[ExI] public funding of election PR

[Fred C. Moulton]

On Mon, 2009-06-29 at 17:52 -0700, spike wrote:
> > >I suspect this as the reason why Obama waited so long to say 
> > anything 
> > >about the Iranian elections, because the Iranians made 
> > illegal campaign 
> > >donations, more to him than to his rival.
> > 
> > Jesus, Spike, this sounds like a wander into tinfoil hat territory. 
> > References, please...
> 
> No news stories on that.  It just puzzled me he wouldn't speak up sooner and
> louder, with video images of government thugs beating unarmed protestors.
> His commentary just seemed late and lite.  

Maybe the reason that Obama did not speak out early and loudly is
because he has some basic common sense as well as a basic understanding
of history.  As I wrote previously sometimes the best thing to do is not
to say anything.  Given the role of the governments of the USA and the
UK with Iran historically having the current POTUS getting involved is
not a good idea.  It is unclear to what extent the Brits were involved
in recent events but given their reputation I would have thought that if
they had any intelligence at all they would have all stayed uninvolved.

> No need to threaten militar
> action, but an early word of sincere condemnation would be welcome.  Notice
> how quickly he spoke up on the Honduras coup:
> 
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090629/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_honduras_coup
> 
> Honduras?  Where is that?

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://geology.com/world/honduras-map.gif&imgrefurl=http://geology.com/world/honduras-satellite-image.shtml&usg=__BVdpW5nlwUM1EaaMRMUTpTe-ErI=&h=603&w=750&sz=87&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=bQkvXUcfOIg8wM:&tbnh=113&tbnw=141&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhonduras%2Bmap%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1


> Isn't that one of those coconut places in the
> Australian rainforest somewhere?  They don't even have oil or nukes!  Who
> the hell cares who runs Honduras?  Well, I do, but for a different reason.
> I am specifically watching unrest anywhere *caused by a stolen election*
> because that is the only circumstances I can imagine as applicable to the
> US.
> 
> > As for the Iranian elections--have you checked out Jeff's links yet?
> > 
> > Damien Broderick
> 
> Ja, and I agree with Jeff on that.  In Iran it was one bad guy against
> another, and Ahmadinejehad *probably* did win.  
> 
> But it isn't about that, it's about elections.  It's about the fact that
> Iran, the US, and every other democracy is conspicuously and flatly refusing
> to set up verification techniques on their elections, which make them durn
> near meaningless, and goddam dangerous in a country where everyone is armed.
> 
> spike
> 
> 
> 
> 
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