amandeep held a flash mob last night in san francisco in honor of michael jackson:
how awesome that people can organize a tribute party in mere moments and get everyone together. the internets have such speed, both to honor him and also to spread a dying picture from within the ambulance within hours. though i guess traditional media was also quick to get quotes from Paul McCartney and Diana Ross and tv tributes lined up on the spot. but average joe citizen has just as much speed as the pros.
i don’t know if the iranian election was rigged, but it seems millions of people in iran think so this week. if it was, then the riggers really blew it. they rigged it to such a degree that people are convinced that it was rigged instead of just mildly suspicious.
assuming that it was, were they hoping that a landslide would validate their political position more? well if so that backfired, because the supposed landslide has likely made the young people there even more disenfranchised with the regime. assuming they rigged it, it would have been much smarter on their part to have only won by a smaller — more plausible — margin and been conciliatory with much hand shaking to boot.
independent of how this election occurred, perhaps there is a general problem with scaling monarchies or their equivalent really large. it is harder for a small number of people at the top to read sentiment and make decisions for larger and larger citizenry. dynamic systems i believe are much better at that. i appreciate the goals of a theocracy, to provide a higher moral guidance for a society than a completely self-serving system might produce. when it’s a free for all, who is to say that hedonism and selfishness won’t reign? look at america’s current economic debacle as an example of the risks arguably of too much freedom. but then again, america is possibly more efficient and dynamic and able to roll with the changes. if anything, i credit america for being able to adjust to the times.
i’m wonder if a theocracy can scale honestly except for perhaps a constitutional one that allows for more dynamic change. the current iranian structure provides for some change but i wonder if there is enough flexibility to adjust for such a fast-paced modern world. perhaps the best political system for the 21st century is one that has a greater degree of flexibility while maintaining the most core values of the society in a constitution, be it socialist or capitalist or something else.
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