Dear Russia, Why Do You Continue To Enslave Yourself?

Freed feminist punk group Pussy Riot member Yekaterina Samutsevich,
leaves a court in Moscow, Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2012.
[Other two were sent to work camps after their final appeals failed]

I just got through watching a documentary on the Russian Revolution of 1917. The more things change the more things stay the same. Russia has always had a tragic fascination with the idea of Romantic Repression (a self-coined term). The allegiance to a strong authoritarian state lays deep within her roots going back hundreds of years. Live for the state, comrade, and we'll call you a good person!

People will do anything to get out of straightening out their personal life (*cough*).

But instead of bringing the promised paradise, authoritarianism covered Russia in a horrific, disheartening blanket of darkness, giving her by far the highest suicide rate in the world. And like their Western counterparts, rather than admit a mistake they take a perverse pride in their stupidity. Better to be right than rescued, eh? But what if there's more to life than we admit?

One could make the argument the Russian Revolution is a story of betrayal. Certainly there were elements of a genuine movement towards democracy after the Tsar's resignation. But Lenin and company had no intention of allowing the flower of democracy to bloom. He only allowed as much democracy as needed to keep his "useful idiots" in line until he could gain enough political power to finally crush any hopes of a free and open society.

Dickhead Dzerzhinsky loved riding around in his requisitioned
Rolls Royce. That wacky revolutionary!

"A dictatorship of the proletariat". The Bolsheviks ruled with an iron hammer in the name of that laughably paradoxical statement. Only in a democracy can the proletariat ever rule (even if they choose to abandon their rights). But in all of Russia it was Lenin who most committed to his "ideals". (It's people like moron Lenin who give idealism a bad name.) But as the greatest traitor in Russian history and architect of his country's demise, he was the last man left standing. Why?

Just as greed trumps the democracies of the West, so does the famous Russian negativity defeat her efforts for reform. Failure is the only option. No one was fighting for freedom during the Russian Revolution. They were all fighting to become the next Tsar (for the workers, of course!). And this she clings to to this day. The idea of enforced righteousness is still so intoxicating (one Vodka shot at a time), that an almighty and all-knowing state can run your life for you is a hopelessness that keeps them in chains while hiding the key in Romantic Repression.

An opinion poll conducted on Sept. 21-24 by the independent Levada centre found 35 percent of Russians believe the two-year sentences [for Pussy Riot members] were appropriate, while 34 percent said they were too lenient and only 14 percent said they were excessive.

In Russia as here, only about 15% of the population is liberal. And while the liberal voice is the only voice with power of truth behind it we are still allowed to rise up the liars among us (Hi, Mr. President! (whoever you are)).

It's all about believing you're something you're not!

As professional liars, politicians know you far, far better than you know yourself. There's never any shortage of useful idiots who put their betrayers in power - and that's true of both the left and the right. "You lied! I thought you were going to do the right thing!" Jesus, if I had a nickel for every time I've heard that since the turn of the century I'd be yachting on the Riviera and leave you to yourselves. Ultimately, nothing is done without the will of the people behind it.

Listen, pal, all I got to say is if you ain't on your own side, nobody will be. Ain't no Jesus or President or dictator gonna come from the sky to save us. We don't need those fuckers to be saved anyway. Ain't that some good news??