"We are all Pussy Riot"

Yes, more U.S. Government-funded sedition is about right. Cartalucci knows how they operate.

The Pussy Riot Flap

Quote:

This isn't about Pussy Riot and their run-in with the law, nor is about feminism or freedom of speech. It's all political maneuvering to make Putin look bad. That's all there is to it.Just take a look at Google News. As of Monday night, there were 2,453 articles about Pussy Riot, every one of them singing the praises of the courageous girls who took on Vladimir the Terrible and exposed themselves to 7 years of jailtime. That's the basic storyline with virtually no exceptions. Over and over again, the same tedious theme; "Pussy good, Putin bad". 

Now wouldn't you think that in a country as fanatically religious as the United States, that at least one or two of the journalists would defend the position of the church or find fault in what the girls did? 


Of course, they would, but I didn't find any articles like that, which is why the coverage doesn't pass the smell test.  So, let's do a little thought-experiment and dig a little deeper into this matter.

Well, let's not, because I'm sure I don't have to tell anyone what will happen.

I understand that the term feminist is not restricted to a single gender.  It can involve many in fact.  It is from this perspective that this is being discussed, and so I don't quite know what you're going on about.  Patriarchal western media organizations that don't otherwise give a hoot about feminism, using the plight of a group of feminists for their own geo-political purposes.  Sounds like a feminist topic to me.  And why, as a rabble staff member, do you insist on continuing to talk down to people in this manner?

Slumberjack, 2nd warning. Deviate from the FF mandate again and you're on vacation from babble.

SJ, a Russian deputy minister called Madonna a "moralizing slut" for calling Pussy Riot courageous. Yes, the MSM is hypocritical. But to say that this story has nothing feminist about it, when thousands of women -- both Russian and Western -- believe otherwise, is patriarchy at its blatantly obvious. You know this. This forum is not for you, by the way, so your grandstanding is rather offensive, if you could see it. But since all you seem to hear is edicts, here's one: don't post in this thread again.

The story about female punk musicians being arrested and put on trial has a feminist perspective to it, but not as it arrives to us through the MSM.  The latest link you posted can hardly be described as MSM, and so it has to be given credence for that alone at least, which has nothing to do with what we're talking about here, and nothing to do with challenging the meme that "We are all Pussy Riot."  The MSM is not for one.  I certainly don't want them in jail for disrupting a church service or for voicing anti-Putin messages.  And to further contribute toward a fitting end to this episode....it would of course be patriarchal of me to ignore RW's ill-conceived warnings only to heed yours, now that you've arrived on scene....so there you go.  A feminist perspective to the whatever end you make of it.

Slumberjack wrote:

The story about female punk musicians being arrested and put on trial has a feminist perspective to it, but not as it arrives to us through the MSM.  The latest link you posted can hardly be described as MSM, and so it has to be given credence for that alone at least, which has nothing to do with what we're talking about here, and nothing to do with challenging the meme that "We are all Pussy Riot."  The MSM is not for one.  I certainly don't want them in jail for disrupting a church service or for voicing anti-Putin messages.  And to further contribute toward a fitting end to this episode....it would of course be patriarchal of me to ignore RW's ill-conceived warnings only to heed yours, now that you've arrived on scene....so there you go.  A feminist perspective to the whatever end you make of it.

It may have arrived to you through the MSM but that doesn't mean that it arrived to everyone that way.  I first read about it, right after it happened on femmist blogs and sites.  Hardly tools of the MSM.  That the MSM has decided to latch onto it and create their own story about it does not mean that it is an "MSM story".  In the femmist world it was a story before the msm paid attention and would be if the msm was ignoring it. 

They have been in the news long before this latest action. Boingboing is one of the places where I have been following them.

onlinediscountanvils wrote:

Thanks, ElizaQ. Exactly. Although I understand babble to be [i]in practice[/i] a place that is largely hostile to feminist discussions, it never occured to me that my posts on this topic would receive this reaction. Like you, I first learned about their protest, arrests, and incarceration months ago through news sources of the feminist and anti-authoritarian left. It's only been in the last week or two that I've noticed the MSM jump on the story. Thankfully babble has no shortage of guys willing to mansplain imperialism or how to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Well honestly my reaction to the whole looking at the MSM coverage and what they're doing with from a feminist perspective idea is well yeah duh what else is new.  The latching onto the story for geopolitical 'bad putin, bad putin' means is so  obvious and typical MSN that it really doesn't warrent my time to discuss in great detail.

 I appreciate your link because it delves into more then just the obvious and is from a perspective namely feminist artists and and polotical expression which I am not that familar with, especially punk rock self identified feminists.  Before Pussy Riot I really knew nothing about it. Wasn't even on my radar.  

Would love to talk more about feminism and feminist poltical expression from an artistic POV but my knowledge is so lacking in that area I wouldn't have a whole lot to contribute.  

For me one of the questions I ask myself in order to get deeper into the feminist perspective of the story is, would the reaction of the Russian State be different if it was a group of males that had done the same thing?   I can't help but answer yes to that question but having no real knowledge of the state of feminism and feminist political activism in Russia so it's based more on assumption then anything concrete.  

A group of women spoke up, artistically and boldly to power. Yes they talked about Putin. From their own statements it's was about a whole lot more then Putin the personal, it's Putin the system, the patriarchal and authoritarian social systems of control political and otherwise.  Replace Putin with someone else and the system they challenge would likely be the same.   Thats my take anyway.

This to me is where the commonality is between feminism as expressed in any other country or situation.  From the beginning it's been more about then just 'talking about women' it's about changing cultural systems.        

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/16/us-blog-pussy-riots-idUSBRE87F...

A piece on Voina from 2008

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2008/07/23/russia-art-idUKGRI32768020080723

Of course this trial is because they challenged the power of the state, but I wonder if they would have used religious outrage as the excuse in the same way if they had been men and not women. Like you, Eliza, I don't know enough about the situation over there to say.

And I have to say, the action in Kiev, reported in that BBC piece (I mean CBC - I first read it on BBC) is astounding. I seriously doubt this is over.

onlinediscountanvils wrote:

The judge declared they had engaged in homosexual propaganda, imitated demonic attacks, and allowed their dresses to ride up.

[url=http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/08/17/judge-declares-members-of-russ... Riot Members Sentenced to Two Years in Prison For ‘Hooliganism’[/url]

Jeez they sure manage to get a lot into that 30 seconds didn't they? //sarcasm

And oh Lordy(pun intended) can't have the dresses riding up!!! In the slammer you go.  If there is any statement that confirms my uneducated feeling that males would be treated different in this situation that's it. 

I agree that the women in Pussy Riot are being oppressed in misogynist ways by the state.  I also agree completely with Slumberjack, that the reason we're hearing about this from the hypocritical mainstream western media, who are now pretending to be feminist warriors on the side of punk rock feminists everywhere, is because they want to demonize Russia, and Putin in particular, especially at a time when Russia is in disagreement with the western countries on how to deal with Syria.  And the writer of the article he posted from Counterpunch is also right - it doesn't pass the smell test when even right-wing media is singing the praises of a punk rock group called "Pussy Riot" - a group they would delight in putting down for being "obscene" if they were here.

I don't think those two analyses (that Pussy Riot is being oppressed, and that the western media is hypocritical) are mutually exclusive, and I think the analysis of the western media pretending to be feminist when they want to demonize another country or culture or religion, while either not reporting on feminist issues within the dominant culture, country or religion or even promoting outright anti-feminist propaganda from their own dominant corporate and religious leaders, is a feminist one.

It is possible for feminist blogs that are reporting on this and the mainstream media who are reporting on this to be doing so for entirely different reasons.  The feminist blogs are doing so out of international feminist solidarity.  The mainstream corporate media is not.  That is what I read the Counterpunch article to be saying.

International pressure to free Pussy Riot is a good thing.  Knowing who your enemies are and what their hidden agendas are when they're pretending to be feminist allies, is also a good thing.

I agree, Michelle. I think what's interesting is the uptake of the story when it comes to the imperialist component, in that it fits so neatly into narratives that the West likes to tell itself about itself: liberated women, freedom of speech, freedom of religion. But in actual fact, were Pussy Riot to "perform" in the US, there would be equal outrage (and probably the performance would be a bit different). These women seem to me to be pretty radical feminists of the best kind, right down to the No Pasaran! t-shirts. I think it's easy enough to admire their courage and creativity while remaining cynical of the Stings of this world who try to stir up tired old "the West is the Best" tropes.

sorry double post. how'd that happen? i only pressed the save button once.

The Wrong reasons to back Pussy Riot

At the core of much of the media fever over Pussy Riot lies a fundamental misunderstanding of what these Russian dissidents are about. Some outlets have portrayed the case as a quest for freedom of expression and other ground rules of liberal democracy. Yet the very phrase “freedom of expression,” with its connotations of genteel protest as a civic way to blow off some steam while life goes on, is alien to Russian radical thought. The members of Pussy Riot are not liberals looking for self-expression. They are self-confessed descendants of the surrealists and the Russian futurists, determined to radically, even violently, change society.

Anyone who has bothered to see them beyond their relevance as anti-Kremlin proxies will know that these young people are as contemptuous of capitalism as they are of Putinism. They are targeting not just Russian authoritarianism, but, in Tolokonnikova’s words, the entire “corporate state system.” And that applies to the West as much as to Russia itself. It includes many of the fawning foreign media conglomerates covering the trial, like Murdoch’s News Corp., and even such darlings of the anti-Putin “liberal opposition” establishment as the businessman and anti-corruption campaigner Aleksei Navalny.

Pussy Riot’s fans in the West need to understand that their heroes’ dissent will not stop at Putin; neither will it stop if and when Russia becomes a “normal” liberal democracy. Because what Pussy Riot wants is something that is equally terrifying, provocative and threatening to the established order in both Russia and the West (and has been from time immemorial): freedom from patriarchy, capitalism, religion, conventional morality, inequality and the entire corporate state system. We should only support these brave women if we, too, are brave enough to go all the way.