More observations on the similarity between the reactions of the Iranian regime and the Thai regime when confronted by the people.

Evidence of Iran Discontent
Eric* also adds a critical distinction: the disquiet he senses is not so much a blanket referendum against the system, but for reform from within it, and that's the hope they saw in candidate Musavi, even as he indeed is one of the elite. Yet within that political elite, a profound division has erupted., as Eric well summarizes it,

*Professor [Eric] Hooglund (now of Bates College) is an authority on the subject, having lived in and frequently traveled to rural Iran for nearly four decades. He literally witnessed Iran's revolution unfold, as he was there working on a dissertation later published as Land and Revolution in Iran. Earlier this year, he wrote a splendid review of 30 years of post-revolutionary rural development achievements and problems for Middle East Report. He was again in Iran recently, and I know of no one with a broader network across Iran's diverse rural landscapes.

Iran, Burma, Thailand... wherever an unelected (and unelectable) "elite" hold power they resort to similar, nay identical, tactics to maintain it when confronted by the people. There is surely a quantitative difference in degree between the cited three, but qualitatively they are indistinguishable.

Check out the picture from Esfahon, Iran. That's people power. The fact that we're all able to see it in direct defiance of the orders of the Iranian ISOC and MICT is testament to the futility of opposing the people. The people, united, can never be defeated.

Also noted a wry, sad, and richly deserved comment on the (non-)working state of democracy elsewhere.