Taking Control? Damn it, Mike Pence!

These protests are big. Bigger than some people want to admit.

I don’t think any regime has put down a mass nonviolent revolt of this size, not in recent history anyway. It seems hard to imagine the regime using the kind of force it would take to get hundreds of thousands of people off the streets of several major Iranian cities. That’s not to say it’s not possible. Or perhaps the regime can wait out the protests until the crowd sizes shrink, and then targeted violence may work. But I have a hunch that’s not what’s going to happen. It hasn’t worked that way anywhere in the world in the past 23 years, since the People Power revolution in the Philippines. Instead, what has happened is that once huge masses of the populace lose the fear that has kept them atomized and prevented them from engaging in politics, that fear is gone for good, and the security forces ultimately wilt.

Maybe I’m wrong, and certainly the ideology of theocratic Islam could provide the kind of motivation one would need to discipline security forces into killing large numbers of their own countrymen. But if I had to bet, right now, I’d bet Ahmadinejad is going to be forced to resign.

Ayatollah Khamenei's threat.

Mike Pence (sadly, from my state) is a complete fool, and is going about this the wrong way. Somehow he has missed the fact that associating the American government with this in a formal way is going to hurt this movement because the last thing the Ayatollah needs is more fuel from us to say that this is about America and not the Iranian people. Sadly, despite the short-sightedness and transparency of this as an effort to use this revolution to build political credit for legislators... everybody knows they can't be seen voting against it. Some shit just shouldn't be allowed to the floor.

If there's something that you want to do to enable Iranian people in their revolution, all they need are the means to speak for themselves. This isn't our fight, this isn't our government and neither will whatever government comes out of this. This belongs to Iranians. If you want to help, open things up for their voices.

Information on how to set up BADLY NEEDED proxies for Iranians trying to get around the bans. Windows. Mac.