Registering Iranian Blogs

It's a little old, but I was struck by this article that I happened across recently. The government's actions are perfectly in line with their other attempts to censor the net, but trying to get 100,000+ active bloggers to register? How are they planning on doing that I ask? It would have been much simpler to start off with a registering system, but of course that is part of the systemic problem with Internet censorship in Iran. Like satellite tv before it, the regime has been slow to pick up on the dangers of the Internet, and without a comprehensive strategy for dealing with it, their uncoordinated tactics seem sloppy. Of course part of that has to do with the necessary impression of democratic legitimacy that the regime must feign. Still, I think the underlying problem is one of disunity. Of course, this doesn't mean that their actions are impotent. Iranian bloggers still have to deal with the consequences.

Oh, and the article mentions Ahmadinejad's own blog as well. Pretty funny stuff.

Avaaz, YouTube, and a Clash of Meaning?

Stop the Clash of Civilizations? A new YouTube clip, produced by a NGO called Avaaz, cought my attention the other day. Interesting for a number of reasons. First, do they mean to perpetuate the bankurpt theories of Samual Huntington? The "Clash of Civilizations is the idea that the conflicts of the perceivable future will be centered around irreconcilable differences between stagnant regional civilizations. This of course would make sense to certain global figures who view the world in these black-and-white terms. However, for most of the sane world the premises of the idelology hold no water. I wonder why then this group would use this title to contextualize their message? I see it as not really preventing a clash of civilizations, but more deconstruting a faulty theory about clashing civilizations.



Avaaz is apparently backed by two goups, MoveOn.org and a group called Res Publica. I've worked for MoveOn.org, so I know a little about the organization. They were behind broad movements in 04 and 06 to help Democrats win US elections. In 06 they did this mainly through a vast telephone campaign aimed at getting "progressive" voters out to the polls. Unsurprisingly, the clip itself points to these huge telephone trees as the (only mentioned) reason for the Dems victory in 06. A nice little pat on its own back. MoveOn has always been internet savvy, but it looks like they are looking to utilize it even more through popular sites like YouTube. They are known to have a large and growing email base, an attractive aspect for many political organizations and candidates. There's no question that they are trying to position themselves as the leading internet activist group, as their hand in the broadly defined agenda of Avaaz indicates. Despite Republican efforts to thwart its growing influence, I'd look out for MoveOn in the next election. Personally, I'm interested in how closely they link themselves with an increasingly centrist Democratic party.