Headline of the month!

[Gob]

"Pussy Riot whipped at Sochi Games by Cossacks."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26265230

Publicity whores much?

[Sue U]

Publicity whores much?

Pretty much the entire point of Pussy Riot is to bring attention to government repression and corruption. I'd say they've been pretty successful. Why would you denigrate them?

[Gob]

Just the way they went about this stunt straight after being left out of jail, following eliciting world sympathy.

This should also be borne in mind;

Earlier this month, six members of Pussy Riot signed an open letter insisting that Ms Alyokhina and Ms Tolokonnikova should no longer be described as members of the punk rock collective.

The remaining members of the group said the pair had forgotten about the "aspirations and ideals of our group" and were wrong to appear at an Amnesty International concert in New York.

[Sue U]

Just the way they went about this stunt straight after being left out of jail, following eliciting world sympathy.

This should also be borne in mind;

Earlier this month, six members of Pussy Riot signed an open letter insisting that Ms Alyokhina and Ms Tolokonnikova should no longer be described as members of the punk rock collective.

The remaining members of the group said the pair had forgotten about the "aspirations and ideals of our group" and were wrong to appear at an Amnesty International concert in New York.

Um, you've got it exactly backwards. As far as I can tell, Nadia and Masha weren't at Sochi, and to the extent they are being severed from the collective, it's largely because they appeared at an Amnesty International benefit show in NYC with a bunch of rich pop stars, which other members of Pussy Riot felt was incompatible with the group's commitment to free performance and provocation in public spaces, as well as its virulent opposition to capitalism and "institutionalized advocacy."

The "direct action" at Sochi was exactly in keeping with Pussy Riot's "aspirations and ideals." I much prefer these revolutionaries to the ones who blow up trains, buses and buildings.

[Gob]

Thanks for that clarification Sue.

[Sue U]

Well, I got at least some of it wrong. (That's what I get for only listening to the radio.) On further investigation at The Source of All Knowledge (a/k/a Wikipedia):

[Nadia] Tolokonnikova, [Masha]Alyokhina, and three unidentified women planned to perform a song called "Putin Will Teach You to Love the Motherland" as Pussy Riot during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. The action was supposed to be concerned with the prisoners in the Bolotnaya Square case, corrupt Olympic officials, the plight of the arrested environmentalist Yevgeny Vitishko (ru) and suppressed freedoms in Russia.[234] On February 18 2014 they were detained in Sochi together with a group of 12-15 people including Yevgeny Feldman, a Novaya Gazeta journalist. The authorities explained that the arrest was in connection with a theft at a hotel in Sochi.[234][235] In a few hours they were released from an Adler police station. According to BBC correspondent Rafael Saakov the five women left the police station in balaclavas singing their song "Putin Will Teach You to Love the Motherland" on the streets of Adler.[236]

On February 19, 2014 during the second attempt to film "Putin Will Teach You to Love the Motherland" near the building of Sochi Seaport the group was beaten by uniformed cossacks working in a security capacity for the Olympics.[237] [238][239] The same day a representative of the International Olympic Committee urged Pussy Riot not to perform at Sochi Olympic Park stating that it would be inappropriate. He also stated that the arrest of Pussy Riot in Sochi is not connected to the Olympic Games.[240]An attorney for the band members stated they were treated at a hospital for injuries received during the attack.

Still, this is what Pussy Riot is all about.

[Lord Jim]

Thanks for that clarification Sue.

Whoa..

You mean to tell me, that rather than arguing obstinately, despite the state of the facts, in post after post, that you were right (and making yourself look more and more foolish in the process,) you have chosen to not only admit that you may have been wrong, but even graciously thank your respondent for enlightening you?...

It seems to me that some might profit from that example...

[Lord Jim]

I think it's also worth mentioning that the Pussy Riot types are not engaging in acts of civil disobedience in defiance of the Santa Barbara PD, where they might be expected to be led away gently in plastic twister handcuffs, spend a couple of hours being processed at the local police station, and then released with a Desk Appearance Ticket and face a small fine...(more than likely with the charges dismissed, and no fine)

They are engaging in these acts of civil disobedience in Putinist Russia...

Where they might very well not only be arrested, but beaten, have all their property confiscated without due process, and be tossed into one of Putin's gulags for as long as he finds it useful to keep them there...

(Or worse; as I've pointed out before the number of high profile folks in politics and the press who have opposed Putin who have met an untimely demise is a long one...Vladimir Putin is kind of the real life Russian version of Francis Urquhart/ Frank Underwood...)

I admit, I didn't think much of their first foray into that Church, (I found that misdirected) but I find the way they continue to stand up to this KGB thug, knowing what they're risking, (after having already been thrown into his prison) to be laudatory and courageous...

[Sue U]

Much as I love RATM, Pussy Riot makes them look like a chapter of the College Republicans.

[Gob]

They are engaging in these acts of civil disobedience in Putinist Russia...

Wierdest protest ever! Pull on some knitted face masks, jump about a bit, mime, get whipped.

[Lord Jim]

Vladimir Putin is probably the most intelligent leader of a major country on the world stage today...

Which is what makes him particularly dangerous...

Given his agenda...

At different turns he plays the urbane, westernized "sophisticate"; with well tailored suits, and a droll sense of humor...(No one would mistake him for Leonid Brezhnev...)

And sometimes he plays The Clown, riding around shirtless on horseback...

But make no mistake...

This man is every bit as cold and calculating as Josef Stalin, ("Stalin 2.0")

Putin sincerely believes, (as he has said) that, "The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest catastrophe of the 20th Century"...

And he spends every waking moment addressing himself to the task of trying to undo that "catastrophe"...

[Lord Jim]

They are engaging in these acts of civil disobedience in Putinist Russia...

Wierdest protest ever! Pull on some knitted face masks, jump about a bit, mime, get whipped.

Yes, well, strange protest, but do you know of any civilized country where the police walk around with whips?

The cops in that clip remind me of Little Alex's Droogs from A Clockwork Orange when they're made "cops"...

[oldr_n_wsr]

I admit, I didn't think much of their first foray into that Church, (I found that misdirected)

That got their names and faces out to the international press. Now it would be hard for Putin to have them "disappear".
And how many are in this "band"? 6 others are saying the other two are no longer in it? That makes 8. Any more?

[rubato]

Good for them! Excellent use of the media for both the original protest at the church and brilliant here. One of the classic methods of protest is to commit a provocative act which is captured by the media which incites the authorities to behave the way they are pre-programmed to do and thus show to the world what they are like. One of the most effective methods of the civil rights movement was to march, do a lunch counter sit-in &c with the TV media there to film it. When Bull Connor sicced the dogs on people and beat them with truncheons or blasted them off their feet with fire hoses and when the conservative white southerners behaved brutally to the lunch counter protesters an accurate picture of their evil was shown to the whole world which created support for the movement.

This has gone better than Pussy Riot could have hoped. The Cossacks, who the governor has said can act with 'greater freedom than the police', used brutality here it showed to all of the world that Russia is really a totalitarian state based on violence and threats. Their 'song' "Putin Will Teach You to Love the Motherland" is wonderfully sarcastic and the violence illustrates the message perfectly.

Good for Pussy Riot! Putin is busy showing that it was not the Communism which was evil in Russia it was the totalitarianism, which has survived the transition to capitalism intact and they are forcing people to confront the fact.

yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

it was not the Communism which was evil in Russia it was the totalitarianism, which has survived the transition to capitalism intact

Aw gee, even when he makes a valid point he has to go too far and say something remarkably foolish and historically inaccurate...

"Totalitarianism" did not " survive intact" in Russia...it was in fact completely shattered...

For a few years, under Boris Yeltsin, Russia had a robust free press, and a noisy multi-party emerging democratic system, as the institutions required for functioning democracy were slowly developing.

Putin put an end to all of that, and while he has not achieved anywhere near the level of absolute totalitarian control enjoyed by the communists, (a level of totalitarianism that was fueled by their ideology) he has installed an ugly non-law based authoritarian system with a "pretend" democracy. And he seeks to install similar systems led by other thugs loyal to him, in his neighboring countries. Putin's model of the ideal system for a former Soviet Union country is Belarus.

[rubato]

I have to applaud their courage even more since they just did a long stretch in prison and are unbowed by it. And they have shown contempt for Putin's "mercy" in letting them out early.

good job.

yrs,
rubato