Who’s committing the senseless violence in Iran?? Or is it “sensible” justified violence? Preserve the state, at what cost?
+70 million people are involved. What is the critical number to sustain a network of effective resistance, with a larger cloud of people sympathetic but unwilling to completely commit? How committed are the Revolutionary Guard soldiers, if their own families and friends turn against the regime?

How much disorder can Iran take before the wheels stop turning, and things just don’t get done?
In physical systems, there is such a thing as energy, order and disorder (entropy). It will take an immense amount of energy by the central government in Iran to maintain order, as time goes on. What if the human units of “order” begin to get fatigued by the exertions of imposing “order”? The violence and killing and all; are they as ruthless as the Gestapo or the Cheka?
How much dis-order can a connected net-centric group of dissidents create, short of violence and mayhem?
Strikes, slowdowns, modest acts of disobedience, organized resistance all over the country. It’s only supercially the BBC, as that gives the Iranian government an outside boogeyman to blame and create fear of the “other” for the great number of undecided Iranians. Information and the truth can persuade the mass of “undecided” Iranian about the course of the future. It’s not just about guns and bayonets.

Everything begins with an idea.

He has rendered himself insignificant (and unfortunately the US along with him) in terms of world affairs, by proclaiming the US unqualified to comment on Iran. His lightweight responses to the new Honduran crisis will further cement his irrelevance. What little he has provided there is support for the ousted unconstitutional dictator.

Promulgation of information on the net is one way that the opposition can spread the word of what is happening and can influence their opponents to change. Its decentralized nature makes it difficult for the Iranian rulers to shut it down. Curiously Iran is dependent on the internet for its business and other interests. This has made it impossible for Iran to simply shut down the internet but rather has tried to filter it. There are many problems with spreading of info by the internet, including the regime spreading false info under false flags, but in the end I think it is a great egalitarian endeavor that will help to bring down tyrannies.

The measure of preparation that the Iranian Regime had undertaken even four years ago tells me that a cautionary warning would have had the greatest effect. But by the time such a warning could have been issued, the Mullahs had already determined what their course of action would be. How can you shame a Sociopath?

“Three years ago I gave a presentation in Israel arguing that encouraging blogs and other “Internet sensors” to multiply in the Arab world would create a kind of runaway transparency which would objectively work in the cause of peace.”

It worked, within the limits of its ability. To sustain such a revolt would require the ideas to have already found their bayonets. If anything president Obama’s message of non communication belied the charges of US Government complicity. For anything the President said to have had an effect some measure of muscle should have been readied for flexing. There was little chance that the words of the administration could have effected circumstances in Iran unless they could have swayed some Mullah’s to side against Ahmadineajad. That Rafsanjhani’s family members were held hostage indicate little chance of that happening.

That’s a better description of the situation than the idea that the situation was caused by whatever Obama has or has not said.

The Iranian government began to feel the heat, nearly instantaneously on election night. And the attempts to shut it all down began. The Iranians began by blocking the BBC signals. The BBC merely changed satellites. The stubborn opposition and not the BBC began a signals war with the Iranian Government and official internet sites. The outcome was that the Government shut down all but the most primitive of communications systems both inter and intra country including their own.

Some sites were left alone, only because the opposition wanted folks to be able to read Khamenei’s rant and blather. Which they had no problem allowing when compared to the PBC’s fare. Which At the height of the demonstrations were…”very cautious, reminding viewers of what they can confirm and what they can’t, and of who their sources are,” said Ali Ansari, a professor of Iranian studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. “And they don’t allow people to use their broadcasts to slander their opponents, which is more than you can say for the state broadcasting network in Iran. The paradox is that it’s precisely because they are seen as objective and impartial by Iranians that they come under such severe attack.”

Because the means of broadcast are more easily turned on and off by a totalitarian regime, with less economic or even political impact then would result in a free society, the struggle can be suppressed out of sight, out of the view of the powerful blogs and information magnates, behind closed doors.

Rise Again’s
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

Chairs thrown and tables toppled,
Hands armed with broken bottles,
Standing no chance to win but,
We’re not running, we’re not running.

Black eyes, broken fingers,
Blood drips and I let it run,
down my lips and to my swollen gums,
When hope is non-existent,
Our instincts all scream “Run”,
We never turn our backs or even bite our tongue.
Songwriters: Barnes, Brandon; Chasse, Christopher; Mcilrath, Timothy; Principe, Joseph Daniel

At least until something better comes along.

Technology does provide the possibility of undermining regimes like Iran but it is no guarantee.

There will always be censors from governments. And there will always be those who are a half-step ahead of those censors with some new technology. But will those be enough for a critical mass of opinion? And is that critical mass a plastic number, dependent upon the level of fear and violence that a government is willing apply to resist reform? I think the recent events in Iran force us to conclude that it is. A sea change in Islam’s overwhelming tendency to use violence to force conformity, or the decline of Islam in its entirety, will need to happen regardless of what information technology exists.

On the domestic front, I can say that after 9/11 I thought we were in a time of Chamberlain-esque denial about a hot enemy similar to 1938. But I think that now is much more like that time. And I think that until something truly awful shocks the wealthy elites and their legions of overeducated, underintelligent wannabes in government, the entertainment industry, and the education industry, that we won’t progress regardless of what information technology is there. There’s just a big contingent of people out there who will crave security of status and income stream security over liberty, and, inertia being what it is, it will take some great force to move them.

Shibboleths abound in a situation like ours, as Thrasymachus points out. The scolding and branding by entertainers is just the most visible sign of this partitioning and shunning. Suburban ‘super’ moms, going through life believing that motherhood is a contest for which there is an Olympic medal, will not let their children associate with kids whose parents hunt or are NASCAR fans for fear of what all the other cool ‘progressive’ mommies might say. They’ll send their kids to college regardless of whether or not that’s really the best thing for the kid, because they’re terrified of the negative social consequences should their other Olympic-mommy peers find out that little Courtney or Jared become a tradesman or soldier or some other non-approved person. Doubtless there are other examples of this.

I’m all for getting more information out there and using tech to its fullest. At one time, not so long ago, I believed that that was all there was to it in terms of reclaiming America from the Gramscians. But
I’m not sure that increasing channels of information by itself can change this.