At the Boston Massacre, an unlikely figure emerged as one of the heros, a man of black or Indian parentage named Crispus Attucks. In Iran, women have played a key role in the protests and protesters have rallied around a female martyr named Neda Soltan, 26. Just as blacks in the United States were fighting from a position of slavery and discrimination, Iranian women have been throwing off of restrictions of the harsh Islamic regime and taken to the street. One such courageous young person was filmed as she died after being shot by Iranian security. The video is making it through the blackout curtain established by the Iranian government.
The video is difficult to watch as a woman named Neda is seen dying on the street shortly after she was shot.
Another amateur video captured showed of Neda and her father attending Neda minutes before at the protest, which had been peaceful. Minutes later she is lying on the street gasping for life. Appropriately, Neda means “calling.”
Tributes have been posted on Youtube to Neda:
For the full story, click here
Progressives are the propogandist hypocrites.They want it both ways all the time.
Neda is a hero
The warmongers staged it to incite more violence.
This is how they progressives wrap themselves in their fiegned compassion for all humanity. They like to wring their hands in outrage over the neglect and exploitation of the underclass.
Then they want to plant the seed of doubt that this abomination may have been staged so they can jump on their soapbox and criticize America, labeling her as an imperialist out to do the bidding of the global corporate world (Which may be true)but it is not true that this tradgedy was orchestrated for that sole purpose. It may end up being used for that objective, I won’t deny that. But do not besmirch this poor woman’s death as your own staging ground for anti-American rants.
Either she’s an innocent hero. An image for Iranian freedom fighters or she was just a pawn.
Pick a side.
Well gee, Gary, when you add this to some of your other posts, you’re turning out to be regular tour de force in Neocon propaganda, Mr. It Might Be Staged But I’m All For Them. Please read Gary’s posts. They are a fine illustration of the ideas progressives are actually against. To educate people as to the nature of their rights is often not enough. You must show them the sly means by which others would seek to deprive them of said rights. This includes pointing out loaded language and deception/misdirections. Gary is posting some prime examples of both.
There was talk that the Neda video might be staged.
http://www.nolanchart.com/article6565.html
I am all for the Iranian protesters, and think them incredibly brave. If we had 1/4 of the gumption these people have we would be a force to be reckoned with when dealing with police and other heavy handed officials.
But, like they say the LA police framed a guilty man in the OJ trials, may this video be a fake depiction of what really goes on all the time in Iran?
UPDATE:
Iranian officials seek to “nullify” Neda’s martyrdom. Man . . . is that gonna backfire or what?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6561253.ece
Thanks again Professor Turley.
Here is a portrait of Neda without her scarf and in a “western-style” look. She was a very beautiful young woman…
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/06/22/2009-06-22_riot_police_keep_protestors_from_mourning_neda_with_.html
getplaning,
That is an excellent reasoned article, thanks.
This paragraph puts a lot in perspective:
________________________________
{Quote:
However, the double standard applied by Western news agencies is striking. Richard Nixon trounced George McGovern in his native state of South Dakota in the 1972 elections. Had Al Gore won his home state of Tennessee in 2000, no one would have cared about a Florida recount, nor would there have been a Supreme Court case called Bush v. Gore. If Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards had won the states he was born and raised in (South and North Carolina), President John Kerry would now be serving his second term. But somehow, in Western newsrooms Middle Eastern people choose their candidates not on merit, but on the basis of their “tribe.”
End Quote}
_________________________________
I wound a well informed article about this election over at Counterpunch.
A Hard Look at the Numbers
What Actually Happened in the Iranian Presidential Election?
By ESAM AL-AMIN
http://www.counterpunch.org/amin06222009.html
LEO,
What?
To first dismiss and compare Achmedinejad and Mousavi?
Then come out with a cold statement of support?
I’m sure that statement on Sunday really filled the revolutionaries with confidence And made them forget about his initial insensitive remarks.
Leo writes: The next time a pushy, nosey police officer asks you if he or she can check in your backpack—especially while you are not doing something criminally suspicious—tell him or her that, with all due respect, I am a law abiding citizen and I think that you do not have probable cause to search my private effects at this time. Unless Officer, you can convey to me a justifiably reasonable cause to search me and my possessions, then I would like to get on with my life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in this free Nation of ours, yours and mine. Thank you, Officer.
me: which would be nice, but those guards/cops/tsa inspectors have a nice retort which is this : wanna get inside the building? board the plane? enter the courthouse for jury duty? submit.
I had a hip replacement two years ago and every time I fly, which used to be really really alot, I set off the metal detectors. Then I get to stand in the glass box and wait for them to find a female tsa who then frisks me. there seems to be no clear standard for where she can/cannot touch me and I try to get them to disclose this prior to my physical exam. Sometimes they will and sometimes they just threaten to not let me board my place. The most power I have in this situation is to force them to put on a fresh pair of gloves. I tell them that I have a hip replacement and their wand only activates over the affected area. If they only touched me there, they’d know that I don’t have a bomb in my jeans. funny, how they think I can hide a bomb between my breasts or hide one in my underpants.
not to minimize what happened in Iran to this young woman and what I am sure will turn out to be hundreds of others…. Iran is different. There is a level of secular education and desire for connection to the outer world which will make successful revolution inevitable. I know lots of iranians who live in the states now, and I’ve been to Iran…long ago before the Shah was deposed and women wore makeup and mini-skirts. Imposing sanctions will get us nowhere. getting more technology and more connection to the larger world will advance freedom. Iranians by and large enjoy a higher standard of living then what we might imagine and want access to an even better way of life. This is one place where materialism is a good thing and the desire for more access to an upper middle class way of life for more people will advance our interests in the region in ways we can never achieve with sanctions.
So the Iranian people are dogs and peasants.
That doesn’t surprise that a psuedo-intellectual like yourself would think that.
Obama’s initial silence AND the dismissive comments along with the comparison of Achmedinejad to Mousavi that he uttered on CNBC on Tuesday was destructive beyond any and all repair.
You have NEVER acknowledged those comments and how divisive they were. Those comments were insulting, arrogant, immature, careless and will cause MORE damage with whoever we’re dealing with once the dust settles in Iran.
THAT IS MY POINT. ADDRESS THE ISSUE and stop getyting on your moral soapbox by trying to turn Obama’s insensitivity to my insensitivity..
Get over blaming Bush for everything. It’s all water under the bridge. It’s Obama’s problem now and he’s NOT handling it too well.
Obama’s words ring hollow now. Everybody knows any compassion is ONLY fiegned and becauswe of political pressure.
The Islamic republic in Iran will fall. The status quo is over. Obama has guaranteed hostility because whoever is in power when it’s all said and done knows Obama hung them out to dry and had little concern for them.
He should have had the forsight or intelligence info to see when the protests first jumped off tyhat his dream of negotiating with Achmedinejad would inevitably be lost.
Obama should have positioned himself to be able to negotiate with a new regime that might have been more flexible ifb they knew our president supported them.
That option is now lost.
Sometimes the right thing is the ONLY thing to do. And standing with the revolutionaries was the ONLY thing to do.
Stop trying to manipulate the circumstances to excuse this adminuistration for it’s lack of foresight and sympathy to stand with the freedom fighters.
The theories of the college campuses ONLY work in debate NOT in the real world
Thank you, Professor Turley, for posting Neda’s portrait.
Good redemption, Buddha; thanks.
sicilian1, I think that President Obama is meting the correct stance, at this juncture.
A visiting general sees a peasant set upon by the warlord’s attack dogs. While sympathetic to the peasant, the visiting general cannot just rush in headlong and save them from the dog mauling lest the dog’s come to him and a war is started between nations. He does not help the victim by attacking the dogs as they are dogs and know no better than the commands of a bad master. He certainly doesn’t help the dogs attack the victim. He also doesn’t help the peasant by talking to the warlord in other than generalities lest the warlord seek to blame the peasant’s crime upon him and seek to spread violence.
What does one do?
One finds other ways to help the peasants (and this is REAL IMPORTANT) help themselves, because your words will do more harm than good in any case – too weak, the peasants are attacked more, too strong and it’s open war AND the peasants get attacked more, but there is no “just right”. Except what Obama did and tell the Warlords that the world was watching. It puts the Iranian leaders on notice that their actions are known and by implication not appreciated. Given what has gone on in recent elections here (and I do mean Bush), there are also more reasons than one Obama doesn’t want to be too confrontational at this point considering the subject matter of the dispute in Iranian question. That is all that’s required at this point and it doesn’t increase the risk to either the Iranian protesters or to our troops. To to more would have been foolish, to do less would have been unconscionable.
To seek more at this time is to seek more trouble for the protesters, not support them.
Standing up for Neda requiires the American public to DEMAND Obama show some support to the Iranian revolutionaires.
Stop closing your eyes. Just wringing your hands and patting yourselves on the back for feeling sorry is NOT enough.
We ALL cry for this poor girl. BUT we are only citizens.
WHERE is our leader??????
There are Iranian American’s EVERYWHERE rallying for their brothers.
Go to ANY MAJOR city and you will see people wearing GREEN!!!
Where is the voice of WASHINGTON????
I guess they’ll be happy with another Tianamen square!!!!
TELL HOW I”M WRONG ABOUT THAT!!!!
FFLEO & Gyges,
By your leave. Actually, I must apologize. I didn’t realize what thread I was in. The hazards of multi-tasking. Mea culpa.
Former Federtal LEO,
EVERYTHING YOU said was RIGHT ON POINT!!!!!
I hope you do NOT mind me saying so because most do NOT like my comments and myself aligning with you may not be wanted.
I love your second to last paragraph. When I was stopped and refused to let the feds search my trunk I was told by a fed, ‘If you don’t don’t sign the consent to let me search your trunk you’re giving me probable cause to search your trunk’
I said, ‘So by invoking my rights you say that’s what gives you probable cause.’
The fed ripped into me, calling me every curse name and threatening what he would do to me.’
Needless to say, I gave in.
Buddha,
Quit encouraging him, just let him babble away to himself. The same thing I said to him I’ll say to you, this isn’t the time or place for this discussion.
sicilian1,
I agree with Gyges. You are denigrating the death of this young woman by your Obama dyspepsia. There are other thread topics on which you can post your concerns and I might even agree with some of your points over there…
Let’s agree to leave this thread about Neda and what she stood for and represents worldwide.
Buddha, Please Sir, leave this person alone on *this* thread.
Thanks.
Once again you can do NOTHING more than personal assaults.
You NEVER stick to the argument.
My question is, where is the support from Obama? Why the silence?
I’m NOT asking for meddling I’m asking for WORDS of SUPPORT. Obama is so good with WORDS. Oh ya, I’m sorry he’s ONLY got words when he’s wagging a moral finger at America.
I HAVE NEVER made a partisian statement.
I’m talking about supporting freedom, liberty and democracy.
I encourage everyone to view the full, graphic video of Neda’s last moments of life as her once vibrant glow is fading. The blood flowing from the mouth and nares of her beautiful face as she bleeds out should be a solemn and persistent reminder of why citizens must reject tyrannical theocracies throughout the world.
We must also bear in mind that this could happen in the U.S.A., if we stray too far from our U.S. Constitution and ignore the rule of law and passively relinquish our Bill of Rights to the ‘authorities’ simply because we might have nothing to hide. People in our country—like Neda in her homeland or future rights—have died to preserve those Amendment rights you and I are granted under our Constitution.
The next time a pushy, nosey police officer asks you if he or she can check in your backpack—especially while you are not doing something criminally suspicious—tell him or her that, with all due respect, I am a law abiding citizen and I think that you do not have probable cause to search my private effects at this time. Unless Officer, you can convey to me a justifiably reasonable cause to search me and my possessions, then I would like to get on with my life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in this free Nation of ours, yours and mine. Thank you, Officer.
For you see, if we so freely and quickly give up our rights and freedoms, the police will assume that there is no reason to have rights that are not worth standing up for, even in a polite non-confrontational demeanor.
Neda is a heroine I certainly will never forget.