I doubt that even one tenth of one percent of one half of one eighth of a percent of the charges being leveled against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his buddies are true but truth is not the defining issue as several of his inner circle have been arrested for being magicians consorting with djinns in order to get Ahmadinejad’s policies through.

It seems that Ahmadinejad and Iran’s “supreme leader”, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have had more than a bit of a falling out as they vie for power and the cleric has the upper hand for the moment.

I know, I know, no sympathy lost to many who watched the democracy protesters quashed under an iron bootheel and I know quite a few in the West are snickering at the way that superstitious belief is being used as a political weapon . . . but . . . and this is a big but . . . some of the same sort of charges and paranoid religiosity have been used in the name of political expediency in the US. I’ve seen more than a few documentaries floating around linking President Obama with secret Satanic cabals and certainly the witchcraft and other issues flung about in the last election have similar tastes (albeit, from a different front).

In any case, if you want to influence men’s minds appeal to their darker fears . . . as Joseph McCarthy knew very well, whether or not the allegations are true doesn’t matter, all that matters is that they appeal to the populace’s most base fears. Gotta wag that tail and stoke those fires of fear and paranoia and any scapegoat’s fine as long as its blood distracts from what’s really going on.

– Brian