Russia Just Doesn't Give A Fuck

Soviet Army Memorial in Prague defaced for the Anniversary of Prague Spring

I haven't written much about the Sochi Winter Olympics and the outright brutal pogrom of persecution of Gay Humans by Russia. Russia has in some ways done more to destroy the true meaning of the Olympic Games than Adolph Hitler did. He at least allowed Gay and Jewish athletes to attend and compete in Berlin and said they would not be prosecuted under the repressive laws of Nazi Germany. 

True, he snubbed Jesse Owens when he won, but at least Owens was allowed to compete in the Games while being visibly of African origin. In Vladimir Putin's Russia, a visibly gay athlete or spectator runs the risk of being prosecuted. Just last week, Swedish high jumper, Emma Green was forced to remove rainbow colored nail polish or face prosecution or being banned from participating at the very least.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has banned all meetings, protests and demonstrations during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, according to ABC News.

ABC’s Kirit Radia tweeted this morning from Moscow that a new decree issued by Putin, and published in Moscow yesterday, seems to restrict all free speech rights in Sochi, Russia during the Winter Olympic games next February.

Such a decree would seem to directly contradict Thursday’s assurances from the International Olympic Committee that the Sochi Games are safe for athletes, guests and media.

According to the decree, which purports to be about security surrounding “anti-terrorism protection,” all “meetings, rallies, demonstrations, marches and pickets” are banned in Sochi, from a period starting one month before the Olympics, and extending into March of 2014.

This fits a larger pattern of Russian threats against Olympics in the past few weeks, when both the Russian Sports Minister, Vitaly Mutko, and the Russian Interior Ministry, responsible for overseeing domestic order (i.e., clamping down on dissidents and any public criticism of the Kremlin), threatened to jail gay and gay-friendly Olympians, guests and media during the Sochi games.

This isn’t the first time that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) got egg on its face by claiming, falsely, that the Russians would not restrict human rights during the Sochi Games. But it is perhaps the most embarrassing for the IOC, as only 24 hours ago, Olympic President Count Rogge, claimed the situation was settled.

Hardly.

Russia’s new threats, which appear to tie gay human rights – and any freedom of speech during the Winter Olympics – to “terrorism” (is it just a coincidence that a “terror” document banning free speech at Sochi comes out now?) is sure to further depress turnout at what was already considered one of the most unsafe Olympic games in recent memory. It would appear that if you are planning to visit Russia as a tourist and are in the eyes of the skin head nationalist thugs who rule the streets, "ethnically challenged" you had better plan on sticking in certain designated security zones in the center of Moscow. Don't even think of visiting St. Petersburg. 

And there’s an even greater headache now for the International Olympic Committee.

Any violation of Russia’s draconian anti-gay “propaganda” law during the Sochi Olympics is now a violation of a Russian anti-terrorism decree.

That would seem to raise the crime of being openly gay to an entirely new and dangerous level: An act of terrorism.

And what exactly is the price one pays for violating anti-terror decrees in Russia? Our Olympians may soon find out. A lot Russian people are already beginning to question the wisdom of the pandering racist homophobic religious nationalism that Putin is using to shore up his eroding popularity, but most Russians just don't care. They don't have very much contact with the rest of the world and are easily led as many Americans by economic and racist fear. But if you are living in Buttstockistan on the edge of Siberia in the middle of the biggest country on the planet, why would you even give a fuck? Work and drink, right! just like in Texas! 

  

The Putin government has morphed into one of the most repressive regimes on the planet. Protest is brutally supressed. Reporters are assassinated and political artists who speak up disappear into prisons with show trials. Remember Pussy Riot! The Movement that spawned Pussy Riot was called Voina. Voina means War in Russian! They created brave challenging and shocking art protests, like the giant erecting penis on the roadbed of the drawbridge in front of the Russian Security Headquarters in St. Petersburg in 2010. Most of the artists in Voina are in prison now as the members of Pussy Riot, but the movement lives on. Repression creates dissent. Russia has always had a huge gay subculture, but this is being used by the Putin Regime to create a sanctioned brutal movement of religiously manipulated persecution and unleashed hate for political profit.Below is a piece of performance art by Voina back in 2009. A remote controlled flying dildo drone invades a press conference...In this case the perpetrators were never caught. They got away with it...that time.....