IRAN: in Irrevesible Failure: Political Analysis

Iran in Irreversible decline: Politics and the Cinema.

Those Iranian TV executives sure do a great job over in Terhan.
Time Magazine has an article discussing the crowds at a showing of 'The Lord of the Rings' in Tehran.

From an anonymous reporter in Tehran, they report:

(and I note: I am quoting, and have only removed the Farsi (Iranian) translations from the story. I also reformatted it to make it easier for the attention-span deprived (like me!) to better understand.
Almost EVERY WORD is identical to the piece as published by TIME.

In normal times, Iranian television usually treats its viewers to one or two Hollywood or European movie nights a week.

But these are not normal times, so it's been two or three such movies a day.

It's part of the push to keep people at home and off the streets, to keep us busy, to get us out of the regime's hair. The message is "Don't worry, be happy."

So channel two there, is putting on a Lord of the Rings marathon as part of the government's efforts to restore peace.

Lots of people, adults and kids, are watching in the room with me. On the screen, Gandalf the Grey returns to the Fellowship as Gandalf the White. He casts a blinding white light, his face hidden behind a halo.

and ....

Someone blurts out, "Is it the Imam?!" (A reference, to the white-bearded Ayatollah Khomeini, who is respectfully called Imam Khomeini).

But "Imam" is also the title of the "Mahdi", the figure that Muslims believe will come to save (them) at the time of the apocalypse. Isn't that special?

(Interesting Question): I wonder what if the officials who picked this film, may be a subversive soul at the controls at the TV Station.

It is way too easy to find political meaning in this film, to draw comparisons to what is happening in real life.
(Lots of Political) Themes in the movie: Alluding to
* Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the candidate that the President claims to have defeated:
* The unwanted quest and the risking of life in pursuit of an unanticipated destiny.
* Could he be Boromir, the imperfect warrior who is heroic at the end, dying to defend
humanity?
* Didn't Mousavi talk about being ready for martyrdom?

And listen: there is a sly (I think cute!) reference to Ahmadinejad.
Iranian films are dubbed very expertly (into Farsi). So the Farsi word they use for hobbit (and also dwarf) is kootoole, or little person. Kootoole, of course, is the term used in many of the chants out on the street against the diminutive President.


That's as much as we can see of an opposition viewpoint on TV. It has a droning sameness, (or an) official message being "politics is a nasty business, but now it's over."

And so we're glued to the Trilogy. We are riveted. A child in the room loudly predicts that Lord of the Rings will put an end to the nightly shouts, that people will not take to the rooftops and windows because this film will keep them occupied.

Besides, (the child says) there is a worrisome rumor,that the "political police" are marking the doorways of those households that continue to call out "Allah Akbar!" at night, a reverse Passover.

The child continues to say, that the kids on his school buses have been chanting, "Then where is our vote?!, Then where is our vote?!" I ask what the driver is doing while all this goes on and the kid tells me that the driver honks along. Honk honk-honk-honk! "Then where is our vote?!"Honk honk-honk-honk!

And so we see political meaning even in the notice that one part of the trilogy is ending,
asking us to be ready for the next. "This is to be continued."

The phrase has become our hesitant slogan, our words of reassurance.

As does this quote (in Farsi) from the movie:

"I wish the ring had never come to me... I wish that none of this had happened..." "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us..."

This will be continued. This will be continued. People are not going to let up so easily.

WoW. I have to hand it to this brave Iranian for reporting and helping tell us out here in the rest of the world, that they will NOT stop.


Mark... innocent butcher of an amazing news post.
(however, I STILL say it is much easier to read MINE, rather then the original (also) here.

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Go view my other blog too!

* We're HEADING into a DEPRESSION. We're (now) IN a depression!
* It's going to be as BAD as the last one.
* I call this Depression 2.0
* The current failures only bring us 25% into the problem!!
* According to Robert Reich (former Sec'y of Labor under Clinton): The only
number that he EVER saw, defining the depression was that
the unemployment rate hovered around 25%.
* We need a new deal.
* After 58 years of NO Health Care Reform (since 1950!) it will FINALLY be coming soon...
* We've managed to WASTE a FULL generation (from Zero to thirty) with decaying social, educational, and interpersonal skills.
* Our nation is no longer DOING (producing) anything.
SO, from these few premises, I have extrapolated a great deal of items to FIX our society...

But....
We need to make sure that a number of issues are resolved ALL at once.
If we don't do them ALL at once, its like juggling three RUNNING chain saws, but dropping one!

Here's what I came up with:

We need to do the FOLLOWING to FIX our Society:
* Create A Living Wage
* Create a National Single payer Healthcare
* Create a National 3-4 year draft (or alternate service)
* Create a Federally paid Day Care starting at six months
* Implement Tax Reform on the ULTRA Rich
* Lobbying (Political Reform)
* Education
* Infrastructure (road /bridge/Systems repairs)
* Lack of Training/futures
* Truth and Reconcilliation Commission
* A new "Manhattan" project, focusing on Energy INDEPENDENCE

See my other blog: http://sos-newdeal.blogspot.com for more details.