I’m sitting here listening to Mermaid Avenue, the 1998 album Billy Bragg and Wilco collaborated on using the lyrics of Woody Guthrie and scrolling through the scores of “updates” about the guilty verdict of Pussy Riot handed out earlier today. I use “updates” loosely as I am only reading reiterations of anger and outrage over the two year sentence of hooliganism, which in all reality, cannot be a surprise from the current Russian regime. In fact, it’s quite sparse based on what they could do. I won’t go into why I think Putin went so easy on them, but I do want to address the positives of what have occurred.

Pussy Riot, like the words of Guthrie, have spawned a ripple effect. Three members of the punk outfit have been jailed, but their message has never been louder. This cannot be forgotten. Their verdict may appear unfair, but their persecution reveals everything they were fighting against. And after all, their dissent and the state and church’s intolerance of it is the very point that Pussy Riot were trying to make.

There are still remaining members of Pussy Riot at large (and by the way, has anyone spoken at large about how great their name really is?) Endless “celebrity” endorsements continue to roll in backing Pussy Riot, but we are dealing with a totalitarian government indifferent to Western populist ideals. We only have to look back at Ai Weiwei’s detention for “tax evasion” to see that when a centralized government decides to make an example of an internationally-known public figure, they are doing so as a conscious and lucid gesture for the world to take note of.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Marina Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich have been made examples for the world to see. I would not call them martyrs, and I am hoping the press will not make them so. But rather, they need to be contextualized as the provocateurs that they are, and those believing in their actions should not forget their actions.

Pussy Riot’s performance back in February inside of an Orthodox Church and the consequential backlash and trial have generated an incredible amount of support for free speech and artistic rights to expression. However, I see no goals created beyond fighting for their release. This is a distraction. I believe in their freedom, but their freedom is not the end goal. I also feel it’s important to note the difference in scale. Russia currently has a population of roughly 140 million. Mass dissent is a palpable concern, and so, the oppression of dissent is this strong. This is by no means an excuse, but it is an understanding that I haven’t seen expressed.

As a tangent, Pussy Riot’s intervention inside of the Russian Orthodox church reminded me of ACT UP’s intervention inside of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1989. Over 5,000 people protested outside of the church against Cardinal John O’Connor and the Catholic Archdiocese speaking out against lifesaving AIDS prevention information and abortion access by women during the AIDS Crisis. Until that point, the Catholic League’s influence on public affairs had not been challenged in America. They have still not recovered following ACT UP’s actions. It wasn’t just the stunt inside of the church that prompted the change, it was the massive amount of public support standing outside of the church that shifted everything.

There is an undeniable quality to presence and presence in dissent is what matters. How many of us can express concern through clicking an online button, and how many of us will mindfully express concern through lived interactions? Those two realms of experience are collapsing, but not yet.

Concerning an international affair such as this, and perhaps salaciously so, are we living vicariously through Pussy Riot’s oppression or are we distracted from our own degradation of human rights? I leave considering this: If Pussy Riot was based in your city or your town, what would they be doing?