Reading list for May:
The Gulag Archipeligo, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
1984, by George Orwell
Farenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
The Declaration of Independence, and The Constitution of The United States of America
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The Gulag Archipelago
ISBN 0 00M 6336426
Part 1
The Prison Industry
Footnote 5
And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in there lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you'd be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or, what about the Black Moria sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur--what if it had been driven off or its tires spiked? The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalins's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!
If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more_we had no awareness of the real situation. We spent ourselves in one unrestrained outburst in 1917, and then we hurried to submit. We submitted with pleasure! [author's emphasis]...
A. Solzhenitsyn
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Revolutions leave us where we started. Evolutions bring us into prehensile living. Just laws give structure to a justice-full society, and civility to civilisation. Support justice and truth, as a civilian. Pay attention. Just laws nourish civil society. Unjust laws and practices...well, look around. Where are your tax dollars going? You happy with that? What if you aren't? Aquiescence is no longer a viable talent. Nor is it an admirable trait. Feel your feet. Do your duty to civilisation.