Live Not By Liesby Alexander Solzhenitsyn |
|
Introduction by Peter Meyer
An old joke runs: Q: How can you tell when a politician is lying? A: When his lips are moving.The politicians in the West (that is, in the Anglo-Zionist Empire) are all blatant liars, with some exceptions, notably Rand Paul and Cynthia McKinney. The many lies of the now political has-beens George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Tony Blair and others were exposed almost as soon as they were uttered. U.S. Congresscritters and the media whores (led by CNN in the US and rags such as the UK's Daily Mail) are currently falling all over themselves in their eagerness to portray Vladimir Putin as "the new Hitler". US Secretary of State John Kerry is a congenital liar (Putin even denounced his lies in public, "He lies openly and he knows he lies").
But the foremost liar among politicians now in office (or more accurately, disgracing his office) is Barack Obama, and his most blatant lie recently was the one about a non-existent referendum in Kosovo regarding independence from Serbia. At the Summit2014 meeting with the EU heads of state (in Brussels, March 26, 2014) he gave a speech in which he said:
In defending its actions, Russian leaders have further claimed Kosovo as a precedent, an example, they say, of the West interfering in the affairs of a smaller country, just as they’re doing now. But NATO only intervened after the people of Kosovo were systematically brutalized and killed for years. And Kosovo only left Serbia after a referendum was organized not outside the boundaries of international law, but in careful cooperation with the United Nations and with Kosovo’s neighbors.
In fact NATO "intervened" in 1999 by brutally bombing the Serb nation into submission, during which about 1600 civilians were killed, after which a separation of Kosovo from Serbia was imposed upon the former Yugoslavia. (Read more at Nato's War.)
The Voice of Russia commented:
[Obama] claimed yesterday that Kosovo held a UN-assisted referendum for self-determination. He used this example to hit out against Russia's reunification with Crimea. ... Kosovo’s provincial assembly did hold a referendum on the possibility of secession in 1991, but it was not done with UN backing, nor did the US or anyone else even recognize the result. Albania was the lone state to recognize the vote, and it was never cited as justification in NATO’s 1999 war. The only other referendum to take place in Kosovo came in 2012, under Obama’s watch. In that vote, 99% of Kosovar Serbs in several northern districts voted against being part of an independent Kosovo. As with the 1991 vote, the US rejected its validity.
So Obama lied. Or was it that he had no idea at all whether or not "Kosovo only left Serbia after a referendum was organized", and, like the unprincipled amoral puppet that he is, simply read what was displayed on his teleprompter from the speech written for him by his Anglo-Zionist masters (the Masters of the Universe, as they see themselves)?
Lies corrupt because they destroy trust. When someone lies to you, you can no longer trust them. When the leaders of a country habitually lie to serve the interests of their masters, who are mainly interested in enriching themselves even further while impoverishing the people, any form of loyalty to that country becomes impossible. When a world is built on lies then that world is doomed, destined to crumble sooner or later (later, if those who have constructed that world by means of their lies can keep the people from revolting either by the threat of violence or by the actual use of violence and incarceration). And when you lie to yourself you destroy your own integrity and lose your self-respect, without which no-one can live as a human being should.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn's essay "Live Not By Lies" first appeared in The Washington Post, p. A26, Monday, February 18, 1974. It is perhaps the last thing he wrote on his native soil before the collapse of the Soviet Union and circulated among Moscow's intellectuals at that time. The essay is dated February 12, the day that the secret police broke into his apartment and arrested him. The next day he was exiled to West Germany. The text of this essay is given below. Although written with the (former) Soviet Union in mind, it is very applicable to the United States of America in 2014 and to its inhabitants.
Live Not By Lies
 Solzhenitzyn in the Gulag |
We have been so hopelessly dehumanized that for today's modest ration of food we are willing to abandon all our principles, our souls, and all the efforts of our predecessors and all opportunities for our descendants — but just don't disturb our fragile existence. We lack staunchness, pride and enthusiasm. We don't even fear universal nuclear death, and we don't fear a third world war. We have already taken refuge in the crevices. We just fear acts of civil courage.
We fear only to lag behind the herd and to take a step alone, and suddenly find ourselves without white bread, without heating gas and without a Moscow registration.
We have been indoctrinated in political courses, and in just the same way was fostered the idea to live comfortably, and all will be well for the rest of our lives. You can't escape your environment and social conditions. Everyday life defines consciousness. What does it have to do with us? We can't do anything about it?
But we can — everything. But we lie to ourselves for assurance. And it is not they who are to blame for everything — we ourselves, only we. One can object: Gags have been stuffed into our mouths. Nobody wants to listen to us and nobody asks us. How can we force them to listen? It is impossible to change their minds.
It would be natural to vote them out of office — but there are no elections in our country. In the West people know about strikes and protest demonstrations — but we are too oppressed, and it is a horrible prospect for us: How can one suddenly renounce a job and take to the streets? Yet the other fatal paths probed during the past century by our bitter Russian history are, nevertheless, not for us, and truly we don't need them.
Now that the axes have done their work, when everything which was sown has sprouted anew, we can see that the young and presumptuous people who thought they would make out country just and happy through terror, bloody rebellion and civil war were themselves misled. No thanks, fathers of education! Now we know that infamous methods breed infamous results. Let our hands be clean!
The circle — is it closed? And is there really no way out? And is there only one thing left for us to do, to wait without taking action? Maybe something will happen by itself? It will never happen as long as we daily do not sever ourselves from the most perceptible of its aspects: Lies.
When violence intrudes into peaceful life, its face glows with self-confidence, as if it were carrying a banner and shouting: "I am violence. Run away, make way for me — I will crush you."¯ But violence quickly grows old. And it has lost confidence in itself, and in order to maintain a respectable face it summons falsehood as its ally — since violence lays its ponderous paw not every day and not on every shoulder. It demands from us only obedience to lies and daily participation in lies — all loyalty lies in that.
And the simplest and most accessible key to our self-neglected liberation lies right here: Personal non-participation in lies. Though lies conceal everything, though lies embrace everything — not with any help from me.
This opens a breach in the imaginary encirclement caused by our inaction. It is the easiest thing to do for us, but the most devastating for the lies. Because when people renounce lies it simply cuts short their existence. Like an infection, they can exist only in a living organism.
We do not exhort ourselves. We have not sufficiently matured to march into the squares and shout the truth out loud or to express aloud what we think. It's not necessary. It's dangerous. But let us refuse to say that which we do not think.
This is our path, the easiest and most accessible one, which takes into account out inherent cowardice, already well rooted. And it is much easier — it's dangerous even to say this — than the sort of civil disobedience which Gandhi advocated.
Our path is to walk away from the gangrenous boundary. If we did not paste together the dead bones and scales of ideology, if we did not sew together the rotting rags, we would be astonished how quickly the lies would be rendered helpless and subside.
That which should be naked would then really appear naked before the whole world.
So in our timidity, let each of us make a choice: Whether to remain a conscious servant of falsehood (of course, it is not out of inclination, but to feed one's family, that one raises his children in the spirit of lies). Or to shrug off the lies and become an honest man worthy of respect both by one's children and contemporaries.
And from that day onward he:
- Will not henceforth write, sign, or print in any way a single phrase which in his opinion distorts the truth.
- Will utter such a phrase neither in private conversation nor in the presence of many people, neither on his own behalf nor at the prompting of someone else, neither in the role of agitator, teacher or educator nor in a theatrical role.
- Will not depict, foster or broadcast a single idea which he can see is false or a distortion of the truth whether it be in painting, sculpture, photography, technical science or music.
- Will not cite out of context, either orally or written, a single quotation so as to please someone, to feather his own nest, to achieve success in his work, if he does not share completely the idea which is quoted, or if it does not accurately reflect the matter at issue.
- Will not allow himself to be compelled to attend demonstrations or meetings if they are contrary to his desire or will, will neither take into hand nor raise into the air a poster or slogan which he does not completely accept.
- Will not raise his hand to vote for a proposal with which he does not sincerely sympathize,
- Will vote neither openly nor secretly for a person whom he considers unworthy or of doubtful abilities.
- Will not allow himself to be dragged to a meeting where there can be expected a forced or distorted discussion of a question.
- Will immediately walk out of a meeting, session, lecture, performance or film showing if he hears a speaker tell lies, or purvey ideological nonsense or shameless propaganda.
- Will not subscribe to or buy a newspaper or magazine in which information is distorted and primary facts are concealed.
Of course we have not listed all of the possible and necessary deviations from falsehood. But a person who purifies himself will easily distinguish other instances with his purified outlook.
No, it will not be the same for everybody at first. Some, at first, will lose their jobs. For young people who want to live with truth, this will, in the beginning, complicate their young lives very much, because the required recitations are stuffed with lies, and it is necessary to make a choice.
But there are no loopholes for anybody who wants to be honest. On any given day any one of us will be confronted with at least one of the above-mentioned choices even in the most secure of the technical sciences. Either truth or falsehood: Toward spiritual independence or toward spiritual servitude.
And he who is not sufficiently courageous even to defend his soul — don't let him be proud of his "progressive" ¯views, and don't let him boast that he is an academician or a people's artist, a merited figure, or a general — let him say to himself: I am in the herd, and a coward. It's all the same to me as long as I'm fed and warm.
Even this path, which is the most modest of all paths of resistance, will not be easy for us. But it is much easier than self-immolation or a hunger strike: The flames will not envelope your body, your eyeballs will not burst from the heat, and brown bread and clean water will always be available to your family.
A great people of Europe, the Czechoslovaks, whom we betrayed and deceived: Haven't they shown us how a vulnerable breast can stand up even against tanks if there is a worthy heart within it?
You say it will not be easy? But it will be easiest of all possible resources. It will not be an easy choice for a body, but it is the only one for a soul. It is not an easy path. But there are already people, even dozens of them, who over the years have maintained all these points and live by the truth.
So you will not be the first to take this path, but will join those who have already taken it. This path will be easier and shorter for all of us if we take it by mutual efforts and in close rank. If there are thousands of us, they will not be able to do anything with us. If there are tens of thousands of us, then we would not even recognize our country.
If we are too frightened, then we should stop complaining that someone is suffocating us. We ourselves are doing it. Let us then bow down even more, let us wail, and our brothers the biologists will help to bring nearer the day when they are able to read our thoughts and that they are worthless and hopeless.
And if we get cold feet, even taking this step, then we are indeed worthless and hopeless, and the scorn of Pushkin should be directed to us:
| Why should cattle have the gifts of freedom? Their heritage from generation to generation is the belled yoke and the lash. |
on his blog The Vineyard of the Saker.
| Serendipity Home Page |