Which is a shame really, because now I can't remember what some of them were ... and I had some serious rants too. *sigh*
You all already know that I'm a computer gamer, and really a MMO addict, in fact I'm presently playing Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Guild Wars: Trilogy, and EVE Online as well as Tale 4 of A Tale in the Desert. And while that sounds like a big bunch of gaming, I'm actually managing to play them all relatively casually and still do silly things like ... oh ... yard work and my job ... as well as write and play some RockBand 2.
That is, of course, not what I came here to write about.
I want to start by expressing my sympathy and support for those protesting the Iranian elections. They are fighting a fight that I believe most Americans wouldn't have the ... ahem ... intestinal fortitude ... to fight. While I certainly believe that the elections were heavily rigged, at this point that is not the issue.
The issue is the violence and oppression that the government has used in response to the protests. Lets look through the altverse and see what things would have looked like if, after the election results, the government had not tried to censor the media and not tried to use force to intimidate the protesters. You know what happens? The story goes away. Internationally the issue evaporates ... there's no story and shortly the issue of 'were the elections rigged' disappears because it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
Yes, who is elected matters to a degree ... but if protesters had not been shot at and/or beaten by government forces ... then the rest of the world would have largely shrugged and said 'well that's their problem' and proceeded to deal with whoever was in charge. A few countries might refuse to deal with the Iranian government calling it 'illegitimate' but that is fairly unlikely and would probably have been a short term protest as a way of showboating for political favor at home than anything meaningful.
But ... when you try to limit the media ... in this day and age of technology ... you are slapping them in the face and they do NOT like it. They will find a way to report what you are trying to hide, and they will make you look bad for making them do it. On top of that the images that are coming out of Iraq do not make things look good for the establishment. Meeting protests with violence will not settle the protesters .. you might terrorize them back into quiet lives but their protest will remain, and in dark, quiet corners it will grow.
Speaking of Terrorism it seems lately that our own American government is trying to 'redefine' it a bit. Not that redefining words and meaning is anything new in this country ... the definition of 'racism' for example has been broadened to the point of being meaningless. But now you have this question on a US Department of Defense exam:
"Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism?"
- Attacking the Pentagon
- IEDs
- Hate crimes against racial groups
- Protests
Now ... last time I checked the definition of Terrorism was:
"ter·ror·ism (těr'ə-rĭz'əm) - n. The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons." - The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Now notice the 'use or threatened use of force or violence' a 'protest' does not inherently use or threaten force or violence ... yes they can sometimes become violent, but people in bars sometimes become violent as well ... are we going to start calling anyone that goes to bars 'terrorists' because drinking in a bar 'threatens force or violence'?
I mean, come on, I didn't agree with the people protesting against the war ... but I would hardly call them terrorists. Even the protesters that went so far as to block the driveway to President George W. Bush's Texas ranch, or some of the more extreme anti-war protests in California that shouted hatred and obscenities (and in some cases spawned violence) at recruiters at military recruitment centers weren't terrorists (loons maybe, but not terrorists).
Seriously do we want to expand the definition of Terrorism to include 'a person or gathering of people expressing a disagreement with an opposing point of view.' ?
Isn't that essentially exactly what they are doing in Iran right now?
Once we allow 'Terrorism' to include 'Protests' then now, or in the future, we open the door for the government to answer any and all protests with the use of police or military force ... arresting and imprisoning protesters for 'terrorism'. Is that a road that any of us actually want to consider going down?
"We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe." - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." - George Orwell
