Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer

When the US government sanctioned the beating and arrest of US citizens for swaying from side to side in the Jefferson Memorial a couple of years ago, it provoked no response from the Western media (and therefore the Western zombie-citizens who rely entirely on the media for their 'opinions'). Yet the Russian government, sorry, 'Putin' (because everyone knows Putin is a dictator, right?) is broadly denounced as a 'tyrant' by these same Western zombies (again because their 'outraged opinion' was deftly inserted into their brains by the Western media) for putting a stop to the ugly spectacle of deranged Russian women sticking chickens up their nether regions in supermarkets, daubing outlines of phalli on bridges, staging lewd events in a museum and cavorting around like retards in Russian Orthodox churches as part of their 3 year long international attack on the Russian government.

Even the name 'Pussy Riot' strongly suggests that this band of nihilists has always viewed the English-speaking world as their main audience. If informing the Russian people about problems in Russian society was their main goal, surely a Russian name would have been top of their list of requirements. But that's not the job with which these self-described 'Trotskyists' were tasked. Their job is to provoke a reaction from the Russian government which can then be used by Western governments and media to launch an 'anti-Putin' propaganda offensive to prepare the ground for a plausibly 'popular uprising' against the Russian government. As we have seen recently in Ukraine, foreign governments can be 'legitimately' overthrown by a relatively small group of Western government-backed protesters without either the input or support of the vast majority of the population of the host nation.

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/who-or-what-is-russias- pussy-riot.html

The Guardian's article titled, "Pussy Riot trial 'worse than Soviet era'," opens immediately with overt propaganda, describing the courtroom and Russian flag as "shabby" and a police dog as "in search of blood." The British paper attempts to portray Russia itself as having a "stark divide" between conservatives and liberals, the latter fighting against the state "with any means it can."

Already the Guardian runs into trouble - by portraying Russia as "divided" it is dismissing recent elections that granted Vladimir Putin and his United Russia party a sound mandate to lead the country. And while it is true that in reality, between voter turnout and Putin's garnering the support of 63% of those that did turn out (in a 5-way race), only about 40% of Russia's total registered voters actually voted for Putin, his mandate is still sounder than that of US President Barack Obama's 32% in a mere 2-way race, or last year's victory here in Thailand by Yingluck Shinawatra with a tenuous 35%, a victory hailed by the Western media as a "sweeping" mandate

Helping to push down on this political lever are propaganda outfits like the Guardian, portraying the trial as a case of liberal Russian opposition groups fighting against a judicial throwback to the Soviet Union. In reality, it is another Wall Street-London production in the same vein as Serbia's US-funded Otpor movement, the Kony 2012 fraud and the US-engineered "Arab Spring."

The so-called Pussy Riot band never practices or performs with musical instruments. I guess their background music is pre-recorded by some other band that can actually play music.

The so-called band is just a bunch of dirty people wearing wool caps pulled down, with holes cut out for the eyes and mouth. Really trashy gang of malcontents who hate the Greek Orthodox Church and everything that is part of Russian culture.

The only thing I like about them is that they burn posters of Putin, who is a dictator of Russia. That took courage. They make a point that Democracy has been destroyed by Putin. I agree with that. It is a valid point.

However, by desecrating a Church, which is very sacred to the members of the Greek Orthodox religion, they deeply offended several million people. They also totally disrespected a place where people go to pray for their loved ones, baptisms, funeral services, etc.

It showed a lack of character on their part, and that they are not just against Putin, or for Democracy. Pussy Riot are anarchists and they are fascists in the way they attack the groups they do not agree with. They should have gone to prison, they deserved it.

This documentary tries to paint the dozens of participants in the Pussy Riot group as victims, but they are victimizers. They could have made their points in a constructive manner, but they realized that by being outrageous and destructive, they would get media attention.

It's challenging for North Americans to grasp that there's still danger in speaking your mind in many places in the world. So while we all knew of Russian punk collective Pussy Riot and we all heard about the arrest and prosecution of three of its members after an impromptu performance of "Punk Prayer – Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!" on the soleas of Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior, we might have been left a little befuddled about the exact magnitude of the uproar. The documentary Pussy Riot – A Punk Prayer, from directors Mike Lerner and Maksim Pozdorovkin, goes a very long way in casting light on the situation.

The power of "punk" is hackneyed in the West by now, but Pussy Riot and members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, Yekaterina Samutsevich prove that in the more repressive areas of the world it still has the power to provoke. And while the women of Pussy Riot became a cause célèbre in the West, with such supporters as Madonna, Yoko Ono, and Amnesty International, we learn from Pussy Riot – A Punk Prayer that the opinion of the Russian public was far more complicated and divided. While there's no doubt where the bias of this doc lies, the directors do an admirable job of documenting the turmoil surrounding three young women who stand on the courage of their convictions.

Pussy Riot – A Punk Prayer is one to see. If you're not lucky enough to be in Toronto during HotDocs 13 or you can't score a ticket to any of the 3 screenings, HBO has bought the film and announced plans to air it June 2013.

Contrary to what is promoted in this film, it was not Pussy Riot's critique of religion, or the }patriarchy" that got them into legal trouble in Russia. It was going inside a church, and desecrating it through physical acts. What they got prosecuted for was not a "thought crime" or a free speech crime, but for what would be a prosecutable hate crime in the UK, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the US, Canada, Australia etc.

What a shame. Free speech is important.Free speech that one side or the other consider despicable, discordant or prejudiced, is important to protect. There is nothing wrong with radically attacking through speech or art the ideas or beliefs that people hold. But the "performance art" INSIDE the church by Pussy Riot is not, and never was, the same as Hebdo cartons, or Mapplethorpe's P sschrist. This film is utterly full of false narrative of what happened. Pussy riot could have done the same thing on the public sidewalk outside that church and not been prosecuted. They decided to go in , not leave, even get up on the alter. if you did that in Paris, London, Washington DC you'd go to jail too.

Anyone with a brain and their eyes open isn't stupid enough to believe in ANY god ... The more stupid in society just believe anything the ruling classes encourage them to do so they can manipulate and control ... They are like sheep ... These girls are great and to be applauded ... And thats from a 57 year old man who isn't Russian or a feminist ... How do you think in 20 years Russia went from a communist state to somewhere where there is an outbreak of billionaires and everyone else has nothing just like before ? ... Open your eyes and see ... Question what you are told ... Otherwise the world will be dead in 2 generations ... It really is that simple