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[My Gang] John Lennon - Power To The People : Reco of the Week 16 Jun 09…
16 Jun 2009, 20:58
Track:
Power to the People (full track)
Artist: John Lennon
Tags: politics, activism, my gang rotw
Video: Click the pic...
YouTube
Well, what else was I going to pick this week, the week of a fraudulent election in Iran, mass protests, banned media, internet censorship, worldwide support and the sudden vital importance of, of all things, Twitter. #iranelection.
This is no ordinary protest and it's not just about a disputed election. It's the biggest rally since the days of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Live shooting into peaceful, silent protestors wasn't limited to Tehran, there are reports that it was happening in many other cities around the country, increasing international concern.
Iran is an extremely sophisticated country when it comes to new technology. There are more bloggers there than anywhere else. They are highly intelligent and well-educated, many having studied overseas. 50% of the population are under the age of 25. 70% weren't even born when the Shah was in power. We have a huge disparity between a very young and vital population and ageing hard-line leaders. It was only a matter of time before years of brewing resentment burst.
The Iranian nation has woken up. People who are not usually vocal are out in the streets. Demonstrations are usually difficult to organise yet Tehran's Azadi Square (Freedom Square), which has a capacity of 500,000, was packed.

There's no leader of the mass protests. No one is giving speeches or directing people. Just thousands upon thousands of people fed up and angry. Initially, it was a foregone conclusion that Ahmadinejad would 'win' then out of nowhere came Mousavi who gave people hope. (sound familiar?)

Initially called the revolution within the revolution, once the news came out that official guards were switching sides, it became reasonable to view events as the beginning of something much bigger.
Foreign journalists were banned from leaving their offices and hotels. Restrictions started on the day of the election. This forced people to get the news out themselves, becoming citizen journalists, posting to social network sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. Facebook was eventually blocked. Videos posted to YouTube were being removed. This left Twitter and Flickr to get the messages out. Despite attempts to restrict that too, Twitter leads the way in the cyberwar. Twitter can't be controlled by government. People can tweet via mobile phones, web browsers or specialized applications. It is the ultimate vehicle for freedom of speech. Whilst official news agencies were playing down events, real news from the streets was being tweeted. And as one person put it, "140 chars is a novel when you're being shot at."
'Tweets' poured in at a rate of about 200 per minute at one point in the early hours of Tuesday morning (UK). They came from within Iran, from students and ordinary people, from saboteurs intent on derailing and confusing people, as well as from around the world. I was watching late at night whilst Europe was sleeping. At that time, the messages of support were coming from Americans. People were 're-tweeting' breaking news and information of interest and crucially, were offering private proxies to Iranians who had had their internet blocked. It was hard to keep up. Journalist, Andrew Sullivan, pulled together a list of must-see tweets - Live-Tweeting The Revolution. Tweeters changed their avatars to green, Mir-Hossein Mousavi's campaign color, and some changed their time and location to fool Iranian officials. We didn't see a single celebrity.

Twitter itself was due for a scheduled maintenance last night during peak Iranian hours. Thousands of Tweeters protested. Then the US Government stepped in and requested it stay up due to the extraordinary circumstances.
Images that came in were extremely distressing. Although some were removed from YouTube, newspapers were able to grab them and post them on their own sites. Here's a short list, and of course, be warned.
Excellent photo-journalism: The Boston Globe
Personal photos of the election protests on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fhashemi/
New York Times on the Twitter story: Social Networks Spread Defiance Online
YouTube video Iranian dead boy carried by crowd (extremely upsetting): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKgz6huzHGY
Videos hosted on Breitbart.tv - http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=360933 The first video shows guards inside a private house beating a man to motionlessness.
The Guardian pulls together more videos: From Iran to the world
Exclusive to UK Channel 4 News: news report
Picasa Web Album - destruction at Tehran University
Must see video: What's going on in Iran? June 2009 Green Revolution Watch it. Share it.
Also see:
Obama's "deeply troubled" speech in full: Peace Action West - blog
Boing Boing issued a cyberwar guide: Cyberwar guide for Iran elections
The Times: Iran curbs rallies and media after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election
The New York Times described the background: Iran
Good blog to watch: Where Is My Vote?
And even the Pirate Bay joined in, the link going to a bulletin board:

Tweeters to follow:
persiankiwi
Change_for_Iran an Iranian student
mousavi1388
Follow the hashtag #iranelection. Don't worry about the lies sending you off to other searches. This one works fine.
I don't think we're witnessing 'unrest'. I think we're witnessing change on a massive scale. I am just old enough to remember the Iranian Revolution of 1979. I was still young but I'd started taking an interest in the news and my Dad took the time to explain things to me. 1979 was also the year Pakistan's President Bhutto was sentenced to death. And no, he wasn't hanged like it says in Wikipedia. He was tortured to death in his prison cell and his battered corpse was hung. That was when his wife and children were allowed to see him. 1979 was the year Islam shifted from a progressive, forward thinking mindset to the virtual opposite. 30 years down the line and to me, it looks like we might be witnessing the beginnings of a reversal. Just a few days ago, an anti-Taliban muslim cleric was bombed by the Taliban, presumably for not being 'muslim enough'. In his speech in Russia, Ahmadinejad talked about the coming of 'an end of empires', meaning the USA. More like it's an end of his own. Inshallah.
The world is watching.
UPDATE: 17 June 09 - I won't update this journal but if you wish to keep up with things I find, see my StumbleUpon tag for iran-election
Last.fm group: Iran (The Green Revolution)
Babs My Gang
Reco of the Week archives

Ahmadinejad getting "Clicked to death"!!
Admin - Stats as of today:
Last.fm listeners of this track - 67,394
No. of plays scrobbled in Last.fm - 182,898
Position in Last 7 Days: 15 / 842
Position in Last 6 Months: 15 / 17,236
Video
Date Added: 10 September 2006
Views: 367,779, Ratings: 1,036, Comments: 814, Favourited: 2,150 times
Stats after 7 days: (to be added)
Unique Visitors
Page Views
.
Artist: John Lennon
Tags: politics, activism, my gang rotw
Video: Click the pic...
YouTubeWell, what else was I going to pick this week, the week of a fraudulent election in Iran, mass protests, banned media, internet censorship, worldwide support and the sudden vital importance of, of all things, Twitter. #iranelection.
This is no ordinary protest and it's not just about a disputed election. It's the biggest rally since the days of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Live shooting into peaceful, silent protestors wasn't limited to Tehran, there are reports that it was happening in many other cities around the country, increasing international concern.
Iran is an extremely sophisticated country when it comes to new technology. There are more bloggers there than anywhere else. They are highly intelligent and well-educated, many having studied overseas. 50% of the population are under the age of 25. 70% weren't even born when the Shah was in power. We have a huge disparity between a very young and vital population and ageing hard-line leaders. It was only a matter of time before years of brewing resentment burst.
The Iranian nation has woken up. People who are not usually vocal are out in the streets. Demonstrations are usually difficult to organise yet Tehran's Azadi Square (Freedom Square), which has a capacity of 500,000, was packed.

There's no leader of the mass protests. No one is giving speeches or directing people. Just thousands upon thousands of people fed up and angry. Initially, it was a foregone conclusion that Ahmadinejad would 'win' then out of nowhere came Mousavi who gave people hope. (sound familiar?)
Initially called the revolution within the revolution, once the news came out that official guards were switching sides, it became reasonable to view events as the beginning of something much bigger.
Foreign journalists were banned from leaving their offices and hotels. Restrictions started on the day of the election. This forced people to get the news out themselves, becoming citizen journalists, posting to social network sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. Facebook was eventually blocked. Videos posted to YouTube were being removed. This left Twitter and Flickr to get the messages out. Despite attempts to restrict that too, Twitter leads the way in the cyberwar. Twitter can't be controlled by government. People can tweet via mobile phones, web browsers or specialized applications. It is the ultimate vehicle for freedom of speech. Whilst official news agencies were playing down events, real news from the streets was being tweeted. And as one person put it, "140 chars is a novel when you're being shot at."
'Tweets' poured in at a rate of about 200 per minute at one point in the early hours of Tuesday morning (UK). They came from within Iran, from students and ordinary people, from saboteurs intent on derailing and confusing people, as well as from around the world. I was watching late at night whilst Europe was sleeping. At that time, the messages of support were coming from Americans. People were 're-tweeting' breaking news and information of interest and crucially, were offering private proxies to Iranians who had had their internet blocked. It was hard to keep up. Journalist, Andrew Sullivan, pulled together a list of must-see tweets - Live-Tweeting The Revolution. Tweeters changed their avatars to green, Mir-Hossein Mousavi's campaign color, and some changed their time and location to fool Iranian officials. We didn't see a single celebrity.

Twitter itself was due for a scheduled maintenance last night during peak Iranian hours. Thousands of Tweeters protested. Then the US Government stepped in and requested it stay up due to the extraordinary circumstances.
Images that came in were extremely distressing. Although some were removed from YouTube, newspapers were able to grab them and post them on their own sites. Here's a short list, and of course, be warned.
Excellent photo-journalism: The Boston Globe
Personal photos of the election protests on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fhashemi/
New York Times on the Twitter story: Social Networks Spread Defiance Online
YouTube video Iranian dead boy carried by crowd (extremely upsetting): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKgz6huzHGY
Videos hosted on Breitbart.tv - http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=360933 The first video shows guards inside a private house beating a man to motionlessness.
The Guardian pulls together more videos: From Iran to the world
Exclusive to UK Channel 4 News: news report
Picasa Web Album - destruction at Tehran University
Must see video: What's going on in Iran? June 2009 Green Revolution Watch it. Share it.
Also see:
Obama's "deeply troubled" speech in full: Peace Action West - blog
Boing Boing issued a cyberwar guide: Cyberwar guide for Iran elections
The Times: Iran curbs rallies and media after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election
The New York Times described the background: Iran
Good blog to watch: Where Is My Vote?
And even the Pirate Bay joined in, the link going to a bulletin board:

Tweeters to follow:
persiankiwi
Change_for_Iran an Iranian student
mousavi1388
Follow the hashtag #iranelection. Don't worry about the lies sending you off to other searches. This one works fine.
I don't think we're witnessing 'unrest'. I think we're witnessing change on a massive scale. I am just old enough to remember the Iranian Revolution of 1979. I was still young but I'd started taking an interest in the news and my Dad took the time to explain things to me. 1979 was also the year Pakistan's President Bhutto was sentenced to death. And no, he wasn't hanged like it says in Wikipedia. He was tortured to death in his prison cell and his battered corpse was hung. That was when his wife and children were allowed to see him. 1979 was the year Islam shifted from a progressive, forward thinking mindset to the virtual opposite. 30 years down the line and to me, it looks like we might be witnessing the beginnings of a reversal. Just a few days ago, an anti-Taliban muslim cleric was bombed by the Taliban, presumably for not being 'muslim enough'. In his speech in Russia, Ahmadinejad talked about the coming of 'an end of empires', meaning the USA. More like it's an end of his own. Inshallah.
The world is watching.
UPDATE: 17 June 09 - I won't update this journal but if you wish to keep up with things I find, see my StumbleUpon tag for iran-election
Last.fm group: Iran (The Green Revolution)
Babs My Gang
Reco of the Week archives

Ahmadinejad getting "Clicked to death"!!
Admin - Stats as of today:
Last.fm listeners of this track - 67,394
No. of plays scrobbled in Last.fm - 182,898
Position in Last 7 Days: 15 / 842
Position in Last 6 Months: 15 / 17,236
Video
Date Added: 10 September 2006
Views: 367,779, Ratings: 1,036, Comments: 814, Favourited: 2,150 times
Stats after 7 days: (to be added)
.





