Youthful Blindness

   What is it that makes certain people so eager to pick fights that they can not win?  What am I talking about?  I was inspired to my write latest entry after watching the HBO Documentary called "Pussy Riot."  "Pussy Riot" was a feminist punk group with a disdain for Vladimir Putin and organized religion in Russia.  In February of 2012, several members of the group were jailed for railing against Putin in an Orthodox Church of Worship.  This group was subsequently hauled off to jail and faced the possibility of three to five years in prison for crimes against the government and for.  Watching this particular documentary, I'm not surprised that "Pussy Riot's" pleas for fairness and due process were virtually ignored.  Nor was I surprised when the presiding judge kept them jailed and labeled them "threats."  Maybe it's a cautionary tale about a group of people trying to change the world without realizing the consequences of rebelling in a corner of the world where human rights and due process and outright freedom are subject to daily interpretation based on the whims of the person holding power at that moment.  There is a moment in the film where one of the accused members of "Pussy Riot" feigns ignorance as to why she's being charged.  After a testy exchange with prosecutors, one of the jailed members of "Pussy Riot" asks, rather tacitly, what basis the government has for charging her and her Co horts.  In this moment, I honestly didn't know whether to admire her gumption or simply plead with her to stop poking the hornets nest.  Does it surprise me that Putin would have a bunch of his critics hauled off to jail?  No, it doesn't.  Putin, was allegedly  behind the poisoning of a rival a few years back.  Within hours Putin's rival was dying a painful death from radiation poisoning in a Moscow hospital and once again..... the west was left to gape at the blatant atrocity committed by a demi gog protecting his fiefdom.  I admire the passion and the gumption of the jailed members of "Pussy Riot" to rail against the demi gog who rules over them but then again, maybe this is a lesson about the bliss of youth and how it creates a rather blinding sense of idealism.  To these young women I say this.  Pick your battles wisely; you can't change the world in a place where the voice of dissention is silenced by any means necessary.