There is always something palpable and exciting when revolution hangs in the air. Juan Coles’s anonymous academic source captures the mood of the pro-Mousavi marches in Tehran. Of course, not all revolutions succeed, and some, like the 1979 Iranian Revolution, take strange and dangerous turns. Reading that essay at Informed Comment, I am filled with hope for the Iranian people. But I am also mindful of the warning Hunter S. Thompson gave in his Wave Speech:
San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run … but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. …
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time — and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights — or very early mornings — when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder’s jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. …
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. …
And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. …
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
I hope the sparks in Tehran do not peter out. I hope the wave does not roll back.
my friend, as inspiring as the ongoing turmoil in Iran is, I am more interested in the details of what our democrats are doing at home.
I would like to see a list of the so-called progressives and out-of-iraq-coalition members like Chaka fattah who just voting for that supplemental (OOI includes Afghanistan, i looked it up). the kind of supplemental mr. obama promised he’d do away with.
i’d like to see some comment on Obama’s disgraceful cop-out on gay marriage, his adminsitration’s hateful defense of DOMA, and his sudden decision to throw the gays some crumbs when they threatened that big ol’ fundraiser.
i’d like to see some more on the fact that the health, Education, Labor and Pension committee’s health bill doesn’t include dick about the public option (which you have already accurately described as bullshit).
So yeah, i’m inspired by Iran too. But we have a lot of problems here with Changey McHopenotsomuch and a bunch of Democrats who seem to have forgotten why they were elected.
is this a WATB comment about me not writing about what interests you?
Steve just posted on the health care bill. I posted on the supplemental the night before the vote.
not at all. you’re gonna write about what’s on your mind.
And like i say, i’m inspired by iran too.
i just think there are more important things going on here at home. no offense meant.
Maybe the lesson is that Iranians are rallying to fix an election that pitted a loony dictator against a slightly more stable and personable theocrat. It isn’t the object, it’s the will and ability to threaten the system that matters. The ones in power will never do it for us until they have to. The hope in Iran is that taking to the streets might force some change. In the US the hope is that now that American Idol is on break maybe we’ll fill in more robo-petitions to our “representatives”, remaining polite and credible at all times, of course.
Good to be reminded again that Thompson was not just flashy and iconoclastic, but could see large shifts with extraordinary clarity.
As to the wave in Iran, the hope and enthusiasm are certainly there. The object of the enthusiasm seems less hopeworthy, though. Based on Mousavi interviews and statements, he seems about like going from Bush the McCain. Still, sometimes it’s the movement, not its inpiration, that matter most. Here’s hoping the taste of resistance proves too powerful to take away.
link
This is one high and beautiful wave.
I’m hoping it’s true that you’re never too old to surf, or to learn how.
There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. …
And that, I think, was the handle–that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. …
Is it me or does this remind people of a lot of Democrats? Meaning the need not to fight for what they believe.
Or perhaps the need not to fight for what they believe.
I haven’t yet read “Fear and Loathing” so I only know the speech from the movie. Excellent reference. Thank you.
Your blog is one of my two favorite political blogs (the other being Al Giordano’s).
As far as the revolution… It was over on Sunday afternoon when they didn’t keep Moussavi under house arrest. It may take a while but the genie is out of the bottle. If the leaders in Iraq think protests are spirited now, wait until you see what happens if they arrest Moussavi or cut him off from communication. Rigging an election is one thing. Shooting people and openly beating demonstrators is quite another.
There is obviously much internal weakness or you wouldn’t see some other clerics openly calling the election a sham. If that weakness was not present on Saturday, Moussavi would never have been let out of house arrest. With every day that passes, the revolution only gets stronger.
The courage of the Iranians cannot be held in doubt. They have demonstrated the will to see this through for all the world to see.
The wave will crash all right, but it will crash on top of the oppressive regime… and with any luck it will give other oppressive regimes much pause to consider in the future.
I don’t know, I guess I considering being high and wild all the time kind of stupid and expensive.
Ah yes, the brilliant flip side to “Midnight on the Coast Highway.”