my obligatory 'free pussy riot!' blog post

i love pussy riot. they're an all female, russian punk rock band. i've never heard any of their songs. and today they were sentenced to 2 years in prison in russia for playing a song that criticized a russian leader in a church. they were charged with, "hooliganism." the inner punk child in me is way the fuck in love.

it sucks that they're going to jail. i feel awful for them. they didn't hurt anybody. they committed a crime with no real victim. but that's just how shit goes in russia i suppose. i didn't really know they had a freedom of speech problem until this happened. i was ignorantly under the impression that you could do things like that in russia with little to no consequence. a protest that criticizes your president? that shit happens here all the time.

this whole thing is bittersweet. it reaffirms my joy to be an american in america. i can turn the tv on anytime i want and easily find someone criticizing our president... someone who probably gets paid handsomely to do so. there's plenty of protesting in america. and you can say whatever you want. our freedom of speech even defends shitty protests like when the kkk and the westboro baptist church decide to have hate orgies in public places.

but it also saddens me that we as people, globally, haven't evolved past this. that there's still plenty of places in the world where you can be marked a criminal for the words that come out of your mouth. that just feels wrong. i don't wanna think that i've taken for granted the idea that everyone has an opinion and can speak it in america. why isn't it like that everywhere? why can't we all let each other say whatever the fuck we wanna say? i can't fathom the idea of being limited in what i'm aloud to say publicly. in my heart, mind, and soul it's a concept that is fundamentally flawed and fucked.

i hope 2 years goes by quick for the jailed members of pussy riot. i hope we don't forget this. i hope they come out and tour the world and i buy tickets just because i want to see the band that had the vagina to stand up to their government in a protesting manner and speak their fucking mind in one of my favorite languages, the language of punk fucking rock.