00:00When Western progressives see
00:04leftists talking...
00:06When Western progressives see
00:08Iranians calling for secularism,
00:11calling for democracy,
00:12praising the United States,
00:13praising Donald Trump,
00:15praising Western power,
00:17attacking radical Islam,
00:19I think it makes them feel very uncomfortable.
00:21And so rather than work through this discomfort
00:25and do the morally correct thing,
00:28which is to stand with the Iranian people,
00:30I think many progressives have instead
00:32chosen to betray them
00:34and to prioritize anti-Western politics
00:37over social justice.
00:39Their social justice in this case
00:40is deeply conditional.
00:41And so we have this terrible situation
00:44where progressives around the world
00:45are either ignoring the plight
00:47of the Iranian people
00:48until ignoring it is impossible
00:50or minimizing the plight.
00:52And that's unfortunate, right?
00:55And many Iranians have noticed this
00:57and they resent it deeply.
01:02And when there are Western politicians
01:05who say that we should negotiate
01:08with the mullahs
01:09or that the Islamic regime
01:10is a victim of Western aggression,
01:13I think that's deplorable.
01:15I think it's deplorable
01:16because we are just coming out
01:17of a situation where the regime
01:19murdered thousands,
01:21if not tens of thousands,
01:22of pro-democracy protesters,
01:25young people, women,
01:27children sometimes,
01:29of course on top of all of the men
01:31who just wanted to live freely,
01:34who just wanted to have more say
01:37over how they lived their lives,
01:38who just wanted to exercise their rights
01:41to oppose the people who rule them.
01:43And they were gunned down in the streets.
01:45And now you have some unfortunate
01:49leftist progressives,
01:51politicians as well,
01:52who say,
01:52well, actually,
01:53maybe the regime is not that bad.
01:56Maybe we can work with them.
01:57And that, I think, is inexcusable.
01:59I don't understand
02:00how anyone can justify that.
02:02But I'm also not surprised
02:03because I know on my end,
02:05when I went to go report
02:07on the war against Ukraine,
02:10that yes,
02:11most people were
02:12very much on Ukraine's side,
02:14but we did have a faction
02:15of people
02:17who were pro-Russian,
02:19either in an explicit
02:21or more implicit way.
02:23And it's because
02:24they were willing to side
02:26with a conservative,
02:28fascistic Russian regime,
02:30one that is deeply capitalist
02:32and deeply kleptocratic,
02:33because it was anti-Western,
02:35because it was anti-NATO.
02:36So we know that these
02:39mental gymnastics are possible.
02:41This is nothing new.
02:42We've seen this
02:43for many, many years.
02:45And with the Free Iran Movement,
02:47it's just like
02:47the newest instantiation
02:49of a long-term
02:50and deeply unfortunate quirk
02:52in far-left ideology,
02:54which then, of course,
02:55sometimes bleeds
02:56into the center-left.
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