Everybody agrees that giving the members of Pussy Riot two years in jail for disrupting a service (looks like a funeral) in a Moscow Cathedral by singing "Virgin Mary get rid of Putin for us" was overkill. And Putin's worst political move since he poisoned that journalist a couple of years ago. Actually, it is worse than that.
But I couldn't see how it was a question of Free Speech. I agree, it was a show and tell production, a warning to other disssenters for Putin's dictatorship. But I don't even follow politics that closely and had Putin figured at least sinch the dog and pony new Prime Minister show ffour years ago. Everybody knows it, but Russia shiuts up because the economy is healthy and the rest of the world shuts up because they don't care. And Putin really screwed up and opened the floodgates on all sides.
And still: I didn't see how disturbing a service was Free Speech. In the streets of Moscow, sure, in a Church, how so.
I concluded it wasn't but I wasn't happy with my conclusion and so I asked some people, I called Alyson Camus, spoke to Helen Bacjh, went onto Facebook. And I realized where I went wrong.
My Facebook friends Kevin Ransom and Amber Sexton set me straight. First Amber:
"it's been done at St. Patricks, during the AIDS crisis, and none of those people served jail time, though they were arrested. Being arrested in the Uit's been done at St. Patricks, during the AIDS crisis, and none of those people served jail time, though they were arrested. Being arrested in the US is a form of protest. People really did end up in jail for long stretches during the civil rights movement on trumped up charges. Hence MLK's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"S is a form of protest. People really did end up in jail for long stretches during the civil rights movement on trumped up charges. Hence MLK's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail
"And I could kiss the feet of those people who disrupted St. Pat's during the 80's. Most of them are probably dead by now, lots of people with their dying days risked everything during the AIDS crisis to bring the awareness to the problem.
"I have to disagree with you on Pussy Riot in a church. Remember during the lunch counter demos in the civil rights movement, it wasn't only about the lunch counter. Woolworths wasn't causing black people to starve by keeping them from eating at their counters. It was about the indignity of segregation that was pervasive and humiliating all over. A group of real believers can take being disrupted frankly.
"Ghandi used a protest around salt taxes, MLK and Rosa Parks targeted buses. The American Revolution focused on tea. None of these targets were the whole point, they were the venue. The Russian Orthodox church has shown how clearly they are collaborating with the Putin regime, and was a target of a NON VIOLENT mocking protest. That is legitimate."
Kevin Ranson had this to say:
"I don't think they were "insulting" Putin, I think they were protesting against him, which here would be protected speech. Look at all of the deranged, raging, insulting, idiotic, racist, verbally-violent attacks the Right have made against Obama: None of those people have been arrested.
"That would include Dave Mustane, who essentially accused Obama of murder by claiming Obama had "orchestrated" the massacres in Colorado and Wisconsin, and Ted Nugent, whose violent rhetoric — suggesting he was going to shoot Obama — was belligerent and close enough to a threat of assassination that he was investigated and visited by the FBI — but not arrested.
"I do think that what they did falls under free speech — or, at least it would here, where we have full freedom of speech. The Russian church even told the judge it would not object if Putin pardoned the women. If they had done the same thing in the US, the most they would have gotten would have been a ticket for causing a public disturbance.
"Given that Russia has been sliding back into being a totalitarian state under Putin's latest regime, I suspect that they would have been arrested and similarly charged even if they would have said the same thing outside the church"
Here is a video of the action that began all of this. Pussy Riot sing "Virgin Mary":