American NGO's are considered CIA ops by much of the world. Are they doing more harm than good?

   
   

Are these girls working for the US? Many Russians think so.

    This weekend I went to an event featuring the now famous members of the Russian art collective known as Pussy Riot. As anyone who know the saga of the two young women they were arrested for performing in a church in Moscow in 2012. Since then they were put on trial, sentenced to two years for hooliganism and inciting religious hatred. They ended serving less than two years, the religious hatred charges were dropped (after they were released) and they are now being sponsored by many groups in the West and are now globetrotting celebrities among the progressive left.  They are also starting an NGO to address prison reform in Russia and apparently bash Vladimir Putin at every speaking engagement they show up at. 
     Ironically, the very next day Vladimir Putin gave a stern warning to the West that he would not allow western NGO's to foment revolt in Russia in the way that Victoria Nuland bragged about helping overthrow the elected government in Ukraine by using 5 billion dollars in American taxpayer money and NGO's to achieve "democracy". Since it was the Russians who released Nuland phone call and probably had spies at the Ukrainian event in New York where she bragged about the 5 billion in American dough used in the Ukraine for NGO's. (One has to wonder why the US was giving pro-Democracy groups 5 billion dollars when the Ukrainian government owes 30 billion in debts to European banks and Russian gas companies. But what do I care. It's just my money Nuland was using.) All of which makes me think that the new Pussy Riot NGO will probably be working out of New York so the girls can live in Brooklyn, close to the NYC press elites that love them so dearly.
     Then again after watching the IDFA "award winning film" Pussy Versus Putin I'm not sure they have much to be afraid of in Putin's Russia. For any American who has lived through real police violence (check out the removal of Oakland occupy protesters in 2011 or better yet the treatment by the LAPD of immigration protesters at the May Day immigration march Los Angeles' MacArthur Park if you want to know what real police violence looks like - someone definitely left the cake out in the rain that day) the ability that the girls had to yell at and taunt the police - EVEN in the Moscow Police station showed a side of Putin's Russia that did not look very scary at all. 
     The most telling incident in the whole movie was actually a trip to the Moscow police station which included members of Pussy Riot and counter protesting Orthodox Christians in a paddy wagon. They are seen laughing together, discussing politics and seemingly getting along in a way that made Russia seem much more civilized than anything I see on Fox and MSNBC these days. I also found it interesting that one of the Orthodox protesters jokes to the husband of Nadya Tolokonnikova (the "hot one" as many of my friends refer to her) that "You do your play and we'll do ours."
     Of course, when the BBC got hold of this same footage and worked with HBO to produce Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer they didn't use that footage. They simply made the Orthodox protesters look like evil buffoons and the girls from Pussy Riot to be be dedicated activists. No joking between the groups. No joint arrests by exasperated Moscow Police who seemed more annoyed than threatened by the whole scene. I am a filmmaker and I know why they did this. Showing the that the two groups both understand the political game and the art of subversion destroys the narrative that the western activists and press want to present to the public. One of brave, young women being oppressed by evil Vlad Putin. If it is all just knowing political theater the narrative goes away.
     How does that pertain to American NGO's you might be asking. I'll tell you. You see, when I saw Pussy Riot speak, to a half full room made up primarily of middle aged progressive types who had obviously been invited to the event, the first questioner happened to be a local Russian woman. Her question? "Who is paying you and what would call someone who is a political prostitute?" 
     See this woman. The Russian woman who lives in the US thinks these girls are working for the West. And with the security they had, the handlers who were with them and some of their associates like known State Department lacky Masha Gessen, she's probably correct. Even the movie (which was rather poorly made I must say) had a scene which was telling about how connected to the State department the Pussy Riot collective has been from the start. The scene occurs in the immediate aftermath of arrest in the Moscow Cathedral. Nadya and Masha are rushed into an apartment to do an interview with USAID sponsored Voice of Russia radio that according to the film was set up six weeks prior. You don't set up an interview six weeks in advance if you aren't trying to provoke authorities and get arrested. It just doesn't happen that way. The fact that the interview was with a State Department funded station like Voice of Russia let's us know that the US was complicit at the very least in promoting the event. 
     And that is why ordinary Russians, even the ones living in the US, think these NGO's and the people working with them are up to no good. They agree with VLADIMIR PUTIN. That is why he has an 80% approval rating in Russia and the young women have fewer Twitter followers than Matt and Kim. Despite the nonsense you read in the Western press. 
     Of course, this follows revelations by USAID last week that spent, er wasted, hundreds of millions of American dollars trying to develop a Cuban Twitter in order to send anti-government message to the Cuban people to try and foment unrest in that country. USAID, which in case you don't know, is a State Department funded government entity with a mission statement to promote humanitarian aid around the world who funds many American NGO's around the globe. They are not supposed to engaging in regime change. At least that is not what they say publicly. 
     Most people around the world do not believe that. The young people in Egypt do not believe that. That's why they have burned down the buildings that housed many American NGO's. The Libyan people who country is now in tatters do not believe it. The Russian people obviously do not believe it. People around the globe believe American NGO's, especially the ones funded by USAID, are CIA spies. And every time they catch them working with the State Department like what happened in Cuba and in the Ukraine, their suspicions are affirmed. Making them look even more skeptically at Americans working with any NGO or think tank. 
     Yet, Americans of all stripes, most especially progressives, love NGO's. We love Kony 2012. We love The Cups of Tea and we love Pussy Riot. We like thinking we're making a difference. We love to have the people who work for them speak out as experts on NPR. We love to read their books, see documentaries about them at the local film fest and we love to go see them speak for twenty bucks a pop at the local library when they come through town. 
     I'm not saying that all NGO's are bad. Some of them are very good and are run by caring, thoughtful people. Even some of the NGO's that receive funds from USAID. The problem is that the people who they are supposedly helping do not like them. They do not want them in their countries. More importantly they are sowing a divide between those countries and ours. Even if we don't want to believe it. 
     Maybe it is time to rethink how America does business in the world. And the results we are trying to achieve. Your thoughts are welcomed.