BBC NEWS | "'Free Mojtaba and Arash Day'"

BBC NEWS | Technology | Global blogger action day called: "'Free Mojtaba and Arash Day'"

Interesting concept. Without a little research (and a little research is far more than an average person will do) it's not clear what the Accused are imprisoned for, but the suggestion seems to be that they have been imprisoned for expressing their opinion. http://tinyurl.com/6n9l8.
[More can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/6uqt8.]

In the interest of the US First Amendment (being washed away in the acid rain of pseudo-religious nationalism), this site posts this notice.

As we examine the political landscape in the US, we see that there are no countries that have more villainous characters than we. No Afghanee warlords, no fatwah brandishing maniacal imams, no goebbels or goering*, no molotov or stalin, no pol pot who is worse than our own home-grown madmen. As we look around, we see that truth or falsehood is no test. We see that consistency, clemency, and sophistication are of no import. We see that being right, being most important, being richest, being strongest, or at least being all these things in our minds as we blather into our bullhorns, we see that these are all. If we simply repeat "We are the greatest," somehow it will be true. This is the absurdity of the half-educated. This is the dream-state of the masses and their pudgy, demoniacal representatives, a pallid pudding of treacly goo studded with bits of anger and topped with fear. Imagine the surprise and betrayed anger of the masses (bit by bit, one slice of the demographic pie at a time) as the people whose totalitarian ideas they support in favor of their own half-baked philosophical positions use their new found powers over the general mass to turn on THEM, and then they will cry out for the protections they have helped to remove so that they could squash the scary OTHERS down the street and across town. And it will be too late. And they have seen this message 10,000 times in the movies, in the press, in magazines and books, and they have nodded sagely each time, oh, yes, the importance of our freedoms, ohyes our bill of rights, ohyesthecommunityofman, yes. Oh, but not the fags. Not the muslims. Oh, certainly not people who have abortions. Not people who have no jobs! No. NO! Not the elderly who lost their pensions to CEO sharks! NO NO NO! Free enterprise! No government meddling! Teach a man to FISH!! Yes! That's it. Survival of the Fittest, that's what god designed. That's Jesus's message. God helps those . . . . Yes. Yes.


*"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm