The problem with writing this story is it is too damn obvious. How many people believe th 20 somethings who made the video below to Pharrell’s “Happy” should be thrown in jail for two years after being lashed 61 times. Anyone? Anyone? I’ll tell you one thing I do believe, if Alan Henning was married with children his first responsibility was to take care of his family not to help children in Syria. But, that’s another post.
But the Iranian Mullah’s cannot govern youthful high spirits, the spirits, on pain of death, will always win out in the end and so it is here. It comes back to ISIS and terrorism: people die every day, and in more tragic manner, death is part of life, but ISIS chopping off people’s heads and filming it, and publicizing it, like it is a viral music video, like it’s “Call Me Maybe”, is so mean. People just hate it. Everybody hates it.
Everybody hates these Mullahs. The Iranians hated the Shah and hated American interference because the Shah killed anyone who pissed him off, and the Yanks treated the Iranians like a weak, pathetic people who needed US largesse to survive. They took US charity but hated them for it.
Ayatollah Khomeini beat the US through a mix of Islam and Iranian pride, beat em senseless. Unfortunately, the Iranians got a whole lot more than they bargained for. Suddenly, you couldn’t dance, couldn’t drink, the maniacs drained all life out of life. Or at least they certainly tried. Of course, much like Saudi, which is something in the nature of a 24 hour a day rave behind locked doors, nothing can stop people from living their lives.
New York’s “Vulture” website reported what happened to the “Happy” kids: According to preliminary reports, the dancers each received a six-month sentence and a punishment of 91 lashes for vulgarity and illicit relations. (Corporal punishments are commonly handed out in Iran alongside prison terms.) One of the women, who also uploaded the video online, got a year-long sentence, plus lashes.
But it’s not all bad news: The sentences are suspended, meaning that the youngsters may get no punishment at all, as long as they don’t run afoul of the law again during their three-year probationary period. That’s one way to stifle dissent while seeming generous.”
Well, quite.
The thing is, it is not that the US is better than Iran, it is that the things that are bad about the US are bad it ways that don’t crush the joy out of being alive (well, except for poverty of course and the jailing of so many black men).
