@Robert Shule 48
As the head of the largest, wealthiest, oldest, most corrupt organization on earth, extorting money from the poor, working incessantly to deny reproductive health care to women resulting in poverty, misery and knowingly putting the biosphere at risk, why should anyone with a working conscience pay attention to anything this hypocrite says?

Posted by: Hermit | Dec 25 2022 21:25 utc | 103

Merry Christmas to all from an infrequent poster, but a daily reader. May peace reign in the hearts of all men in 2023.

Posted by: Buddy The Cat | Dec 25 2022 21:47 utc | 105

Merry Christmas everyone.
In Philadelphia, at this time of the year we get ready for the Mummers’ Day Parade on New Years Day.
Interestingly, back in 1999, the Quaker City String Band did a theme called ‘Reflections of Old Moscow. It was really done well. … See minstrel strumming banjos doing the Katusha … Mother Ginger with a St. George Ribbon … Tschikovsky … and a superb walk-off jazz march of ‘Midnight in Moscow’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi7BLvOQ3O8
Paradoxically, I found this gem from the Mummers’ archive. … Ukrainian-American String Band in 1981 did a theme called ‘The Spirit of the Cossacks’. … Watch as the band captain comes out front and slips onto his back. With the huge ‘Trident Backpiece’ he struggles like a tortoise stuck on his shell to try and get up. … It is hilarious! (and perhaps metaphorically prophetic of Ukrainian nationalism from 4 decades ago):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEZwZx3c_lw
Enjoy.

Posted by: Mummer | Dec 25 2022 21:55 utc | 107

Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 25 2022 20:53 utc | 99
Well said.
All: Here’s a little Christmas comedy for everyone here (except the trolls).
Today reminded me of one of the funniest comic books I ever read: DC’s The Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special.
The plot was a drunken Easter Bunny hired Lobo, DC’s unkillable (literally) anarchistic alien assassin (see here for the details on Lobo, who is essentially a cosmic biker) to assassinate Santa Claus because the Easter Bunny thought Christmas took too much away from the Easter holiday.
Santa Claus in turn is depicted as a tough, cigar-chewing brutal dictator ruling over his elves (who are malnourished and only get one break a year) and is the subject of Amnesty International and who only does one good deed a year – the Christmas run.
First Lobo uses a sniper rifle to gun down the elven guards, then takes a machine gun to massacre the rest who are defending themselves with pop guns. Lobo’s pet dog rips the elve’s heads off. Finally Lobo and Santa Claus have a brutal knife fight, which Lobo wins.
Then Lobo converts the toy making shop into a nuclear weapons facility, kills Rudolph the reindeer for refusing to help, then takes to the skies to rain nuclear hell on the planet.
My kind of Christmas story. 🙂
This was actually made by some fans into a short movie, which you can view on Youtube:
The Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special (2002)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuRIJA7KyHE
By the way, my favorite Christmas movie? You guessed it: “Die Hard”.
Die Hard (1988) – Ho Ho Ho Scene (1/5) | Movieclips
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0CL__Tvp-o
Every year, there is an argument whether “Die Hard” is actually a Christmas movie. This Youtube clip proves it is:
By the Numbers | Science Proves Die Hard is A Christmas Movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UekHfQnFHe8

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Dec 25 2022 22:07 utc | 109

Wishing a merry holiday to all barflies. I appreciate your astute, honest commentary all year long. Thank you a thousand times!

Posted by: tiger lily | Dec 25 2022 22:24 utc | 111

Merry Christmas everyone!

Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Dec 25 2022 22:39 utc | 113

Merry Christmas!

Posted by: blueswede 🎅 | Dec 25 2022 22:49 utc | 115

Merry Christmas to all!
May god help us.

Posted by: Massel Tov | Dec 25 2022 23:03 utc | 117

Merry Christmas to all!!!
And thanks to b and all the posters.

Posted by: Rick Happ | Dec 25 2022 23:07 utc | 119

Mike Jones… iEarlgrey…
Living in St Petersburg, decided to quit his job and get personally involved in the Donbass humanitarian deliveries….
1/MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
Thanks to you, the children of Donbass received not just gifts, but a message that THEY ARE NOT FORGOTTEN. They are loved, prayed for, and remembered by HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of you amazing people from all over the world, including in the West which is extremely important.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45vDWtXjEwQ
2/Christmas Message From Mariupol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoLQ4OKwWnk

Posted by: Melaleuca | Dec 25 2022 23:15 utc | 121

@Richard Steven Hack 109
Found it here:
https://readallcomics.com/lobo-paramilitary-christmas-special/

Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Dec 25 2022 23:49 utc | 123

So as we approach the year of 2023 Richard Boyle reflects on the economic idiocy of 2022 with excellent wit and a wry poke at nincompoops.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltijrdrmHyw
A whisky is appropriate for this meal ;))

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 26 2022 0:21 utc | 125

Krismas-e shoma mobarak.
Thanks for all that you do and the site b!

Posted by: Sakineh Bagoom | Dec 26 2022 1:19 utc | 127

in the spirit of Christmas, a video for anyone who hasn’t seen it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkmI1BHAr8I
there’s a longer version at Naked Capitalism links thread. warning, have anti nausea medicine handy.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Dec 26 2022 1:55 utc | 129

Yesterday waynorinorway | Dec 24 2022 19:46 utc | 28 posted a link to Black Liberation Theologist Dr. Cornel West who preached:

To be human is to be an extremist for love
To be human is to be a subversive for sweetness
To be human is to be a radical for gentleness

~~
Hear the Christmas Story from Rev. Madison Shockley, Dr. West’s student at Union Theological Seminary in New York.:
“…[T]he point of the Christmas story is actually the contest of two empires.
In its original context, the Empire of Rome, which colonized Palestine and the Judean people, and the Empire of God, which was the God of Israel.
The Empire of Rome ruled and brought peace, Pax Romana, through violence and the victory of war. The Empire of God brings peace through the victory of justice. This is the heart of the contest.
And these birth stories frame the birth of Jesus as the pivotal moment in this contest between empire of violence and the empire of justice. And nothing has changed.
The Christmas story today is still really about the contest of two empires, the empires of this world, the greatest of which now is the United States of America and the Empire of God.
The empires of this world claim to bring peace through victory in war and violence, while the Empire of God claims to bring peace through the victory of justice.
And Jesus is the Messiah, the designated one, the anointed one by God to represent the Empire of Justice.
And the point of the Christmas story is best exemplified by the wise ones. You know, the three magi. They went to whom? King Herod. And what did they tell him? Another king is being born.
If that’s not political, I don’t know what is. And they turned away from King Herod to worship the king that was being born named Jesus.
And this is the question that Christmas asks every year. Whom do you worship? The violent monarch and monarchies of the earth or the nonviolent monarch of justice? That’s really the heart of the Christmas story. “
interview with Robert Scheer. Transcript available.
https://scheerpost.com/2022/12/23/fact-checking-jesus/

Posted by: suzan | Dec 26 2022 2:26 utc | 131

Merry Christmas b and all other bar flies… especially james and RSH, always like to read your posts 🙂

Posted by: TonyL | Dec 26 2022 2:47 utc | 133

Честита Коледа!
Please, each and every day, find time for a hug for a loved one and for a moment of beauty! just a sunrise may do.. :))

Posted by: glupi | Dec 26 2022 3:11 utc | 135

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out. Martin Niemoller

Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | Dec 26 2022 3:24 utc | 137

Roman Christmas with Moscow Byzantine father frost giving out presies…. But whatever. Merry Christmas to all.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Dec 26 2022 4:16 utc | 139

Merry Christmas to the MoA Posse and С Новым Годом!
Russian Snow Boys – Happy New Year
Much love and a big hug to everyone! May 2023 bring a bit of peace to our sad and beautiful world!

Posted by: lex talionis | Dec 26 2022 4:35 utc | 141

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 26 2022 1:15 utc | 126
thanks for the link to the New Atlas video, this is a crucial subject. I’ve recently become aware of Sleboda, and Zha really knows his stuff. oh and merry christmas.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Dec 26 2022 4:57 utc | 143

Thank God Christmas is over and sanity is restored. Just a passing thought about US colonialism. In Syria the proxies didn’t good trade in cultural artefacts and in Ukraine we have no evidence that the cultural artefacts of monasteries and libraries has actually been destroyed.
The warmongering Nazi Joe Biden cares little about the sentiments expressed today by everyone here. He is a Nazi godfather and pagan. This is why barflies are assembled here daily to witness the Nazi
destruction of our civilisation and values.
Joe Biden has already achieved things that Hitler never achieved, such as the unification of All of Europe and the US into Nazi ideology. Biden or his zionist puppet masters must be congratulating themselves on the total destruction on all sides they have achieved so far.
Oh well, maybe the site needed to be cleared with bulldozers before being re- built better. Not sure if Soros and WEF think Nazism is the model for the great re-set, or something else. If so, what is that something else? A zionist empire of enslaved goyim?
Thankfully I am ahead of the game in Islam. My Christmas wish is that you all feel the laser glow in your retinas and realise that you are in the cross-hairs of Zionist Nazism. Come back Ken Luvinstone. All is forgiven. The lucky ones are the poor souls who have already died in this latest US fitna in Ukraine.

Posted by: Giyane | Dec 26 2022 5:47 utc | 145

My greatest regret is not that Christianity has this year been defeated by Zionist Nazism, the religion that Jesus pbuh was
sent to preach to and then to curse for their obdurate rejection of fear of either God or human beings.
I hang my head in shame that so far the Collective Muslims, both Arab and South Asian , but not the African or former Sibiet ones, have placed themselves entirely at the disposal of Zionist Nazi cabal, seeing in the Nazi Zionists some deep and recidivist reactionary politics, that they admire and can aspire to.
No wonder the Nazionists feel strong when their leading subscribers are multi- interest- mortgaged property portfolio-ed Muslims who simultaneously admire and support the Terrorist Erdogan.
What a cock-up. Muslims have first gotvto clean our religion of these Zionazi supporters and cock-suckers. Then we have to destroy the Zionazi- worshipping Gulf petro- fiefdoms. We are supposed to be showing you barflies the way, while it is in fact MoA barflies that instruct us Muslims in the evils of the Zionazis while we are bingeing on Zionazi Mammon.
I apologise. I hate Christmas and I hate the weakness of Christian civilisation that gas showed ZERO public opposition to this appalling zionazi war in Ukraine.

Posted by: Giyane | Dec 26 2022 6:37 utc | 147

Merry Xmas everyone!

Posted by: Smith | Dec 26 2022 7:02 utc | 149

… Martin Niemöller
Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | Dec 26 2022 3:24 utc | 137

Except Pastor Niemöller only gave a sermon that was much different than that. Perhaps Anne Frank’s father paid someone to write/edit/condense that one too.

In 1976, Niemöller gave the following answer in response to an interview question asking about the origins of the poem. The Martin-Niemöller-Stiftung (“Martin Niemöller Foundation”) considers this the “classical” version of the speech:

There were no minutes or copy of what I said, and it may be that I formulated it differently. But the idea was anyhow: The Communists, we still let that happen calmly; and the trade unions, we also let that happen; and we even let the Social Democrats happen. All of that was not our affair.

Posted by: Opport Knocks | Dec 26 2022 8:54 utc | 151

Moon of Alabama is the place where the collective wisdom shines, sometimes so bright that you get blended by the light, and your eyes are watering.
I wish you all a Happy New Year, and thank you b for your work with this blog. And thanks and love to all russian soldiers who are fighting for peace for all of us. Without peace, can countries never cooperate, and cooperation is necessary to solve the big problems humanity is facing now and in the future.

Posted by: Northern Eve | Dec 26 2022 9:07 utc | 153

Cheers b and happy today too!
Here’s something. HE has a Twitter feed! How long will it last?
‘Do you believe in Father Frost’
‘How could I not?’
‘Me too’
‘We are on the same page then’
https://twitter.com/PutinDirect/status/1606761422196977664?s=20&t=CGfF0XLOO1qQ3dMc_T_e7Q
I understand that Orthodox Xmas happens on 6th January.
Father Frost may well have a great present for all the peoples of the East of (Europe waste) Eden.
My contribution to the music play list.
‘It’s upto us not to hear the Call Up – I don’t want to kill or die.’ – when English punkrock did radical anti imperialism .From the seminal Sandanista TRIPLE album.
https://youtu.be/-ScaGjwkg2Y
Peace to all who seek it – doom to Nazis and Banderistas and their enablers.

Posted by: DunGroanin | Dec 26 2022 11:01 utc | 155

Hello Everybody,
Happy Christmas and New Year 2023
I have been following this web site for number of Years.
It keeps my sanity in those times.
It is my no.1 reading every day.
Love to All.
Anna

Posted by: Anna | Dec 26 2022 11:35 utc | 157

Merry Xmas and happy holidays to everyone with an old, but very actual Cold War video. Enjoy.

Posted by: whirlX | Dec 26 2022 12:22 utc | 159

Posted by: Z_anon | Dec 26 2022 9:04 utc | 152
If true, an interesting type of drone:
“They write that the UAV fired 2 missiles, one of which was shot down by an air defense system, and the second hit the target.”
https://twitter.com/RedStates3/status/1607354390620274690

Posted by: Bill Smith | Dec 26 2022 12:46 utc | 161

Thanks very much to b for the lead and effort to maintain this quality of information, and to the regular barflies posting great complements and sources. This is an essential site, I’m grateful.
Merry Christmas to all.

Posted by: htyul | Dec 26 2022 13:24 utc | 163

Happy christmas to you all (even if I am a bit late – travelling), and I hope you enjoyed Christmas in your family and friends company.
Special thanks and best wishes to b and all his family.
*
Even Santa managed to avoid the congestion at the airports and did his duty. Luckily he does not go on strike !

Posted by: Stonebird | Dec 26 2022 15:11 utc | 165

What does this mean, if anything: https://twitter.com/i/status/1607355691551064064
Wagner Group members complaining about RU MoD Chief of Staff, Gerasimov.
Is this just internal Russian politics playing out in public? Prigozhin maneuvering against Gerasimov? Or are the actual problems with ammunition supply?

Posted by: Bill Smith | Dec 26 2022 15:23 utc | 167

Happy Christmas, b, and all readers.
Peace and love to all.
Let me reflect on the fact that the one consistent State Sponsor of Terrorism throughout my life has been the US of A.

Posted by: Engineer-John | Dec 26 2022 15:34 utc | 169

@ sean the leprechaun 166
You bviously share Biden’s sense of humour that the planet is too big to fail, therefore we have to fight in trenches. I don’t agree with the premise that the abomination of nuclear war should empower little men like Biden to kick sand in the center of weaker nations.
In 2008 , the banks should have been allowed to fail, as a reminder to bankers not to take the p. Similarly Russia should cause non- nuclear pain to the US defence infrastructure, and to the US Dollar. It would wipe Biden’s smug grin off his face.
William Blake the poet complained about the Chartered streets of London and the Chartered Thames. Everything was stitched up and too big to fail. I’ve been reading Jonathon Cook’s article on cops27 and the Energy Charter Treaty which compensates oil companies should we switch to non- fossil fuels.
Heads I win, tails you lose. I’m big you’re small , what you going to do about it?
So the big guys/ dolls tell us if we go green and cheat them if their profits, they’ve ill give us a bigger headache, nuclear war, in which they too will perish.
We could just roll over like submissive dogs, or we could bite them in the ankles.
The US response to a non-nuclear attack by hypersonic missile would be a tactical USUKIS mini- nuke somewhere on the Russia Federation, followed by Armaggedon.
Instead Russia must inflict dollar pain on the US, to reciprocate like for like against US financial bullying.
Even bullies like life.

Posted by: Giyane | Dec 26 2022 16:13 utc | 171

@Opport Knocks
Many people miss the fact that Martin Niemöller was a nationalist, a monarchist, a fascist and a NAZI before he wasn’t a NAZI (over theological differences). He did, however, die a nationalist and fascist.
With Harris and Pelosi being cheered on by Congress-Critters while holding up a Ukrainian flag adorned with NAZI symbology in Congress, this is likely seen as fashionable in the USA.
See e.g. Martin Niemöller Biography at the Holocaust Encyclopedia.

Posted by: Hermit | Dec 26 2022 19:32 utc | 173

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all the wonderful people at Moon of Alabama.

Posted by: Copeland | Dec 26 2022 20:37 utc | 175

Merry Christmas MoA!
Bahareh Hedayati writes from the Evin prison to the Iranian Nation. Let’s see what she has to say.
———–
This is the umpteenth text that I am writing and I cannot finish it. My sentences are so overflowing with anger that I am afraid it will mangle my logic. But controlling your anger when a 22-year-old man is hanged for blocking a street to protest is tough, or perhaps impossible to do, especially anger at a government that has blocked the vital highways to an ordinary and honorable life for the people and especially for the women of this land.
The revolution is inevitable
To argue that the Islamic Republic is the enemy of this land, of this nation, has been redundant for a long time. The nature and the fate of this government is decay and it must go. Getting rid of this criminal government is bound to be costly and fraught with danger, but there is no other way but to pay this cost and face up to the dangers because this power structure is unable to recognize new social forces and to assimilate them within itself. In other words, there is no chance that the existing regime can extricate itself from the situation that has emerged, because neither can a tiny part of the protesters’ demands be fulfilled within the present system, and nor can the majority of the people waive any of their demands.
The government cannot fulfill these demands because all possibilities and mechanisms for flexibility within the power structure have already either been eliminated or have lost credibility. And the people cannot forgo their demands because these demands are tied to their normal, everyday lives. No matter how we look at them, these demands are legitimate, undeniable and self-evident. As a result, these demands are now confronting the power structure itself, which is going to crumble whether they are fulfilled or they are resisted. Therefore, revolution is inevitable.
We must be on guard against uncontrolled violence
By its nature, a revolution is a perilous and violent affair. So, although forbidding violence is practical up to a point, insistence on absolute avoidance of violence is the same as forbidding the revolution itself, meaning canceling the revolution, denying the necessity of bringing down the existing power structure and of arriving at a new social covenant.
What has been going on in the streets in the past few months is the strongest argument that we have in response to those who are still not convinced that the Islamic Republic must be brought down or argue against it. But we have to say to those who believe that this is a necessity that although — unfortunately — a revolution is not devoid of violence, we have to keep a red light on to warn against uncontrolled violence.
When it comes to violence — besides the moral issue that might genuinely be disturbing to some — the more important issue is the stability of Iran after the collapse of this regime. Therefore, the kind of violence that would start and sustain a cycle of revenge after the downfall of the regime must be avoided because it would threaten the stability of Iran and the survival of the government that is borne from the coming revolution.
We, the 1980s generation, were the last to test the possibility of peaceful change
No impartial observer can accuse the Iranian people of impatience or a propensity to violence because, in these past decades, the collective minds of Iranians have repeatedly tried every possible way to peacefully change the existing situation, but each and every time these methods have been blocked by the ruling totalitarian regime.
We, part of the generation of the 1980s whose lives were spent in war and under relentless ideological indoctrination, and whose adolescence and youth came during the so-called reform period, are perfect examples of those who tried to find the last possible outlets for change. We even agreed — mistakenly — to gamble on the social capital accumulated through the Green Movement [the name for the protest movement of 2009-10 – IranWire] under the illusion that fulfilling some of the people’s demands — normalization of relations between the government and the world and its inevitable consequence, namely the government’s compliance with modern rules of governing — would make the lives of our fellow Iranians better without violence.
At every juncture, however, the government was adamant about continuing its wrongful ways. We did everything to prevent violence, but this fear of violence both backfired and gave rise to a misunderstanding. It backfired because it gave the appearance that no action in the streets is acceptable and the reformists, following this misinterpretation of avoiding violence, virtually stopped protesting in any shape or form! It was a misunderstanding because the government came to believe in the illusion that we were afraid for our lives and even our former friends imagined that the policy of avoiding violence was the same as compromising with power! But both these ideas were illusions.
Explaining why both friends and enemies were under such an impression requires extensive discussions at another time, but suffice it say sociopolitical upheavals revolve around the forces that they release from within themselves, not prescribed guidelines and advice.
Green Movement’s trenches of resistance fell
Before all these tests, the greatest political experience of our generation, the Green Movement, met defeat despite all our hopes and sacrifices and despite giving birth to a precious political identity that, if nothing else, was a few steps ahead of the previous generation that was contaminated by political Islam.
Not only were some of us killed, but many, many of us were sent to prison. We were not only suppressed but we were also forced to accept the last remnants of political Islam within ourselves when we trusted reformist leaders and Mir-Hossein Mousavi personally as allies of the movement. This was clear from our slogans. At that time our trust was not unjustified, but, more importantly, we had no other choice.
Nevertheless, as long as the movement survived in the streets, we of the Green Movement were the victors of this coalition. As long as the streets were ours, it was we who defined the movement and its demands, and Mousavi and the reformists followed us. But when the movement was suppressed and we were forced to take shelter in our homes, the trenches that we had left undefended were taken over by the reformists’ interpretation of the movement, gradually, but more and more with the passing of the years.
The moral defeat of Mir-Hossein Mousavi
Only a few months ago Mir-Hossein Mousavi put the last nail in the coffin of the political identity that “we”, the 20-somethings, had built a decade earlier with our blood and toil. Cut off from reality and using the Shah-Khomeini duality, he defended the organized and continuous crimes of Khomeini’s regime with an undeniable clarity and called the man who bloodied and set on fire a region or perhaps the world and condemned the women of this land to hijab slavery an “ever-awake soul”.
He did not even glance at young supporters of the Green Movement to see that he owed them his new political life over the past decade, young people who, at a critical political juncture, welcomed him as an ally of the Green Movement to achieve a peaceful transfer away from Khomeini’s regime, or at least for a fundamental change in the totalitarian elements that had been established firmly within the existing system based on the reactionary principle of the Guardianship of the Islamist Jurist.
Without the Green Movement and with only his previous political identity, Mousavi’s views would have been as important as the views expressed by Ahmad Tavakoli and Ali Akbar Velayati in the introduction to their painting book or the views expressed by government ministers in the first decade after the revolution. Unlike them, Mousavi was elevated by the young people’s movement in 2009, but he turned his back on them to renew his fealty to his “Imam”. Mousavi was the purest, the most resolute and the sincerest person who carried the reformist project to its logical conclusion. The political failure of this movement in achieving its goals aside, Mousavi has now signed a declaration of the moral defeat of the movement with his “ever-awake soul” remark.
Our understanding of reforms was different
The generation of the 1980s did not shrink from sacrificing our lives to change things, but in the end the movement’s defeats outweighed its victories because of the existing realities, the repression, the absence of planning to manage change, the inescapable coalition with the reformists and the general preference for finding the least dangerous way to bring about change.
The problem with the reformists was and is that they want to save and strengthen the regime at the same time that they want to bring about a series of low-risk changes, while, in my view, reforms meant fundamental changes by peaceful means to the point where none of the totalitarian foundations of the regime remain. This, of course, was going to bring about a final confrontation. Therefore we should have anticipated the need to mobilize forces and to organize so that when the existing structure fell apart or became inactive we could arrive at a totally new social covenant.
This was my understanding of reforms as a student activist who had been sentenced to 10 years in prison. At the same time I witnessed the dying of the movement in the streets. My friends and my comrades-in-arms emigrated one after another, and institutions, networks and organizations were shattered by the repressions and frustration and helplessness as a result of defeat, the enemy’s success and the suffocating environment that infiltrated every aspect of the lives even of those who were nominally not in prison.
No Islamic arrows in the quiver of today’s movement
Today’s hope-inspiring movement has no Islamic arrows in its quiver, and this is clear from its slogans. This generation of protesters has not resorted to any religious or pseudo-religious concepts to tell us what it does or does not want, and this is a great achievement. This was a completely spontaneous style and demeanor that emerged from the common wisdom of the protesters.
One reason for this achievement is that the current movement was completely spontaneous and did not seek coalition partners from within the existing political structure because they have absolutely nothing to do with each other — unlike the Green Movement that was a form of unwritten coalition with elements within the political structure of the Islamic Republic even though some of these elements might have been rejected by the regime.
The difference between these two movements is also clearly visible from their goals. The defining goal of the Green Movement was to make fundamental reforms when overthrowing the Islamic Republic seemed an exciting but remote prospect. The defining goal of the 2022 movement, however, is the overthrow of the regime, and its advantage has been its ability to express this goal without stammering and without any hesitation.
Reformists have no connection with this movement
When we say again and again that the reformists and fundamentally the paradigm of reformism are not in charge of the current movements, are not helping them and are not active in them, this is not because of the resentment and rage over their record of collaboration with the regime. This is only an explanation of the new paradigm that has emerged since 2017 and has its own specific exigencies. One is that the identity of reformism, its agents and its constructs cannot survive in the new paradigm because they belong to the previous defunct one, unless they accept the core goal of the new one, i.e. the overthrow of the Islamic Republic, in which case they are no longer reformists.
The 2022 movement showed that hijab is not a cultural category
The second important achievement of the 2022 movement, a global achievement, relates to the question of hijab. This movement is moving in the same direction as the global paradigm concerning women, but at the same time it has also emerged to challenge those within the movement who have been trying to normalize hijab. This movement against hijab has risen after years of a movement — I do not know what to call it — that has tried to normalize hijab or to present it as a cultural element.
This group has even succeeded in convincing a number of international organizations to recognize “World Hijab Day” as an international day to celebrate the invisibility of women’s bodies without giving a thought to the consequences of this invisibility for a woman’s everyday life, her intellectual life and even her fate. This is a perfect example of what we are talking about when we speak of the extreme difficulty of translating problems in non-Western countries for Westerners.
This movement, part of which believes that it is anti-colonialist, covers its ears — in a manner that happens to be colonialist — when a Middle Eastern woman of Muslim descent speaks against hijab, and, from outside, accuses those of us who are living in this situation of Islamophobia. In other words, I, a Middle Eastern woman, have no right to even cry over the inferior position that hijab has condemned me to because, according to the “progressive” rules issued in the West by its intellectual circles, this cry of pain under a historical injustice that hijab has imposed on me is the same as fear of Islam and nobody has the right to fear Islam.
And since Western intellectuals are facing the problem of the failure to integrate Muslims into their own society, since they cannot believe that a phenomenon like hijab can create a chain of oppression, of degrading women and of self-alienation without having anything to do with capitalism, and since they is used to seeing everything through the prism of capitalism and cannot understand anything beyond it, they believe that a Middle Eastern Muslim woman has no right to say “ouch” because they are afraid that their own mental contradictions and inconsistencies would be revealed!
The 2022 movement rose with the burning of headscarves and its second important achievement was to call on all those Western intellectuals to see the reality.
Its third achievement deserves notice even though it is still somehow fragile and relative. In this movement, convergence within the framework of the territorial integrity of Iran carries a lot of weight, meaning that the danger of separatism among various ethnic groups who live in this land has subsided to some degree. This, of course, does not mean that we are now suddenly hearing all the voices that we have not heard for many decades, but it cannot be denied that the feeling of solidarity and of sharing the same destiny has been strengthened under this movement, and we can hope that once we leave the Islamic Republic behind it is possible to arrive at a new covenant that guarantees both the integrity of this land and the rights of ethnic groups and minorities.
My generation was rebellious and self-sacrificing but blind in terms of political intuition
To conclude, I want to turn to a sentence by the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant — even though referring to him is beyond my limited scientific wherewithal.
Kant believes that intuitions (perceptions) without concepts are blind. As such, I can say that the political intuition of our generation was somehow blind. I count myself as belonging to a part of the student movement in the 2000s whose political experience was limited to the farthest possibilities offered by that period and that had no adequate grasp of concepts such as overthrowing the government or revolution.
Despite the fact that this generation passionately and conscientiously rose up against everything it had inherited, it still lived and thought within a paradigm whose main focus was change, and, occasionally, improving the situation. The emergence and the development of paradigms are so influenced by historical factors that perhaps we can say they have little connection with the will of activists who are born and grow up within them.
I can only testify that my generation was honest, defiant and self-sacrificing. My generation was born in a container where every ideological ingredient was prepared to turn us into soldiers ready to die for the Supreme Leader, but it rebelled against everything it had inherited, armed with the honor and awareness it had gained.
Today’s younger generation will decide Iran’s destiny
Our experience was deficient because the world in which we lived was deficient, but today, with the same enthusiasm and the same conscientiousness, we have pinned our hopes to the younger generation of the 1990s and 2000s, and we will not spare any help or support we can give them to fulfill our common wish for freedom, justice, the downfall of the tyranny and to save Iran.
Both our experience and that of today’s younger generation are tied to the streets. Today’s young Iranians have brought their political demands into the streets and have embodied these demands in the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom” and the calls for the overthrow of the regime.
This committed generation has raised the flag of freedom, has defined its very own political identity, and it will decide Iran’s destiny.
What we hope is that opposition groups can come together around vital ideas like democracy, secularism, social justice, the mother tongue, territorial integrity and rights such as freedom of assembly to facilitate the passage from the existing corrupt situation to the next milestone.
Hoping for freedom!
Bahareh Hedayati
December 2022
Evin prison

Posted by: greets-from-Evin | Dec 26 2022 23:31 utc | 177

Posted by: james | Dec 26 2022 16:52 utc | 172
I’ll add to suzan’s links and story that she has it exactly right – those wise men from the east knew enough after the Nativity to go back to their own country by a different way, not via Herod’s palace. And as well, Joseph took his new family to Egypt to escape Herod’s massacre of potential ‘kings’ – all children under the age of two years – which followed directly afterwards. They stayed there until Herod died and was no longer a threat.
Since what we know of the life of Jesus is present in these four Gospel texts I find it impossible to ‘divine’ from them that he was simply rebelling against economical falsities. The conflict goes far deeper.
The four gospels are testimonies; you have to examine them as a whole. There is continuity and unity there, but it takes a lifetime to see the essentials. We have been living that needed lifetime here.

Posted by: juliania | Dec 27 2022 1:11 utc | 179

Happy Christmas b and everyone, thank you all for being here and to the regulars for sharing so generously.

Posted by: K | Dec 27 2022 4:19 utc | 181

Merry Christmas from Tehran;)

Posted by: Palladin | Dec 27 2022 7:05 utc | 183

Merry Christmas Bernhard, and your guests.
We have an oasis of reason here and I do appreciate it.
Happy New Year to all!

Posted by: jonku | Dec 28 2022 5:28 utc | 185

Don’t know if this Merry Christmas video from RT has been posted before, but LOL
https://t.me/ZandVchannel/44930

Posted by: Norwegian | Dec 28 2022 10:57 utc | 187