Motley Moose – Archive

(cross-posted at kickin it with cg)

Over the weekend as total chaos broke out in Iran one wouldn’t have known anything about it if they weren’t on the tubes. As E.D Kain writes,

if I wasn’t online, an avid blogger and reader of blogs, and if I didn’t frequent the New York Times, I wouldn’t know a damn thing about the phenomenon in Iran.  It would feel like just any other story from the “crazy Middle East.”  I wouldn’t have seen images of the streets of green-clad protestors.  I wouldn’t have seen the beatings or the fires or read the twitter feeds or the first hand accounts.  I wouldn’t have seen the youtube videos.  And lest it be forgotten, the news most people receive if they receive any at all is from their televisions.

Apparently, this is the news rumored to break before the upcoming LGBT fundraiser for the DNC:

An Obama administration official has confirmed to The Advocate that President Barack Obama will be signing a presidential memorandum Wednesday to provide benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.

The signing is scheduled for 5:45 p.m. in the Oval Office, and the president is scheduled to make brief remarks.

I guess this is good news. I mean, it is progress and LGBT federal employees have been waiting quite some time for domestic partner benefits. But if President Obama is doing this just to placate the community to get the money flowing out of our wallets again for the June 26 DNC fundraiser, this isn’t enough.

We want out full civil rights, and we’re tired of small token gestures and nice words followed by inaction. We want full equality, and we want it NOW!

Again, this is good start. LGBT federal employees deserve this kind of respect and protection. And yes, I’ll commend the President for doing it. I just hope tomorrow we’ll also get word of when the rest of us will get some equality as well.

A recent Gallup polls shows an uptick among conservatives to the higest rate in five years…but also has the highest percentage of people calling themselves “liberal” than ever before.

The poll might also provide a hint as to why the Democratic majority

http://www.gallup.com/poll/120… vatives-Single-Largest-Ideological-Group .aspx

Members of a facebook group for the green revolution in Iran just received this email about how the outside world can help the activists fighting for freedom and democracy in Iran.  If any of you are wondering what life is like in Iran, take a look at this just-posted video of a student passing away in a dormitory after being shot by police.

This is my first diary, but I’ve been lurking around. I joined not only to be part of this community, but also to post this diary…because I was sick of getting in tussles with some egotistic self-absorbed poster over at MyDD, but nevermind that.

I had a conversation this weekend with a friend of my father’s who works at the Pentagon. My father is a former Major in the US Army. I chatted up my dad’s friend about DADT and got some interesting scoop as to what’s going on with it and why is it difficult to repeal

Some of the other threads are getting a bit cluttered. Consider this an open thread wherein to continue discussing the Iranian election and protests. Obama’s comments and a couple of news clips below the fold.

Question: What does someone that identies as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, transsexual or queer-fluid…have in common with someone who is transhuman?

Answer: These are terms that people use to define themselves regarding their own sex, gender, body.

(Cross-posted at sexgenderbody)

Update at 12:39pm by Psychodrew

Multiple tweets about gunfire by pro-government militia at the Tehran rally.

We have heard what sounds like gunshots in distance. still have people on streets we have not heard from. #iranelection

persiakiwi

AP News alert FROM IRAN: AP photographer sees pro-government militia fire at opposition protesters, killing at least 1.

jaketapper (of ABC News)

OMG! Iranian state TV says gunfire has erupted at the Mousavi rally in Tehran #iranelection

zahrahb

Video update at 11:16 am EDT USA by John Allen

More after the jump

While Iran has declared Ahmadinejad the Winner, these numbers have been leaked out of Iran showing how the votes really accumulated:

It’s now 9:30AM in the morning in Iran and the Iranian people are awakening to a nation in which the political landscape, though superficially unchanged, is indeliably altered.  Overnight a sensational result has emerged in the Iranian elections for the presidency.  Sensational in the magnitude of the result, close to 65% of the vote for the incumbent, firebrand Mahmud Ahmadinejad and a crushing defeat for his opponent Mousavi.

And it’s unlikely to be merely that a populist ‘green revolution’ has been nipped in the bud by the forces of reaction in Iran’s heirarchy, though that in itself is clearly true:

[MARGARET WARNER:] So, you think that the possibility is that you have — you have seen some government interference here?

CLIFF KUPCHAN: I think, so far, not so good. Now, it’s really early, and we don’t know.

But the fear is that the establishment didn’t like what they were seeing.

Margaret Warner – Iran’s Future Unclear Following Presidential Election PBS 12 Jun 09

Yes, interference, with an unprecedented call of the election early for Ahmadinejad, but it isn’t what you think:

MARGARET WARNER: But didn’t this also expose some fissures in the conservative class…

AFSHIN MOLAVI: Absolutely.

MARGARET WARNER: … and among the clerics?

AFSHIN MOLAVI: Absolutely.

You know, Ahmadinejad’s challenge to the old-guard revolutionary elite was absolutely very important, because it exposed this rift. Ahmadinejad comes from a second-generation revolutionary elite. They cut their political teeth in the fight against Iraq, whereas the old-guard elite cut their teeth in the fight against the shah.

These two are at each other right now. That is going to have ramifications beyond the election.

Margaret Warner – Iran’s Future Unclear Following Presidential Election PBS 12 Jun 09

As was suggested in a recent diary this election has become a contest for internal power within the oligarchy, which revealed it’s topography in unprecedented ways in the course of the presidential debates.  What we appear to be seeing is the passing of power from the old generation to the new generation of conservative revolutionary elites.