I suggest that you look up Noam Chomsky, a very intelligence (and Jewish) intellecual who will no doubt teach you a few things about Isreal

As far as comparing Kent State to what’s been happening in Iran, please consider the fact that Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were all over the American airwaves not long after with “Four Dead in Ohio.” To my recollection no radio stations were ever shut down. Nor recording execs were intimidated, jailed, or executed. Even at the notorious Chicago riots during the Democratic National Convention in 1968 the American evening news programs broadcast the crowds chanting, “The whole world’s watching! The whole world’s watching!” Why do you think that iconic video still exists today?

umm no. Four Dead was banned from most mainstream rock radio stations for a quite a while after kent state. nothing but underground radio and university radio stations played it.

and the DNC 68 convention may still have footage out there but you seem to completely forget the Chicago 7 who went to jail for sometime, the beating of major news correspondents, etc etc. and remember that they came in the wake of the assassination of both MLK and RFK, strong leaders of the protest movement.

He's got the ears and minds of millions of people, highly educated, poltically motivated people...

"You're not trying to say the government banned the song, are you? Don't you think certain commercial stations might've made that decision for themselves, based on business?"

Uhhh, yes they are pure victims. When was the last time your life was at stake because you protested about anything. How free do you feel to get on these forums, show your face and say anything you want

There is plenty of evidence around, just look at all the photos ... showing protesters attacking police, and lighting up Tehran with burning cars and busses. Caling it 'peaceful protest' is merely a framing trick of the media campaign and propaganda.

I encourage you to provide us with links to your evidence. I would readily alter my view of the situation with convincing evidence.

The ongoing street protests have been viewed as remarkable in a country where anti-government sentiment is not looked upon kindly by those in power. In the aftermath of the vote, street protesters and riot police engaged in running battles, with stones thrown, garbage cans set on fire and people shouting "death to the dictatorship."

People leaned out of windows and balconies to watch the throngs of protesters march, many of whom were Moussavi supporters and conducted largely noisy but peaceful demonstrations.

Later in the evening, an agitated and angry crowd emerged in Tehran's Moseni Square, with people breaking into shops, starting fires and tearing down signs. Two sides of people faced off against each other in the square, throwing rocks and bottles and shouting angrily.

Before the vote count ended, Moussavi issued a sharply worded letter urging the counting to stop because of "blatant violations" and lashed out at what he indicated was an unfair process. Moussavi said the results from "untrustworthy monitors" reflects "the weakening of the pillars that constitute the sacred system" of Iran and "the rule of authoritarianism and tyranny." Independent vote monitors were banned from polling places. "The results announced for the 10th presidential elections are astonishing. People who stood in long lines and knew well who they voted for were utterly surprised by the magicians working at the television and radio broadcasting," Moussavi said in his statement. Iran, he said, "belongs to the people and not cheaters."

After searching through thousands of news articles without finding any substantive information on the electoral process, I contacted Seyed Mohammad Marandi, who heads the North American Studies department at the University of Teheran. He described the electoral procedures to me, and together we interviewed, by phone, Sayed Moujtaba Davoodi, a poll worker who participated in the June 12 election in region 13 (of 22 regions) in Tehran. Mr. Daboodi has worked in elections for the past 16 years. The following is from their description of the procedures.

According to their account, there are 14 people working at each polling place, in addition to an observer representing each candidate. Most polling places are schools or mosques; if the polling place is a school then the team of 14 people would include teachers. There are 2-4 representatives of the Guardian Council, and 2 from the local police. After the last votes are cast, the ballots are counted in the presence of the 14 people plus the candidates' representatives. All of them sign five documents that contain the vote totals. One of the documents goes into the ballot box; one stays with the leader of the local election team; and the others go to other levels of the electoral administration, including the Guardian Council and the Interior.

The vote totals are then sent to a local center that also has representatives of the Guardian Council, Interior, and the candidates. They add up the figures from a number of ballot boxes, and then send them to Interior. In this election, the numbers were also sent directly to Interior from the individual polling places, in the presence of the 14-18 witnesses at the ballot box.

Each voter presents identification, and his or her name and information is entered into a computer, and also recorded in writing. The voter's thumbprint is also put on the stub of the ballot. The voter's identification is stamped to prevent multiple voting at different voting places, and there is also a computer and written record of everyone who voted at each polling place

According to the official election results, the incumbent president Ahmadinejad won the election by a margin of 63 percent to 34 percent for his main competitor, Mir Hossein Mousavi. This is a difference of approximately 11.3 million votes. Any claim of victory for Mousavi must therefore contain some logically coherent story of how at least 5.65 million votes (one half of the 11.3 million margin) might have been stolen.

This implies looking at the electoral procedures. There were approximately 45,000 polling locations with ballot boxes, not including mobile units. If these ballot boxes were collected by a central authority and taken away to a central location, and counted (or not counted) behind closed doors, this would be consistent with an allegation of massive vote theft. However, this does not appear to be the case.

If this information is near accurate, it would appear that large scale fraud is extremely difficult, if not impossible, without creating an extensive trail of evidence. Indeed, if this election was stolen, there must be tens of thousands of witnesses -- or perhaps hundreds of thousands – to the theft. Yet there are no media accounts of interviews with such witnesses.

Is it possible that, in most of the country, the procedures outlined above -- followed in previous elections -- were abruptly abandoned, with ballot boxes whisked away before anyone could count them at the precinct level? Again, many of the more than 700,000 people involved in the electoral process would have been witnesses to such a large-scale event. Given the courage that hundreds of thousands of people have demonstrated in taking to the streets, we would expect at least some to come forward with information on what happened.

To persianadvocate:
I agree with your sentiment, but not your complaint.
There are no "substantially probative reasons to doubt the integrity of these elections" which I've seen. Plenty of factless assertions, like yours: "vote counts of zero for Mousavi in areas where his staffers were present and reportedly voted."
Where is the evidence? Where are these staffers? Let's hear them say it. We've had nothing but hearsay assertions, not a single witness has appeared to say what s/he did or saw, and especially conspicuous, not a single official election observer.
A single, solitary, ballot box, in the whole of Tehran province, contains a zero vote for Mousavi, a box of 59 ballots (box 28, javadabad, varamin, tehran). Only 3 other boxes (totaling 629 ballots), contain less than 10 votes each for Mousavi.
This is not suspicious. More precisely, it's not evidence of ballot-rigging, owing to the infinitesimal number ballots involved.
Here are the ballot box counts in Tehran province (6,081 ballot boxes, if I counted them right, in 33 number-sequences), the tehran.csv file in the ballotspm directory of http://www.umich.edu/~wmebane/Iran2009_26jun2009.zip
There's another 39,632 ballot boxes, in other files in that zip container, I didn't check them.
The guardian council and the supreme leader both, publicly, and repeatedly, said, Mousavi could recount any boxes he doubted. This satisfies your complaint, that the state must provide a candidate a method to investigate his complaint.
Where is Mousavi's complaint? Reportedly he listed some 600 grievances, in a letter to the guardian council, which has now said it investigated them all and found them without merit. Where is this letter? why hasn't Mousavi published it? (maybe he has, in Persian, I doubt it, else someone would have found it on the internet).
The recount is where the rubber meets the road. Mousavi had it in his power to demand a recount of every ballot box at every polling station where his staffers voted and the count was zero (as you claim), and at every polling station where his observers were excluded (as others claim).
Mousavi did not do it. He boycotted the recount. The obvious inference is, these claims are myth, it never happened, it's a lie.
If it's fact, then it's a very simple matter to prove it, by a recount. And I refer again to the report of the fraud-proof methods of Iran's ballot-count procedures: Mark Weisbrot, "Was the Iranian Election Stolen? Does It Matter?" (June 28 2009), copy: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/28-3
Nothing is completely fraud-proof, of course, hence the need for a recount, a close examination of ballots, and such.
I presume there's no ID on the ballots themselves (to preserve the secret ballot), the names and thumbprints appear on the ballot stub, the voters's receipt, that s/he received a blank ballot. So, yes, after it was done, the sealed boxes could be opened Mousavi ballots removed, Ahmadinejad ballots substituted.
But so fast? 45,713 ballot boxes? The results were publicly reported in near real time (totals, not individual boxes, that's true).
And, on recount, what of the multiple copies of the original record of the count (one copy sealed, with the ballots, in the ballot box) bearing multiple signatures, of the 14 observers (I presume), and the observers surely also made a personal record of the count, so they could report back, in real time, to their masters (e.g., Mousavi's observers).
Mr. Weisbrot's report, of the ballot-count procedures, has since been reinforced. I put on my tinfoil helmet, switched on my recorder, and tuned in CNN and there (but not on the BBC) were live excerpts of the Press TV satellite feed of the recounts in progress, showing the transparent plastic ballot boxes, the multiple seals, fitted by the various official observers (I presume) (including Mousavi's), the forms inside the sealed boxes being removed, showing (I presume) the original count, bearing (I presume) the signatures of the observers (including Mousavi's), the recount live on TV by large numbers of people, local citizens (I presume), living in the polling station neighborhood where the recounts occurred, validating (I presume) the original count, with (I presume) an incidental correction, or difference of opinion, now and again.
I don't know which polling stations this 10% recount covered. Mousavi had the power to specify every single polling station which barred his observers (another factless allegation). Were it true, that would be a smoking gun, but apparently it's not true, else he would have done it, specified those polling stations, it remains merely an anonymous allegation (i.e., from liars).
We haven't heard a single word from a single observer saying s/he was excluded from a polling station, or from the ballot count. And until we do, it remains myth, it never happened, it's a lie, bought and paid for by the $500 million Bush/Obama spent to promote democracy in Iran without interfering in its internal affairs (as Obama lied on TV).
Finally, I come to your sentiment, which I agree with. That Iranians (like citizens in most countries) have plenty to be unhappy about, and a sparse menu of people to vote for. That thuggish militia, for example, that's intolerable, that they are permitted (by whom) to invade people's homes, accost people on the street, abuse them for how they choose to dress, if they want to hold hands, and such.
But this is not evidence of a rigged election. Mousavi was promoted as a "reform candidate" by US/UK/Israeli liars, their conspiracy to rubbish the election. Inside Iran, did a majority prefer Mousavi? a return to the past? backed by a crowd tarnished by financial corruption? Ahmadinejad is left-winger, who did what he said he would do (as far I know), he put the nation's oil money on the table of the people, not in the pockets of the elites (grants for housing, rural development, and such, the details of which I don't know).
In Tehran city, scene of the protests, Mousavi whipped Ahmadinejad, 53%-44%, 3152 ballot boxes (in 3 groups, 2788+338+26), 4,114,384 valid ballots:
Moussavi 2,166,245 (53%)
Ahmadinejad 1,809,855 (44%)
Rezaei 95,211 ( 2%)
Karroubi 43,073 ( 1%)
My guess is this, half the people in the protests, voted for Ahmadinejad, as the least worst candidate, and because of his socialist policies, and they protested, in addition, to show they weren't happy about it, their choice of candidates, and the omission of human rights, by the candidates, from their campaign promises. -CJ Harwood (Warlaw)