What would you say Democracy is then, if the west doesn't have it?

I would argue different countries in the West have attained varying degrees of it.

A First Past the Post voting system that leads to our only viable choices for candidates coming from two parties that properly represent a tiny sliver of the actual populace isn't all that democratic.

We have the ability to vote out the guy that's fucking up assuming we like the alternative better, but that's it.  Anything beyond that is made unttenable by the spoiler effect.

We need to implement an alternative voting system for the presidency and senate and a proportional system in each state for selecting the house representatives they send to congress for our country to really approach true representation.  I'd get rid of the electoral college (popular vote picks the President) and make all campaigning publicly funded with private contributions outlawed to further that aim.

So..... Looks like 2 years unless something else happens.  Not to mention the 5 months already served that is.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444375104577594790007246410.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

All for like, a minutes worth of air guitar in a church.

Ok, nice, only 1 year and 7 months in jail for them. Very soft decision. )

Well, anybody ain't perfect, even I make mistakes in predictions of things I'm well aware of. The show isn't over yet though, there'd be appeals up the ass, even ROC already have asked for mercy. So the chances they'd be freed on parole in next half a year.

//Anyway I had a lot of reasons to make this prediciton, it's less than 1/3 of prosecuted under 213 article of criminal law who got real sentences last year, on top of that the trial practice of, let's say, political-sensetive cases usually end up with "Solomon decision", sort of wolves to be fed and sheep to be safe, i.e. people would have found guilty, but get conditional sentence instead. After looking at the faces of "pussies" when they got their verdict they didn't expect it either :D It's easy to blab some narcissist nonsense about political prisoners and insult court instead of remorse for what they did, when you're sure you'll get nothing, and now happy time in jail awaits.

Personally I'm satisfied that judge didn't bow under pressure and strictly followed the letter of the law, kudos to her. I'm not satisified with the rest of authorities who either were deluded or purposely followed what's the stupidiest and most obvious provocation made. "STFU, Donny, V.I. Lenin! Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov!", - yeah, listen to Wault :D Why nobody reads the classic of political provocations? The today's famous Sharp scheme is just a plagiargism.

Though this still doesn't makes it somehow different for the guy who got his years in jail just for drawing swastika in synagouge, Kaz ;) In general, America is a gold mine of a disputiable court descisions when you got bigger sentence for stealing than murdering, wacky criminals and even more wacky law enforcement, and all that curiosities that makes us smile reading news reports every morning. It's jsut a law of big numbers, given how huge US prison population as of now - biggest in absolute and relative numbers for entire XX century, which makes it a good contender for being the biggest in the history of humanity - there're shitload of people convicted yearly, out of which there must be some interest cases that media pick up. By your standards our judicial processual system is boring as fuck, this one is just an exclusion from the rule.

You are still trying to compare someone forcibly breaking into a synagogue at night and destroying property, with what these people did, which as far as I could tell, was they went into an area usually reserved for priests, and basically pantomimed stuff.

Not surprising.

http://translate.google.de/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Falles-schallundrauch.blogspot.de%2F2012%2F08%2Fpussy-riot-sind-nutzliche-idioten-und.html

the german article is translated by google.

Wow.  That's a terrible article.

If he it happened in the US, it wouldn't be a news article, because they wouldn't be facing 2 years in jail.

If it happened in a synogogue or mosque for that matter, the news would complain, the offenders would get a fine.

Though that's not really the same situation, since the Russian Orthodox Church is an actual power in russia.

While Jews are nothing more then a religious minority.

It's amazing the fiction some people can come up with.

Kaz, it's not me who's comparing, it's you who brought this topic to the discusion in the first place. I'm just pointing to the fact that you're not a good position in the discussion, 'cos to prove this I don't need the swastika-drawing guy anyway (this and the value of your "destroyed property" is like 500 bucks, and he got 3 years for this, isn't that too much?).

The American  judicial system is a mess, I know that, American patriots know that :D

The author is overdramatizing and overthinking the situation, the usefulnes of article begins and ends with the headline "Pussy Riot are useful idiots and no punks", true that (though I'm too old to comprehend the difference between the "idiot" and "punk", synonyms for me). There's no point in brining Bilderberg Club and ZOG here, lol.

There's nothing foreign in "pussies" case. This's the provocation from inside of current political elite, one side of it. Yes, strictly domestic politics was  brought to attention of the wider audience on purpose (not for the first time btw*). Why? To put political pressure on other side of current political elite, in order to make the "public opinion" of MSM the way to follow, like a referee, highest authority. Of course, the average Joe from said audience easily bites as you might see it even judging by this thread. It's hard to blame the Joe, he doesn't speak other languages and bound to agree with the public opinion of the informational ghetto he's living in, barely understanding anything. That's basically a knee jerk reaction.

*BTW Kaz, that's the same kind of case as with your Aslund you metioned once. The difference only in the topic of an article, since in 2008 the president Medvedev was hot topic at the time, so naturally he was supported as a "new hope" for RF. A new hope in strictly expected way, of course, that's why this "mind the gap" fallacy was invented.