The verdict in the Pussy Riot kangaroo court is a sentence of two years for hooliganism and expression of hate for religion. That's what they were charged with, not permitted a proper defense, and that's what they were sentenced on, what they were charged with. I can't help but think it is a mind game played on them by Putin who may have set the nature of the punishment first day of their arrest. The judge following orders from headquarters. Whatever the case, the so-called trial was a mockery of law, which the State is free to do at will. It's like a Kafka novel and a Solzhenitsyn novel spun together as one. That's in Russia. I have no right in USA to be telling Russian State what decisions to make. I don't aim to. It's their business. But as a story, a story told by a Russian contemporary writer, the verdict is not the end of the story. It's the beginning of the next chapter. The plot thickens. The kangaroo trial and the martial sentence were done publicly, so I have a right to comment on it publicly; albeit with not anything like the international publicity they made for themselves.
It is no different here. Kangaroo trials abound here. No one can point a finger from this side of either ocean. 911 was an inside job and American Muslims suffer under the blame for it by the ones that pushed the button to set the plan in motion. The Pussy Riot girls pushed Putin's buttons in a time when he is evidently feeling threatened. It's not like they were in Amsterdam or SanFrancisco. They also pushed the buttons of the Russian Orthodox church, itself threatened by a falling away of the young. The way I see what they did from my own perspective, sitting with a laptop pushing buttons, they were children playing with firecrackers. I would never think of doing what they did without considering the consequences first. Maybe they did. If I chose to go ahead and commit the act, it would be aware of the risk. They got the shaft. If they didn't know that was the risk, they were too ignorant to be taken seriously anyway. These three women will be committed political activists the rest of their lives. They will be cheered at rallies, at rock concerts. Their names will ring all over Russia among the young. The more harshly they're treated, the more famous around the world they will be. Censoring the internet is what the State has to do. In effect, shutting out the outside world.
What's the problem with that? In USA we are so self-centered that the biggest majority of Americans isn't even interested that Russia is a country, couldn't find it on a globe. As a rule, Americans are not interested in anything beyond our borders except as tourism. Evidently Russians are not interested in the world outside Russia either. Why would Putin give a shit about what Madonna thinks of the Russian legal system? Or Bjork? Or The Edge? From his way of seeing, these freaks with freakish names are what's wrong with the world. To post-Soviet Russians, like in America, mostly rural peasantry, they're so poor the religion is all they have. Wiggle your ass in the face of what half the Russian population believes to be God's altar, and you've pist off very seriously an awful lot of the people around you, wherever you are in the country. The Pussy Riot girls did not get it how adamant religionists can be. On a news clip I heard someone from over there say the girls simply chose the wrong location to exhibit their protest. At the same time, what better indication that your protest really worked than a 2 year sentence? That's better than the front page of the Sunday paper for publicity.
I think I recall seeing something about a new single by the punk rock band Pussy Riot. It's another rant about Putin, or maybe the one that got them locked up. They're pushing it. I couldn't be so light-hearted going up against the Russian bear. The girls are so out of their league, they may end up wishing they'd taken up knitting in front of a television instead of political activism. Whatever the case, the story is not over and may not be over for quite awhile. A provocative action provokes. A 2 year sentence is what the Pussy Riot girls provoked for themselves. It doesn't seem right to people of the world outside Russia, but evidently it seems right to the people of Russia. Who knows? The press cannot be counted on to tell anything remotely close to actuality, theirs and ours. I know Russia is censoring internet activity that has to do with Pussy Riot. So what. They want control of the news inside Russia. US corporate government has control of the news inside USA. It's nothing we can make something of about freedom. It's just post-Soviet Russia acting like America. They do it their way, we do it our way. They have the Gulag, we have the biggest prison system in the world.
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