Solzhenitsyn calls for Honesty in Self-Reflection

The News: Alexander Solzhenitsyn discussed his lates work in an interview with Der Spiegel:

SPIEGEL: Your recent two-volume work "200 Years Together" was an attempt to overcome a taboo against discussing the common history of Russians and Jews. These two volumes have provoked mainly perplexity in the West. You say the Jews are the leading force of global capital and they are among the foremost destroyers of the bourgeoisie. Are we to conclude from your rich array of sources that the Jews carry more responsibility than others for the failed Soviet experiment?

Solzhenitsyn: I avoid exactly that which your question implies: I do not call for any sort of scorekeeping or comparisons between the moral responsibility of one people or another; moreover, I completely exclude the notion of responsibility of one nation towards another. All I am calling for is self-reflection.

You can get the answer to your question from the book itself: "Every people must answer morally for all of its past -- including that past which is shameful. Answer by what means? By attempting to comprehend: How could such a thing have been allowed? Where in all this is our error? And could it happen again? It is in that spirit, specifically, that it would behoove the Jewish people to answer, both for the revolutionary cutthroats and the ranks willing to serve them. Not to answer before other peoples, but to oneself, to one's consciousness, and before God. Just as we Russians must answer -- for the pogroms, for those merciless arsonist peasants, for those crazed revolutionary soldiers, for those savage sailors."

The Note: Ho, ho, ho... this two headed hydra talks sounds a tad like Vienna Days...

©WCG, 2007

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U.S. Seeds Love Throughout the World

The News: According to Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former Chief of Staff, the damage wrought by the secret prisons, renditions and torture-like interrogations is still tremendous. According to Wilkerson, the US administration had arrested an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 suspects over the past year. Eighty-five percent of them were innocent, according to Wilkerson. "We really have created a mess here. A terrible mess. This has been incredibly damaging."

The Note: Wait a minute! Wait a minute! You are ignoring Bush's assurances that "our nation is generous and compassionate." By the way, throughout the 1930's the entire Nazi concentration camp population never exceeded 30,000.

©WCG, 2007
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