I noticed that an acquaintance on Facebook is supporting McCain/Palin! I don’t know how else to say it other than that I think it is a shame for any Iranian to do so. I questioned her logic (or lack thereof). She said if Obama is elected then USA will lose its strength! I responded to her on her Facebook wall and to my surprise she deleted my response without any comment!
Hmm…Censorship within our own little semi-public media called Facebook Wall! Interesting concept.
Now we are continously subject to the censorship of the US media by the conservative right-wing republicans and the influential and powerful pro-Israeli politicians, lobbyist, and bankers. And we’ve seen how the fundamentalist mullahs have chocked/drown/cut (in some cases literally) the media and the dissent back home in Iran for years.
But this one felt personal. Why would anyone do such a thing? Intolerance? Weakness? Fear? Now I want everyone to read my response. So here is an edited and expanded version of it:
McCain and Palin are warmongers and religious fanatics. Palin thinks that invading Iraq was “will of god”! Killing people under the name of god. Sounds familiar? Iraq is in ruins; its people are murdered & raped, made homeless. The Iraqi civilian death toll is approaching 100,000 (www.antiwar.com/casualties).
“US lose its strength”? What strength? The strength to invade and destroy poor 3rd world countries like Iraq & Afghanistan, kill & rape their people and rub them of their resources? I don’t want that kind of strength. No human being ever should.
During the last 8 years US has certainly lost a lot of strength: In Iraq alone, more than 4,000 Americans have died and over 30,000 Americans are wounded (www.iraqbodycount.org). International acceptance & respect for US and Americans is far lower than it was in Clinton’s era, thanks to President Bush’s wrong foreign policies, invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, arrest, imprisonment and torture of innocent people all over the world including in US under the excuse of anti-terrorism. The US economy is in crisis, the core of US financial system is falling apart. We the taxpayer Americans have to pay $700 billion to save the financial corporations that are supposedly the backbone of the US economy. People are losing their homes; in California alone there were 100,000 home foreclosures (300,000 nationwide) just in the month of August! Bush and his people wiped out the surplus they inherited and now we have one of the largest debts/deficits ever.
So under the Republican rule US is far weaker than it was before. If McCain/Palin are elected things are sure to get worse — for the world, especially for the poor and unprivileged, and for the majority of Americans.
Farshid Ketabchi
Irvine, CA
