I love thee This is an excellent bit of reporting by Masha Gessen For those of you who are interested in the background of the Pussy Riot collective this book will not disappoint The three young women who were convicted for their performance art in Moscow s Cathedral of Christ the Savior are remarkable Their art dared to criticize Putin and his government policies and they paid the ultimate price Their bravery and belief in their convictions shine throughout this account If you are not interested in the book as a whole at least read it for their court speeches The speeches they give in the Russian kangaroo court tell you exactly who they are smart.

And philosophical As an aside currently I am visiting Barcelona as a tourist and before that I was in Toulouse Lourdes I mention this because I have seen many cathedrals in the last weeks Today I visited Basilica de Santa Maria Del Pi and having just finished this book viewed the cathedrals with the Pussy Riot performance art in mind The acoustics in these cathedrals are incredible It is a bit mind blowing to think of them performing singing punk style screaming in such a quiet and contemplative space This is the point I get that and so I imagined it was akin to watching a riot grrrl concert in the cathedral I visited today History.

Priests and some underpaid churchyard security officer in one of the churches with richest religious and cultural history in Russia Pussy Riot members were initially part of an art group Voina which in English means War which was responsible for a number of blatant public misdemeanors Source _. Would YOU like to wake up and see the doors of your restaurant welded shut All in the sake of some presumably political action protest performed by some crazy neighbourhood kids Or maybe it is the dream of your life to be able to gaze at your leisure at a giant dick painted across a street where your children might walk Again done by the same crazies What about seeing a scene of public play of hanging a gay man and a couple of illegal immigrants of certain nationality performed by the same kids Huh Nice start to a working day Or maybe you would consider getting a faceful of live cats to be a nice break of drudgery of a working day Yes.

Live cats were being thrown over the counter at McDonalds to break up the drudgery of workers routine day by these very artists. How about taking a quiet walk with your family to a supermarket only to witness some crazy gal whore first shoplifting a chicken and then stuffing it into her vagina All done in public while her associates keep shouting f words about whorring and antiwhorring Nice end to a dull working day Huh Hm Maybe you would like to witness live sex in the Moscow Zoological Museum Fuck for the heir Puppy Bear action You sure it should be considered normal public conduct to fuck with your friends in your nearest museum with about 50 witnesses to it I would like to see you do it for whatever political or any other reason and get away with it.

Masha Gessen born 1967 is an American Russian journalist translator and nonfiction author They identify as non binary and use they them pronouns Born into an Ashkenazi Jewish family in Russia in 1981 they moved with their family to the United States to escape anti Semitism They returned in 1991 to Moscow where they worked as a journalist and covered Russian military activities during the Chechen Wars In 2013 they were publicly threatened by prominent Russian politicians for their political activism and were forced to leave Russia for the United States. They write in both Russian and English and has contributed to The New Republic New Statesman Granta and Slate Gessen is a staff writer at The New Yorker covering international Masha Gessen born 1967 is an American Russian journalist translator and nonfiction author They identify as non binary and use they them pronouns Born into an Ashkenazi Jewish family in Russia in 1981 they moved with their family to the United States to escape anti Semitism They returned in 1991 to Moscow where they worked as a journalist and covered Russian military activities during the Chechen Wars In 2013 they were publicly threatened by prominent Russian politicians for their political activism and were forced to leave Russia for the United States. They write in both Russian and English and has contributed to The New Republic New Statesman Granta and Slate Gessen is a staff writer at The New Yorker covering international politics Russia LGBT rights and gender issues site_link Hard to say enjoyed this book as its such a heartbreaking story yet its a wonderful book The reader frames it well It tells of the humanity of Pussy Riot members ordinary yet extraordinary women History Gay and Lesbian Biography I really don t get much performance art I m sorry Most of what I have seen strikes me as silly or just a desire to shock Yet I still think it is a legit form of protest or art I just don t like it. Let s be honest some of the art that Pussy Riot undertook is not my thing at all And like much performance and much street art you can argue about breaking the law all day long Regardless Pussy Riot was also a protest group and in many ways reaction to them was based on the protest Gessen no fan of Putin herself chronicles the group and in particular the lives of the three women who were charged It is rather even handed and regardless of how you feel about Riot s art in general the trial should have you shaking your head. At times the book gets a little slow but it is well worth the read History Gay and Lesbian Biography Maybe this book is aiming at the Kremlin walls maybe its cement It s a fact that Putin in X mas 2013 dressed up as Santa Claus he released from imprisonment Greenpeace people and the once richest Mikhail Khodorkovsky and two of the Pussy Riot members Commentators saw the move as strategic aiming at something very different from compassion much less justice One of the Pussy Riot members said she preferred to stay in prison showing clearly suspicion regarding the gift Farcicality at stake in my view Masha Gessen told recently to The Economist several important points on her book 1 That the 5 members group after gorilla performances in several places but especially in the cathedral of Christ the Savior got arrested in 2011 Their words the Punk Prayer asking the intervention of the Virgin Mary to put Putin down were fatal 2 In August 2012 the group went to trial and got a sentence of 3 years due to felony Basically the group disturbed the social order their words were motivated by hatred 3 Now in 2014 two members of the group released by the amnesty are engaged in a movement in the defense of the rights of prisoners 4 Masha suggested something like the last stage of the Putin regime Walls crumbling For the moment Khodorkovky is in factwas he moved to Switzerland in Germany maybe with his political career at a stalemate But who knows he and others may contribute to alter cement consistency For the moment he s been silenced so no words UPDATESPutin s Russia Don t Walk Don t Eat and Don t DrinkBY MASHA GESSEN 28th May 2015http www. com from the The New Politics of ConspiracyMasha Gessenin History Gay and Lesbian Biography Words Will Break Cement is the story of Pussy Riot a all female punk band in Russia who dares to protest against Vladmir Putin the Russian establishment and the Russian government in a church This gets some of the members sent to work camps and ignites passion for freedom of speech around the world This book is by Masha Gessen an author who whose previous work centers mostly on Russia I have really enjoyed some of her previous work and was excited to see how she took on the subject of Pussy Riot. For many of us it s hard to imagine getting punished for protesting It happens but it seems to be much less severe thann it is in places like Russia Gessen covers the events leading up to the protest and the women behind the protest. This book is utterly fascinating from the perspective that it s really interesting to see women protesting in Russia The episode with Pussy Riot opened up Russia to a lot of criticism both at home and abroad While this marks the first time that Pussy Riot had ever sparked international headlines the group and its members had been shaking things up for a long time in Russia through their music and their art It was interesting to hear the history behind each of the women that were involved in the protest and their reasons for protesting even if it meant being punished to the point where they wouldn t be able to see their friends or family for long periods of time. This book feels very much like long form journalism which I love It will be interesting to others who are interested in freedom of speech and international events History Gay and Lesbian Biography I ve been pretty much fascinated with Pussy Riot since I first heard about their actions As Russia is increasingly turning into an unabashed fascist state rather than hiding under the guise of democracy I am drawn and to those with the bravery to speak out against it I don t know if I would be that brave but I believe it my duty and everyone else s for that matter to give people such as Nadya Maria Kat and many others credence Reading this gave a very clear picture of what it is exactly that drove these brave young women to speak out the terror the lies hypocrisy fascism and patriarchal state of things in Russia It also illustrated how brilliant these women are They are well read autodidacts who can quote a slew of philosophers and poets not to mention apply their learnings to critically judge the goings on around them Their writings are of a caliber in and of themselves and Gessen quotes amply from their own writings whilst their story of injustice and horror plays out Great attention is given to what they endured in prison which could only be described as state sanctioned terrorism I applaud them for their strength and their ongoing efforts on global prison reform Gessen is a marvelous writer and journalist and this is a must read for anyone wanting to get a vivid humane idea of what it is to be an intelligent free thinking individual in Putin Era Russia History Gay and Lesbian Biography This book shows what happens when church and state are not separated There are two classic forms of church state combination The most familiar to us is theocracy when religious clergy control the state or have the state do their dirty work as in Calvin s Geneva where Calvin by his own admission instigated the trial and execution of Servetus for heresy and in seventeenth century Massachusetts Bay where four Quakers were hanged Baptists were whipped and Roger Williams and others were banished all because of their religious beliefs and nonviolent religious practices My book The First American Founder Roger Williams and Freedom of Conscience discusses these examples and issues of church state separation and liberty of conscience in depth. The second classic form of church state combination is what scholars call Erastianism the state controls the church and all religious doctrine and practice for political purposes The bible of Erastianism is Thomas Hobbes s Leviathan 1651 a work that Vladimir Putin must keep at his bedside As described in Gessen s book Putin installed one of his KGB buddies as the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church and the most important cathedral in Russia was turned into a propaganda vehicle for Putin s political regime including televised appeals to vote for Putin in the name of God It is this same church that Pussy Riot turned into its own media platform in an effort to protest the Putin regime s emerging theologico political dictatorship Pussy Riot s activity might have been a technical criminal trespass under American law but it was certainly less of a violation of others rights than the original Boston Tea Party from which a popular right wing movement in the United States currently takes its name The Pussy Riot contingent waited until a time when no services were being held in the cathedral in order to perform their protest song and dance routine Of course the Putin regime brought the full power of the one party Russian state on them and the state controlled church and media mischaracterized the Pussy Riot action as an antireligious criminal act Three Pussy Riot performers were tried in a good imitation of Soviet style judicial proceedings convicted and sentenced to two years imprisonment The sentence of one of them was later suspended because she had been grabbed by security before she could participate in the performance The other two were consigned to prison colonies where they were forced to live and work under intolerable conditions until December of 2013 when Putin freed them shortly before the expiration of their sentences in order to avoid adverse media publicity at the imminent Winter Olympics in Sochi. Gessen s portrayal of the current Russian criminal justice system provides the reader with a chilling reminder that due process of law and other constitutional protections we take for granted in the West have not prevailed everywhere Like its predecessor Soviet constitutions the current Constitution of the Russian Federation pays lip service to these concepts but the practice of the Russian government is far different Although individual examples of lack of due process exist even in the United States Gessen s book shows that due process is systemically denied in Russia at least when the power of the Putin regime is threatened in any way Moreover the Pussy Riot performers well understood the nature of their protest At their trial it was the defendants themselves who made their own closing arguments and Gessen faithfully reproduces these arguments from written transcripts made by independent observers The logic and eloquence of the Pussy Riot performers closing statements are themselves sufficient to warrant the price of this book and sufficient justification to read it Originally posted 6 21 2014 revised 8 23 2015 History Gay and Lesbian Biography When I began this book I was a little put off by the lack of distance between the journalist and her subjects It is unusual but not unheard of for a reporter to so obviously take sides in a debate By the end of the book however this lack of distance no longer troubled me Gessen had no access to Nadya or Maria two of Pussy Riot s leading members who had been jailed in early 2012 Gessen was reduced to compiling information about their thinking and living conditions through their lawyers family friends and televised court appearances Considering the extraordinary nature of Pussy Riot s protest against the Putin regime in Russia and their ability to articulate their protests it is far better we understand in detail as much as we can of these brave and unusual women who are seemingly willing to die for freedom to speak vote protest. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Ekaterina Samutsevich Maria Alyokhina are three women of Pussy Riot jailed for their role performing punk music in the Church of Christ the Savior in Moscow in February 2012 There were others there that night but these three formed the core of the group before they were separated in jail They are speaking out against the abuses in the Putin regime political judicial and legislative fraud corruption manipulation of public opinion use of force to regulate social processes Their actions which in the early days were punk songs staged in public spaces were accompanied by pointed lyrics often spiked with swear words criticizing the powerful They were however as a group extremely articulate and well spoken as evidenced by statements made at their trials some of which are recounted in detail in this book. Several clips of their actions are shown at least in part on YouTube as are interviews with journalists around the world It is hard to imagine that these young protesters were very nearly killed in jail mostly because the conditions were such that they decided hunger strike was the only way to stop the pressure being put on them from prison officials Though given two year sentences in August 2012 Nadya and Maria were released eight months early in December 2013 before the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in January 2014 They decided to work for prisoners rights upon their release A September 2014 Guardian article excerpts the open letter Nadya published from jail that is printed in full in Gessen s book describing the conditions in the women s jail at Mordovia a gulag prison some eleven hours by car southeast of Moscow In 2015 Pussy Riot were Grand Marshalls of the Toronto Gay Pride Parade Nadya s English is better she can now curse Putin in English as well as Russian Her words have had some effect on the citizenry in Russia though it is said Putin still enjoys the support of the voting public Extraordinary voices extraordinary bravery History Gay and Lesbian Biography Update b c whoever did this educated articulate Gay and Lesbian Biography Worth reading just for the speeches Maria and Nadzha give in court History Gay and Lesbian Biography Basically they got what was coming to them In order to understand WHY they got their terms of 2 years in jail per person they got out way earlier one has to realize that these gals were repeat offenders And they did a lot of alien grade shit apart from scaring a bunch of grannies in your country however liberal it might be. How about attacking police cars overturning them or setting them on fire with Molotov cocktails Sounds like reasonable public conduct Would it be considered an allowed form of protest art in your country Bringing 3000 Madagaskaran live giant cockroaches to a court with intention to set them free there I m sure people loved the experience NOT A 2 minute Dick in the Ass themed punk concert was presented in a yet another courtroom where they went into detail as to just why All Cops are B stards Remember This You sure no prosecution would follow such actions in YOUR country Still there was NO prosecution for all these misdemeanors to these people initially Then they just had to go to a church and have histrionics there And finally they were nailed Is it really such a big surprise that such behaviour would and should someday be punished There is some breaking point in any society tolerance. PS And trust me it was pure and unadulterated attention seeking not political protest of any intelligible kind They are freaking space cadets not political opposition And their performances are an ongoing escalating depravity fair If I decide to I don t know steal something or use Molotov cocktails against police or create public disorder in say NY won t I be arrested even if I scream about half the world s leaders Basically had they been allowed off the hook due to their screams about political leaders and whatnot any miscreant could afterwards use this precedent and cover their misdemeanors with screams about politics or whateverPS And 2018 we had a wonderful opportunity to enjoy these same birds interrupting the World Football Cup final History Gay and Lesbian Biography

Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot By Masha Gessen

1594632197

9781594632198

English

308

Paperback

The heroic story of Pussy Riot who resurrected the power of truth in a society built on lies On February 21 2012 five young women entered the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow In neon colored dresses tights and balaclavas they performed a punk prayer beseeching the Mother of God to get rid of Putin They were quickly shut down by security and in the weeks and months that followed three of the women were arrested and tried and two were sentenced to a remote prison colony But the incident captured international headlines and footage of it went viral People across the globe recognized not only a fierce act of political confrontation but also an inspired work of art that in a time and place saturated with lies found a new way to speak the truth Masha Gessen s riveting account tells how such a phenomenon came about Drawing on her exclusive extensive access to the members of Pussy Riot and their families and associates she reconstructs the fascinating personal journeys that transformed a group of young women into artists with a shared vision gave them the courage and imagination to express it unforgettably and endowed them with the strength to endure the devastating loneliness and isolation that have been the price of their triumph Words Will Break Cement The Passion of Pussy Riot.

, com news news deRUSSIAN PURGEPutin Doesn t Need to Censor Books Publishers Do It for Him: in Former tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky may seek asylum in Britainin Update now he s publishing lots of wordsFROM THE IRON CURTAIN TO A BROKEN WINDOWPosted on March 11 2016http www, There is no topic to have writen this book about Major minus to this author.newyorker.khodorkovsky