China, Cuba and Burma fear activism in Iran could spread

@drdroo on twitter says "Looks like China, Cuba, etc. are scared. RT googlenews Authoritarian regimes censor news from Iran - msnbc.com"

@rss_msnbc on twitter says "#msnbc Hard-line regimes censor Iran news: Out of fear that history might repeat itself, the hard-line reg.."

Hasn't Burma had many protests, mostly involving Buddhist monks?

The fear shows that the methods work-thank you brothers and sisters in Iran. God bless all fighters for individual freedom, however you fight and wherever you are.

Delia,

Yes, there has been a great deal of resistance over the past several decades to military rule in Burma, first by General Ne Win from the early '60s to the late '80s and then by the military junta that has ruled since. The junta actually "officially" changed the country's name from Burma to the Union of Myanmar, but there are many people inside and outside the country who refuse to recognize the name change.

There was some brief hope in the late 1980s that democracy in some form might return. The main opposition party to the junta, the National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory when multiparty legislative elections were finally held in 1990.

But, predictably, the junta refused to hand over power and instead placed the NLD's leader (and Nobel Peace Prize winner) Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. She was given her freedom for a few years in the late '90s but then re-arrested in 2000. I think she has been there pretty much ever since -- you are undoubtedly aware of the strange story of the (deranged?) American who got her tossed back in prison by swimming the "moat" to her house just a month or two ago.

The Buddhist monks became particularly active in protests after the junta suddenly raised fuel prices during the summer of 2007. So many Buddhist monks participated that some referred to the series of protests as "the Saffron Revolution

The junta acted quickly and brutally, arresting thousands of the protesters and killing at least a dozen of them. They still conduct raids of the country's monastaries, arresting anyone suspected of involvement in pro-democracy protests.parliamentary elections. The Buddhist monks became particularly active a couple of years ago, to the extent that some referred to their activities as the "Saffron Revolution," if I remember correctly.

You probably recall the devastation caused by a hurricane there about a year ago in which the misery was compounded by the junta's unwillingness to allow foreign aid workers immediate access to some of the worst-hit sites and also caused emergency relief shipments to be delayed (while some of it was no doubt diverted to the junta and its cronies for sale on the Black Market).

In the end, something on the order of 100,000 people died and many more were injured. How many of these casualties can be laid at the feet of the incompetence, negilgence and overt cruelty of the junta is, of course, difficult to say with any accuracy -- but the number is undoubtedly large.

You probably knew all or most of this, Delia, but it occurred to me that others might be interested. For those who, like me, sometimes have trouble visualizing the political boundaries in that part of the world, Burma/Myanmar is a pretty good-sized country tucked between India to its West, China to its Northeast and East and Thailand to its East and Southeast. It has an extensive coastline to the South.

GOOD all Civic Servants serving them selves.......only should tremble............

GOOD MAYBE WE SHOULD START HERE TOO!

Really? Fear of a spreading Revolution?? why would that happen? who wants to be treated civil, or have the right to basic freedoms?

Cztheday, Delia, great exchange, I loved the reading.
Unfortunately, as of today, I have to shut off the automated messages from Current for responses since I get flooded with the twitter bot responses, most of them to Wire news I myself am posting on Twitter. I will make it a daily habit to come and read posts until Current decides to stop the *** twitter bot to spam their members that have decided to be notified of responses.

Here's to the sweet smell
of all the banks burning
All the food is freed
from the storehouse
all the teachers are learning
Fuck the laws!
For their greed
the ratchet's thrown
and we won't bleed
our true wealth lies in the
song of the land
communities freed from
this prison of god and men

WE ARE WINNING.