The X Fact(her): What Are You Willing to Die For?

Iranian protester Neda Agha-Soltan's assassination caught on tape

I’m Ready to Die, Tell God I Said Hi – Notorious B.I.G.

America is known for many things but breeding martyrs isn’t one of them.

Sure, we have innocent people lose their lives everyday. Good people, be they parents, honor students, teachers. Thing is, they lose their lives by a stray bullet, jealous exes, hit and runs, swine flu. When they die we say, “What a shame” and keep it moving. But how would we respond if those deaths were because they stood up to a gang, drug dealers or dirty politicians?

Would we march the streets with a poster of their face and bury them as heroes? Would we celebrate their lives and the sacrifice they made?

Have you noticed that Americans don’t throw around the word martyr nearly as much as they should? Not everyone’s life should be in vain. I guess we are just too damn hard to impress. I do recall folks trying to call Tupac and Biggie martyrs. I wouldn’t go that far.

We’ve become accustomed to death, but senseless deaths. What about taking a bullet or blowing yourself up for something you believed in? Why aren’t more of us heroes in death?

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Posted by:

Chloe

Live From Laylo in Iran: The Revolution Begins

Iran’s elections have been all over the news lately. Anger is visible in the streets. Youth are tired of the same old thing and a revolution may be bubbling underneath the surface. We’ve got a firsthand account from a friend of The League/99Problems who is brave enough to venture in a field report directly from Iran! Check out this article by Laylo Fagroovy!

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The Revolution Begins by Laylo

June 15, 2009 The eerie howling of “Allah al-Akbar! Allah al-Akbar!”
(God is Great) could be heard from rooftops in the streets of Tehran
after dark. It is an echo from the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution 30
years ago, when Ayatollah Khomeini and his supports ousted Mohammad
Reza Shah Pahlavi, to replace the monarchy with a religious democracy,
forming the Islamic Republic of Iran.

But in recent years, the people of Iran have yearned for more freedom
under the current regime, with some sacrificing their lives to be
heard. On Monday, June 15, possibly as many as one million people took
to the streets of Tehran to march from Enqelab (Revolution) Street to
Azadi (Freedom) Square to support Mir Hossein Mousavi in the contested
presidential elections.

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Posted by:

Steve Romain

The Revolution Will Not be Televised, It’ll Be Twittered

Forget CNN, Fox News or even BBC. People are turning to Twitter to find out what is going on in Iran. Since the June 12th presidential elections resulted in what many fear to be the rigged re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, citizens of Iran have taken to the streets and most importantly the internet to seek justice.

The use of social media has had such an impact that Youtube and Twitter are taking great steps to assure that folks reporting from Iran are spotlighted. Twitter pushed back a scheduled maintenance update that would have shut the site down for one hour until the wee ours of Iran’s Wednesday morning (2pm Pacific time here).

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Posted by:

Chloe