Iran & Occupy Wall Street

The president of Iran, according to a recent report, wants to meet with the proponents of Occupy Wall Street. This meeting will occur as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad goes on a media tour during his visit in New York for the United Nations General Assembly.

In a sense this is an understandable political move because such a meeting with American activists will give him an opportunity to highlight discontent within the United States. On the other hand... it seems as if Ahmadinejad may not understand the Occupy movement any better than American politicians. Who exactly would he plan on meeting with? Occupy Wall Street has never had any centralized leadership and having a hundred members of that movement asking him questions or having a dialogue with him would really not be representative of that movement as a whole. This is even assuming the particular occupiers he meets with are not somehow screened in advance for the purpose of political theater.

Occupy Wall Street was largely initiated by anarchists and with anarchistic principles. To a large extent the movement remains anarchistic despite being watered down with milquetoast liberals and Ron Paul fanboys. So what in the world could the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran expect to find in common with such a movement? The corruption of Wall Street and the U.S. government does not at all suggest that the movement is on the same side as, or in favor of, a repressive theocratic government. And let's face reality... if this sort of movement had manifested in Iran it would have been attacked by the government of that land, and it's media, just as the movement was attacked by the U.S. government and it's media. Quite arguably the attacks on such a movement would have been worse in Iran. Also, certainly, the participation of women would have served as extra motivation to crack down on this movement if it had manifested in Iran.

The Media's Spin On Anarchists

There has recently been a growing and disturbing trend whereby right-wing idealogues, organizations, and terrorists have been presented in the media as being “anti-government” or even anarchists. This effectively serves to confuse the public about the philosophy of anarchism and what anarchists actually stand for. And this practice will, undoubtedly, have negative consequences for actual anarchist communities.

This inaccurate media portrayal of right wing extremists really caught my attention after the Sikh temple shooting in Wisconsin – when Amy Goodman subsequently interviewed a former DHS analyst on the subject of “right-wing extremists.” In that interview her guest dismissed the idea that Timothy McVeigh was a racist and no mention of his Christian fundamentalism was put forward. He was described primarily as being involved with “anti-government” militias. This despite the fact that McVeigh constantly praised the Turner Diaries (a novel that romanticizes a race war), which he sold below cost at gun shows, and despite the fact that he was associated with the fundamentalist Christian Identity movement. And, actually, McVeigh was not really anti-government. Rather, he was merely opposed to certain aspects of the government currently in charge. So, while I am a frequent member of DemocracyNow's audience, I think Ms.Goodman dropped the ball in this particular interview and should have been a little more challenging with her questions.

More to the point along these lines... a prominent headline in the news recently has been about a supposed “anarchist” cell within the U.S. military which was allegedly planning to carry out political assassinations, blow up dams, and poison Washington state's apple orchards. However, despite numerous headline's referring to them as “anarchists,” when one looked a little deeper it was discovered that these "anarchists" were actually just “true patriots” who were essentially looking to take the country back. Later it was revealed that the alleged ringleader of the group was an usher at the RNC in 2008. Like McVeigh, this group seems to be comprised of fairly typical right-wing militants – who are not really "anti-government" and certainly not anarchists.