[O.C. - Old Cracker]

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
(photo circa 1974)

Click for full text of 'A World Split Apart'

[Monterrosa-24]

Great Post !!! Thanks !!!

Cancer Ward is the best novel that I have ever read. Solzhenitsyn is like a prophet who is not appreciated in his own time or by his own people. But he is the man of the 20th century.


Solzhenitsyn said that the West suffers from the "spiritual impotence that comes from a life of ease". That is true of course and it is why the baby boomers were the worst of spoiled brats. I know. I'm one of them.

[pharmamom]

Wow. I have to quote mhking: Just Damn. Thanks for the link.

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

The First Lady, Rosalynn Carter, used the National Press Club to defend her country against Solzhenitsyn’s blasts. No, she insisted, “the people of this country are not weak, not cowardly, and not spiritually exhausted.” How’s that for playing to the peanut gallery? This same Rosalynn Carter, however, did not feel so good about the American people after November 1980. Asked to explain Reagan’s success, she said, “I think he makes us comfortable with our prejudices.”

It's difficult to be objective when your husband leaves behind a trail of failure, eh Rosalynn? During an interview with Larry King on November 15, 2002, Jimmy Carter said the following:

"I think there is a sense that the United States has become too arrogant, too dominant, too self-centered, proud of our wealth, believing that we deserve to be the richest and most powerful and influential nation in the world," Carter said. "I think they feel that we don't really care about them, which is quite often true."

He added, "They all know -- the ones that are educated -- that among the developed, industrialized nations on earth, the United States is at the bottom, way at the bottom, in providing humanitarian aid for peace and for human rights and for housing and for health and education."

Carter, who will receive a the Nobel prize on December 10 in Oslo, Norway, also noted that the United States gives only one one-thousandth of its gross national product for international assistance, while the average European country gives four times as much.

"For every time an American gives a dollar, a citizen of Norway gives $17," he said. "Foreign aid in this country has a bad name, but in other countries, it's a right thing for the government to do. And that's where we at the Carter Center quite often have to turn."

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Fascinating article!

[noodler]

Andre S. provided some of the best reading and account and reflection.The deaths of many hundreds and thousands by way of political power structure corrupt is not lost nor is the delicate.The power of man to find and coexist and ultimately command. Andre S's address at that time was dead-on as a friend and not to be used by third powers who are so intertwined now.Ultimately the coersion and duplicity of recent times may trouble and lay before us a stranger mental path by which his and your input is required.

[maestro]

Great Post!

......Very timely!

Thank You!

[Edgewood Pilot]

Solzhenitsyn, for me, has been a top hero. The truths he wrote in "Warning to the West" and "A World Split Apart" have had a great deal of influence on me.

[victim soul]

Thanks for posting this..

"Bill Buckley said, 'Such is the debt of free spirits to Solzhenitsyn that we owe it to him at least to consider anything he asks us to consider.'”