Please Come Support the Iranian People with Me

This one is from me, personally, not as a tea party founder, but as a lover of freedom.

It’s after 4 a.m. and all evening I’ve been watching the news flashes on Twitter about the Iranian election.  I’ve HAD to watch them on Twitter because CNN and other media outlets HAVE NOT COVERED THESE LIVE EVENTS.  Thousands have taken to the streets of Tehran.  You can watch videos of the demonstrations HERE and read news HERE. 

This breaks my heart.  In our country, we expect that our elections are, for the most part, conducted fairly and honestly.  In fact, we demand it.  The fact that there are constant challenges to election results here is proof, at least, of the desire to appear to be getting it right.  Voter fraud allegations here are difficult to prove, because most people in this country have a hard time believing others have such nefarious motives, such hunger for power.  Losers shake hands with winners and plan their next campaign.  They do not have their opposition arrested, shot, tortured or killed.

But in other places, they often do.

Freedom matters to everyone.  Free people can trade, create, live, love, struggle, and work together in a way that oppressed people can’t enjoy.  Free people have time for creativity, cooperation, debate and a hundred million other things that oppressed people can only dream about.  Free people can speak their minds and not be afraid.  Free people can disagree and still find ways to work together.  People may be oppressed in a thousand different ways, but they are able to be free in over six billion ways.

Freedom is a yearning we all have, and that desire was put there for a reason.

The Pelosi Protest Friday in Houston was wonderfully energizing.  We stood against reckless spending and the snowballing socialism that threatens our way of life.  In every way, it was a fabulous success.

But I want you to think now of the Iranian people on the other side of the world, who went to the polls with a tentative hope that perhaps THIS TIME their votes would result in change.  Knowing how hopeless it might be, how futile it might seem to cast a ballot, they did it anyway.  In great numbers.

And when the results were in, and President Ahmadinejad was declared the winner, the Iranian people poured into the streets in protest.  News coming across the Twitter feed reports that the challenger, Mousavi, has been placed under house arrest, and many of his supporters have been arrested and thrown in jail.  Twitter users in Iran are tweeting out what they see and hear, and reports are coming in of journalists being arrested, students at Tehran University being gassed, and of mass marching in the streets.  While rumors fly, people on the ground in Tehran try desperately to verify them, and to get the word out of Iran.  They know we are watching, and they know we can spread the word.

So via Twitter, cities in the US are organizing gatherings in support of the Iranian people.  Chicago is planning a gathering, and so is Austin, I hear.

I believe it’s imperative we hold one too.

So I’ll be at Discovery Green at 7 p.m. tonight, Sunday, wearing green in support of the Iranian people struggling to have their votes count.  There will be no organized anything, just a simple gathering to offer our visible support to the people of Iran.  I hope you’ll join me, and pass this post’s link on to as many people as you can who live nearby.  If anything, we can send pictures into Iran, and to Iranians monitoring the news from outside their country, demonstrating that we stand with them for freedom.  Because that’s what freedom-loving people do.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 14th, 2009 at 2:52 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.