<p>“Yes, I often think how very alike are American and Middle Eastern fundamentalists.”</p>
<p>Not just the fundamentalists. The Texas oilmen and the Iranian oilmen are blood-brothers under the skin, and together they are doing the happy dance!</p>
<p>If I were an Iranian, I’d want a nuclear weapon just as fast as I could get one, and for exactly the same reasons that the U.S. built 'em to begin with.</p>
<p>Calm down, guys. Hillary will fix everything when she becomes pres. Don’t worry so much. The smartest woman in the world, after all.</p>
<p>Yeah right. The last thing we want is an anti-Semitic woman for president.</p>
<p>HH, I know that not every Bush voter is a fundamentalist, or a dominionist. I also know that while Bush is a faux fundamentalist, he and his cronies have a savvy way of appealing to their base, which is strongly comprised of fundamentalists whose ideology is comprised of those “cultural, moral” wedge issues. </p>
<p>But Mini knows that the real machinery of this administration is not the religious right wing, but the corporate oilmen and war profiteers.</p>
<p>If the real machinery of this administration (or the Republicans generally speaking) were the religious right wing, there wouldn’t be such a passel of adulterers, fornicators, and wife deserters running for President. </p>
<p>What about Clinton?</p>
<p>I loved the the pace of the book ‘Reading Lolita in Tehran’. It was so much hope leaking out of a balloon, wasn’t it?</p>
<p>Getting back to the OP–let’s examine the reasons Ahmadinejad would take this tack.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Some of my Chinese friends insist that the 23 million that Mao killed in his purges were the most expediant way to unify China. The elites were the smallest group to eliminate. Is therea correlation in Iran?</p></li>
<li><p>As the Iranian intellectuals do not appear to have much sway, could this be a counter threat to the Western threat of sanctions? (We can’t swallow bitter losses such as these?)</p></li>
<li><p>Has the CIA been more successful than currently reported inthe media? Are Iranian intellectuals posing a real threat to the fundamentalists?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The reason Ahmadinejad would take this tack is because he (and the vast majority of Iranians) believes his country is under siege. The cultural memory of the Shah and his murderous American-trained and equipped torturers is that the liberal intelligentsia tried to overthrow him and failed, the moderates tried to overthrow him and failed, the socialists tried to overthrow him and failed, the communists tried to overthrow him and failed, and the Islamicists overthrew him - the fifth most powerful military power in the world at the time, backed by the most powerful military power in the history of the world - without firing a shot.</p>
<p>So it is part and parcel of a movement of “national unity” for a country that sees itself under siege, resorting to a cultural memory of what worked. Everyone in Iran has a memory of who supported the Shah and who didn’t, and Ahmadinejad knows how to play that one well.</p>
<p>My first published article (1973) was on the torture and murder of virtually all of Iran’s writers, poets, and novelists by the Shah and his Fort Benning-trained secret police. </p>
<p>This too shall pass. Iranians elected a moderate government (Rafsanjani), then a liberal one (Khatami), and, when threats became palpable, a reactionary one (Ahmadinejad), and, if not interrupted, the pendulum will swing again.</p>
<p>Mini,the pendulum in Iran seems to have continued to swing further right, with more fundamentalism, not less (yes, I know that you see Khatami as a liberal, even if it really was more of the same ol’, same ol’ to most people…socially and religiously, there was still plenty of repression).</p>
<p>Oh, don’t get me wrong - I think Ahmadinejad is a jerk. I’m also aware that Rafsanjani, who lost the election by a vast margin, is the chair of the Councilor Circle, suggesting that the religious authorities are more moderate than what comes out of the jerk’s mouth.</p>
<p>But what’s going on there is not that difficult to understand. They see themselves (rightly or wrongly) as a nation and people under siege, and speak and act accordingly.</p>
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<p>This brings up an interesting point. Why is there this blue “lock on higher education?” Why are so many of the top colleges in the US blue? There is no federal law that says college professors must be liberal or that conservatives or even fundamentalists can’t put together a top flight university. What is stopping them? </p>
<p>Why is it that really blue schools are places like Harvard and Berkeley and the really red ones are places like Bob Jones and Oral Roberts? Is that they best they can do?</p>
<p>Rather than complain about the liberals that dominate other universities, why not redress the imbalance and establish your own?</p>
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<p>Ahmedinejad is not a jerk. He understand the threat of the West and is doing all he can not to “liberalize” Islam. People on the other half of the world consider him as a good leader. Why dont you look at your own president before makinhg snide remarks at other’s?? I for one am glad that Ahmedinejad is in power.</p>
<p>All I can think of is that conservatives tend not to go into teaching, except for engineering, mathematics, the sciences and other “hard” subjects.</p>
<p>I don’t think most people have a problem with liberals teaching at all. Of course teachers have a right to their own political views. I think some have a problem with the politicization and radicalization of some academic subjects (and with the sort of amoral free-for-all atmospheres on some campuses).</p>
<p>This to me is an example of the absurd, and not unusual: </p>
<p><em>Feminist Disability Studies</em></p>
<p><a href=“Project MUSE - Feminist Formations”>Project MUSE - Feminist Formations;
<p>Oh the link doesn’t work. Here goes:</p>
<p><disability, sex=“” radicalism=“” and=“” political=“” agency=“” (abstract)=“”></disability,></p>
<p><this paper=“” uses=“” queer=“” and=“” disability=“” perspectives=“” to=“” argue=“” that=“” sexual=“” agency=“” is=“” central=“” political=“” agency,=“” a=“” group’s=“” experience=“” of=“” sexually-based=“” harms=“” constraints=“” on=“” should=“” be=“” recognized=“” as=“” hallmark=“” oppression.=“” it=“” explores=“” the=“” implications=“” erotophobia=“” affects=“” oppressed=“” groups,=“” role=“” shame=“” in=“” oppression=“” based=“” sexuality=“” gender,=“” medical=“” constructions=“” people=“” with=“” disabilities=“” others.=“” use=“” counter-discourses=“” coalition=“” politics=“” proposed=“” one=“” strategy=“” for=“” overcoming=“” corrosive=“” effects=“” groups=“” agency.=“”></this></p>
<p>“Really mini, shut up. Ahmedinejad is not a jerk. He understand the threat of the West and is doing all he can not to “liberalize” Islam.”</p>
<p>Sorry, but “jerk” is about as complimentary as I get for someone who denies the reality of the Holocaust. (And I do know indeed that he is lionized in some circles - I just got back from “that part of the world”.)</p>
<p>The real shame is that many of you are so blinded by your freedom that you can’t tell the difference between real oppression and a difference in idealogy freely expressed.</p>
<p>I think much of the Arab world is as scared ***less of Iran as the West.</p>
<p>Personally, I think Ahmedinejad is a genius (yes, a nutcase, but you can be a genius nutcase). He knows how to deflect attention from problems in his country better than most. The more inflammatory he is, the better.</p>
<p>Problem with him is, he really does mean what he says, so he is all the more dangerous. But, he’s a clever dude, sick as he is.</p>
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<p>So you find people with an opinion as jerks?? He didnt deny the Holocaust. He believes the Holocaust was exaggerrated. Isnt it ironic that you call him a “jerk” for plain rhetoric, while your own president makes snide remarks insulting Islam?? Most of us really dislike the Unites States for always stepping into our affairs. We realize the injustice of the Zionist regime (while people like you blame third parties), and never do we want to live in a state such as “modern day Iraq,” where Western values replace Islamic ones. Ahmedinejad is considered a bold man by many of us, and without him there would be generations of Muslims with great resentment on the West.</p>
<p>(btw, you should watch Mr. Ahmedinejad’s interview with Mike Wallace. You can also visit his blog <a href=“http://www.ahmadinejad.ir/[/url]”>http://www.ahmadinejad.ir/</a>)</p>
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<p>Excuse me??? Are you referring this to me?</p>
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<p>Nutcase, yes. But so is Olmert. Too bad Israel won’t get their soldiers back after killing hundreds of children and over a thousand civilians. Only a nutcase would “bomb a country back to the Stone Age” just beause two soldiers were kidnapped. In a way, the Zionist regime are very similar to their previous oppressors.</p>
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<p>LOL, I find that very inaccurate. Prolly Israel is scared, but most Arabs support Iran’s anti-western, anti-Zionist sentiment.</p>
<p>Oh, the nutcase just believes that the Holocaust was a “myth”. Sounds like denial to me.</p>
<p>TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has described the Holocaust as “a myth” and suggested that Israel be moved to Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska.</p>
<p>The United States, Israel and the European Commission – along with individual European countries – have condemned the remark.</p>
<p>Ahmadinejad sparked widespread international condemnation in October when he called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.” </p>
<p>Last week, he also expressed doubt about the killing by the Nazis of six million Jews during World War II, but Wednesday was the first occasion when he said in public that the Holocaust was a myth.</p>
<p>“They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech to thousands of people in the Iranian city of Zahedan, according to a report on Wednesday from Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.</p>
<p>“The West has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more significant than God, religion, and the prophets,” he said. “(It) deals very severely with those who deny this myth but does not do anything to those who deny God, religion, and the prophet.”</p>
<p>“If you have burned the Jews, why don’t you give a piece of Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to Israel,” Ahmadinejad said.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/12/14/iran.israel/[/url]”>http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/12/14/iran.israel/</a></p>
<p>Bandit: Perhaps. But to a non native born and non-christian, fundamentalism here or there are of the same color (may be different shades). I view both of them as a product of binary minds (either - or), and binary minds are dangerous.</p>