The two-year prison sentences handed down to Pussy Riot supposedly revealed how oppressive and backwards Putin’s Russia is, in contrast to our Western democracies. But now three colorfully ski-masked Germans who tried to stir a commotion at the historic Cologne Cathedral earlier this week are staring at the possibility of three years behind bars. Any guesses on what would happen to a U.S. Pussy Riot, assuming some sort of terrorism charges would be thrown at them?
The eloquent and defiant closing statement from band member Yekaterina Samutsevich in the Pussy Riot trial explains the meaning (which Americans might not have understood) behind the punk band’s acts of art. Via chtodelat, translated:
I now have mixed feelings about this trial. On the one hand, we now expect a guilty verdict. Compared to the judicial machine, we are nobodies, and we have lost. On the other hand, we have won. Now the whole world sees that the criminal case against us has been fabricated. The system cannot conceal the repressive nature of this trial.
During the closing statement, the defendant is expected to repent or express regret for her deeds, or to enumerate attenuating circumstances. In my case, as in the case of my colleagues in the group, this is completely unnecessary.
The fact that Christ the Savior Cathedral had become a significant symbol in the political strategy of our powers that be was already clear to many thinking people when Vladimir Putin’s former [KGB] colleague Kirill Gundyaev took over as head of the Russian Orthodox Church.
I’m curious to see this news get tweaked as a lighthearted Portlandia segment. The Portland Mercury on the revelation that the FBI is conducting raids on the homes of politically minded locals in search of “criminal evidence” such as black clothing, anarchist literature, and placard signs and flags:
The first interview with any of the Portlanders who were served grand jury subpoenas as FBI agents searched their homes on July 25 shines some light on what authorities may be hoping to achieve with the raids.
Dennison Williams was in bed at his house on Wednesday morning when he heard someone shout, “FBI!” Then came a loud crash, which turned out to be agents breaking down his front door, and Williams heard a bang and a saw a flash of light—the agents throwing flash grenades.
FBI officers entered his room with assault rifles and kept them aimed at him while they handcuffed him.
Doesn’t it kind of constitute vandalism for the police to deface the entire side of a property with black paint against the owner’s wishes? New York Magazine explains:
New York City graffiti artist Alan Ket has the permission of an Inwood building owner to paint freely on their outside wall, but the NYPD doesn’t care. DNAinfo reports that the department sent two plainclothes officers to cover up his latest mural yesterday, calling it a “bad idea.” The art featured the text “We know the real … Murderers,” the last word blown-up and bullet-ridden, surrounded by tombstones for various controversial organizations: McDonald’s, Halliburton, Shell Oil, Bank of America, that kind of thing. Oh, and the NYPD is in there too.
“I can’t confront them, because I don’t want problems,” said the building’s owner in Spanish. “There is no freedom of expression. It’s a bomb, and now here I am in the middle of a bomb.”
Read More at New York Magazine… Read the rest
The previously discussed purple-uniformed brand police have hit the streets, and will fine or jail those who violate the specially-legislated “rights” of companies which are official Olympic sponsors. The Independent writes:
Hundreds of uniformed Olympics officers will begin touring the country today enforcing sponsors’ multimillion-pound marketing deals. Wearing purple caps and tops… checking firms to ensure they are not staging “ambush marketing” or illegally associating themselves with the Games at the expense of official sponsors such as Adidas, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and BP.
[Drinking establishments] have been advised that blackboards advertising live TV coverage must not refer to beer brands or brewers without an Olympics deal, while caterers and restaurateurs have been told not to advertise dishes that could be construed as having an association with the event. At the 40 Olympics venues, 800 retailers have been banned from serving chips to avoid infringing fast-food rights secured by McDonald’s.
Marina Palomba, for the McCann Worldgroup agency in London, described the rules as “the most draconian law in advance of an Olympic Games ever”.
A lament written for U.S. Independence Day, by Paul Craig Roberts:
Hot Air Day is upon us. On July 4 hot air will spew forth all over the country as dignitaries deliver homilies to our “freedom and democracy” and praise “our brave troops” who are protecting our freedom by “killing them over there before they come over here.”
Not a single one of these speeches will contain one word of truth. No speaker will lament the death of the US Constitution or urge his audience to action to restore the only document that protects their liberty. No speaker will acknowledge that in the 21st century the Bush/Obama Regime, with the complicity of the Department of Justice, federal courts, Congress, presstitute media, law schools, bar associations, and an insouciant public have murdered the Constitution in the name of the “war on terror.
Not a single one of these speeches will contain one word of truth.
Odd how these protest-free zones always happen to coincide with where protest would be most necessary. PressTV writes:
The United States Coast Guard will establish and enforce “a 500-meter safety zone” around the Shell Oil Company’s drilling vessel Noble Discoverer as it drills exploratory offshore wells in the sensitive Arctic waters off the coast of Alaska beginning this July.
The ‘buffer zone’ would apply to all vessels, but the ‘special rules’ are clearly designed to make it more difficult for those trying to protest against the Shell’s oil drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas this summer.
“For any group or individual intending to conduct lawful demonstrations in the vicinity of the Noble Discoverer,” reads the USCG memo, “These demonstrations must be conducted outside the safety zone.” While acknowledging the negative impact on the “environment and indigenous people” a mid-ocean collision caused by environmental activists attempting to block or board the ship could have in the Arctic, the USCG report made no mention of what impact a massive oil spill in the area would have on the same.
Via RT:
As the consolidated corporate media machine fails in its function as the fourth estate, citizen journalists and independent press outlets are there to pick up the slack. But this important task is becoming increasingly threatened by the harsh treatment at the hands of the police force. Citizen based media is often targeted by police for reporting unfiltered truths, or they are lumped together with activists/protesters and beaten or arrested.
As more and more Americans choose alternative news sources to find out what is really happening in their country, harassing those providing first hand reports muzzles the free flow of information and poses a threat to democracy. Abby Martin explores the subject for RT.
Writes Michelle Maltais in the LA Times:
If you had the keys to your country’s Twitter account, what would you say?
Well, Sonja Abrahamsson has caused a bit of a stir with her tweets about Jews from the @Sweden handle.
This week’s vox populi via @Sweden from Abrahamsson has delved into such curiosities as “Whats the fuzz with jews. You can’t even see if a person is a jew,” without intimate examination, she wrote in more explicit terms.
As you can imagine, her tweets have caught some flack and attention. Abrahamsson, who describes herself as “a 27-year old womanlike human being from northern Sweden,” is part of a government experiment entrusting its @Sweden national Twitter account to a new citizen every week…
China just released a report on the (lack of) human rights over the past year in the U.S.A. Are we living in an authoritarian society without knowing it? Via China Daily, when you put things this way, it sounds pretty bad:
The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011 is hereby prepared to reveal the true human rights situation of the United States to people across the world and urge the United States to face up to its own doings.
In the United States, the violation of citizens’ civil and political rights is severe. It is lying to itself when the United States calls itself the land of the free (The Washington Post, Jan 14, 2012).
Claiming to defend 99 percent of the US population against the wealthiest, the Occupy Wall Street protest movement tested the US political, economic and social systems. Ignited by severe social and economic inequality, uneven distribution of wealth and high unemployment, the movement expanded to sweep the United States after its inception in September 2011.
