NBC interview of Turaj Zaim at Iran Mega-Rally, courtesy of NBC and KNTV News, Bay Area

[TurajZaim]

... me back from expressing my own very convinced judgment of what others do and deserve.

May almighty make me patient,

Turaj

[TurajZaim]

our own thinking, our emotions and how others control us by them. I also want people who think this way and are in a position of power over others--whether they're mullahs, or Rush Limbaugh, preaching loudly that drug offenders should be treated the same as violent criminals as he buys Oxycontin through his maid--should be bent over in a cell, grabbing iron bars until they've atoned for the lives they've ruined. Thank god for my Western, liberal tradition, for it is the only thing holding...

[TurajZaim]

End of discussion. Your excusing of their obvious criminal and immoral acts proves your prejudice and marks you as yet another hypocrite ready to excuse his fellow hypocrites, because you are so righteous, so good in your purpose, that any means justify the ends. Any excusing of murder, torture, beatings in the street, is based on a mindset that I hope to live to see fade into extinction. I do feel sorry for you that current education does not give us the tools to understand ourselves and...

[TurajZaim]

detested since childhood--political opinion based on assumed biases (such as sexism) and self-righteous extolling of what others should be and do--and because your earlier posted comment would have made me want to break your nose if it were in person, I thought this was an ideal time to practice my Western liberal tradition of open discussion, and to address with one sweep the endless barrage of mindless comments on the Internet: Brutality is unnecessary if one is truly representing ones nation.

[TurajZaim]

It rubs me the wrong way. That's all. I want it to shape up or ship out, for the same reasons I want the Federal Reserve, the right-wing of the militaristic Israeli government, the House of Saud, and the Chinese Communist Party to shape up or ship out. They are standing in the way of individuals' life, happiness, and potential.

I also want to restate why I am responding to this comment: Your kind is a penny a dozen on the internet. Because you so well exhibit both modes of thinking I have...

[TurajZaim]

I was continuing my explanation of why I do activism for Iran. This is not an "argument". I don't need an argument. And although I doubt defeating you in logical argument would take much effort on my part, I want to suggest that certain things don't need political history to analyze, nor philosophy to discern right and wrong in. The IRI is an unrepresentative regime that clings to power while mismanaging a great nation, and their sadistic tactics and stunningly obvious cover-ups prove it...

[TurajZaim]

... having "moral problems". How convenient are the self-serving justifications of the morally righteous.

So when I mentioned that I am protesting the same shit that my parents had to deal with 30 years ago, when the IRI was using the same tactics, when my mother was thrown without reason into prison, where they raped and whipped women unconscious and back into consciousness again; where my father would disappear to without notice, regularly; and where my uncle disappeared to, permanently...

[TurajZaim]

They're being murdered en masse and buried in mass graves. The beauties of the soil you claim to feel connected to are being selected for gang rape, until their bodies have to be burned to cover the evidence. And then your FOX-free television states that they were involved in an accident, or that they checked themselves out of hospitals where their families were trying to meet them... to run away forever? Never to be found. Or the brutalized are reported to their friends and families as...

[TurajZaim]

Adams' original theory (and focus on the need for ethical supervision) and what is now called "capitalism", of which the financial manipulations of the Fed and the Fascistic bailouts of banks "too big to fail" are not exactly good representations.

My pathetic argument, O Cogent One, was a response to your earlier comment, explaining why I helped with this protest, spoke at rallies, and starved myself in public this summer. Let me reiterate: Because Iranians are being raped. Is that clear?

[TurajZaim]

It seems to assume the entire nation is mentally retarded. That's actually not fair--I've worked a lot with the mentally disabled, and they watch a lot of TV. They would never fall for the poor acting the IRI pushes through its airwaves.

I know that Science came largely from and through Persia. I'll study the Scottish Enlightenment, thank you; I've always wanted to study them and the Irish more. I do study American Capitalism, closely, and I invite you to discern the difference between...

[TurajZaim]

watch the stories of Iranians estranged from their home, figuring out ways to contend with the brutal, vile oppression that their families have to live under. And yes, I am happy that they are serving my cause, which was to publicize our efforts and raise awareness of what is really going on in Iran. Got that right. So... what's the problem? You don't like that kind of system? State-controlled, bald-faced, ridiculously transparent lies suit you better? Have you watched Iran's state TV?...

[TurajZaim]

and that I grew up at least partly in the States, because freedom is better: it lets you breathe, know yourself and your species more, and become more. It sounds like you did not even grow up in Iran, so again, I don't know where people like you get off speaking so surely. In fact it always amazes me. I imagine you feel kinship with the personality types in the IRI.

FOX invited me for an interview so they could sell their advertizing space. True. That is because they think people want to...

[TurajZaim]

when you had your visit to my birthland, maybe it's because they weren't allowed to be. In fact, much of what you say does not corroborate with what my friends and family in Iran tell me. And who's that hot "PersianGirl" on your page? What a confused whore she must be.

What must my family do and not do, again? Why do I care what you think about what we and others should do? Do you go about your day presuming you know what's best for other people? I am very glad my mom escaped with me...

[toori2l5l]

Just one event can not provide right to anyone, to put the 3000 years old civilization once agine on bloody revolutionary track. If you have grievances, so does the Yankee, within that Democratic or I must say, pornocratic system. Iranians should change the system because you got hurt does not justifiable. You pathetic argument doesnt have any basis, bro. Is it not good enough, that your spinster sister can go alone from Zahidan to Tehran? Or you want pubs and discos for your sisters

[TurajZaim]

This is not the 3,000-years-old civilization I am proud of, nor the one I identify with. The one I studied, the one I liked, had human rights, and freedom of religion for all, and respect for different ethnicities.

Does the IRI have that?

I don't know what pornocratic means, but you're right: there are many grievances here. I work on those, and will return to working on those, because I believe the American experiment is the flickering hope--in all of human history since Cyrus--of these...

[TurajZaim]

basic principles of individual freedom that I believe are the greatest things any society can protect. Call me American. For this same reason, yes I want pubs and discos for my sisters, because my sisters are grown, fully cognizant individuals. Only a man whose pride and identity are caught up in basic sexist beliefs would assume a woman cannot make up her own mind about whether to drink or dance. Does women having such autonomy scare you? Disgust you? Make you feel you are less of a man...

[TurajZaim]

feel you aren't protecting them properly from themselves?

And no it is not enough that a spinster sister can go somewhere. All women should be able to walk wherever there is public space, with whomever they want. I suspect also that yet again you are claiming freedoms that do not really exist. Your earlier assertion that there are no beggars in the streets flies in the face of reports of a grim, welfare economy every Iranian I know tells me stories about. If they weren't in the streets...

[toori2l5l]

Stupid idiot,,,learn Philosophy ignorant,,,,these Yankees r just just using u ,,,,,,, learn something idiot,,,,,ur Shah ws there puppet n they want 2 take the hold back on ur contry,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Iran's infrastructure 2day is best among developed nations(although material progress is not a last line),,, 2day u will not find beggar on Iran's road,,,,,I spend good time in Qum, Kashan, Isphahan, Tehran and Mashhad,,,,,i hv seen these realities by my own eyes