Iran is back in turmoil — arrests, shootings, executions, and a government hunting its own people. Meanwhile, outrage in the U.S. is pointed everywhere except toward the civilians who actually need it. In this episode, Ryan breaks down what sparked the new wave of protests, what freedoms Iranians are losing, and why the silence in America is louder than any chant.
This isn’t about picking sides.
It’s about recognizing the difference between real oppression and cartoon activism.
And it’s about noticing how Americans react — or don’t — when the victims aren’t useful to their narratives.
You’ll hear:
What triggered the latest unrest
Real examples of freedoms taken away in Iran
Why Trump’s strikes mattered but didn’t change the regime’s brutality
Why Americans protest some causes and ignore others
The truth about selective outrage
Why criticizing a violent regime isn’t racism — it’s just human
If this episode made you think, do one quick favor:
Tap Follow, hit ★★★★★, and share it with someone who needs a reality check.
Your support grows the show more than you know.
Stay sharp.
Stay aware.
Stay in the Fray.
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In Iran, people aren't pretending they're being hunted
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by the government, they are being hunted.
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Women being arrested for showing a few inches of her fucking
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hair. People being jailed for singing,
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dancing, holding hands in public.
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Journalists disappearing for reporting facts.
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Young men hanged for attending rallies.
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Families punished because their kids posted a video online.
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Everyday normal behavior. The real threat isn't a reactor
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in Iran, it's the regime. The same regime, by the way,
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that has spent 50 years screaming death to America,
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death to the West, and calling us.
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Welcome to Stay in the Fray podcast.
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I'm your host, Ryan. This is where headlines get hit
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hard, hypocracy gets shredded, and the absurd are laughed at.
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If you want comfort, this isn't your place.
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If you want blunt and unfiltered, I'm your guy.
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Join me in the fray. All right, hey guys, let's sit
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on Iran real quick on this topic.
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It's not even about Iran, sadly, which it should be, but it's
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about these continued protests. I don't understand it.
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There's another one something else supposed to happen today
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because of the ice off. Why do you want to protest like
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this these days? What's the what's the deal?
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I know some of you are getting paid to protest.
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You've admitted that it's been documented clearly on video.
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I guess it's kind of a side hustle now if you will grab a
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sign and like lock in, scream, collect your moral outrage
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stipend. But honestly, the you know, the
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people show up just for good old virtue signaling, not getting
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paid. They're just as bad if not
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worse. I don't know what they think
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they're going to accomplish. Meanwhile, beyond that, the real
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world continues happening while Americans are marching,
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chanting, camping, blocking highway and acting like every
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disagreement is a civil rights movement.
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There's an entire population right now across the world
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actively and actually fighting for their lives.
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Here's the part nobody seems to notice in Iran.
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People aren't pretending they're being hunted by the government.
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They are being hunted. They aren't yelling about
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authoritarianism because immigration laws being enforced,
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by the way, like everywhere else in the world.
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They're running from a regime that arrests, tortures, shoots,
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and executes them for one in the most basic form of freedom.
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Somehow the same people who swear the US is a dystopian be a
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nightmare go silent when confronted with the reality of a
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government that truly kills its citizens.
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A chunk of this country has lost its collective fucking minds.
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Your robots programmed to fit whatever narrative makes you
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feel righteous. This week I'm not delivering the
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news. I'm not a news man.
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I'll give you what you need to know the basics in order to be
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caught up. And that's about it.
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It is commentary. It is reaction to the reactions.
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This is me asking why outrage is selective and why silence is
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suddenly fashionable. So join me.
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This is Stay in the Fray podcast.
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Let's roll. So here's what sparked all this,
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in case you blinked. Like I said, I'll give you a
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little bit of the news here. Iran erupted again.
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A new wave of protests exploded after yet another brutal
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crackdown. Same pattern, different year.
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The regime started tightening the screws again on the most
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basic parts of life. We're talking women being
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arrested for showing a few inches of her fucking hair.
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People being jailed for singing, dancing, holding hands in
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public. Journalists disappearing for
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reporting facts. Young men hanged for attending
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rallies. Families punished because their
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kids posted a video online. Everyday normal behavior.
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The stuff that we here in America do without thinking,
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Criminalized by force. And you progressive idiots here
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have the balls to call our president and administration a
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dictator and dictatorship. Go live in Iran.
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At least then what you're protesting would actually be a
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reality. And instead of cowering,
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Iranians poured into the streets and some of the biggest
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demonstrations since the Masha Amini uprising.
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The economy is collapsing, Corruption is everywhere.
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The morality police are back in full swing, people have hit the
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point where fear stops working, crowds demanded change, and the
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regime answered the only way it knows how.
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Violence arrests bullets. That's why Iran is suddenly back
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on your radar. Not because the world finally
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woke up, but because the the Iranian people reached their
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breaking point yet again. Let's clear something up right
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away. Trump absolutely bombed Iranian
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nuclear facilities. Not symbolic pressure on a slap
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on the wrist. He hit real sites, real
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infrastructure, and sent a message that the regime's
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untouchable nuclear program wasn't untouchable at all.
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That mattered. It slowed them down.
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It exposed their vulnerability. It reminded the world that force
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can work when diplomacy is nothing but theater.
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Here's the uncomfortable truth, however.
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Blowing up facilities does not blow up the ideology behind
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them. It doesn't dismantle A
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theocracy. It doesn't erase a dictatorship.
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It doesn't magically turn a brutal regime into a decent
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government. Iran lost buildings, lost
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equipment. Iran lost time.
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But they didn't lose their appetite for crushing their own
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people. Because the real threat isn't a
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reactor in Iran. It's the regime.
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The same regime, by the way, that has spent 50 years
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screaming death to America, death to the West, and calling
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us and all of you little campus protesters infidels.
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And that's what so many Americans don't seem to
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understand. They talk like if the US
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government is out here hunting people when all it's doing is
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enforcing basic law, can disagree and say that they're
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doing more all you want, but it's not the case.
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Meanwhile, in Iran, the government is literally killing
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protesters, dragging them away in vans, beating women in the
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streets, executing dissidents, shooting crowds with live
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rounds. That's not metaphor.
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It's not Twitter hyperbola. That is the reality Iranians are
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waking up to every day right now.
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So if you're going to scream about fascism, maybe start by
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recognizing the actual thing. But again, silence.
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Silence from the same voices that never miss a chance to play
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revolutionary cosplay on American soil.
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Silence from the people who meltdown over police questioning
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someone here but shrug over police executing someone there.
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Silence from activists who think posting a black square is
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bravery, but have nothing to say when real courage gets real
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people killed. It is amazing how quickly moral
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outrage dries up when the oppressor isn't western, white,
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or convenient. So let's really expose the game,
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shall we? I've watched cities in this
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country, United States, basically shut down for
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Palestine, Highways blocked, airports stormed, campuses
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taking over, kids chaining themselves to buildings like
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they're in Les Mis. Some of the biggest, loudest,
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most dramatic demonstrations we've ever seen.
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And again, fine, you people are free to care about whatever you
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want, even if your reasons are bullshit.
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It is your right. But if those same protesters
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claim to stand for human rights, where the hell are they for the
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people of Iran? Where are the marches?
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Where are the hunger strikes, the tents, the week long campus
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occupations? Where are the trendy signs?
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The megaphones? They're nowhere.
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Absolutely fucking nowhere. You know who shows up for the
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Iranian people? Iranians.
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That's it. Meanwhile, in the US, the same
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crowd who throws themselves onto the ground for cameras suddenly
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can't be bothered. Not a whisper, not a chant, not
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even a lazy repost on Instagram. It's silence is so loud it is
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embarrassing. These are the same people who
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will flood the streets for criminals like George Floyd and
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even gather for a woman who died trying to mow down a federal law
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enforcement officer they can't spare a single March for.
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Truly innocent victims, Blake and Riley, Irina Zarutska on the
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train. Why?
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Because those tragedies don't check the right boxes.
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The box is being checked, or the criminals.
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It tells you all exactly what's going on.
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A lot of the people screaming here in our country aren't
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activists. They're performers, and some are
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paid. They react to whatever narrative
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feels edgy, rebellious, and they flood the streets when it makes
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them feel bold and vanish when the victims don't fit their
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moral cosplay. They'll chant from the river to
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the sea all day long, but they won't say a single word about
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women being beaten to death for showing too much skin.
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They'll cry about US fascism while actual fascists in Tehran
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put bullets into crowds. They'll scream that immigration
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enforcement here is genocide while real genocide level
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brutality overseas doesn't move them an inch.
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It is selective morality. It's ideological laziness.
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It's people outsourcing their worldview to whatever their
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group chats and social feeds tell them to care about.
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A wild part. These are the same people who
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lecture everyone else about silence being violence.
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Well guess what, their silence on Iran is violence.
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Because the people they're ignoring, they're dying.
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You know what? Amidst all this we still have to
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clarify something. Somehow in this upside down
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cultural moment, saying anything negative about the Iranian
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regime gets you labeled as a racist and Islamophobic, pro
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Israel or anti Middle East. Give me a fucking break.
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Do you know what's actually racist?
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Acting like Iranian people are their government, as if millions
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of innocent people want to be ruled by a bunch of theocratic
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psychos. As if their suffering doesn't
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count because it's over there and it doesn't fit the script.
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Criticizing a government that tortures and murders its own
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citizens is not racism at all. It's basic human decency.
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If anything, the people who refuse to criticize that regime,
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the people who stay silent, they're the ones dehumanizing
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Iranians. They're treating an entire
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population like collateral damage to protect their precious
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political narratives. Let me be crystal clear.
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You can despise the Iranian regime precisely because you
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care about the Iranian people. You can support their freedom.
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You can want them alive. You can want their daughters to
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not be beaten for showing hair. You can want their sons to not
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be executed for attending a protest.
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You can want families to not be dragged out of their homes for
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social media posts. I'm also looking at you UK.
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None of that is racist. None of that is hateful.
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None of that makes you some imperialist colonizer or
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whatever buzzwords the left is recycling this week about our
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own country over here. It makes you normal functioning
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human being. Honestly, if you can't
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distinguish between criticizing A murderous theocracy and hating
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an entire ethnicity, that's a you problem.
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That's brain rot problem. That's what happens when you've
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been trained to shout slogans instead of think.
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Because here's the reality. The Iranian people are fighting
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for the same things American citizens take for granted every
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second of the day. Free speech, basic dignity,
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personal safety, the right to live without fear.
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And the very people who are screaming about oppression in
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the US can't bring themselves to acknowledge real oppression when
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it's not politically convenient. It is disgusting and cowardly.
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And it's one more example showing that a big part of this
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country doesn't actually stand for human rights.
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They stand for narrative rights. If it fits the script, they
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care. If it doesn't, ghost town.
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So I'll leave you with this because it's something I've been
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noticing more and more lately. Actions matter, but reactions
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tell you who people really are. What people rush to protest,
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what they ignore, what gets wall to wall coverage, what gets
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buried, who gets turned into a symbol and who gets forgotten.
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That pattern tells the real story.
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Because when people can mobilize overnight for one cause, but
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stay completely silent while innocent people are being
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hunted, beaten, jailed and executed, that's not ignorance,
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that's a choice. Don't get me wrong, the people
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of Iran don't need western activists screaming slogans for
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clout. That won't do shit for them.
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Doesn't do shit for any of the other nonsense either.
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They don't need cosplay revolutionaries blocking traffic
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in cities that already have freedom.
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They need something much simpler and much rarer.
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They need honesty, courage, and the world to admit what's
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actually happening there. The saddest part?
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The loudest voices here love to talk about oppression, but only
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when it costs them nothing. Meanwhile, real courage looks
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like Iranian citizens stepping into the streets knowing full
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well they may not come home. That is not performance.
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That is conviction. So no, this episode isn't about
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telling you to pick sides about anything.
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It's about why people react the way they do, and why the silence
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is starting to say more than the shouting ever did.
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Pay attention to what gets amplified.
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Pay attention into what gets ignored.
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That's where the truth hides. So let's keep growing the team
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spread the word. At this point, it really is
00:13:44
about just the actions of these people.
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They happen to be on the left. People give me a hard time.
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All the only all you're all over the left.
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You're so mad. You're the whoa.
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That's where this is coming from.
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You know, if you want to talk about some issues on the right,
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I'll talk about that too, but nothing like this.
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So like and subscribe and do all those things spread it around.
00:14:02
Let's let's grow hit the bell. All the things you know, I hate
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to ask. It helps more than you know.
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So I'll see you guys in the next one.
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Stay sharp, stay aware, stay loud where it matters.
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Stay in the fray. Love you guys, just listen up.