One of the three members of Russian punk rock band Pussy Riot has had her sentence commuted to time served. Good news, of course. The other two are still serving two year sentences for playing an anti-Putin song in a Russian Orthodox Cathedral, outraging the reactionary Church hierarchy. For their disorderly conduct, a fair punishment would have been a small fine.
Meanwhile, U.S. political prisoner Tim deChristopher continues to serve his two year sentence for daring to bid in a U.S. Interior Department oil lease auction. Instead of having security guards escort him from the auction, which he in no way disrupted, (nor did he threaten anyone, attack anyone, scream or shout or destroy or damage Government property), the Obama regime prosecuted him for Federal felonies.
Thanks to the power of Western media, which continues to follow every twist and turn of the Pussy Riot case, Pussy Riot has gotten international attention and support from various Big Name celebrities like Madonna, Lady Gaga, and Yoko Ono.
Tim deChristopher, as it always the case for U.S. dissidents being persecuted by the U.S., is ignored and marginalized. Even most of the allegedly progressive media devotes insufficient attention to such cases- cases which reveal the hollowness of U.S. propaganda noise about "freedom" and "human rights,"- and never draw the obvious contrast to foreign dissident cases.
Amnesty International is blind and deaf to U.S. dissidents and political prisoners.
Perhaps progressives themselves have too much ideological and psychological investment in the myth of U.S. "freedom" and "rights" to bring themselves to face reality and attack the U.S. and its "Western" stooge nations for their rank hypocrisy.
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