The Last Thing That's Holding Me

Here's a fun phrase: "For some reason, this isn't front-page news. It should be." I advise you that whenever you hear these words strung together, you are hearing the sounds of an ax being ground, and you are Gawain and it is the Green Knight spinning the wheel.

In other words, heads up.

The person who said this is Andy Sullivan and he is referring to recent riots in Iran. As to these riots, Andy says, and I quote:

Know hope.

Oh fuck you, Obi-Wan. What the fuck is this, "know hope"? 

I submit that nobody really knows what the hell is going on in Iran, and that the last people to be trusted on this issue are those who have a cheerleading interest in a particular outcome: that is, the fairytale ending of a secular democracy whiskey sexy regime where it's all Hooters and Starbucks and TGIF and shit and everyone gets to fuck Santa. Because wheeeeeeeeee! That would mean that those who took Brave Stands on Blogs are Thoroughly Vindicated. Hot fucking dog.

What are these Tehran riots that have the inhabitants of Greater Wingnuttia walking uncomfortably until they can find some Kleenex? Well, let's follow one of Andy's links:

Angry Iranians set fire to a Tehran petrol station and chanted anti-government slogans in a north-west area of the capital in protest against fuel rationing introduced in OPEC's number two oil producer.

A witness said flames rose from the gasoline station in Pounak, a poorer area of the capital, with cars burning inside.

Some youths hurled stones and chanted, "Guns, fireworks, tanks, (President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad should be killed", the witness said.

Another witness said riot police had gathered near the gasoline station and sought to push the rioters back.

Before rationing was introduced, some media reported scuffles at petrol stations between drivers queuing to stock up.

State TV said on Tuesday rationing would start at midnight, prompting drivers to rush to fill up before the deadline.

The second witness cited reports of Iranians attacking another fuel station in Tehran, but gave no further details.

That report could not be independently confirmed.

In other words, nobody knows Jack Shit or even his cousin Johnny Bullcrap.

More, nobody is even listening to Plato's ghost whispering "what then"? What if all the "mullahs" died tomorrow of heart attacks? What would emerge to replace them? Another failed state nobody could control, like... Iraq? Hooray! Piss on a poodle! Joy unbounded!

My essential point is that I am resentful and disdainful of this attitude that there is some moral value in encouraging American citizens to look at the Middle East or anywhere fucking else like we watch sporting events. "Meet the Mets or Meet the Mullahs!" It's crazy. "Know hope"? Know that that's a fucked up thing to say if you're, like, a thinking adult.

Or it should be.

Comments

[K. Ron Silkwood]

Pfaugh. What does the silly ass make of a soccer riot?

[Rmj, Sylar's Evil Twin]

NPR offered an explanation: gas prices in Iran are subsidized, so it's as low as 11 cents per liter. Which means the people are consuming gas faster than Iran can refine it, because they simply don't have enough domestic refinery capacity to produce gasoline at present consumption levels.

So there's Sully's "hope." Maybe he should amend that to: "Know some facts."

[Joshua]

How do we know these riots are not manufactured by Americans? Bush announced we would be doing as much a few weeks ago.

[shoeshineboy]

Step one: Know hope
Step two: wait for hope
Step three: burn down your petrol station
Step four: check blogs for more hope???

[Hecate]

I love you.

[deben]

Yep, gas riots in Tehran. That's the last straw for me. Something's got to be done about this once and for all, and we're the ones to do it. Where's our President on this outrage? Send in the Marines. Put some Young Republicans in charge to reduce taxes and overturn Roe v. Wade. Egypt's ticking me off too.

[Seth Edenbaum]

"I submit that nobody really knows what the hell is going on in Iran,"
What a stupid self-absorbed responsed. So fucking american.

I submit that you don't pay attention and that you don't have any interest in paying attention. It's that indifference that allows the right wing to play the issue as much as it does.

[art guerrilla]

gee, you think these 'riots' could be the result of our merc/spooks stirring up trouble in their little incursions (ie acts of war) into a sovereign nation ? ? ?

ya'think...

art guerrilla
aka ann archy

eof

[LA Confidential Pantload]

Why does Sully have trouble spelling "no?"

[kent]

I submit that you don't pay attention and that you don't have any interest in paying attention. It's that indifference that allows the right wing to play the issue as much as it does.

I submit that your initial assertion is a smug load of crap, which unfortunately removes any foundation from your second.

Now if you wanted to support you contention with something that was not excavated from your ass, I am sure that we would be happy to listen.

[JP1000]

No Beer. No Hope.
Know Beer. Know Hope.

[deben]

Seth Edenbaum, Sullivan's history is advocating war and telling the rest of us to shut up. He is a cheerleader until it's clear even to him that it was a bad idea to invade. Then he blames the ones he cheered for being failures.

That's a problem for some of us.

[Rich]

I don't have a problem with Iranians moving to seize freedom even if the current rioting is more like the soccer riots that break out every now and then, but boy, I wish the Iranians would wait until Bush is out of office before they do anything they'll regret.

[SteveB]

I like this part:
"Guns, fireworks, tanks, (President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad should be killed"

If this means Iranians are fed up with the vast sums of their country's welath that are wasted on the military while the needs of the people are neglected, then good for them.

My question is: what would it take for Americans to start burning gas stations with exactly the same message?

And Thers' larger point is an excellent one. One of the burdens of being one of Chomsky's "educated 20%" is that you're expected to have an opinion on developments in East Waziristan, say, even though you never heard of the fucking place until you cracked open your morning's New York Times. I suppose its a residue of the cold war, when we turned every crummy little civil war into a battle between Good and Evil.

Wherever it comes from, pressuring people to pick sides in the absence of any good information (or under a surfeit of government-supplied information) is a very effective way of controlling them.

[Prior Aelred]

Hecate--

No flirting!

[binny]

Andy's been on a streak lately; he's been much stupider than usual.

Must be that Provincetown state of mind...

[Seth Edenbaum]

"I submit that nobody really knows what the hell is going on in Iran,"

That's a quote from the author of this blog, and it's not true. There are plenty of people capable of describing what's going on in Iran, and in great detail. Some of them in fact, actual Iranians!

It is true that knowledge is not the same as the ability to predict the future, but if you want to be able respond to Sullivan's ignorant, idiotic warmongering, then professions of what amounts to willful irresponsible ignorance will not help.
Got me?

[DanF]

Where do these Iranians get off having a protest anyway? Don't they know that they are suffering unimaginably under a totalitarian regime? Shouldn't they be cowering in fear for their very lives less the be taken to the gulag?

Thank God I live in America where our poor folk have never rioted or been jailed for no-reason ... or something.

[Medium Dave]

So... Iranians are being foolish and wasteful with energy, just like Americans. Hooray!

[itsbenj]

i gotta agree that its a pretty odd thing to say that "no one knows what's going on in Iran". that is definitely quite false. "most americans don't know what's going on in Iran" would be correct.

this is a simple matter of people protesting their corrupt government for being a major petroleum exporter yet having to ration gas at home in a way that probably makes no sense to people. you don't see comparable behavior in america for the most part because people have too much to lose. you can't take a day off from work to go burn down a petrol station! HR will almost always deny that request...

[Adam Stanhope]

The obvious answer is that we need to engage in an air campaign against Iranian gas stations!

[Captain Goto]

Seth,

Grow. The. Fuck. Up.

[Captain Goto]

And:

Get me?

Oh, fuck off.

To elaborate:

When Thers indulges in hyperbolic speech of the level of "I should have just wished for John Edwards to have been assassinated in a terrorist attack", then I might get interested.

If, OTOH, you're still indulging in smug nitpicking, get a life and stop bothering me.

[Tom - Daai Tou Laam]

What part of "That report could not be independently confirmed" doesn't Seth understand?

It's too bad that none of the reporters on the Iraq WMD reports out of the White House bothered to "independently confirm" any of the disinformation instead of just regurgitating it with anonymous attributions.

[Northern Observer]

Seth-y Baby, How's it hanging, here's the thing dude, you see some of the intertube stations are all about the humour and some of the intertube stations are all about the serious Whiskey Fire likes to laugh so ... going off on posters with so fucking American might go over well at the young United Nations blog on policy proposals for the next model UN assembly at Havard; it just doesn't work so well here. Not that you're not entitled to your feelings. Hell maybe you're Persian and have a great deal to fear about American ignorance. All we ask is that you try and be ... lighter?

As for A Sullivan, yeah it is proof that Iran has a volitile population, as do all petro states who use cheap gas to grease the economy; does it mean that the 101 airborn should drop on Qom tonight? ... Hell no. There's hope and then there's... delusion.

[Quentin]

Not many of us, me included, know what is going on in the U.S. either. There are theories but no one yet seems capable of correlating them with facts. Funny how someone as respectable as Mr. Sullivan still gets off on riots like a kid.

[Quentin]

Not many of us, me included, know what is going on in the U.S. either. There are theories but no one yet seems capable of correlating them with facts. Funny how someone as respectable as Mr. Sullivan still gets off on riots like a kid.

[flory]

If rioting were an impending sign of a revolutionary change in government, as Sully seems to wish, then 1968 should've seen the end of our constitutional form of government.

And yet, it didn't happen til 2001.

Sully's got a long wait.

[Righteous Bubba]

If there's a little hope causing a ruckus in Iran I think we can say with certainty that there's hope exploding all over the place in Iraq.

[ronin]

Thers must be getting successful at this blog thingy- he has his very own troll now. :)

[DrBB]

Leaving aside the "no one knows" controversy, I'd rather address the "For some reason, this isn't front-page news" aspect of things.

I mean, front-page, I dunno, but it certainly was featured pretty heavily on the Beeb this a.m. and I believe NPR covered it pretty well also. So WTF, last time I was in P-town--oh, a week or so ago--they still had radio 'n' stuff. Often heard in cars while driving around, etc. Maybe Sully just don't listen.

And as a sometime medievalist I gotta say hey, thanks for that nice SGGK reference there too. Well played.

[Drew Thaler]

"Oh fuck you, Obi-Wan."

If the Koufax awards had a category for "Best sentence", this would win.

[Ralph]

How did you know about me and Santa?

[Thers]

Seth, I meant "nobody knows what's going on in Iran at the moment with these riots as this news story I cited indicates." Not that nobody in the world lacks expertise on modern Iran.

But on that score, it is usually those with the most expertise who are the most unwilling to make vague gnomic pronouncements as to the future and who are also most likely to heavily qualify their statements about present conditions.

[r€nato]

if you think Santa is a whore, let me tell you about the Tooth Fairy...

[Njorl]

"One of the burdens of being one of Chomsky's "educated 20%" is that you're expected to have an opinion on developments in East Waziristan, say, even though you never heard of the fucking place until you cracked open your morning's New York Times."

Waziristans come in North and South. There are no plans for more flavors in the near future.

"Guns, fireworks, tanks,
(President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad should be killed",

I bet that rhymes in Persian.

[LeonS]

Well I know of these riots here in Los Angeles, because I saw a LA Times sitting in the break room, and it was on the front page...

[Lewis Carroll]

They hate us for our gas stations.

[Matt]

Know Bush, no hope.

No Bush, know hope.

[Hashing your browns man, sorry]

Just throwing this one out there, but is there also the possibility that one reason the right are so pleased with these riots is because they are hoping it's indicative of emergency rationing due to fear of approaching war in Iran? Whether or not they also actually hope for that war to come, that they hope this is the first signs American intransigence is effecting the Iranian regime?

[GWPDA]

You know, TBogg's bassett hounds are going to be available for Thursday dog-blogging soon. And they haven't been strapped to the roof of the pickup yet either.

[TRex]

Bloody awful Sully.

He truly is the Queer of Magical Thinking.

[SteveB]

Waziristans come in North and South. There are no plans for more flavors in the near future.

Hey, I didn't say I was one of Chomsky's educated 20%.

[Sparkle Plenty]

Well said. This shirts v. skins mentality is so much silliness.

P.S. When you said "knowbody really knows" I understood what you meant.

[eRobin]

...the fairytale ending of a secular democracy whiskey sexy regime where it's all Hooters and Starbucks and TGIF and shit and everyone gets to fuck Santa.

How did I ever live without your writing?

[Rocky]

Sullivan ripped off Timothy Leary when he countered Nancy Reagan with "Just Say Know".

[Kid Charlemagne]

Please do not speak of the majestic GbV in the same breath as Asshat Sullivan.

[Cloned Poster]

ask Sully and seth if there will be riots in the US when the Hurricane season closes the refineries, and Sully's recommended intervention in Iran's lttle tiff at some petrol station etc, drives gas in the US to $10 a gallon.

Which we in Europe also pay now because of taxes, not because of idiotic foreign policy.

[smitty werbenmanjensen]

Gee, I wonder how Andy would portray a scuffle at a gas station in Long Island that offers $1-a-gallon gas for one day ....