our resolve leaves something to be desired

[click image]

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So far, the news is doing nothing for me. I think they've dialed-up the apathy rays again.

A Wisconsin judge issued a temporary restraining order Friday blocking the state's new and contentious collective bargaining law from taking effect, raising the possibility that the Legislature may have to vote again to pass the bill.

Dane County District Judge Maryann Sumi granted the restraining order in response to a lawsuit filed by the district attorney alleging that Republican lawmakers violated the state's open meetings law by hastily convening a special committee before the Senate passed the bill.

Sumi said her ruling would not prevent the Legislature from reconvening the committee with proper notice and passing the bill again.

So don't get excited... and I cannot recommend highly enough that you watch yesterday's Keiser Report. If you are SERIOUS, you will watch it and listen at least twice.

Seems the Pragmatists of Groupthink may not have thought this one through.

The Newspaper Guild has joined a group of Huffington Post bloggers in protesting the site's pay policy — specifically, its lack of pay.

The union said it requested a meeting with the Huffington Post to discuss the situation. "Thus far, the request has been ignored," the guild wrote.

“The idea of going on strike when no one really notices,” Huffington said. “Go ahead, go on strike.”

The Newspaper Guild, though, has over 26,000 members.

The natural comeback for this is that blogging for free at HuffPo gives you needed exposure for your own blog. She will point to the success of FireDogLake, and The Young Turks. And, especially, let you be on strike until doomsday because there are a trillion more bloggers and celebs out there who will jump at the chance to fill your shoes.

I'd be inclined to look at this as an opportunity to reclaim your soul... but that's me.

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love, 99
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okay, good for cory

[click image]

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I am heartily pleased to see this there.

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love, 99
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LOL

[click image]

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Raimondo loses patience with Arianna helping Hosni with her legendarily assholish headlines.

I see the Huffington Post has another one of their over-sized screaming headlines: "Day of Departure — Will Massive March Force Mubarak's Hand?"

Yes, that's right, Arianna — you airhead — Mubarak will be "forced" to kill, jail, and repress the protesters in Tahrir Square and around the country because their march was too massive.

Why does anybody take this social-climbing limousine faux-liberal seriously? She married a gay guy — Michael Huffington came out to her before they tied the knot — so she could stay in the country, and then acted surprised when she "found out" he played for the Other Team. I say put her on a plane — albeit not before disabling her gaudy purple Blackberry — and ship her back to Greece, pronto.

She can't help herself, Justin.

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love, 99
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here's hard evidence

[click image]

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Do you revile political consultants and party hacks mindfucking you into signing their brand of death warrant in the voting booth every couple years? Are you feeling nearly dead from the incessant screaming and bellowing and bickering and bottomless well of cleverisms and gossip and backbiting and blather while the planet burns down around our ears? Well, face it, some glib fuckers who lie for a living got the jump on you. They own the tubes, and have from scratch. Groupthink is groupthink, not maybe so much because of how the group thinks, but how propagandists wish it to think. Prefer to stay hypnotized, but don't want to be so gauche about it as to parrot what comes at you on the tube? Think it is much more chic to parrot what comes at you on the tubes? They beat you to that, and are continuing to beat you with it. And it is not just Arianna doing it.

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You know, this stuff is poison, spiritual poison. Sure, some of the shills cranking out this crap are merely consensus trance victims and don't wittingly mean you harm, but they are harming you anyway. I know you think I'm just an irascible sort who likes to gripe about the ugly motives of various people, but the point is: They. Are. Poisoning. You. That is what makes me scream and paddle around in homicidal ideation. Because I have stopped trying to manipulate them out of doing it doesn't mean I've stopped loathing it so hotly it melts my contact lenses.

Bottom line: It's your karma if you take them seriously, if you let their shit taint your consciousness at all.

I have no control over that.

.

In fact, I needed to listen to this again to keep from punching out my monitor's lights....

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love, 99
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you'd think this would have been splashed all over left groupthink

[click image]

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But you'd be wrong.

Hungary, Austria, Ireland, England, Greece, Spain, Italy, Argentina... all over the world....

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love, 99
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lazy people wanting to identify with a group

[click image]

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Groupthink, groupthink, groupthink....

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love, 99
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i am so sorry for this ugliness

[click image]

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But perhaps you will forgive me when you get to the link.

I decided to make a short field trip into Groupthink, so as not to become completely ignorant of its contents, and this was the very first thing that popped up. OMFG....

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love, 99
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MURDERATING FUCKS SHOULD BE STONED TO DEATH

[click image, via Old Uncle Dave]

.

The money quote:

The death penalty is likely to be executed by hanging. Stoning - which still prevailed under the Shah’s rule and was maintained for a number of years after his overthrow - has been abolished by the Islamic Revolution. Irritated by the statements of Bernard-Henri Lévy and Nicolas Sarkozy, the vice-president of the Iranian Judicial Council told Dieudonné M’bala M’bala that he defies these Zionist figures to find one single text of contemporary Iranian law that contemplates stoning.

I have a much better idea who should be stoned to death. THINK of the heavy rotation this bullshit has gotten all across the biggest "progressive" groupthink websites. Far more than just this was wrong with the reportage in content, and even worse wrong in motivation. It's warmongering of the highest order. It's unqualified obeisance to the fascist elite. It is Zionism to the ultimate extent.

You really must go and give the entire piece a very hard skim at the very least. AND TAKE THE LESSON TO HEART. I've been warning you and warning you and warning you of this crap for quite a while. This is indelible proof of my words. YOU ARE GETTING NOTHING BUT LIES ABOUT IRAN FROM ALMOST EVERY QUARTER.

THEY WILL DO IT IF WE DO NOT STOP THEM.

The mindfucking is never even punctuated by patches of truth anymore... AND BY PEOPLE YOU'D BEEN SURE YOU COULD TRUST.... I keep trying to warn you that the one good thing about fascism is it teaches you exactly who is really your friend... even though the lessons are agonizing to take.

.

And, as though expressly produced to punctuate my so recently burst aneurysm....

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love, 99
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that reminds me

[click image]

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How the fuck did we EVER get the Do Not Call List? Telemarketers were too chintzy with their lobbyists, that's how. Rest assured Google will not make the same blunder, and even if something passed that purported to enjoin their tracking activities, they'd ignore it and NEVER be held to account for it. I don't know why these airheads bothered to bring it up.

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love, 99
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i would make a seriously sucky historian

[click image]

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Just as with my impeccable sense of direction that is accompanied by a stultifying lack of proficiency in expressing it, so too do all the impressive particulars of retelling anything elude me. There is, and always has been, a marked disinclination to put up with people's thing about the stats, the critical-to-mental-sidetrips, to beside-the-point names for things. I fully expect people to read my tone and my gesticulating and the directions my thrusts point to understand the vital stuff, and erudite types, particularly men, are constantly trying to bring me up short to provide the specs they find reveal the clues as to how much stock they should put in what I'm telling them.

I want to swat them every time because they want the fluff that lets them place things into some bent hierarchy of what's okay to consider and what defies utterly meaningless and too often outright psychedelic consensus. They are unerringly more interested in positioning themselves within the consensus than getting at reality, the truth. But it also makes me wail for the ability to hold that crap in mind so I can sound like I know what I'm talking about when I know what I'm talking about... and they so don't. I know that all that crap just drops off into the ether because it IS crap, and the crucial part is getting to the kernel, the actuality, which all that crap masks, but, even so, it might be nice to establish some bona fides before I dispense with the idiot-pleasing crap and get down to cases.

A hand must reach out from my books to throttle readers, or there's no point in writing them.

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love, 99
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barfing blood from the blowout

[click image, mp3, and those little bright specks in and around the oil on the satellite image are ships burning off methane]

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Rashes, very, very sick, entire communities in Louisiana "vomiting blood, passing blood when they go to the bathroom"... at 14:17 on the mp3... plus all kinds of other UGLY toxicity problems to report. [Dahr interview is in the first hour and you can skip over the commercials... so it won't take the whole two hours.]

This is DAHR JAMAIL talking... not some flake whose word is impeachable... DAHR JAMAIL. NOT a mother-fuckin' liar, not even given to exaggeration. Yank Obama out of the White House. Don't bother to whine for impeachment.

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You're going to notice that the latest article for PUKE-OUT dot org they mention in this interview says bubkes about people puking blood, not even nearly the level of trouble coming out his mouth in this interview. This would not be because Dahr was loath to tell us about it on that website. Nope. You might say, "Well, this was an interview and so that information doesn't fit here." There's plenty of editorializing where it could have been mentioned. OR it could have come in another piece, or a preface to the interview, or a postscript. You KNOW why it isn't mentioned in his piece. So, they are NOT about getting the truth out to people who need it. They ARE about getting the truth watered down so as not to piss off the big boys too much.

Oh, don't be alarmist about it! Don't sensationalize. We'll seem like those nut job conspiracy theorists. No, no, just stick to the dull facts, sound even-tempered, don't frighten anyone. We are mentally-stable yuppies, not foaming lunatics who can't spell.

Filthy whores.

"Calling it fascism is spot on."

Fascism is outright no goddam fun at all.

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Not even sand castles....

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love, 99
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email this link to EVERYONE you know

[click image]

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Blow the whistle on our feebishness!

EMBARRASS THESE FUCKERS INTO FUNCTIONING.

Note Mrs. Robinson calling it activism for the TwitPod generation... which of course means inactivism.

Think of all those fuckers out there making a living off opening up nonprofit websites, getting you all giddy that you are going to change the world by supporting them! Think of them! They have been some of our favorite people over the years. We have NOT wanted to think ill of them. One of us has worked her heart out to get some of them to PERFORM. No dice. It's IDENTICAL to the hopey changey thing Obama had us going on.

WAKE UP.

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In light of all this TRUE stuff here, maybe THIS will not end up being such a bad thing. It might be this fucking clicktivism that has prevented a revolution thus far. Think of it THAT way. There CERTAINLY is merit to my point here, you will have to agree. Think of all the enraged people working out their aggression on the tubes. If they can't DO that anymore, maybe it's the best possible thing for all sentient beings.

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YOU CAN SEE THE RISE OF GROUPTHINK ALREADY. "TWITPOD"....

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Chris is thinking in a similar vein....

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don't i know it

[click image]

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Julian Assange, it turns out, has pissed-off most of Greater Blogistan by saying this. He is being 100% accurate, in a spectacularly beautiful-to-me way here. You may have noticed that I have slowed up with my determination to bring you the raw materials over what people have to say about them, dancing all around them, because it became very clear to me that no one was interested in the raw data. People are barely interested in the digested data. People are barely interested in the dancing around the data. People will only slow their tube luge when they find bits that agree with what they already think. Content providers with an eye to awakening their visitors to serious matters are, in relative terms, internet flops.

The gadflies are hissing about Assange's bluntness on this score.

This is the second time I have felt a hard kick in my gut to put myself at his service, maybe help him summarize the material, or just go out and mow down all his opposition... preferring of course the former, but maybe being better-suited to the latter... who can tell? Probably you.

The snippet at the image link can be found in its entirety here.

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I want to add that people like this guy, who are disparaging Assange on bases like these:

DEBKAfile, in an article in its subscription-only version, is contending that Britain leaked the military reports published in Wikileaks.

Their arguments are that only US reports were leaked, indicating that the US was specifically being targeted. The (British) Guardian played the lead role in coordinating publication of a prefabricated storyline leveling several damaging accusations against the US and casting Julian Assange as a persecuted victim. The Guardian, New York Times, and Der Speigel all agreed to run the story as proposed and accepted the July 25 publication deadline without having actually read more than 2% of the documents.

DEBKA notes that all the leak documents cover six-year period ending in December 2009, their interval terminating at the point at which President Obama announced his new Afghanistan War strategy. DEBKA contends that the end point is deliberate, sparing Obama specific association with accusations arising from the leaked documents, but also implicitly warning that the next batch could be aimed his way.

The British motivation, according to DEBKAfile, would be Barack Obama’s systematic downgrading of the British-American special relationship on the basis of personal and ideological anti-colonialist resentments, specifically exacerbated by the administration’s vilifying BP over an unfortunate accident followed by accusations in the US Congress that BP played a role in securing the Lockerbie bomber’s release. Retired senior official from MI5 and MI6 are rumored to hold positions on BP’s board of directors.

don't seem to take into account that Assange himself might well be, probably is, completely innocent of any complicity in the duplicity possibly being perpetrated upon him to discredit him... which is what they do before they literally assassinate people like Julian Assange.

It has been my theory for some weeks that this Manning kid has agreed to play the leaker of this information in exchange for a sex change and a brand new identity. The basis for this is starting to hit the mainstream, but I noted somewhere in my wanderings quite a while back. So maybe you want to consider this. Unbelievable as you might find it that anyone could come out as brazenly manly as Assange has without it being a setup, it is not without historical precedent and, again, even if it IS faked, it is STILL good for putting the right ideas in people's heads.

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it might get loud

[click image]

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My one great musical wish is that I want somebody to mix Bono way down and The Edge way up. I'm fucking gone for The Edge. He IS that band. The rest of them are crucial, but The Edge is the one on it... the edge of perfection... OUT of the box... sui generis... a true human.

This came up for me while reading an article about sociopathy yesterday morning. I know, I know, I make strange mental connections, but the thing is: They used the word "paralogic", which is a specialist's term for fallacious logic—when something is paralogical, it is a fallacy—the use of which is big on the sociopath's list—think not looking back on such things as torture—and just for the hell of it I googled "paralogic" to see who was discussing this stuff in these terms. Well, try it. Look at the very first thing that it pulls up.

It just sort of says everything, doesn't it?

So I didn't pursue the matter further, not caring really, not deeply, what people are saying about presidential sociopathy, and I started hearing the opening licks of "Bad" as this was transpiring. I hear music most of the time... without my ears. Lots of the time it's nothing anyone has heard but me, and maybe my teacher, but I saw this, this mindfuck so glib it names its corporation for itself, and blew it off, with one great blast from my true self, those echoing reminders from The Edge. Herein lies strength, the waxing of vitality. Don't get stuck.
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Just for ducks, I ducked over to Groupthink to find headlines splashed from hell to breakfast over the shock of Facebook not being private. OMG! All that personal information you've been dumping on there is available for identity theft! I'm sitting here thinking to myself how ever could such a gargantuan DUH be headlining even at Groupthink? What's going to happen when they realize their twittering makes them easy to stalk?

Man, I try SO hard not to hold the global dimness against sentient beings, not to be a bitch about that sort of thing. It's not helpful. In FACT people RESENT the snot out of it, and "people" being so numerous, THEY get to be "right" and I get to be a nasty old harridan who just has this thing for being contrary. You know, I do shit like defend Tea Partiers against the Progressive-Fascists' incantations of racism, bash gun control wussies, dare to posit the insignificance/murderatingtude of a government that is OBVIOUSLY not our government, just basically keep trying to drag people away from the swinging watch fob action, help them look at things more objectively, but, sheesh, headlines like that make me wish I hadn't cleaned my glasses.
.

I did clean my glasses. Felt inspired and sort of smug about it. I'd been thinking it was so nice to have a late Spring day that feels sort of like early Spring instead of the dead of a North Pole Winter, and wondering why it seemed so drab around here when there weren't hardly any clouds.... Then I remembered how smudged the world had looked as I was putting on my glasses and swallowing my pills and coming across the word "paralogic". That had been some hours before. So I cleaned my lenses with the hem of my fleece hoodie, et voilà! Springtime, big as heck.

I resolved to go to town, and since I felt so suddenly lucent with sensibility, I sat down and voted my "non" ballot, which is what they call ballots for those of us who decline to be in a political party, to drop into the lockbox at the registrar's office, save myself the postage. A paragon of nobody's-fool and take-THAT-you-fuckers, as though this had counted for everything despite it being COMPLETELY insignificant, I strode from the civic center back to Goldie and the stock of half and half that is mandatory to my participation on Planet Earth. I got home, positively bursting with self-love from all this right-thinking-adulthood, thinking to find you some more good stuff to put in the post that this one used to be, and put on my sparkling-clean computer glasses to proceed.

So I could see that stupid headline really well.

I hear more music.
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I was demoralized. And still am... somewhere... but I'm just battin' it off... using drums... humming right along to the return of Planet X... swingin' back to get me... at laaaast.

I emailed Agent BB2 the press release from the Zeitgeist Movement, knowing he was going to dig it to bits... and he did. So if the hours in this post aren't enough for you, the hours in that post will fix you right up... help you over the Facebook shocker....

Anyway, I went off puttering and surfing, and dealing with Danny's incredulity about there being thirty-two black Republicans running for Congress this year. He thinks I'm on crack and I think he needs some. Okay, okay, putter, consult Guanzi, eat, oh, right, it all started with me being hungry. Sheesh. So then I decided to pull back that magnificence of being on top of it again, go finally find out what this getting blogs on feeds, in readers, looks like to those of you who do this blog that way, and, yes, that was definitely not the move to lift my spirits.

I guess I have to think of it that the blog doesn't look anything like as nice as it actually looks when yer not using a newer Mac or probably on most PCs... although I really have gotten some raves about that from the PC crowd, so they must not all be as hopeless as my mom's. But, well, still. How vexing. I wonder if they only get what I first post and don't get the links I add later, or updates, or the fixed typos, and what about all the times the whole sense of it includes the labels? They don't get the labels. They don't get the quotes or links in the sidebar. They get it in this plain imitation vanilla techno format that looks like shit. No wonder that headline shocked them so much!

I feel like The Edge, driving himself crazy trying to get the sound in his head, his voice, to come out of the speakers... if I may be so bold... and, what the hell, it is my blog.
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You guys! Yer hurtin' yer brains! You need to get OUT of your little clicking machine minds and into the true mindscape. That ain't no way to live! Lurking's cool, but yipes! Couldn't you lurk ON the page? I don't know how this gestalt can penetrate if you hobble it so strictly. Hard enough when all the elements are working together.

The world needs you.

The world needs you to come out of your cyber trance, your conditioning, your location inside such a tiny little computational portion of your mind you've been stuck in so long you think it's you. It's not you.

It's just this little toolkit for reading instructions and applying them in the world. You can NEVER make this a decent world using only that flimsy little thing, and, yes, I know they are at it full time trying to keep you jammed in there, but it's a fucking prison cell. Okay? There's a whole cosmos inside your skin... as vast as the one outside it. Time you took advantage of that, flew your coop, no?

Your clinging to your conditioning is ALL that's keeping you down.

It's thin air.

Let go.
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READ THIS!

[click image]

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READ THIS!

Bury them in emails....

Don't listen to the political mesmerizers! Fuck Kos. Fuck all of Groupthink! THIS IS WRONG! This is SEEEEEERIOUSLY bad. Doesn't matter WHAT party you're in or WHAT way you lean.

THIS IS WRONG! SCREAM BLOODY MURDER!
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yes

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I don't want to hear any bitching against the right wingnuts anymore. Wingnuts dissing wingnuts is just too stupid and hypocritical too be endured. I stopped moderating for Brad and stopped searching for anything good at the rest of Groupthink because my purpose is to be a good friend to you... an actually good friend to you. That they didn't even START with Single Payer on the table was bad enough, but what we are left with, and what Rahm assured Cinderella was true has come true... because of wingnuts... because of partisan dupes getting so caught up in theatrics they can't see at all anymore. I may need a guide dog to drive me to town, but I can see reality plain as day.
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over two weeks later, groupthink slips in a real headline on the side

[click image]

you don't want to get me mad

[click image]

Goddammit! Listen to this! It's only about 7 minutes and it has everything to do with actuality. You simply must drag your mind back from your ideals and your social conditioning to deal effectively with the matter at hand, the real, not the imaginary.



IN FACT, MAYBE LISTEN TWICE!

Iran accuses US of meddling after disputed vote
[or No Shit Sherlock]
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer – 46 mins ago

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran accused the United States on Wednesday of "intolerable" meddling in its internal affairs, alleging for the first time that Washington has fueled a bitter postelection dispute. Opposition supporters marched in huge numbers through Tehran's streets for a third straight day to protest the outcome of the balloting.

The Iranian government summoned the Swiss ambassador, who represents U.S. interests in Iran, to complain about American interference, state-run Press TV reported.

The English-language channel said the government called Western interference "intolerable."

A State Department spokesman said the U.S. was withholding judgment about the election and not interfering in Iranian internal affairs.

President Barack Obama has reacted cautiously to opposition allegations that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole the election, saying he shared the world's "deep concerns" but it was "not productive, given the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, to be seen as meddling."

The two countries broke off diplomatic relations after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and Iranian hard-liners frequently accuse internal enemies of allying with the U.S. and other Western powers to overthrow the ruling system.

Iran summoned the Czech, France, German and British ambassadors Tuesday, state television said.

A crackdown on dissent continued, with more arrests of opposition figures reported, and the country's most powerful military force — the Revolutionary Guard — saying that Iranian Web sites and bloggers must remove any materials that "create tension" or face legal action.

But supporters were undeterred in their support of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has called himself the winner of the June 12 election. Amateur video and state television footage showed thousands of people marching along an overpass in Tehran in support of Mousavi, a demonstration that swallowed several lanes of traffic and appeared to stretch for many blocks.

Marchers flashed the victory sign or carried placards, and some were dressed in green — the color of Mousavi's campaign.

It was the third day in a row that Mousavi supporters have taken to the streets, and he called for another demonstration on Thursday — a direct challenge to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the cleric-led system.

Mousavi is calling for the election to be declared invalid and held again.

Khamenei has told Mousavi to pursue his demands through the electoral system and called for Iranians to unite behind their Islamic government, an extraordinary appeal in response to tensions over the vote. Mousavi still called for his followers to wear or carry black in mourning Thursday for the alleged election fraud and the deaths of protesters. Official media have reported seven deaths.

The street protests, paired with dissent from powerful clerical and political figures, have presented one of the gravest threats to Iran's complex blend of democracy and religious authority since the system emerged from the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

In an apparent sign of solidarity with Mousavi, several Iranian soccer players wore green tape on their wrists Wednesday during a World Cup qualifying match in South Korea that was televised in Iran. Among those who wore the tape was captain Mehdi Mahdavikia.

Mousavi's Web site said seven Iranian players wore the bands in the first half, although most were forced to take them off before the second. Iran and South Korea drew 1-1.

The game was televised in Iran but authorities have been trying to control information about dissent, blocked Web sites, jamming satellite signals and barring foreign media from leaving their offices to report on demonstrations on the streets of Tehran.

Blogs and Web sites such as Facebook and Twitter have become vital conduits for Iranians to inform the world about protests and violence.

The BBC said the jamming of its broadcasts had become "progressively worse," with its BBC Arabic television and other language services knocked off the air at various points by interference traced to Iran.

A spokeswoman said traffic for both the Voice of America's Persian language service and Radio Farda sites had increased by 200 percent since before the election but radio and for television jamming persisted.

Videos and photos posted by people inside Iran show scenes of violence that have not been reported through official channels. The new media restrictions make it virtually impossible to independently verify much of the information, which includes dramatic images of street clashes and wounded demonstrators.

Much of the imagery has been posted anonymously. In other cases, those who have posted have declined to be identified due to fear of government retaliation, or cannot be reached due to government restrictions on the Internet and mobile phones. One such image, purportedly from the southern city of Shiraz, showed crowds walking in the street around a burning motorcycle that some say belonged to pro-government militia members who attacked protesters.

Mousavi and reformist former President Mohammad Khatami wrote a letter to the State Security Council, the country's highest authority on internal security, to complain about attacks on protesters by plainclothes "basiji," a paramilitary force under the Revolutionary Guard.

Mousavi said militiamen had been smashing windows, setting cars on fire and attacking people with batons, iron chains and bars and authorities had been blaming Mousavi supporters.

He also wrote to the head of the judiciary to complain about attacks on protesters and arrests of activists from their homes.

The Revolutionary Guard, an elite military force answering to Khamenei, said through the state news service that its investigators have taken action against "deviant news sites" that encouraged public disturbances. The Guard is a separate military with enormous domestic influence and control of Iran's most important defense programs. It is one of the key sources of power for the ruling establishment.

The statement alleged that dissident Web sites were backed by Canadian, U.S. and British interests.

"Legal action will be very strong," it said.

Unlike many dissidents, Mousavi has the ability to press his case with Iran's highest authorities and could gain powerful allies. Some influential clerics have expressed concern about possible election irregularities, and a fierce critic of Ahmadinejad, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, is part of the ruling establishment.

Iranian TV showed pictures of Faezeh Hashemi, Rafsanjani's daughter, speaking to hundreds of Mousavi supporters, carrying pictures of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and others.

Iran's most senior dissident cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, said widespread vote fraud had undermined the legitimacy of the ruling Islamic system and that "no sound mind" would accept the results.

"A government that is based on intervening in (the public's) vote has no political or religious legitimacy," said Montazeri, who had once been set to succeed Khomeini as supreme leader until he was ousted because of criticisms of the revolution.

State media said Khamenei would deliver the sermon at Friday prayers, the most important religious address of the week. The supreme leader generally leads Friday prayers only two or three times a year.

The U.S.-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said several dozen noted figures associated with the reform movement have been arrested, among them politicians, intellectuals, activists and journalists.

Analyst Saeed Leilaz, who is often quoted by Western media, was arrested Wednesday by plainclothes security officers at his home, said his wife, Sepehrnaz Panahi. The group said Mohammad-Reza Jalaipour, another noted Iranian analyst, had also been arrested.

At least 10 Iranian journalists have been arrested since the election, Reporters Without Borders said, and a Web site run by former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi said the reformist had been arrested.

Prominent reformer Saeed Hajjarian has also been detained, Hajjarian's wife, Vajiheh Masousi, told The Associated Press. Hajjarian is a close aide to former President Mohammad Khatami.

The main electoral authority has said it was prepared to conduct a limited recount of ballots at sites where candidates claim irregularities. The recount would be overseen by the Guardian Council, an unelected body of 12 clerics and Islamic law experts close to Khamenei.

But Mousavi alleges the Guardian Council is not neutral and has already indicated it supports Ahmadinejad.

Ahmadinejad, who has dismissed the unrest as little more than "passions after a soccer match," attended a summit Tuesday in Russia that was delayed a day by the unrest. He returned to Iran and held a cabinet meeting, saying on state television Wednesday that people had voted for his "policies of justice."

---------------------------------------------------------

Iran protests "interventionist" U.S. statements
[I'd prefer Iran Boots Out "Interventionist" Covert Operatives With Fascist Media Backing]
Wed Jun 17, 2009 4:08pm EDT

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned the Swiss ambassador, who represents U.S. interests in Tehran, on Wednesday to protest at "interventionist" U.S. statements on the country's election, Fars News Agency reported.

The Foreign Ministry communicated Iran's "protest and displeasure" over statements by U.S. government officials about the outcome of last week's presidential vote, Iran's semi-official news agency said.

In Washington, the White House said President Barack Obama will continue to defend the right of Iranians to peacefully protest the outcome of the election without "meddling" in Iran's internal debate.

"The people of Iran reserve the right to have their voices heard and their votes counted," said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "The outcome of any election should reflect the will of the people and it is for the Iranians to determine how they resolve this internal protest concerning the outcome of the recent election."

The State Department strongly rejected claims that the U.S. was interfering in the disputed June 12 election, pointing out that diplomats from other countries had also been summoned.

"I suspect we are in good company," said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. "This is not about the United States."

A senior Canadian diplomat in Tehran had also been called in to the ministry, Fars News Agency said. On Tuesday, several European ambassadors were also summoned.

Major Western nations have questioned the fairness of the official vote results which showed hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won a landslide against moderate Mirhossein Mousavi. The result sparked days of protests in Tehran and elsewhere.

U.S. President Barack Obama said the upheaval showed that "Iranian people are not convinced with the legitimacy of the election."

"The president will continue to express those concerns and ensure that we're not meddling," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters on Wednesday.

"Obviously, there is international concern for the way an election was conducted, and it's being looked into, and certainly we believe rightfully so," Gibbs said.

Crowley said it was up to Iran to resolve concerns over the election in a credible, transparent and peaceful way.

"As the president has said repeatedly, we have serious concerns about what is going on. It is up to the Iranian government to address these in a credible way, and we will be watching closely," said Crowley.

The United States severed ties with Tehran shortly after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution. After he took office in January, Obama has offered a new beginning of engagement with Iran if it "unclenches its fist."

(Reporting by Hashem Kalantari, additional reporting by Sue Pleming and Doug Palmer in Washington; writing by Fredrik Dahl, editing by Anthony Boadle)

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"...ensure we're not meddling." WHAT CRAP! We've put hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure we ARE meddling! And countless media hours to back up those operations to destabilize Iran. Our new administration not only endorses it fully, but has added their technological savvy to creating this freeway for our plutocrats to drive into the heart of the Middle East.

They're Twittering our fucking brains out 24/7 for it.

And groupthink is lapping it up.

max blumenthal censored by groupthink

[click image]

No surprise at all.