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50 Comments

• 1. az  |  August 21st, 2012 at 3:58 pm

  I think most people involved actually do understand that this isn’t about Pussy Riot, or Putin, and religion. If these were actually at stake, people would actually talk about the broader implications of Pussy Riot’s act — the backlash among Russia’s religious right, for example. Who in the American media, or even Amnesty would want to talk about Russia’s politics of abortion or separation of church and state? No, that’s boring and bares way too many contradictions that are present in American society itself.

  Instead it’s a battle of “Putin” and “protest song,” simplified to such ridiculous asininity that it’s a cause that anyone, even the NY Daily News, can get around without getting its hands dirty. If you can see through it this far, it becomes pretty infuriating, especially to one of those Russians you talk about in the article. Some Western groups are telling your country to do something, not because they are interested in what is at stake, but simply because it should be done. At that point you do what everyone ever has done and take the opposite side, because at this point it really doesn’t matter what Pussy Riot’s act was all about and no one cares anyway.

  There’s really no “Russian Soul” aspect to this, it’s just something that has happened so many times that it’s become a stereotype that’s easier to accept for everyone than actually taking the time to analyze the situation.

• 2. vortexgods  |  August 21st, 2012 at 4:21 pm

  One good thing to come out of this: Punk’s not Dead!

  Unfortunately, it may only be “not dead” when it is girls nowadays.

  Some male punk band should put on scary masks and try something like this in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, as a test. I’d do it, but I’m a moral and physical coward.

• 3. suoerstupid  |  August 21st, 2012 at 4:28 pm

  And that’s why you “fucking love Russians”? Really? Try fucking living next to them. Permanently.

  Even with this objective an article you’re painting a pretty face for pure savagery. There’s nothing fuckin’ lovable in the good old scapegoating ritual. It’s just as fuckin’ depressing every time.

  It’s like Russians never really got the point of the whole “First they came for the…” shit. It’s the same fucking bile, everywhere, Ames. Maximalist or not.

• 4. Raivo Pea  |  August 21st, 2012 at 4:33 pm

  The Russians — crazy as kukushka.

• 5. vortexgods  |  August 21st, 2012 at 4:37 pm

  Also, for video, the terms:”voina fuck” works in a google search. It was the 4th down for me, after I switched to video search.

• 6. Ivan  |  August 21st, 2012 at 4:37 pm

  The usually way such situations would be handled in Russia would be to pay a few thousand dollars to the prosecutor’s office and get released on a conditional sentence. Obviously these girls refused to pay because they were making their political statement, and so that’s how the situation got out of control. It has nothing to do with Putin – the Russian presidential administration isn’t pulling the strings in the criminal court system any more than Obama decides whether someone gets prosecuted for shoplifting in Alabama.
  Putin’s probably pissed off now since this whole affair makes him a laughing stock in the world, but what can he do? He can’t very well call a halt to the criminal investigation half way through and come out looking like a chump. The sentence will be overturned on appeal in a couple of months and Putin will come out in agreement with the appeals court ruling.

• 7. mijj  |  August 21st, 2012 at 6:14 pm

  > “One good thing to come out of this: Punk’s not Dead!”

  Pussy Riot is a calculated play to manage the mindset of the western crowd who were in their youth in the 70s.

  Punk didn’t die – like all other once exuberant, spontaneous expressions of yoof, it became mainstream. Something safe for cosseted spawn of the powerful that allows them to feel radical .. Punk after its sell-by date became an establishment tool. Punk is used to sell butter and used to disguise mafia politics by wrapping it in yoof-radical clothing.

  One thing we can be sure of .. the people who believe punk’s power to shock will make waves in the yoof are people from a by-gone era. The Pussy Riot strategy is managed by old fogeys for ulterior motives. And it’s transparent to all but the pampered old-fogeys who clamour to support them.

  It’s been a long time since the late 70s. Pussy Riot isn’t playing to the home crowd. They’re a calculated play to manage the mindset of the western crowd who were in their youth in the 70s.

• 8. Ronald Reagan  |  August 21st, 2012 at 6:32 pm

  Putin and gang are actually trying to resist world domination by the FUKUSA axis.

  The exiled is great god bless you guys, but Putin and gang brings nukes and armies to the table.

  This whole pussy riot stinks of DOS.

• 9. radii  |  August 21st, 2012 at 6:48 pm

  the whole Pussy Riot enterprise is an ongoing art piece that brings in history, politics, power and media … thanks for the look back Ames, it offered some perspective … but the way history is unfolding and seems ready to shape the perception of Pussy Riot is that they are the only people with creativity and guts fighting Putin’s corruption and power-grabs in a way that brilliantly uses the media – young, pretty girls with iron resolve and clever messaging … they may end up with the last laugh (or dead)

• 10. Craven MacOwnship  |  August 21st, 2012 at 7:17 pm

  #7 “The Pussy Riot strategy is managed by old fogeys for ulterior motives”

  hahaahahah

• 11. Epsilon  |  August 21st, 2012 at 10:22 pm

  The Russians, for all their savagery, have a point, because having Western, SWPL little shits of the kind that cheer and/or look to the other way when the Austerity anal probes roll in telling you what to do is one of those things that get people really pissed off.

  International politics these days mirrors* 4th generation warfare: Is all about making yourelf look good and the other guys look bad. For example, Correa isn’t shielding Assange for altruism (despite being on the right side for once).

  *I’m being charitable here.

• 12. boner  |  August 21st, 2012 at 10:41 pm

  I can’t say pussy in the below line comments anywhere else so I’ll say it here: pussy

  Also, since when is doing the opposite of what others are telling you to do a bad decision? It would have saved Russia a lot of pain in the 90s. The only smart decision the Bolsheviks made was to not pay back their bankers. These people were funding Germany too, and helped take half the country away in Europe.

• 13. Mao  |  August 21st, 2012 at 10:47 pm

  I am just astonished by conspiratard claiming that Pussy Riot is a “Western” project/were sponsored by “The West”. The message of the band members was pretty consistent over the large period of time. Whilst Voina was just artivist anarchist project, Pussy Riot is femenist LGBT-supporting anti-patriarchat activist group and punk band.

• 14. ALL AGAINST THE WALL  |  August 21st, 2012 at 10:49 pm

  bravo.

• 15. rick  |  August 21st, 2012 at 10:55 pm

  I’m glad this is the only article I read on “Pussy Riot.” It just seemed like a topic best read-about in the eXile, if you bothered to read about it. Still remember Ames’ “awakening” to Russian civil war in the eXile book like “Silence of the Lambs.”

• 16. vortexgods  |  August 21st, 2012 at 11:06 pm

  “The Pussy Riot strategy is managed by old fogeys for ulterior motives. And it’s transparent to all but the pampered old-fogeys who clamour to support them.

  It’s been a long time since the late 70s. Pussy Riot isn’t playing to the home crowd. They’re a calculated play to manage the mindset of the western crowd who were in their youth in the 70s.”

  Yes. Unlike very hip, modern things. Like the Russian Orthodox Church. (Seriously, am I supposed to respect people who believe in God as being hip, here? Are y’all planning on bringing back the Tsar yet? Sigh… what the Hell happened to Russia?)

• 17. captainnemo  |  August 21st, 2012 at 11:25 pm

  Do you remember the case of a US teenager who got busted for graffiti in Singapore and was sentenced to a rattan cane beating? Think it was the early nineties… Anyway, the media and the liberal elites were horrified by the foreign savagery, but the public really loved it: they were talking about doing the same here.
  The same story is now playing out in Russia:the unwashed and downtrodden are steered up by the Church and do not care for the liberal opinion any more than the Jesus loving law and order crowd does here.I read the attacks on Pussy Riot in Russian discussion forums comments: nobody talks about the West lecturing Mother Russia. Pussy haters feel that it is domestic gay loving atheists and liberals who behind the whole circus. The difference is the Russian government backs them up and there is no first Amendment, but a law protecting the believers from their feelings being hurt( I kid you not!) After the Communism’s collapse, large segments of Russian population were thrown into the Middle Ages intellectually ( even those Russians that Westerners expect to be like-minded).
  In Salem Pussy Riot would have been burned, in Putin’s Russia it’s only a couple of years sentence, is this not an evidence of gradual progress of the Western Civilization in time and space?

• 18. great_muta  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 4:55 am

  Whether it’s the USA or Russia, the collusion between the state, religion, and Capitalism goes on. I didn’t buy into the whole “Look at how the evil Ruskies hold down their people” narrative, especially since I live in a country which has the largest prision population the world and has gone out of it’s way to show what really happens when people dare to riot and protest against the bullshit that goes on (i.e pepper spray, tasers, and beatings). From what I read in this article, http://nplusonemag.com/pussy-riot-closing-statements (not sure if putting links to other sites is allowed here) I doubt Pussy Riot has any love for the West and that they would be keen to being used by the media as martyrs.

• 19. Henry  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 5:04 am

  @Epsilon (#11): …and in the end, no one comes out looking good. I hate this kind of politics. It’s just pure bullshit all the way. Russia, Venezuela, Iran, it’s all the same, maaaaan.

• 20. jtokley  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 7:55 am

  So, people like Alexai Navalny and Oksana Chelysheva both of whom directly take money from the National Endowment for Democracy jump in front of the P*ssy Riot BS and Russians and informed Americans alike are NOT supposed to cry “B*llsh!t!” but rather like Mr. Ames just throw all the facts aside and jump on the rock-star bandwagon and treat the whole story as if it’s all really about thwee poor wittle girls – awh, how cute?

  Give me an effing break.

  see landdestroyerdotblogspotdotcom/2012/08/who-or-what-is-russias-pussy-riotdothtml

  Let’s see, as an American who has long realized that my government’s worldwide fascist wars of aggression will only be stopped when they meet an adversary – e.g., Russia, China – which can forcibly stop our bloodlust – well, I cheer any setback Western-backed “democracy activists” encounter as maybe it will help end the murder that has been taking place now for about the last couple of decades or so.

  Or do we need MORE destabilized nations?

  Seriously, Mr. Ames article is embarrassing and I hope he realizes that he deserves the company he keeps in this matter – McCartney, Madonna and all the rest.

  Pathetic.

• 21. Darth Imperius  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 8:46 am

  I’m also going to speculate that this wasn’t so much a Western-inspired cultural phenomenon as a Western-sponsored political operation. I don’t think this is going to resonate though, now that Russia has had a glimpse of the nightmare of Westernization and has begun moving back to its older, imperial traditions. There is indeed a strong mystical, messianic, fascist streak in Russians that is re-emerging; google Aleksandr Dugin for one influential thinker who has visions of a new Russo-Eurasian empire.

  I don’t really understand you Mark Ames; your entire ideology seems based on the childish notion that the most righteous thing a person can do is to “challenge power”. But isn’t this is your slave-religious heritage speaking? Why would you want to challenge power when you can become power, and what is the moral difference? I think it’s far more honest and effective to do the latter.

  Heil Exiled. Heil Ames. 66.

  AEC REPLIES:
  Um, yeah, go get ’em Dwight Schrute.

• 22. jtokley  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 9:41 am

  Adding:

  And for Mr. Ames to even jokingly agree to run my retarded comment without a single improvement would only prove what an intellectual lightweight Mr. Ames really is. Come on, do you have the guts to improve the brain-fungus blurpings that emanate from my hairy fingertips?

• 23. Epsilon  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 10:13 am

  To several commenters:

  The difference between “caused” and “took advantage of” is one that 9/11 Truthers don’t get. Don’t fall on that too.

  @Henry

  IMO, is an improvement from World War meatgrinders and impenetrable Goverment propaganda (sorry War Nerd). Besides, people are starting to see the Bankster scam for what it is.

  @jtokley

  Oh go fuck yourself. Americans should fight their own internal conflicts for once. Also, you obviously didn’t read the article.

• 24. fdhfh  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 10:41 am

  “Let’s see, as an American who has long realized that my government’s worldwide fascist wars of aggression will only be stopped when they meet an adversary – e.g., Russia, China – which can forcibly stop our bloodlust – well, I cheer any setback Western-backed “democracy activists” encounter as maybe it will help end the murder that has been taking place now for about the last couple of decades or so.”

  So your own fascists are bad, but foreign ones are good because they will help defeat your own fascists? How is Russian or Chinese bloodlust better than the American one?

• 25. goat_farmers_of_the_CIA  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 10:51 am

  I would LOVE to see these girls take over some evangelical mammontemple’s altar and do what they did on that video. Or take over some press conference in the Pentagon or White House, or the podium area in one of the Houses of Congress. Throw around fake bills with pornographic pictures in them, piss on the carpets, and dance on the laps of hypocrite journalist and your Right Honorable thieves (and passionately kiss the females among them). It would be great, wouldn’t it? Even better if Putin and his oligarch allies funded their activities abroad, expecting them to bring down the “West”, and instead find it all backfiring when revolution spreads also South and East like some formidable man made virus.

• 26. GSF  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 10:57 am

  JTokley, does that mean that China and Russia get a pass because they forcibly stop US bloodlust? Gee, all those AK47’s “over the last couple of decades”…was that US handiwork too? Thank god for the stability Russia has brought to places like Grozny.

  Whatever, if there’s one good thing that’s come out of this Pussy Riot bullshit is that it’s exposed a shitload of hypocrisy on all sides of the issue. Even yours.

• 27. calripson  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 11:21 am

  A couple of protestors in Philly during the RNC faced multi-year state jail time for “assaulting a police officer” – they pushed back against a cop’s bike which was used as a barrier crush them. The idea that in the “free West” people are any more free to protest is absurd. What would be the outcome if a punk group occupied the Holocaust Museum in D.C. and refused to disperse while singing a parody “There’s No Business Like Shoah Business”. You think they might get arrested..and prosecuted ?

• 28. Strahlungsamt  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 11:24 am

  (Femen’s Inna Shevchenko saws down a crucifix in central Kiev in support of Pussy Riot.)
  http://rt.com/news/femen-cross-pussy-riot-930/

  Mark,
  Thanks so much for this article. I’ve been following the whole Pussy Riot and Femen stories since they first broke. And, no punk’s not dead. If anything Johnny Rotten’s statement that there are no heroes is more relevant today than ever before. All politicians are rotten today. None of them stand for anything other than enriching themeselves, not the USA, not Russia, nor China, nor Iran nor the EU. They’re all a bunch of Ayn Randist robber-baron thugs enriching themselves at the people’s expense.

  I deal a lot with Russians and been to Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic states quite a few times in the last few years. The first thing you learn talking to them is just how different their mindset is. (If you don’t believe me, go to RT.com and read the comments on any article). Everyone and their grandmother sincerely believes the Protocols of Zion is real, the Moon Landings and the Holocaust were faked and the Americans beamed some top secret weapon through the Earth to cause the earthquakes in Haiti, Japan and New Zealand. Everything evil in the world is caused by the Zionists and they’re not even interested in a diverging opinion. Also, Evolution is bogus and we were placed here by space aliens – I had a very well educated Russian tell me this, the same person who couldn’t understand how a member of the negroe race like Obama could have a white mother.

  As for them not getting punk, this doesn’t surprise me in the least. I clearly remember when Russians first started invading New York in the early 90s and how fascinated they were by all things western, be it Coca Cola, MTV or the Sex Pistols. Yet they had no concept of what any of it meant. To them it was all just different styles. I played all my Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys and Pogues CDs to a Russian friend and he just didn’t get it. The whole concept of a bohemian existence or rebelling against Thatcher’s England in the 70s was lost on him. It was all about funky hairstyles and cool leather jackets. His biggest concern was how long until it went out of fashion.

  One thing is clear to me, the Soviet Union never taught critical thinking (all while keeping the price of vodka down). What I am curious about is how much they used racism and conspiracies about the Jews to keep the union together.

  I think too that a lot of it is a “we’re all in this together” mindset where they would rather compromise on their own freedoms to keep their identity than surrender to a foreign enemy, a normal nationalistic mindset that lets people argue amongst themselves but that unites them against the enemy in times of war.

  THE A.E.C. RESPONDS:

  Well, don’t forget most people in this country think everything’s either a Commie conspiracy or an Islamic conspiracy, and Russians had a far more radical punk scene in the late 80s and early 90s than America ever had; or the reaction to drivel like “Piss Christ” or the court case against Houellebecq in France over “Platform” or the ridiculous hysterical witch-hunting frenzy in America after 9/11 targeting harmless hams like Bill Maher or Phil Donohue, or how the Cato Institute published a December 2001 Policy Report denouncing leftist critics of Bush “like The Nation” magazine as “fellow travelers with terrorists.” That we get. It’s the reaction to Pussy Riot that seems so fucking senseless.

• 29. Ronald Reagan  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 11:55 am

  @13 “Pussy Riot is femenist LGBT-supporting anti-patriarchat activist group and punk band.”

  …and since when the fuck is the western media interested in any of that EVER? Oh I know, when they want to use that to harm an enemy of evil.

• 30. Strahlungsamt  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 12:03 pm

  Actually I predict that we’ll be hearing plenty about Pussy Riot in the media in the next few months but Femen will be shown as a bunch of silly girls waving their tits in public.
  All because Pussy Riot are protesting Putin and making Russia look bad. Femen are making Ukraine look bad but since Ukraine is an American stooge since the Orange Revolution, they’re the good guys and we don’t want to embarrass our friends now, do we?

• 31. jtokley  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 1:05 pm

  Gee, looks like Pussy Riot made it to the front page of Amnesty International’s website!

  wwwdotamnestyusadotorg

  Just donate some money to AI in PR’s name!

  How kewel!

  Maybe we should see who funds AI, huh?

  landdestroyerdotblogspotdotcom

  Yup, I’m the bad-guy pointing out all the Western money backing the PR phenomenon.

  I probably just don’t understand punk music or something, right?

  From the link:

  “John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Oak Foundation, Open Society Georgia Foundation, the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Programme, Mauro Tunes and American Jewish World Service. The UK Department for International Development (Governance and Transparency Fund)…”

• 32. jtokley  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 1:27 pm

  And I’m sure the people here so invested in the PR story will also be really interested in who in the West – yup, it’s the neocons -has been funding the separatist movements in Russia through entities like the American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus (ACPC, right?

  “The paternalistic role of the US intelligence establishment in the ACPC is made all the more evident when one examines some of the more well known members of the ACPC including former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Pentagon advisor Richard Perle and other top neocons such as William Kristol, Elliott Abrams, Kenneth Adelman, and Robert Kagan – the last two being closely associated with the inner circle of the Romney campaign.”

  Eric Draitser

  Barbarians at the Gate: Terrorism, The US and the Subversion of Russia.

  ericdraitserdotpodbeandotcom/articles/barbarians-at-the-gate-terrorism-the-us-and-the-subversion-of-russia/

  Nah, but I’m just an ahole who should eff of because people need a new punk band to rally around.

• 33. Aliothemage  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 2:29 pm

  Hi, I’m a libertard. I’m one of those social darwinist dweebs who thinks he “gets it” by reciting exactly the version of reality that billionaires who despise me want me to recite. I believe that in doing this, the billionaires will one day recognize how much we have in common, and invite me to the Hamptons to go horseback riding with them. Meanwhile, I’m in my parents’ house in their garage which I converted into my bedroom. But soon, I will be a billionaire Superman, I swear! Just gotta read Hayek a little more, and it’ll happen!

• 34. fdhfh  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 3:26 pm

  @32

  “Nah, but I’m just an ahole who should eff of because people need a new punk band to rally around.”

  Until you can fund separationist movements and revolutions with your totally clean left-wing money, you are. But I reckon you don’t give a shit, because you’re just a silly xenofascist. Taking the “but at least they’re OUR bastards” mindset and reversing it won’t make you an open-minded person, you’re still a fascist, and an ass-backwards one at that. You’re probably one of those dicks that whenever some mild critique of Putin appears on the Internet starts foaming at the mouth about how “Putin is a strong, beloved leader of his country”.

• 35. fdhfh  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 3:40 pm

  jtokley, nobody gave a shit about Pussy Riot before the church gig. Nobody cared about the punk spirit, or whatever. It was the mongoloid reaction of the church and the government that brought them to where they are today. Are you saying the church and the government got funded by American neocons?

• 36. GSF  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 4:34 pm

  jtokley, I hate to be the one to bring the bad news, but your boy Putin has been found guilty collaborating with the Capitalist West:

  http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/13/western-companies-funding-russian-nationalist-youth-camp/

• 37. jtokley  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 5:45 pm

  From the article you provided the writers actually did some research and provided some background into the 2010 dealings of the foreign companies which as it turns out were the following:

  “Mercedes-Benz Russia claimed they only knew of the nature of the event after they had become a partner, saying, “If we do act as a sponsor again, we will demand that the organizer provides appropriate commitment that there will be no more extreme political actions.”

  Tupperware and KPMG provided a similar response. “We did not note and are not aware of any political activities that took place during our involvement,” said a representative for KPMG.

  Siemens participation in the event was limited to “a presentation about career opportunities” and Intel claims that the only support it provided to the event was computer equipment.”

  So, you provide a link to a story which investigates the involvement of Western corps with a pro-Putin rally and which at the end shows how the companies disavowed any commitment to the politics of the rally and somehow that is supposed to counter the links/info I provided that show how the Western media has completely IGNORED and left UNRESEARCHED any connection those involving themselves with Pussy Riot have to Western pro-democracy groups?

  Nice work.

  See, those Western corporations totally distanced themselves from the pro-Putin rally EXACTLY like how the Western media has been distancing themselves from…wait…

  Umm, the article clearly shows how when you investigate corporate ties to Putin that it shows…that…hang on…

  A few corporations were pro-Putin in 2010 kind of and that’s like everybody in the West screaming for Pussy Riot justice because…no I got this one…because if only a few corporations don’t like Putin now then that means that more people will help free Pussy Riot kick so that they can kick more ass!!!!

  Right?

• 38. vortexgods  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 7:31 pm

  Um, I’d actually like to see the Exiled do something on Femen, they sound cool. (And it would be nice to be unambiguously on the side of a female punk outfit. I do worry about Pussy Riot being used by the West, even though I don’t think that they are funded or controlled by the West. On the other hand, living in a priest-ridden society makes me support anyone who attacks Jesus.)

• 39. Dimitri Ratz  |  August 22nd, 2012 at 9:35 pm

  I wasn’t allowed to snap a photo of just two people when one of them had a wedding gown and just happened to be by Roses at public park here at Downtown Sacramento, because I’m required a permit. No shitting you. Freedom of speech, English fuckers trying to make themselves feel superior by spewing shit, but it’s just getting stuck between their horse shaped teeth. Fucking roses for God’s sake. Not vandalising an ancient altar sacred to some at now public museum while filming it. That’s like wiping your ass with the original Declaration of Independence while youtubing it during the Superbowl you sick mother fuckers. Despite one of the punk bitches cutting down a cross at neighboring country’s capital that was erected in Kiev to honor Holocaust victims while filming it, the judiciary only handed a 2 year sentence, and minus the months in detention during the trail that leaves only months. A guy in the states mistakenly got 25 to life for thought to having a concealed weapon, and after the guilty verdict was overturned two whole years ago, with two witnesses, one of which is retired Sheriff testified there was no knife, the prosecutor general blocked the release now for two years while appealing based on that the appeal to the original verdict was filed not within first year of sentencing. This, the fact that gutter trash that would punish a not guilty man based on him not filling out some legal paper timely, and try to have him serve 25 years for it, would try to hurl their stinking Dingle berries at implementation of actual laws where sentences are in the months.

• 40. Masta Patrolla  |  August 23rd, 2012 at 2:31 am

  fdhfh, you are simply a neo-con troll. It’s hypocrisy to declare a War on Terror and name some terrorist organizations in the US case, then turn around and call these “separatist” movements freedom fighters and pro-democracy forces when they are in no way involved with al-Qaeda or those Islamist fundies we are “supposed” to hate. Oh no the evil totalitarian Putin is cracking down on them, we’re doing the same thing but since we love freedom and democracy we are good and he is pure evil.

• 41. Masta Patrolla  |  August 23rd, 2012 at 2:45 am

  To be fair Russia Today is basically Putin’s countersubversive answer to the US National Endowment for Democracy, one has to navigate the geopolitical BS to arrive at the answer that both sides are antidemocratic, just peddling different brands of capitalism. Take your pick.

  But this discussion is like fighting the Cold War: you gotta take sides! Pussy Riot would also be jailed in “free” America for their actions disrupting private property and religious freedom, so what do these feel-good liberals expect? Putin to intervene in the court process and pardon them while riding in on a magic carpet?

• 42. Epsilon  |  August 23rd, 2012 at 8:01 am

  In an attempt to put some sense on this thread:

  People aren’t automatically good just because they are anti-Putin or anti-US goverment.

  Really, is that simple. And no, I don’t have to “take sides”. I’m pretty sure that’s indoctrination talking.

• 43. Cum  |  August 23rd, 2012 at 9:15 am

  @20: Madonna and McCartney are probably better company than Putin. They probably have way better drugs.

• 44. matt  |  August 24th, 2012 at 12:31 am

  Just thought I’d post this interesting CP article on PR’s histrory:

  http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/23/the-secret-history-of-pussy-riot/

• 45. Dimitri Ratz  |  August 24th, 2012 at 8:44 am

  I shouldn’t really care. I’m going to make a shit load of money when the Brent Crude price rises further (Its already at 116 dollars a barrel 🙂 so why care that France is in talks with Turks and Hilary to break international law? I mean I have no power to stop my government from committing war crimes, invading sovereign airspace of a country that’s done nothing, but stood up to terrorist thugs with out most care to save civilian lives. But with Russian Navy exercises in the Mediterranean coming to a close in two weeks, no values, no laws or decency will stop the raw evil power for domination to move on Syria, because of technological advantage and lack of any ethics is current state of things here. So as I rank in best dividends ever from Gazprom, Surgutneftegaz, and Lukoil I just wanted at least to say heads down to the Arabs there who are going to die, loose their limbs, and their kids.

• 46. Petkov  |  August 24th, 2012 at 11:39 pm

  The whole thing is a satire, right? It cannot be real, correct?
  I mean, making a big deal out of some obvious provocateurs just to smear Putin while the Israelis are counting down the hours to WWIII as we speak.
  An article I read today said it the best: “We are all living in a comic book.” That about sums it up for me. Problem is there ain’t neither Superman or X-Men to save us.

• 47. Petkov  |  August 25th, 2012 at 12:00 am

  to Strahlungsamt:
  There is plenty of heroes around today, you just never care enough to find pout about them.
  For example there is the India, sorry Native American Lacota guy who went up mount Rushmore and urinated on Jefferson’s head. But hell, he is in American jail as a political prisoner. I don’t got his name, but he is a hero to to me.
  As for your supposedly so punk rock “The Sex Pistols” were a fake band no better than any boy band and were created by a guy trying to sell sex gear to gays. They couldn’t play their instruments either.
  I emigrated to USA from behind the Iron Curtain and I have dealt with a lot of Americans and so called punx and for a while I bought the while USA bullshit fantasy fables thinking it was for real.
  I know better now. Punks are just a bunch of bored self indulgent assholes with too much free time on their hands. There is nothing about punk “to get”. I lived in Hollywood so I seen them close up.
  if you don’t think the Zionists are behind a lot of the stuff going on you are either deluded or/and duped or as Robert Anton Wilson used to call you, LDD. All you need is to count the Jewish names in Hollywood and look who is in control of the world banks and other institutions such as Federal Reserve Board, World bank, IMF and so on.
  But don’t try too hard, I don’t want your BS(Believe System) to totally crumble and leave you catatonic.

• 48. Arch Stanton  |  August 25th, 2012 at 11:45 am

  Life’s a Pussy Riot with Spy vs. Spy.

• 49. Toba  |  August 25th, 2012 at 4:37 pm

  The Russians will back their Govt because they know that the West will try to use this to stick Russia because of the West’s present “why should I suffer and not you” attitude, i.e Afghanistan,Iraq ,Syrian and it now looks like before they get to Tehran just like the idiotic Crusaders in their quest for the Holy Grail They’re going to “die” from exhaustion and bankruptcy. These clowns should have especially kept the Russian Orthodox Church out of it.They need to understand that mouses can’t roar ,only lions and the last lions to roar in Russia were the Bolsheviks. They took on the Govt,Orthodox Church and the people and have to deal with the consequences. This article is spot on about these fools.

• 50. z  |  August 26th, 2012 at 4:10 am

  Do you remember the case of a US teenager who got busted for graffiti in Singapore and was sentenced to a rattan cane beating?”

  Yep. People in his hometown, Dayton, Ohio, said “Hit’im again!”

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