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Comment by emilis_info | Hacker News Reader

It is a classical Russian propaganda defense: answer an accusation on human rights violations with "and you are lynching Negroes" or similar.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

Kremlin is paying bloggers and commenters in Russia to post positive things about authorities:

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/06/10/russia-networks-of-... , http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/07/hacked-emails-na...

Russian authorities may also be paying or employing some users of HN.

That's how I get it. I was expecting to find the "lynching Negroes" comment upvoted high by just seeing the title. It does not mean that the user who posted it is employed by Kremlin, but you know, the message will be upvoted...

View on HN

In case of Pussy Riot there are no human rights violations, actually. They are jailed not for singing an anti-Pitin song, but for a 'hate speech' crime. They were screaming profanities in a church which scared, offended and upset some believers.

Would you believe that Pussy Riot would be allowed to sing an anti-Putin song in the Red Square and get away with it?

In fact, that's what they did on 20th January 2012. On the Red Square in broad daylight they played a nicely rousing song about 'KGB bitches' and 'Putin who is pissing his pants', and they have a very nice photos and videos to show: http://pussy-riot.livejournal.com.nyud.net/8459.html and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqcmldeC7Ec

After that Red Square performance they were briefly detained by the police and then released. No trial, no conviction, no world outrage... nothing.

So, next time their organisers have chosen another venue to make sure they would get arrested and there would be headlines "Jailed for singing an anti-Putin song"...

Ah busted! I'll have to go report to Putin that my cover has been compromised.

Not that I have to validate my objectivity to you, but I am typing this from a comfortable home in Toronto, Ontario and my paycheques are signed by a B2B publisher for my services rendered as a marketing specialist. It must be too shocking for you to accept that someone might actually have an opinion that doesn't perfectly align with the western media narrative.

Complaining that most people find interesting something that you see as banal, and demanding they protest what you deem significant is not having a contrarian opinion. It's just being innapropiate to this conversation. Posting about the Marinaka Mine Massacre on HN would be more constructive.

Now, blaming all of this on the "western media narrative", a mindset relic of the hawkest hawks of the Cold War, who exaggerate a simple incident of "vandalism" in order to discredit the democratic government of Putin... Yeah, that's a contrarian opinion. Which just happens to be false. Western media simply does not give that much of a fuck now about Rusia. Past protests in Russia about the legitimacy of the elections? Here covered, at most, in passing. The law banning reunions? Don't care. The Pussy Riot incident? It's only on HN's front page because Kasparov was arrested.

I am not demanding that anyone find my observations important or central to the discussion of the pussy riot events. If you want to express condemnation of the sentence or the Russian government in general there are plenty of places for you to do so (including in this HN thread). It just so happens that my post reached enough upvotes that it made it to the top of this thread (democracy and free speech at work, ironically) so it must be something that HN is interested in as well.

You replying to me by telling me that my opinion is inappropriate to the conversation (which I started by the way... there are other conversations below you can express your approval of) is an attempt to censor me. Calling my thought process a relic of the cold war is either an intentional distraction or just naivete on your part.

If you disagree with my opinion about the double standards with which western media handles events from countries whose regimes it approves of and those that it doesn't that's completely fine. But I'd like you to consider a hypothetical incident which I've mentioned below: a few guys walk into a Manhattan synagogue, put Balaklavas over their heads and scream out profanities against Israel and capitalism. Would you really be as outraged if they were carted off to jail and put on some terrorist watch-list.

>It is a classical Russian propaganda defense: answer an accusation on human rights violations with "and you are lynching Negroes" or similar.

Really? Because it's also called "pot calling the kettle black".

Being a "classic defence" doesn't make it wrong.

Even if both sides are equally bad, the accuser is hypocritical on top of that.

>Kremlin is paying bloggers and commenters in Russia to post positive things about authorities:

Do they now?

"There is quite an incredible spread of relationships. You don’t need to manipulate Time magazine, for example, because there are [Central Intelligence] Agency people at the management level." -- William B. Bader, former CIA intelligence officer, briefing members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, The CIA and the Media, by Carl Bernstein

"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." -- William Colby, former CIA Director, quoted by Dave Mcgowan, Derailing Democracy

(it goes far back: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird )

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