You may be familiar with Angel Studios, which produced the acclaimed online series “The Chosen” and the huge box office success “Sound of Freedom.”
Angel Studios crowdfunds its content and produces “stories that amplify light, defined as true, honest, noble, just, authentic, lovely, admirable and excellent.”
One of the studio’s funding projects currently underway is to create a docu-series based on Rod Dreher’s New York Times bestselling book, Live Not By Lies. The title of his book was taken from Russian dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s 1974 essay by the same name. The series will document life under Soviet Communism and feature interviews with people who survived the terror and now warn about what they see unfolding in America.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn released “Live Not By Lies” on February 12, 1974, the day he was arrested by the Soviet government. The following day, he was exiled to the West, deported to Frankfurt, West Germany, and stripped of Soviet citizenship.
Almost fifty years later, Solzhenitsyn’s courageous warnings ring ominously true today for us in America. We witness demoralizing corruption on multiple fronts: in politics, institutions, the legal and medical professions, and social media collaboration with government agencies, to name a few examples.
Below are excerpts from Solzhenitsyn’s essay. See if they sound familiar in ways they did not in 1974 America.
“They put whomever they want on trial and brand the healthy as mentally ill … while we are helpless.”
“We are approaching the brink; already a universal spiritual demise is upon us; a physical one is about to flare up and engulf us and our children, while we continue to smile sheepishly and babble: ‘But what can we do to stop it? We haven’t the strength.’”
“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 white bread, the hot water heater, a Moscow residency permit.”
“It is not every day and not on every shoulder that violence brings down its heavy hand: It demands of us only a submission to lies, a daily participation in deceit –- and this suffices as our fealty. Therein we find … the most accessible key to our liberation: a personal nonparticipation in lies! Even if all is covered by lies, even if all is under their rule, let us resist in the smallest way: Let their rule hold not through me!”
“For when people renounce lies, lies simply cease to exist. Like parasites, they can only survive when attached to a person. … Let us at least refuse to say what we do not think!”
“Overcoming our temerity, let each man choose: Will he remain a witting servant of the lies … or has the time come for him to stand straight as an honest man, worthy of the respect of his children and contemporaries?”
“As for him who lacks the courage to defend even his own soul: Let him not brag of his progressive views, boast of his status as an academician or a recognized artist, a distinguished citizen or general. Let him say to himself plainly: I am cattle, I am a coward, I seek only warmth and to eat my fill.”
“We need not be the first to set out on this path. Ours is but to join! The more of us set out together, the thicker our ranks, the easier and shorter will this path be for us all! If we become thousands – they will not cope.”
“But if we shrink away, then let us cease complaining that someone does not let us draw breath – we do it ourselves!”
These are powerful words from a man who was revered for his courage to stare down the Soviet State. For those of us alive in 1974, who witnessed Solzhenitsyn’s persecution and exile, and read his immortal warnings about the totalitarian state and the violence and lies upon which it is built, could we have imagined that, in 50 years, the specter of totalitarianism in the United States would be visible on the horizon?
In choosing to bring Rod Dreher’s Live Not By Lies to the screen, Angel Studios joins the uphill battle to restore our Constitutional Republic. America’s destruction has been decades in the planning. We are just waking up to how perilously close we are to losing our hard-fought form of governance, which has served as a Shining City on a Hill for the world for almost 250 years.
If you might be interested in helping to crowdfund the docu-series “Live Not By Lies,” visit the Angel Studios website for more information. https://invest.angel.com/live
3 comments
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a prophet in our era. No one has better-placed totalitarianism in context for all with brains to see, or hearts to follow. A man of incredible courage and wisdom. Great article CT. Thanks.
As long as we are on the topic of lies . . . how about “Dr.” Warren and his lies about COVID vaccine?
https://abcnews.go.com/US/florida-family-sentenced-fake-covid-19-cure/story?id=103792447
Members of a Florida family who claimed they had a “miracle” cure for COVID-19 that contained a toxic bleach were sentenced to federal prison on Friday, the Department of Justice said.
Mark Grenon, 66, and his three sons — Jonathan Grenon, 37, Jordan Grenon, 29, and Joseph Grenon, 36 — were found guilty of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. by distributing an unapproved and misbranded drug, the DOJ said.
The federal jury also found Jonathan and Jordan Grenon guilty of contempt of court following a trial this summer.
Jonathan and Jordan Grenon were sentenced to 151 months — about 12 1/2 years — in federal prison, while Mark and Joseph Grenon were sentenced to five years, the DOJ said.
Is “Dr.” Warren next?
Speaking of living by lies . . . . Investigators have uncovered a vast misinformation campaign undertaken by MAGA Republicans in Loudoun, Prince William, and Fauquier counties that consists of placing intimidating door hangers at the homes of and sending mail to the mailboxes of GOP voters in those counties.
The extremist MAGA SuperPAC, Look Ahead America, has been bombarding Republican voters across Loudoun County with lies under the deceptive name Virginia Voter Assistance. These efforts, intended to mislead and frighten Republican voters to the polls this fall, illustrate that Republican leaders realize just how uninspiring their platform is amongst their own voters.
The mailers and door hangers that have been showing up across Loudoun, Prince William and Fauquier counties falsely claim that unless registered voters cast a ballot this November, they may be stripped of Social Security income, Medicare eligibility, Unemployment benefits, Child Tax Care credits and children’s custody rights, and Concealed Carry permits. Additionally, “failure to vote may also result in the seizure of personal assets, including but not limited to firearms, bank accounts, cars, and real estate,” they falsely claim.
These MAGA extremists think their voters are so stupid that they actively attempt to terrify them into voting by engaging in a pathetic, desperate and corrupt disinformation operation.