Russia: (Self) Promotion Masquerading As Protest

Right now, Russia’s gay community need all of our support, so I find it confusing when I get a weird feeling in my stomach looking at media brands plastering supportive rainbows over their logos. No one with any basic level of humanity would deny the validity of a support campaign for gay people in Russia. But this type of bland showmanship seems several steps behind even clicktivism in terms of practical action. It’s a very real humanitarian problem, boiled down to a symbol.

When Channel 4 started it, it seemed valid and inventive but now the internet is starting to look like the BBC in November, only instead of poppies, we’re drowning in rainbows. It began with media brands and it was followed by individuals who wish to be media brands themselves. I'm sure that, if you use the internet, you've come across companies or social media users who have joined in. But much like the flowers on Aschrott's Grave, I worry that these rainbow logos have become little more than self-serving monuments.

Ugh, picking a fight with this trend doesn't make me seem like a good person, does it? This whole thing reminds me of Kony 2012. When that film dropped, long before the guy who made it began jerking off in the street, it seemed like a well-intentioned piece of work from people disgusted at the plight of child soldiers in Uganda. And what could be unreasonable about that? Nothing, except the video was such a saccharine piece of propaganda that I was certain something had to be wrong with it. At least on some level, my suspicions were correct. There were questions about the campaign's financial transparency, the company's motive and what would really happen if Uganda were flooded with weapons. I feel the same way today. This is another good cause, but on some fundamental level it feels suspect to me because it is a gutless, tokenistic form of protest...

The Hypocrisy Of The Internet's Sochi Rainbow Protests - Alex Miller, Vice.

PS The Hypocrisy of Vice? The £1billion "edgy" media empire, the Murdochs and corporate "sponsored content".

Sochi: So It's Come To This?

Some American idiots protesting against Russia at the Super Bowl! USA! USA! USA!

Everything that's wrong with gay politics right now summed up in one handy photo!
But this is not politics.
It's an outburst of feel-good collective hysteria - Dianabollocks!
'Let me show you how much I really care! Squish squish boo-hoo *sadface*'
Did you not realise these corporations weren't nice moral agents before?
Will everything be okay forever if big business now says they'll play nice about Sochi?
Ooh, les bourgeois!

PS First they came for the adorable stray dogs...
Stray dogs do tend to get put down, yes, it's not some RUSSIAN NAZIS DOG HOLOCAUST!!!

And finally... someone has started one of those stupid online petitions asking Coca-Cola to put a rainbow on their cans!
I'll type that again in case you read it and thought you were drunk or tripping - someone has started one of those stupid online petitions asking Coca-Cola to put a rainbow on their cans!
Surely a new high/low for gay apolitical passive-activist banality?

A Little History Of Gay Politics: From rioting outside Stonewall to this?

The Guardian: Another Good Week For Gay Hysteria

WARNING: I WOULDN'T BOTHER READING THIS, IF I WERE YOU. IT'S FAGBURN BEING BORING ABOUT A RATHER BORING ARTICLE! BUT THAT'S KINDA THE POINT... *

Today the Guardian returns to the Russia/Pasta anti-gay Axis of Evil.
Thank you for fearlessly bringing these two subjects to our attention while so many others have been so silent.
In an online article Nancy Goldstein declares; It's Another Bad Week To Be Gay.
Why's that then, Nancy?
"There's been an unusually high volume of international bigotry and bad news to put up with this week."
Unusually high?
Cripes!
What's happened?
You probably haven't heard anything about this, but apparently the boss of some big Italian pasta company said he wants their TV ads to only feature straight families.
Fascist!
It gets worse.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said they are "convinced that Russia will respect the Olympic charter, which prohibits discrimination of any kind".
Quislings!
And these demonstrate "an unusually high volume of international bigotry"??? [1]
Where on earth have you been?
Fagburn's surprised Nancy Goldstein didn't go for the hysterics' hat-trick and bring in the "offensive" (!) Inflatable Gay Best Friend, but I guess her story was filed too early to cover that great "outrage."
Frankly, I can think of many far worse weeks for us, but do go on...

Nancy: When not grinning she weeps for the world

She begins with that evil spaghetti monster, Guido Barilla, who said something about The Gays that both she and I disagree with.
How fucking dare he not agree with us?!
There has now been - inevitably - a call for a boycott of Barilla pasta, by people so infected with bourgeois consumerism they confuse (not) shopping with political action.
Welcome to the brave new world of gay "passive-activism"; if it makes you feel good, don't do it.
For the more dedicated LGBT inactivist there's an equally inevitable AllOut petition to get Barilla make an advert featuring a gay family." [2]
As ever, the promise of freedom is just a click away.
Should we now not buy anything that doesn't have a token fag in a TV ad?
How much do you feel your life has been diminished - and the forward march of gay liberation halted - by not seeing a gay dude in a stupid TV commercial today?
On a scale of one to fuck-all?
Do our collective queer dreams now aspire to nothing greater than being sold stuff by someone who looks a bit like us?
What a fortunate, wonderful life you must have had if you think this is what oppression looks like.
It's often stressed that Mr Barilla also said he doesn't agree with gay adoption - I wish he did, I wish everyone did, but they don't. [3]
Some people are bigots, get over it!
Again, should we boycott anything and everything made by a company where the CEO has daft outdated reactionary views we don't like?
I can't imagine finding much political common ground with many multi-millionaire company directors.
And how deluded and naive would someone have to be to get angry when they realise corporations aren't moral agents?
Or that their Capo di tutti capi isn't a saint?

Bit of a scoop here - Russia now hangs gay men

As there has been such an absolute avalanche of anti-gay hate this week, Goldstein swiftly moves onto the IOC statement.
Apparently; "Surpassing even Barilla's unique blend of homophobia and cynicism".
Which, seeing as the former was a relatively mild bad thing to say about The Gays, wouldn't be difficult.
She quotes the Olympic Charter, "Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic movement".
Adding; "It also compels the IOC to "fight against" and "take action against" what the charter calls "discrimination of any kind" [4].
The IOC seem only to care about discrimination at the actual Olympic games or in sport [5], but could Goldstein give me one example of a host country - future or past - of the Olympic Games or Winter Olympics without "discrimination of any kind" or with a perfect record on human rights?
London 2012 - we didn't have equal marriage, for one boring thing.
Beijing 2008... err, need I go on?
Goldstein also seems blissfully unaware that the Olympic Charter also states;“No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”( Section 50:3).
The new Russian law outlawing "gay propaganda" is thus rendered irrelevant by this.
Technically, you can't protest about anything anyway - even if it's something as banal as painting your toenails in the colours of the rainbow.
Remember Mexico 68?
She blames Sochi's commercial sponsors; Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Visa, Procter & Gamble...
Presumably if we ask them, or don't buy their junk, these nice big businesses will save us.
We're here, we're queer, and we're not going shopping for your useless crap unless you sponsor Alburquerque Pride! [6]

Why is The Guardian publishing this shit?

Goldstein knows there are other ways to protest, of course.
Strangely, her sole example is a protest at the Metropolitan Opera in New York this week.
The Met's great crime?

The bastards didn't dedicate a performance of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin to Russian LGBTs.
Don't they care???
Inside, an American man shouted at two Russian performers; "Your silence is killing Russian gays!"
What, literally?
This was cruelly ironic, as many US/UK campaigners never listen to what Russian LGBT campaigners say anyway.
eg All those Americans screaming for boycotts, when almost all Russian campaigners say they're pointless and counterproductive.
They are all but invisible, inaudible to the likes of Queer Nation NY and Goldstein. [7]
Because we in the west know what's best for the likes of them.
Orientalism redux!

Oh look! Some actual LGBT Russians campaigning!

There were two protests in Russia last week - far more important, meaningful, brave and inspiring than shouting in front of some wealthy Americans.

How much coverage did you see in the news?
There was some about a protest by Nikolai Alexseyev - partly because he always press releases the international media - photos of self attached (remind you of anyone?).

The protest in Moscow against homophobia in schools was completely ignored.
But then their aims were communicating with their fellow Russians, making connections with other struggles, and challenging the authorities - not the real heavy-lifting of getting their name and picture in the New York Times.
Goldstein does conclude by mourning the death of the Russian gay campaigner, Aleksei Davydov. [8]
I'm ashamed to say the name hadn't registered with me, probably because he was an unperson in the western media when he was alive.
Yet he is now brought back to life after death by those who have all of a sudden realised Russia does bad things to the gays.
The readers' comments after this article are - as ever - as depressing as fudge.
Backwards bastards! Boycott! Ban! Boo hoo! Squish squish! *sad face* etc.
But if someone has read and believed all the stories about Russia recently, you can't really blame them for unthinking they're building Belsen on the Volga.
Some people dared to ask why either of these two minor stories are thought so very important and so terrible in the general scheme of global gay misery that they warrant such space.
The endless, voluminous, shoddy coverage about gay life in Russia is sinister, and suggestive of another agenda.
The manufactured feigned outrage over Guido Barilla's unremarkable remarks and the silly, unfunny joke that is the Inflatable Gay Best Friend is ludicrous and embarrassing.
Both can only be seen by any rational person as little, localised outbreaks of mass hysteria.
Beware the pink pearl-clutchers and pitchfork-wavers.
Both are frightening phenomena the media should be exposing, not colluding in.
¡Ya basta!

THANKS IF YOU MADE IT TO THE END OF THIS. I DID WARN YOU IT WAS GOING TO BE BORING. BUT THE POINT IS THAT THE ARTICLE REFERRED TO IS POINTLESS. BUT THEY'LL PUBLISH ANYTHING IF IT CONFORMS TO AND FURTHER FEEDS THE CURRENT CLIMATE OF GAY HYSTERIA. FAGBURN HAS FOUND THIS WEEK SO "BAD" HE WILL NOW MAKE A GAY BEST FRIEND DOLL OUT OF BARILLA PASTA AND DEFECT TO RUSSIA. до свидания! ARRIVEDERCI! GOODBYE!

* I politely pointed some of these errors and inconsistencies on The Guardian messageboard - bizarrely a moderator removed them.
Whilst I'd like to say I had really kicked it to The Man, I fear this is what happens when bored interns moderate your forums.
See also 'G*y' on Tesco Direct...

Gay Star News: Tilda SWINDON! Who he?

1. Of course, sexing up a story is standard practice in the mass media. Try pitching an article saying things haven't changed much recently, and nothing really bad has actually happened. Best to make people believe the shock-horror hype.
2. I've been told you're more likely to see the ghost of Mussolini's mistress selling stuff in an Italian ad, than a gay man anyway.
3. She quotes without question professional hysteric, Michael Aravosis of the ever-so patriotic AMERICAblog, source of a translation of the interview, and also, curiously, of endless stories about LGBT Russia. Mike's faith in capital is so fanatical he thinks boycotts are the answer to all #teamgay's problems.
4. I can't find this in the - admittedly very long - charter. Nancy, can you let me know where it is? Ta.
5. South Africa was banned from the Olympics in 1964, not because of the apartheid system, but specifically because they refused to "renounce racial discrimination in sport and opposed the ban in its own country on competition between white and black athletes."
6. See this recent Slate feature by J Bryan Lowder on the gay movement's obsession with consumer boycotts - and corporate endorsements, Barilla Chairman Doesn't Like Gay People: So What?
7. Queer Nation NY is a new group who, tellingly, are making lots of noise/publicity about homophobia in Russia, but not about homophobia in New York.
8. Scott Long has written an obituary of Aleksei Davydov, who he knew, and worked with.
Tris Reid Smith has written movingly for Gay Star News about Davydov - "inspirational" "hero" etc.
Makes you wonder why he never mentioned him when he was alive? 
See also their header about this and Tilda Swindon above.

Russia: Another Country

Today gay America is mightily pissed over this video.
RUSSIA BOO HISS!!! etc etc.
Can you believe it!?
Nobody knows who made it - or if it was actually made by Russians, anyone could have thrown this old cobblers together on a laptop in half-an-hour. 
Although only an idiot would see one crappy little homemade video as being representative of an entire nation, it is offered up as further evidence that Russia today is exactly like Nazi Germany/Apartheid South Africa (delete as hysterical) - comparisons that are as morally obscene as they are ludicrous - and uniquely evil in how it treats gay people.
But its "arguments" - that homosexuals are carriers of disease, die early, want to rape your kids (that's why they want to adopt them), and are taking over the nation etc etc - are exactly the same sort of nonsense that American rightwing and/or Christians regularly come up with (eg the charming booklet below).
Indeed, many of its "facts" are lifted straight from this American Christian tract.
And it acknowledges a laughable "study" by anti-gay Catholic loonbag, Mark Regnerus, who claimed one in three kids adopted by gay men were sexually abused - again an American.
Perhaps then the video tells us as much about the sickness in the American body politic?
Just as how the new "gay propaganda" law so closely echoing Britain's Section 28 says much about our own moral low ground.
Can't happen here...

The video was "newly discovered" - and posted on YouTube (purely coincidentally!) - by the rightwing self-styled "liberal" gay blogger, John Aravosis, who runs AMERICAblog. - their touching patriotic slogan: 'A Great Nation Deserves Equality'.
Aravosis - "I got involved in gay politics 20 years ago in order to win the right to serve in the military, have a job, and get married..." - is the source for many of the scare stories about Russia's anti-gay "pogrom", along with Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, and Voice Of America - all are rightwing propaganda media funded by the American state.
They are usually obediently repeated, unquestioned, unchecked - for in the current climate anyone can get away with writing any old bollocks about Russia.
The credulity of so many people to these media reports is thoroughly depressing, but sadly - as a cursory look through this blog shows - this is endemic to our culture.
I wouldn't be surprised to read in the gay media soon that; 'PUTIN EATS GAY BABIES!', with the usual caveats; "allegedley", "reportedly" etc.
Aravosis is so angry about what's happening right now he's started a subsite, Gay Russia.- a veritable mine of disinformation.
(The only other hot topic he thinks deserves its own subsite is "Putin's puppet" Syria).
Note how the two other loudest voices shouting about the plight of LGBT Russians are the far-right Zionist porn mogul, Michael Lucas, and the equally politically dodgy HomoCon/NeoCon, Jamie Kirchick, who famously hijacked a live TV debate about Chelsea Manning to rant about Russia while wearing rainbow "suspenders".
(Dan Savage who instigated the Boycott Sochi campaign - against a vodka that's not actually Russian - is seen as a "progressive" - but his last major foray into international politics was the "lefty" and liberal-bashing, 'Say YES To War On Iraq').
Seems the gay right are still living out their Cold War wet dreams.

Anti-gay propaganda from America the beautiful

The latter act - or rather self-publicity stunt - by James Kirchick is surely the neo-imperial mindset defined - where someone literally ignores the great crimes being committed by their own country, and fumes about those of its power rivals.
As is the tendency by westerners to think they know best about what to do, while ignoring what LGBT Russians are saying.
(Note also how often neo-colonialist Orientalist rhetoric appears that Russians are "backward", "uncivilised" etc - ah, the thankless western gay white man's burden). 
Witness what happens whenever someone on a messageboard points out LGBT Russian groups have asked people NOT to boycott.
Simply stating this obvious and important fact can get you compared to a holocaust denier.
An oft repeated post is some variation on "This is exactly how Hitler started!" - as preposterous and offensive as saying any discriminatory legislation is the first step on the road to Auschwitz, and as silly as saying drinking Earl Grey tea will inevitably lead to heroin addiction.
[Edit: It's just as common to be accused of supporting Putin or being a homophobe, if you challenge or correct an untruth here].
The debate has become so debased - and so many commentators are so indoctrinated, so oblivious to facts - it often seems pointless to enter into any discussion.

Yesterday, John McCain, the Republican party presidential candidate, slammed the Russian bogeyman in a widely-circulated op-ed.
He - but of course - highlighted how; "They write laws to codify bigotry against people whose sexual orientation they condemn."
This is somewhat odd, to say the least, as a senator McCain has always opposed any gay equality initiatives.
Ever get the feeling you're being used?
Perhaps it was a joke, and he was being ironic?
For he also wrote; "[Putin] is not enhancing Russia's global reputation. He is destroying it. He has made her a friend to tyrants and an enemy to the oppressed, and untrusted by nations that seek to build a safer, more peaceful and prosperous world."
Could any rational, intelligent, informed person hear an American politician saying any of that without risking dieing laughing?

Manufacturing Discontent

Sophisticated political satire.

It is heartening and moving that so many people in the west are angry about the oppression of gay people in Russia, and are expressing solidarity.
Though it often seems like an outbreak of whipped-up mass hysteria, akin to 1984's Hate Week, usually expressed in "passive activism"; actions that are pointless (clicktivism), and/or counterproductive (boycotts).
Or like a little outburst of over-emotional collective insanity much as that we witnessed when Princess Diana died.
All too often this does not look like some queer political re-awakening, but further proof of the depoliticisation of our culture.
But people can not be blamed for reaching for their pink pitchforks and torches when they've been subject to the sort of avalanche of media misinformation we normally only witness in wartime.
It is foolish and politically blind not to question why this has now become such an issue - warranting endless, blanket coverage, to the virtual exclusion of other countries' often far worse gay rights abuses - at a time when tensions between the US and Russia are at their most heightened since the Cold War.  
And it is obvious that the increasingly hysterical, hyperbolic and hypocritical "debate" has been hijacked, and is being used - meaning our struggle for gay rights is being used - as rightwing propaganda, by demonising a declared enemy in service to American hegemony.
USA! USA! USA!

Sochi 2014: Drama

Most playwrights spend months, or even years, labouring over their work. But not Tess Berry-Hart, who was given just two and a half weeks to write a pioneering new play chronicling the lives of LGBT Russians living under the country's anti-gay laws.

The play, Sochi 2014, will be staged tonight and tomorrow at the King's Head Theatre in north London, but rehearsals are only due to start this morning. In a British theatrical first, the play will be based on 20 verbatim accounts from LGBT Russians...
The playwright told The Independent on Sunday she got involved because she supports "people's fight for equality." She said there is no single Russian "gay experience", but hopes that by looking at a "cross-section of stories," she will give a "true picture" of what is happening in Russia, where it is now a criminal offence to promote non-heterosexual relationships...

The play follows intense pressure from figures such as Stephen Fry to boycott the Winter Olympics, to be held in Sochi next year. But Berry-Hart said her own opinion on this issue changed after speaking to Russians, many of whom "want the Games to increase visibility and solidarity for them instead"...

Independent On Sunday.

Obviously, The Independent's coverage of Russia is not influenced by their billionaire owner, Alexander Lebedev, being a political foe of Putin. 
Or by the chair of Independent newspapers, his flamboyant and colourful etc etc son, Evgeny.

• Sochi 2014 at the King's Head Theatre. All profits admirably will go to Spectrum, the Russian LGBT human rights group.

Alternatively you could go to Cold War, a benefit party in London today raising money for... Peter Tatchell.
A club night in Brighton next Friday, No Crime No Punishment, will be showing solidarity with LGBT Russians by giving all their proceeds - again, not to any Russian group - but to All Out - the beyond pointless and hardly impoverished American passive activism clicktivist e-petition website.
You couldn't make it up etc etc...

Twitter: I Say Nothing

Art thing by @BeardedGenius.

"This is the home of the vain! THIS IS THE HOME OF THE VAIN!" - Mark E Smith

Passive activism with a side-order of hypocrisy, please!
Caitlin's use of a term like "bum boy" is clearly ironic - though I'm not sure how many readers of The Times would get this, and her "I love The Gays me!" shtick - though I know she does - just comes across as annoying and patronising.
It's pointless for Fagburn to comment further on this monumental act of folly - you've read everything that has to be said about that on Twitter today already.
Okay, I'll break my own self-imposed boycott to tell you quickly here's my favourite tweet on this crapola by @RichNeville...

"First they came for the communists, 
I remained silent; 
That seemed to teach them a lesson."

Fagburn is trying to think of a way to convince leading gay simpleton Patrick Smugtwit - who's taken to Twitter in the last few days to say he doesn't like sexism... wow, who knew!?? - and other self-important pious bourgeois bores to boycott Twitter forever.
The problem always starts when journalists are more concerned, not with communicating ideas, but with trying to become a minor celebrity.
Some columnists clearly get off on seeing their byline photo published - rather than their actual copy.

Update...

@holysmoke @caitlinmoran I won't be silent: No one makes more jokes about Aids than the friends of mine who nearly died from it.
— Patrick Strudwick (@PatrickStrud) August 5, 2013

The gay hysteric who continually cries "homophobia!" at everything and nothing, and told people to join #TwitterSilence to protest sexism and homophobia, defending a straight journalist who tweets Aids jokes.
Unbelievable.