People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones-except for Americans
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I’ve seen wholesale condemnation of Iran for years throughout the liberal blogosphere. I’m not talking Fox News or CNN, I’m talking the vote Democrat save the whales eat organic liberal blogosphere.
Stoning is barbaric and horrific, no question. And there’s no end of “truth about Islam” or “Muslim outrages” or “Islamofascism” websites which will give you Fair and Balanced info worthy of something you’d see on Bill O’Reilly.
According to Amnesty International there have been three stonings in Iran since 2006, one man and two women. Per the Iran Republic News Agency the Majlis officially banned stoning in June of 2009.
The latest cause celebre has been Sakineh Mohammedi-Ashtiani. The story of her imminent stoning has been based on an interview with her attorney. Since attorneys are always objective and never say things to curry favor in the media for their client this has been accepted as gospel by the US and Western European press. CNN carried it word-for-word from the original story in the Jerusalem Post. She is indeed facing the death penalty along with the man who murdered her husband – however, stoning is not the penalty either of them face if they are convicted. Unfortunately, protestations by Iran are met with the “Have you stopped beating your wife” logical fallacy in the West.
As I said, stoning is a horrific, ghastly misogynist crime. It is unspeakable and is part of the horror men visit upon women. Chaining a man to a truck and dragging him to death because of his skin color or torturing a young person to death due to sexual orientation are also horrible ghastly crimes.
You say you’ve never tortured anyone or chained a man to a truck and dragged them to death ? Glad to hear it. Neither have I. Neither have millions of Iranians ever stoned anyone to death.
You say but yeah, in Iran it’s legal (or was legal, if you bothered to research rather than do the teabagger thing and echo the hate talk). Lynching was legal too in the US for years. I could show you pictures but that would dishonor the victims.
While on the subject of Iran – Iranian women vote, attend universities and are full participants in the workforce. Not the full equality women deserve but far more than many of our allies who don’t receive near the level of criticism we give Iran. And had our CIA not overthrown their elected democracy in 1953 who knows where they would stand ?
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Will,
If you read it with an open mind you wouldn’t say that.
Marash said they had an anti-American bias, but in regards to the rest of the world they were first rate.
Try to be objective-CNN/Fox have an extreme slant towards Israel.Even most liberals have that slant.Look at your “holocaust denier” comment. Ahmadinejad said if there was a holocaust, it wasn’t the Palestinians who committed it. How is that denying it? Everyone knows it happened, everyone knows it was Germany. That was his point, yet the bias in the US media (and bought into by yourself) immediately took a statement of fact as being anti-Jewish.
CNN/Fox/the rest of the US media all routinely cover up US atrocities and parrot the crap about a non-existent Irani nuclear weapons program-so at worst Al Jazeera sinks to the level of American journalism. It wasn’t Al Jazeera claiming Iraq had WMD.
If Al Jazeera is shit, then Fox/CNN is whale shit.
What would happen to me if I protested against the Iranian govt? The same thing that would happen if I protested in Israel. Beatings, imprisonment, possibly murder.
Al Jazeera is shit. It is easily amongst the most biased news organization on the planet. It makes Fox News sound like Edward R. Murrow. It routinely supports Al Qaeda and frequently incites violence against American troops. Just ask David Marash. Mr. Marash, not exactly a conservative, ended up quitting Al Jazeera because of its anti-American bias. And, no, the fact that certain thugs in the region won’t allow it doesn’t in any way refute my point on the nastiness of Islamic regimes. It reinforces it……Oso, what do you think would happen to you if you went over to Iran and protested against the government? Three guesses, and the first two don’t count.
Do I hate Muslims? What kind of a question is that? Yeah, and I beat my wife, too. I have absolutely no problem (well, except for the ones who voted for Ahmadinejad) with the Iranian people. My problem is with that moronic, Holocaust-denying president (“Duh, we don’t have any homosexuals in our country” – the idiot actually said that) and the bastardly/election-stealing Mullahs. And I stand by what I said, homosexuality is a crime PUNISHABLE BY DEATH in Iran. The fact that they don’t punish it 100% (or don’t admit to it anyway), I’m sorry, but that doesn’t necessarily make me feel all that warm and fuzzy
Will, thanks for answering my question. It’s appreciated. From answer I gather it’s not Muslims, or the culture… It’s the fanatic leadership? That you are against.
Like I said, thanks for the answer and as I said, I was not trying to start anything. I question you because I see (I’m guessing I don’t see all of your commentary) much anger and condemnation generalized in it. Got a better idea now. Ty.
Actually there is a free press in the Muslim world and it’s better than anything we have here.Al Jazeera.
The proof to me was Saddam banning them because he considered them too pro-American and then the US essentially banning them because they didn’t allow us to censor their reports. We had the gall to refer to honest reporting of our atrocities as propaganda.
Iran hasn’t invaded any country in well over 200 years. The US regularly invades sovereign nations and overthrows governments. We’re the ones doing drone attacks, not Iran.
Their misogynist and repressive religious leadership and its Sharia Law are not representative of the people of Iran and in fact is highly unpopular.
Iran is far from a brutal society.
Sharia is representative of Muslims as a whole like teabagging right wingers are representative of Christians as a whole. We are lucky that the conservative Christians haven’t been able to take over lawmaking and governmental control.
Either way I have no use for either religion.
You put that perfectly,Mother Hen.
There are only 3 “reported” deathes by stoning in Iran. Iran is a closed and very barbaric society that sees homosexuality and adultery as crimes punishable by death. It is very possible that many more atrocities have been perpetrated that the world doesn’t know about. Kind of like we really don’t know what happens to terror suspects when we ship them off to Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In my opinion, without a true free press in the Muslim world, I don’t trust worth a whiff ANY of those crap regimes.
Will, I’ve been reading you for over a year (in commentary) in a few places and I have to wonder… you really don’t like Muslim people do you?
For instance, there has been large documentation and media attention to changes in Iran’s society in the last twenty years. Their educational freedom, the social structure and western banking that mirrors a more western European model…. and you kind of link them like you do all Muslims, I mean as far as I can see from you commentary, to UNeducated, ‘barbaric’, idiots incapable of social evolution or progressive political substance. “possible that many more atrocities have been perpetrated” … dude, like WMD’s hiding out? I’m not starting anything or trying to insult you Will… I’m just asking you straight out… are you a bigot against Muslims?
Bless your nobility, Oso. How fast we ‘react’, eh? It is a really honest piece you’ve written Oso. Did anyone miss it…?? Iran is country who citizens are very very fed up with their government. And socially speaking, theirs is the only society in the neighborhood that is as globally connected as western society. (I’m speaking of everything from shopping to social internet networking to entertainment and education.) The only thing not following the flow is the government / theocracy.
Absolutely Gwen. They’re dying to throw off the shackles of the fundamentalists running things, but we keep reinforcing the fundies power by threatening to nuke and bomb them. Or choosing sides for our own vested interests. Typical Joe/Josephine Irani in the bazaar, they hear Hillary or whoever threaten to nuke them, then the same person who threatened them says they support the “Green Revolution”. Joe and Josie Irani in the bazaar ain’t stupid-they’re gonna equate the Greens that the US govt and media support with the same people threatening to nuke them. Kiss of death. If we’d just leave ’em the fuck alone this time-they’ll be fine.
I believe another factor is called the “Deviancy amplification spiral”
Like Palin, eh?
Oso, I would like to do a study in collecting news media data pertaining to incident “news” articles like this. To me, it seems like what I call a vilification bit. I wonder how close our Foreign policy would follow the news articles. And I am talking news articles before the event.
There was just recently a Harvard?? study and I think that it was mentioned here at MMA about the news outlets using the word torture and waterboarding in the same new report before and after the Bush Admin started doing it. The percent drop to 2 percent from 80 percent or so. Amazing.
IMHO, I think that stories like these are planted manipulations of public perception and bias.
Krell,
I can see that as deliberate policy. We already have a pretty compliant media, a nudge here and there could do the trick with the rest falling in line. Kind of like the “Plunge Protection Team” throwing $ at a dropping asset they wish to prop up, then letting nature take its course.
I wonder if for example right before the recent coup in Honduras if villification of Zelaya began ? Then as you conjecture, the few Americans who’d even heard of him would learn of the coup and think Oh yeah, that dictator.
I’ll look into that angle on Honduras tomorrow.
Some people just cannot believe the amount of media manipulation or maybe it is media apathy. It is a business just like any other and they look at profit centers, maintaining continuing access to inner Washington circles, etc.
One interesting example is what I call the “Lost white girl” story. I remember reading some information about that and it was a 2 person company that would find a “lost white girl” story and then start marketing that story to the news services. It was much cheaper for them to buy the story than spend effort sending a reporter to develop it. And the stories would always have a large draw in audience.
I believe that they are still in business. You would recognize most of their stories. You wouldn’t believe how much money they were making at it.
Those LWG stories are like any other commodity- pandering to a market that desires it. There is a titillation to the paranoia engendered by the media reports of a kid like your own, “A good girl with her future ahead of her” being MIA. I think these stories are followed by the public more out of shadenfreude than out of true concern for the missing person- like rubberneckers gawking at a car wreck.
Stories that might feature a missing girl of color just don’t raise the “freak out” factor of “White Consumer America” as it seems to be happening to the “other” people.
We will know we have evolved as a country when all missing person reports create the stir that LWG stories do.
I throw stones at everyone Oso. And I do agree that relations with Iran are bad and we should be engaging them instead of vilifying Iranians at every turn, they didn’t outlaw stoning until last year. Hardly a reason to jump up and down over their new found tolerance and love for fellow humans.
I’ve always said we need to forget about dropping bombs on the Arab World and start dropping Victoria’s Secret catalogues and the like.
I hear you man. What frustrates me about this though,is that it’s a made up story that has little basis in reality and CNN and the rest of the media ran with it without checking. It’s analogous to an American lawyer claiming the judicial system is gonna drag his client to death behind a truck even though that couldn’t legally be done, and the international press picking the story up.
MH,
Yes good point, we could actually address our trade imbalance, add American jobs and invest there. Would be a win-win.
We should be courting the Iraquis- one of the few Middle Eastern countries that hold us in high regard. They want our products. As corporations are increasingly the players on the world stage, they should use product/ corporate enticements and boycotts instead of farcical government embargoes as forces for change. Sharia law is justifiably in a negative spotlight, but it is enforced in many countries, even in pockets of Western countries where there are immigrants (see my post on enforcement in Scotland https://madmikesamerica.com/2010/04/you-only-wish-it-was-the-mormons/)
I have also noticed that the liberals seem to be championing the woman to a greater extent than the situation merits. There are so many other horrible injustices that also deserve the spotlight of shame. But there is that cultural component that makes her case more outrageous, and the indignation at her situation more “righteous.”
There’s an old joke in lawyer/law enforcement circles about the police officer being asked on the witness stand if he still beat his prisoners………Similar logic, or is that illogical? Another winner Oso!
exactly! Thanks man.