There are many disturbing similarities between the brutality imposed on Stalin’s victims and the injustices endured by the incarcerated in federal and state prisons.
Based on the testimony of John Ehrlichman, White House council to Richard Nixon, they used many drugs which were legal at the time illegal as a tactic to harass and incarcerate people of color and anti war activists. If so, than people who were then and now incarcerated on drug charges are political prisoners.
Although I think by reputation they would be dismissive or wary of the other, dang if I ever get to hear Hedges and Jordan Peterson talk. I get it, there are some deal breakers in their world views, chiefly about the state of institutions and what I prefer to call climate destabilization. But... both men are the hyper articulate hyper brilliant sons of working class families. Both are deeply well read and and per this article both profoundly publicly affected by Solzhenitsyn. Both are public figures detoured from their natural professions but are of those professions in their bones. I doubt I would ever see this but I will say I see convergence in their life stories and frankly a sizeable part of both their audencieces would appreciate seeing these two great minds spar or even better just talk.
Finally, in The Gulag Archipelago, I will never live down the young boy who had the bravery to tell the "great author and humanitarian" who visited the facility how bad it was. The author left and extolled the greatness of that prison, the boy was shot shortly after the boat with the writer left. When I think of it I would kill God himself for never setting that right. It's required reading for all adults.
Merry Christmas or the next best thing for the lot of you readers. Try to take care and of those that you can as the wicked tempest of 2023 stirs to fact and life.
Yes, and tears in my eyes too, Chris - at Luis - and all those others in your class reading the words of Solzhenitsyn and finding their own stories and spiritual confirmation/growth. I read that work myself so many years ago - how could I then as a young fellow have ever properly understood its impact - its truths - yet I find echoes of those things in my own life since as I read this essay - and of all other accounts of inhuman incarcerations - Primo LEVI, Wole SOYINKA, NGUGI wa Thiong'o - or Behrouz BOOCHANI - among others. Thank-you.
Restoring the dignity and inner worth of those who have been relegated to the refuse bin of society is truly divine in every sense of the word. Your deeply touching articles allow me to sustain the belief that we can create a shift in consciousness on our planet, before we destroy ourselves.
The tragedy is that Luis leaves so many good men and women behind.
No. Luis was not in a position to leave or take anyone. It is the society that leaves so many good men and women incarcerated and the likes of Frank Lee that enable it.
Stalin's prisoners were political and imprisoned without due process. US prisons are filled with criminals that were sentenced for their crimes after due process. I fail to see the contrast.
I was honored a while back to receive a letter from a prisoner in Illinois. He is in his fourties’ now and was sentenced at age 19. In a beautiful letter to me, he was responding to my published correspondence letters in The Sun magazine, short letters where I have been very critical of the political opinions that often are published in The Sun. Anyway, we have been writing each other, and given the weight of his life reality, I often feel silly and naive in my letters to him. I find myself being critical of my outlook on life and even the language I use in a way that I haven’t before.
This piece by Hedges is helping me understand what I am being challenged to understand through our letters. The process of writing and getting to know this person amplifies my awareness in ways that I hadn’t imagined.
Despite the relentless dehumanization, people like Luis somehow find a way to be fully human. Unique individuals, conscious of how their lives are also communitarian and connected. No matter how much the powers that be try to convince them they are isolated, abandoned, nothing. Testimony of some aspect within human, yet more than--a traditional word for which is "spirit." We do not live by bread alone.
Which is contrary to the economic dogmas of exploitative consumer capitalism as well as of leftist beliefs that materialism is the only reality, the problem merely one of distribution. Consider instead the alternative slogan of Bread and Roses. Which recognizes that in addition to physical requirements, there is a strong human need for meaning.
Speaking as someone who was a blue collar worker union activist for 20+ years and as someone raised on Native land, I don't have much faith in centralized authority. Nor do I view my life or those of indigenous people in general as something defined by abstract, deterministic economics. And some of us who wield tools on the job can actually read, write, and think. We don't need a self-appointed elitist "vanguard of the working class."
Economic determinism is part of the mechanisms of power that reward elites while denying the humanity of those considered lessers. That's obvious in capitalism, where corporations are people, and humans merely "resources," like the other items in nature to be exploited, remnants discarded. But it's also true of leftisms that consider abstract historical forces and economic arrangements to be all of reality; the humans who do the actual work secondary effects with no purpose other than materialistic accumulation. That, too, is dehumanizing in the extreme.
Well Chris you sure know how to move your audience. Unfortunately you can't budge Congress in inch. Oligarchs can Raytheon can but you and I and your readers can't.
Happy Holidays brothers and sisters.
This here atheist prays daily for a cease fire in Ukraine and "peace on earth for all therein.
Off and on for about a year I have read Sketches of the Criminal World by Varlam Shalamov. The sketches are about his 17-year imprisonment in Kolyma, where he was sent as a political prisoner in Stalin's purges of 1937-38. He survived, incredibly, he survived, like Solzhenitsyn did. But millions perished, victims of the cold, forced labor in mines, abuse, and wretched nutrition.
The Gulag Archipelago is absolutely shattering in effect. One of those rare works that takes far, far more time to process than to read. Definitely worth a revisit within the context of the US carceral apparatus and the contemporary state, thanks for sharing some of those connections here.
Read his book "A Day in the Life", which I have always believed is a book describing his experience among other prisoners...and if the American political and "justice" systems were working toward fixing our social problems, we wouldn't have so many people in prison or so many bad happenings in our society. It's time to use what we know to solve people's problems so they don't become "criminals" rather than waiting for bad things to happen and then punishing the bad behavior so scared, angry people will vote for what lawmakers can benefit from. We've had statistics and psychiatric studies at least since the late 1960's and through the mid 2000's at least that show the vast majority of crime can be resolved during a prison sentence, and it can be prevented by focusing on recognizing, for example, kids who come to school with signs of abuse, and even just generally acknowledging the truth, the reality that many people bring into adulthood their childhood experiences without the opportunity to learn better ways before they act out. We can solve the issues that create the situation...poverty, child sexual abuse, bullying, racial discrimination, and other things. We can do this, it is possible, most especially if we effectively exercised the knowledge brought forth by mental health and other experts especially since the mid-1990's. But politicians need crime and things that scare people and make them angry so they can enact crazy and stupid laws that make people believe they are working on it, but don't really solve anything at all. Forever punishment was never intended to be what the justice and corrections systems were about; the refusal to restore citizenship rights and the opportunity for good jobs lost because you're an ex-felon...time served should be time served. I was a major voice, and engaged once in a committee meeting that was about automatically restoring ex-felons voting rights back in the mid-2000's in Iowa, and some of these things came up. When I brought up the ideas I've just written here, I was asked to my face by a lawmaker, "If we solved the problems, what would we have to hold out to people to get them to vote for us?" My response was, "If you solved the problems, wouldn't you be a hero everyone would want in your position forever?" Look, folks...we kill people who kill people, but people kill people every day, all day long...that's obviously not the solution, is it...? We register sex offenders and punish them in several ways forever, but we give them probation in many cases instead of sending them to prison the first time; statistics have shown for a long time that those who go to prison are only maybe 5% likely to ever do it again, whether first time or third, compared to statistics in the upward of 70% recidivism for a number of other serious (and some not so) in so many other crimes. What does that tell you?
Best journalist of all time. And the biggest balls of them all. Love this guy. Wish I had a 100th of his writing skills and most of all the size of his heart. Especially for the helpless and down trodden no writer can touch him.
I read the Gulag Archipelago decades ago, however, it must also be admitted that Solzhenitsyn was a right-winger politically and that the crimes of Stalin are mistakenly (including by you, Chris) attributed to Lenin and Trotsky. This does not take away from your work in the prison. I have a friend who was incarcerated in San Quentin prison in California for armed robbery. He served his time and started writing when he was inside. Upon release, although suffering under the "three strikes" law (supported by then Attorney General Kamala Harris), he published a book about his experiences and was eventually pardoned by Jerry Brown before Brown left office as governor. I recommend the book, "Gun, Needle, Spoon" by Patrick O'neil.
Based on the testimony of John Ehrlichman, White House council to Richard Nixon, they used many drugs which were legal at the time illegal as a tactic to harass and incarcerate people of color and anti war activists. If so, than people who were then and now incarcerated on drug charges are political prisoners.
Thank you for your work in the prison and your beautiful article. You are touching lives
Although I think by reputation they would be dismissive or wary of the other, dang if I ever get to hear Hedges and Jordan Peterson talk. I get it, there are some deal breakers in their world views, chiefly about the state of institutions and what I prefer to call climate destabilization. But... both men are the hyper articulate hyper brilliant sons of working class families. Both are deeply well read and and per this article both profoundly publicly affected by Solzhenitsyn. Both are public figures detoured from their natural professions but are of those professions in their bones. I doubt I would ever see this but I will say I see convergence in their life stories and frankly a sizeable part of both their audencieces would appreciate seeing these two great minds spar or even better just talk.
Finally, in The Gulag Archipelago, I will never live down the young boy who had the bravery to tell the "great author and humanitarian" who visited the facility how bad it was. The author left and extolled the greatness of that prison, the boy was shot shortly after the boat with the writer left. When I think of it I would kill God himself for never setting that right. It's required reading for all adults.
Merry Christmas or the next best thing for the lot of you readers. Try to take care and of those that you can as the wicked tempest of 2023 stirs to fact and life.
Yes, and tears in my eyes too, Chris - at Luis - and all those others in your class reading the words of Solzhenitsyn and finding their own stories and spiritual confirmation/growth. I read that work myself so many years ago - how could I then as a young fellow have ever properly understood its impact - its truths - yet I find echoes of those things in my own life since as I read this essay - and of all other accounts of inhuman incarcerations - Primo LEVI, Wole SOYINKA, NGUGI wa Thiong'o - or Behrouz BOOCHANI - among others. Thank-you.
Restoring the dignity and inner worth of those who have been relegated to the refuse bin of society is truly divine in every sense of the word. Your deeply touching articles allow me to sustain the belief that we can create a shift in consciousness on our planet, before we destroy ourselves.
A remarkable piece, thanx Chris. But...
The tragedy is that Luis leaves so many good men and women behind.
No. Luis was not in a position to leave or take anyone. It is the society that leaves so many good men and women incarcerated and the likes of Frank Lee that enable it.
Thank you and Luis for this story. I appreciate your work here, as I am certain, that the students do as well.
Stalin's prisoners were political and imprisoned without due process. US prisons are filled with criminals that were sentenced for their crimes after due process. I fail to see the contrast.
I was honored a while back to receive a letter from a prisoner in Illinois. He is in his fourties’ now and was sentenced at age 19. In a beautiful letter to me, he was responding to my published correspondence letters in The Sun magazine, short letters where I have been very critical of the political opinions that often are published in The Sun. Anyway, we have been writing each other, and given the weight of his life reality, I often feel silly and naive in my letters to him. I find myself being critical of my outlook on life and even the language I use in a way that I haven’t before.
This piece by Hedges is helping me understand what I am being challenged to understand through our letters. The process of writing and getting to know this person amplifies my awareness in ways that I hadn’t imagined.
SPIRIT v. ECON DETERMINISM
Despite the relentless dehumanization, people like Luis somehow find a way to be fully human. Unique individuals, conscious of how their lives are also communitarian and connected. No matter how much the powers that be try to convince them they are isolated, abandoned, nothing. Testimony of some aspect within human, yet more than--a traditional word for which is "spirit." We do not live by bread alone.
Which is contrary to the economic dogmas of exploitative consumer capitalism as well as of leftist beliefs that materialism is the only reality, the problem merely one of distribution. Consider instead the alternative slogan of Bread and Roses. Which recognizes that in addition to physical requirements, there is a strong human need for meaning.
Speaking as someone who was a blue collar worker union activist for 20+ years and as someone raised on Native land, I don't have much faith in centralized authority. Nor do I view my life or those of indigenous people in general as something defined by abstract, deterministic economics. And some of us who wield tools on the job can actually read, write, and think. We don't need a self-appointed elitist "vanguard of the working class."
Economic determinism is part of the mechanisms of power that reward elites while denying the humanity of those considered lessers. That's obvious in capitalism, where corporations are people, and humans merely "resources," like the other items in nature to be exploited, remnants discarded. But it's also true of leftisms that consider abstract historical forces and economic arrangements to be all of reality; the humans who do the actual work secondary effects with no purpose other than materialistic accumulation. That, too, is dehumanizing in the extreme.
Well Chris you sure know how to move your audience. Unfortunately you can't budge Congress in inch. Oligarchs can Raytheon can but you and I and your readers can't.
Happy Holidays brothers and sisters.
This here atheist prays daily for a cease fire in Ukraine and "peace on earth for all therein.
Off and on for about a year I have read Sketches of the Criminal World by Varlam Shalamov. The sketches are about his 17-year imprisonment in Kolyma, where he was sent as a political prisoner in Stalin's purges of 1937-38. He survived, incredibly, he survived, like Solzhenitsyn did. But millions perished, victims of the cold, forced labor in mines, abuse, and wretched nutrition.
The Gulag Archipelago is absolutely shattering in effect. One of those rare works that takes far, far more time to process than to read. Definitely worth a revisit within the context of the US carceral apparatus and the contemporary state, thanks for sharing some of those connections here.
Read his book "A Day in the Life", which I have always believed is a book describing his experience among other prisoners...and if the American political and "justice" systems were working toward fixing our social problems, we wouldn't have so many people in prison or so many bad happenings in our society. It's time to use what we know to solve people's problems so they don't become "criminals" rather than waiting for bad things to happen and then punishing the bad behavior so scared, angry people will vote for what lawmakers can benefit from. We've had statistics and psychiatric studies at least since the late 1960's and through the mid 2000's at least that show the vast majority of crime can be resolved during a prison sentence, and it can be prevented by focusing on recognizing, for example, kids who come to school with signs of abuse, and even just generally acknowledging the truth, the reality that many people bring into adulthood their childhood experiences without the opportunity to learn better ways before they act out. We can solve the issues that create the situation...poverty, child sexual abuse, bullying, racial discrimination, and other things. We can do this, it is possible, most especially if we effectively exercised the knowledge brought forth by mental health and other experts especially since the mid-1990's. But politicians need crime and things that scare people and make them angry so they can enact crazy and stupid laws that make people believe they are working on it, but don't really solve anything at all. Forever punishment was never intended to be what the justice and corrections systems were about; the refusal to restore citizenship rights and the opportunity for good jobs lost because you're an ex-felon...time served should be time served. I was a major voice, and engaged once in a committee meeting that was about automatically restoring ex-felons voting rights back in the mid-2000's in Iowa, and some of these things came up. When I brought up the ideas I've just written here, I was asked to my face by a lawmaker, "If we solved the problems, what would we have to hold out to people to get them to vote for us?" My response was, "If you solved the problems, wouldn't you be a hero everyone would want in your position forever?" Look, folks...we kill people who kill people, but people kill people every day, all day long...that's obviously not the solution, is it...? We register sex offenders and punish them in several ways forever, but we give them probation in many cases instead of sending them to prison the first time; statistics have shown for a long time that those who go to prison are only maybe 5% likely to ever do it again, whether first time or third, compared to statistics in the upward of 70% recidivism for a number of other serious (and some not so) in so many other crimes. What does that tell you?
Best journalist of all time. And the biggest balls of them all. Love this guy. Wish I had a 100th of his writing skills and most of all the size of his heart. Especially for the helpless and down trodden no writer can touch him.
I read the Gulag Archipelago decades ago, however, it must also be admitted that Solzhenitsyn was a right-winger politically and that the crimes of Stalin are mistakenly (including by you, Chris) attributed to Lenin and Trotsky. This does not take away from your work in the prison. I have a friend who was incarcerated in San Quentin prison in California for armed robbery. He served his time and started writing when he was inside. Upon release, although suffering under the "three strikes" law (supported by then Attorney General Kamala Harris), he published a book about his experiences and was eventually pardoned by Jerry Brown before Brown left office as governor. I recommend the book, "Gun, Needle, Spoon" by Patrick O'neil.