• Dingdangdog [he/him,comrade/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I mean there's room for both to be true to a certain extent.

      The CIA does take advantage of legitimate protests lol

      But yeah, people shouldn't be jumping to gun and completely assuming the whole thing is a falsehood

    • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I mean, the protests definitely had MEK goons running around, so how's the news megathread wrong in any way?

    • robinn [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Color revolution doesn't mean that the protests were illegitimate or involved paid actors. It only means that they were exploited as a pretext for western efforts (Elon activating starlink in the region this is obviously because he respects women so much! or recent EU sanctions and US sanctions) to undermine Iran's policies abroad that happened to have a progressive impact like opposition to Israel or diplomatic relations with the PRC (Russia also has certain policies relating to other countries that create this certain impact, I am not pro Putin but this is a fact). "Leftists" who can only think of this in the black and white sense (think, you) of protests that either cannot be exploited or are being performed entirely by paid agents are the weakest kinds and could not form any coherent analysis if they tried. I am sure there was this or that person who claimed the protests were illegitimate but this kind of nonsense presents just as stupid of an analysis.

    • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      but in seriousness if you want to hurt your psyche go back to the news mega about a week into it starting to see the terrible things here people were saying about them people were calling them violent paid actors performing violent terrorist riots being controlled by nefarious western bbc propaganda, etc. etc.

      ???

      I was there and I didn't see any of that. Though I guess that's hard to prove as the comments don't go back too far.

      The main argument being made, at least by me, was: "The protests are beyond reasonable doubt being fueled by American intelligence, thus making it an attempted colour revolution, but that doesn't make the demands of the protestors invalid, and I hope that Iran can find a way of achieving reform without succumbing to regime change as that would simply involve the neoliberals taking everything in Iran that isn't nailed down under the guise of human rights etc etc, like in every other country the US has gotten involved with in that way"

      which seems perfectly in line with every reasonable left-wing analysis of the situation that isn't terminally America-brained

      like, the most controversial thing I ever said about them before they dropped off my radar was that every large protest in a country that America hates likely has some nefarious motive behind it, but again, that doesn't mean that hating America = god's angels on earth who can do no wrong, it just means that the government must find a way to address legitimate grievances while not letting the "My country is a totalitarian evil state who hates the concept of freedom itself, we yearn for freedom Mr CIA, please send in a neoliberal stooge to harvest all our oil" views that are Definitely Things That Normal Protestors Say dominate the protests