(1) CANADA (Again…?)
So…Feckless Leader & Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff are dancing around each other, playing a giant game of calm-as-you-please one-upsmanship & chicken…will the government fall? Will they make a deal? Dare either party risk the wrath of Canadians and have a summer election? Who will blink first? Will campaign signs outnumber flower beds and well-trimmed bushes?
Well, I can tell you right now, I certainly don’t want a July election…and do you know why?
BECAUSE I WON’T BE HERE!
I’ll be in Poland until August 1st! You can’t have an election without me! You can’t have a federal orgy of political goodness when I’m not in the country! I forbit it! Denied! C’est impossible!
NOOOOOO!!!!! (In classic-nee-infamous Darth Vader/Revenge of the Sith pose)
(2) IRAN
I hate to say this…I really really really hate to say this…but is anyone in the least bit surprised?
This is IRAN, for god’s sake! A theocracy, with a Supreme Religious Leader…who can approve or nulify ANY law…at his whim. A man with supreme control of the armed forces, the religious police, and the economy. NOTHING happens without his say. There are no western rights, freedoms, or liberties.
The election process in this country is, therefore, a complete and utter sham. A waste of resources that only installs a puppet at worst…or a useless figurehead at best. The cry of unrest over the “tainted” election is hollow beyond all reason…for the simple fact that (under ideal circumstances) Iranians could have elected the most revolutionary western-friendly civil libertarian…and he (never EVER a she, not in THIS country) would be a useless piece of political floatsam.
Iran will only change in one way. The unrest happening now needs to multiply by a million people…they need to take to the streets…overpower the army, and drive the Ayatollah out of the country. There needs to be an antithesis of the 1979 revolution…but I’m not sure that’s about to happen.
Until it does, Iranian reformers are simply shouting at the rain…and that’s terribly depressing. :-(
