Ayatollah Connects Ferguson to P5+1 Talks

Returning home from the holidays, reading the Gray Lady in an aisle seat on a full flight, I was pleased to see Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, weighing in on Ferguson (Thomas Erdbrink, "Iran’s Supreme Leader Backs Further Nuclear Talks"):

The ayatollah also made reference to the riots this week in Ferguson, Mo. The unrest in response to a grand jury’s decision not to indict Darren Wilson, a white police officer, in the shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, shows “the gap between the American people and their administration.”

There was a more expansive story in Business Insider (Hunter Walker, "Iran's Supreme Leader Says Ferguson Shows What's Wrong With America") which noted that Khamenei, in several Tweets on Ferguson, not only explained how the riots in St. Louis County and around the country prove that USG is battling its own people, who do not trust the government, but also how Israel, through a "Zionist network" that controls the "lifeline" of U.S. politicians by threat of blackmail, is preventing the federal government from publicly embracing a deal with Iran on its nuclear program as well as justice for Michael Brown.

The Khamenei Tweet on the Zionist connection to Ferguson is as follows:

#Zionist network blackmail US officials &if they act agnst their will, they're forced to resign,face defamation and death threats. #Ferguson

Here are the two Khamenei Tweets on Ferguson. The first, mentions low voter turnout during the recent midterm elections:

US isn't honest w its nation. The recent US election turnout was so low. At events in #Ferguson US is fighting w its ppl. #BlackLivesMatter

The next, reasserts the obvious, that the U.S. public does not trust its government:

We don't seek to gain the confidence of US; we don't need that. We don't trust you; your ppl do not trust you either. #Ferguson

All of this is fairly unremarkable and obvious. But it will set off some tongue-clucking among brainwashed Western liberals and conservatives.

Can anyone deny Zionists have a stranglehold, a veto on most aspects of U.S. foreign policy?

Khamenei's assertion that the "Zionist network" has a stake in maintaining the U.S. system of institutional racism and white privilege is more novel. Certainly Israel's deep bonds with the Southern Baptist Convention, ties that have been developed over the last 20-plus years, support such an assertion.

Immersing myself in the broadcast television coverage of Ferguson from Tuesday until this morning it is interesting to note the playbook that is followed whenever there is an outbreak of dissent, protest, riots, whatever.

The primary play in that book is to focus on the "violence" of the protests and loss of property. The source of the outrage is given short shrift. Only the News Hour -- from what I saw -- provided a cogent explanation of why the grand jury process, a process that should have resulted in an indictment of Darren Wilson, was totally skewed towards blaming the victim, the teenage Michael Brown.

The three-day's worth of coverage I saw was heavily weighted toward the suffering of Ferguson's small-business owners and employees not knowing if they were going to be able to pay their bills.

Obama is almost certain not to pursue any federal civil rights prosecution here. The least one would expect would be some sort of Department of Justice monitoring process for the local police of St. Louis County. But don't expect it. Holder is on his way out, and so too is Barack. There is no will to take on white privilege and institutional racism; just as there is no will to cut back the warfare state.

Which means it will be up to the young and and young at heart, those who want to see a more egalitarian society, to stay mobilized and maintain the struggle.