Posted on 08/20/2012 9:43:37 PM PDT by No One Special
Here is Victor Davidoff’s view of the Pussy Riot atrocity, writing in the Moscow Times. He says it has discredited Russia’s public image, the Orthodox Church, its judicial system and its citizens. This is, of course, exactly what we’ve been saying Putin would do for the past five years.
* * *
For many years, the Darwin Awards have been given to people who self-select out of the gene pool by voluntarily and unnecessarily placing themselves in danger. It has been bestowed only on individuals, but if it could be granted to institutions, the Kremlin would surely be awarded it hands down for creating the Pussy Riot case.
In February, when three of the four Pussy Riot punk band members were arrested for their 41-second performance in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral, no one foresaw the consequences. Everyone thought it would end quickly and quietly, and the “criminals” would be simply fined or, in the worst case, given a week or so in detention on misdemeanor charges. But the Kremlin’s insistence on criminal punishment for blasphemers who pronounced the criminal words “Mother of God, cast Putin out” turned into a public relations disaster. Today, the Pussy Riot case is famous on every continent and has captured the attention of intellectuals and politicians up to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and some of the world’s most popular musicians, like Madonna and Paul McCartney.
On the day after the verdict was announced, the furor reached its peak. The writer Andrei Malgin, currently living in Italy, wrote on his LiveJournal blog, “I went into a newsstand that carries the international press. Good grief! Every newspaper, in every language that exists, on every stand — from the floor right up to the ceiling — had a front-page story about Pussy Riot and Putin.” This one guilty verdict and sentence of two years of labor in the camps turned the Kremlin’s multimillion-dollar campaign to improve Russia’s image abroad into dust.
But Russia’s image was just one of the victims of the Pussy Riot verdict. The authority of the Russian Orthodox Church took a stronger hit, especially among Orthodox intellectuals. Svetlana Goryacheva wrote on her Facebook page, “I, a regular congregant at the Church of Saints Cosmos and Damian, a biblical scholar with a Ph.D. in history, officially announce that I have totally broken off relations with the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church. I remain a practicing Christian, but I consider it impossible to remain in a church with liars, money-grubbers and reactionaries.”
The judicial system has also suffered from the verdict handed down by Judge Marina Syrova. Even prominent lawyer Genri Reznik, who is usually diplomatic in his comments, called the verdict “an absolute discredit to the justice system.” In an interview with the Russian News Service, he said, “I’d classify this sentence as a criminal act. As a lawyer, I’m ashamed of this mockery of justice.”
The hearing was conducted with many procedural and legal violations, which were obvious even to nonspecialists. The judge refused to hear any of the witnesses for the defense. Out of three psychological and linguistic analyses commissioned by the court, only one was accepted: the one carried out by experts affiliated with the church, which cited decisions made by the ecclesiastical councils of the fourth and seventh centuries.
As journalist Sergei Dorenko noted acidly on his LiveJournal blog, “One of the most compelling proofs of the absence of God must be the existence of the Moscow courts.”
But the main victims are, of course, the citizens of Russia, who seemed to have been transported in a time machine back to the Middle Ages, when someone could be jailed for violating religious rules of behavior.
Television journalist Tina Kandelaki, who is hardly a Pussy Riot supporter, wrote on her LiveJournal blog, “According to the criminal code of the Russian Empire in 1845, the maximum sentence for actions similar to what Pussy Riot did was three months. In the 21st century, why must they get two years in labor camps?”
The Pussy Riot case is strikingly reminiscent of the Soviet repression of dissidents. Using similar logic, the Soviet Union persecuted poets, musicians and artists whose poems, songs and paintings didn’t conform to the only permissible canons of socialist realism. Socialist realism has given way to church canons, but the result is the same. Last week a Novosibirsk court upheld an earlier ruling that fined artist Artyom Loskutov for displaying publicly a noncanonical image of the Mother of God.
This new medieval Russia doesn’t just threaten artists. The Russian Orthodox Church has been quite successful in its efforts to lobby for legislation limiting abortion. In St. Petersburg, there is already a law forbidding “the propaganda of homosexuality,” which covers any actions to protect the rights of gays. Similar laws have been passed or are being considered in other regions.
And the church has not ignored the school system. In an interview to Polish media last week, Patriarch Kirillsaid he considers it necessary to conduct catechization in all the country’s schools and complained that this has been blocked by the “liberal press.”
So President Vladimir Putin‘s brave new world is gradually being built, a world in which codes of behavior are determined by the state and church. It is a world in which any independent activity — from political to environmental to artistic — is outlawed and in which the individual is deprived of the freedom of choice in education and even in his personal life.
The jailed Pussy Riot activists are like caged canaries in a coal mine. As long as there is hope they might be freed from prison, Russians still have hope that they can avoid the nightmare of life in a second Middle Ages.
Putin has no interest in me, he doesn't even know that I exist.
Ok, i’m trying to get you. You are very angry about Russians cracking down on homos trying to spread their filth, oppose any laws regarding homos, invoke Barney Frank, and seem to have limited personal knowledge of Russia. Oh, and Oregon fits into it.
Ok, think i figured it out!
Where is the KGB in that statement?
I am done.
You certainly are.
That’s nice.
Pussy riot is a feminist wing of a neo-bolshevik group “Vojna” aka “War”. Their activity is centered against a church and law-enforcement.
Another their acts are “Dick in the ass” punk performance in a courtroom, “mentopop” performance which was about robbing a supermarket wearing a mix of police uniform and a priest’s dress, burning down one and turning upside down another police vehicle, a series of sexual assaults on police women in subways etc.
In fact some of their “comrades” were on trial for these things before, that is there this “Dick in the ass” performance from.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUaJLNonytg
You can see all these faces.
“Mordovian hour” performance on May, 1 2008 (throwing stray cats into McDonald’s kitchen to feed animals with decadent food and make low-paid workforce celebrate Labor day as they claim it):
http://plucer.livejournal.com/199615.html
Attacks on police cadets:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0A8Qf893cs
Note the song in Yiddish in background. It is a Jewish bolshevik song from October revolution, which is roughly about “!@#$ the police”. AFAIK one of performers was finally shot in process.
Mentopop:
http://plucer.livejournal.com/94884.html
A “screw the feds” prank on KGB agent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ory-oJlK3ho&feature=related
Burning up a police truck:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCm-s-vTebA
Another police vehicle destroyed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uBQBtnkmec
And that is their promo video:
http://rutube.ru/video/6a7f22163d2b7deb93982c7101508723/
I’m not including public orgies, sex with a frozen chicken in store etc.
They need to get jailed forever.
77 posted on Friday, August 17, 2012 7:26:06 PM by cunning_fish (.)
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I’m not a fan of Putin. And yet I cannot condone the behavior exhibited in a Russian Orthodox Church. It WAS sacrilege. It was correct that it be punished, no matter whether a political “statement,” or not. There are things not to be done in God’s house.
This poorly-written article seeks to whine about and otherwise ignore the commission of sacrilege, seeks to mischaracterize the Middle Ages, when many good things did happen. I thought it faintly humorous the way the author tried to use this as an occasion for casting aspersions at limiting the evil of abortion (as if human sacrifice is or ever could be good), and laws restricting pushing the homosexual agenda.
Even disliking and distrusting Putin, these are “evils” we could stand here, as far as showing some respect for churches(not just mosques), restricting (if not out and out condemning and outlawing) abortions, and outlawing the homosexual agenda push everywhere. Freedom does NOT mean that the secular bulldozer may run my family over and that I must thank it.
Why is it a good thing to have spent the time committing sacrilege in the biggest cathedral in Russia? This is the one that is a recreation of the one torn down by the Godless communists in 1931. Why is limiting abortion (infant sacrifice) bad? I have complaints against Putin. These aren’t among them.
.
Between p***y riot & Putin there isn’t much to choose. Both want to ram their worldview down people’s throats.
But I’ll take the Orthodox Church over faggie modernism any day. Now..... question: is the Russian church an established religion, or not?
I don’t. Well done, Putin. To hell with the atheist / queer / neocon axis.
ROC represents and leads an Orthodox branch of Christianity.
AFAIK originally Byzantine (Eastern Roman Empire) was a centre of Orthodoxy before it’s capital Constantinople (now Istanbul)was took over by Turks in 1453. If I’m not mistaken a world biggest mosque in Istanbul is actually a remodeled Orthodox cathedral.
After Turks took over Byzantine ROC or Moscow patriarchate took lead over Orthodox branch. It has influenced Russian politics at Balkans and Central Asia for centuries.
For now Moscow and Patriarch Kirill for orthodoxes is like a Vatican and Pope for catholics and this desecreted cathedral is their main base.
I’m not a Ph.D in history. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Hagia Sofia would be better described as a desecrated Christian Cathedral. It dates to AD360, when Eastern and Western Christendom were still fully in communion with each other. It has been a museum run by the officially secular Turkish government since the 1930s.
Those punk chicks would have cheered Stalin back in 1931 when he blew up the cathedral.
I understand your concerns. It is just my judgement that Putin is becoming a real dictator and consolidating power. Because of that I have no problem with what these women did which was not directed at the church but at Putin. It was likely a futile gesture. Disinformation did not end with the fall of communism.
Our form of government isn’t for everyone, maybe Russia, because of their history and conditioning of the people, need a strongman.
Well said.
President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.
President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…
President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.
President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.
Thanks!
Another finds on pussy riot:
Spraying urine on police officers and playing outrage over “illegal” arrest. Pay attention to babies these vermins always hang with them to make police soft on them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B_mDPtz9t4
“Humiliating a cop at his home”. A flashmob in a small town’s police station involving harassment of random policemen and disrupting their work.
part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i80awcTO7GA
part2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJwzQ_AoUbk
These groups are extremely dangerous and they are following NWO doctrines to destabilize every authority within targeted societies. Considering Russia it is church and police.
US is under attack as well.
Whatever you think of Putin, justice was served by throwing these slutty musicians in jail for violating the rights of the churchgoers to worship peacefully.
Of course, you’re right. And the new Church of St. Savior is a re-creation of the one destroyed by Stalin. These punk sisters don’t even realize they are the handmaidens of indescribable despotism.
Putin’s no Stalin, either. Josef Vissarionovich never had to worry about the internet & twitter & the like. Vladimir Vladimirovich knows that the spotlight he loves is also his enemy. The new IT media is one genie that won’t get put back in the bottle. And Putin’s no King Canute, either.
I’m with the Russian Church on this one and I’ll just bet that the labor camps these profaning chicks have to face would have Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn thinking he’d already died & gone to heaven. The USSR is dead. Permanently.
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