Pussy Riot. Defiant. Inspiring. And the corporate agenda of the holidays.

by Sean O'Torrain

At this time of year the corporations and the churches set the agenda in a massive way. The first to sell more products and make more profits the second to consolidate their power. If you do not buy presents and bow down before some preacher you are a bad person, a disgrace, you should be cast out of society. For socialists and atheists like myself what do we do. How do we intervene in this dialogue over which we have very little influence? We can dismiss it like I am doing here and we should make these points. But we should also point out the contradictions in the positions of the corporations and the churches.

The corporations are robbing the majority of the people of the world and destroying the planet. This is not in line with the claims made by the weirdly robed tall hatted characters in the churches with their long poles and intimating chants and threats of hell "if your do not love your neighbor as yourself."  The churches back wars and bless governments who pile up huge armaments and support the corporations. They also fight for control over their territories and to get back the property they lost under Stalinism. In the years of the collapse of Stalinism the pope of the time visited 18 countries formerly in the so called Soviet Union to help see that capitalism was restored and that democratic socialism did not replace Stalinism. See the role being played in the Ukraine and in Russia by the various orthodox churches at the moment. The churches in the various former Stalinism countries propped up the new capitalist forces in return for which they got back power and property.

I see that a lot of new documents have recently been unearthed dating back to the early centuries of Christianity. Some of these were written by women whom the main Christian church the Catholic church treat as second class citizens.

 I remember reading was it Kautsky's The Origins of Christianity where he pointed out the difference in the gospels. The first one written talked about the people inheriting the earth the second one talked about the meek inheriting the kingdom of heaven. The first a revolutionary doctrine the second a doctrine which allowed the landowners to keep their land and the masses to be meek they would get their reward in heaven.

On a final note I am happy today when I see the young women of Pussy Riot are freed. But I am even more happy when I see how they have reacted.  They are real scrappers. They were released under a new amnesty law. Did they say thank you Mr. Putin. Bless you Mr. Putin.  No way. They were no sooner out of the door of the prison than they went at him and his vicious capitalist regime again. One of the young women shouted: "Russia without Putin." Defiant. Inspiring. The other said:" "They put me in. They let me out. One thing was funny and the other no less funny. I think this is an attempt to improve the image of the current government a little before the Sochi Olympics particularly for the Western Europeans - But I don't consider this humane or merciful. We didn't ask for any pardon. We could easily stay there till the end of the term without this humoristic gesture of our authorities."

Thank you Pussy Riot.

Sean.