Oh, Russia! You are the same shitty clusterfuck that you were under the Soviet Union... No, actually, you're worse, for it's being done under the guise of democracy.

For decades, your people were suppressed, not allowed to speak, to create. Great minds like Vysotsky, Brodsky, Bulgakov, Babel, Mandelstam, etc, etc, etc — censored, deported, or even jailed, killed. But that was under communism! Things are different now!

Wrong. Oh, so wrong. And what's happening with Pussy Riot is only a small drop in the cesspool of censorship and hatred that is Russia.

So, yes, Pussy Riot. A girl punk band with some unpopular opinions. They don't like Putin. They sing about it. They are forced to hide their faces, because if the authorities ever found out who they were... Well, they did. Three members jailed, sent to prison camps for... for what? This is democracy?

And it gets worse. The other thing that's not changing about Russia? Its antisemitism. For the popular opinion is that Pussy Riot must be a Jewish conspiracy to bring down the Russian government and the Russian church!

We don't know if Pussy Riot's members are Jewish. The three whose names are known don't seem to be. But even if they were, why does it matter? Why does their lawyer have to prove that HE is not Jewish? Why does it not seem possible that in that vast, vapid, vacuous country there are some people who don't like what's going on and want to speak up about it?

It's sad... So, so, sad. That great country with so much potential... Oh, Russia, Russia, Russia...