from the information-wants-to-be-free dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Iran is offline and has been for three days after the government responded to widespread protests by killing the internet.
Anti-government protests started on Friday when the authorities announced a sudden 50 per cent increase in fuel prices. The protests quickly spread to over 100 cities and towns, reflecting deeper hostility to the authoritarian establishment. That establishment responded by cutting off the internet to 80 million people on Saturday night.
As a result it has been increasingly difficult to follow what is going on inside the country or how many people have been injured or killed. The government has acknowledged three deaths, but there have been at least eight reported and more are expected.
Even with the price increase Iran’s 13 cents a liter gas prices remain among the cheapest in the world, but the decision to raise the price was just one more sign of Iran’s faltering economy, in part due to continued sanctions on the country.
Iran’s response was depressingly predictable - its National Security Council instructed all ISPs to cut off internet access out of “national security interests.”
Despite the ban however, citizens have quickly discovered that Iran runs two internets: a public internet and a separate network that the government and universities are tapped into and which is still operational.
[...] In a worrying sign of what may really be going on, however, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in an official statement on Monday that it was planning to take “decisive action” against any further protests, raising the possibility of dozens of deaths as has happened repeatedly in recent years.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @08:44AM
I kill shits for less.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @08:46AM (16 children)
Issues like this are so hard to follow.
Iran in particular we effectively created the current government. Iran had a nice secular government in the 1950s. That nice secular government wasn't friendly with our oil interests, so we overthrew them by staging a CIA backed coupe. In their place we stuck a disliked pro-western (surprise surprise) authoritarian monarchy. That monarchy was overthrown by real people in 1979. In his place they established the hardline Islamic anti-Western theocracy that exists to this day. It's like the CIA constantly forgets that Newton's Third applies as much to politics as it does to physics - for every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction.
Especially in the day and age of mass misinformation campaigns with media collusion, it's pretty much impossible to have any clue what's happening in any area where there are US interests. And unfortunately given our tendency to poke our noses into everything, that means pretty much the entire world. So is this a real revolution? A CIA backed revolution? A mixture of the two? Same story in places like Hong Kong, Venezuela, and so on. Spain at least seems genuine, yet like most other protests happening around the world gets next to no coverage. I imagine most people don't even know it's happening. It's just these protests that have strongly favor US geopolitical interests (such as in Hong Kong) that get extensive, and absurdly biased, media coverage. Go figure.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @09:06AM
"... our oil interests ..."
That is, British interest, i.e. British Petroleum, BP. You know, the guys that spewed tons of oil in the Gulf of Mexico several years ago.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @09:11AM (6 children)
Instead of protesting, people should actually vote. And work within the system to make it better. Emotional outbursts do nothing, but end up in Syria-like quagmires and general bullshit all around. These are suppose to be smart people. Yet they protest like idiots for stupid, predictable reasons. But it's always easier to tear things down than build things up.
Hong Kong protests is a prime example of "idiot protesters". WTF do they expect to happen now? Take what you reasonably can and declare victory. Don't overreach - you'll get squished.
Iran is another - protesting because price of gas goes up?? Just increase prices for transport accordingly. Iran has much larger problems than oil/gas -- WATER mismanagement. You can live without oil. You can't live without water. Priorities!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Wednesday November 20 2019, @09:17AM (3 children)
Does Iran have free and fair elections?
Are Iranians protesting simply because of gas prices or was it the straw that broke the camel's back?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @03:18PM (1 child)
I'm starting to realize it was never democracy that has produced the results it has. It's been collections of people generally being able to put aside their differences to work together. Democracy was just a proxy for this underlying phenomena and a natural result of such. In modern times I think we're seeing what happens as that willingness to work together starts to fade. It's the same reason that you never saw democracy arise organically in most places outside Europe. It's also probably the same reason that the original democracy, in Greece, was quite short lived. The system is nothing particularly unique or surprising. "Hey guys, we want pizza. Screw that, we want hamburgers. How do we decide? Vote." Probably something that's been done since the day of the first disagreements. What was lacking was not democracy, but cooperation on a very wide level that enables democracy to function.
The point of this is that votes have nothing to do with really making meaningful change.
- 'Here we'll decide by democracy. Vote if you'd like to leave the EU!'
- 'WTF you imbeciles? You weren't supposed to say yes. No we're not leaving, you uninformed ignorant peasants.'
- 'Hey I agree Guantanamo Bay is an awful place and thing that goes against everything our nation stands for. Vote for me and I'll close it on day 1!'
- [1500 days later] 'Oops my bad. I can't close it. I'm only the president and with a majority in both the house and senate, after all. Oh yeah, but what I can do is pass a new law [wikipedia.org] to enable me to throw American citizens in there if need be for arbitrarily long times without trial or charge. Don't worry, it's for your safety and I think the founding fathers would really appreciate the wisdom behind this. It was none other than Ben Franklin that said, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety are really smart people." Indeed his wisdom, really gives one the chills.'
But of course you can make change. But change doesn't come from acting like a monkey in the streets. It comes from understanding what the other guy wants and then cooperating to try to create some meet in the middle. And in the grand scheme of things we all want the exact same things. That's not to sing Kumbaya - obviously there are some people who this world would be much better off without. But I think now a days people are just labeling everybody who doesn't agree with them down to a tee to be those people. It's like we jump straight from "Well I didn't get exactly what I wanted." to "RIOT!!!"
And people don't seem to understand that those who are in power just cannot concede to such things, even if they want to. It would incentivize that behavior in the future. E.g. if Hong Kong gave the protesters what they wanted at this point, all it would do is tell them that anytime they want to get their way they just need to go hurt a lot of people and destroy a bunch of other peoples' property. Hong Kong runs a democratic election. Pro-china party wins!?!? RIOT!!! You don't get change like that, you end up repeating exactly what happened in the past where "discovered" democracy only to have that entire civilization collapse and end up being supplanted by the quite regressive, but incredibly successful, feudal systems from which most of us now descend.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @07:36PM
Pro-china party wins!?!? RIOT!!!
Trump wins!?!? IMPEACH!!! and a few riots too, just for the hell of it, why not?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday November 20 2019, @05:33PM
Not really: All candidates for elected office have to have the approval of the Guardian Council, an unelected group of ayatollahs. And if it comes down to it, the armed forces also answer to the ayatollahs, not the elected officials.
From what I can gather, a lot of the problem has to do with a lot of younger Iranians wanting a secular democracy, while older Iranians who were alive in the 1970's and/or fought in the Iran-Iraq War are still pretty loyal to the regime. A lot of the youth want to be able to drink, smoke, and bang freely, and the strict moral laws they're living under don't allow for that (although my understanding is that there are some who do that sort of thing anyways despite it being illegal).
Unfortunately, those younger people longing for freedom are screwed for the foreseeable future, due to what's going on internationally: The Russians consider the current Iranian government a strong ally, and the Israelis and Americans by all appearances would rather have the status quo than a secular democracy.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @11:06AM
What if there are no secular candidates?
(Score: 2) by EEMac on Wednesday November 20 2019, @12:13PM
Out of bread?? Let them eat cake! [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:45PM (7 children)
I can see why.
Kleptocracies don't have a good survival rate.
Really? There's plenty more media sources in the world than those that allegedly collude with the US.
Sounds like there's no point to listening to what you say, because it's impossible for you to know anything.
Look at how many normal people showed up for the revolution. That's the metric that matters. If a "CIA backed" revolution happens to bring out a zillion people, then it's a for real revolution.
And same answer, should you choose to think about it.
Stuff that is important to "us" gets covered? Who knew that would happen?
Yet again, we have this pointless search for US cooties in the actions of a bunch of people trying to make themselves freer. So what if it's partially CIA-backed? This would be a better use of the CIA and US resources than replacing one kleptocracy with another.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @04:05PM (6 children)
I'd recommend reading and responding to things holistically. Makes it much easier than going line by line without context of the whole, and is like to improve your reading comprehension.
The point you may have missed, in between the lines: the resources of the CIA enable unpopular groups to grab power disproportionate to their influence, support, or power. In the short run this succeeds, it then trends towards chaos, and ultimately tends to backfire. It's the exact same problem with Machiavellianism in general. The ends do not justify the means because the ends are rarely if ever what we envision. By contrast the means are very much something we get to live through. So I do think the CIA obviously had good intentions with all of their actions, yet now in looking back all they've achieved is screwing up a bunch of countries and creating the very enemies we face today.
As another example of our countless CIA screwups, there's Afghanistan. In 1988 Afghani mujahideen were fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan. We funneled immense amounts of money (more than $40 billion in total) and provided extensive training to these individuals. This is the exact time and place where one wealthy young man, Osama Bin Laden, built the relations and gained the training that would have him go on to form Al Qaeda. Less than 2 years later that training and funding would start to be directed against us. Thanks, CIA.
Our [probable] efforts to destabilize other nations miss the real problem. China is set to surpass the US by most metrics over the coming decades. Perhaps this is inevitable due to the population differences, but I think a big part of the reason this is happening, certainly as rapidly as it is, is because our progress as a nation has been stagnating for a number of decades now. Perhaps instead of wasting time engaging in black ops and meddling, we might consider simply trying to push for a more productive and effective society stateside. It's a damn shame we're now struggling to get back to the moon, something we achieved with negligible resources (relative to today), now more than 50 years ago!
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Wednesday November 20 2019, @04:54PM
A good analysis, except that China will never achieve the status it craves - for the same reasons.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday November 20 2019, @06:05PM (2 children)
I don't. The CIA has consistently supported brutally oppressive monarchs, dictators and military juntas over freedom and democracy for its entire existence. If your idea for how the world should be organized includes something resembling the Bill of Rights or EU Conventions on Human Rights for everybody (y'know, freedom of speech and religion and trials for crimes and such), then the CIA's actions have been pretty consistently evil. What they show that they want by their actions is a world controlled not by citizens voting for leaders that run countries with the consent of the governed, but puppet dictators who answer to the US government.
Examples of democracies the CIA has been at the forefront of overthrowing and replacing with dictatorships include but are probably not limited to:
- Iran in 1953
- Guatamala in 1954
- Haiti in 1959
- Ecuador in 1961-3
- Dominican Republic in 1963
- Congo (Zaire) in 1963-5
- Brazil in 1964
- Indonesia in 1965
- Greece in 1966-7
- Bolivia in 1971
- Chile in 1973
- Argentina in 1976
- Haiti (again) in 1990
- Honduras in 2009
- Bolivia (again) just this month
They justified all of this as "We have to stop the Russian Commies!" But as you can see, the behavior didn't stop when the USSR ended. And there's a mountain of evidence that the main reason that they've done this is that US businesses don't like the laws those democracies were either passing or threatening to pass. From what we know about their activities, the CIA has consistently supported torture, rape, and murder everywhere it has influence. For example, the torture done at Gitmo was exactly the torture that the US had taught Latin American dictators to do in a program known as the "School of the Americas" at Fort Bragg.
"obviously had good intentions" my ass.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Thursday November 21 2019, @12:03AM (1 child)
Understatement of the week there!
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday November 21 2019, @12:58AM
Bear in mind I was limiting this to places which had established liberal democracies until the US showed up. Replacing, say, a Soviet-friendly dictator with a US-friendly dictator wasn't included.
One of the CIA's earliest activities was tracking down Nazis, not to bring them to justice but to recruit them to work for the US. As far as I'm concerned, everything they've done since has been fruits of a poisoned tree.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday November 21 2019, @05:18AM (1 child)
Consider that the efforts of the CIA to destabilize other nations are probably directly proportional to how much of the CIA had become a Soviet asset.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 21 2019, @06:12AM
Considering that at the height of McCarthyism the second in command of the CIA was KGB...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @11:29AM (3 children)
Well there is your problem right there, the government should not be setting fuel prices to begin with.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @11:51AM (2 children)
Or controlling communications [google.com] - no matter how great your pals are at wiring stuff up. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @12:21PM (1 child)
I'm not clicking a Google link, what does it say?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @12:38PM
Google Amp - Here's the story. [bbc.co.uk]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Wednesday November 20 2019, @12:14PM (4 children)
Yesterday, during all of this, it was the top news story on Democracy Now, that Iran has *gasp* spies and political influence in Iraq.
I wanted to ask, how many spies and political influencers does Israel have in Iraq?
Then this is going on, Iran's leaders have mentioned the chance of foreign interference. I think there is a pretty much 100% chance israel and the united states have deep undercover agents inciting revolt in Iran.
Considering that this is timed perfectly with the sanctions and the 'leaked iraq cables', I would say there is a 100% chance this is a form of warfare and I can understand why Iran would do something like cut off the internet, to inhibit and track down spies. The united states would do the same thing, or has done similar things like the banning plane travel after 9/11.
The moral hypacrisy and blindness to propaganda is astounding here though. Even ITT you can see the anon disinfo, trying to frame this as iran being an evil totalitarian country. Iran is fighting for its life, it can defend itself. It is being attacked in a 100 different ways, after trying earnestly to negotiate a peace deal, which was thrown out the window arbitrarily. (by a u.s. president who did not even come close to winning the popular vote, and who is deeply tied to israeli zionism)
Have you heard of the yinnom plan? This has been going on for a long while now and we should try to stop it, or just admit you don't care about the united nations, peace, the end of the world etc.
https://coinsh.red/u/i.swisscows.ch9.png [coinsh.red]
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @12:28PM
The behavior of the US and Israeli behavior is routine and of no concern, said an official familiar with a procedure.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @01:45PM (2 children)
Mr. Hudson,
My operatives at وِزارَتِ اِطّلاعات جُمهوریِ اِسلامیِ ایران inform me that you have been subjected to gross violations of your person and property by the zionist scum and their American lapdogs some time.
They have reviewed your writings at thesystemsarefailing.net and jmichaelhudson.net and inform me that you are a fine, upstanding man who seeks only truth, peace and a safe place to fight for the freedom of us all.
In light of this, I would like to invite you to join our glorious Islamic Republic as an honored guest. We will welcome you with open arms and the protections of Allah.
You will find no zionists or their lackeys in our wonderful country. Please contact the Iranian embassy nearest you and we will arrange transport for you and your family.
We look forward to hosting you in Teheran.
Cordially,
Hassan Rouhani
President, جمهوری اسلامی ایران
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Thursday November 21 2019, @11:42AM (1 child)
Thank you, I appreciate all invitations and I might consider this even if just to hear more sides of a story and write about the world.
However, I am quite comfortable in Europe right now, and I am pleased the E.U. refused to allow the settlements and also continues to honor the treaty signed by Obama. You should however be apprised that the zionist paramilitaries are active harassing people like myself on the streets of Saarbrücken, Germany, while they complain about a non-existent epidemic of nazis.
An enemy of my enemy is sadly not always my friend, and although there are many things about Iran I find interesting and nice, I am not sure someone with my liberal beliefs could ever be comfortable under a theocratic government. You may note this is the same criticism I have of the zionist entity, and the republican party in the united states. (although in my opinion neither follow their own religion at all)
I am a critic of all religious equally, and neither christianity, judiasm or islam has yet convinced me their way is the best one. I have however found many insights in all three which I have incorporated into my personal beliefs.
All three belief systems would do well to consider and incorporate many findings of buddhism and modern psychotropic study, and to stop treating their adherents like children who must be protected from new ideas.
For one, any country or nation who does not allow their people to grow whichever plants they like, and to have freedom over their own diet, will never be attractive to me.
Nor will any country or belief system that is threatened by mere words or artwork, so that they must censor the ideas their citizens are allowed to hear, ever gain my allegiance or respect.
That said, I am doing all I can to stop the clear aggression against Iran and the islamic people of the world, and should you have any questions about my efforts or ideas I would be happy to discuss this with you, Mr. President.
Larping(but not entirely),
J. Michael Hudson
ps if you like the antizionism memes, the best way to insure I keep making them is to send me btc or xmr, or paypal works too I suppose :) The red button ones are the most important, spread those far and wide.
pps epstein did not kill himself and is still alive, please let everyone in Iran know, thanks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 21 2019, @02:09PM
Already done, and the SPLC, ADL Wiesenthal Center were *most* appreciative.
I knew you wouldn't mind, so I donated in your name.
And you're welcome!
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday November 20 2019, @01:49PM (17 children)
Is there another way to get the signal out?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:00PM (5 children)
So are anti-biotics, bath salts and the tooth fairy.
And don't even get me started on feminine hygiene products!
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:18PM (2 children)
Wow! Really? I didn't know those things could block your internet. I'll fire off a firmly worded letter to Johnson & Johnson right away, soon as the commercial comes on..
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @08:04PM
I don't know about that.
I have two ISPs and neither one has ever blocked my traffic. And that's just my home Internet.
The fucking tooth fairy is forever unplugging my router. Asshole!
feminine hygiene products on the other hand, block up the intertubes all the time. and when they don't they cause serious packet loss and throttle TCP/5222. Bloody [wikipedia.org] tampons!
Now look what you've done! I told you not to get me started on those!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday November 21 2019, @12:16AM
Just try sticking a tampon in your WAN port :) There is a reason I use pads...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday November 20 2019, @10:25PM (1 child)
That was Devin Nunes' closing statement at the impeachment hearing today. Plagiarist!
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 21 2019, @12:02AM
Don't have a cow about it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by pkrasimirov on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:02PM (3 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:14PM
RFC 1149 [ietf.org] FTW!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:28PM (1 child)
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a pigeon full of microSD cards.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @10:24PM
Or a mule with a stomach full of fentanyl-stuffed condoms.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Tokolosh on Wednesday November 20 2019, @04:58PM (4 children)
Despite whining astronomers, Mr. Musk is making it possible, and removing the power of the thought police. Once all the satellites are up, and he has air-dropped modems across the shithole countries, things are going to get interesting.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Wednesday November 20 2019, @05:19PM (3 children)
He's just being another ISP with a central office and control center. It will get even more interesting when the government tells Mr. Musk to turn the thing off. We need something a bit more bulletproof, that can't be turned off by anybody, ad hoc, multiple signal paths, etc...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 21 2019, @05:25AM
That is exactly what Skynet wants too...
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Thursday November 21 2019, @03:06PM (1 child)
I fear that a bad actor will trigger a Kessler event. Meanwhile, I trust Musk more than any government, and that is not saying much.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday November 21 2019, @05:14PM
Musk will follow orders like everybody else. He won't take any risks.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday November 21 2019, @01:29AM (1 child)
There are always other means of communication, but the first thing any dictator does in the face of opposition is try to control all the means of communication in an attempt to disorganize the opposition. And that means doing the hi-tech equivalent of cutting the wires.
If you're looking for less-fettered communications, I'd at least consider ham radio, which is monitored by the government but less easy for them to shut down - about all they can do is flood the legal bands with static, but the hams would have the equipment and likely the know-how to switch to frequencies outside of those bands if need be.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Thursday November 21 2019, @02:08AM
TCP/IP over AX.25/Packet Radio [wikipedia.org], preferably with IPSec FTW!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:05PM (2 children)
13 cents per liter? What kind of unit is that? If the price is going to be translated to US currencies, why not go all the way and give price per gallon, which is 49 cents? Yes, the US ought to go metric finally, but ... inertia.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @06:46PM
I ought not to reply to this.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday November 21 2019, @06:15AM
Perhaps its Canadian currency? Seen gas for 122.9 cents a litre today. The problem with gallons is whose do you use, a real gallon defined as 10 lbs or 4.54 kg of water or an obsolete one?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Wednesday November 20 2019, @06:47PM
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C. S. Lewis:
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."