the Iranian demonstrators more support by pledging not to muck things up further for them.

I have been following this whole thing through my Iranian friends on facebook. Their walls are covered with debates from both US and Iran bound friends and links to tons and tons of images, media, anything really that helps convey the message of what has been going on since last Wednesday. Their status bars are filled with proxy IP addresses that can be used to bypass the government surveillance over there, software names to access the web unfiltered and of course rally events hosted here in the good old USofA.

and this one i am just going to paste in verbatim for anyone interested in showing their support this evening:

New York Show of Solidarity with Iranian People New York, let's do it! We, the Iranian people, need ALL your support. A nation of brave and peaceful seekers of what is truly their right needs you. HUMANITY NEEDS YOU. UNION SQUARE at 7 PM WEDNESDAY JUNE 17th

It's ironic that you would cover this important issue so closely, yet you were silent on the election fraud and intimidation throughout the US in 2008, including the breaking of trust with the American people on campaign finance reform (a liberal cause). The spending of 800 million dollars (much of which is still unaccounted for) to steal the election is just about as bad as not counting the votes in Iran.

The media is rightfully covering the brave people of Iran fighting for their rights, but ignored the 1,000,000 people who came out in the US to protest the reckless spending of the current administration. This included ignoring 15 -20,000 people right here at NYC Hall only a few blocks away from propaganda central - WNYC HQ. The main stream and liberal media is so biased and unprofessional these days. It’s very sad.

I think Obama hit exactly the right notes so far. This is an internal problem that the Iranians have to figure out and we, frankly don't really know what happened. At the same time he encouraged the idea that people's voices should be heard, their votes should be counted and they should be able to speak out without getting their heads bashed in. We need to be supportive and restrained at the same time. Otherwise, we become the issue.

The protests in Iran have very little to do with international perspectives, but is an internal struggle over control of THEIR country. The only reason that the protests are happening and have currency is because the Iranian citizens themselves are fed up with their government.

Who cares what hawkish "statesmen" say when the smart and realpolitik action is low key support of Iranian democracy by the U.S. without weighing in too much and allowing the power structure to unify around U.S. meddling.

I knew Twitter would somehow figure into this.
Dear God, thank you for Twitter! Where would we humanity be if not for Twitter?!!

As a Nigerian who's seen this happen too often, to anyone who wants to understand more, read Paul colliers wars guns and votes, states how easy it is to steal votes

Let's not kids ourselves. The Bloomberg/Kelly brigade reacted in the same way (albeit _not_ to the same degree) during the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Bloomberg has routinely shut down protests he doesn't like. The city still has legal cases in the works for abuses of protesters during the 2004 RNC. The city is still fighting release of details on its abuses.

Giuliani was equally fond of harassing political speakers he didn't like.

The US government, with broad support in Congress and from Obama, is _spying_ on US citizens (reported _again_ today in The New York Times).

Florida, Ohio -- and New York -- among other states regularly show systematic problems in voting. Florida and Ohio systematically disenfranchise significant segments of their populations.

Once again, the 'moral authority' of the US (if the US ever had any), and particularly of people like McCain and Obama (Obama to a lesser extent), has been severely undermined by years of American domestic and foreign wrongdoing.

For all the political hawks who wants to push Obama to openly support the demonstrators.

When McCain says "cleric extremists" he seem to forget that the election was for president, not the supreme leader, and I can only interpret his statement as denouncing law and order as he does not accept the laws about the not-so-democratic laws of the supreme leader and his position.
I think many agree with me that the last 4 years of Ahmedinejad did not put Iran in good light, but what do we in the west really know about the reformers?

Brian, could you ask somebody what the reform movements wants to do, and not.

It's just funny to me how Iran has never actually held elections that were free and fair, and yet even without any clear definitive evidence of voter fraud, people are only now declaring this election a sham and demanding a stronger response from Obama. Why is this? Because people in the West bought into the hype that this other guy might win, and now their fantasy has been shattered.

It's just funny to me how Iran has never actually held elections that were free and fair, and yet even without any clear definitive evidence of voter fraud, people are only now declaring this election a sham and demanding a stronger response from Obama. Why is this? Because people in the West bought into the hype that this other guy might win, and now their fantasy has been shattered.

The notion that John McCain, who joked about 'bomb bomb bomb'-ing Iran, stands strongly with people whom he was willing to bomb into the stone age is absurd on the face of it.

Someone needs to point out that John McCain and the other right wing hawks like Podhoretz who have a new-found solidarity with the Iranian people are the same guys who were more than willing to slaughter thousands of them in a pre-emptive bombing campaign. And they could make jokes about it.

We know that McCain was eager to bomb Iran, so no surprise that he should still sound like a hawk.

What hard evidence is there that the election was a sham?

And why are all the Iranians we hear on National Public Radio so fluent in English? At least one today even had an American accent.

New and promising headline:
Senior Iranian cleric calls regime “illegitimate”
For summary with link to video and the cleric's website, use this link:
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/06/17/senior-iranian-cleric-calls-regime-illegitimate/