This is what burying free speech looks like

A number of readers have asked about the group called Pussy Riot.  Well, they are young women, feminists, rock musicians, performance artists, and activists for free expression.  Their satire-filled performances have been called "bigoted" and "hateful" by pundits in the pay of the establishment.

Pussy Riot's first song in English is dedicated to Eric Garner and the words he repeated eleven times before his death. This song is for Eric and for all those from Russia to America and around the globe who suffer from state terror - killed, choked, perished because of war and state sponsored violence of all kinds - for political prisoners and those on the streets fighting for change.

The authorities have tried to suppress their controversial way of voicing their opinions.  These young women have been beaten in public for trying to exercise free speech.

Russian punk group Pussy Riot is attacked by Cossack militia as they try to perform under a sign for the Sochi Olympics. Cossack militia attacked the Pussy Riot punk group with horsewhips on Wednesday as the group staged an impromptu performance under a sign advertising the Sochi Olympics.

They were arrested on charges of "hate speech".

Put on trial...

And imprisoned for nearly two years for expressing their opinions.

While in prison, Amnesty International claims they suffered abuse at the hands of prison officials and inmates.

In 2014, two members of the group -- Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina won the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought.  The prize is named after philosopher Hannah Arendt, author of numerous books (some quite controversial in their day), including The Origins of Totalitarianism, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, and A Life of the Mind.

Should writing a book disqualify someone from public office?

By Rubashov

Catch-22, The Grapes of Wrath, Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Canterbury Tales, Tropic of Cancer, Ulysses, Naked Lunch, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Moll Flanders, Candide, Women in Love, Fanny Hill, The Decameron, United States-Vietnam Relations 1945-67, Operation Dark Heart, The Federal Mafia, My Life and Loves...

Each one of these books was labeled "obscene trash" by some pundit who had sufficient influence to ban the book in part or even the whole of America.  Yes, books have been banned in America -- books that have gone on to become classics, like those above, and many more that have been lost to time.

Pundits like to think of themselves as writers and it is true that some do write, but their main vocation is that of hall monitor, dashing off sometimes to make a quick comparison in the boys' room, but generally alert to any threat to the "propriety" imposed by their hypocritical masters, and enforced by the punditry. Pundits hate intellectual freedom, because the freedom of people to think what they will is not in their self-interest.  What use for their interpretive priesthood if people read and made up their own minds? 

Yesterday, a pundit writing on PolitickerNJ took a febrile quote from an obviously overwrought young candidate and twisted it into something quite diabolical. It was suggested that someone who was nominated by a free vote be denied his civil right to run for public office because... (wait for it) ...he was the author of a book that the pundit considers "obscene trash". 

Wow... where was this guy when authors like Jim Webb and Al Franken were making their way to the United States Senate? 

Move over Putin, we want to get in on the action too.  Let's strip people of their civil rights -- not because they commit a crime -- but  because we don't like the way they think or what they say or write down. 

Pussy Riot goes to jail because we don't like their performance.  We think it "obscene trash."  If you are a writer, make sure you write in a way that is so bland that nobody is offended.  Otherwise, you will lose your civil rights, starting with the right to represent your fellow citizens.

Armbands anyone?