Timothy Ferris and the Debt of Democracy to Science

This is a very important and fascinating speech and audience question-and-answer session featuring science writer Timothy Ferris. I love it when I find someone who makes a clear and powerful case for liberal democracy. Ferris is such a person.

Nope

Okay, I guess he didn't. Hope Reza Aslan's sources are right in the long-term, though.

Reza Aslan: Khamenei to Soften Tone?

Reza Aslan writes on The Daily Beast today that there are reports that a deal may be in the works in Iran that would result in a run-off election between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. This is apparently the work of former president Ayatollah Rafsanjani, who heads up the council that picks the supreme leader, currently his nemesis, Ayatollah Khamenei.

Though the government's brutal crackdown has quieted things today in Tehran, Aslan says things are still raging in the provinces: "[D]espite the fact that protests in the capital city of Tehran have diminished, there are still reports of massive protests taking place in other parts of the country, including in Tabriz, Isfahan, Kermanshah, Mashad and Shiraz. These protests have been significantly smaller due to the brutal security crackdown, but they have also been much more forceful and violent."

He says that Khamenei's Friday prayers tomorrow should be a good indication of a softening of tone and therefore whether these reports of a compromise are real or not.

Now, would that new election be any freer than the one two weeks ago, aye, that's the rub.

Lifetime Bans for Iranian Footballers

As noted in a previous post with video, six players on the Iranian national football (soccer) team wore green armbands in the first half of a recent game against South Korea. The color green is the color adopted by the opposition candidate Mousavi in the recent clearly rigged Iranian presidential elections. The game, which was televised live in Iran, surprisingly failed to delight the hard-line ultra-religious Iranian regime, and that's not only because the team's loss effectively ended the country's World Cup hopes.

Anyway, some commentary on the event noted that it was a particularly brave act by the athletes, because they would have to return home after the trip. And now the other shoe has fallen: Four of the athletes have been banned for life from the sport (we do not yet know about the other two), and the Iranian government is continuing a wide-ranging assault on other Iranian football figures related to reformist causes. That's all according to a report in the British paper The Guardian.

It's still not too late for some American professional athletes to sport a green armband in their next televised appearances. But I doubt any or many will.

Iranian.com Online Magazine Offers Updates

Power To The People from Jimmy Misinformed on Vimeo.

On the Iranian.com online magazine (whose motto "nothing's sacred" should give you a sense of how unloved it must be by Iran's religious establishment) has a page with regular updates on the situation with the Iranian post-election protests. It included the BBC's Persian service video, above, which shows police being repelled and then chased by protesters. I fear that in the short- to medium-term, the security forces are going to prove bigger and better armed than the protesters, but it looks like the demonstrators have a healthy lack of affection for people who shoot unarmed pro-democracy protesters.

Other sources for updates: Huffington Post has an update page that is refreshed throughout the day with the latest news, rumors, and videos; so does the New York Times.

Iranian Students Organize Online

On Irandokht, an online English-language (with some Farsi [I think] sections) Iranian women's magazine, there is a posting by Iranian students seeking support for their online petition condemning the violence against protesters in Iran. To read their message and sign their petition, see the Irandokht forum here, and scroll down to the subhead "Condemn Violence."

More on Basiji Hunters

I forwarded the info in my previous post to an Iranian-American (I'll not disclose name or even gender, because this person still has family in Tehran), who responded: "It's definitely true and they are very community-connected." This person had been a protester in the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah, which of course led to the current regime. "This is happening all over again for a better future, I hope."

Iranians Going "Basiji Hunting"?

The Washington Note quotes from an e-mail written by an Iranian:

By the way, two nights ago I went out to see a few things ... as the general crowds spread into their homes militia style Mousavi supporters were out on the streets 'Basiji hunting'.

Their resolve is no less than these thugs -- they after hunting them down. They use their phones, their childhood friends, their intimate knowledge of their districts and neighbours to plan their attacks -- they're organised and they're supported by their community so they have little fear. They create the havoc they're after, ambush the thugs, use their Cocktail Molotovs, disperse and re-assemble elsewhere and then start again - and the door of every house is open to them as safe harbour -- they're community-connected.

The Basiji's are not.

These are not the students in the dorms, they're the street young -- they know the ways better than most thugs - and these young, a surprising number of them girls, are becoming more agile in their ways as each night passes on.

Also, with $10K every local police station lock can be broken and guns taken out...the police too are crowd friendly...for sure put a gun in their hands and these young become a serious counter-balance to the Basij...call them 10% of 18-22 year olds - that makes circa 10 million around the country versus max 4 million Basijis.

That excerpt comes from a longer article that tries to predict the likely scenarios for the outcome in Iran. (It's not optimistic that a peaceful solution will result.) I, on the other hand, would love it to end peacefully, but my definition of a successful conclusion to this is pretty much total surrender by Khamenei and the other hard-line leaders there. If the above excerpt is true, then it's truly amazing that the government's control has broken down so much that people are proactively attacking the militias.

(The usual caveat has to be placed on anything that is an anonymous source quoted on a web site you've never heard of and re-quoted on another blog: It might be all science fiction. I hope it's not.)