A Separation -- A Film for US the 99%

A Separation is a film for US. the 99%

A Separation -- Film by Asghar Farhadi, Country: Iran,
A Separation is an extraordinary Film that illustrates the human condition.
It is simultaneously personal, psychological, political, religious, economic and universal.
The film deservedly won the Golden Bear and the Golden Globe.
I saw it yesterday in Manhattan.

The official response from the Govt of Iran to the awards, is to be expected. No surprise there.
It is a government of a country, a government that has been made reactionary, because it has long under siege, first by colonial interests, then by neo-imperial manipulation by the U.S. Govt, -- not by US, but by the U.S.

Such governments become distorted, even to themselves and their peoples, in their actions and responses. Ditto U.S., Ditto Iran. However, whatever, no matter that that government (and especially its oppressor, the U.S. Govt.) , no matter what they say or do, cannot lessen the power of the film.

A Separation manages to vividly tell a human story about perceptions of truth, affection, power, class, loyalty, tradition and loss, a film hat has the capacity to touch US -- that is, if we are not fooled [by propaganda from the govt. of U.S. which is the principal perpetrator OR by the govt of Iran, which is in turn reactionary to neo-imperial assault], and if WE are receptive to the conditions and challenges that WE the People face, no matter where we live, in the process of becoming FAIR members of the Global Social, Economic & Political Order.

A Separation is a film for US. the 99%

Nuclear Iran Here To Stay, Too Bad USA

http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/world/middleeast/12iran.html

My NYTimes Comment #11.
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
February 11th, 2010
9:41 am
A Discriminatory International Nuclear Order


The international nuclear order cannot and must not discriminate against sovereign nation-states.

That order is now discriminatory, largely because that order has been hijacked by the US, via the UN In-Security Council.

Q. Is the US in fact saying that Israel can (it does!) have nuclear weapons, but Iran cannot?

Q. Does the US as bully-in-chief get to make the rules, or must the US comply with rules arrived at through consensus by intergovernmental agencies?

The US is on the wrong side of history on this and many other geopolitical issues.

What is the US global charter? The US charter is dominance and manipulation, instead of cooperation and compliance. (China, on its way to global economic and strategic dominance appears to be determined to make the same disastrous mistakes as the US).

Am I arguing for equal opportunity destruction? Obviously not. But I am arguing that the NATO powers, headed by the sanction-happy US, cannot prevent or impede scientific development of any sovereign nation-state, including Iran.

In Iran's case, it must be remembered that the US and UK (aka British Petroleum, BP) acted in tandem in 1953 to topple the popularly elected Mossadegh government, that was elected by Iranians, primarily because it favored State control of Iran's petroleum resources.

The US-CIA/UK installed the Shah (under whom Iran was coerced into signing the NPT) to do their bidding and the Shah was finally ousted by the Ayatollahs. That is the manipulated trajectory of Iran's recent history, in which the US blatantly intervened in the internal affairs of Iran, with disastrous long-term consequences.

When will the US learn? Not anytime soon.

Iran has every right to acquire nuclear capability.

Iran appears to have already acquired that capability.

Iran is now obligated to comply with international nuclear safety standards.

Unlike the US, Iran can attempt to develop its nuclear capability -- responsibly.

Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
A truncated version of this comment Recommended by 39 NYT Readers
--------------------------------------------------------------------
NYT copright:
By ALAN COWELL and MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Iran’s Leader Shifts Spotlight From Protests to Nuclear Step
Published: February 11, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/world/middleeast/12iran.html

Who Nuked Innocent Civilians?

My NYTimes Comment #55.
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/world/middleeast/02nuke.html?sort=oldest&offset=3
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
October 1st, 2009
6:58 pm


EthicalDemocracy
New York City
October 1st, 2009
5:23 pm

\"Iran Agrees to More Nuclear Talks With U.S. and Allies\"

It's commendable that Iran is trying to defuse the heated and aggressive response by the sanctions-crazy US.

Hey let's not lose sight of the fact that BOTH Israel and the US have their nuclear stockpiles. So of course Iran must have nukes too.

Why not?

I totally agree with India's position: The International Nuclear Order cannot be discriminatory. That statement recognizes Iran's quandary and is implicit support for Iran. India has steadfastly refused to become a signatory of NPT, while maintaining an impeccable non-proliferation record.

I didn't see that extremely well-reasoned position reported in the NYTimes or any US mainstream newspaper. .

What Iran needs to figure out now is how to strategically withdraw from the NPT, without the US going totally nuts and invading Iran, OR sending in the CIA to destabilize Iran as the US did with the popularly elected Mossadegh government in the early '50s

Chithra KarunaKaran

Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice

http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
----------------------------------------
NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/world/middleeast/02nuke.htmlIran Agrees to More Nuclear Talks With U.S. and AlliesBack to Article »
By STEVEN ERLANGER and MARK LANDLER

The talks in Geneva on Thursday included the highest-level bilateral discussions between the United States and Iran in many years.
---------------------------------------------
My NYT Comment #18.
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/world/middleeast/27nuke.html?sort=oldest
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
September 27th, 2009
11:19 am
---------------
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
September 27th, 2009
10:20 am

U.S. to Demand Inspection of New Iran Plant ‘Within Weeks’

How about:

U.S. to Demand Inspection of ISRAEL Nuclear Plant[S] ‘Within Weeks’

Now that would be eminently newsworthy. That's the only \"roadmap\" that makes sense to me.

Addl notes: the US wd not dare to mess with India coz we are the world's largest democracy and we simply wont let you. We are not a signatory to the NPT. We did not make that mistake.

And the US is not calling for inspection of Pakistan's nukes, coz Pak will not let you either, Pak is also not a signatory to NPT. SmartPak, despite subjugation by the US since the 1950's.

Unfortunately Iran signed on to NPT in 1970 under duress while US was blatantly interfering in Iran's domestic political affairs. Now Iran has to time its strategic withdrawal from NPT.

So long as US and Israel have nukes, Iran must have them too.

Let us never forget that the US is the ONLY country in the world that has actually used nukes against innocent civilians.

I like to base my opinions on hard evidence. Show me new evidence and I'll readily modify my opinion.

Chithra KarunaKaran

Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice

http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/world/middleeast/27nuke.html
U.S. to Demand Inspection of New Iran Plant ‘Within Weeks’
By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD

The Obama administration plans to tell Iran this week that it must soon open a newly revealed nuclear enrichment site to international inspectors, according to senior officials.
============================================================================

No Star Wars in Czech Republic or Poland

My expanded NYTimes Comment #60.
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
September 17th, 2009
9:45 am


My expanded NYTimes Comment #
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
September 17th, 2009
9:48 am

Excellent -- the Poles and the Czechs got lucky. No Star Wars planned there.

Hope the President, whom I and the majority of the US electorate voted for, will re-think any attempt to tilt at windmills in Iran. Iran has a right to go nuclear and nobody can stop them. The US govt's Iran policy has a powerful lobby-backed pro-Zionist subtext. Give Peace and the Palestinians a chance.

Now can we do the entire South Asia region a favor and get the US and US-led NATO, the hell out of there too?

If history is any guide, the Afghans, can do that on their own, with no help from anyone.

Chithra KarunaKaran

Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice

http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
---------------------------------------
NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/world/europe/18shield.html?_r=1
White House to Scrap Bush’s Approach to Missile Shield
By PETER BAKER and NICHOLAS KULISH

The Obama administration plans to announce a reconfigured system that won’t be based in Poland or the Czech Republic, and will be aimed at intercepting Iranian missiles.
------------------------------

Can Neda in Death Rekindle Iran's Democracy?

The shot that killed 26 year-old Neda Salehi Agha Soltan on Saturday in Tehran was heard around the world. Our hearts hurt for her. According to several reports, not least the stunning I-minute video of her dying moment, Neda was an innocent bystander watching street protests against a flawed election result, when she was shot. Neda, you are an innocent and your immortality in the cause of freedom, justice and Iran's democracy has just begun.

Iran's SELF-STYLED, UNELECTED "supreme leader" which pretty much means 'look at me I'm TOP DOG MULLAH and I am embarrassingly selfpromoting' -- Khamenei-- bears responsibility for Neda's brutal killing.
Ahmadinejad's leadership is dependent of the support of the clerics, (all male no surprise), and NOT the electorate. Ahmadinajad cannot succeed because his victory is bloodstained by the dying gasp and the rolling eyes of an innocent. Ahmadinejad's victory was not accomplished by ethical means, necessary for the full expression of participatory democracy.

But wait -- both Khamenei and Ahmadinajad are effective in controlling US neo-imperial designs in the West Asia region. That's important.

Neda's death has lent a bloody clarity, as well rendered more complex the internal and external geopolitics of Iran:

People everywhere who support the ethical development of civil societies in all nation-states, regions, culture areas and spaces, had hoped that Iran's elections would be fair. We had hoped that Iran's ancient civilization and staggering contribution to world culture would be vindicated by a vibrant and authentic expression of the people's aspirations. Instead, Iran's election have proven to be highly irregular, if not outright fraudulent.

3 million more votes were "cast" than there were registered voters! Did dead people vote? Did non-existent people vote? Did certain people vote multiple times? What an unholy mess for this self-described Islamic Republic.

Could Iran learn a lesson in electoral politics and vote counting from secular democratic India which recently conducted a massive and fair election; has more followers of Islam than Iran; and has more followers of Islam than any country except Indonesia? Yes Iran can.

Yes, Iran take a page out of India's flawed but fair election Lesson Plan. Iran, Be open, transparent, take responsibility for discrepancies in the vote count. Show that you can be discursive, not prescriptive. Discussion that bends towards Justice and in fact leads to Justice is the cornerstone of Ethical Democracy.


Obviously, the first strategic step that both Ahmadinejad and MirHossein Moussavi should have jointly taken is to call, in a televised joint appearance, for a vote recount in disputed constituencies and a rejection of illegal ballots.


Instead, Ahmadinejad defended the result and proved himself by his actions to be ever more inclined to be a dictator rather than an elected leader. He was supported by Iran's self-proclaimed Supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, who predictably promised a bloody suppression of peaceful street protests against the flawed ballot result. It was precisely that bloody suppression that so heartbreakingly claimed the life of Neda Salehi Agha Soltan. She is a slain innocent in the perilous journey towards Iran's democracy.

Iran's needless, mindless self-sabotaging suppression of The People's ballot has given the US, (a state sponsor of terror in West Asia and South Asia), an opening to assert itself as a champion of freedom and liberty in West Asia. The US is not. All the evidence proves the US is not. Iran therefore played right into the hands of the US. Instead of conducting a fair election, Iran chose to be brutally repressive of its own people. In fact Iran caused an internal division of its own electorate by pitting Moussavi's supporters, generally more educated, more female and more affluent, against Ahmedinajad's more traditionalist, more religious and more male supporters. The stolen election has unnecessarily caused disharmony among the fascinatingly diverse and divergent elements of the Iranian public.

The theocratic government of Iran created this dangerous wedge between its own people and Iran gave the US an opportunity to assert itself as the champion of freedom and civil liberties in West Asia. The US plays the Democracy card while invading, occupying, droning, displacing civil societies across regions. The US has been the main culprit in destabilizing democratic processes in Iran over several decades, beginning with the overthrow of Mossadegh, the propping up of the Shah and the support of Iraq against Iran in a bloody decade long war. The US continues to be a major force for destabilization throughout West Asia, which the US from its neo-imperial vantage point of dominant power calls the Middle East.

It remains to be seen whether Neda's brutal death will ignite and rekindle Iran's dormant democracy. It remains to be seen whether Iran's civil society will resist equally the 1) forces of Iran's repressive state apparatus, and also 2)turn its back on US attempts to gain strategic depth in Iran, by pretending to be a voice for civil rights and democracy in West Asia.

Q. If Iran's govt cannot accurately count electoral ballots, can Iran be trusted to safeguard the nuclear weapons it is developing?
A point to ponder -- the answer appears to be a qualified NO.

Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com

-------------
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/14/AR2009061401757.html
Washington Post copyright
The Iranian People Speak

By Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty
Monday, June 15, 2009

The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people. Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election.
This Story

While Western news reports from Tehran in the days leading up to the voting portrayed an Iranian public enthusiastic about Ahmadinejad's principal opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, our scientific sampling from across all 30 of Iran's provinces showed Ahmadinejad well ahead.

Independent and uncensored nationwide surveys of Iran are rare. Typically, preelection polls there are either conducted or monitored by the government and are notoriously untrustworthy. By contrast, the poll undertaken by our nonprofit organizations from May 11 to May 20 was the third in a series over the past two years. Conducted by telephone from a neighboring country, field work was carried out in Farsi by a polling company whose work in the region for ABC News and the BBC has received an Emmy award. Our polling was funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.


The breadth of Ahmadinejad's support was apparent in our preelection survey. During the campaign, for instance, Mousavi emphasized his identity as an Azeri, the second-largest ethnic group in Iran after Persians, to woo Azeri voters. Our survey indicated, though, that Azeris favored Ahmadinejad by 2 to 1 over Mousavi.

Much commentary has portrayed Iranian youth and the Internet as harbingers of change in this election. But our poll found that only a third of Iranians even have access to the Internet, while 18-to-24-year-olds comprised the strongest voting bloc for Ahmadinejad of all age groups.

The only demographic groups in which our survey found Mousavi leading or competitive with Ahmadinejad were university students and graduates, and the highest-income Iranians. When our poll was taken, almost a third of Iranians were also still undecided. Yet the baseline distributions we found then mirror the results reported by the Iranian authorities, indicating the possibility that the vote is not the product of widespread fraud.

Some might argue that the professed support for Ahmadinejad we found simply reflected fearful respondents' reluctance to provide honest answers to pollsters. Yet the integrity of our results is confirmed by the politically risky responses Iranians were willing to give to a host of questions. For instance, nearly four in five Iranians -- including most Ahmadinejad supporters -- said they wanted to change the political system to give them the right to elect Iran's supreme leader, who is not currently subject to popular vote. Similarly, Iranians chose free elections and a free press as their most important priorities for their government, virtually tied with improving the national economy. These were hardly "politically correct" responses to voice publicly in a largely authoritarian society.

Indeed, and consistently among all three of our surveys over the past two years, more than 70 percent of Iranians also expressed support for providing full access to weapons inspectors and a guarantee that Iran will not develop or possess nuclear weapons, in return for outside aid and investment. And 77 percent of Iranians favored normal relations and trade with the United States, another result consistent with our previous findings.

Iranians view their support for a more democratic system, with normal relations with the United States, as consonant with their support for Ahmadinejad. They do not want him to continue his hard-line policies. Rather, Iranians apparently see Ahmadinejad as their toughest negotiator, the person best positioned to bring home a favorable deal -- rather like a Persian Nixon going to China.

Allegations of fraud and electoral manipulation will serve to further isolate Iran and are likely to increase its belligerence and intransigence against the outside world. Before other countries, including the United States, jump to the conclusion that the Iranian presidential elections were fraudulent, with the grave consequences such charges could bring, they should consider all independent information. The fact may simply be that the reelection of President Ahmadinejad is what the Iranian people wanted.

Ken Ballen is president of Terror Free Tomorrow: The Center for Public Opinion, a nonprofit institute that researches attitudes toward extremism. Patrick Doherty is deputy director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. The groups' May 11-20 polling consisted of 1,001 interviews across Iran and had a 3.1 percentage point margin of error.

For more on polling in Iran, read Jon Cohen's Behind the Numbers.

=================================================================================

Lula Blue Eyes & The Whiteness System

March 29th, 2009 9:41 am Comment #273.
March 29, 2009 12:34 pm
In referencing blue eyes, President Lula of Brasil was referencing the Global North, the colonizers, the imperialists, the neo-imperialists, the slave owners, the genociders.

It's not racist, it's not about being against the color blue for eyes, the sky, whatever.
We feel, we have experienced what some fail to see out of those particular peepers.
Lula could have eschewed the rhetorical biomarker and just come straight to the point about unequal power and inequitable distribution of resources, about the origins of poverty, hunger, disease in the Global South. But would such a bland statement catch the eye of the NYT?

Perhaps I missed it in Dowd's column but I also recall that famous TV jousting on Blue Eyes vs. Brown eyes, between Mike Wallace (who brought it up again and again) and the late Shah of Iran. The Shah was making exactly the same point as Lula is. Go Brasil! Go Iran!

As for Obama's brown eyes in the Whites' House, that Change is not one we can (yet) believe in, judging by his planned blue-eyed Cheneyesque escalation of the deadly drone and convoy US/NATO trespass in Afghanistan-Pakistan.

Perhaps, if my child was killed by a US unmanned drone, while I was working in my fields, I would end up as a "militant". The Blue-eyed, green-eyed, you-name-it-eyed "militants" all lumped together in the demonizing mainstream US media as "Taliban" in the Khyber are making the same point as Lula.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com

— EthicalDemocracy, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, INDIA
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Op-Ed Columnist
Blue Eyed Greed?
Article
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: March 28, 2009
WASHINGTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/opinion/29dowd.html
NYTimes copyright
---------
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKYlvyZwHHU&feature=related
Shah of Iran, Mike Wallace
YouTube copyright
----------
See my Theory of Systemic Whiteness"
on this blog or Google it!
===================================================================================

Brand Obama: New, Improved, but Really the Same?

My Comment #53.
March 20, 2009 9:30 am

New and Improved but really the Same?

Brand Obama is peddling the same State Department/CIA ideology that has trumped US foreign policy for the past 60 years. Different style, same substance.
Pepsi vs. Coke.

Is the Obama on the White House-generated Nowroz video, the same Obama who promised AIPAC to do whatever it takes to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons? Since the US and Israel are both nuclear powers what would motivate Iran NOT to become one?

I don't think Iran and Iranians will buy Obama's line, but Iran will pragmatically play along, because, really, nothing's changed. Iran has its own rapidly shifting internal and regional priorities and challenges and the US has intervened in both, for more than a half-century. Eisenhower warned about the "military industrial complex" developing during his time in the White House. Iran's leaders and their civil society are heeding that warning.

Iran is a proud and ancient world culture, a regional power, a sovereign nation-state that the US has endlessly meddled with, and Iran, like it or not, is shortly to become a full-fledged nuclear power, for both defensive and civil society uses. Suck it up.

The US has to stop playing sanction-wielding Global Cop in every region of the world, and instead the US must focus on trying to shore up its own toppling economic structure, that has had disastrous repercussions on other sovereign-state economies.

The US also needs to come to the table in a spirit of cooperation and join with other nations in combating hunger, homelessness, disease, become a partner in social and economic and political justice.

That would be Change that the rest of us can Believe in.

Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com

— EthicalDemocracy, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, INDIA
Recommended
----------------------------
In a Video Appeal to Iran, Obama Offers a ‘New Day’
Invoking art, history and “common humanity,” President Obama appealed for a shift away from decades of confrontation.
By ALAN COWELL
Published: March 20, 2009
New York Times copyright
------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.whitehouse.gov/Nowruz/
White House public media
================================================================================

Obama's New Cold War

Obama Offered Deal to Russia in Secret Letter
By PETER BAKER
Published: March 2, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/washington/03prexy.html?hp
New York Times copyright
http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2009/03/03/washington/03prexy.html#postComment
New York Times copyright
----------------------
The core problem with US foreign policy for the past 60 years is its exceptionalist, triumphalist,supremacist, dictatorial and interfering posture, matched by a 60-year accumulation of actions of unparalleled state-sponsored violence marked by invasion, occupation, militarization, nuclearization, destabilization, satellization.

That foreign policy posture and actions in the West Asia and Central Asia regions has a counterproductive Israel subtext, as well as affirms that the US continues to maintain its confrontational Cold War stance in a post-Cold War, multipolar era of sovereign-state intra andinter-regional alliances that do not necessarily include the US, or Russia for that matter.

Obama's "secret" (what happened to transparency?) reportedly hand-delivered letter to Russia's President Medvedev, three weeks ago, attempts to dictate and micromanage geopolitics in West Asia and Central Asia, which the last time I looked is not where the US is located. The sovereign nation-state stakeholders in these regions have every right to safeguard their perceived local interests without the US menacing nation-states that are located there.

Q. Why shouldn't Russia help Iran nuclearize? Iran and Russia are strategic neighbors, the US is not. Did the US nuclearize Israel?

Q. Why shouldn't Iran develop nuclear power for both military and civilian purposes? The US, Israel and Russia are all nuclear. The last two are regional neighbors, the US is not.
In the adjoining South Asia region, Pakistan and India are nuclear. What would motivate Iran NOT to nuclearize and Russia NOT to help Iran do so?

Obama's shopworn Star Wars bargaining chip of a National Missile Defense Shield (NMD) suspension wont wash with Iran, especially since the US helped Israel develop its Arrow missile system which has been successfully tested repeatedly by the US and Israel acting in combination. Is it possible, therefore, both Iran and Russia might feel their respective national security interests are threatened by such unilateral and unprovoked militarization in their backyard?

Obama's foreign policy in Central Asia, West Asia and South Asia is likely to be no different than that of his white male predecessors.

Superpower foreign policy ideology trumps race.

At the same time, supremacist ideology in U.S. foreign policy has its roots in white male dominance (developed and enforced during three centuries of slavery and genocide of indigenous people in the US, by white males), in which all 'others' are racialized and rendered inferior. Obama is embedded in that Whiteness system and rewarded by it.

Change We Can Believe In? A new and ethical direction for US foreign policy where strategic interests are sincerely attempted to be aligned with ethical concerns ?

Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
See Theory of Systemic Whiteness and related articles
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
=====================================================================================

Self and Nation:: The US in Iran

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/opinion/26cohen.html
Op-Ed Columnist
The Inner Life
By ROGER COHEN
Published: February 25, 2009
New York Times copyright
-----------------------------------
My Comment #40.
February 26, 2009 8:52 am

Link


February 26th, 2009 8:32 am
Can we just as easily substitute Bush-Cheney-Wolfowitz-Rice-Rumsfeld-Powell in the quote below?

“Too arrogant to think of [them] as a threat and deliberately ignorant of [their] designs, we supported [them]. We welcomed the vehemence of [Bush's] rants against [the Axis of Evil] and were willing to overlook the fact that they were not delivered by champion[s] of freedom.”

The problem with Nafisi and her 'narrative tension" just as with Cohen's, is that they don't see their own elite neoliberal complicity with the ruling US political establishment, except conveniently long, long after the fact. And even then, they keep their blinders on.

What "inner life" is Cohen talking about? One that does not accept personal responsibility for the stance we take, which we can and must admit may be full of error?

Nafisi was supported by that great advocate of democracy, the corrupt and disgraced Wolfowitz.

And Cohen still appears to be blind to the repercussions from US govt.'s role in getting rid of the popularly elected Mossadegh (who wanted to nationalize Iran's oil), and US militarization/ satellization of Israel in the so-called Middle East.

Change from Within will become Change We Can Believe In,
when the US takes its rightful place in the world community as an equal, NOT a dominant player.

I fear for my own region -- South Asia -- where Iran (as well as Israel) is our adjoining neighbor (the US is NOT), and the manipulative, violence-driven proclivity of the US Govt. whether Brand Bush or Brand Obama. There is only a difference in degree not in kind.

Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
======================================================================================

Multipolar Iran vs. Unipolar US

http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2009/02/19/opinion/19cohen.html
Reading Khamenei in Iran by Roger Cohen
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/opinion/19cohen.html
New York Times copyright
--------------
Comment # 48.
February 19, 2009 10:34 am

Link
The Zionists on the staff of The New York Times (of which Cohen is one) are at it again! Seriously, why don't you at the NYT (even if only occasionally) 'deploy' a Global South or Scandinavian journalist to cover the so-called Middle East (Middle of what? East of where?). That area is both West Asia and North East Africa. You cannot truncate either of these huge continents by taking a chunk out of each of them and call that area the Middle East, a Brit colonial-imperial fiction, continued by the US, the prevailing neo-imperial power. Though Cohen does not specifically use the term "Middle East" it is the suspect terrain of his analyses.

Does IRAN's Right to Exist (yes I mean Iran, I am not talking about Israel) depend on Iran's relationship to Israel and the US? Iran has never threatened the US, whereas the US has deposed its popularly elected leaders (Mossadegh), propped up straw monarchs (Reza Shah Pehlavi), stoked the Iran-Iraq war, and sanctioned Iran for attempting to become a nuclear power (which Israel already is, and the US is the only user of nuclear weapons).

Finally, let me inform Cohen Iran is well on the way to strategic multipolarity like many sovereign nation-states struggling out of the colonial era, with dialogue and economic arrangements with South America, Africa and South Asia. Therefore, "only engagement with the West" as Cohen mistakenly asserts is not Iran's only or preferred option.

Iran is undoubtedly a deeply flawed sovereign nation-state with an abysmal human rights record. This human rights record is correctly a terrain for engagement by the US and all UN member states, with Iran, no less than with Saudi Arabia, whose human rights record the US conveniently winks at, while guzzling Saudi oil.
Let it also be noted that Iran is an emerging regional power despite severe geo-political provocation from the US and its satellite, Israel.
My sense is Iran will prevail, despite Cohen's "pious" prescriptions to deal with Iran's alleged "independence obsession."

My comments do not in any way mean I do not read Cohen and others on the op-ed staff of the NYT with the greatest critical interest. I thank the NYT for that opportunity, because it is most instructive.
Such discussion is the stuff of US democracy on its way to developing an ethical spine.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
====================================================================================

US: Sponsor of Terror & De-stabilizer of Sovereign Nation-States

February 2nd, 2009 5:44 am

My Comment #44 to an article in the NYTimes (see link below, NYTimes copyright)

Roger Cohen and the New York Times should consider themselves fortunate to be allowed to report from Iran.

First, there is no "other Iran" as Cohen asserts. WYSIWYG.

Cohen whitewashes the UK-US role in destabilizing the Iranian govt. and the balance of power in Iranian domestic politics, when they jointly deposed the brilliant nationalist and popularly elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mosadegh in a 1953 coup. That blatant interference in the liberation politics of a post-colonial nation-state ( to overturn Mosadegh's policy of nationalization of Iran's petroleum resources),has triggered the consequent and subsequent political trajectory of Iran in international politics.
Iran has the right to act in its own national and regional interests. Iran was a founding member of the Group of 15 in the Non Aligned Movement of newly liberated nation-states, a group whose principles of peaceful co-existence were articulated by India's Jawaharlal Nehru and which group was arrogantly disparaged as late as last year in New Delhi (how diplomatic) by your erstwhile Secretary of State, Condolezza Rice.
Iran has the right to develop nuclear weapons to protect herself against the only user of nuclear weapons, as well as to develop nuclear energy for peaceful civilian uses.
Iran is a sovereign nation-state with a proud and ancient civilization and a force in the growing multipolarity of world politics.

Let the US learn from its own egregious unforced errors of policy and political judgment in Iran or be condemned to repeat them, at heavy cost to the US.

Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://www.EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com

— EthicalDemocracy, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India


see link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/opinion/02cohen.html
New York Times copyright

Ethical Democracy -- Can Hillary pass the test?

Ethical Democracy -- Can Hillary pass the test?

Oct 25, 2007

I think the main responsibility of a voter is to try to encourage ethical practices in all the candidates. I am now focusing on Hillary Clinton. Will she be capable of leading ethically? I think that remains to be seen.

On healthcare Hillary is demonstrating that she has the collective good of all Americans at the center of her health policy initiative. Good going Hillary.

Iraq? Not so good Hillary. You did not vote your conscience. You did not vote your intelligence. Instead you voted a pro-Zionist agenda because you need to appease your New York electorate. You have expressed no humane concern for the sufferings of the Iraqi people. You have not shown that you have a better grasp of geopolitical relations in that area of West Asia and North East Africa that the US pretends(following the language of the imperial Brits) is the Middle East. Middle of what? East of where? That region is part of Asia and Africa.

Iran? I have not heard you say anything or do anything that would separate you from the neocons and the Christian Right or anyone in the Bush regime. As far as I can see you are a white Condoleezza, a muted version of a female Cheney.

Palestine? Do you support a two-state solution with Israel giving back what it stole in 1945?

South Asia, Latin America, Africa and the rest of the world? Under your leadership, is the US going to meddle in everybody's business, manipulate other nation-states, devour their resources -- or is the US under your possible presidency, going to learn with humility to be a responsible, non-supremacist, less racist, less genocide-prone global player?

I am going to try to give you a chance because you appear to be just a tad more credible than the sorry truckload of abysmal candidates all of whom appear to be significantly lacking in an ethical leadership stance, locally and globally.

http://www.EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com


The comments on this particular topic (see below) were generated on another blog:
http://connect.hillaryclinton.com/blog-entry/Chithras-Blog/Ethical-Democracy-Hillary/400009785&#msg400015332

Heat not LIGHT in Presidential Election 2008

responding to a political blog on NYTimes website.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/can-obama-make-iran-clintons-new-iraq/index.html?hp

Chithra Karunakaran's response:

This is the runup to Presidential Election 2008 and the heat (not LIGHT) is ON.

All the dangerously de-stabilizing posturing and unethical actions (for decades) by the U.S. (that includes the President, Congress and the glorified U.S. public) in West Asia and Africa (no, it's not the "Middle East")will not help the hapless Iraqi people who are the true heroes of this invasion and occupation by the US.

Now the US would turn its "shock and awe" on Iran?

I commend the Iranian people and their government for standing up to the U.S. Iran must do what is best for its people and its national interests, national interests which largely coincide with the national interests of most of the nation-states of the Non Aligned movement, (which Rice recently pooh poohed) and the Global South.

Neither the U.S. think tank policy wonks whose trumping identity and demographic is Zionist, nor the US govt nor the U.S. public (woefully ignorant and in shopping delirium) understands this worldview dynamic at all.

The U.S. is a dangerously unethical, military, consumerist, expansionist, resource-devouring, alleged 'democracy'
and the current political frontrunners of every stripe bear the stamp of that unethical, indefensible stance. That stance is unsustainable and will fall to the needs of the world's peoples who want peace, prosperity and national sovereignty that is not dictated by the supremacist U.S. The U.S. needs to develop collaborative and cooperative strategies that are integral to globalized membership.
Hear even one candidate voice such an interdependent worldview?
All politics is global while of course having local impact. I am delighted that the Indian government has nixed the Bush plan for Civilian Nuclear Cooperation.

The world's largest and economically progressive democracy has said NO the the 'democratic' U.S.

Can the country of Gandhi say Yes to the murdering Bush regime? NO.

India said NO.

Way to go India. Way to go Iran.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com