Iran: Throught the Looking Glass

Perspective is everything. It helps to see how somebody else sees you. Here is an Iranian perspective on the Western democracies:



This is cartoonish. It is hard to believe that people this is directed at, the Iranian public, take this seriously. To me, the obvious heavy hand of government trying to "shape" public opinion goes a long way toward explaining why a lot of Iranians are in the street demonstrating. They object to a government that creates such obvious lies.

Governments in the West manipulate their own populaton, but with a lighter hand. Most people want to see their own country as "good" so they are willing to interpret facts in a positive light. Most Western governments rely on this to manage social control. The Iranians obviously has not caught on to this simple fact. They go well beyond a "deft hand" into the surreal world of a heavy-handed cartoon version of reality. People are not stupid. They don't like being manipulated in such an obvious way.