Oh, I thought I'd forgotten something. I forgot to die! It's hardly as if Americans or Brits have been protesting and getting served draconian punishments by their twisted Zionistic governments, right? We can't complain unless we're also dead. Great point.
Setting aside the sarcasm, I've repeatedly pointed out the plight of the heroic Iranian protestors who died, to the markedly deaf ears of people in this very post who are asserting Iran is somehow "the good guy" in their black and white moral tapestry.
You're talking about counterfactuals and hypotheticals. I am not. The evils of the past cannot excuse the continuation of evils into the future in my view. Just because we know where an evil came from does not make it not evil. Iran is run by evil men. They stand in opposition to countries run by evil men also, your point there is well taken. The Persians I've listened to who do geopolitical commentary seem to agree that Iran is run by evil men, even moreso after Trump's war. They wish for a more equatable society, but once you're part of a diaspora it's hard to imagine a path to get there, seems like. The ones who know their history don't want a return of monarchy either. It's an extremely difficult situation made far more difficult by the US and UK historical context. But let's at least call a spade a spade, slaying thousands of protestors is evil.
The collective "we" had it good. As in, the world generally including you unless you're posting from inside Iran. The strait is rightfully international waters and have been for ages. Anything less is a return to mercantilism.
How crazy do you have to be to look at the vicious crackdown last year and call Iran democratic? Just because I hate America doesn't mean I'm on the side of a bloody-handed authoritarian theocratic state. What is with you?
Quagmire. We had it good, Trump fucked us, and now if we back down and let Iran get their way, they'll be vastly more powerful and more evil than ever.
The stage production of Spirited Away was magical and captivating enough to hold the attention of my seven year old. For three hours. With subtitles. From the cheap seats. It is really really good.
Penn and Teller's stage magic show was really something. Some of what I saw has stuck with me for years.
Itchy-O, the marching band from hell, does a show that will leave a permanent mark on you. We were fortunate enough to see them on Halloween, and everyone was in costumes. Hard to beat that.
Afrique en Cirque was incredible, we saw that and 360 All Stars at the Edinburgh fringe one year. That same week, we saw The Shadow Kingdom which was transformative. It's like a whole animated film that they just create right in front of you with nothing but puppets, a light, a boombox, and two people. It's truly unique, and I don't know why more people don't do a show like this.
It's a difficult thing to articulate, so I've put off responding. Sorry. I think there's a lot of daylight between how we view the US electorate for one thing - but perhaps not as much as I first thought. You're right that the distinctive difference between left and right-leaning voters is that only one side is highly critical of their candidates and easily falls out of love with them, while the other is a lot more willing to be led and uncritical. That's all pretty much what you'd expect from the research by Dr. Altemeyer on authoritarian personalities.
I do not mean to propose that we should be uncritical of self-styled leftist candidates, only that we should be more willing to forgive. I think of people like Al Franken and (across the pond) Jeremy Corbyn who were doing good things and were successfully ousted based on smears and vibes. I do not mean they are perfect or that we should vote 'blue no matter who', but that we should give grace to people who get smeared because we live in an adverse media environment where billionaire-owned news and social media clearly give preferential treatment to the right, and often silences or viciously smears anyone who might be a problem. And we let them rob us of the voices we need in politics. That's all.
A lot of my thoughts revolve around the game-theoretic implications of elections under FPTP. I feel that the dominant strategy in that 'game' is a bipolar oligarchy of mutually complicit actors who, in lay terms, run a good-cop/bad-cop con on the voter. You see it in the US very clearly, and to a lesser extent in the UK (because it's a different game, and the bipolar tendency is not as strong I think - though the chatter after the recent elections does seem to be reframing things in terms of Green v. Reform as a major upset, so it might just end up being a continuation of the same dynamic under different circumstances).
So in that situation of good cop/bad cop that I see happening, yes different things motivate different voters but - crucially - these two parties are operating on two sides of the same basic con (and I don't think it's a con that necessarily involves deliberate awareness of the con, I just see it as an emergent aspect of this game).
Basically I just hate the game, it needs to change. I don't know how cogent you'll find this, sorry I don't have a lot of time to edit down. Until someone's doing that, I'm going to advocate for being more forgiving. Still critical, but knowing that every time we cut someone loose we're weaker, and they're always stacking the deck against us.
It is though. Property doesn't know who it belongs to like crap you steal in a video game, all flagged red when you try to sell it at a potion shop. Owning the information on your computer is as natural as owning the bugs that are eating your mouldy mint plant.
Disobedience is the key, it would have worked back in Germany and it would work today. Teach your children political disobedience, because not enough adults know how anymore.
I only feel sorry about the money that is now gathered up into the hands of an empowered monster instead of safely dispersed amongst brainless lickspittles.
It all runs on 'norms' 😒