Pussy Riot take revolt to the Kremlin

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

Pussy Riot take revolt to the Kremlin

Postby vanlose kid » Thu Feb 02, 2012 11:20 am

came across this

http://pussy-riot.livejournal.com/

a few days ago.

now they're in the Guardian.

Feminist punk band Pussy Riot take revolt to the Kremlin

Anonymous band with provocative anti-Putin lyrics – who have become a symbol of Russian youth's discontent – are preparing for their next surprise performance

Miriam Elder in Moscow
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 2 February 2012 13.40 GMT

Eight women stood in a line opposite the Kremlin, neon balaclavas hiding their faces, fists pounding the air in rugged defiance. Before police carted them off, the members of Pussy Riot managed to shout their way through a minute-long punk anthem: "Revolt in Russia – the charisma of protest / Revolt in Russia, Putin's got scared!"

Formed days after Vladimir Putin's announcement in September that he intended to return to the presidency, Pussy Riot have become the latest symbol of young Russian discontent.

"A lot of us couldn't sleep after this announcement," said "Tyurya", one of the founding members of a punk collective that has grown, since October, to roughly 30 people, including crew. "So we decided, damn it, we need to do something. We always went to protests and things, but it seemed to us we needed to do something more."

The mid-January performance on Red Square, brazen in its choice of location and lyrics, catapulted the all-female punk band into the pantheon of Russia's increasingly creative protest movement.

Pussy Riot are sworn to anonymity, hence the colourful balaclavas members use to hide their faces, even when giving interviews. "It shows we can be anybody," says a band member who goes by the name Garadzha, wearing a hot-pink ski mask and matching stockings.

They decline to reveal the smallest details, aiming to maintain total secrecy. They will say only that most of the band members met at the small protests held by Russia's once-feebled opposition, from monthly illegal demonstrations calling for the right to assembly to banned gay pride marches. Their average age is 25. They are hardcore feminists. Most studied the humanities in university. They won't detail their day jobs.

What united them in October was the feeling that something had to change in the country and in its culture of protest, which, until tens of thousands took to the streets after contested parliamentary elections in December, had had hardly any effect on the political discourse.

"We understood that to achieve change, including in the sphere of women's rights, it's not enough to go to Putin and ask for it," said Garadzha. "This is a rotten, broken system."

Her bandmate Tyurya said: "The culture of protest needs to develop. We have one form, but we need many different kinds."

The band began writing songs with lyrics such as: "Egyptian air is good for the lungs / Do Tahrir on Red Square!" and performing on trams and in the metro. Videos of the flash gigs began spreading across the internet. When the protest leader Alexey Navalny was jailed for 15 days after his arrest during Russia's first post-election protest on 5 December, three members of Pussy Riot took to the roof of the jail where he was being held, setting off red flares as they sang "Death to prison / Freedom to protest!"

The fear of arrest long ago left the band members, steeped in the tradition of illegal protest. "We have experience with it, we've been detained at protests before," said Tyurya. "It's not scary – you're surrounded by good, normal people, those who protest against Putin."

All eight women were detained during the Kremlin performance, questioned and released. Most got off with administrative fines rather than the 15-day jail sentences often doled out to those who stage illegal protests.

"The revolution should be done by women," said Garazhda. "For now, they don't beat or jail us as much."

"There's a deep tradition in Russia of gender and revolution – we've had amazing women revolutionaries."

The band is getting ready for its next performance, something that usually takes a month to pull together. Its members don't discuss plans on the telephone or give away details, out of fear that the security services will disrupt the project. Is what they do art or politics? "For us it's one and the same."

They won't be wearing their radical outfits when attending Moscow's next big protest on Saturday, as the opposition hopes to build on the momentum of two major protests in December that brought tens of thousands to the streets of the Russian capital. But like all good punks, the band wants to see the protest movement develop beyond legal boundaries.

"Putin and his team are behaving so rudely, and the people aren't ready to react in the same way – they want all these protests to be sanctioned," said Tyurya. "But that's what's needed when you're fighting an illegitimate government. They're basically occupiers, they don't have the right to be here – why should things be agreed with them?"

That was a sentiment that began to arise among some of Moscow's protesters in late January, when negotiations between organisers and the mayor's office dragged on as authorities sought – and ultimately failed – to push the demonstration to Moscow's outskirts. Protesters will march on Saturday towards Bolotnaya Square, across from the Kremlin. Tens of thousands are expected, despite a temperature of -20C.

Putin is still widely expected to win the presidential election on 4 March and remains the country's most popular politician, something his critics attribute to the state's monopoly on television and access to politics. Liberal politicians are regularly denied the right to register parties, and the candidacy of Grigory Yavlinsky, the leader of the liberal Yabloko party, was declared invalid last week.

Yet analysts say Putin's ability to govern unchallenged will be severely hampered by the negative reaction to his return. It has not only rocked the Russian elite, but led to a renewal of spirit in Russia's creative classes. Satirical programmes find no place on state-run television but have blossomed on the internet. Moscow theatres are staging overtly anti-regime plays. And Pussy Riot, who cite riot grrrl pioneers Bikini Kill and cult heroes Sonic Youth as inspiration, continue to perform.

"We wanted to create a new form of protest – maybe not such a huge one, but we compensate for that with the bright, provocative and illegal nature of our performances," Tyurya said.

Like Russia's tens of thousands of protesters, the band members don't know how the authorities will react next time. "After Red Square, they took us roughly, got even angrier than usual," Tyurya said. "The phrase 'Putin's got scared' – it was a real slap in their faces."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/fe ... est-russia


Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image



The text of the new songs Pussy Riot "Putin ZASSAL" [by google.translate]:

Go to the Kremlin is the rebellious colonies
In FSBshnyh offices explode window.
Females ssut for red walls
Riot announce Abortion System!

Attack at dawn? I would not mind
For our freedom and yours a whip to punish
Madonna in Glory learn how to fight
Feminist Magdalene went to the demonstration

Revolt in Russia - the charisma of protest
Riot in Russia - Putin zassal
Riot in Russia - we exist
Riot in Russia - rayot rayot

Come out to the street
Live on the Red
Show free
civil anger

(loss on the square)

Dissatisfaction with the culture male hysteria
Wild leaderism eats brains
Orthodox religion is a hard penis
Patients were invited to conformity

Mode comes to censorship dreams
It's time to disruptive clash
A flock of females sexist treatment
Asks for forgiveness from a feminist wedge.

Revolt in Russia - the charisma of protest
Riot in Russia - Putin zassal
Riot in Russia - we exist
Riot in Russia - rayot rayot

Come out to the street
Live on the Red
Show free
civil anger

http://pussy-riot.livejournal.com/?skip=10

*
"Teach them to think. Work against the government." – Wittgenstein.
User avatar
vanlose kid
 
Posts: 3182
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 7:44 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Pussy Riot take revolt to the Kremlin

Postby JackRiddler » Thu Feb 02, 2012 2:00 pm

Appreciated.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

TopSecret WallSt. Iraq & more
User avatar
JackRiddler
 
Posts: 15983
Joined: Wed Jan 02, 2008 2:59 pm
Location: New York City
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Pussy Riot take revolt to the Kremlin

Postby Laodicean » Thu Feb 02, 2012 2:57 pm

Sid Vicious died 33 years ago today (Feb. 2).
User avatar
Laodicean
 
Posts: 3334
Joined: Wed Jan 27, 2010 9:39 pm
Blog: View Blog (16)

Re: Pussy Riot take revolt to the Kremlin

Postby Nordic » Thu Feb 02, 2012 4:15 pm

This may have just made my day.

The day is young, so it's hard to say ....

But how do you not love this?
"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
Nordic
 
Posts: 14230
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 3:36 am
Location: California USA
Blog: View Blog (6)

Re: Pussy Riot take revolt to the Kremlin

Postby wordspeak2 » Fri Feb 03, 2012 3:54 pm

I love the masks. What are they, the female Russian answer to Insane Clown Posse?
I wonder what their politics are; "anti-Putin" could mean almost anything.
wordspeak2
 
Posts: 1209
Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:20 pm
Location: Massachusetts
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Pussy Riot take revolt to the Kremlin

Postby JackRiddler » Fri Feb 03, 2012 4:18 pm

wordspeak2 wrote:I love the masks. What are they, the female Russian answer to Insane Clown Posse?
I wonder what their politics are; "anti-Putin" could mean almost anything.


Read the lyrics again. Despite the translation problem, the politics are explicit: feminist and anti-statist. The latter against "deep state" and I think the second line is suggesting that the FSB blows things up. (Although the omission of economics leaves room for neoliberalism or merely the kind of naivete that has always had much of the Eastern European intelligentsia assuming what they want is America. Or it might not mean a thing. This being only one song and all. I wish there were a way to research this, like a magic global library of everything where you can find answers.)

Also, this may contain references we don't get. ("Rebellious colonies" might have a specific meaning obvious to political Russians, ditto "Madonna in Glory" or "Attack at dawn"

Putin zassal, damn it!



Go to the Kremlin is the rebellious colonies
In FSBshnyh offices explode window.
Females ssut for red walls
Riot announce Abortion System!

Attack at dawn? I would not mind
For our freedom and yours a whip to punish
Madonna in Glory learn how to fight
Feminist Magdalene went to the demonstration

Revolt in Russia - the charisma of protest
Riot in Russia - Putin zassal
Riot in Russia - we exist
Riot in Russia - rayot rayot

Come out to the street
Live on the Red
Show free
civil anger

(loss on the square)

Dissatisfaction with the culture male hysteria
Wild leaderism eats brains
Orthodox religion is a hard penis
Patients were invited to conformity


Mode comes to censorship dreams
It's time to disruptive clash
A flock of females sexist treatment
Asks for forgiveness from a feminist wedge.

Revolt in Russia - the charisma of protest
Riot in Russia - Putin zassal
Riot in Russia - we exist
Riot in Russia - rayot rayot

Come out to the street
Live on the Red
Show free
civil anger
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

TopSecret WallSt. Iraq & more
User avatar
JackRiddler
 
Posts: 15983
Joined: Wed Jan 02, 2008 2:59 pm
Location: New York City
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Pussy Riot take revolt to the Kremlin

Postby publius » Sat Feb 04, 2012 3:22 am

Interesting how music and the East bloc apparat don't get a long. Plastic People of the Universe comes to mind.
“To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
User avatar
publius
 
Posts: 139
Joined: Sat Jul 25, 2009 9:39 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Pussy Riot take revolt to the Kremlin

Postby wordspeak2 » Sat Feb 04, 2012 7:13 am

Don't know Plastic People of the Universe...

But, you're right, JR; this is a good verse:

"Dissatisfaction with the culture male hysteria
Wild leaderism eats brains
Orthodox religion is a hard penis
Patients were invited to conformity"

Orthodox religion is certainly a hard penis.

Still don't know where they stand exactly, but that song rocked.
wordspeak2
 
Posts: 1209
Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:20 pm
Location: Massachusetts
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Pussy Riot take revolt to the Kremlin

Postby wordspeak2 » Sat Feb 04, 2012 9:21 am

Russians hold dueling political rallies:
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/Rus ... 04109.html
wordspeak2
 
Posts: 1209
Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:20 pm
Location: Massachusetts
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Pussy Riot take revolt to the Kremlin

Postby publius » Sat Feb 04, 2012 12:31 pm

Plastic People of the Universe Chapter
The PPU (as the band often abbreviate themselves) were not formed with the intent of creating political change. Merely daring to play creative rock music in ...
www.richieunterberger.com/ppu.html - Cached - Similar
Plastic People of the Universe | Music | The Guardian
Latest news and comment on Plastic People of the Universe from guardian.co.uk.
www.guardian.co.uk/music/plastic-people-of-the-universe - Cached - Similar
THE PLASTIC PEOPLE OF THE UNIVERSE music, discography ...
THE PLASTIC PEOPLE OF THE UNIVERSE is a RIO/Avant-Prog / Progressive Rock artist from Czech Republic. This page includes THE PLASTIC PEOPLE OF ...
www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=2800 - Cached - Similar
Plastic People Of The Universe, The Discography at Discogs
The Plastic People of the Universe (PPU) is a rock band from Prague, Czech Republic. It was the foremost representative of Prague's underground culture ...
www.discogs.com/artist/Plastic+People+O ... verse,+The - Cached - Similar
“To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
User avatar
publius
 
Posts: 139
Joined: Sat Jul 25, 2009 9:39 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Pussy Riot take revolt to the Kremlin

Postby compared2what? » Sat Feb 04, 2012 4:59 pm

Nordic wrote:This may have just made my day.

The day is young, so it's hard to say ....

But how do you not love this?


Totally. They're as good as it gets. Thanks, vk!

______________________

The Guardian wrote:All eight women were detained during the Kremlin performance, questioned and released.


^^I'm not so sure that my count would go all the way to eight. But I don't know. And there certainly wouldn't be anything wrong with it if it didn't. So it's kind of a win-win situation. I'm just saying.
“If someone comes out of a liquor store with a weapon and 50 dollars in cash I don’t care if a Drone kills him or a policeman kills him.” -- Rand Paul
User avatar
compared2what?
 
Posts: 8383
Joined: Sun Oct 21, 2007 6:31 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Pussy Riot take revolt to the Kremlin

Postby vanlose kid » Sat Feb 04, 2012 5:56 pm

^^

yr welcome.

ps: the camerawoman?

*

edit: nah, checked, definitely eight.
"Teach them to think. Work against the government." – Wittgenstein.
User avatar
vanlose kid
 
Posts: 3182
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 7:44 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Pussy Riot take revolt to the Kremlin

Postby vanlose kid » Sat Feb 04, 2012 8:42 pm

Anti-Putin protesters march through Moscow

Up to 120,000 Russian anti-government protesters demand political reform as Putin supporters stage counter-rally

Tom Parfitt in Moscow
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 4 February 2012 15.48 GMT

Image
Anti-government protesters march in Moscow. The banner reads: 'Russia without Putin and for fair elections'. Photograph: Andrey Smirnov/AFP/Getty Images

Tens of thousands of demonstrators have braved temperatures of -18C in Moscow to march through the city shouting "Russia without Putin" and calling for a rerun of disputed elections.

In the latest of a series of mass gatherings since allegations of widespread government vote-rigging at the parliamentary poll on 4 December, the protesters walked an agreed route from Oktyabrskaya metro station to Bolotnaya Square, near the Kremlin.

Much of the protesters' anger is focused on the prime minister and defacto leader of Russia, Vladimir Putin, who earlier likened their white ribbons – worn as a symbol of solidarity – to condoms.

"Under Putin, so many thieves have come to power," said Ivan Frolov, 28, an engineer. "The authorities are totally closed, they don't talk to the people. We want to choose leaders who listen to us. And we don't want to worship a single person."

Analysts say nascent discontent – especially among the urban middle class – grew in September when President Dmitry Medvdev, who is perceived as being a more liberal figure, announced he would not run for a second term, leaving Putin free this spring to return to the presidency, which he held from 2000 to 2008.

Protest organisers claimed up to 120,000 people attended the march while police put the figure at 35,000. There was an irreverent atmosphere: some came dressed as clowns, or knights on cardboard horses, while others banged drums. Groups of communists waved Soviet flags, and several hundred nationalists marched in in a phalanx crying in unison: "Russia for ethnic Russians!" However, the majority of demonstrators showed no party or group allegiance, and many had fashioned their own placards.

Natasha Orekhova, 26, a public relations specialist with a real estate firm, stood next to a friend who carried a fork with a pretend snake spiked on its tines, a reference to Putin calling the protesters Bandar-logs, the monkeys hypnotised by a python in Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book.

"Suddenly there is a feeling of unity in our discontent," said Orekhova. "The people coming to protests are beautiful, clever, educated. It's very pleasant."

Many spoke of the ruling elite treating ordinary people with contempt. Galina, a linguist in her 50s who declined to give her surname, said: "We want our dignity back. The authorities despise us. Recently, I was travelling to visit my sick mother in hospital and they closed the road for an hour because Putin's cortege was taking him somewhere to drink tea with someone. I sat in my car crying tears of rage and frustration."

Several opposition leaders spoke from a stage. Sergei Udaltsov, a radical leftwing activist, drew cheers when he tore up a portrait of Putin.

The protesters are demanding a rerun of the parliamentary elections, the resignation of the head of the central election commission, reform of the political system and the release of political prisoners.

So far, the only sop offered by the Kremlin is a simplified process for registering political parties and the return of direct elections of regional governors, but it remains unclear when these changes will come into effect.

Attention now turns to the presidential election on 4 March. Putin is the clear frontrunner in that race and a rally of his supporters in a park on the edge of Moscow on Saturday also drew large crowds. However, he admitted this week that he may not get the 50% required to win in the first round of the vote, which would erode his authority.

Police deployed about 9,000 officers for the protests. No serious incidents were reported.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/fe ... cow-russia


*
"Teach them to think. Work against the government." – Wittgenstein.
User avatar
vanlose kid
 
Posts: 3182
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 7:44 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Pussy Riot take revolt to the Kremlin

Postby Byrne » Tue Mar 06, 2012 9:25 am

I wouldn't be surprised if the Pussy Riot was linked somehow to the NED, after all, they were the recent sponsors of a couple of conferences in the US, namely:
Youth Activism in Russia: Can a New Generation Make a Difference?

These coloured balaclavas/dresses etc. sure do appeal to the yoof....


The news is currently full of reports of demonstrations following the re-election of Vladimir Putin as Russian president.

A bit more digging reveals that the players in the anti Putin demonstrations:
[list=]the International Press Center in Moscow
GOLOS
the Levada Center
Vladimir Kara-Murza
Tamirlan Kurbanov
Alexei Navalny
[/list]
are backed/funded...by the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED).....

Why Washington Wants ‘Finito’ with Putin
By F. William Engdahl, 9 January 2012


Washington clearly wants ‘finito’ with Russia’s Putin as in basta! or as they said in Egypt last
spring, Kefaya--enough!. Hillary Clinton and friends have apparently decided Russia’s prospective
next president, Vladimir Putin, is a major obstacle to their plans. Few however understand why.
Russia today, in tandem with China and to a significant degree Iran, form the spine, however
shaky, of the only effective global axis of resistance to a world dominated by one sole superpower.
On December 8 several days after election results for Russia’s parliamentary elections were
announced, showing a sharp drop in popularity for Prime Minister Putin’s United Russia party, Putin
accused the United States and specifically Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of fuelling the Russian
opposition protesters and their election protests. Putin stated, “The (US) Secretary of State was
quick to evaluate the elections, saying that they are unfair and unjust even before she received
materials from the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (the OSCE international
election monitors-w.e.) observers.”1

Putin went on to claim that Clinton’s premature comments were the necessary signal to the waiting
opposition groups that the US Government would back their protests. Clinton’s comments, the
seasoned Russian intelligence pro stated, became a “signal for our activists who began active work
with the US Department of State.” 2

Major western media chose either to downplay the Putin statement or to focus almost entirely on
the claims of an emerging Russian opposition movement. A little research shows that, if anything,
Putin was downplaying the degree of brazen US Government interference into the political
processes of his country. In this case the country is not Tunisia or Yemen or even Egypt. It is the
world’s second nuclear superpower, even if it might still be an economic lesser power. Hillary is
playing with thermonuclear fire.

Democracy or something else?
No mistake, Putin is not a world champion practitioner of what most consider democracy. His
announcement some months back that he and current President Medvedev had agreed to switch
jobs after Russia’s March 4 Presidential vote struck even many Russians as crass power politics and
backroom deal-making. That being said, what Washington is doing to interfere with that regime
change is more than brazen and interventionist. The same Obama Administration which just signed
into law measures effectively ripping to shreds the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution for
American citizens3 is posing as world supreme judge of others’ adherence to what they define as
democracy.

Let’s examine closely Putin’s charge of US interference in the election process. If we look, we find
openly stated in their August 2011 Annual Report that a Washington-based NGO with the
innocuous name, National Endowment for Democracy (NED), is all over the place inside Russia
.
The NED is financing an International Press Center in Moscow where some 80 international NGOs
can hold press briefings on whatever they choose. They fund numerous “youth advocacy” and
leadership workshops to “help youth engage in political activism.” In fact, officially they spent more
than $2,783,000 in 2010 on dozens of such programs across Russia
. Spending for 2011 won’t be
published until later in 2012. 4

The NED is also financing key parts of the Russian “independent” polling and election monitoring, a
crucial part of being able to claim election fraud. They finance in part the Regional Civic
Organization in Defense of Democratic Rights and Liberties “GOLOS.” According to the NED Annual
Report the funds went “to carry out a detailed analysis of the autumn 2010 and spring 2011
election cycles in Russia, which will include press monitoring, monitoring of political agitation,
activity of electoral commissions, and other aspects of the application of electoral legislation in the
long-term run-up to the elections.”5

In September, 2011, a few weeks before the December elections the NED financed a Washington
invitation-only conference featuring the Russian “independent” polling organization, the Levada
Center. According to NED’s own website Levada, another recipient of NED money
, 6 had done a
series of opinion polls, a standard method used in the West to analyze the feelings of citizens. The
polls profiled “the mood of the electorate in the run up to the Duma and presidential elections,
perceptions of candidates and parties, and voter confidence in the system of ‘managed democracy’
that has been established over the last decade.”

One of the featured speakers at that Washington conference was Vladimir Kara-Murza, member of
the federal council of Solidarnost (“Solidarity”), Russia’s democratic opposition movement. He is
also “advisor to Duma opposition leader Boris Nemtsov” according to NED. Another speaker came
from the right-wing neo-conservative Hudson Institute. 7

Nemtsov, one of the most prominent of the Putin opposition today is also co-chairman of
Solidarnost, a name curiously enough imitated from the Cold War days when the CIA financed the
Polish Solidarnosc workers’ opposition of Lech Walesa. More on Nemtsov later.

And on December 15, 2011, again in Washington, just as the series of US-supported protests were
being launched against Putin, led by Solidarnost and other organizations, the NED held another
conference titled, Youth Activism in Russia: Can a New Generation Make a Difference? The featured
speaker was Tamirlan Kurbanov, who according to the NED, “most recently served as a program
officer at the Moscow office of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, where he
was involved in developing and expanding the capacities of political and civic organizations;
promoting citizen participation in public life, youth engagement in particular.” 8 The National
Democratic Institute is an arm of the NED
.

The shady history of NED
Helping youth engage in political activism is precisely what the same NED did in Egypt over the
past several years in the lead up to the toppling of Mubarak. The same NED was instrumental by
informed accounts in the US-backed “Color Revolutions” in 2003-2004 in Ukraine and Georgia that
brought US-backed pro-NATO surrogates to power. The same NED has been active in promoting
“human rights” in Myanmar, in Tibet, and China’s oil-rich Xinjiang province. 9

As careful analysts of the 2004 Ukraine “Orange revolution” and the numerous other US-financed
color revolutions discovered, control of polling and ability to dominate international media
perceptions, especially major TV such as CNN or BBC is an essential component of the Washington
destabilization agenda. The Levada Center would likely be in a crucial position in this regard to
issue polls showing discontent with the regime.

By their description, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a “private, nonprofit
foundation dedicated to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world.
Each year, with funding from the US Congress, NED supports more than 1,000 projects of nongovernmental
groups abroad who are working for democratic goals in more than 90 countries.”10
It couldn’t sound more noble or high-minded. However, they prefer to leave out their own true
history. In the early 1980’s CIA director Bill Casey convinced President Ronald Reagan to create a
plausibly private NGO, the NED, to advance Washington’s global agenda via other means than
direct CIA action. It was a part of the process of “privatizing” US intelligence to make their work
more “effective.” Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, said in a
Washington Post interview in 1991, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by
the CIA.”11 Interesting. The majority of funds for NED come from US taxpayers through Congress.
It is in every way, shape and form a US Government intelligence community asset.

The NED was created during the Reagan Administration to function as a de facto CIA, privatized so
as to allow it more freedom of action. NED board members are typically drawn from the Pentagon
and US intelligence community. It has included retired NATO General Wesley Clark, the man who
led the US bombing of Serbia in 1999. Key figures linked to clandestine CIA actions who served on
NED’s board have included Otto Reich, John Negroponte, Henry Cisneros and Elliot Abrams. The
Chairman of the NED Board of Directors in 2008 was Vin Weber, founder of the ultraconservative
organization, Empower America, and campaign fundraiser for George W. Bush. Current NED
chairman is John Bohn, former CEO of the controversial Moody’s rating agency which played a
nefarious role in the still-unraveling US mortgage securities collapse
. As well today’s NED board
includes neo-conservative Bush-era ambassador to Iraq and to Afghanistan, Afghan-American
Zalmay Khalilzad.12

Putin’s well-rehearsed opposition
It’s also instructive to look at the leading opposition figures who seem to have stepped forward in
Russia in recent days. The current opposition “poster boy” favorite of Russian youth and especially
western media is Russian blogger Alexei Navalny whose blog is titled LiveJournal. Navalny has
featured prominently as a quasi-martyr of the protest movement after spending 15 days in Putin’s
jail for partaking in a banned protest. At a large protest rally on Christmas Day December 25 in
Moscow, Navalny, perhaps intoxicated by seeing too many romantic Sergei Eisenstein films of the
1917 Russian Revolution, told the crowd, “I see enough people here to take the Kremlin and the
White House (Russia’s Presidential home-w.e.) right now…”13

Western establishment media is infatuated with Navalny. England’s BBC described Navalny as
"arguably the only major opposition figure to emerge in Russia in the past five years," and US Time
magazine called him "Russia's Erin Brockovich," a curious reference to the Hollywood film starring
Julie Roberts as a trade union organizer. However, more relevant is the fact that Navalny went to
the elite American East Coast Yale University, also home to the Bush family, where he was a “Yale
World Fellow.” 14

The charismatic Navalny however is also or has been on the payroll of Washington’s regimedestabilizing
National Endowment for Democracy (NED). According to a posting on Navalny’s own
blog, LiveJournal, he was financed in 2007-2008 by the NED. His Washington NED contact person
was Frank Conatser
.15 A facsimile of an email exchange between Navalny and Conatser fronm
November 17, 2007 is partially reproduced here.

ГРАНТЫ
From: Frank Conatser [mailto:frankc@NED.ORG]
Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2007 12:12 AM
To: Navalny Alexey; Aleksey Navalny
Cc: John Squier; Marc Schleifer
Subject: NED Agreements No. 2006-576 & No. 2007-688

Frank Conatser
Grants Administrator for Eurasia
National Endowment for Democracy
1025 F St, NW, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20004
202-378-9660 (phone)
202-378-9860 (fax)
(excerpt from email exchange between Alexey Navalty and NED)16

Along with Navalny, key actors in the anti-Putin protest movement are centered around Solidarnost
which was created in December 2008 by Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Ryzhkov and others. Nemtsov is
hardly one to protest corruption. According to Business Week Russia of September 23, 2007,
Nemtsov introduced Russian banker Boris Brevnov to Gretchen Wilson, a US citizen and an
employee of the International Finance Corporation, a financing arm of the World Bank. Wilson and
Brevnov married. With the help of Nemtsov Wilson managed to privatize Balakhna Pulp and Paper
mill at the giveaway price of just $7 million. The enterprise was sucked dry and then sold to the
Wall Street-Swiss investment bank, CS First Boston bank. The annual turnover of the mill was
reportedly $250 million. 17

CS First Boston bank also paid for Nemtsov's trips to the very expensive Davos World Economic
Forum. When Nemtsov became a member of the cabinet, his protégé Brevnov was appointed the
chairman of the Unified Energy System of Russia JSC. Two years later in 2009 Boris Nemtsov,
today’s “Mr anti-corruption,” used his influence reportedly to get Brevnov off the hook for charges
of embezzling billions from assets of Unified Energy System. 18

Nemtsov also took money from jailed Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 1999 when the
latter was using his billions to try to buy the Russian parliament or Duma. In 2004 Nemtsov met
with exiled billionaire oligarch Boris Berezovsky in a secret gathering with other exiled Russian
tycoons. When Nemtsov was detailed by Russian authorities for allegations of foreign funding of his
new political party, “For Russia without Lawlessness and Corruption,” US Senators John McCain
and Joe Liberman and Mike Hammer of the Obama National Security Council came to support of
Nemtsov. 19

Nemtsov’s close crony, Vladimir Ryzhkov of Solidarnost is also closely tied to the Swiss Davos
circles, even founding a Siberian Davos. According to Russian press accounts from April 2005,
Ryzhkov formed a Committee 2008 in 2003 to “draw” funds of the imprisoned Khodorkovsky along
with soliciting funds from fugitive oligarchs such as Boris Berezovsky and western foundations such
as the Soros Foundation. The stated aim of the effort was to rally “democratic” forces against
Putin. On May 23, 2011 Ryzhkov, Nemtzov and several others filed to register a new Party of
Peoples’ Freedom to ostensibly field a presidential candidate against Putin in 2012.20
Another prominent face in the recent anti-Putin rallies is former world chess champion turned rightwing
politician, Garry Kasparov, another founder of Solidarnost. Kasparov was identified several
years ago as being a board member of a Washington neo-conservative military think-tank. In April
2007, Kasparov admitted he was a board member of the National Security Advisory Council of
Center for Security Policy, a "non-profit, non-partisan national security organization that specializes
in identifying policies, actions, and resource needs that are vital to American security." Inside
Russia Kasparov is more infamous for his earlier financial ties to Leonid Nevzlin, former Yukos vicepresident
and partner of Michael Khodorokvsky. Nevzlin fled to Israel on being charged in Russia on
charges of murder and hiring contract killers to eliminate “objectionable people” while Yukos vicepresident.
21

In 2009 Kasparov and Boris Nemtsov met with no less than Barack Obama to discuss Russia’s
opposition to Putin at the US President’s personal invitation at Washington’s Ritz Carlton Hotel.
Nemtsov had called for Obama to meet with opposition forces in Russia: “If the White House
agrees to Putin’s suggestion to speak only with pro-Putin organizations… this will mean that Putin
has won, but not only that: Putin will become be assured that Obama is weak,” he said. During the
same 2009 US trip Nemtsov was invited to speak at the New York Council on Foreign Relations,
perhaps the most influential US foreign policy think-tank. Significantly, not only has the US State
Department and US-backed political NGOs such as NED poured millions into building an anti-Putin
coalition inside Russia. The President personally has intervened into the process.22
Ryzhkov, Nemtzov, Navalty and Putin’s former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin were all involved in
organizing the December 25th Moscow Christmas anti-Putin rally which drew an estimated
120,000.23

Why Putin?
The salient question is why Putin at this point? We need not look far for the answer. Washington
and especially Barack Obama’s Administration don’t give a hoot about whether Russia is democratic
or not. Their concern is the obstacle to Washington’s plans for Full Spectrum Dominance of the
planet that a Putin Presidency will represent. According to the Russian Constitution, the President
of the Russian Federation head of state, supreme commander-in-chief and holder of the highest
office in the Russian Federation. He will take direct control of defense and foreign policy.
We must ask what policy? Clearly strong countermeasures against the blatant NATO encirclement
of Russia with Washington’s dangerous ballistic missile installations around Russia will be high on
Putin’s agenda. Hillary Clinton’s “reset” will be in the dustbin if it is not already. We can also expect
a more aggressive use of Russia’s energy card with pipeline diplomacy to deepen economic ties
between European NATO members such as Germany, France and Italy, ultimately weakening the
EU support for aggressive NATO measures against Russia. We can expect a deepening of Russia’s
turn towards Eurasia, especially with China, Iran and perhaps India to firm up the shaky spine of
resistance to Washington’s New World Order plans.

It will take more than a few demonstrations in sub-freezing weather in Moscow and St. Petersburg
by a gaggle of corrupt or shady opposition figures such as Nemtsov or Kasparov to derail Russia.
What is clear is that Washington is pushing on all fronts—Iran and Syria, where Russia has a vital
naval port, on China, now on Russia, and on the Eurozone countries led by Germany. It has the
smell of an end-game attempt by a declining superpower.

The United States today is a de facto bankrupt nuclear superpower. The reserve currency role of
the dollar is being challenged as never since Bretton Woods in 1944. That role along with
maintaining the United States as the world’s unchallenged military power have been the basis of
the American Century hegemony since 1945.

Weakening the role of the dollar in international trade and ultimately as reserve currency, China is
now settling trade with Japan in bilateral currencies, side-stepping the dollar. Russia is
implementing similar steps with her major trade partners. The primary reason Washington
launched a full-scale currency war against the Euro in late 2009 was to preempt a growing threat
that China and others would turn away from the dollar to the Euro as reserve currency. That is no
small matter. In effect Washington finances its foreign wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and
elsewhere through the fact that China and other trade surplus nations invest their surplus trade
dollars in US government Treasury debt. Were that to shift significantly, US interest rates would
rise substantially and the financial pressures on Washington would become immense.
Faced with growing erosion of her unchallenged global status as sole superpower, Washington
appears now to be turning increasingly to raw military force to hold that. For that to succeed
Russia must be neutralized along with China and Iran. This will be the prime agenda of whoever is
next US President.


1 Alexei Druzhinin, Putin says US encouraging Russian opposition, RIA Novosti, Moscow, December 8, 2011
2 Ibid.
3 Jonathan Turley, The NDAA's historic assault on American liberty, guardian.co.uk, 2 January 2012, accessed in
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... an-liberty.
4 National Endowment for Democracy, Russia, from NED Annual Report 2010, Washington, DC, published in August
2011, accessed in http://www.ned.org/where-we-work/eurasia/russia.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 NED, Elections in Russia: Polling and Perspectives, September 14, 2011, accessed in http://ned.org/events/electionsin-
russia-polling-and-perspectives.
8 NED, Youth Activism in Russia: Can a New Generation Make a Difference?, December 15, 2011, accessed in
http://ned.org/events/youth-activism-in ... difference.
9 F. William Engdahl, Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order, 2010, edition.engdahl
press. The book describes in detail the origins of the NED and various US-sponsored “human rights” NGOs and how
they have been used to topple regimes not friendly to a larger USA geopolitical agenda.
10 National Endowment for Democracy, About Us, accessed in www.ned.org.
11 David Ignatius, Openness is the Secret to Democracy, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 30 September-6
October,1991, 24-25.
12 F. William Engdahl, Op. Cit., p.50.
13 Yulia Ponomareva, Navalny and Kudrin boost giant opposition rally, RIA Novosti, Moscow, December 25, 2011.
14 Yale University, Yale World Fellows: Alexey Navalny, 2010, accessed in
http://www.yale.edu/worldfellows/fellows/navalny.html.
15 Alexey Navalny, emails between Navalny and Conatser, accessed in Russian (English summary provided to the
author by www.warandpeace.ru) on http://alansalbiev.livejournal.com/28124.html.
16 Ibid.
17 Business Week Russia, Boris Nemtsov: Co-chairman of Solidarnost political movement, Business Week Russia,
September 23, 2007, accessed in http://www.rumafia.com/person.php?id=1648.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
20 Russian Mafia.ru, Vladimir Ryzhkov: Co-chairman of the Party of People's Freedom, accessed in
http://www.rumafia.com/person.php?id=1713.
21 Russian Mafia.ru, Garry Kasparov: The leader of United Civil Front, accessed in
http://www.rumafia.com/person.php?id=1518.
22 The OtherRussia, Obama Will Meet With Russian Opposition, July 3, 2009, accessed in
http://www.theotherrussia.org/2009/07/0 ... pposition/.
23 Yulia Ponomareva, op. Cit.
Code: Select all
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/print/Putin%20Finito.pdf


:
User avatar
Byrne
 
Posts: 955
Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2005 2:45 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Pussy Riot take revolt to the Kremlin

Postby JackRiddler » Tue Mar 06, 2012 3:04 pm

Byrne wrote:A bit more digging reveals that the players in the anti Putin demonstrations:
[list=]the International Press Center in Moscow
GOLOS
the Levada Center
Vladimir Kara-Murza
Tamirlan Kurbanov
Alexei Navalny
[/list]
are backed/funded...by the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED).....



The biggest anti-Putin players are the Communists, who are not backed/funded by NED, and whom Engdahl manages to omit. It's clear enough the US propaganda machinery is targeting him, as they recently targeted Assad and Gaddafi before him, and it's also clear why the US propaganda machine is targeting him, and them, and it has nothing to do with a desire to promote democracy. That doesn't make any of them into automatic good guys. Nor are those people automatic bad guys who might accept US money (a stupid move in any case) or who might associate with (or be associated with) others who might accept US money. What Engdahl, Tarpley and the rest of the LaRouche circle (orthodox and heretics included) never want to acknowledge is that Putin is every inch the former KGB thug he appears to be, and came to his present prominence in perhaps the most blatant false-flag terror operation conducted by an intelligence service on its own people for the purpose of installing a strongman in the entire 20th century's worth of such operations. That the 9/99 coup was also a move by domestic-minded tyrants to salvage the Russian state against dismantling by foreign-associated pirates merely shows up the paradox. Politics is often bad guys vs. bad guys. From this distance, we don't always have to choose. But I've no doubt Pussy Riot and the rest of the Russian youth revolt are about a thousand times more honest and real than Putin's apparatchiks, whether or not they are also misled or manipulated by NED money and American propaganda.

.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

TopSecret WallSt. Iraq & more
User avatar
JackRiddler
 
Posts: 15983
Joined: Wed Jan 02, 2008 2:59 pm
Location: New York City
Blog: View Blog (0)

Next

Return to General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 46 guests