Xi Jinping follows in Putin's footsteps

The general secretary of the Communist Party, and president, of China Xi Jinping was initially chosen as a compromise by the Central Committee and Party delegates in 2012. It was a compromise between the desire to stay close to the Communist ideals and the desire to capitalize on the modern era reality that China has become a global economic power to be reckoned with.

But this son of an elite founding member of China's Communist Party, who has taken many twists and turns along his way to the top, is anything but a compromising figure. Throughout his first term as the general secretary, he has shown his willingness to dispose of the government of years past, instill a unified economic identity, continue to censor outside world, as well as cement his place in China's history books.

Soon after his father was imprisoned for being vocal and confrontational within China's Communist Party, the teenager Xi Jinping found himself target of the scorn of many of his peers and authorities that now viewed his family in a negative light. He learned his first lesson from his father - that being vocal in opposition to authority is an approach that doesn't achieve the desired result in China. So he immersed himself in his studies, went to the farm lands to perform manual labor with the country's peasant population. This was the call of Mao Zedong to all of China's population living in large cities.

This experience toughened up the young Xi and he soon found himself accepted as a member of the Communist Party, despite his father's tainted legacy. He began to establish a network of influential party members that would turn out to be his main support base in his pursuit for the top of the party hierarchy. He finally achieved that goal in 2012, when he was selected as the new general secretary of the Communist Party.

His actions after he took power in China, mimic those of the actions taken by Vladimir Putin, when he was elected to the reigns in Russia in 2000. A house cleaning of all the corrupt officials and a crackdown on unwritten, but previously accepted, bribe to conduct business policy. Just like Putin, Xi Jinping dismissed and imprisoned former long standing security and economic officials, that may have presented obstacles to his policies and vision. And just like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping did it all under the guise of performing a service to the country and upholding the moral high ground for which every man, woman, and child should strive.

Xi Jinping, in a remarkably similar fashion to Putin, was able to consolidate power by antagonizing elements within the ruling party, and within China, which would have stood in his way of making unilateral decision on their behalf. This was something Vladimir Putin coined the "verticals of power" a decade earlier.

Unlike Russia, China does not have democratically elected leaders. Xi Jinping does not need the same trick that Putin used from 2008 through 2012, when Putin served as Russia's Prime Minister, to side step consecutive term limit law. Xi Jinping's continuity in power solely depends on the Communist Party election every five years. So this year, he brought down the hammer.

Having already brushed aside many of his potential opponents early on in his reign, he has now enshrined his name and ideology into the Chinese constitution. The "Xi Jinping Thought for the Modern Era with Chinese Characteristics" is an ideology that has been unanimously adopted by the Party Congress and has now been written into the constitution. With no apparent understudy declared to take over for him in the future, this new Mao-degree status paces the way for Xi Jinping to rule for decades without any significant opposition.

While Xi Jinping certainly started by following Vladimir Putin's blueprint for the consolidation of power, he has since then surpassed it. Xi Jinping doesn't have any real opposition within the country at this point in time, while Vladimir Putin's opposition keeps growing. But that is largely due in part to Russia's remaining free press coverage and recent economic woes. Neither of theses factors are present in China.

Will Xi Jinping rule China until his death? Does the economic trouble that has forced the Russian people to re-evaluate its leadership have a chance to do the same in China? Leave me your thoughts and questions in the comments below.

“Pussy Riot” - rebels without a clue

I want to begin this article with the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which permits federal prosecution of anyone who "willingly injures, intimidates or interferes with another person, or attempts to do so, by force because of the other person's race, color, religion or national origin". This is an American law, for which the freedom fighters of the Civil Rights movement fought for in the 1960s.

Our wonderful society, as well as media madness, has adopted a policy of defending individuals who have been unequivocally proven of wrongdoing, even by our legal standards. This wrongdoing can be a contract you've signed and violated, an oath you have taken and broke, or simply an offensive display against the beliefs of others in front of worshipers on grounds deemed to be sacred.

In this article, the subject is a self-proclaimed feminist punk rock band called “Pussy Riot”. It does not meet the criteria of what we in the United States know as punk rock – they have no rhyme in their words, and demonstrate no musical ability. They just scream out of key verses to roughly chopped guitar chords. Nobody really cared about this band, or their previous performances, until February 21^st, 2012, when they went inside the Russian Church of Christ the Savior, and screamed several obscenity-laden verses aimed at the Christian Orthodox faith and its patriarch.  

As a response to this act, seven patrons of the Church of Christ the Savior that were present during the band’s performance on February 21^st filed charges with the local police as plaintiffs under the Russian Federation’s Criminal Code. These charges involved disturbance of the peace and hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.  Russian authorities acted swiftly and arrested three members of “Pussy Riot”.  After a prolonged trial, they were convicted of the charges brought against them, and to this day two members (Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova) still remain in prison serving out their two year sentences.  A third convicted member (Samutsevich) was recently released on probation, as a result of her plea to the court and an official apology to the patrons of the Church of Christ the Savior for her actions on February 21^st.

The outrage by the Western media and its hoard of left-minded zombies, who have no idea of their own country’s laws, is astounding. The news outlets had no problem making it appear as though the Russian Federation government is responsible for imprisoning the members of “Pussy Riot” for opposing Vladimir Putin and his administration. To the contrary, their prior performances just prove how the far freedom of speech has evolved in modern day Russia. Take a look at public performances by the band on November 1^st 2011, December 14^th 2011, and January 20^th 2012.

Their November 1^st performance was aimed at political opposition to Vladimir Putin’s administration and chided that the ballots Russians cast are nothing more than toilet paper. Their December 14^th performance was rallying a revolt against the justice and prison system for the conviction and holding of political activists who were arrested during an earlier political protest on a western equivalent of misdemeanor charges. Their January 20^th performance was a straight berating of Vladimir Putting himself with lyrics like “Putin pissed himself”. Although members of the band were fined 500 rubles ($17) each for violating rules governing free assembly and protests for igniting a smoke bomb in a crowded public area, none were incarcerated. This clearly shows, that the Russian government was more than willing to let “Pussy Riot” perform in public all they wanted and actually recognized their freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

However, the members of “Pussy Riot” just wanted to push the buttons further in order to get a defining response and actually violated the rights church-going worshipers on February 21^st of 2012. On that day, they filed into the church of Christ the Savior and disrupted the worship of ordinary citizens in order to push their own beliefs onto others. Their intention to offend ordinary citizens to gain a reaction from the authorities is ultimately what led to their convictions, not their hatred of the Putin administration.

I am an Atheist and I firmly believe that there is no higher power. However, I recognize that this is my belief. And if others are to respect my beliefs, I should respect theirs. Therefore, I respect religious individuals and their faith. Someone very wise once said: “Religion is like a penis. It’s ok to have one. It’s ok to be proud of it. But don’t whip it out in public and start pushing it up against everyone”. Well, that’s what “Pussy Riot” did – figuratively speaking, they took out their vaginas and rubbed them in the faces of everyone in that church on that day. And for that action, several members of “Pussy Riot” got their retribution.  

In my opinion, the punishment fit the crime. It is unfortunate that far too many uneducated and/or ignorant individuals chose to side with this perverted ball of hatred. But then again, it’s not the first time in world history that the people have been led by hatred under the guise of a higher justice.

On a side-note, the term pussy can be manipulated into various nouns, verbs, and adjectives in Russian jargon.  One such popular manipulation leads to a word-specific translation of “to pussy around” (пиздеть), whose meaningful translation into American jargon is “to bullshit”. As such, one may conclude that the true meaning of the band “Pussy Riot” is in fact a “Bullshit Riot”. Having examined the facts carefully, it seems very fitting.