Iran and US:

A Tale of Two Elections

Rasa - When media outlets in the West give their opinion, they are liberal. When media outlets in other parts of the world give their opinion, they are lackeys.

News ID: 425082

Date: 15 November 2016 - 23:32

RNA - A case in point could be the protests against the Iranian presidential election results which occurred in Tehran from 2009 into 2010. The protests were titled as “Green Movement” by the proponents, and “Persian Awakening” by the Western media and Persian language news outlets like VOA and BBC Farsi.

Despite the fact that incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won nearly 60 percent, these state-funded news networks reported “several irregularities.” Just like the opposition candidates, they claimed the votes were manipulated and the election was rigged. They then encouraged the protesters to take action, to take matters into their hands, and to take it as a call to arms. Tragic enough, some protesters settled for more!

Fast forward to 2016 in the United States and the ongoing protests in cities nationwide, the same news networks and media outlets are now urging angry protesters to accept the presidential election results, accept reality, and stop engaging in “counterfactual regret.” The professional propagandists also come up with solutions on how best to cope with what they call “the post-election stress!”

For instance, they say those who oppose Donald Trump’s election have been through a collective trauma that has left them feeling rattled and afraid. Their “pundits” and “psychologists” say this fear and anxiety is not universal - while some in the country mourn, Trump's supporters are celebrating. Still, they never say violence is the solution, let alone encourage the “mixed-up” voters to stay in the streets – unlike the way they prescribed utter violence and destruction in Iran's 2009 “post-election stress."

At that time, the corporate media lackeys never bothered to prescribe any peaceful preventive approach, let alone urge the country to unite under Ahmadinejad’s stewardship. They never told the protesters not to take democracy for granted or not to destroy things that were important to them. They never told the protesters to get “civically” engaged, such as running for local office, doing charity work, writing, or just being there for loved ones - whatever made them feel like they were working toward the vision of a reality they wanted. Not at all. All these niceties are only there to prescribe to their own disillusioned voters in Los Angeles, New York and elsewhere; to help them deal with the post-election “collective trauma.”

Mind you, in a surprising turnabout from their pre-election rhetoric in the US, right now they are all doing just that. They call the violent protests a “collective trauma” for the anti-Trump set, where the protesters are going through the stages of grief - denial and anger. Some news networks and pundits encourage the protesters to reconcile themselves to Trump presidency and strengthen connections with families, communities, and organizations as the most important preventive approach. Others encourage the protesters to take care of themselves and improve their mood, from deep breathing to listening to music to reading poetry to playing sports to walking in nature to crying together!

On the whole, this is the reality folks. For whatever reason, Western media outlets and governments never go against realpolitik. In this bizarre juxtaposition (Iran elections vs. US elections), violent protests after the 2009 elections were the hallmarks of a country with weak democratic system. Quite the contrary, in the United States these are just "public gathering," where protesters take pride in their “robust” electoral institutions and their centuries of continuous “democratic practice.”

Even as demonstrators continue to flock to the streets and large swathes of the country see Trump’s presidency and his KKK surrogates as abdominal and as posing an unprecedented threat to the nation and the world, they are still called by the media as “engaged public” - never challenging the legitimacy of the election and never sending a clear message of disapproval.

As is customary, news outlets in Europe and the United States call this fallout “the democratic process.” They even claim they are fighting for the people and suspect there will continue to be protests across the country. It's a disgrace.

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