Putin Opponents Are Made to Vanish From TV

[pianoman11686]

Yes, I happened to be browsing again. If you look at the two articles I've posted in the thread, their "published" dates are both one day after the "posted" date.

I'm not lobbing articles to make a quantitative case. That being said, I think the article I posted makes some important points that support my argument.

No, it's my assumption that Russians think like Russians, and their history, which includes Communism, shapes their national viewpoint.

Fine.

[mariab]

This would be awesome except he's far too young to be facing something like that, & that his mother probably put him up to it & should be slapped.

Image of little boy on bicycle becomes Moscow's Tiananmen Aquare moment

The image is poised to become the iconic face of the pro-democracy protests gripping Russia

By Meghan Neal / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Tuesday, May 8, 2012, 9:40 PM

@ioffeinmoscow/Twitter

This instantlt iconic picture shows a little boy sitting on a bicycle in front of a wall of Russian police.

A photo circulating the Internet that is being called “Moscow’s Tiananmen image” is poised to become the iconic face of the pro-democracy protests gripping Russia in the wake of President Vladimir Putin’s election.
The picture shows a little boy sitting on a bicycle in front of a wall of Russian police.
The New Yorker and Foreign Policy magazine correspondent Julia Ioffe snapped the photo with her iPhone during violent protests by anti-Putin demonstrators on the day before Putin's inauguration, ABC News reports. She tweeted the photo, and refering to Tiananmen,
to her more-than-6,000 followers.
Ioffe was referencing the huge pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square, China in 1989, iconized by a photograph of one man standing still in front of a row of tanks.
At least 20,000 people rallied Sunday at Moscow's Bolotnaya Square in protest of Putin’s election.
Violence erupted as the protesters marched toward the Kremlin and police fought back with clubs, injuring several people and leading to more than 400 arrests, reports the Associated Press.
Anti-Putin protests began when the sidelined leader announced he intended to return to the presidency, an office he held from 2000 - 08.
At the time he was serving as Russia’s prime minister. Putin’s easy victory in March despite accusations of ballot box stuffing and government corruption sparked more protests, showing the public’s changing sentiment toward the long-time leader.
Demonstrations became violent as Putin’s inauguration approached.
Ioffe was at the scene when she glimpsed the powerful image of the young boy lingering on his bicycle in front of a daunting line of Russian police wearing helmets holding weapons.
"In the era of Twitter and Facebook, [images\] become instantly iconic," Ioffe wrote Monday in a Foreign Policy magazine article on the Moscow protests.
Demonstrations continued Monday during Putin’s inaguration and more than a hundred more people were arrested.
In central Moscow hundreds of young people are still camped out to protest the government.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/worl...#ixzz1uL4oDrdn

[mariab]

Putin Rolls Back Freedoms, Ups Efforts to Intimidate OppositionBy Kirit Radia | ABC News – 6 hrs ago




Putin Rolls Back Freedoms, Ups …
MOSCOW - When riot police forcibly dispersed a crowd that lingered after an anti-Putin protest in central Moscow a day after Russia's presidential election in March, many in the crowd sensed an ominous change in the air.
By the time protestors clashed with riot police May 6, the eve of President Vladimir Putin's inauguration, there was little doubt in most people's minds: Putin's patience with the opposition was over.
The next day, as Putin's motorcade drove through Moscow's deserted streets on the way to an opulent swearing in ceremony in the Kremlin, police raided cafes popular with opposition leaders and detained anyone wearing the opposition's iconic white ribbons. For the next week, police harassed roving groups of protestors who were guilty of little more than gathering without signs in a public square.

The incidents marked a dark shift in the Russian government's approach to the unprecedented wave of protests that have called on Putin to go since December.
Although Putin mocked the protest movement at first, accusing them of being U.S. agents and comparing the white ribbons to condoms, police did not intervene and city authorities granted them permits.
Since Putin's inauguration, however, the Kremlin has pushed through several pieces of legislation and orchestrated an apparent attempt to systematically restrict and intimidate the opposition.
"The government has switched to a repressive mode," Masha Lipman, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center, said in an interview. "Punishment for a few, I think, is aimed at intimidating others."

For his part, Putin has said he respects the right of the people to protest, but again mocked their efforts. The white ribbons, he said, were yesterday's protest tactic.
"I am not saying anything against people, who use such symbols. But it hurts my feelings to see people using foreign-developed technologies,"(?!?) he told a youth forum Tuesday.
Lipman says any hope that Putin would pursue reform after last winter's protests was overly optimistic. "Putin's way of governing hasn't changed. But only now he is facing challenges he didn't face before and he wants to remove the challenge," she said.
That effort has only increased in recent weeks.
Several pieces of legislation were rushed through the legislature and signed into law by Putin. Several more are pending. The new laws, which are ostensibly to protect stability and decency, include restrictions on public gatherings, a drastic increase in the fines and penalties for organizing or joining unsanctioned protests and the creation of an Internet blacklist that critics warn could lead to censorship. Others are the re-criminalization of libel, a requirement that foreign-funded NGOs and perhaps soon even media might have to publicly declare themselves "foreign agents" (a term tinged with hints of espionage), and efforts to control the waves of volunteers who rushed to help flood victims in southern Russia.

Police have also raided the homes of several prominent opposition leaders, ostensibly to investigate violence during the May 6 rally, and have detained several dozen others accused of attacking police during the skirmish. Many leaders say they are being followed everywhere they go.
Among those raided and harassed were anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny and television personality Ksenia Sobchak.
Authorities charged Navalny with embezzlement this week in a case that had been dismissed for lack of evidence years ago. He faces up to 10 years in prison. Sobchak, a prominent socialite whose father was Putin's mentor when he was the mayor of St. Petersburg, has been booted from her television shows as her activism has increased.

In another case that is being viewed as a canary in the coal mine for how the Kremlin will deal with the opposition, the trial of an all-female punk rock group began Monday. The group called Pussy Riot is being tried on charges of hooliganism after they performed an anti-Putin anthem on the altar of Moscow's largest cathedral in February.
Their song asked for divine intervention to remove Putin from power. Several prominent Western musicians have spoken out against their detention and Amnesty International has called them "prisoners of conscience." They face up to seven years in prison.
One of the band members Tuesday said they are being made an example for others who might attempt to defy the Kremlin.
"I am taking it as the start of a repressive authoritarian campaign which aims to hamper the public's political activity and build a sense of fear among political activists," Ekaterina Samutsevich said in a statement to the court.
http://news.yahoo.com/putin-rolls-ba...opstories.html



Reminds me of this guy:
http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showth...ighlight=putin

[Ninjahedge]

The guy is showing little skill in this.

Oppression works, but it only works as long as you have the means to apply the pressure. The biggest weakness to this system is that it can fail utterly and violently rather readily.

Psychological warfare works better, or using a bit of a softer cover over the iron bar you bludgeon people with.

He is trying to solve this the Military way. My way or else.

Regardless of whether it will work, and for how long, I feel sorry for the people of Russia to have to deal with this crap again.

[mariab]

I actually liked the guy when he first appeared on the Russian political scene years ago. I thought he was someone who wanted to move forward from the cold war bs. But when he let those sailors die in that nuke sub disaster that was it for me. Then he had that other guy poisoned (ALLEGEDLY! yeah) now this. There's very little difference between him & Khadafi or Assad. He's just quieter about it.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Return of the gulags?

[Ninjahedge]

Does Russia have enough financial stability to start doing this again? Have they solidified their base?

It is hard to oppress a people when you are standing on one foot in a windstorm.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Did they have it during the last go around?

[Ninjahedge]

Yes, until the people found that there was sand in the feeding troughs......[/lit ref]

[ZippyTheChimp]

Sorry, but I don't think there was much financial stability in the USSR, just a succession of five-year plans that produced military hardware and a space race, but little for Russian citizens. Much effort was expended in hiding this reality from them.

In a new book, Nina Krushcheva, great-granddaughter of Nikita Krushchev, has an interesting take on the Russian psyche.

[mariab]

She may have something there. I've read that periodically there are little parades or demonstrations with people in support of the old communist regime. Either because they were well taken care of, or they believe Russia was more powerful then.

I really would like Russian culture to define itself through pizza, wine, something, not through its soul and not through the West.

What does she mean by this? Why wouldn't she want Russia to define itself through its own soul? Just because she believes Russians like to suffer doesn't mean the collective Russian soul is defeatist, or fatalistic maybe is the word I'm looking for. They like the struggle, fine. Give them something worth struggling for. Freedom to them meant a 300% markup on clothes & groceries after communism fell. With Putin & his ilk in power, what is there besides that?

[Ninjahedge]

"Soul" is too subjective. Every culture and every time has their own definition of it, and variations therein.

I did not read her article, but I can see where using an ephemeral quality as a guide/stanchion would be something that is not stable enough to provide a good base.

[lofter1]

Pussy Riot Seizes The Mantle Of Political Punk

The Daily Dish
August 7, 2012


by Gwynn Guilford

Spencer Ackerman explains how Putin's persecution of the band has backfired:

Pussy Riot has skewered Putin on the horns of a dilemma: Either his government convicts the band and martyrs it even further, or it backs down and concedes that prosecuting the masked trio for a cacophonous musical protest at Christ the Savior Cathedral that called attention to the Russian church's alliance with the Putin regime was always a mistake. Three of the five band members now face the prospect of seven years in prison, which has prompted an unlikely international outcry. On Thursday, Aug. 2, ahead of a meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron, Putin indicated he'd prefer to back down.

Previous coverage of Pussy Riot here and here.

(Photo: Members of the all-girl punk band 'Pussy Riot' Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (L), Maria Alyokhina (R) and Yekaterina Samutsevich (C), sit behind bars during a court hearing in Moscow on July 23, 2012. By Andrey Smirnov/AFP/Getty Images)

[lofter1]

Looks like they've upgraded the accommodations.

Still, Putin is getting ... uhmmmm ... pussy whipped ...

Pussy Riot: Vladimir Putin Calls for 'Correct, Well-Founded Ruling' on Russian Girl Punk Band

Defence lawyers accuse Russian president of making gesture to keep business healthy with the West

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES
By GIANLUCA MEZZOFIORE
August 3, 2012 12:05 PM GMT


Pussy Riot's Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (left), Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alyokhina on trial in Moscow (Twitter)

Russian president Vladimir Putin said that a Russian court should not judge the three members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot too severely for a cathedral protest against him.

Putin's remarks raised defence lawyer's hopes that the three could escape the maximum seven years in prison if convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred or hostility.

Putin criticised Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alyokhina for their "punk prayer" from the altar of Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral but said he did not want to see them punished too harshly.

"There is nothing good in this," Putin told journalists at the end of a one-day trip to London where he met David Cameron and watched judo at the London 2012 Olympic Games. "I wouldn't really like to comment but if the girls were, let's say, in Israel, and insulted something in Israel ... it wouldn't be so easy for them to leave.

"[If they] desecrated some Muslim holy site, we wouldn't even have had time to detain them," he added.

"Nonetheless, I don't think they should be judged too severely for this. The final decision rests with the courts - I hope the court will deliver a correct, well-founded ruling."

Sceptical defence lawyers said in court that Putin's comment was "a gesture towards the West, towards the consumers of Russian energy resources and Putin's business partners".

"Given the significance of such signals, we can expect some softening of the prosecution's position," Mark Feygin, a lawyer for Pussy Riot, told the Guardian.

Townshend, Cocker, Kapranos and Marr

"On the one hand, Putin's statement is without doubt a manoeuvre for the international community, because he is clearly worried by the international reaction as it is out of his control. On the other hand, he is frantically trying to find an exit so as not to take responsibility."

Earlier, leading British rock musicians called on Putin to ensure a fair hearing for Pussy Riot.

The Times published a letter from the Who's Pete Townshend, Jarvis Cocker, Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand, former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, Corinne Bailey Rae and Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys urging a fair trial.

This article is copyrighted by IBTimes.co.uk

[Ninjahedge]

It's a good thing they kept those hoodlums in that box during the trial.

Who knows what they could have done if they were allowed to sit out on a bench or something in the WIDE OPEN!!!!

(BTW, Maria looks like death warmed over.... not a happy camper!)