I’m in support of fair elections in Iran. That’s pretty easy to say, I know.
But I’m not particularly for Mousavi or Ahmadinejad. And I’m slow to believe anonymous articles coming out of Iran claiming the election to be fraudulent. My reasoning here i s that there are lots of international interests in Ahmadinejad being removed from power and anonymous internet traffic denouncing the election results fits right in with what one would expect from US intelligence.
All that said, Ahmadinejad is an authoritarian who isn’t in support of things the majority of Iranians want. Such as the right to vote for the Supreme Leader instead of the holder of that post being dictated to the population. Mousavi doesn’t support this either however.
Another thing that bothers me is the lack of recognition in the Western press of the internal dynamics of Iran. This election is being written about as the people vs the government. This is how US politics is often written about as well and that version of events is often a smokescreen for ruling class fights.
- What are the dynamics of the Iranian ruling class?
- What are their interests in this election?
The NYTimes hasn’t made those questions a central point in their analysis and that is worrisome. Instead they have written more about the use of Twitter by wealthy Iranian college students. This kind of perspective skewing yellow journalism raises flags for me.
And finally, I have read that polls indicate only a third of Iranians have internet access. I would assume that this is the upper class layers of the population. It is known that Ahmadinejad has done significant wealth redistribution. This is never popular in countries with significant class divides. Therefore, to see lots of anti-Ahmadinejad information coming out of Iran on the net is predictable and because of the digital divide that exists there, not a good litmus for judging what is actually happening on the ground. Unfortunately, most folks outside Iran depend on the net for information on the situation. And in this case, as in many cases, the net opinions will have a very high class bias and the class realities of this political situation must be honestly taken into account and not simply dismissed as most seem to be doing. Here in the US, liberal political discussion is dominated by the middle and upper-middle class that has easy and frequent internet access. Those liberals are far more conservative than those with less wealth and less access to the discussion. If you were to only watch the US political discussion by way of the internet you would have a very biased and inaccurate view of the political situation here. You would likely not understand the political views of Black, Latin or poor Americans generally because of the way the digital divide acts as an economic censor to so many millions of political voices. As a Black person in the US I understand this dynamic quite intimately and am very wary of the political narrative we are being fed in regards to Iran. I don’t feel that the net saavy student movement in Iran represents the masses of poor people at all. Because it is reported that they are young and using Twitter, the story appeals to naive whites here who like to fetishize nonwhite people who accept the use of technology similar to white populations in the US but it really doesn’t make sense that these Iranians would be the group representative of the popular base in Iran. They are largely college students and business elements with far more resources than it appears most of the population. My point in all of this is that we need to be far more discriminating and discerning about information coming out of Iran and use our common sense (which apparently is all too uncommon in the West).
With the pending retirement of US Supreme Court Associate Justice David Souter, a predictable media mini-circus (swine flu is the current circus) is opening up over it. Names are floated alongsides particular interests or so-called identity groups that would benefit or ‘like to see’ a certain candidate nominated. Care seems to be being taken to ensure it reads like every other very typical political script. A Latina is by definition progressive and will ’satisfy’ Latin people, feminists and racial progressives generally. Specifically, Sonia Sotomayor is the Latina being suggested as a likely Obama nominee. I will assume that since her name is appearing in major media that the Obama administration has suggested she is a frontrunner (it might be true or they might be trying to appear progressive according to the script).
ATAC, 
inclination and proclivity to side with those that resist oppression and exploitation, the Black nation having a history of acute experience with those forces.
The Obama administration, before it officially begins, is shaping up to be the nightmare so many abstainers and McKinney supporters predicted it would. I told you so’s may make some folks feel better about having been right but that shit doesn’t really matter at all. What seems important here is the opportunity, maybe an opportunity, to learn and to teach. Black and Brown communities in the US have represented the tip of the spear of progressive struggle for centuries. Over the past 35 or so the nature of that struggle has been severely compromised by the phenomenon of Black faces in high places. My city, Atlanta, is as good an example of it as any Black or Brown city in the country. Maynard Jackson, in 1974 became the first Black mayor of Atlanta. Not incidentally, Coleman Young was simultaneously being sworn in as the first Black mayor of the Motor City. To this day, Atlanta has seen nothing but Black mayors. From Jackson to Andrew Young to Jackson again to Bill Campbell to Shirley Franklin. In that time, Atlanta has served as something of the model of the evolution of white institutional power-Jim Crow style-into the new Black face of white power never before illustrated more powerfully than in the placement of Barack Obama in the office of the President of the United States.
