It’s not easy being a dictator in the media age. That is a discovery made most spectacularly by the likes of Moammar Qaddafi, Hosni Mubarak, and Bashar Assad, all of whom found, in differing ways, that repression is hard to carry out in the glare of media publicity. So, in a lesser way, is Vladimir Putin discovering that throwing dissidents in prison isn’t as easy in today’s Russia as it was in the bad old days of the czars and Communist Party bosses that he apparently so admires.
As Seth wrote earlier, today a Russian court sentenced three young women to two years in prison for protesting Putin inside an Orthodox cathedral. The result is to make their band, Pussy Riot, easily one of the most famous musical combos on the planet in spite of their not having released a single album. The Rioters have been championed by everyone from Amnesty International to Madonna. They have, in fact, provided the most attractive face possible for the anti-Putin opposition, giving rise to gibes that the supposedly manly president is afraid of a few girls, whereas if the authorities had simply ignored their performance art nobody would know their names.
Putin has already lost this round. Let us hope that he cuts his loss and pardons the Rioters before they have to serve their odious sentence.
If it were anyone else but Putin assigned by the media as their nemesis, these three would not have become zeitgeist Saint Joans. This has nothing to do with protest or with Putin or even whatever it is about Russian governance we find deplorable. It is not Putin they outraged but Russian public opinion, in particular the Russian Orthodox faithful. n nThese three vulgarly-titled (though not entitled) females didn't just protest. They first trespassed a church, then defiled it with their loud, obscenity-laden diatribe, which had nothing to do with music and the supposed immunity afforded artistic expression. These three were all about publicizing themselves and, by the endorsement of that paragon of humanity Madonna, they succeeded. n nHow would a faithful Catholic or Jew respond to someone's planting a Piss Christ or Piss Torah on the altar of his sanctuary? Politically? I doubt it. And the fact that Putin has weighed in doesn't make this outrage political and thus somehow excusable. These nasty scags are about to get their comeuppance in a fittingly nasty Russian lockup.
Here’s a name for new song dedicated to Pussy Riot: Putin on the Fritz!
Here's a report from Wikipedia about the Stop-the-Chuirch protests: nACT-UP disagreed with Cardinal John Joseph O'Connor on the Roman Catholic Archdiocese's public stand against safe sex education in New York City Public Schools, condom distribution, the Cardinal's public views on homosexuality, as well as Catholic opposition to abortion. This led to the first Stop the Church protest on December 10, 1989 at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York.[12] In December 1989, approximately 4,500 protestors mobilized by ACT-UP and WHAM! gathered outside a mass at the cathedral.[13] A few dozen[14] activists entered the cathedral, interrupted Mass, chanted slogans, or lay down in the aisles.[15] One protestor broke a communion wafer and threw it to the floor.[15][3] One-hundred and eleven protesters were arrested.[16] Only minor charges were filed, punished primarily by community service sentences; some protestors who refused the sentences were tried, but did not serve jail time
They'll be out in a month. This is all theater for his thugs.
Not exactly. Putin knows the western 'progressive' media is enraptured by the rousting of hot girls. Meanwhile Gary Kasparov was arrested at the courthouse yesterday and our 'media' has completely missed it.