Some decades ago, I bought a book that I’ve started to read but failed to finish more than once. I’m determined to get through it this time, along with a few others.
“When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
Among the books I decided to keep not long ago, I’ve made pretty good progress in The Gulag Archipelago. Its relevance for today has taken me by surprise. The sentence quoted above grabbed me from the depths of the Cold War and dropped me right back here in the present.
Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon cheated us out of one historic opportunity to do justice, then the Senate failed to remove Donald Trump from office when it had the chance and more than enough cause.
To date, our government has failed us yet again, and voters have failed to elect enough politicians who will demand justice.
Trump’s indictment, trial and conviction can’t come soon enough. The prospect of having him in the Oval Office once again is disheartening to say the least.
To paraphrase Solzhenitsyn from the same paragraph above, it will be horrible to live in such a country.
B.J.
The Smith Compound 