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Comment by lingben | Hacker News Reader

While Rick Steves is a warm and wonderful person he is no authority on Iran. He visited Iran and was carefully stage managed to present only the positive side of things and completely ignore the rest.

He is not a historian, he is not a sociologist, he is not an orientalist, he has zero credentials or background which would make him in any way an authority or a source of insight.

He went to Iran and had a great time visiting different cities and sites. And he talked to many people, while government minders were close by but off camera.

Therefore, this presentation is what it is: an anecdotal account of one man's carefully choreographed visit to a country.

And I'll add that I'm saying this as an Iranian - I wish I didn't have to add that but it seems that sometimes good intentioned people see anything negative written about Iran or a 'brown' country and automatically think it is motivated by racism or bigotry.

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If you had watched the video you would see the parts where he addresses your critiques. He explores the everyday life of many different Iranians, particularly those in the urban areas, and makes efforts to highlight the positive and negative attitudes towards the West.

You don't have to have a doctorate in Iranian studies to learn and understand for yourself that Western media's portrayal of Iran is deeply biased. Of course, Iran's portrayal of the West is equally biased. The key is to listen to the grievances of both sides within the context of a historical understanding and form judgments from there. This is exactly what Rick Steves has done.

Steves mentions in his video that every schoolboy and girl know of the 1953 coup and the CIA's involvement. The vast majority of Americans are entirely oblivious of this event when forming opinions of Iran. Isn't this valuable information for Steves to communicate with his Western audience?

> He is not a historian, he is not a sociologist, he is not an orientalist, he has zero credentials or background which would make him in any way an authority or a source of insight.

He has traveled the world and visited lots of countries and viewed them with an open mind. He can make comparisons and contrasts. He can derive lessons as he did in the video where he touted the benefits of church/state separation. I think he has some expertise now. And definitely more than the theoretical historians, sociologists, orientalists who have never been in the field like he has.

> while government minders were close by but off camera.

Never mentioned this on camera. But he did mention that security would often inquire and investigate what he was up to.

> was carefully stage managed

He was not really stage managed. His focus was on the Iranian side of Iran, the human side, not the government side. And if he found information that he could not document, he spoke about it. That is not 'stage managed'.

Iran is an authoritarian country like North Korea. No foreign press is allowed in without first requesting a special permit. Among the information they have to present is who they are and what they are planning on reporting on. This is the first filter.

For example, if you request a press pass to enter Iran and report on the persecution of Bahais, don't be surprised if you are turned down.

But once allowed in, that's not the end of it. They are monitored and carefully managed to only present the positive. Also, who they speak to and what they say and hear is also monitored.

This is well known and routine. Therefore, to think that a choreographed and superficial 'feel good' anecdotal video like Rick Steve's presents anything approaching reality is the height of naivete.

> He visited Iran and was carefully stage managed to present only the positive side of things and completely ignore the rest.

The US govt has been "informing" us about the negative side of things for decades. We had nothing new to learn about that side. To show us the other side was what was and is needed.

Actually it was human rights organizations and other NGOs which were reporting on the brutal realities of Iran and asking the US, Canada, Europe and the UN to take action about the extrajudicial assassinations, the lack of due process, the tortures, etc.

The 'other side' is what the other side has always been. Normal people going on about their lives. The same is true for North Korea or Burma, etc.

People are people. No one has a personal grudge against Iranians as a people or individuals.

The government however should be held accountable and justice demands consequences for their actions.

> Normal people going on about their lives. The same is true for North Korea or Burma, etc.

Most people in the world realise this, but then most people aren't residents of the United States. If online commentary is anything to go by, US citizens have been totally brainwashed by government propaganda. I mean, your president called those countries the "Axis of Evil". Think about that for a minute.

> If online commentary is anything to go by, US citizens have been totally brainwashed by government propaganda.

The internet, like the US, is a large and diverse place, with varying political, cultural and intellectual identities. You're just cherry picking to assemble a strawman "ignorant, brainwashed American" to knock down, but as straw Americans go, if it depends on internet comments to provide an unbiased reflection of reality, it's not very substantive.

If online commentary were anything to go by, the earth is flat and space-jews did 9/11.

Would you accept that most Americans believe what their government tells them?

I mean, politicians on the campaign trail can't be trusted, but when the head honchos of the US "defence" forces, the Secretary of State, and the President of the United States stands in front of the nations media and talk about the foreign bogeymen who're out to get them, would you accept that most Americans believe them?

Then you have the Fox News and dozens of right wing radio talk shows pounding on the same drums... creating more fear about these foreign evils who hate them "for their freedoms" and who "want to impose sharia law on the world.

The propaganda machine in the US is extremely efficient... so well oiled that most people don't see it. Even the moving parts of the machine believe that they're doing good and aren't out to fool anyone.

This type of brainwashing is less the Pyongyang brand, and more of the type that the beauty product companies use to tell women they're too fat.

>Would you accept that most Americans believe what their government tells them?

Often, but not always. I think Americans will believe what they're told not because they believe the government is never wrong but because they believe what the news tells them and they simply don't care enough to dig deeper. Americans also tend to believe whatever confirms their existing biases. I suspect this is not a uniquely American problem, though.

> but when the head honchos of the US "defence" forces, the Secretary of State, and the President of the United States stands in front of the nations media and talk about the foreign bogeymen who're out to get them, would you accept that most Americans believe them?

Even at the height of the post 9/11 paranoia and the Iraq war, there was plenty of skepticism and criticism of Bush's actions. Some (admittedly many) Americans thought Bush was a hero (and still do,) and others thought he was an idiot who was playing out a power fantasy in the Middle East. So it's not really the case that the whole country swallowed the government's arguments hook, line and sinker.

>Then you have the Fox News and dozens of right wing radio talk shows pounding on the same drums...

The thing with right-wing talk radio and Fox News is it's designed to preach to the choir, and it does, and the choir is large and boisterous, but it's a laughingstock to a lot of people as well. Is it effective propaganda if it only works on people who shared its biases to begin with?

To paraphrase Obi-Wan Kenobi here, what you're saying is true, but only from a certain point of view, and a narrow-minded view at that. As with any population of this size, pinning it down to any one political stereotype is difficult - our lunatic fringe is bigger than some countries.

If you look at how well Donald Trump is doing, you have to concede that the "fringe" is a bit more than a fringe these days.

I will concede, it is disturbing that Donald Trump is as popular as he seems to be. But to be fair, he is a celebrity and can afford to literally force the country to listen to him, and he doesn't actually have to appeal to anyone but the hardcore Republican base at this point. I feel like Donald Trump is the bursting of a pustule that's been festering under the skin of America's psyche for a while.

But he hasn't even been nominated by his party yet, and I'm not entirely certain he would actually win a general election.

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