Here is the part I do not understand. Various reports I have read have stated that the monks lend moral authority to whoever the rulers are, so therefore, they are also part of the power structure, and behind the massive army, the next most populous segment of the political society.
So, one gets the impression that for all of these years, in some religious-political compromise, the monks have allowed the military to continue and have not supported ASSK much, or enough or at all.
I do also realize that protests and resistance to the junta have been numerous in the past and quite futile.
If another reader or Nez can explain just what power if any the monks hold and how they have chosen to wield it over time, I would like to know.
Perhaps the monks and their power theory was just sloppy journalism.

Nez, I came from Greenwald, but came back for you. I like your eye and perspective and the fact that you answer commenters.
The hidden pity of this disasterous war and occupation of choice in Iraq is that we can't as a country act in Darfur or Myanmar (Burma). And yet they want to start another war with Iran.
I despair of this country, and for our very soul.

Dee Loralei, its good to have you here. I do answer when there is time. I can't every single time. But hey, my commenters have thoughts worth engaging!

and i agree...why don't we feel so moved to help those who suffer? why must it always be about fuel or treasure? that causes me despair, too.

The monks hold power in their acceptance (or denial of receiving) of alms. In Burma, it's considered a blessing by the monks to give them alms; they've been refusing contributions from the military recently, holding their begging bowls upside-down during the protests, and this is one of the worst insults in Burmese culture. (I'm paraphrasing this from the article I read on the web site of(I think) The Independent; no insult meant if I got the details wrong)

can I just say one thing actually in defence of Iran for a second:

Ahmadinajad is not actually a dictator, hell he's not even that ruthless for a byproduct of 50 years worth of american foreign policy, but he is the duly elected president of a three tiered democracy that somewhat mirrors our own system of government - now the democracy may not allow women to vote, but that merely puts it in line with Ann Coulter and the rest of the whole concerned women for america folks' stated belief that women shouldn't have the vote anyway.
And shamefully, the injustices and tyrranies that the government inflicts upon its inhabitants is not anything that isn't america-normative anyway, hell, the minutemen are worse, because a democracy can hold a state funded group accountable for their terrorism, something not so readily applicable to terrorists who the government largely turns a blind eye to because it feeds into their local election campaigns.

yes, he is a holocaust denier and a general purpose douche as far as his actual politics goes, but I'm pretty sure Bush is at least a holocaust forgetter, while definately being an active denier of all other aspects of reality, up to and including the massive and unprecedented erosion of civil rights in this country that occured as some sort of side effect of him fucking up and letting those towers (and the pentagon, but no one cares about that, pay no attention to the military industrial complex folks) get blown up.

And Israel's military somewhat relies on Bush's good will to maintaining the deterrent that is (one assumes) stopping Iran from destroying israel with all those british and american WMDs they still have from the 80's, and are not using despite their alleged belief that israel should be wiped off the face of the earth.

The only reason I even highlight all that is because what they're planning now is to depose the only other actual democracy in the region other than isreal and replace it with... whatever they're erecting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Think about that for a second, they're planning to depose a democracy, not a brutal dictator, someone with an election staff, and who's first response to criticism it to ring his PR people, not the republican guard.

Someone who will most likely be gone in a few years due to the country's pre-existing governmental system, and who for the most part got into government as a direct result of us giving the far right in Iran a huge shot in the arm with our down right silly war on terra.

If we go into Iran we will be destroying what progess the country has made since komeini, and that progresss has been fucking HUGE btw, and replacing it with ANOTHER komeini, because we can't "win" the wars we've already started, because we don't have the right military, and we didn't have any goals - and even if we do have any next time it won't matter, because Iran has an actual working military, unlike Afghanistan or Iraq, and the Iranian republican guard is expressly designed to fight an insurgency should the regular forces lose, unlike the ragtag bunch of miscellaneous local gangsters who're turning our soldiers into swiss cheese with stolen munitions in iraq.

We will lose, and Sun Tzu would agree with me there, not just the war, but what little semblance of democracy we our selves pretend to have, and we will lose american lives on a scale that will probably dwarf vietnam because the vietminh were barely trained amateurs compared to what we'll see in Iran, and if you'll recall the last time our forces went up against equivalently trained and armed professionals was europe in ww2.

And we largely won that by tank rushing the germans.

Folks, crazy right wing motherfuckers of various stripes, you are advocating a fucking meat grinder of a moral travesty. DO NOT WANT.

god what good points. i've missed your touch around here!

A couple of important corrections:

Firstly, the role of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran is seriously misunderstood. Most Americans hear the word "president" and automatically assume that all are created equal. They are wrong. The lion's share of the power in Iran is held by the Supreme Leader. Ahmadinejad's idiosyncrasies aside, he is not the "Decider". Nobody has heard of the previous President, Khatami, because he just wasn't as easy to spin and present as the new Evil One.

In regards to women's suffrage, women can vote in Iran. It is many Arab women, living in countries allied with the United States who can't. More information, less propaganda here: http://women4peace.org/women-rights.html.

As to Ahmadinejad being a holocaust denier, I shall only say that it seems that some of the more publicized so-called "denials" seem to have been deliberate mistranslations. I will not say he is or isn't one, and he certainly makes inflammatory, idiotic comments, but then he's a politician, and not even very powerful, so it must be taken into context.

The Ayatollahs still hold the power in Iran, clearly and proudly an Islamic Republic, so the president is just a guy that gets to go around the world embarrassing himself on one level or another since to get where he is he had to do a lot of sucking up to the religious fanatics in Iran so he could run for office.
Yet, Bush had to appeal to those same types of persons to get elected in the US.
Most of the US presidential candidates are doing the same thing right now.
Thanks, P. UBU, for your comment, but I read all of that about the bowls and what I need is some deeper long range historical explanation from someone who has done some extensive research about the history and politics of Burma over the last 100 or 1000 years. I am very ignorant about that country. I consider that reading news reports will not cure my ignorance.

well, we can use what we know to inspire or inform us in what we believe and feel is right, locally. such as aiding those who resist cruel means of control and repression in our own lives. or to speak out against it at any turn. i will never know all of what goes on in any land, and wanting to know is good. and learning more is good. but not knowing the complete story need not stymie good things from being done elsewhere. RC, my friend, you want a complete history and accounting after reading my Iran post, and my Burma post and the food post, but this is not school nor a library. i hope not having the full history of every topic in every post does not need to foil any positive elements you might take from them. i think this blog works as glimpses, thoughts, conversation, reminders, inspirations. i do wish i could lay it all down here, but even if i chose one thing to thoroughly explore, that would leave no time for making cool photoshop images. so!