There are many intelligent people in Iran, and they have the privelege to see this unrolling in front of their eyes. Wake up, before you become North Korea.
I could say the same thing about US. The unfortunate truth is that most people don't care enough until it's really too late to change anything. And if they do want to change it, then they will need overwhelming numbers to change the policy, and possibly even violence to remove the Government.
But I do think things are starting to change a bit. As the society moves away from the "read-only" type of media, where they only get to think about the "choices" they are presented with, which has led to a lot of people, especially young people, to not even care about voting anymore, because they realized their vote won't change anything when the vast majority of the population could still get mass-manipulated, to a society that is more "read/write" thanks to the Internet, and where they are much more engaged in political issues, and don't want to sit idle on the side. This should ultimately lead to healthier democracies.
Democracies turn rotten when the people don't care about what happens at the top, which tends to encourage politicians to do whatever they want when they are there and seek more power ever faster.
> Democracies turn rotten when the people don't care about what happens at the top
Exactly. Plus it seems there is a global movement of some sort in this direction even in countries with a history that would make you expect the opposite (stable democracy after a long history of military coups). Spain has approved SOPA-like laws. Argentina just passed a "counter-terrorism" law that has nothing to do with our country's reality. And so far we've managed to stop the few attempts by the music industry to lobby for restrictive laws, but they will try again.
Wake up and do what? Don't forget the massive protests over elections earlier this year where police were shooting people. I say this not because I think the Iranian people should do nothing but I feel we must understand the level of commitment it takes to be an activist in Iran compared to the a more liberal country. Would you be willing to put your life on the line to protest this?
If anything, 2011 has proven that oppressed peoples (in the Middle East) are willing to put their life on their line, and actually succeed eventually. Even in psycopatch-ruled Syria the protest is likely to eventually succeed.
