One of the top international news stories of this week was the criminal conviction of three Russian feminist punk rockers from the group Pussy Riot. Maria Alyokhina, Yekaterina Samutsevich, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova face two years in prison on trumped-up charges of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.” Read the closing statements they delivered at their trial and tell me these women aren’t more brave than anyone you know. They must be missing their families and hating their crummy prison conditions, but the defendants denounced the show trial instead of apologizing and asking for mercy from the court.

Meanwhile, Iowa politics-watchers once again debated whether it’s appropriate to heckle speakers at the Iowa State Fair soapbox.

Last Monday, as President Barack Obama kicked off a three-day visit to Iowa in Council Bluffs, Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan came to speak at the Des Moines Register’s Iowa State Fair soapbox. Several news accounts of his appearance focused on a few members of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, who tried to shout him down throughout his 12-minute speech.

One of the Iowa CCI protesters, retired teacher Cherie Mortice, defended her behavior in a commentary at Salon.com.

And I assure you, Congressman, what I did, what those other Iowans did that day, wasn’t easy for those of us raised to be “Iowa nice.” From a young age I learned to behave in the way you alluded to, to be extremely friendly and to always assume the best of people.  Over the years I’ve sat very patiently, listening to politicians, watching them dodge questions or distort answers or really just abuse the facts and I never said anything because it wouldn’t be nice, it’s not Iowa nice.

But I’m 63 years old now, I’m retired, and I’ve seen the impact of that silence.  I’ve seen who really pays the price for silence and it is the poor and the middle class.  I have seen the big picture – how corporate greed erodes democracy and factories take over farms. I’ve seen it all up-close and personal too, every day, for 24 years, teaching middle school in a district that serves low-income families. […]

So you understand, Congressman Ryan, and Governor Romney, that when I hear you tell a crowd that you want to “help the middle class to prosper,” by cutting off the lifelines these young people need to survive – food stamps, Medicaid, public education and, yes, drug treatment, it makes my blood boil. It sends that Iowa nice thing right out the window. […]

There’s so much more, Congressman Ryan, and Governor Romney, that makes me forget my upbringing – at least the part of my upbringing that tells me to sit back, grin and bear it, and let you lie to me and destroy people’s lives and then maybe, at most, grouse about it quietly in private.  Or maybe I’m not forgetting my upbringing at all, come to think of it. Maybe I’m remembering well the lessons of generations of hardworking Iowans who value community, fairness, opportunity and kindness in the face of a mean-spirited policy of greed.   A little of that Iowa nice has turned from Iowa nice, to Iowa sad, to Iowa angry and finally, to Iowa strong.

There are worse things than disrupting someone’s speech, but from where I’m sitting, Iowa CCI did not help their cause last Monday.

Holding signs and shouting a few slogans can draw media attention to your issue. Heckling from Iowa CCI members during Mitt Romney’s 2011 Iowa State Fair appearance prompted the GOP presidential candidate to deliver the memorable line, “Corporations are people too, my friend.” Democratic candidates and committees have been exploiting that comment for the last year, even as some professional Democrats tried to distance themselves from Iowa CCI.

But last Monday, journalists covering Ryan’s soapbox appearance focused on Iowa CCI’s heckling itself, not the policies that inspired the protests. Consequently, Ryan came out looking like the victim of closed-minded people who wouldn’t even let him speak. If the protesters’ goal was to expose Ryan as a heartless hypocrite, they failed.

I support and sympathize with Iowa CCI’s agenda and their willingness to call out politicians in both parties. I encourage their members to keep working on a wide range of social justice issues and tracking proposed legislation at the statehouse. The mainstream media don’t do a good job covering many of the problems Iowa CCI highlights.

This kind of direct action by Iowa CCI members seems much more useful than shouting someone down at the State Fair, or picketing outside a government official’s home. By the same token, disrupting a recent meeting of the Iowa Board of Regents probably did nothing to pressure Regents President Bruce Rastetter over his alleged conflict of interest in that role.

This is an open thread.

P.S. I wasn’t impressed by Marshall County Treasurer Jarret Heil, who released a statement denouncing President Obama after the president hold a campaign event at his father’s farm. What a phony: “It is truly an honor to have the President of the United States visit our farm” blah blah blah, followed by a Republican talking point laundry list.

That farm visit was one of several Obama events in Iowa designed to highlight his administration’s support for wind energy production. The president’s campaign has radio and television commercials in heavy rotation bashing Romney for opposing another extension of the wind energy tax credits. I doubt this point will swing a lot of undecided voters, but having this issue in the news probably doesn’t help Romney’s image. Senator Chuck Grassley, Governor Terry Branstad, and Representative Tom Latham have all been griping about Romney’s stance on wind energy tax credits. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, another Romney campaign surrogate in Iowa last week, defended the GOP candidate’s position on the issue, but politicians from major oil and gas-producing states have zero credibility when they attack incentives for renewable energy.