Very often, you really want to punish them. But it is not always clear how to do it. Obviously, the most effective and just methods for dealing with United Russia members (immersing them in boiling oil and having them torn apart by spirited horses) are not an option for now, but something has to be done.
For example, the Moscow City Duma’s “deputies” absolutely deserve punishment for their brazen, rude, and hypocritical attitude toward Muscovites. In the Moscow City Duma, 95% of the deputies are from United Russia; they sit there for years, do nothing, yet enjoy unimaginable salaries, official apartments, and country houses.
What is amusing is that every other deputy in the Moscow City Duma is a traitor and a turncoat. They all used to be in Yabloko, SPS (Union of Right Forces), Democratic Choice, and so on, and now they are in United Russia. They do not care what party they belong to, as long as they are given an official 150-square-meter apartment.
They got into the Moscow City Duma through blatant fraud in the 2009 elections, when opposition candidates were barred from running, and where they were allowed to run, the vote totals were falsified.
When I speak of a rude and hypocritical position, I mean, for example, the specific refusal to register the initiative group of the "People’s Deputy," which had put forward a bill on mandatory auditing of housing and utility tariffs.
Muscovites are saying: we want all the data on how our utility rates are calculated and what they are made up of to be open and transparent. Let an independent auditor review them, and let the audit results and materials be publicly available.
United Russia, speaking through the deputies of the Moscow City Duma, replies to us: everything is already fine, the rates are transparent, the information is available, and, in general, housing and utility rates in Moscow are not rising. That last part is not an exaggeration, but a direct quote from chief deputy Vladimir Platonov:
V. PLATONOV — No, I did not promise that either. I will list what has been done over these years. A citizen must pay for what he actually consumes. We are involved in this, and the executive branch is actively involved as well, and is achieving lower rates. Y. KOBALADZE — So far, what we see is that they are rising and rising and rising. V. PLATONOV — No, that is your misconception. I am ready to show you the figures year by year, and you will see that there is a slowdown in the growth of rates. http://navalny.livejournal.com/875849.html
A chart comparing utility rate growth with inflation kind of proves the exact opposite:
And what is most irritating is that we did not even propose some law on cutting rates or freezing rates or additional benefits. We simply said: we want a law so that everyone can see what the rate consists of. We just want to see what we are paying for.
But no. The official position of the Moscow City Duma deputies is this: we are the great ones here, and you are nobody. We will not allow you anything at all—not even collecting signatures.
Should we make an effort to bring wrath and retribution down upon the heads of the defiant ones (even if without the boiling oil)? Of course we should, and it is our civic duty.
What do these not-yet-finished-off Moscow City Duma deputies from United Russia want? That is right: they want to be re-elected and go back to loafing at our expense.
Their next election is in six months.
That means we must do everything possible to make sure these parasites do not become deputies again, and that every elderly woman in every apartment building sees them as the enemy.
Old tricks are the best tricks. We know this works, so we made this:
http://deputat.fbk.info/vozmezdie/
Choose your district (for example, “Biryulyovo Vostochnoye”) and you get a simple, clear message for the residents of your building:
If you do not choose any district, the site will randomly offer you any deputy from United Russia’s party list:
We got the young deputy Shchitov, who became a deputy because his father works as a senior official in the Presidential Property Management Department, and who is known for driving a red Audi A5 in the oncoming lane.
The leaflet is pretty vicious. Then again, the truth about United Russia deputies always is.
We will send http://deputat.fbk.info/vozmezdie/ to our entire supporter base in Moscow and invite everyone to take part in the campaign. It is highly effective: even if a thousand people distribute a dozen leaflets in their own buildings, it will leave an impression on pensioners who vote; and if ten thousand do it, all of Moscow will notice the campaign.
Remember that whether United Russia keeps its majority in our city’s Duma, and whether its deputies go on treating Muscovites with such arrogance, depends on our collective efforts—not on some mythical “opposition.”
Please help our Anti-Corruption Foundation spread this link wherever you can. Do not be lazy—spend 10 minutes printing out a few leaflets and posting them in your building’s elevator for two or three days in a row.
United Russia is not going to distribute insulting leaflets about itself.
For extra motivation, just imagine how a United Russia deputy feels when someone sends him photos of these leaflets from his own district. Delightful, isn’t it?