Friday, January 28, 2005

THE POSSESSED "'By our efforts we have lit a fire as well, a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power; it burns those who fight its progress. And one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.' ... 'He is putting the fire out, your Excellency.' 'Not likely. The fire is in the minds of men and not in the roofs of houses. Pull him down and give it up! Better give it up, much better! Let it put itself out.'" From The Possessed, by Dostoyevsky. "A fire in the mind - surely, I thought, Bush's speechwriters can't have inserted this phrase without knowing its literary origin. It is taken from Dostoevsky's novel, The Possessed, a story set in pre-revolutionary Russia in which the author chronicles the intrigues of the emerging revolutionary movement: one of the main characters is based on the infamous nihilist Sergei Nechaev, whose aim is to make a revolution of such destructive power that bourgeois society will be completely destroyed. Their strategy is to provoke a violent crackdown on all dissent - which will then spark an explosion of revolutionary violence." TheAustralian: "The US Defence Department has been asked to investigate a website being used by American soldiers to post grisly pictures of Iraqi war dead." Nihilist Bush is kindling his destructive fire. 4:35:54 PM

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