‘Problem, reaction, solution’ scenarios – don’t get played!

I’m increasingly coming round to the way of thinking that those who presume to rule over us are engineering or allowing situations to develop that will generate hostile and often violent reactions. These reactions can then be used as a justification for further clampdowns on our freedoms.

We don’t need ‘leaders’, ‘voices’ or false idols for our revolution

Anyone who paints themselves as an ‘outsider’ while broadcasting on platforms that reach millions is taking everyone else for a mug. They’re allowed to do this because they provide a safety valve for people to rally around, under the illusion that they’re actually part of something more oppositional.

Letter to a Mainstream Straddler

“We have so hopelessly ceded our humanity that for the modest handouts of today we are ready to surrender up all principles, our soul, all the labors of our ancestors, all the prospects of our descendants—anything to avoid disrupting our meager existence. We have lost our strength, our pride, our passion. We do not even fear a common nuclear death, do not fear a third world war (perhaps we’ll hide away in some crevice), but fear only to take a civic stance! We hope only not to stray from the herd, not to set out on our own, and risk suddenly having to make do without the white bread, the hot water heater …”

—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Live Not by Lies