CHRIS ROPER: Of art and the fight against fascism
We should be in awe of the Russian artists speaking out against the war in Ukraine. But standing up to Putin’s regime carries great risk; we can’t decry neutrality from exposed and vulnerable individuals
It’s tempting to see parallels between Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent Big Day Out pro-war rally, held in the Moscow stadium that hosted the 2018 men’s Soccer World Cup final (see, some lasting good does come from sportswashing), and the heyday of former US president Donald Trump’s freedom rallies.
There was the same crass disregard for the truth, and the same hyping up of support. There was even the same inflation of numbers. According to Russian media, more than 200,000 people gathered at the 81,000-capacity stadium. Likewise, Trump’s press secretary at the time claimed more than 1-million people attended a rally in Washington, DC in 2020, in an area that PolitiFact worked out could take, at the utmost, 135,000 people...
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