New Catallaxy

Mater’s Musings #32: Wise Words; Take Heed

Solzhenitsyn:

“The question was posed much more narrowly. It was not why were we jailed?

Nor why did those who remained free tolerate this lawlessness?

Everyone knows that they didn’t realize what was going on, that they simply believed (the party) that if whole peoples are banished in the space of twenty-four hours, those peoples must be guilty. The question is a different one: Why did we in the camps, where we did realize what was going on, suffer hunger, bend our backs, put up with it all, instead of fighting back? The others, who had never marched under escort, who had the free use of their arms and legs, could be forgiven for not fighting – they couldn’t, after all, sacrifice their families, their positions, their wages, their authors’ fees. They’re making up for it now by publishing critical reflections in which they reproach us for clinging to our rations instead of fighting, when we had nothing to lose.

But I have all along been leading up to my answer to this question. The reason why we put up with it all in the camps is that there was no public opinion outside.

What conceivable ways has the prisoner of resisting the regime to which he is subjected? Obviously, they are:

  1. Protest
  2. Hunger Strike
  3. Escape
  4. Mutiny

So, then, it is obvious to anybody, as the Great Deceased liked to say (and if it isn’t, we’ll ram it into him), that if the first two have some force (and if the jailers fear them), it is only because of public opinion! Without that behind us we can protest and fast as much as we like, and they will laugh in our faces!

It is a very dramatic way of obtaining your demands – standing before the prison authorities and tearing open your shirt, as Dzerzhinsky did. But only where public opinion exists. Without it-you’ll be gagged with the tatters, and pay for a government issue shirt into the bargain!”

– Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, ‘The Gulag Archipelago’, Vol 3, p93

Mater

27 responses to “Mater’s Musings #32: Wise Words; Take Heed”

  1. Bruce of Newcastle Avatar
    Bruce of Newcastle

    As the MSM is in lockstep behind the canonical doctrines of the green-progressive religion, it’s no wonder there’s no “public opinion outside”. Likewise the education sector. The same went in the Soviet Union since all avenues of media and education, except covert pamphleteering, were in the hands of the state. Bloggers today are the pamphleteers of last century.

    At least in East Germany and Poland the people could listen to Voice of America coming in from outside of the iron curtain. It isn’t surprising that the fall of the Soviet system started in those countries. Unfortunately we have no such external sources of freedom ideas, pretty much every Western government is now one in mind and ideology.

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  2. Cassie of Sydney Avatar
    Cassie of Sydney

    The fear has worked well here in Oz to depress, dishearten and demoralise the populace. Australians have willingly walked into the abyss that is totalitarianism….all because they’re scared.

    18
  3. Indolent Avatar
    Indolent

    The media may not have mentioned it, or downplayed it, but there were protests yesterday all around the country. I linked one on the NSW/QLD border showing thousands of people. There was one on the Parramatta River and others around the country. The Victorian police behaved as obnoxiously as usual but, apparently, in NSW they left people alone.

    It can’t be easy to maintain a narrative of fear of association with others due to illness when thousands of maskless people gather all around the country to literally demonstrate that it’s nothing but a toothless bogyman.

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  4. Robert the Irish Scot Avatar
    Robert the Irish Scot

    Mater I would add the following to this;

    “There are three kinds of tyrants; some receive their proud position through elections by the people, others by force of arms, others by inheritance”. Usurpers and Conquerors always act as if they are ruling a conquered country and those born of kingship “are scarcely any better, because they are nourished on the breast of tyranny, suck in with their milk the instincts of the tyrant, and consider the people under them as their inherited serfs”. As for the elected they would seem to be “more bearable”, but they are always intriguing to convert the election into a hereditary despotism, and hence “surpass other tyrants…in cruelty, because they find no other means to impose this new tyranny than by tightening control and removing their subjects so far from any notion of liberty that even if the memory of it is fresh it will soon be eradicated”

    Etienne de La Boetie, “The Politics of Obedience”, p19.

    The Grand Turk indeed took note of the fact that books and doctrine, more than anything else, give men sense and understanding to know themselves and hate tyranny. I understand that he has scarcely any learned people in his lands, nor does he ask for any. In general, now, the good zeal and emotion of those who have retained their devotion to freedom in spite of time-though they may be numerous – has no effect, because they do not know each other. Under a tyrant they are deprived of their liberty to act, to speak, and to almost to think: in their imagination they all become individuals.

    La Boetie, DISCOURSE IN VOLUNTARY SERVITUDE, RESOLVE NO LONGER TO BE SLAVES, p18.

    Now we must confront another problem, not how liberalism can defend itself against totalitarianism, but how can it defend itself against itself-against its own weaknesses and excesses. In the Marxist jargon that has survived the death of the Marxist regimes, this is the new “problematic” of liberalism. How can a society that celebrates the virtues of liberty, individuality, variety and tolerance sustain itself when those virtues, carried to extremes, threaten to subvert that liberal society and, with it, those very virtues?

    Gertrude Himmelfarb, On Looking into the ABYSS, p75.

    12
  5. duncanm Avatar
    duncanm

    A speccie article on mandatory vaccination pointed me to this ongoing poll by Roy Morgan. Their “Civil Disobedience Index: Is Freedom more important than the law?”:

    https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8801-freedom-and-the-law-june-2021-202109270703

    A healthy uptick in ‘yes’ over the last year, and the millennials surprisingly lead the way.

    Maybe not so surprisingly, about 10% more men than women believe freedom trumps law.

    12
  6. Shy Ted Avatar
    Shy Ted

    Well these days we have trucks that could drive straight through the gates without opening them, pick up all the inmates and liberate them. Get a truck license or be nice to truckies.

    9
  7. srr Avatar
    srr

    “The reason why we put up with it all in the camps is that there was no public opinion outside.”

    This is why I do not trust anyone who targets, isolates & pack attacks (with that, Made For Killing Public Support, term, “Conspiracy theorist”), those who report of evils being done, such as Govts demanding the world sacrifice their children to a Global Drug Experiment while criminalising your doctors care & drugs that work well.

    There have been so very many actual conspiracies that have lead to mobs such as the UN, EU, WEF, IMF, WHO, ‘Silicone Valley’ et-bloody-cetera, being able to get away with terrorising people into desperate, deranged compliance with any suddenly announced “Orders”, that make as much sense as being ordered to “Wear Red Underpants On Your Head”, and are utterly illegal.

    However Armies of Trusted Social Media Influencers had been placed at all the ‘gates’ to cruelly shout down everyone who warned of what was being done, as “Conspiracy Nuts”, and so, actively & deliberately Poison Public Opinion against even giving ear to saving truth.

    12
  8. rugbyskier Avatar
    rugbyskier

    At least in East Germany and Poland the people could listen to Voice of America coming in from outside of the iron curtain. It isn’t surprising that the fall of the Soviet system started in those countries.

    The East Germans were very aware of what was going on because almost all the country could receive West German television as well. There was a high power transmitter in West Berlin and the state governments put high power transmitters close to the inter-German border, the largest was at Ochsenkopf in northern Bavaria which required a different antenna so it was obvious in Thuringia and Saxony who was tuning in. East Germans used to joke that the main West German television network ARD stood for ‘Ausser Ruegen und Dresden’ (Except Ruegen and Dresden – the only areas of East Germany that couldn’t receive it). The area around Dresden was also called the Valley of the Clueless.

    The East German television network used to replay ARD’s news a few hours later, with a voiceover ‘interpreting’ what had been broadcast.

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  9. local oaf Avatar
    local oaf

    What jolted me about the gulag was realising that prisoners did actually escape, but there was nowhere to go.
    There was no underground to support them, no-one would help them. The soviet people were terrified of the prisoners because they only knew what they’d been told – that the prisoners were dangerous fascists.
    The public eagerly joined in the hunt to track down escapees, even if they didn’t want to. Not to join in would be dangerous to their own “freedom”.

    As the unvaxxed become a smaller and smaller minority, not only will the willing executioners persecute us, but those who were bullied into submission will attack us because we shame them.

    We must stick to our principles. Solzhenitsyn pointed out that those who died first in the camps were the ones who thought they’d been unfairly jailed and those with no guiding beliefs or principles i.e. atheists.
    It was the prisoners with strongly held beliefs who survived in the greatest number – Muslims, Baptists and other committed Christians.

    14
  10. Ellen of Tasmania Avatar
    Ellen of Tasmania

    My husband has a PhD student from Lithuania. He can remember, as a child, the Russian tanks leaving his town. Listening to stories told to him by his parents and grandparents about their serfdom/slavery under the regime is chilling.

    Especially here, right now. I used to say that wanting a little bit of socialism was like wanting to be a little bit pregnant. Well, tyrants never want to be just ‘a little bit tyrannical’.

    I don’t think what we a facing is communism or socialism. It is technocratic tyranny. While we keep arguing over private vs government this and that, the real overlords, with control of both the companies and the politicians unfold their plans for complete control.

    Oh – and you’ll be happy, remember?

    Arky keeps trying to tell us that we’re never going back to normal and our overlords are daily promising a ‘new normal’ but some people still seem to think this is all about a passport for one little ‘rona jab (or 4).

    Nope.

    13
  11. Cassie of Sydney Avatar
    Cassie of Sydney

    “it is only because of public opinion! Without that behind us we can protest and fast as much as we like, and they will laugh in our faces!”

    Solzhenitsyn was right, in order to protest or engage in such actions as hunger strikes, you need to have outlets willing to expose and provide critical information to the public…otherwise such actions won’t work.

    I had no idea about the protest in Parramatta. No mention in the MSM. Yet again this confirms to me that the real menace here is the MSM…not the politicians. The media is a real danger to Australia, to society and to the west. A democracy cannot exist and function without an independent media. Once upon a time we had a media that, whilst it had its faults, did occasionally engage in investigative journalism and did try to keep politicians to account, on both the left and right. Now, like teachers, they’re just politicised activist hacks, ready to promulgate the latest far-left progressive dogma and directive and they deliberately run cover everyday for leftist politicians like the Chook in QLD, Maniac McClown in WA and the creepy tyrant in Victoria, Daniel Andrews. Remember how last year, at the height of the Victorian lockdown, when people were dying every day, when there were legitimate questions about the atrocious quarantine fuck ups (excuse the language) yet the MSM and social media scum were largely engaging in the “I love Dan” bullshit? Remember? The only exceptions were a few News Corp journalists, particularly Rachel Baxendale. For her crime of asking hard questions of Andrews at the daily press conferences, Baxendale was bullied, smeared and threatened on social media sewers…..oh and I don’t recall ABC scum such as Leigh Sales or Lisa Millar, both now so sanctimonious and pious about “social media hate and pile ons” ever leaping to the defence of Baxendale or later Peta Credlin, who, when she turned up at the press conference and asked Dan a few difficult questions….was belittled as “not a journalist”…just like Avi and Rushkan are now.

    So, in order to protest and engage in a hunger strike, you need some in the media willing to alert the populace. However I don’t know of one mainstream media outlet in this country that would do that, unless of course it’s progressives and far-leftists who are engaging in a protest or hunger strike. Actually…there’s Alan Jones and Rowan Dean….but I suspect they’ve been cautioned recently. If you’re an ordinary person and you want to protest compulsory vaccination, vaccine passports, lockdowns and so on you will be smeared as far-right, Nazis, anti-vaxxers, boofheads, selfish and all the rest of the insults they can and will hurl your way. So many in the general population, who only go to the MSM for their daily digest of news and opinion, will have no idea of what’s happening and no idea of the facts. Remember “horse man” from the Sydney protest? First he was smeared for “animal cruelty”…then he was disappeared, locked away for weeks. Nobody in the MSM, apart from Alan Jones, dared to question and follow up this outrage. “Horse man” was dehumanised and depersoned …by the MSM . I wonder if “horse man” had gone on hunger strike, whether the MSM would have alerted the public to it? I doubt it. Horse Man would have been left to starve in a prison cell in Surry Hills and because he was a western suburbs, toxic (sarc alert) white male, no politician or journalist would have given a stuff.

    In order for a protest to succeed, you need to get the information out to the general populace, otherwise any action will fail.

    Apologies about the rant.

    !”….it’s an MSM that will ask hard questions. It is an MSM that can alert the populace to what is going on…that they’re being indoctrinated, they’re being gaslight.

    The MSM are laughing, the politicians are laughing.

    18
  12. WolfmanOz (just existing in Melb. now) Avatar
    WolfmanOz (just existing in Melb. now)

    Great rant Cassie.

    100& agree re the MSM – an independent and enquiring MSM would have easily held to account these tinpot scum we have as “leaders” of our country.

    But they’re a major part of the problem now.

    11
  13. Mater Avatar
    Mater

    In order for a protest to succeed, you need to get the information out to the general populace, otherwise any action will fail.

    Agreed Cassie, but there’s one more essential element.
    The populace have to be principled enough to see the treatment as unacceptable.
    Them seeing,and them sympathising, are two separate but inextricably linked elements. If the greater proportion of the populace support the treatment, the treatment will continue regardless of the coverage.

    We currently have a problem with both aspects. However, I suspect that mandatory vaccination might not be as popular as the voluntary vaccination rate might suggest to the politicians. We live in hope, because if it does have popular support, winning this battle is irrelevant. The war for freedom is lost.

    11
  14. Ellen of Tasmania Avatar
    Ellen of Tasmania

    “I never thought I would see so much of the world’s media consistently and shamelessly lying in a way that is genuinely comparable to the press in the third reich — a comparison I used to consider tasteless and hyperbolic.”

    (Mark Crispin Miller)

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  15. Ellen of Tasmania Avatar
    Ellen of Tasmania

    However, I suspect that mandatory vaccination might not be as popular as the voluntary vaccination rate might suggest to the politicians.

    On ABC Newsradio this morning, I was told that vax rates might go up faster now with Dan’s new mandates to ‘encourage’ more vaccinations.

    Yep, ‘encourage’.

    7
  16. Cassie of Sydney Avatar
    Cassie of Sydney

    I regard our MSM as worse than Pravda or Izvestia. Those two media outlet didn’t pretend that they were anything other than shills for the Communist party, they didn’t mouth such bullshit as “democracy dies in darkness”……or “always independent”.

    11
  17. srr Avatar
    srr

    “The MSM are laughing, the politicians are laughing.”

    Why?

    They see The People continuing to Gather & March Against MSM/Govt Propaganda.

    The People, The Public are changing their Opinion from trusting Govt that told them, “2 Weeks To Flatten The Curve”, to Trusting those who Govt branded, “Conspiracy Theorists”.

    The People, The Public speak to each other, face to face and do tell each other that they were wrong to ignore those the Govt told them to ignore.

    Thankfully, The Public is learning that ‘Social Media’ is only another arm of Govt controlled MSM.

    Thankfully The Public’s Opinion of those who spent years on ‘Social Media’ ‘befriending’ people just so they could “nudge” them into believing they’ve ‘freely chosen’ to Obey Govt Diktats, is getting very close to where it deserves to be, which is far lower than their opinions of the Openly Ruthless.

    4
  18. Cassie of Sydney Avatar
    Cassie of Sydney

    “They see The People continuing to Gather & March Against MSM/Govt Propaganda.”

    Where?

    Most certainly not in Australia. Those “People” you refer to do exist in other countries, such as The Netherlands, UK, Italy and so on, where the “People” seems to be somewhat braver than the average serf like Australian. I’ll believe Australians are gathering to march against the MSM and government propaganda when I see hundreds of thousands on the street.

    As for what happened last week in Victoria, most Australians have bought and digested the MSM spin on them.

    8
  19. srr Avatar
    srr

    🙂
    “Ellen of Tasmaniasays:
    October 2, 2021 at 9:53 am
    “I never thought I would see so much of the world’s media consistently and shamelessly lying in a way that is genuinely comparable to the press in the third reich — a comparison I used to consider tasteless and hyperbolic.”

    (Mark Crispin Miller)”
    ______________________________

    When my Uncle got their first TV, my Grandfathered warned us all against believing what we saw on, told us they were just stories, not real.

    It stuck with me.
    It also made me unpopular with those who wanted to believe the stories they were being told and didn’t want to know about what was kept out of the picture.

    Back then, any warnings of things being, ‘like in the old country’, were instantly shot down with cries that the old people had to, ‘get over it’, that, ‘this is Australia, A Free Country’, ‘that can’t happen here’.

    Those modern young new Australians also rejected the reality of God, so they also missed the importance of this Commandment –

    “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” (Ex. 20:12.)

    5
  20. srr Avatar
    srr

    Cassie of Sydney says:
    October 2, 2021 at 10:38 am

    “They see The People continuing to Gather & March Against MSM/Govt Propaganda.”

    Where?

    Most certainly not in Australia.

    WHY do you, Cassie, HAVE TO keep Selling That LIE?

    You know it’s lie, as do those who white knight you regardless and those who quietly read what goes on, also know.

    rickw says:
    October 1, 2021 at 10:36 pm

    Mandatory vax protests:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHZmwQMlmwE

    Nice to see that contrary to what some would have us believe, there are a LOT more Australian’s prepared to lose their jobs rather than accept Govt Mandated Drugging.

    Hundreds of protesters across Queensland rail against vaccine mandates | 7NEWS
    46,145 views Oct 1, 2021

    Hundreds of protesters have gathered in Brisbane, Cairns and the Gold Coast to oppose the introduction of vaccine mandates. Queensland Health’s jab mandate came into effect today.

    They also gathered again in Sydney, Melbourne & elsewhere, as others have also shown.

    So again, why do you lie, Cassie?
    I’ll let others figure it out at their own pace, because it’s hard for nice people to believe that those they consider nice and even friends, are actively working to demoralize the people for the Govt.

    4
  21. Cassie of Sydney Avatar
    Cassie of Sydney

    “So again, why do you lie, Cassie?”

    I don’t lie…..you’re the liar here. Piss off and learn how to construct a coherent sentence. You’re a disgrace.

    4
  22. Cassie of Sydney Avatar
    Cassie of Sydney

    BTW Nongbat, I posted a response to you above which didn’t engage in personal abuse. You then come on and call me a liar, all because I disagree with you. I will not turn the other cheek to such abuse and lies. If you want to have a conversation with people here…..good, then I and others will engage but if all you want to do is come on here and post your conspiracy drivel and abuse at people, then you can piss off.

    3
  23. Boambee John Avatar
    Boambee John

    Cassie

    I had no idea about the protest in Parramatta. No mention in the MSM. Yet again this confirms to me that the real menace here is the MSM…not the politicians. The media is a real danger to Australia, to society and to the west. A democracy cannot exist and function without an independent media.

    There is a good article today at Jo Nova, on the MSM as “social influencers”, which now seems to be their most lucrative role. Subscriptions, advertising (except to influence social trends) are no longer that important.

    Take away government and NGO/NFP ads, and the MSM would disappear swiftly (and deservedly).

    5
  24. Zipster Avatar
    Zipster

    Make no mistake, we are already well into a global state of lawlessness, created by and being filled by fascists and their ilk.

    7
  25. Cassie of Sydney Avatar
    Cassie of Sydney

    “Make no mistake, we are already well into a global state of lawlessness, created by and being filled by fascists and their ilk.”

    Yes.

    6
  26. 132andBush Avatar
    132andBush

    The craven nature of the MSM to left wing ideology has been on full display since “An inconvenient truth” was released.

    As Cassie said, they are the real problem.

    5
  27. Miss Anthropist Avatar
    Miss Anthropist

    I hate fascists. They suck all the fun out of life.

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