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lurkittyI read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn when I was in high school. Until then, I'd had rather a romantic view of the worker's paradise that was the Soviet Union. Of course, I knew there was hardship. But my naivete did not accept the notion of the gulag until Ivan. There was alot wrong with the U.S. at the time. We were mired in Vietnam and it seemed we would never bring our soldiers home. The Watergate scandal was breaking, and it seemed the corruption stretched into the stretched into the highest levels of government (and it did, come to find out).
A few years later, I had the opportunity to travel to the Soviet Union and East Germany. The contrasts with my life were so vivid. So many things I took for granted were not available to them. I could walk into any bookstore or music store and buy uncensored books and music. The Russians were trading bootleg tapes of Vladimir Visotski on the black market and begging us for any books we brought with us from the west. I needed no papers to travel within my own country. Russian citizens never traveled without proper documents. Only scientists who were members of the Party could work on the highest level scientific projects, even if they were not the best in their field. Teachers complained that the State dictated what they could and could not teach in the classroom -- that history was being rewritten to suit the State depending on who was in power at the time. The news was tightly controlled by the government.
And then there were the Gulags. It started out with Stalin. Then succeeding governments found them a convenient way to cope with those who would not come into line. The problem is, once you start using a Gulag, it's really hard to quit.
I find this scandal just as big, if not bigger, than the Plame scandal. The idea that we have established Gulags is repugnant. Kudos to Thailand for kicking them out. Now let's kick the authors of this abomination out on their ear.
A few years later, I had the opportunity to travel to the Soviet Union and East Germany. The contrasts with my life were so vivid. So many things I took for granted were not available to them. I could walk into any bookstore or music store and buy uncensored books and music. The Russians were trading bootleg tapes of Vladimir Visotski on the black market and begging us for any books we brought with us from the west. I needed no papers to travel within my own country. Russian citizens never traveled without proper documents. Only scientists who were members of the Party could work on the highest level scientific projects, even if they were not the best in their field. Teachers complained that the State dictated what they could and could not teach in the classroom -- that history was being rewritten to suit the State depending on who was in power at the time. The news was tightly controlled by the government.
And then there were the Gulags. It started out with Stalin. Then succeeding governments found them a convenient way to cope with those who would not come into line. The problem is, once you start using a Gulag, it's really hard to quit.
I find this scandal just as big, if not bigger, than the Plame scandal. The idea that we have established Gulags is repugnant. Kudos to Thailand for kicking them out. Now let's kick the authors of this abomination out on their ear.
