Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Sunday, December 27, 2009

The Funeral of Montazeri and the Strength of Resistence

By John Ballard



This was posted five days ago at View from Iran.



Montazeri-funeral[1]



On June 15, 3 million Iranians in Tehran went onto the streets because their hopes for peaceful and gradual reform of their government were so cruelly dashed by the blatantly fraudulent election results. Their individual courage was buoyed by the courage shown by others.



[December 21] in Qom, hundreds of thousands attended the funeral of Ali Montazeri, a grand ayatollah who had consistently spoken up for civil rights, the separation of state and religion, and against state-sponsored violence. They did this despite the risk of arrest and reprisals. Mourners went with knowledge of the brutal rapes of prisoners in Kharizak Prison, the torture and beatings and psychological anguish inflicted upon those in custody, and the random violence visited on demonstrators and passersby alike. They went with their eyes open and with hopes for freedom.



The only thing that can stop them in their quest for freedom now would be an attack on Iran from outside forces. The Iranian regime is doing everything it can to bait Israel and the West. It�s the schoolyard bully sticking out its tongue and begging for a punch in the gut. Wouldn't it just be glorious to defend oneself rather than to be the aggressor? There is nothing the regime wants more than an outside attack. Restraint would do more to end their reign then anything else. Let�s finally allow the Iranian people decide their own future and allow them to play out their long struggle for real freedom and real civil rights.





There is nothing the regime wants more than an outside attack. Restraint would do more to end their reign then anything else.

Hello.

Anybody paying attention?

I think the president gets it but he seems to be in a shrinking minority. Yeah, the president. The guy who is turning out to be a big disappointment to so many people, especially those most responsible for electing him.



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1 comment:

  1. ToriDecember 28, 2009 at 3:26 AM

    Thanks for posting this. It seems that Robin Wright agrees:
    "So far the green movement has insisted on non-violence. Perhaps the ultimate irony in the Islamic Republic today is that a brutal revolutionary regime suspected of secretly working on a nuclear weapon faces its biggest challenge from peaceful civil disobedience. And even such a militarised regime has been unable to put it down."
    (www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6969094.ece)

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