South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

Iran

Iran Socialized Healthcare

This week’s observation: Iran and Universal Healthcare

l3wis 11Comments

mickeymouse

Iran’s new President, and he isn’t wearing a ‘Member’s Only’ jacket.

When I turned on my version of Sunday sports events to sports fans (the Sunday political shows) this morning, I was very disappointed, but not surprised. The topic, in between pharma commercials and right wing anti-healthcare reform was that somehow a revolution was coming to Iran and Universal Healthcare for Americans would destroy the country.

Bullshit.

First off, I’m not going to rant forever, afterall, that’s why I have Eggbert as a contributor, but I will say this, it doesn’t matter if Mickey Mouse was the president of Iran, the country is ran by a theocratic dictator not a president. And unless the people rise up and overthrow him in the name of democracy, things will be exactly the same tomorrow.

And secondly, I find all of the negative news coverage of universal healthcare not surprising. Who funds media? Pharma, hospitals and insurance companies. Without them they have no advertisers. Just look at our local TV station, KELOSANFORDLAND-TV, Why would they cheerlead socialized medicine? Seriously?

I’ll have to say, this week in politics has been a wash, unless you count Ironic Johnny walking over the body of one of his fellow Republicans to take advantage of an opportunity that was handed to him on the back of a cheating whore.

Censorship Civil Rights Internet Iran Mideast Twitter You Tube

Freedom’s strongest front in Iran: Twitter?!?!?

Ghost of Dude 7Comments

ajad-vs-internet

 

Ever since Iran’s presidential election a few days ago, there have been massive protests in the country’s urban centers. While the government has been successful in shutting down most communications coming out of the country, they have thusfar been unable to quash the thousands of tweets coming from the protestors.

Helping the twitterers out by setting up over 9,000 proxy servers and launching DDoS attacks on Iranian government websites, the guys with plenty of time on their hands at 4chan.org seem to be this country’s major cyber warriors – all those jokes about the 101st fighting keyboard brigade must have struck a nerve. Even the Pirate bay is getting in on the action by seeding torrents of videos taken down by youtube for their graphic content.

The information coming out has included pictures of injured and dead protestors, video of the Basij thugs shooting into crowds, and communications to other protestors about which places in Tehran and elsewhere are safe to gather.

From all the information coming out, this appears to be the beginning of a big revolution in Iran. Let’s hope they can change their country for the better. Here are their demands:

Demands from the protesters  

1. Dismissal of Khamenei for not being a fair leader
2. Dismissal of Ahmadinejad for his illegal acts
3. Temporary appointment of Ayatollah Montazeri as the Supreme Leader
4. Recognition of Mousavi as the President
5. Forming the Cabinet by Mousavi to prepare for revising the Constitution
6. unconditional and immediate release of all political prisoners
7. Dissolution of all organs of repression, public or secret.

 

 

I’ll be back to update this with links when I can.

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