Solzhenitsyn Saw

(link) "Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a famous Russian author and Nobel Laureate. He along with several others (Malcolm Muggeridge for example) exposed the sufferings that Russian peasants were facing due to the collectivisation of Russian industry. He along with his companions struggled to beat down the lies of traitors such as Walter Duranty (New York Times journalist) and the misguided George Bernard Shaw (another writer).

In his famous speech of 8 June 1978 at Harvard, Solzhenitsyn railed against the decadence, shortsightness and delusionment rife in the West. He spared no words for the role that the media played in this and to whom he attributed as being the “…greatest power with the Western countries, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and the judiciary…”.

He charged that the media lacked responsibility: the “deformation and disproportion” that he observed the media employing would receive no clarification, retraction or correction. Indeed he said that, “…one may safely assume that [the journalist] will start writing the opposite with renewed self-assurance…”. This would result in “…terrorists heroized, or secret matters pertaining to one’s nation’s defense, publicly revealed…” all in the name of the “everyone is entitled to know anything” mantra. Sound familiar?

Furthermore, this Nobel Prize winner of Literature, identified the uniformity with which the media reported on matters. And not because of the lack of competition. No, he points out that the media in the West enjoyed “enormous freedom”, yet gave “…stress and emphasis to those opinions which do not openly contradict their own and the general trend…” Sound familiar?

For his candidness and for his remarkable foresight (that I will discuss in a later post), Solzhenitsyn was booed off the stage." [ Boy, did he see... -ed. ]