Blacklist of Iranian media by Bernie’s DSA suggests no Iran change with Biden - Part 2

By Ramin Mazaheri

Ramin Mazaheri is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.

Part One of this report can be found by clicking here.

DSA is not going to push the establishment anywhere, because they are the establishment

In that explanation from DSA there is another telling trait: unreasoning hysteria, which leads to very real, very damaging xenophobia, ignorance and the foundations of war. It’s hysterically paranoid of DSA to assert that merely speaking with Iranian media - which has very little reach in the US (due to American censorship of our outlets) - automatically means that DSA members are “under the influence of foreign powers”.

This reveals a hysteria regarding the unscrupulous behavior of their opposition - DSA’s “political enemies”, who are also, incidentally, their fellow citizens - but more importantly it reveals the lack of a backbone to stand up to and to combat unscrupulous and hysterical behavior.

There is also an implication there about what they seem to believe is the low intelligence of the average US citizen - that they apparently cannot be trusted to think rationally, and for themselves, and in favor of freedom of the press? That’s surprising, especially because the average American is so very much in favor of freedom in the press.

But it mainly reflects a hysterical lust for power. DSA is saying quite clearly: to hell with the average American’s oft-trumpeted values of free press and free speech if it might hinder DSA’s acquisition of influence and privilege.

I don’t know why they are so worried about gaining power? DSA already has it. (Or, rather, they incorrectly think that they do.)

Every single other third party jumped at the chance when Iranian media came knocking on their door with a promise of balance, fairness and open ears except for DSA. This is because DSA is undoubtedly a part of the establishment, unlike other third parties and non-mainstream political groups. DSA is not an official political party, but they do much to give this impression. No, DSA is and has always been merely committed to working within the Democratic Party establishment and has no interest in upending the anti-democratic duopoly which dominates the US and - crucially - keeps providing the world’s richest nation with such atrocious public servants.

Ok, so they are another American political group which is totally allied with the establishment and thus is also totally anti-Iran - so what?

How bad is DSA’s blacklisting of Iranian media, really?

The reality is that DSA are a paper tiger if there ever was one. Iranian voters, diplomats and thinkers must look past their youthful, photogenic appearances and (obviously) empty words.

DSA currently has about 75 members holding national, state, city and county posts in this huge country of 330 million people. That includes just three members in federal posts, all in the House of Representatives. Bernie Sanders is not even a member of DSA. The idea that such a powerless minority will somehow be handed top cabinet posts in a Biden presidency is beyond laughable, yet DSA supporters constantly dangle this exact claim.

However, that ludicrous claim is made precisely to get people to not vote for a real third party, especially a genuinely socialist one, like Party for Socialism & Liberation for example. What’s even funnier is that American reactionaries fearfully believe these outlandish claims by DSA! But American reactionaries are especially foolish.…

Non-Americans should realise that DSA exists to act as an anti-progressive safety valve within the Democratic Party - DSA is incredibly effective at ensuring that the establishment does not have to make any genuine domestic changes. They are not “socialists”, they are “reformists”, and their obvious flaw is that they are mere reformists of an atrocious, antiquated, aristocratic, capitalist-imperialist system.

DSA has just brazenly proven that when it comes to Iran they won’t lift a finger in favor of major changes in Washington.

But they want no real changes domestically, too, and they couldn’t even get them achieved even if they weren’t just paper tigers: From Bernie’s backing down in 2016 despite leaked proof of collusion against his candidacy by the Democratic Party elite, to the ascendence of the Clintonista Kamala Harris in 2020, to infuriatingly and unforgivably adding the qualifying adjective of “Democratic” to “Socialist” which actually propagandises against international socialism and not for it, to the unspoken reality that DSA’s media prevalence is almost wholly due to a hysterical American right-wing which needs some leftists (even fake-leftists) to scapegoat - this list can go on and on and on. 

Deeper explanations as to why DSA is repeatedly seen but never felt in American politics are obviously too numerous to list here, but - when it comes to DSA readers - this article does not aim to focus on DSA’s shortcomings but instead to persuade them to reform their anti-Iranian press policy.

The reality which non-American readers must comprehend is that the US system is based entirely on the influence of monied lobbies. Iranians must realise that there is absolutely not one single pro-Iranian lobby within the US, but that there are many, many anti-Iran lobbies willing to pay for influence (and also for Iran’s destruction) within this strange “democracy with American characteristics”.

In short, unless Iran sells off a significant minority of Iran’s state-controlled economy to American corporations, or unless Iran recognises Israel, no such pro-Iran lobby can be created: those are the preconditions which the US 1% has always insisted upon from modern Iran in order to end their hot and cold war.

Of course, not only are these things democratically rejected by the Iranian people, but any intelligent analysis of Iran shows that (and DSA members may learn something new about Iran here) any political party which undertook such efforts would be democratically voted out of office before they could complete such immoral, unpatriotic and anti-revolutionary tasks. Iran is a unique (revolutionary) nation with a unique (revolutionary) structure, and just as the US Constitution clearly prescribes an awful duopoly, modern Iranian culture has created - via undeniably vibrant, innovative and open debate over decades - a political system which proscribes certain things, two of which were mentioned in the preceding paragraph.

This is precisely why people like Bernie Sanders and DSA hold such appeal in Iran: the enlightenment of the average US voter appears to be the only way that Washington will ever give up their war on revolutionary (unique) Iran.

This is precisely what makes DSA’s blacklist of Iranian media so disheartening: it shows that neither mainstream party appears to have any sincere goodwill towards Iran - which is the basis of cooperation between equals - not even on the (alleged) left.

Of course, that concept is hardly new among Iranians.

Conclusion: One is on the right path over and over again, but via necessary self-corrections

It seems entirely necessary to assert that DSA’s promises of a progressive push to foreign policy towards Iran are not achievable at best and entirely disingenuous at worst, especially if they do not engage in immediate and sustained self-reform.

The current leaders of the DSA stand in incorrect opposition to the democratic will of 80 million Iranians, and we can safely assume the democratic will of their own members as well, and probably - by a slight democratic majority - the democratic will of 330 million Americans.

As it currently stands DSA - like so many Westerners - arrogantly, imperialistically and chauvinistically insists that they have the right to tell Iranians what they should want, and what they should do, and that if Iranians do not slavishly follow them then this means war… or at least silence, suppression and blacklisting for starters.

That is all totally unacceptable.

This article serves notice to Iranians as to what the DSA appears to have in mind for Iran should they gain power - their views are absolutely not rightly-guided. As to Americans who are about to head to the ballot box, this article makes no suggestion - it only fairly and accurately adds new information.

PressTV would like to place great emphasis on the ideas which are guiding our coverage of this unfortunate issue:

PressTV expresses no any animosity nor hard-heartedness to DSA due to their mistakes regarding Iran - they have obviously been misled via decades of unchecked Western Iranophobia. PressTV cannot stress enough that our desire for normal cooperation, friendly discussion and moral comportment has not been changed one iota despite this disagreement and the necessary airing of our fair and dispassionate criticisms, which are made entirely in the name of normal journalistic and (informal) diplomatic dialogue. PressTV would be rude to appear as if we are making any demands of anyone or any organisation - nor would PressTV degrade themselves thusly - we only politely ask, publicly, that DSA reform their stance on their misguided decision to blacklist Iranian media.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk