Brian persecutes everybody.

What's the definition of fascism, Brian?

Brian is not in a position to "persecute" people.   

He is quite correct about the sad plight of the Bahai's in Iran.   They are regarded as apostate Muslims and thus the current regime subjects them to intense persecution.

They do not have the protection afforded Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians.

However, here is one positive note.   I just finished reading the book "Then They Came For Me: A Family's Story of Love, Captivity and Survival" by Maziar Bahari.

Bahari is a journalist for Newsweek, Iranian-born with Canadian citizenship.  He was arrested after the last election (remember the huge demonstrations in the streets of Teheran?).

The book is excellent, it deserves a full thread of its own (as a book review), but let me just note that he found much of the population was totally fed up with Khamenei and Ahmadinejad.   

So the government's treatment of Bahai's should be mistaken for the viewpoint of the whole population.

The US kills people by the million. Obama assassinates American citizens. Canada sent Jews back to Germany from 1934 to almost 1950. Israelis kill Palestinians, kick Israeli Palestinians out of their homes, and steal their land.

And can you guess how the Jews got the Holy Land in the first place - way, way back? Ever heard of genocide?

So, what's a fascist, Brian?

Now Graeme.   You are starting into "cartoon thinking" yourself.  Get a grip.

"The Oxford Handbook of Fascism" has about 20 pages under "Comparisons and Definition," the entry by Robert O. Paxton.

Quote (from this entry):

Fascism might be defined as a form of political behaviour marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues redemptive violence, and without ethical or legal restraints, goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

Any of definition of fascism, however, tends to a give a misleadingly static image of a phenomenon that is mobile, adaptable, and dynamic......

​Is/Pal and the US are not particularly relevant to a discussion about Iran's current government.   Why would you bring that up here?

The definition of fascism is not agreed on even by experts. But there is no doubt that the fascism of the 1930s and 40s was rooted in a line of thinking developed by the Catholic church in the late nineteenth century.

The Catholic church had and has a conservative view of society. that is, it feels we are all connected to each other. that's good. But taken to extremes, it means we cannot allow people to think independently. Foro the good of all, there must be a pyramid of power - very similar to the kingdoms and earldoms of early Europe. The Catholic church is itself organized on that model. thus the importance of a pope.

That developed into the Mussolini concept of a power structure under control of an elite - especially corporations. thus the rise of Italian fascism. Ditto in Spain. Less so in Germany.

I keep asking Brian because I know he doesn't have the faintest idea of what he's talking about.

As for using fascism as a term to mean brutality, that's absurd. The western democracies have been just as brutal as any fascists - even Hitler. Mao was even worse. But nobody has ever called him a fascist.

The govt of Iran is panicked by its wide-spread unpopularity in Iran.

So they are arresting journalists (along with others mentioned above, of course):

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204524604576610983516265802.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

Who Are Iran's Political Prisoners?

At least 28 of the regime's prisoners of conscience are journalists.

The US is arresting journalists, too. - There have been several such arrests lately on Wall Street.

And there is some considerable reason to believe americans don't like their government, either.

Graeme

You know perfectly well the Iranian government if far more repressive than the US.

I notice Brian didn't mention the Iranian persecution of Muslims......

I wonder why he didn't mention that?

I'm sure it was just an oversight on his part. After all he wouldn't be equating the corrupt Iranian government with Muslims in general in an attempt to spread racial and religious prejudice against Muslims, now would he?

No. that would be a crime under Canadian law.

The American government is less repressive? It practices torture on a world scale. It has just led in the killing of tens of thousands of Libyans - at least. The president can order the assassination of american citizens, and can jail them without trial or even a charge. It has killed close to two million people in the last ten years. It slaughtered 200,000 native peoples in guatemala. It overthrew the elected government of Haiti, and ended any chance of that country coming out of horrible poverty. Police and other agencies can search without warrant - and without you even knowing about it. It is now bombing Yemen and Pakestan, has speical ops in The Phillipines, and assassination squads in an unkown number of countries.

How oppressive does it have to get?

Incidentally, the current government exists in Iran because the US helped to overthrow a democratically elected government and install the Shah as dictator.

That was over 50 years ago.   We can't undo the past.   (the overthrow of the Shah I mean).  

I meant the US was not repressive to its own citizens.

Witch writes:

"How do you feel about male genital mutilation? Or is it OK when the Jews do it?"

What's with this obsession with "the Jews"? Hasn't your sort murdered enough Jews yet? Wouldn't it be better to get over your prejudice? Surely being a racist must be as unpleasant for you as for the people around you?

EO,

You know feeding trolls never works. Of course, the Iranian regime is far more oppressive than the U.S.  has ever dreamed of being. But Graeme doesn't care about facts. He hates America. Therefore he slanders it.

Graeme is spitting over with anger, and his words merely project of his animosities. If you expect sense out of him, you're being silly. You might as well expect reasoned discourse from the president of Iran.

The US tortures, imprisons without charge, and assassinates its own citizens. Try to , keep up on the news,, EO.

today, Mr. Romney, the leading candidate for Republican leadership announced that God wants the US to dominate the world.. If you will check google for Project for the New American Century, you'll find that is exactly what Dick cheney and Jeb bush were talking about.

When Hitler tried it, he was pronounced crazy.

Canada has just played a leading role in killing tens of thousands of Libyan civilians by bombing cities. Are you under the impression that Libyans don't count as real people?

Face reality.

EO, See what I mean? He's completely off his meds.

write more, Brian.

EO - please google International Clearing House. it's free. Go to the story on Haiti. It made me feel ill just to read. Virtually no aid has reached, and no work is going on. People are starving. There is almost no potable water. Most of the aid - ours included - has gone to private companies who kept most of the money.

ICH will seem radical. That's only because it tries to news sources that tell the stories we don't see in our papers. I don't believe all its sources. but most of them have proven right.

Funny how the new guy from outside comes here and wants to claim teh oldsters are the "trolls".

Pathetic really.

So you cut/paste things in from other threads, out of context, and tag on the "I know you are but what am I" excuse in a vain attempt to draw attention away from your own prejudice... and you call US trolls? ROFLMAO!

At least have the decency to label your post "LAME WARNING" at the top, so people who don't know you won't have to read your shit by mistake.