Thomas Jefferson:"Rebellion to Tyrants is obedience to God"

These days almost every event from disappearance of around a dozen Iranian undercover agents – mostly senior intelligence officers – inside Iraq in the space of a month to news of defection/disappearance--his wife says he has been kidnapped-- is viewed by the Islamic Republic of gangsters, hiding behind religious facade, through the prism of a plot by the West to overthrow the Islamic Republic's terrorist regime. Thus, it should hardly come as a surprise, when the embattled regime turns into hostage-taking (Iranian-Americans, British and Americans), barbaric crackdowns, and curtailing whatever pseudo-freedoms are left in the society. A reversion to the blood-soaked and merciless days of 1979 is on the agenda of hardliners as the regime is isolated further economically and politically:

The move has quashed or forced underground many independent civil society groups, silenced protests over issues including women's rights and pay rates, quelled academic debate, and sparked society-wide fear about several aspects of daily life, the sources said. Few feel safe, especially after the April arrest of Hossein Mousavian, a former top nuclear negotiator and ambassador to Germany, on charges of espionage and endangering national security.

The widespread purges and arrests are expected to have an impact on parliamentary elections next year and the presidential contest in 2009, either discouraging or preventing reformers from running against the current crop of hard-liners who dominate all branches of government, Iranian and U.S. analysts say. The elections are one of several motives behind the crackdowns, they add.

Public signs of discontent -- such as students booing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on a campus last December, teacher protests in March over low wages and workers demonstrating on May Day -- are also behind the detentions, according to Iranian sources. "The current crackdown is a way to instill fear in the population in order to discourage them from future political agitation as the economic situation begins to deteriorate," said Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "You're going to think twice about taking to the streets to protest the hike in gasoline prices if you know the regime's paramilitary forces have been on a head-cracking spree the last few weeks."

Despite promises to use Iran's oil revenue to aid the poor, Ahmadinejad's economic policies have backfired, triggering 20 percent inflation over the past year, increased poverty and a 25 percent rise in the price of gas last month. More than 50 of the country's leading economists wrote an open letter to Ahmadinejad this week warning that he is ignoring basic economics and endangering the country's future.

Universities have been particularly hard hit by faculty purges and student detentions since late last year, according to Iranian analysts and international human rights groups. Professors still on campus have been warned by Iran's intelligence ministry about developing relationships with their foreign counterparts, who may try to recruit them as spies.

"Ahmadinejad has repeatedly stated his goal of purging Iranian society of secular thought. This is taking shape as a cultural revolution, particularly on university campuses, where persecution and prosecution of students and faculty are intensifying with each passing day," said Hadi Ghaemi, the Iran analyst for Human Rights Watch.

In recent weeks, the government has also tried to dissolve student unions and replace them with allies from the Basij -- a young, volunteer paramilitary body, human rights groups say. Between April 30 and June 6, eight student leaders involved in the elections at Amirkabir University -- where Ahmadinejad was reportedly jeered as students set his pictures on fire -- have been jailed in Evin Prison.

The campus purges have been mirrored in virtually all government-funded organizations, as hard-liners have been slotted into positions in the civil service, security apparatus, financial institutions and public services in the two years since Ahmadinejad took office, Iranian analysts said...Iran's Supreme National Security Council last month also laid out new censorship rules in a letter to news outlets, instructing them to refrain from writing about public security, oil price increases, new international economic sanctions, inflation, civil society movements, or negotiations with the United States on the future of Iraq, according to Iranian journalists. "Censorship has got much worse recently," Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi told the BBC in Tehran this week. "Iran's government doesn't like . . . events inside the country to be reflected in the outside world."

This "second cultural revolution" ( Culture of vampires with fangs) could be a blessing in disguise. It could cure those who think that hordes of conscienceless sociopaths could be reformed. These violent murderers rose from cess-pool of south Tehan's slums and are bereft of internal brakes when it comes to their survival. Iranian Liberal explains:

Would anyone in a tyrant's shoes do the same under external pressure? No! Why should they? If the outsiders have reasonable demands, one could adequately assure them that their demands are met. One doesn't need to be a violent and abrasive dictator even in an authoritarian system. Even a tyrant really does have options. In particular there is always the option of accepting to dismantle the dictatorship altogether. This has been demonstrated many times in recent history of non-violent revolutions, be it in Eastern Europe or in Chile.But what about the intent and the propaganda?

It is a major (and sometimes deliberate) confusion of logic to claim that the fact that a tyranny's intent is to survive would somehow make the propaganda it spreads less lethal and dangerous. It is the complete opposite. Tyrannies spread hateful and false propaganda because they want to survive. Survival is why they do what they do and propaganda (and repression) is how. And when the why demands that they actualy act on the how they won't cringe. There is ample historical evidence for this.
Here's one relevant to Iran:In the second half of the Iran-Iraq war (more or less after Khorramshahr was liberated by the Iranian forces) when Iraq was in a defensive position and was seeking a ceasefire, the Islamic Republic continued the war and said it would not accept the UN resolution No. 598 for a ceasefire. So the war continued for another 4-5 years during which hundreds of thousands of Iranians were killed and the economy was shattered even more.

How did they convince the people to do this? Propaganda, of course, besides a cycle of repression and fear. The walls of Tehran were covered with slogans such as: "War, War, Till Victory!" or "The Path to Quds Goes Through Karbala" or "War, War, Till Mahdi's Revolution!". The only two TV stations were filled with stories of martyrdom, etc. Saddam was kafir (nonbeliever) and the war was one against kufr (nonbelief). Classic tyrannical propaganda methods were practiced. Moreover, almost any voice of dissent was brutally silenced. Those who had differing ideas from the head of the power pyramide, from all stripes and colors even many early supporters, were silenced, jailed and/or executed.Why did they do this? To survive. Did they believe in all they said? Probably not. In fact, after the intent for survival forced the weakening regime to finally accept the ceasefire in 1988 (or "drink the potion of death" in the words of Khomeini), it was suddenly as if Saddam was no longer kafir or the path to Quds did not go through Karbala.

In short, the strategy of tyranny is set by the intent for survival and its tactics by the propaganda. They go hand in hand. So the question of whether they believe in their own propaganda becomes irrelevant to what they would actually do. They'd do as they see fit for their survival and this could include acting on existing propaganda, or creating new ones. But what is for certain is that we on the outside should never dismiss or devalue the dangers of their propaganda.

Ayn Rand's identification of the four essential characteristics of tyranny are instructive. These characteristics are: one-party rule, executions without trial for political offenses, expropriation or nationalisation of private property, and "above all," censorship. The Islamic Republic not only possesses these four characteristics but these dispositions are intrinsic to the very fabric and nature of any religious theocracy. In theocracies, individuals are rendered as mere recruits to be subjugated in propagating the goals mandated by their religious doctrine. This will give the theocracy unlimited supply of canon fodder to maintain the status-quo. The American revolution has a great deal to teach Iranians:

The enforcement of any laws (subjectives or objectives) -- local, state, or federal -- that through the action or inaction of the courts makes nugatory (of little worth or importance) the individual means of resisting tyranny, justifies resistance.

" Under censorship, no other rights, including the right to be free from censorship, can be advocated, discussed, or queried. It is incorrect to say that after censorship comes utter subjugation. Censorship is utter subjugation. There is no greater usurpation of liberty while remaining alive. After censorship come the mass killings and they are not a prerequisite of censorship, they are merely a symptom of it. Censorship qua (as) censorship is sufficient in itself to justify open rebellion against any government that legislates, enforces, or upholds it."--Barefoot


Who said "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God"? Pat yourself on the back if you answered "Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin." They proposed placing the motto on the Great Seal of the United States. In the political upheavals of the High Middle Ages, as kings and popes vied for power, an idea was reborn: all earthly authority is conditional, and tyrants are to be killed. A review of religous wars of Middle Ages illustrates the origin of Western secularism. In essence, secularims has religious origins.

The mullahs and the Ayatollahs have made too much money from Islam and Koran. Oil Sustains the Islamic Republic's despotism, expansion of militant Islam throughout the region, and religious dictatorships by other religious fascists (e.g. Hams, Hizballah).

When big money is needed for the repressive apparatus of despotism, warrior dictators in Iran need not fear taxpayer revolt because their military schemes are founded on their control over oil. To be Continued...