The last link in my post above is worth excerpting:

...Noticeably absent from the demonstration signs saying "Bush=Hitler," "It's all about oil," "War is not the answer," "End Imperialism" or any of that ilk.

More noticeably absent? The 20,000 or so American college students who typically carry such signs in New York protests. Sure, they couldn't pass up an opportunity to show up in 20 degree weather to howl about how evil their country was and how suspect the President's motives were in regards to Iraq. And like it or not, whether they knew it or not (and interviews with a number of them showed they didn't know much beyond the particular slogan they'd decided to carry or shout), they ultimately were arguing for Saddam Hussein to remain in place.

Sure, with Iraq, there was the issue of war. Many of the February/March protesters said they were morally opposed to war. No, they couldn't offer an alternative solution, but they were opposed to war, and, on the surface of it, that's a noble position to hold. As many politicians know, it's always easier to claim the moral high ground and talk about being noble than to take action, to solve a problem.

Still, I find it morally reprehensible that the youth of America, muddle-headed as they may be, can run out into the streets to scold their country, yet here we have a demonstration for democracy in Iran, for a non-interventionist and peaceful solution to a horrible human-rights issue, the ousting of a fundamentalist religious regime and not a single one of them shows up. There are college students in Iran at this very moment who are in jail, probably being tortured, for doing nothing more than shouting their own slogans in the street or for running a Web site or for having a satellite dish. They're looking for secularization and democracy and women's rights. And not a peep out of their colleagues here. No rock musicians crying out. No public forums on MTV. No concerned actors biting at the ankles of politicians.

It's not just hypocritical, it's disgusting and depressing.

I'm hoping the New York demonstration was a fluke, that people in L.A., D.C., and Texas will pour into the streets. Perhaps I shouldn't get bent out of shape over a small turnout in the middle of a weekday. But that isn't the problem. The folks organizing this demonstration are members of a very small group, Iranian exiles. And they're probably a sub-sector of that small group (people who support Pahlavi).

They tried to drum up their support and many dedicated people on the web tried to help out, but there were two key elements missing.

The first was a major push from a huge politically minded organization. People can believe that the anti-war in Iraq movement was some sort of grassroots effort, built up one e-mail at a time. That simply wasn't the case. Every single one of the major anti-war protests were spearheaded by International ANSWER, which despite all of its high-minded claims, is no more than a tool for the World Workers Party, which itself is a Stalinist holdover from the glory days of Soviet Communism. It's a massive machine that feeds on the angst, ennui and built-in anger of the pampered middle and upper classes in developed countries. And it feeds quite well. I'd venture to say that 75% of the folks protesting the war in Iraq had no clue that the signs they were carrying, the slogans they were shouting, were brought to you by the folks who lost the Cold War, by people who think Castro is a hero.

And what was the other thing missing here? Media coverage. There has been next to nothing on July 9th as it relates to Iran, even less on planned demonstrations in Iran or in America. Again, it was claimed that anti-war protests weren't getting media coverage leading up to the Iraq war. Again, I say bullshit. There was plenty of coverage. If you opened a newspaper or turned on the television or cracked a news magazine or surfed the web, it was there. But this? Zilch. I bounce around quite a few Web sites and I was getting fairly desperate looking for anything on Iran this morning and if it hadn't been for Instapundit, I likely wouldn't have found anything.

Students and every-day folk are screaming out in Iran, screaming out of frustration, screaming for our attention, and, yes, some of them screaming in pain. And crickets are chirping in America.

As one woman at the protest said, "It's like we can't get anyone to care."