Are Some Baseej Defecting?

That seems to be what is happening in this clip. My previous interpretation has been challenged by several readers. Check out the 3 minute mark and you'll see a man in a face-mask, as many baseej are now wearing, raise his riot police helmet in the air and join the crowd to great cries of excitement. In these scenes of mayhem, interpretation is hard and it may be that this is a protestor who has grabbed a baseej helmet and is brandishing it as a trophy, as I first guessed.

But the mask suggests a more pivotal moment. Before the people were wearing them; now the brownshirts are. That, also, as a reader writes, seems like a critical sign:

I'm just really struck by the fact that so few of these folks have masks on today. In June, half of the people were hiding their faces -- this Ashura, not so much. Between that and the fact that they're calling Khameini "Yazid"?

Something very real has changed in the last six months.

Then this photograph has popped up over the transom. It sure looks like a baseej switching sides:

 

Again, this is raw footage from a very recent event. Treat it with caution. The Dish is dedicated to providing as much data as we can, in context. But this is very raw; it's a draft of the first draft of history. It may be revised in time.