Pussy Riot members Naezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina The visit earlier this month of two of Russia’s Pussy Riot members to Occupy Wall Street activist Cecily McMillian—who is in Riker’s Island jail in New York awaiting sentencing this coming Monday (May 19) for striking a police officer—sent out a symbolic message about some disturbing similaries between the standards for freedom of expression in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and in post-9/11 New York City. The incident in which Cecily has been tried and convicted took place on March 17, 2012 (Saint Patrick’s Day). It occurred during the eviction of protesters by New York City police from Zuccotti Park in the Wall Street financial district. The park was the scene of a prolonged sit-in demonstration, which spread to other major cities across the country, organized by Americans fed up with the kind of complicity between big business and government that led to the 2007 stock market crash and subsequent Federal bailout—a multi-bi...
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Author Roberto Vivo comments on wars past and present, on the world’s great peacemakers and on the pathway to global peace. His basic philosophy: In a world where 9 out of every 10 victims of armed conflict are civilians, war is no longer a viable political alternative. Indeed, it is the ultimate crime against humanity. If rising generations are to have a future, the key will lie in world peace. War is the pathway to oblivion.