Padd Solutions

It appears something is happening in Iran. Some are calling it a coup. Not your normal-style from-the-outside-in coup, but a from-the-side-and-to-the-top kinda coup. That is, the highly conservative and bellicose portion of the Iranian government has rigged an election (and quite poorly), imposed a result, and taken measures to prevent "pushback" - no cell phone service, no satellite, jammed radio, jammed web, no SMS. The only thing that seems to be getting through, for reasons I can't quite tell, is Twitter.

(For news, Andrew Sullivan's been keeping a great eye on all this, especially for a Sunday. On twitter, look up "change_for_iran", "tehran bureau", and the convo "#IranElection". Link out from there.)

Of course I hope the results are overturned, but from the point of view of a Westerner, I hope one thing above all else: that this news, the footage of green-clad, middle-class Iranians demonstrating against a horribly undemocratic (not to mentione un-Islamic) fraud, causes the Us-Versus-Them wall to crumble, or at least show some cracks.

For too long, the hardliners in both the West and in Persia have painted a picture of the Other as beyond redemption, as fanatical and murderous, as undeserving of mercy or good or hope or even the slightest empathy. There are terrorists on both sides, and whether they reside in a Revolutionary Guards' barracks or in cozy Washington think tanks, one thing - the only relevant thing - unites them: the certainty of bloodlust.

Anyone who cares to notice will see what I'm seeing and be shocked, repulsed, inspired, and maybe a little hopeful: kids, twentysomethings, dressed just like me, in the streets of their cities standing athwart history yelling "No!" Any one of these people could be walking down Crandon and I wouldn't bat an eye. Do these Iranians wish to nuke Israel? Do they wish the destruction of the West?

Sure doesn't look like it. Half of'em are wearing ironic hipster t-shirts and pre-stressed jeans. I never thought I'd say it, but hipsters and jeans are worth fighting for. Or at least lending support to. So today my middle and index fingers are painted green, and if anyone asks why I will tell them.