← Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone
Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone
The Cruel Irony of "No Kings" For the Women of Iran
00:25:51
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- [00:00]
A
Hi, this is Free Thinking through the Fourth Turning. I'm Sasha Stone. The cruel irony of no kings for the women of Iran. The silence in the media is deafening. Imagine being an Iranian right now, especially an Iranian woman, as hundreds of thousands of American women gather to exercise their freedom in a free country. People like Jane Fonda, who have everything and yet are still out there bleeding about fascism and oppression. Here is Jane Fonda.
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B
People are. People feel desperate. People are. I mean, we're the majority. We are. So we have to act like it. And they're not sure what to do. So the no Kings, these rallies are fun. They're like a festive, you know, and it's like dipping your toe in. It's a first step. And so we should all go tomorrow. But we shouldn't just go. We should bring five people. Bring people that we know that have never been to a protest. It's like a first step. You know, you meet new friends, you build community. It's very important because it's not affecting his pocketbook. Trump maybe doesn't care about the no Kings, but we do. It's important that we see how big our numbers are. I mean, there are millions and millions and millions and millions of people who will join and who feel this way. And we're going to start acting like the majority people. Power.
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C
Say, what do we do? Stand up. Like that. Where our communities are like on the side. What do we do? Stand up. Fight back. What. What do we do? Say, what do we do? In the name of humanity. In the name of humanity. In the name of humanity. In the name of humanity. We refuse. We refuse. We refuse. We refuse to accept a fascist America. A fascist America.
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A
Imagine protesting something that doesn't exist. A king in America protesting the very same democracy that put said king in power. Yes, that's what democracy looks like. Sometimes it doesn't go your way. Imagine being in Iran, knowing how many brave citizens attempted to protest their government, only to be mowed down just for standing there, seeing all these idiots in America marching in their no Kings parade. It would be like someone dying of hunger watching the line form at the Golden Corral. All you can eat buffet. Here is a video from the New York Times.
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D
During the demonstrations in Iran, we were seeing that videos were circulating online. But then the amount of footage slowed to a trickle because of an Internet blackout that was imposed in Iran. We worked to try and paint a fuller picture of what had happened during those weeks. We verified videos of security forces firing at protesters. And in at least 19 cities across Iran, we Use Google Earth, street signs, metadata, anything else that can help us try and better understand where a video is filmed. Much of the footage was also taken at night. It was often blurry. It was chaotic. We've blurred some of it due to its graphic nature. One of the posts that we were looking at, which we were particularly interested in, was four videos put together. The person who'd uploaded it explained that it showed people running away from gunfire in a city called Fardis. The footage was very clear. We could hear gunfire in the background. We saw a film poster on the ground for a James Bond film. Once we were able to find this rounded edge in this building, which was a cinema, we were also able to then find buildings nearby which roughly matched up. We then saw another distinctive building near it. The edge of it was corrugated, which is something that we were able to look for on Google Maps and on satellite imagery. This video was really important to us because it showed us the nature of the crackdown, and it also helped us build out this large of what was happening in cities across the country. We were able to carry out this process of geolocation and verification. Over and over again. We verified that security forces were firing on protesters in the capital, Tehran, but also in smaller cities and towns. Shortly after this blackout, we started to see a different kind of footage emerge. Videos showing body bags in particular. We were seeing families wandering through these rows and rows of body bags, trying to look for their loved ones. Initially, a lot of the footage that we were seeing was actually filmed inside. It made it really hard for us to verify, looking at Google Maps, looking at the usual verification tools that we have. But in the days after that, more and more footage and photos crucially began to emerge from this one particular location and from a cemetery down the street where people were being buried. The Iranian government has acknowledged the killings, but has blamed terrorist cells and foreign actors. One of the things that we were really trying to wrap our heads around with this story was the death toll and how much we could say with the video evidence that was available to us. We saw numbers in Farsi, on pieces of paper, on people's bodies. We were seeing this number change. And so we understood that the number of the body bags that we were seeing at this particular location was climbing steadily. We counted hundreds of people killed. We're continuing to monitor what's going on, but it's not clear whether we'll ever fully understand the scale of what happened in Iran during that weekend.
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A
Even NPR covered the women protesting in Iran back in January. Podcast listeners, a headline from NPR voices from Iran. Women defy fear in the face of brutal crackdown. And now at no Kings rallies, anti Trump protesters speak out against ICE cruelty Iran war. They have no shame, these people. They throw their public temper tantrums holding their dumb signs that say things like fascism and dictators and no Kings serving only to project to the rest of the world just how delusional and cut off from reality they have become. And we're supposed to put these people, this culture, back in power. Imagine being anyone in Venezuela and watching this grotesque spectacle play out. Imagine what it must feel like in Iran as they hope and pray that Trump is successful in castrating their dictatorial, oppressive regime. And to see how many Americans rooting for his failure, protesting a war alongside the Houthis. That is how desperate they are now to win their war on Trump. I mean, you couldn't make this up if you tried. The headline says it all. Houthis enter Middle east war. Millions join anti Trump protests worldwide. Here is a video from SBS World News.
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This is just released. United States Central Command video of of US Military strikes on Iranian naval vessels as the world watches for an exit strategy. This was a day of entrances. Vast crowds in Yemen shouting their support for Iran, holding up the portrait of the leader of Yemen's Iran backed Houthi rebels. The rebels announcing they had carried out an attack on Israel which Israel says it intercepted.
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The Yemeni armed forces with God's help, have carried out their first military operation with a barrage of ballistic missiles targeting sensitive military objectives of the Israeli enemy in the south of occupied Palestine.
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A few hours later on the rebel group satellite television network,
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The Houthis mantra, God is the greatest. Death to America. Death to Israel. Curse the Jews. Victory to Islam. Please let this be the moment the entire world sees them for what they really are. Pampered, entitled, privileged aristocrats who wouldn't know real problems if they shot them in the face for not wearing a mandatory hijab. Oh, I know, hijabs are cool now, so why don't you Jane Fonda put one on and move to Iran. Their protests might be seen as a show of force and it's true. They are a united, conformist, obedient culture. And sure it will help them motivate their base to turn out and vote in the midterms. But all it really is Jane Fonda, Bruce Springsteen, Robert De Niro is a well funded temper tantrum. We're mad because you wouldn't go along with Kamala being installed after we cooed out Joe Biden. We're mad because Barack Obama isn't in power anymore and our empire is collapsing. We're mad because we can't self improve, yoga, meditate or buy our way out of it. We're mad because our world is not pristine, harmonious and sustainable, because we lost not once but twice to Trump. Maybe at any other time we could laugh at their dumb no Kings protest. But it's hard when our country is at war with a real dictatorship to watch these spoiled brats show the rest of the world how stupid Americans really are. At least on the right, they're consistent. They're America first, anti war and uncomfortable with the US and its relationship with Israel. They've made that clear, even if I think most of them are still useful idiots for Russia, Iran and China. But on the left, the side that supposedly cares about human rights and women's rights especially, what's their excuse? The truth is that they've been conditioned over almost 20 years to repeat the mantras fed to them by the media and social media handed down by politicians. They don't even know what is true anymore, much less the meaning of words. What is a dictator? Trump? What is a fascist? Trump? What is oppression? Trump? These people have no idea what oppression means. To Robert De Niro, it's getting a bad seat at a restaurant. To Jane Fonda, it's the wrinkles on her face that show her age. To Bruce Springsteen, it's losing power to influence voters away from Trump. One born in the USA at a time. Boo hoo. Cry me a river. There was always an easier way to remove Trump from office. All they ever had to do was offer the people something better. They couldn't even do that. They've never admitted failure. They've just decided to make everyone miserable until we finally relent and vote them back into office. Oh, how I wish we had good writers who could point out the absurdity of a would be king trying to liberate a country from a dictatorship as his own citizens march in the streets, free as can be, demanding he be removed from power. Who will shame them? Not I said legacy media. Not I said snl John Oliver, Stephen Colbert or Jimmy Kimmel Podcast listeners, A tweet from Vince Langman. Imagine waking up on the first official spring weekend of 2026 and spending it going to a no Kings protest protest a man who's literally removed the two biggest dictators on planet Earth over the last four months. Here are some hard truths from TikTok
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these no kings protests make no sense because last time I checked, the people in countries that had kings weren't allowed to protest.
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There ain't no way, absolutely no way that any sane minded, common sense American cannot see the delusion that's happening right in front of us. I'm telling you, it stuff done flipped upside down in people around here. This far left un lost their grip on reality and they proving it every single day. They complain about everything. Everything the president do. Y' all got something to say? Everything he do, everything he closed the border. He complained about that. Why he protects Americans. Y' all out here protesting about that. Why he stands up to an Iranian regime that's been oppressing, okay? Torturing, murdering its own people. And y' all have no compassion. That's inhumane. Y' all st still out here complaining, y'.
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All.
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F
Then you held up the funding, you shut down the government. Y' all done throw tap a temper tantrum like little bitty children because what, he dared to defend this nation instead of bowing to y' all agendas? Thank you, God, for this president. And now, now y' all want to cry about money? Y' all crying about money being spent on this war or on a war? Where was this energy when Obama was sending millions of dollars overseas? Where was the outrage? Somebody tell me, where was the outrage when Biden, the Biden administration, they found they sent billions of dollars pouring into the Ukraine? Y' all ain't saying nothing. Where was the shutdowns then? I want somebody to tell me, where were the shutdowns? Where was the moral lectures then from the folk who, who's okay with hormone therapy and puberty blockers for children, minors? Where was the outrage about all this money that Biden sent Obama spent? Y' all ain't say a word. Not a work. Quiet as a church mouse. Because as long as that money was flowing out of America and back into y' all pockets, y' all was fine. As long as the foreign leaders were getting rich, which I said that's what they were doing, y' all were fine. All right. Y' all had 10 teamwork going on, putting money in each other's pocket. Y' all interest was protected. Y' all didn't care about the American people's interest. But the moment the money that y' all was using to protect y' all interest, suddenly it's a crisis because. Because Donald Trump done flip the script. It's a crisis now. Now it's dangerous. Y' all care about spending now.
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D
Mm.
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Because Donald Trump is protecting our national interests. Give me a break.
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White liberals out there about how everybody else is being oppressed by President Trump, but everybody else is like, bro, where? Like, what are you talking about? What's happening when you have the white liberal women saying that because President Trump was in office, we've lost all our rights and we have no rights left, and it's like going back to Handmaid's Hail days and whatever else. And I'm like, I'm sorry, where. What right did you lose? What rights have I lost? Not a single one. Oh, the gays. Well, the gays are going to lose all the rights, and they're not going to be able to be married anymore. Okay. The gay people I've seen that are married are still married. And then it was, well, you're an interracial relationship. And this is Whoopi Goldberg, who said this on the View. Her dumb, racist ass said, well, he's going to make it so that we're segregated again. If you happen to be in an interracial marriage, you better be ready to be divorced. And he's going to put the blacks, the blacks and the whites. Or the whites. Well, September will be 18 years and counting that. My husband and I. My black husband and I have been married, and I don't really see President Trump at this point. A year and some change.
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D
Man, y' all must really be killing it with these no Kings protests out here, because there's no king, and there hasn't been one, and there's not gonna be one. So, I mean, you're doing a great job keeping the kings away, even though we don't have one. Keep up the good work.
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The one thing that I can say about the Democrats is that those motherfuckers just don't stop. They don't stop. Don't stop.
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The crying, the whining, the bitching, the moaning, the groaning, the complaining, the.
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The hatred. They just don't stop. Freedom over Fascism. In my very affluent, a very white, very liberal town, they shamelessly. Virtue signal for podcast listeners, a picture of a sign. No Kings. Freedom over fascism. Freedom over Fascism. As Iranians huddle in their homes begging for our fascists to set them free. Freedom over fascism. When you shun and destroy anyone who doesn't vote your way or doesn't agree with your politics. Freedom over Fascism. When you try to install a leader without a single vote. Freedom over fascism. When you have the luxury of three no Kings protests. When you have all the freedom in the world, and yet you're so intolerable, you couldn't even beat Trump a second time. And if that weren't Enough. This same person displays this sign for podcast listeners. A rainbow sign. Everyone is welcome here. Yeah, everyone except anyone who doesn't agree with them or go along with their mass delusion that they're oppressed. I can't imagine what anyone living in Iran right now would think of these signs as they hope and pray for liberation. Here's a video from cbsla.
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Now to our ongoing focus on the local impact of the war with Iran. Long before the US and Israeli airstrikes, there has been a battle inside Iran waged and led largely by women. CBSLA's Lori Peres spoke with a cross section of local Iranian American women about the current war and their decades long fight for freedom.
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As the military strikes continue in the Middle east and analysts debate imminent threats and oil interests, Iranian women are looking for signs the war and a change in leadership could impact another front. The fight for women's rights.
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You know, I think there's this generational message that young women say to their moms and to their grandmothers, we will
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get the country back that you lost.
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Human rights for Iran. Human rights for Iran.
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In the winter of 2022, crowds around the globe protested after the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, taken into custody by Iran's morality police for how she dressed her death exposing to the world a reality Iranian women have faced and fought since 1979 when Iran transformed into an Islamic republic with religious law severely restricting governing their dress, work and education.
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This government 47 years has tried to
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limit people, but they've always faced resistance.
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The women especially are so oppressed in Iran and they showed we're done and we can't stand for this anymore. So I think that protest was the beginning of a lot more that is now following. Two sources told CBS News as many as 20,000 people were killed this past January alone when Iran cracked down on mass anti government protests. That's on top of the thousands estimated killed in demonstrations over the last five decades. Some we spoke with hope this war will finally break the regime as with Venezuela.
- [19:33]
A
It's hard for me not to root for Trump to defeat these monsters. Whether it's right or wrong, I can't imagine heading into battle with so many Americans on the other side and wish casting failure. I hope for no casualties. No one should have to fight and die in any war. But I won't go along with the lie that this is not a worthy cause. It is. Would I understand if Trump did what every other president has done? Nothing. Of course that's what his base would want him to do. But Trump is a great champion of the fourth turning he moves to the beat of his own drum. True, it might go badly for Trump. True, the American people might not want the war. Maybe they want Trump to cut and run and tend to America's interests. I get all that. The last thing I would ever do, however, is turn my back on the President or the troops. Right now, all I can do, and all any American should do is first, do no harm and second, hope for the best. Godspeed, Team usa. Thank you for listening to my podcast sashastone.com and thanks to everyone who watched my video about my dog Jack and offered me condolences and sympathy. I appreciate that. And if you like my work, you can always leave a tip. There's a link on the main page. You can become a paid subscriber there as well. You can always leave a review. Hope you had a great weekend and
- [21:29]
C
remember to thine own self be true It's I. Can see for a thousand years Older than and I'm. Just so long. You know. Well it's been so long and I've been putting out fire. Don't fulfill me. Gasoline. Dry Just when I can cover. I can see for a thousand years Just stay here with me oh well you wouldn't believe what I've been through Been so long where we been so long. Been so long Been so long Been so long I've been putting out the fire Been so long Been so long Been so long so long so long Been so long so long. I see so.