Craig Murray links approvingly to the opinions of one Yassamine Mather of Hopi (Hands Off the People of Iran).

She takes a view commendably similar to that of Christopher Hitchens, albeit from a rather different lumpen Marxist angle:

It is no surprise that the highly contested results of the presidential elections in Iran have sparked unrest in Tehran and other cities across Iran. The level of cheating on display seems crazy even by the standards of Iran’s Islamic Republic regime. Clearly (Note: Dave Spart adverb alert – Ed.), the results are the final proof that confirms that the whole electoral process is deeply undemocratic and rigged from top to bottom.

Is Moussavi the good guy? No!

Moussavi does not consider the nine previous presidential elections in Iran’s Islamic Republic – most of them with very dubious results – a “charade”. In the 2009 election, he did not bat an eyelid when the Council of Guardians disqualified over 400 candidates. He did not think the process was a “charade” when the supreme religious leader intervened time and time again to defend Ahmadinejad.

Even now, although he is furious about loosing the elections, he is not calling on the Iranian people to support him. Instead, he is addressing the ‘Religious centres of Guidance’ (elite shia Ayatollahs) to denounce the result. He is no fan of democracy and mass movements. Like his predecessor Mohammad Khatami, Moussavi is well aware that the survival of the ‘Islamic order’ is in his interests. That is why, even when he is clearly (Note: ditto) a victim of the supreme leader’s lunacy, he cannot rock the boat.

So:

These elections were a “charade” from the day they started. All four candidates are supporters of the existing system. All support the existing neo-liberal policies and privatisations. All four are in favour of Iran’s nuclear programme.

I wandered from this site to Yassamine addressing Communist Students.

It turns out that such people still exist.

Who are they?

Communists have no interest apart from the working class as a whole. This class consists not only of those in employment, but everyone who does not own or control the means of production. The majority of students in a country like Britain are therefore part of the working class.

I too appear to be working class as I do not control or own ‘the means of production’, whatever they are. Excellent. I can subvert from within…

What do they want?

They have ‘links’ (unspecified) with the Communist Party of Great Britain. But also a touching if confused New Age easygoingness. They:

… fight to replace capitalism with communism. Not the ‘communism’ of Stalin’s Soviet Union, but a free and democratic world society…

Members of CS must will (sic) not be silenced or expelled if they disagree with the majority line. Members are free to form factions within the organisation.

All such groupings have such odd ideas about what is or should be ‘free’. In their case this includes:

  • free abortion on demand
  • free 24-hour childcare
  • free (and democratised!) education
  • free rights of immigration
  • free citizenship for all immigrant workers

Luckily these things all fall gently from the sky so they are indeed free. No-one has to do anything or pay anything to anyone else to achieve them.

Here’s an interesting argument:

Socialism is either democratic or, as with the abomination that was Stalin’s Soviet Union, it turns into its opposite.

So if people vote against it, what happens? Ooops. Back to Uncle Joe again.

Yup.

Hands off Iran. Mad mullahs are mad/bad enough without these people rushing to give the Iranian masses ‘solidarity’.