Iranian and Afghan elections: Compare and contrast

Iran's tenth presidential election was held on 12 June 2009.

Afghanistan's second presidential election under its Western-imposed Post-Taliban constitution was held on 20 August 2009.

Compare and contrast:

Iran - There was little by way of build up to the elections in the Western MSM and what there was did not have that unmistakable air of Establishment orchestration to it. Before the polls closed (pace Ukraine's Yushchenko and Georgia's Saakashvili), the principle Iranian challenger, Mir-Hossain Mousavi, claimed victory. The morning after the election, Iran's official news agency announced that, with 2/3 the votes counted, the incumbent Ahmadinejad had won with 63% of the votes cast. All hell broke loose in both the Western MSM and on the Steets of Tehran.

Throughout the following 6 weeks, during what had clearly been pre-planned and orchestrated to become yet another US-friendly 'colour revolution' to follow those of Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan - The 'Twitter' tool having been polished and honed in the meantime - Western media were as one in sustained shrill condemnation of the elections. The parallels with those earlier events were uncanny, except that this time it failed. Three months later and all is quiet with not a shred of the evidence we were assured at the time was overwhelming having been produced - But never mind. The consolation prize is that 'FRAUDULENT ELECTIONS' is now firmly embedded in western public conciousness, thanks to our supine and ghastly MSM.

Afganistan - There was a big build up in the Western MSM. On the whole it's tone was grave and a little subdued, with the forebodings of Western officialdom palpable: it was to be "a laudable democratic process", "this embryonic democracy deserved our support and assistance" and similar - ad nauseam (The air of Establishment orchestration this time foetid and quite unmissable). Then the elections took place and MSM commentary very quickly subsided into embarrassed, self-concious silence. Two months later and still we have no definitive official result - though corrupt western-backed Karzai and his drug-trafficking war-lord henchmen have clearly stolen it again.

Then a couple of days ago, one Peter Galbraith, the man in charge of the UN election monitoring operation, courageously breaks ranks, declares the elections to have been grossly fraudulent and is - naturally and totally predictably - sacked for his honesty.

And all the while our mendacious 'leaders', in the fashion of squabbling parrots, STILL continue to insist that our military presence in that benighted country has a noble purpose, when anyone with half a brain can see the thoroughly sordid, self-serving nature of its true purpose staring them in the face.

We are being systematically lied to and, as with the naked emperor, the lie is so big, in your face and screamingly bloody obvious, that nobody will even admit to noticing it - let alone doing anything about it.

Götterdämmerung

... Or, towards a disastrous conclusion of events.

Free verse By Vi Ransel.

Aimed squarely at the USA but, since the UK and America are practically joined-at-the-hip in both the Ango-American Imperial Project and our respective popular 'cultures', most honest UK readers will recognise it for what it is: A devastatingly accurate critique of our ignorant, vacuous, insular arrogance towards those who reject the 'Washington Consensus' of Western Nations.

The graphic hardly needs explanation: The Central figure is of course Sarah Palin (the airhead who very nearly came within a heart attack of the US Presidency - and who it seems may yet do so anyway) John (Bomb Bomb Iran) McCain, President (Change you can believe it) Barak Obama, and his VC, Stormin' drugs war warrior, Joe Biden.

The flag? - well I guess that's the point.

The little pieces
of shredded Palestinian children
fall as lightly on the conscience
of Europeans and Americans
as the dust from the crematoria
on the neat-as-a-pin flower boxes
brushed off daily by German hausfraus
living in the shadows of Dachau and Auschwitz.

These tiny human sacrifices
to nationalism and dominion
are as remote and dim as the cold light
from Alpha Centauri amid

an obscene frenzy of slopping at the trough
of narcotized consumerism designed to make us complicit
and to numb the vestigial morality of the most arrogant know-nothings
to grace the world’s stage since Caligula,

indoctrinated since infancy with entitlement and exceptionalism
via fables and demonization fed to us by our parents,
school’s daily boosters of pledges of allegiance
and the continuous, intra-ocular injection

by the corporate media
of its creation, the Great Satan
of TV advertising and Public Relations.

As we, the comfortable and gluttonous, wallow
in beer, NASCAR and any sport that involves balls,

and shop for a lifestyle while “living” like empty bags
waiting to be filled with whatever is dangled
in front of our faces,

as we, the ignorant and insulated, fixate
on whitening our teeth and erasing lines from our faces
in order to avoid looking into the mirror and being mocked
by a moldering portrait of Dorian Grey,

as we stick I-pods and cell phones into our ears
that make it impossible to hear anything about the deal

we’ve made with the devil, or had made in our names,
since we might have to re-think the claims that we’ve made

not to hear the crying of our brothers’ children dying
as they reap what we have sown,
exploding in red-dripping shards of flesh
and white, jagged splinters of bone,

coalescing in the fetid pool of the West’s
sophisticated and cynical indifference,
while we suck contentedly on the TV tit
and swallow the murderous poison
of its corporate ejaculate.

* * * * *

Wounded Knee and America’s Peculiar Institution
of kidnapping Africans and forcing them into slavery,
established a template for institutionalized brutality
whereby we broke every treaty that was signed in our names

as we settled and slaughtered our way across the continent
to establish an empire stolen by means of atrocities
committed with Manifest Destiny’s self-delegated authority
wrapped up in flag-waving dressed as democracy.

As Americans slaughtered and slaved their way into history
they embraced genocide as their moral duty and a mandate
in bearing the White Man’s Burden of civilizing the inveterate savages
who were already cluttering up the “American” landscape

when the looters and plunderers stepped off the boat
on to Plymouth Rock, and like Columbus before them
commenced spattering innocent brain matter, scalps, blood and bones
all over the undeveloped real estate and resources they coveted.

Meanwhile European Zionism,
living parasitically within Judaism,
went the Americans one better and used
the Jews’ suffering in order to hijack a religion,

putting the plight of Europe’s victims in service to their plans
for ruthless ethnic cleansing and acquisitive nationalism.
You need a plan in order for genocide to work,
otherwise mass murder is just an impromptu massacre.

Before 1900 major newspapers expressed
the interests of the imperialists who owned them.
Smaller efforts were local, community “bulletin boards”
or showcases for movement-oriented editorials.

And where there were no newspapers
there were only traumatized refugees’ stories,
often dismissed as lying or lunacy because
torture, mass murder and rape as a weapon
are not the methods of Western democracies.
(And if they were, it would be to confer the virtues
of freedom, representative government and the “free” market.)

As media outlets expanded from print to telegraph
to radio to TV and to cell phones,
communication had become so instantaneous, in fact,
that content had to be very carefully controlled
by the cabal of imperialist interests that owned them

by consolidating the outlets, especially in the US,
where people are weaned on vapid, contentless propaganda,
and engineered to be the most incredibly ignorant
dumb asses on the face of the planet.

Paradoxically in Israel, newspapers print the truth
about Zionists meting out Special Treatment 14f13,
mashing Gaza with spectacular impunity
for the cheap thrill of racial “superiority”
and establishing racially-pure Jewish communities.

The names of the perpetrators are interchangeable,
but all of them serve just one purpose,
grinding the poor into financial fertilizer
in service to the Masters of the New World Order

as they make War on Humanity both military and financial
in their campaign for land, power and resources.
And as the West has its smug, self-satisfied,
self-righteous fat face deservedly slapped
by the market’s invisible hand, it may serve,

with the internet, to awaken people to the fact
that the poor of the world
- THIS MEANS YOU!!! -
are all living on one giant Gaza-like reservation,
and the world’s billionaires are preparing to remove
all us “useless eaters” via some Nazi-like “re-location”

by means of multiple mass genocides,
not excluding a Nuclear Holocaust,
which will awaken the wrath of The Furies,
who punish unpunished atrocity.

And as Earth begins to self-destruct in defiance of her rape,
Alecto, Magaera and Tisiphone, will speak
for the voiceless dead who have been discarded,
and billionaires will secrete themselves
with the seeds of all the world’s plant species
locked in explosion-proof vaults, a mile below the ice under Svalbard.

Sabretache's profile

Retired Englishman. Still self-reliant BUT...., until a definitive Blue Pill/Red Pill moment a few years ago, trapped in the 'consensus trance' by nearly 60 years shouldering of "The White Man's Burden"

- By which I mean adherence & loyalty to the Establishment narrative of an essentially benign, well-intentioned, 'Washington Consensus' promoting British State, busily engaged in 'making the world a better place' - or words to that effect. Since rank, position and place are of no consequence to me, I took the Red Pill.

For better or worse, the results are manifest in this blog

In modern Britain, loyalty and adherence to the 'Consensus Narrative' - manifesting, in Richard Heinberg's memorable phrase, as 'The Consensus Trance' and instinctively understood by the ambitious - remains absolutely central to success in Business, Public Affairs, Academia or the Main Stream Media, trumping all other considerations - including intelligence and ability. Why? - Because, proportionate to one's approach and proximity to the thresholds of REAL power, to EFFECTIVELY question it is to threaten and therefore become toxic to the Arbiters of your advancement, whose rank position and place depend upon it.

But... BIG BIG BUT.... It turns out the narrative itself is entirely bogus. It is a clever ego-stroking Orwellian illusion designed, developed and moulded by self-perpetuating Power Elites to serve purposes far and away removed from those of fond and credulous popular belief. The history of Gallileo's run-in with The Roman Inquisition over 'Heliocentrism' and its implications for the teachings of the Catholic Church is an apt analogy.

My own adherence to it was shattered by deep involvement in what on any scale of serious issues facing humanity must rank close to bottom - The UK Campaign for Hunting - but it brought me face-to-face with gross abuse of political power together with the deception and sheer viciousness that our police are capable of when 'given their head' and under orders from their political masters.

The result was my 'Blue Pill/Red Pill' moment and the shattering of some cherished and long-held beliefs (or rather illusions as they turned out to be). As a consequence, life in polite orthodox company (ie among those living the 'consensus trance' which, by definition comprises the overwhelming majority) has become 'difficult'. My contributions to discussions on politics, philosophy and world affairs in general are likely to be considered, in varying degree, unwelcome, threatening, scary, treasonable or simply mad; which naturally enough renders me 'persona non-grata' in circles where I cannot be indulged or patronised as the token madman - which in practice means whenever such discussions arise (attempts at patronising or indulgence being hazardous to the intellectual dignity of those inclined to try so-to-speak)

It has one overriding, neurosis banishing consolation though: that of genuine, relaxed, honest, open-minded, sceptical, illusion less enquiry, free from any pressure - self-imposed or otherwise - to align with the powerful (ALL power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely) and I therefore sleep like a baby.

Some other consequences of 'Taking the Red Pill' - in no particular order:

1. Deep and abiding distrust of 'The State', its Apologists, its Spokesmen and especially its 'Security' Services and Enforcers.
2. A clear understanding that the central operating principle of the State Executive Branch and its myriad collaborators in the Senior Civil Service and Judiciary (including Privy Council rank politicians of all Parties) is deception, compounded by obsessive secrecy and born of fear of the general population, which must therefore be subjected to ever more comprehensive and intrusive surveillance. A safe operating assumption for the average Joe is that, if government clearly wants you to believe a particular proposition, then it is almost certainly false.
3. Conservative, Labour, LibDem, whatever. All are effectively hitched to the 'Consensus Narrative' and hence distinguishable by little more than their differences on the trivia of domestic politics. They generate a lot of heat and noise but very little light; they inflame passions; they inspire blind loyalty and/or visceral dislike but, on the epoch-defining issues of the age they are either silent (eg. peak... oil - or rather peak-just-about-everything) or complicit (eg. the need for perpetual 'growth' on a finite planet as a sacrosanct article of faith - together with the essential 'goodness' and benign intent of the Western World). Deviate persistently and effectively from these 'Articles of Faith' and you (Gallileo) will relinquish any prospect of political advancement (support from the Catholic Church) - If you are lucky enough to avoid the Guantanamo's of this world and escape with your life that is. (As a relevant aside, did you know that, with just 5% of the planet's population, the self-proclaimed 'Land-of-the-Free' boasts close to 25% of its prison population? ( more here ) - and very profitable business it is too for the Private Contractors that run most of it - the shape of things to come eh?)
   
4. Outright rejection of "The 'WAR' on Terror" as an honest, accurate description of the over-arching issue facing the world - The first time in history that we are allegedly waging war on an abstraction with nobody available to agree armistice terms; perpetual war for perpetual peace is the promise; a plausible and to date supremely successful method of keeping populations fearful and thus placid and grateful for the State's 'protection' - very useful for diverting a bit of self-righteous anger at the 'enemy du jour' too (like 'Hamas', or 'Hezbollah', or soto-voce 'Muslims in general', or .... whoever; you get the drift - we just gotta have enemies you see. Scary Evil Baddies - preferably of dark complexion and with unkempt beards - that we can get all worked up about). It will be over when our political masters tell us it's over. In the meantime, be afraid. Be VERY afraid - but take care crossing the road since you're several thousand times more likely to be killed that way than running into a 'terrorist')

To be continued......