The images and videos are leaking out more slowly than before, but they continue to find their way to the outside world. The internet culture simply makes suppression impossible. I wonder how the uprisings in Hungary '56 and Czechoslavakia '68 would have ended if those people had the technology and social networking we use today. The Cold War would have almost certainly collapsed much sooner. Not that it matters; in the end, all kings and tyrants fall into the dust.
The reports have today's rally surpassing a million demonstrators. When I look at these photos of Iran, I don't see a repressed backwater country. I see a modern society and a growing middle class. These Iranians are emerging to take their place as equals in the world. And, as Orwell explains so perfectly, once the masses achieve a degree of wealth, they will no longer be stupefied by poverty. Then they shall question their rulers and overthrow them.
In the end, a hiercharcial society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. The rise of the Iranian middle class has conqured the first obstacle, and internet culture has conqured the second. This is why democracy and equality are inevitable in this nation. And the ruling clerics know this. After all, they were the revolutionaries of 30 years ago. They're caught in a trap from which they cannot escape. And everybody knows it.
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