Comment: Bonus video:
Reader Comments
Fascinating stuff. And, I have a feeling it doesn't just apply to millennials either. It can't just apply to one group of people and not the other.
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn-a true hero!
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn - a true hero.
Reading Gulag is an unforgettable EXPERIENCE - something that sadly, few, if any, books - at least these days - truly are.
What passes as literature* in the US is the most formulaic, unrealistic, and yet wildly successfully propagandistic BS in the history of the world. Need proof? The US Police Forces, which kills more Americans than any other group, - is currently polling with the highest popularity ever!
Why? The dumbed down idiot masses of proles believe that TV shows represent true life, at a time when the good cops are hanging in, trying to fight real crime and get to retirement. (They're so dumbed down that they don't realize that calling 9/11 is truly, 'Russian' Roulette.(Pun intended.) They'll realize their error when their little dog is shot, and baby in a crib is burned with a hand grenade.)
Meanwhile, the 'less than good guy' cops, are now the chronic thieves and power mad, who are getting rich in the Vice/’Narcotics’ branches. (It’s standard knowledge that 20 to 33% of both the product and the money never gets to the evidence room.) It would be easy to prove, too, in the same way that the IRS got Capone: look at his lifestyle. Where does the money come from?)
As I recall, when Solzhenitsyn was exiled from the USSR, he made his way from Europe to the US. Before? that time, One of his typists on The Gulag Archipelago broke under the five day? interrogation/torture by the post-Krushchev-USSR’s reinvigorated Police State/KGB/State Security,* etc.) under Andropov, Brezhnev, et al., and she told them where the/a manuscript was. Two weeks lalter, she committed suicide. Thus, the introductory "Author's Note" of the book states:
“For years, I have with a reluctant heart withheld from publication this already completed book: my obligation to those still living outweighed my obligation to the dead. But now that State Security has seized the book anyway, I have no alternative but to publish it immediately.”
I also remember some level of ‘outcry’ when he gave his 1978 Graduation Address to Harvard. He was castigated by our dimwit presstitutes and politicians for being ‘ungrateful’ to the land of the free, by offering constructive criticism and warnings of what we obviously faced (and which has now come true in a degree far worse than the worse pessimist of that era thought would ever occur.) Insane!
The man was a true hero, and I wish I could have somehow met him, but I was still a kid and didn’t read Gulag - in depth - until around 2001. (My favorite character: ‘that bantamweight rooster’ Vaslov. Read Gulag!) ***
R.C.
* For most Americans, (those I refer to as AmeriKans), any ‘literature’ they read has nothing to do with reality, and everything to do with ‘CONTROL.’ That electric babysitter box has now brainwashed generations.
** Contra the US - but only because we are now facing our FIRST true-militarization of police forces who look at citizens not as their bosses, but as their enemies. Add the laws of eradication of the Posse Comitatus Act, Passage ot the Patriosh*t Act and the NDAA - we have now, for the first time, truly become a Police State which hopes rid us of basic rights, such as ‘right to be left alone,’ the ‘right to speak one’s truth,’ to ‘be anonymous’, and soon will likely become insanely close to that ultimate definition of a Dystopian Dictatorship/Authoriarian Government, such as in Orwell’s 1984: ‘All that is no prohibited.... is mandatory.’
*** Not the same as the USSR General Vaslov’s Nazi Created and closely/completely controlled arming of a Soviet Force of soldiers- “Vaslovites.” - (most of whom joined: a) to get food; and, b) to escape back and rejoin the red army.) Instead, they were shot. Meanwhile, ALL Soviet POW’s were ultimately found to be ‘Traitors OF the Motherland and automatically went into the Gulag.
("No, RC: don't hesitate to tell us how you REALLY feel.) ;-)
RC
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn - a true hero.
Reading Gulag is an unforgettable EXPERIENCE - something that sadly, few, if any, books - at least these days - truly are.
What passes as literature* in the US is the most formulaic, unrealistic, and yet wildly successfully propagandistic BS in the history of the world. Need proof? The US Police Forces, which kills more Americans than any other group, - is currently polling with the highest popularity ever!
Why? The dumbed down idiot masses of proles believe that TV shows represent true life, at a time when the good cops are hanging in, trying to fight real crime and get to retirement. (They're so dumbed down that they don't realize that calling 9/11 is truly, 'Russian' Roulette.(Pun intended.) They'll realize their error when their little dog is shot, and baby in a crib is burned with a hand grenade.)
Meanwhile, the 'less than good guy' cops, are now the chronic thieves and power mad, who are getting rich in the Vice/’Narcotics’ branches. (It’s standard knowledge that 20 to 33% of both the product and the money never gets to the evidence room.) It would be easy to prove, too, in the same way that the IRS got Capone: look at his lifestyle. Where does the money come from?)
As I recall, when Solzhenitsyn was exiled from the USSR, he made his way from Europe to the US. Before? that time, One of his typists on The Gulag Archipelago broke under the five day? interrogation/torture by the post-Krushchev-USSR’s reinvigorated Police State/KGB/State Security,* etc.) under Andropov, Brezhnev, et al., and she told them where the/a manuscript was. Two weeks lalter, she committed suicide. Thus, the introductory "Author's Note" of the book states:
“For years, I have with a reluctant heart withheld from publication this already completed book: my obligation to those still living outweighed my obligation to the dead. But now that State Security has seized the book anyway, I have no alternative but to publish it immediately.”
I also remember some level of ‘outcry’ when he gave his 1978 Graduation Address to Harvard. He was castigated by our dimwit presstitutes and politicians for being ‘ungrateful’ to the land of the free, by offering constructive criticism and warnings of what we obviously faced (and which has now come true in a degree far worse than the worse pessimist of that era thought would ever occur.) Insane!
The man was a true hero, and I wish I could have somehow met him, but I was still a kid and didn’t read Gulag - in depth - until around 2001. (My favorite character: ‘that bantamweight rooster’ Vaslov. Read Gulag!) ***
R.C.
* For most Americans, (those I refer to as AmeriKans), any ‘literature’ they read has nothing to do with reality, and everything to do with ‘CONTROL.’ That electric babysitter box has now brainwashed generations.
** Contra the US - but only because we are now facing our FIRST true-militarization of police forces who look at citizens not as their bosses, but as their enemies. Add the laws of eradication of the Posse Comitatus Act, Passage ot the Patriosh*t Act and the NDAA - we have now, for the first time, truly become a Police State which hopes rid us of basic rights, such as ‘right to be left alone,’ the ‘right to speak one’s truth,’ to ‘be anonymous’, and soon will likely become insanely close to that ultimate definition of a Dystopian Dictatorship/Authoriarian Government, such as in Orwell’s 1984: ‘All that is no prohibited.... is mandatory.’
*** Not the same as the USSR General Vaslov’s Nazi Created and closely/completely controlled arming of a Soviet Force of soldiers- “Vaslovites.” - (most of whom joined: a) to get food; and, b) to escape back and rejoin the red army.) Instead, they were shot. Meanwhile, ALL Soviet POW’s were ultimately found to be ‘Traitors OF the Motherland and automatically went into the Gulag.
("No, RC: don't hesitate to tell us how you REALLY feel.) ;-)
RC
Ahh, sadly you are taking a hero from another age and asking why he does not haunt our present day. My answer is that the exorcists of truth have done a good job.
How many 'cop' movies and 'cop' TV shows released in the past thirty years have illuminated the force, or its members in a realistic light? We've gone from Andy of Mayberry to Robocop, from Dudley Do-Right to Judge Dredd so quickly as to completely erase any memory of the former by aggrandizing the violence and distance of the latter.
Usually when a society or generation wants to change something there is a consensus or collective focus on what has to change; not necessarily exactly how it will evolve but at least there is an end result, a desired outcome that is shared through the group. That is lacking today because of the myriad small divisions within the generation created by media and politics and expedited by technology.
Just the other day I heard the question asked; "Where are all the protest songs today?" I found that question poignant because I grew up watching and listening to the 60's unfold around me, thrilled at the common mind that seemed to be everywhere and nowhere but moving towards our collective desire for peace and an end to injustice.
I suppose that common goal still exists because Kent State has been replaced with Standing Rock but where has that undercurrent of involvement and support gone that was once on everyones' lips?
How many 'cop' movies and 'cop' TV shows released in the past thirty years have illuminated the force, or its members in a realistic light? We've gone from Andy of Mayberry to Robocop, from Dudley Do-Right to Judge Dredd so quickly as to completely erase any memory of the former by aggrandizing the violence and distance of the latter.
Usually when a society or generation wants to change something there is a consensus or collective focus on what has to change; not necessarily exactly how it will evolve but at least there is an end result, a desired outcome that is shared through the group. That is lacking today because of the myriad small divisions within the generation created by media and politics and expedited by technology.
Just the other day I heard the question asked; "Where are all the protest songs today?" I found that question poignant because I grew up watching and listening to the 60's unfold around me, thrilled at the common mind that seemed to be everywhere and nowhere but moving towards our collective desire for peace and an end to injustice.
I suppose that common goal still exists because Kent State has been replaced with Standing Rock but where has that undercurrent of involvement and support gone that was once on everyones' lips?
A year's work experience on a building site, lugging around huge concrete paving-stones in the freezing wind and rain with your bare hands, while some fat-necked charge-hand shouts at you and calls you everything under the sun at every opportunity, would be a good way for university students to understand the world of work, the world of working people, "how a new world is made". LOL.
You are very correct in that assessment and I can personally attest to the value of hard work under duress.
You have not been to a N.American university so you cannot possibly know the damage done by professors and administrators when they repeatedly tell students that they "Are the hope and future" and that "No one is better prepared for their discipline in the working world"
One has only to spend some time on the ground in this wonderful resource extraction industry to experience first hand what we are discussing.
You have not been to a N.American university so you cannot possibly know the damage done by professors and administrators when they repeatedly tell students that they "Are the hope and future" and that "No one is better prepared for their discipline in the working world"
One has only to spend some time on the ground in this wonderful resource extraction industry to experience first hand what we are discussing.
*note the 'socialist shortage' of subtitles in the second part of the song. LOL.
There's a problem with the world.
It doesn't change. If it does it's for the worse proven by history time and again.
It doesn't change. If it does it's for the worse proven by history time and again.
When Solzhenitayn said that the line between good and evil runs down the middle of every human heart hw was quoting a well-known classic fourth century text--The Fifty Homilies by St. Macarios the Great, often referred to as PseudoMacarius. It helps to know your sources.