quite possibly the best run of 4 songs on an album ever.

vs. my luv u r full of bangers

At the conclusion of his trial in Moscow, the Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza addressed the court, declining to express “remorse for his misdeeds” or to plead with the judges for mercy. The anti-Putin dissident is charged with disinformation about the Russian military, complicity with an undesirable organization (a charge connected to the political foundation Open Russia), and, finally, with high treason. Based on the accumulated charges, the prosecution has asked the court for a 25-year sentence, despite the fact that, after surviving two poisoning attempts, Kara-Murza suffers from lower-body polyneuropathy, listed as one of the conditions that should legally preclude a person from serving a prison sentence. The politician has been in custody since April 2022. This is the full text of his courtroom statement.

I’d been convinced that, after two decades in Russian politics, and after all I’d seen and experienced myself, nothing could surprise me anymore. I must admit I was wrong. I have been surprised to see that, in the degree of opacity and discrimination against the defense, my 2023 trial leaves the Soviet dissident trials of the 1960s and 1970s in the dust. The requested sentence and the use of words like “enemy” are redolent not of the 1970s, but of the 1930s. As a historian, I see this as a cause for reflection.

At the stage of the defendant’s testimony, the moderator reminded me that expressing “remorse” for my “misdeeds” would be considered an extenuating factor. Although I’m rarely amused these days, I couldn’t help smiling at this. Criminals can express remorse for their misdeeds, but I am in jail because of my political views. I’m here because I’ve spoken against the war in Ukraine; because of my many years of struggling against Putin’s dictatorship; because of my contribution to effecting personal international sanctions against human rights violators under the Magnitsky Act. Not only do I not feel remorseful about any of it, I’m proud of what I’ve done. I’m proud of having come to politics thanks to Boris Nemtsov. I’d like to hope that he isn’t ashamed of me.

I would sign under every word that I’ve ever said and that’s now being used against me. I have only one cause for remorse: that in all my years in politics, I haven’t been able to persuade enough of my compatriots and politicians from democratic countries of the danger presented by the current Kremlin regime to both Russia and the rest of the world. It’s become self-evident by now, but at a terrible price that is war.

An allocution statement is usually a time to plead for an acquittal. For someone who committed no crime, an acquittal is the only lawful outcome in a trial. But I ask this court for nothing. I know my verdict; I knew it even a year ago, when I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw the men in black running after my car. This is the price of non-silence in Russia at present.

But I also know the day will come when the darkness that’s enveloped our country will be dispelled; when people will see something that’s black and call it black, and when they call what’s white white; when it’s officially recognized that two times two equals four; when a war is called a war, and an impostor an impostor; when those who started this war will be called criminals, instead of those who tried to stop it. That day will come just as inevitably as the spring that follows even the most ferocious winter. On that day, our society will open its eyes and stand in horror of the crimes committed in its name. This realization, this consciousness will be the beginning of a long and difficult journey to Russia’s recovery and its return into the company of civilized countries.

Even today, in the darkness that surrounds us, and even sitting in this cage, I love my country and believe in our people. I believe that we can make this journey.

This is the bravest motherfucker on the planet.

If my comrades are not destined to rule the world, then away with it! A shower of atom bombs upon it and in place of its meaningless chatter about 'love' and 'peace' the voice of howling wind on its ruins.

Savitri Devi

Стефанія Шабатура / Stefania Shabatura

It looks like the start of another bad week for Vladimir Putin. 🥳 🎉 👏🏼

Russia’s leading anti-Putin dissident, Alexey Navalny, is the subject of a film which won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature on Sunday.

Now everybody is going to see the film and be reminded of what a dickhead dictator Putin is.

“Navalny,” a film that explores the plot to kill Russian anti-corruption campaigner and former presidential candidate, Alexey Navalny, has won the Oscar for best documentary feature at Sunday’s Academy Awards.  

The riveting real-life thriller follows Navalny’s political rise, his survival of an assassination attempt against him by poisoning and his subsequent imprisonment. Directed by Daniel Roher and presented by CNN Films and HBO Max, “Navalny” documents a methodical investigation by CNN Chief International Correspondent, Clarissa Ward, and journalist group, Bellingcat, to unmask Navalny’s would-be killers. 

[ ... ]

He was poisoned with nerve agent Novichok in 2020, an attack several Western officials and Navalny himself openly blamed on the Kremlin. Russia has denied any involvement.  

After several months in Germany recovering from the poisoning, Navalny returned to Moscow, where he was immediately arrested for violating probation terms imposed from a 2014 embezzlement case that he said was politically motivated.  

He was initially sentenced to two-and-a-half years, and then later given nine years over separate allegations that he stole from his anti-corruption foundation. 

Ai Weiwe // FUCK OFF [2000.]

‘My father and I often had occasion to agree that 'fuck off' was very funny. One naturally admired its brutality and brevity — but it was also terribly good.’

Martin Amis, from ‘Experience’

Colonize

Suppress

Dissident

Warmonger

2013：Ai Xiaoming -- Uncensored Interview with Gan Cui on Martyred Poet Lin Zhao, including Deleted Xinjiang Labor Camp Experiences of Gan Cui

After I posted my translation of Ai Xiaoming‘s long 2013 interview with Gan Cui 2013 Ai Xiaoming: Martyred Poet Lin Zhao and Gan Cui, Ai Xiaoming saw it and her editor Yi Mei contacted me to pass along the uncensored version of the interview. I saw a mention of the interview recently on the twitter feed of author Ian Johnson whose 2023 book Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle…

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Scopri il testo della canzone “Dissident” di Pearl Jam

robert havemann, scientist

Take action to free Toomaj Salehi. He is facing the death penalty in Iran for freedom of speech.

The Plight of the Dissident Right

The Dissident Right today has an issue, the issue of not producing art. Rather than ascribing this lack to the prevailing Liberal dogma, safeguarding the spotlight from rival ideology, the root of the issue lies within the Dissident Right (its positions and beliefs) as the internet offers ways and options to bypass the controls of establishment dogmas, even if this gets increasingly more difficult due to centralization of content platforms, algorithms, and censorship via payment processors. This deep-seated issue, I argue, stems from the realist materialist foundation of the Dissident Right today, which in its deterministic and anti-philosophical views foregoes and undermines creative considerations and works (creative in the sense of "the process and purpose of creating art"), and expresses itself in an inherent and unconscious anti-intellectualism.

This realist materialist position, stigmatized by the age of industrialization, eugenics, racism, and nationalism, seems like a natural reaction to the prevailing postmodern hyper progressive dogma from the strain of Liberalism, which is difficult to name and pin down due to its chimeric and plasticine nature. I argue the Dissident Right today finds itself in a Reactionary Ghetto, partly of their own making, partly due to censorship, with no way out of the predicament. While elements in the Dissident Right admire and subscribe to foreign cultural elements, particularly Japan and its otaku culture, the admiration remains passive following of the Other (the foreign) seen in the context of "a nation that prevailed against the Liberal menace," reducing the true picture of the situation to a degree that makes any lessons taken from Japan useless, observing this Other from the realist materialist worldview. I also argue that the Progressive Establishment is equally impotent when it comes to creating art, artificially kept alive by establishment money and astroturfed support, its greatest achievement being the normalization of confusion and bad taste. That the underlying cause for the death of art in the West envelopes both the Dissident Right and the Progressive Establishment, based on internalized nihilism stemming from the enlightenment. Japan, never having gone through the process of enlightenment, nor experienced what led up to it, but rather adopted the industrial age, which came as a consequence of the enlightenment, accordingly, never internalized the nihilism initiated by the enlightenment. Japan, therefore, operates on pre-enlightenment foundations in postmodern garb, dancing between worlds an increasingly schizophrenic dance, confusing and misleading without malice or intention the dumb (mute) and numb Dissident Right, impeding and undermining the self-destructive Progressive Liberalism of the Western establishment, while looking for and accepting guidance from the latter, in the modern Japanese tradition named "learning from the West."

“All medieval literature, whether it be ‘Chansons de geste’ or the Arthurian Romances, both saturated with the Celtic spirituality, invariably explore the theme of the forest:    a perilous world, refuge of spirits and fairies, hermits and dissidents, but also the place where the tormented soul of the knight, whether his name is Lancelot, Percival,or Ywain, is purified. I feel that very strongly. To me, going into the forest is far more than just a physical need, it is a spiritual necessity.”

Dominique Venner

Pearl Jam - Dissident

ACAB Postcard

Size : W148 x H100mm

写真は日大闘争の記録映画、「日大闘争」（1968年製作）より引用 ©︎日大全共闘映画班