Re: How odd
"Not a free speech case, the cathedral these self advertising douches desecrated was built from public donations from the Russian people as a memorial to the end of the reign of the mass murderer Stalin. (Assuming you are an American) how would you like it if a bunch of assorted scumbags did the same kind of thing in your park of remembrance for the Sept 11 attacks, I think you'd want them locked up too."
Except that Putin is working hard to become the new Stalin. Journalists who criticize him too long and too loudly end up dead. People who start successful businesses and later refuse to sell them to apparatchiks find themselves imprisoned on trumped up charges by the corrupt police, indicted and convicted by the corrupt courts, paid off by the hacks in the privileged elite / organized crime / security apparatus with which Putin, like every other dictator, surrounds himself. This is all so sad because Putin started out by reigning in the oligarchs who had connived to take possession of all state assets when they were privatized, leaving the citizens with zilch. He is popular and has been and in the future could be elected in fair elections. But power has corrupted him, and now he's in the death spiral of having to wield ever more absolute power in order to stay in power, which results in increasing injustice and opposition.
Since Putin is intent on becoming the new Stalin, I'd say that expressing opposition in him in a cathedral you mention is dedicated to celebrating the end of Stalinism is exactly the right place.
Yes, the members of Pussy Riot should have expected and should get some punishment, like a month of community service or something. Two years in a hard labor camp? Get real. It was a kangaroo court, the purpose of which is one more obvious attempt to intimidate anyone who would dare voice criticism of Putin.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
