2 October 2007
Iran
Trying to absorb the sad sad state of public discourse on Iran.
- Four Myths Government and Media Use to Scare Us About 'Dictators' - Overview of the bait-and-switch (or maybe strawman?) that warmongers use to demonize Iran in general and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in particular
- Real Time with Bill Maher: Democratic Rep. Rahm Emanuel and panel discuss how to end the war - Maher's comments comparing the rhetoric of Ahmadinejad to that of US politicians was pithy. Rahm had a strong start but really fell apart when he tried to defend his vote for more weapons but not for withdrawal.
- Iran's president at Columbia University - a transcript - Bollinger, truly, was an ass. Ahmadinejad was magnanimous in his response to the insults but then quickly moved to dubious interpretations of religious quotes that support the pursuit of science. Odd. And he says the etymology of the (Farsi) word science is "illumination" or "brightness" (as opposed to "knowledge" or "to separate" with English). I'll need to email Language Log and see if they have an opinion. The rest of the speech was otherwise a very reasoned comparison against Iran and the West. Most accusations leveled by Bollinger were easily paralleled by examples of US misconduct. Iran is not innocent, but they're certainly not evil.
[ posted by sstrader on
2 October 2007 at 7:02:23 PM in Politics
]
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