Posted on 08/25/2008 3:27:28 PM PDT by ventanax5
They were right. Starting at the moment of his famous address at Harvard in 1978 (see http://snipurl.com/harvardspeech), Solzhenitsyn became, in effect, mute. Why? Because the cultural elite of the West is just as unhappy to hear itself criticized as the political elite of the Soviet Nomenklatura. How dare Solzehenitsyn fail to recognize that the American intellectual establishment was not in possession of Truth! How dare he point out that in our arrogance, we of the West were as blind to our own doom as the Communists?
Let me quote just one passage from Solzhenitsyn's speech: "A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party and of course in the United Nations.
He saw this in 1978. It is so clear today that he was right -- but how many of us saw it then?
Our intellectual elite today has only the courage of bullies. They can jump on individuals who dare to depart from their absurd and contradictory dogmas, calling them vicious names and doing all they can to silence them. But they haven't the courage of their own convictions.
They thrill at causes like saving Darfur, saving the desaparecidos of Argentina, saving just about everybody. The problem is that all this "saving" can only be done by the use of or the threat of America's overwhelming military force. All the "negotiations" they call for to solve such problems are absurd if there is no credible threat of force behind them.
(Excerpt) Read more at ornery.org ...
I appreciate the opportunity to review my files, and read my copy of his address regularly.
Ahh what better truth then thier own Messiah doing it: Obama Campaign Threatens Jihad Against TV Stations That Air Weathermen Ad
Thanks for the link! BUMP-TO-THE-TRUTH!
BO isn’t the Messiah. he’s the Prophet.
Obama thinks it will work this time, he’ll be in charge. That is elitism at its best.
Its plenipotentiary instruments have even invaded the Republican Party to the point where it wanted us to take such mavins as Giuliani seriously, and acted directly with the MSM to covertly subvert men like Duncan Hunter and Tom DeLay.
Our now leftist oriented legal profession holds as its icons, Orwellian Utopians like Ronnie Earle of Texas? ( I say this because he had to shop there grand juries to indict DeLay, and notice how that trial is NOT going forward?)
Lets pray that such weakness will not be our undoing, and that we have enough seed available to plant a new crop of courage, when the time comes. As it shall.
Exactly. RIP, sir.
people who count themselves as intellectuals but give no evidence of any ratiocination beyond repeating the slogans of groupthink.
Old Orson sure knows how to turn a word...
That he can... but is he old? How old is he?
Some of us were, even then, but... this engineer was never one of the "elite."
Links: his articles discussed at FR: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/k-orsonscottcard/browse and archived here (it is a must go place for all new to OSC political writing): http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/index.html
His fresh articles appear in the Rhinoceros Times, Greensboro, NC: http://www.rhinotimes.com/greensboro/ (before being posted permanently on his The Ornery American website). Read his books/movies/and everything reviews: http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/
His "About" page: http://www.hatrack.com/osc/about.shtml
Thanks for the PING!
Thanks for the ping!
btt
Thanks for the post....
I read the whole speech - a lot to reflect on, especially as we decide the direction of our country!
Excellent article. I am and remain an opponent of Sen. McCain. But OSC has some words of wisdom worth listening to.
Alvin Maker for President!
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