-by-afsaneh-moqadam.html&media=http://www.expressmilwaukee.com/imgs/hed/art11241widea.jpg&description=Death+to+the+Dictator%21+%28Sarah+Crichton+Books%2FFarrar%2C+Straus+%26+Giroux%29%2C+by+Afsaneh+Moqadam "Pin It")
A year
after the massive protests against the rigged re-election of Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, his regime remains in power and opposition leaders have
been silenced—or at least the Western media has turned its ears elsewhere.
Written under a pseudonym, this slim book by an Iranian dissident provides a
close-up account of last year’s revolt through the experience of one young man,
arrested during a street protest and savagely tortured by the Revolutionary
Guards before his release. Painfully sad to read, Death to the Dictator! offers many insights into Iran’s ancient
culture, its political opposition, the corrupt and rabid fervor of the regime
and even the mind-set of its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Learning
from the lesson of the Shah, whose concessions at a time of weakness only
spurred his demise, Khamenei will concede only from a position of power that he
no longer enjoys. The situation in Iran will only get worse before it
gets better.
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OK ... Lets see ... this is an unsourced work by an anonymous author that castigates Iran and starts with the premise that the June 2009 elections were rigged.
I wonder what other nuggets of wisdom are contained within?
Holocuast denial? Iran threatening to wipe Israel off the face of the map? Forcing Iran's Jews to wear identity badges?
How about babies being tossed out of incubators?
Seeing that you also reviewed 'On Rumors' by Cass Sunstein, and undestand the dynamics of ... 'viral meme generation' ... does it not occur to you that perhaps such sundry lists of Iranian perfidy might not actually be true?
Did you know that Iran published the individual box counts from each of the 47,000 polling stations?
Additionally Iran's voting protocol (when examined) seems pretty robust as it maintains a monitored paper trail throughout the entire system, and overall is much more fulsome and verifiable scheme than the American voting system?
Dig a little deeper.
@Ohm- Oh yeah, you're right. Iran is a bastion of democracy. Our tyrannical socialist regime is absolutely put to shame by the "power-to-the-people" attitude of Iran's cleric-run theocracy. Even if every item you stated is true, it is foolish to even attempt to make the point that Iran's citizens get a fair shake in any way- especially the women.
If you want more points added about the treatment of Iranian women. Well, they have to be completely veiled except for their faces. Another thing, the current Iranian president was originally planning to deploy a Nuclear Weapons program until the United Nations stepped in. I know from reading more reliable sources such as Time and National Geographic that they have some good articles about Iran and it's history.