[lbo-talk] Mark Ames on Pussy Riot

shag carpet bomb shag at cleandraws.com
Sat Aug 25 05:08:57 PDT 2012


At 09:39 PM 8/21/2012, // ravi wrote:
>On Aug 21, 2012, at 9:04 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> > Terrific piece by Mark Ames on Pussy Riot:
> > http://nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/pussy-riot
>
>
>Why did you like it so much? I like what little I have read by Mark Ames,
>but this one left me cold due to the exceptionalist claim that is central
>to the piece. Despite what he writes, I find the sort of reactionary anger
>against Pussy Riot that he describes (assuming it is true) unsurprising
>and quite prevalent in other parts. A lot of otherwise liberal-minded
>Indians harbour all sorts of paranoias and anger against Muslims or
>Pakistan (or some diabolical combination of the two) and react in
>startlingly violent and disproportionate ways.

or the Chinese.... I found myself slack jawed one day as my boss and a colleague both started mocking Chinese speech patterns. There's no anger as Ames described, though.


> Similarly, a good number of middle of the road Americans turn strangely
> animated about the flag (i.e., "disprespecting" the flag), etc., the hint
> of sympathy for national bogeymen (the Islamic hordes without), so on.
> Heck, the Nader hating from liberals post 2000 is a good example. No?
>
> —ravi

but a medieval reaction of extreme punishment? Not that I totally disagree with your assessment - Ames is over the top about this topic and I think it's because he enjoys making exceptionalist claims so he gets to be the unique and special interpreter, far superior to the soi-disant interpreters in mainstream media, natch.

Still, what you are saying is, ultimately, Ames' reasoning is essentially correct, and its confirmed in examples from other countries. From your POV, it sounds like you would say it's a common trait to behave the way folks are behaving toward Pussy Riot in Russia.

-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)



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