Tuesday, February 16, 2010

5-Million strong 22 Bahman victory for Ahmadinejad!

Today, a friend sent me this video! I laughed it off as propaganda. She asked me to blog about it. I have little time, but sure! It is not actually too difficult to operate on this tumor:

First the video that some so called anti-imperialist pro-IRI dudes are cheering as proof of Ahmadinejad's popularity. As you are watching, ask yourselves the following questions:

  • Why is the helicopter moving so fast?
  • Why is it not zooming on the crowds? it is hard to tell whether they are humans or trees or shadows or ribbons?
  • Pay attention to absence of signs and placards (and keep in mind that the greens had pledged to Trojan the event--a decision that hey are regretting now because they admit they could not tell if the guy next to them was a camouflaged green or a hand-cuff carrying Basiji.) The only visible sign is a long flag of Iran, but that is about it.
  • Also, wonder where is an aerial still shot over the Azadi square?
  • There is one picture towards the end of the video where a frontal shot of the crowds is presented. This picture is taken with a long lens. Long lenses compress the depth of field and make the population look more dense than it really is.
  • Also, pay attention to the lonely green balloon that smiles behind Ahmadinejad.




Well, for the sake of argument, let's say that there were a LOT of people attending in favor of Ahmadinejad on 22 Bahman. They claim 5 million were only rallying in Tehran. Very good! Now let's take a look at some of the videos from 25 Khordad; the first time Iranians flooded streets and exercised their right to peaceful protest (a few hours before Neda was shot to death in front of the eyes of the world):


The greens estimated that one million attended this rally. The Iranian government called them (a few thousand) "dust and debris". I am sure you can do the math yourself; and ask the following questions:

Why weren't the foreign journalists allowed to take as spectacular shots as their cameras were capable, of this wonderful crowd who cheered Ahmadinejad? Afterall, the "enemey" media was allowed in Iran, but incarcerated! Wouldn't it have been SUCH A SLAP IN THE FACE OF IMPERIALISM if the journalists could see for themselves what the actual size of the crowd was from their journalistically selected point of view?

But, let's get back to the 5 million victory.

This is a video of people attending Ahmadinejad's 5-million strong speech:


But to put things in perspective, let's look at a picture of Obama's inauguration, that was attended by an estimated two million (and not five million) (taken with a 75 mm lens); and Ahmadinejad's 5-million crowd from his personal false news agency:




And here's a comparison of the dimentions of Azadi square versus the Washington mall (images of same scale/size). Irrespective of the population density, and lens size, look at the width of the avenues below.




And in this Fars News picture you see where the fan fair is (point B on the Azadi square map above). Click on the picture below for full size and judge the population density for yourself.