I'm sure most of us have been following the situation in Iran as closely as possible. Outside of DailyKos, I find that the Huffington Post has a great article on its site that is constantly being updated with new information. Thanks to this article I was directed to an op-ed from NYT columnist Roger Cohen that literally brought tears to my eyes. This diary is merely me telling those of you who haven't read it, that you should. Excerpt and link over the fold.
TEHRAN — She was in tears like many women on the streets of Iran’s battered capital. "Throw away your pen and paper and come to our aid," she said, pointing to my notebook. "There is no freedom here."
And she was gone, away through the milling crowds near the locked-down Interior Ministry spewing its pick-ups full of black-clad riot police. The "green wave" of Iran’s pre-election euphoria had turned black.
[snip]
Anger hung in the air, a sullen pall enveloping the city, denser than its smog, bitter as smashed hope.
[snip]
Within two hours of the closing of the polls, contrary to prior practice and electoral rules, the Interior Ministry, through the state news agency, announced a landslide victory for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose fantastical take on the world and world history appears to have added another fantastical episode.
Throughout the country, across regions of vast social and ethnic disparity, including Azeri areas that had indicated strong support for Moussavi (himself an Azeri), Ahmadinejad’s margin scarcely wavered, ending at an official 62.63 percent. That’s 24.5 million votes, a breathtaking 8 million more than he got four years ago.
No tally I’ve encountered of Ahmadinejad’s bedrock support among the rural and urban poor, religious conservatives and revolutionary ideologues gets within 6 million votes of that number.
Ahmadinejad won in other candidates’ hometowns, including Moussavi’s. He won in every major city except Tehran. He won very big, against the backdrop of an economic slump.
Full Op-ed
I don't want to paste more (fair use and all that), but as I read the op-ed I couldn't help but imagine how CRUSHED we would have felt if somehow McCain had been announced the victor in November. I remember how angry we all felt in 2000 and 2004, but we didn't have what appears to be the government BLATANTLY ignoring the results of an election, for us it always came down to one state. To say that the situation in Iran right now is "fucked up" is a gross understatement.
I hope you all take the time to read the entire op-ed, it's not that long and it's very powerful. It reads like a fiction novel, only it's actually their reality right now.