@scrumm @LikeItOrLumpIt imagines #Solzhenitsyn tugging whiskers in the gulag some reason.

@TonyStark This quote keeps coming to mind #solzhenitsyn #liar #democracy #authoritarianism

The awkward moment when you realize that #Solzhenitsyn, although a #CIA asset, correctly described how #Capitalism works.

痛苦的苏格拉底
#quotes #zweig #Solzhenitsyn

This is a fine source for those studying at length the #OctoberRevolution, Lenin’s farcical attempt to convince people that this was a #people’s #uprising despite the often widespread ferocious objection of revolutionary people. #Lenin & #Trotski studied the convenient minutiae of the revolutionary impetus after the trial and excution of LXVI, & so to #Robespierre’s #terror. Tempted to add the the narratives of #Solzhenitsyn & #VarlanShalamov (#KolymaStories) do the colouring in. #Russia

You know who the author #TJKlune reminds me of? #Solzhenitsyn! His writing feels like the warmth that could survive any cold, the hope that will blaze through any tyranny. Such big hearted writing ❤️

Discussions of genocide inevitably evolve into discussions about the nature of human evil. I find that usually most people deflect to trying to figure out what unique genetics or environmental influence turns someone into a sociopathic, genocidal monster. And that's always barking up the wrong tree.

Any attempt to explain genocide in terms of a particular culture doesn't explain why genocides have happened all over the world. Different cultures, different time periods, different history, different environments. The killing hasn't stopped since World War II.

And it was going on before that as well. The Armenian genocide took place in 1915.

At least a dozen countries during the past 50 years have gone through spasms of slaughter sometimes running into the millions. The #Holocaust and the Chinese cultural revolution were particularly egregious examples, but it didn't end there. It's never ended.

The common thread that underpins all genocide is power--without checks and balances.

There's a very strong impulse to "other" the perpetrators of genocide. To pretend that they are somehow categorically different from the rest of us.

THAT IS FALSE!!!

There's a quote from Alexander #Solzhenitsyn, paraphrasing: "The line between good and evil cuts through everyone's heart, and who is willing to destroy a piece of their own heart?"

The same evil lives in every one of us. That's the sad fact of human existence. We may think of ourselves as being so much better than a #Hitler or a #PolPot, but we're not.

The vast majority of us don't have the power to do great evil, and we are also bound by the law. So we've never really faced that temptation, to snuff out political enemies or people we just don't like.

Hypothetical thought experiment:

Imagine that all of those rules of civilization are gone, and you have the power over life and death. Wouldn't you be tempted to eliminate the people who you believed were causing the destruction of society and the Earth? Like #capitalist scumbags, fossil fuel profiteers, propagandists, and MAGAts destroying the fabric of our society?

Don't answer that. We know the answer. The temptation would be overwhelming.

Saving billions of lives by eliminating a few evil characters who are wrecking the climate, seems like a no-brainer. The destroyers of the Earth have names and addresses. But it never stops there.

If you have the power to "eliminate evil" by scapegoating and then taking lives, a lot of people would do it. And then the killing inevitably grows in scope.

The genocide-enabling belief is that for whatever reason, *killing is justified.* Once you have that justification, all bets are off, and blood flows like a river.

That's why we need ironclad rule of law and accountability, worldwide. Without it, nothing stops mass murder.

#genocide #ruleoflaw #civilization

RT @AI_Solzhenitsyn
"We have another proverb in Russia: 'Catch on you will when you're tumbling downhill.'"

#Solzhenitsyn

@pjconnect Not an #inventor, more an #investor or #VC.
Inherited a lot of #money, got a good technical #education, has good technical intuition, had increasing success and lucky ventures that allowed him to neglect his already horrible social skill, until eventually he was reduced to banal #sociopathy ... pretty typical path of all #billionaires.

power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely
#Solzhenitsyn

@Sp Nope. Human. I've read the three volumes of The #Gulag #Archipelago by #Aleksandr #Solzhenitsyn. If you haven't, I strongly advise you to. There are many ...isms I don't like. But I stand for one: Humanism!
#books #humanism #russia #history #humanrights

Interests: #Jazz #Genesis (group, 1970-75) #Philosophy #ClassicalMusic #MentalHealth #MentalIllness #Autism (nature of) #Mind (relation to #world) #Science #Reason #Rationalism #Empiricism #Faith #ElectronicMusic #ircam #literature #SylviaPlath #Proust #solzhenitsyn #SaulBellow #History #ArmedService #Infantry #Nature #Climate #AnimalWelfare #Humour #Psychology #Cognition #mountainbiking #Photography Bitter and angry (raging) about #Brexit. Seeks same for walks and fun 🤩. Last bit: not really!

Still reading on this. I'm a little over halfway through which has taken me almost a month. Hopefully, I'll be able to finish before the first of the year so I can start on "November 1916". #amreading #readingcommunity #solzhenitsyn

Exclusive: Ex-Russian spy flees to the NATO country that captured him, delivering another embarrassing blow to Moscow

"“The GRU knew everything about him and his family,” Toots had told me before Zinchenko arrived. He was not selected at random for recruitment; he was targeted because of his family’s pedigree, especially on his father’s side."

Wow, this whole article is amazing for those following Russia's demise: https://www.aol.com/news/exclusive-ex-russian-spy-flees-010049261.html

#Espionage #coldwar #Soviet #estonia #Solzhenitsyn #Russianspy

if i could only own one book, it would either be the Bible or Gulag Archipelago

RT @AI_Solzhenitsyn@twitter.com

“As the two-thousand-year-old saying goes, you can have eyes and still not see. But a hard life improves the vision.”

#Solzhenitsyn

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/AI_Solzhenitsyn/status/1581736865665003520

#Putin just did a presser about the century's long struggle in #Ukraine

He starts with a history of Russia around the rise of the #Bolsheviks

Accurate by my accounting of reading #Solzhenitsyn & modern #Ukrainian history that was forged by #Bolshevik influence.

Give it a listen, straight from the horses mouth, without a compromised middleman known as the #mainstream media #msm

https://youtu.be/GjMnTo85S4A

@adam @Johncdvorak

RT @AI_Solzhenitsyn@twitter.com

“[World War I] was a war (the memory of which seems to be fading) when Europe, bursting with health and abundance, fell into a rage of self-mutilation which could not but sap its strength for a century or more, and perhaps forever.”

#Solzhenitsyn

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/AI_Solzhenitsyn/status/1486881842515095557

A critical mind is a sound defense to moral camouflage.
---
RT @AI_Solzhenitsyn
"All of the Communist Parties, upon attaining power, have become completely merciless. But at the stage before they achieve power, it is necessary to use disguises."

#Solzhenitsyn
https://twitter.com/AI_Solzhenitsyn/status/1481053422564659203

Remember what #Solzhenitsyn said:

"I understand, I sense that you're tired. But you have not yet really suffered the terrible trials of the 20th century which have rained down on the old continent.... You're tired, but the Communists who want to destroy your system are not; they're not tired at all."

RT @AI_Solzhenitsyn
“The proverb says: ‘Freedom spoils, and lack of freedom teaches.’”

#Solzhenitsyn

RT @AI_Solzhenitsyn
“Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul.”

#Solzhenitsyn