Unwelcome in Putin's Russia.

The conviction of three members of the feminist punk rock group Pussy Riot have drawn sympathy and solidarity from around the world. The crime was ‘hooliganism motivated by religious hatred’ though the performance lasted less than 2 minutes the three singers have received 2 years each. The sentence was excessive by any measure as the standard sentence for ‘hooliganism’ is 15 days. In his usual man-beast posturing Putin claimed that the Pussy Riot singers wouldn’t have survived if they had pulled a similar stunt in a mosque in the Caucasus. It should go without saying that even if this were the case would it mean that Christian countries should stoop to the same level? It has nothing to do with Christianity or offence. Putin has used the Russian Orthodoxy as a rod to beat this feminist punk band because it represents opposition. It demonstrates his ultimate impotence. The father who beats you is not stronger than the father who can instil silence just by looking at you. The obscenity of Putin is close to public view now. This scandal may be a welcome wedge to be driven into an anaemic political discourse.

Putin has long been perched at the apex of ultra-political populism and anti-political despair, it’s inevitable that he will fall rather than relinquish power. Yeltsin did not hold onto his dignity when he gave up the reins of power and neither shall Putin. The impotence of the Kremlin was further demonstrated by the security lockdown that had to be imposed across Moscow in anticipation of protest over the verdict. And there has been plenty of protest, and no doubt there's plenty to come. These events are symptomatic of the authoritarian brand of Russo-capitalism now not even concealed behind democratic institutions. The Kremlin might as well as revert to the old mantra of the Tsars: orthodoxy, authority, nationality. It’s certain that these are the pillars of the superstructure in the Putinian management of Russia's rapacious capitalism. Only in the midst of the chaos inflicted on Russian society by the breakdown of really existing socialism and the turmoil of really existing democracy could Putin take the reins as a self-styled Leviathan.

The exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky appeared on Newsnight in debate with Putin apologist Alexander Nekrassov over the trial and verdict. Nekrassov insisted that the band should’ve performed elsewhere, as the cathedral has a political resonance in Russia given that it was rebuilt to symbolise the end of Stalinism. He suggests that Pussy Riot should have sung at Lenin’s mausoleum for example. The idea that the band could make a devastating statement against Putin’s rule in this way is farcical.In response, Berezovsky made his standard soap box pose as an enlightened proponent of a people’s capitalism. He made a casual case for religious pluralism, that we all communicate to God in our own way and the particularly free creativity of Pussy Riot poses a threat to tyranny. Then came the usual spiel about Putin’s personal involvement in exiling Berezovsky and poisoning Alexander Litvinenko. No doubt these are major crimes, but Berezovsky’s only real complaint is that the Yeltsin years came to an end. All Berezovsky cares about is stuffing himself with the riches of a vast and beautiful nation.

This simply will not do. We may enjoy the antics of Russian oligarchs in Britain, but there’s a reason these people are over here taking advantage of loopholes in our tax system. The moralisations of Western liberals will not do with this kind of conduct. It's easy for any Russian to see. George Osborne and Peter Mandelson were caught out yachting it with Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch and suspected murderer. That's fine company for the guardians of freedom! And what of this talk of Russia 'immature' democracy? Again, it's a bit rich given that Britain itself is a deformed democracy and the same can be said of its republican neighbours. What about civil liberties and human rights? The former puppet-states of the Soviet Union have done their bit, Uzbekistan have taken prisoners 'renditioned' by Western intelligence agencies to boil them alive. The US government has recently rammed through an act which allows them to legally murder American citizens if they think they are part of the ‘associated forces of al-Qaeda’. Putin can always say "Well, you're no better!" and we walk right into that one on a regular basis.

The juxtaposition between the Kremlin’s whore Nekrassov and the kleptocrat Berezovsky serves as a reminder of the dilemma for the Russian people. The choice for many Russians seems to be a return to the rapacious ‘shock therapy’ after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which plunged over 70 million people into poverty while Moscow became a playground for billionaires and stray dogs. By comparison with the Chinese model the Russian brand of capitalism is particularly inefficient, dysfunctional, cronyistic and unproductive. The Russian state opted to sell-off state industries over night to boldly leap into the developed world. In actuality it just opened up a space for an oligarchy to spring up at the expense of the rest of society. The only major opposition comes from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. It is more like a far-right party than a socialist party in its bid to criminalise the lives of ‘foreigners’ and ethnic minorities. The choice is Putin or fascism. And all too often we in the West indulge in the illusions of self-love, "Aren't we better than these barbarians?" Meanwhile Russia is no better.

Free the Weed!

For most people maintaining a prohibition on certain undesirable substances (e.g. cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis etc) just seems common sense. Even though after 40 years of a "War on Drugs" such illegal substances are now cheaper and stronger than before this so-called "war" was declared. In the early 70s the shift from the hippie pseudo-spiritualism to a strenuous hedonism was emerging. A bi-product of the cultural revolution of the 1960s, which is often looked back on as a spontaneous explosion of civil disobedience and sexual liberation that eviscerated the rigid traditions that had lingered on from the Victorian era for too long. This aspect of the 60s counter-culture has been assimilated into the dominant ideology, which might explain why drugs are cheaper and more potent today than they were 40 years ago. But this is also why today we have access to legal highs and cyber sex, only a step away from pornography and illicit drugs, the successes of the "War on Drugs" are easy to see.


The availability of drugs has increased, along with the potency of the substances, it's commonly accepted in nightclubs and at parties. Not to mention the black market that has been built by the criminalisation of such substances, the only forms of regulation and intervention in these markets are the police and in some parts of the world the drug trade has become a substitute for a welfare state. Still we hear the drug warriors argue against decriminalisation, usually with the help of tall straw-men and very slippery slopes. Take the common defence of marijuana illegality, that it's a "gateway drug". Ironically the criminalisation of cannabis has driven people from mild drugs to hard drugs. As cannabis is bulky and smelly, it is easier for the authorities to intercept which has inflated the price of cannabis along with the "risk factor" for criminals. Drugs like cocaine is worth more per ounce than cannabis and is easier to smuggle. Raids on dealers create "marijuana droughts" which can drive people onto harder and more addictive substances. Cannabis was not a "gateway drug" originally, but has become a gateway through criminalisation.

The impact on the developing world can be seen in that the drug trade alone accounts for 25% of the Mexican economy and over 50% of the Afghan economy, a lot of the revenue made from heroin trafficking undermines and corrodes civil society and the state itself. In such narco-states, the drug trade exists as an underground capitalist economy and partly serves as a substitute for welfare measures which are often lacking in such countries. The way drugs have been criminalised in these countries contain the drug trade as a black market monopolised by cartels who compete for control of the market. This leads to violence, which in turn leads to tighter policing of the lives of the poor and in turn generates extreme violence - as seen in Mexico where the bloodshed has been reaching new heights in recent years. The criminalisation of drugs in this way provides a "justification" for an interventionist police state, rigged with pretexts to detain and imprison unruly members of the superfluous population. A situation which has given the Colombian government "justification" to send death squads into slums as part of social cleansing.

The answer to the problems of narco-states are more complex than calls to simply legalise drugs, but we in the developed world do not face the same problems. For instance, it would be preferable to use the opium crops in Afghanistan to develop the pharmaceutical industry as opposed to the doomed policy of trying to eliminate the crop. The same argument can be made in regard to Mexico, where the "War on Drugs" has done nothing but penalise farmers. In a country like Britain it would preferable to decriminalise heroin as part of a rehabilitation programme, whereby heroin is prescribed to addicts who are then weaned off the drug gradually. The result of this would be to kill off the black market for heroin, as addicts would have access to a better quality of heroin for free and a route to a better life. No doubt the reactionary press would start foaming at the mouth "Why should I pay for their addiction?!" These hypocrites would try to engineer a moral panic whilst standing by a solution to drug addiction reminiscent of the gulag, at a huge cost to society.

The class aspect of banning a substance is too often overlooked. In 18th Century England there was a ban on gin, in those times it was cheaper than water and was drunk compulsively by working-class people. Whiskey was a rich-man's vice in those days and so gin was banned while whiskey was not. In the 20th Century racism came into play in drug laws, marijuana became a target in the US as it was smoked by Mexican and African-Americans.  In the US if you are convicted of possession of cocaine you will mostly spend a year in prison. But if you were convicted of possession of crack cocaine you could spend 10 years inside. There is a correlation between class and race, but the principle difference is that cocaine is snorted by rich whites and crack is smoked by poor blacks. As a result of the financialisation of the economy, not to mention lousy schools and a racist criminal justice system, African-Americans fall into the superfluous population of the US. The "rolling back" of welfare provisions has forced many impoverished black people onto crime, particularly drug crime, as a substitute for the loss in welfare as well as work.

Drug consumption does transcend class boundaries, it's usage among working-people is part of the reason for it's illegal status. Furthermore the illegal status of cannabis goes a long way to protecting the business interests of drug lords and cartels, just like the bootleggers and rum-runners of the Prohibition era, who make billions a year tax free from trafficking in cocaine and heroin. The legalisation of cannabis has progressive potential as the conditions for it's production can be created anywhere, it would be difficult to monopolise, low prices could be maintained and that would provide jobs for people. It's even possible to structure production and distribution along cooperative lines, without bosses and space for workers' democracy. It could be taxed and regulated, which could constrain the use of certain chemicals, restrict it's consumption to adults as well as to provide consumers with objective information on the effects of the drug.

The US government banned marijuana in 1937, after Congress declared that there is a link between marijuana use and mental illness. The declaration was based on the testimony of Dr James Munch, a pharmacologist working at Temple University, who testified that when he gave marijuana to dogs they went "insane". This was after a representative of the American Medical Association who claimed that there is no evidence that cannabis is harmful to the health of humans. Naturally it was the testimony of Dr Munch that was taken on board by policy-makers. Today the debate on cannabis legalisation has been thoroughly obfuscated to the point where many people believe that there is a clear link between cannabis use and schizophrenia. Firstly, schizophrenia is a rare condition so it is difficult to determine its causes. What we do know is that if you smoke cannabis excessively you are 2.6 times more likely to suffer from psychotic experiences than a non-smoker. Whereas, if you smoke tobacco you are 20 times more likely to develop lung-cancer than the average Cheech and Chong.

As for the claim that cannabis use would increase if it were legalised, and the problems it "causes" now would be exacerbated, during the Prohibition era in the United States there were higher levels of alcoholism than there was prior to the Volstead act. The flirtation with prohibition was a disaster in the US. It led to an unprecedented crime wave, thousands were left dead from gangs or from rotgut alcohol and nurtured a contempt for law among the population. Back then it was the divine mission of saving the people from "Demon Rum" that the Congress was embarking upon. Now the classification of cannabis is supposed to protect us from ourselves, to stop us from descending into a load of Zombies - to paraphrase Gore Vidal - and in our endless search of Doritos whilst constantly murmuring "groovie". Decriminalisation and legalisation of drugs, even as soft as cannabis, seems to be the last taboo, as gambling, alcohol, tobacco and pornography are readily available for every citizen - all of which can be addictive and destructive. For we are still deeply puritanical in some respects, though not puritan enough to be enraged at the depiction of women found on Page 3.

Related Links:

Estimating Drug Harms: A Risky Business?

Evidence Not Exaggeration
The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937
Gore Vidal - Drugs: Case for Legalizing Marijuana
Milton Friedman - Why Drugs Should be Legalised?
The Six Groups who Benefit from Drug Prohibition

Generation GTA?

The Grand Theft Auto is by far one of the most popular, if not the most popular, series of video games produced over the last 15 years. The games typically follow a male anti-hero on his journey through the underworld of an American city. Character motivation varies from revenge to greed. Common motifs include narcotics, prostitution, murder and car theft. The setting is usually a satire of a major American city like Miami, New York or Los Angeles. Of course, the games are a conservative's wet dream as the player is placed in a semi-autonomous environment where they can indulge indulge in various acts of crime, ultra-violence and general depravity. Though conservatives focus in on the violence as training children to be cold-hearted murderers. Despite the fact that 500 million copies of GTA 4 were sold in the first week of it's release and very few violent incidents have been linked to the game since it's release 2 years ago.

The self-proclaimed "culture warriors" of the United States are ignoring the exploitative aspect of the character's criminal career in relation to capitalism. This should be expected from modern conservatives in a way, as they are typically conservative on social issues. So economic exploitation and devastation would not interest the majority of them. The fact that the player takes on the role of the Randian hero, an exceptional and creative individual who will rise above the passive conformist masses. This is so because the player is more intelligent than the game and can pass the missions using their capacity to thrive in a predictable and controlled world. The player-character has an advantage over the "herds" around him, as he is not held back by simulated emotions and can plan how to dispatch pedestrians at random. This is even more true if the player has access to cheat codes, in which case not even the game's police can interfere.

The game play is characterised by a degree of "freedom" not available in most games. But this should not be mistaken for true liberty, as the freedom accessible to players is merely the ability to act autonomously in constructed environments and situations. Like with the freedom to choose, the options have already been made for you and all you have to do is take your pick. So the universe of Grand Theft Auto is one in which you can act in ways which you cannot in reality, but only as far as the game allows as part of a constructed scenario. It should be noted out that games are an unusual medium of entertainment as they actually deprive the consumer of content. This functions to keep the consumer playing for longer, in order to complete the game and acquire the desired abilities. Though once the consumer has completed they often don't want to play the game any more, as it was the competitiveness built into the game that was truly thrilling and not the "carrot" they were chasing.

After all, once the game is completed the character has gained millions of dollars, and participated in a few thousand murders, but has nothing much to spend it on except guns, prostitutes, alcohol, food etc. In a sense, the game play reveals the limits of negative liberty - the freedom from constraint - by leaving a player with meaningless choices. The consumer choices a player is confronted with are even more meaningless in a gaming environment, where one is engaging in a simulation of consumption. In many ways the games are libertarian, you are free to make choices and indulge. Ultimately, the games do not judge the player in a strictly neutral and permissive manner. But if you violate the Harm Principle - you can do what you want, so long as you harm no one - the police might come after you. In some of the later games, like GTA 4, the police even go after pedestrians and petty criminals who have attacked you. This notable advance in technology is only the step forward made by classical liberal thinkers in the 19th Century.

Despite the barrage of satirical messages in the games, the specifically political messages are often ignored by critics and reviewers. Even the "culture warriors" of America have failed to notice the "anti-American" sentiments embedded in the games. Because it is easier to accuse a game of "corrupting" the youth and instigating violence than it is to analyse its political idiosyncrasies. That takes work and may not be easily "linked" to extreme violence. It could also easily turn into a debate on American politics with liberals and conservatives engaging in the acceptable dialogue over whether or not the game is "anti-American". A debate which would not amount to much even in the likely outcome of a victory for conservatives. It would be difficult to ban a game on the grounds that it is "anti-American", whereas if the game is overly violent and sexually deviant a case can be made. The video games are works of satire in a way.

In the games American politicians are presented as sleazy, corrupt, opportunistic and cynical figures. Like all satire it carries a greater truth about politics than we can see in our day-to-day lives. It highlights what we see in politicians at the most basic level, they are all the same, liars, thieves and murderers etc. There are references to a "Jingoism act" being rammed through Congress by the government, which is an obvious allusion to the USA Patriot act. Early on in GTA 4 the bridges of Liberty City are closed off to combat terrorism. Passing pedestrians can be heard calling the government "fascist". The games even include parodies of it's critics, in GTA 4 the "culture warriors" are amalgamated into an extreme right-wing radio-show host named Richard Bastion while Jack Thompson is turned into a do-gooder lawyer who expresses a disdain for computer games claiming that "Guns don't kill people, video games do" - before being murdered by the protagonist.

The criminal world is not so far from capitalism in its most unconstrained version, there are no regulations and no taxation of illicit profits. In the underworld there are merely costs and revenue, supply and demand - the "invisible hand" - with the state looming over them seeking to deprive the people of their freedoms. The gangs are competing firms in a dog-eat-dog world where the most brutal and ruthless thrive. These organisations are hierarchical and tyrannical as the individuals belonging to them have no say in the decisions made, they are there to follow orders. Of course, this generalises to the real world and not just virtual reality. Organised crime is not that far from the functions of the market, it differs in that it is illegal and viewed as immoral. In the Grand Theft Auto series, the player is selling his labour to various bosses in completing missions for pay which is far less than he could be paid. Eventually the player ascends the ladder, usually by killing a boss and usurping his position. This is the brutal underbelly of meritocracy.

In real life meritocracy is a farce, people do not rise according to merit and nor should they as it is the hierarchy which is fundamentally wrong. We should not seek to rise to the top of the pyramid but seek to level that structure. So the vehement attacks of the games on the American establishment are irrelevant as the games celebrate the essence of what they are mocking. It's as ironic as it is almost self-parodic.

The Power of Cigars.

"You want compromise? How's this? 20 years in the can. I wanted manigot, I compromised, I ate grilled cheese off the radiator instead. I wanted to fuck a woman, but I compromised, I jacked off in the tissue." - Phil Leotardo

According to Slavoj Žižek "An normal paternal authority is an ordinary man who wears phallus as an insignia, he has something which provides his symbolic authority." For Tony Soprano, the cigar is his phallus, the symbol of his paternal authority in the domestic family as well as in the hierarchical structure of the crime family. When we first meet Tony in the opening credits, he is seen driving from New York to New Jersey and lighting up an enormous cigar along the way, obviously he is not a cigar, he possesses the cigar. This means he is not what this phallic insignia represents, but he possesses this phallus because of the role he is attempting to play and the authority derived from the phallic insignia. In the Mafia mythology of crime dramas, cigars are common place, cigars are synonymous with gangsterism and symbolic of excess, power and wealth. Notably in the opening credits, he only lights up the cigar after officially entering the Garden State through the New Jersey Turnpike; indicating that his authority is in New Jersey and not New York.

In one of the most overt use of this phallic symbol in the pilot episode, Tony has an anxiety attack whilst tending to a barbecue and puffing on a large cigar his ducks fly away. At first he appears content in his role preparing meat, a role once played by his father, for his loved ones whilst his beloved ducks remain in his pool. But when the ducks fly away, he suffers the attack and the cigar drops from his mouth, he is castrated. Tony's paternal authority is dependent on the presence of the family unit, whether that be a traditional nuclear family or a criminal organisation, consisting of subordinate members. The fear and anxiety of losing his loved ones, as well as his criminal brothers, would be a castrating experience for Tony - in the sense that Tony's position at the head of the table would be rendered meaningless. Yes, his position is one of power, but he dependent on the underlings for income and this generalises to his domestic life - there he is dependent on his family for love, comfort, food and other forms of gratification.

Many characters in The Sopranos suffer from or die from cancerous tumours or legions, this could be indicative of the nature of organised crime. The fact that smoking often is the cause of cancer may imply the doomed fate of those who play "Godfather". Johnny Sack spends most of his time on camera smoking and later dies of cancer. Though Sack is never seen smoking a large cigar, just cigarettes which are smaller and slimmer. This may imply a lack of potency in Sack's character or reflects his pragmatic approach to business. Something which Tony, and other characters, lack as they use violence to achieve many different aims. Interestingly, Gary Cooper, Tony's ideal American, died of prostate cancer. This is the true price of Tony Soprano's authoritarianism. Growth for the sake of growth, is this not the ideology of the cancer cell.

In the final episodes, Phil Leotardo becomes the Boss of the Lupertazzi crime family, one of New York's legendary Five Families, Leotardo is visibly smug and finally content in a position of power. It is only in this position of authority, as the paternal figure of a large crime family, does Phil light up a cigar. Prior to achieving such status in the underworld, Phil spent 20 years incarcerated and it is constantly suggested that during his incarceration that he engaged in homosexual intercourse. In years since his release from prison, Phil was notably aggressive and arrogant in his conduct. He patronised Tony during a sit-down and actively provoked retaliation from Soprano's soldiers in the aftermath of his brother's murder. Leotardo later orchestrated the murder of Vito Spatafore, out of deep feelings of violent homophobia which most likely stem from the self-hatred derived from his own activities in prison. It appears as though Phil Leotardo suffered from a massive Napoleon complex that could even rival Tony Soprano's "mother issues" and anxiety attacks.

However, it seems that Phil Leotardo may fall into the category of ridiculously obscene paternal antagonists, like Frank Booth or Bobby Peru, that Žižek identified in several David Lynch films. Phil overcompensates for his own feelings of sexual deviancy and emasculation through "uber-macho" behaviour. Particularly, in the form of over-the-top displays of violent homophobia, obscene threatening behaviour and horrific acts of violence. It could also be that Phil Leotardo, like Frank Booth and Bobby Peru, does not just possess a phallic symbol of authority like Soprano. But that he actually is the phallus. In the words of Žižek "It's not simply that they possess phallus, that they have phallus as an insignia of their authority. In a way they immediately are phallus."

In the finale, Phil Leotardo is shot in the head and chest before being run-over by his own car, which actually squashes his skull for all to see, this is symbolic of the destruction of the phallus and the paternal authority it represented. This fitting end is similar to the one met by Bobby Peru in Wild at Heart. Peru died by falling onto his own shotgun and literally blasting his head off by accident. The bloodied stocking Bobby wore to conceal his identity, containing the remnants of Peru's head land nearby, resemble a used condom. Just like Bobby Peru and Frank Booth, Phil Leotardo was an obscene paternal presence, devoid of any anxiety, fearless in the face of the consequences of his exuberant machismo - as exemplified by his violent tendencies towards torture, mutilation, beating and rape as well as murder.

Made in America.

"How many more people have to die for your personal growth?" - Dr Melfi

The polysemic nature of The Sopranos presents the audience with a wide variety of complex and important themes that are relevant in today's America. The Sopranos was created by David Chase, who used his own Italian-American family as the inspiration behind the show, and it spanned several seasons over the period of 9 years. Italian-American identity is a constant motif, particularly in relation to organised crime and food, throughout the duration of the series. But this relates to the wider experience of Americans, given that many are descendent of people who immigrated to the US to escape from poverty, and that the culture of the US is partly derived from the influx of European immigrants in history. Christian practices and beliefs are a typical example of this. For many reasons, the show has been hailed as "the best thing on television today" by critics. It is often said that what made The Sopranos so successful is the fact that it's a show about a deeply flawed man that many Americans can relate to:

Meet Tony Soprano: your average, middle-aged businessman. Tony's got a dutiful wife. A not-so dutiful daughter. A son named Anthony Jr. A mother he's trying to coax into a retirement home. A hot-headed uncle. A not too-secret mistress. And a shrink to tell all his secrets, except the one she already knows: Tony's a mob boss.

This is the blurb of the first season of The Sopranos and is often cited as the source of the show's appeal. Many have said that they have many friends who are like Tony Soprano, except they are legitimate middle-class men. But perhaps The Sopranos was so popular because it served as an allegorical critique of American society, one such has been eclipsed by corporate America. The DiMeo crime family is an allegory for something far less exotic, something far more ordinary and everyday, unrestrained and unregulated capitalism. Certainly in the market, it could be said that growth is for the sake of growth, even if it such growth is at the expense of society and civilisation itself, is the endless task of powerful multinational corporations regardless of the popular will.

The destructive externalities of organised crime are for all to view in The Sopranos. Most notably, are the references to the race riots of Newark in the late 1960s, which were in reality a reaction by the African-American and Latino-American community against racist oppression and exploitation. The Mafia used their influence on politics and business, through unions, to keep blacks and hispanics out of legitimate occupations. Whilst at the same time crushing any competing criminal elements in the African-American and Latino-American community. With nowhere to go and no way of surviving, blacks and hispanics rioted in the summer of 1967 out of a rage with the system. It is appropriate that this history goes ignored by the characters and the true horror of their actions is never fully confronted. Much like in real life, the horrors of America's racist past often go unchallenged and remain just bellow the surface of society.

Tony Soprano, from a particular perspective, could be viewed as a success story. The epitome of the American dream, a man of a humble working-class immigrant background, who has risen to the peak of his industry, he has moved from the North Ward to the North Caldwell suburbs. It could be that his popularity is down to the fact that he shows the audience the emptiness of the American dream, a side not often shown on television. For Tony the life of materialistic success, predicated on violence and a parasitic relationship with the world, leads to nothing but that awful emptiness. Soprano is intelligent enough to understand that there should be more to life than the endless pursuit of wealth and the repetitive satisfaction of desires. The inalienable rights of the American dream are not enough for Tony, it is not enough for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to be the only things guaranteed in life. For the Sopranos, the American dream is hollow, a carrot on a stick at best.