• TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Minute 1:30, it calls them a “fascist dictatorship”…

    Look, I’m not going to apologize for Iran in any manner. But calling them fascist isn’t, its not quite right. Fascism is a form of political identity. It has a specific meaning. The regime in Iran might be terrible, but its not fascist, per se…

    Also the comments on this video are wild.

    This video is hard to suffer through. I’d love to hear a deep dive, but I can’t stomach this.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        Iranians have a more democratic society than any other country you could name in the region.

        What they are is under siege. The eleven day war with Israel crippled their domestic infrastructure. And the ongoing sanctions placed by the US prevented them from rebuilding in a timely manner.

        • treesquid@lemmy.world
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          14 hours ago

          That’s like saying that out of a rhino, a hippo and a horse, the horse is best at flying because it can jump. Iran isn’t democratic. It’s a single party theocracy that jails or murders it’s people for saying mean stuff about the unelected leader that was supposedly chosen by god.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            12 hours ago

            Iran isn’t democratic. It’s a single party theocracy

            I count four major coalitions of parties, and a healthy batch of independents, which is more than can be said of any American, Canadian, or UK government. I don’t know how you get “single party” out of that. Hell, the Reformist coalition just took the Presidency a year ago for the first time.

            jails or murders it’s people for saying mean stuff about the unelected leader that was supposedly chosen by god

            You seem to have Iran confused with the US. It’s always fucking projection with you guys.

            • Godric@lemmy.world
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              10 hours ago

              How fucking disingenuous can you be? Like the number of prties is an indicator if how good you’re doing democracy, ignoring the rape, torture, murder, and disappearance of dissidents.

              You should be ashamed to defend such a brutal regime, unless you live there in fear of arbitrary arrest for not.

              • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                10 hours ago

                Like the number of prties is an indicator if how good you’re doing democracy

                “Iran only has one party and that’s bad”

                “The number of parties doesn’t matter, aktuly, and you’re stupid if you thought so”

                :-/

                You should be ashamed to defend such a brutal regime

                Wipe the Saudi light sweet crude off your lips before you try to deliver that line in earnest.

                I suspect your definition of “brutal regime” is “they won’t let me jerk it to women in bikinis”. There’s no real concern for Iranians assassinated by the Mossad or bombed by the Americans or starved through international sanctions. Nevermind the native expats hounded by western anti-immigration police or scientists who were kidnapped and tortured or civilians shot out of the sky for no reason at all.

                You only seem to understand “brutality” as a White Man’s Burden to resolve. So long as westerners get to exploit the labor and livelihood of a Middle Eastern people, Islamic Despots don’t seem to bother you in the slightest.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            12 hours ago

            Do you mean the Guardian Council of Islamic Jurists? The populist leaders that lead the revolution against the Shah’s military dictatorship in 1979 and retain enormous popularity within Iran’s conservative religious community?

            They’ve got about as much “absolute power” as any unelected SCOTUS judges. The power is entirely derived from the Iranian bureaucracy’s loyalty to the Council over the Presidency.

    • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      Also the comments on this video are wild.

      Honestly, they are above par for YouTube.

      …So maybe they’re bots? The more expensive kind?

    • madcaesar@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      Theocracy, fascist, dictatorship, the difference is fun for political majors to circlejerk about, but at the end of the day, these governments are hell for the populace.

      They torture, imprison and kill people that are different, people that dare dissent.

    • biofaust@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

      As an Italian, I can tell you that I call theocratic regimes whose power is based on individual control and punishment at scale, fascist regimes.

      I know that totalitarian or, in some other cases, authoritarian would be more appropriate, but at least in my culture fascism has been the first and the archetype of all totalitarianisms.

      Not letting Iran enjoy the deserved hate it derives from an even longer history of antifascism would be too big a discount.

    • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      How much of it did you watch? I watched all of it and thought it was very informative, despite a few errors. I don’t think they spent too much time on WHY the government is inept, just HOW inept it is. They shit on the current government and the Shah before them so I don’t see them playing favorites.

      Iran is pretty fascist-adjacent so it’s an easy mistake to make. They hit almost all the notes to play that song.

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I just finished with it and its terrible in this regard. There is no disambiguation between “just the facts” and the author/ narrators political opinions and identity. Not to say those opinions are wrong or invalid but its incredibly important to separate them and to clearly identify which is which, which even the most amateur journalist understands.

        Its the framing that’s the problem, and its often what a framing leaves out that ends up being more telling. You might re-watch it with a lens for what is missing rather than what is said, and honestly, its not my job to make the gaps in your political education apparent. Like, if you come away from this video with its explanation of “why” things in Iran are the way that they are, you’ll come away wildly miseducated.

        Just because something agrees with your bias, this doesn’t make it correct.

        • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 day ago

          It’s definitely glossing over some stuff, like when it talks about the unwillingness of neighbors to trade with them and chalking it up to “burned bridges”, I imagine the aggressive US sanctions they’ve been under played a big role there.

    • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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      23 hours ago

      Fascism is contantly evolving, thus calling it one is fitting. It’s not just swastikas, and some realized they can deflect accusations of fascism with stuff like being “anti-swastika”, but only performatively (see Russia for that example).