Boycott the Oscars

Yes, there are more important things to think about. I just am so steamed that Inception got so little respect from all the silly awards shows. That was a great movie. I'm all for Colin Firth to win the Oscar; he should have won for A Single Man last year. But no Leo nomination? No best director nod for C. Nolan? The last award Oscar got right was the Lifetime Achievement Award for Charlie Chaplin in the early 70s (and the two  awards for Godfather 1 and 2.) Why do people watch this stuff? It's boring. I don't give a rat's dropping about a bunch of vapid narcissists dressed in designer clothes, all botoxed out.. Do you?

                                       
                                             Go Leo!

Unfrozen Cave Man Dictator: A Stalin Biography

About 10 years ago, I began reading Anatoli Rybakov's trilogy on the purges in Russia. Beginning with The Children of Arbat, Rybakov weaved fiction and fact to create a bloodchilling account of the Red Terror. Rybakov creates a spellbinding depiction of Stalin, the destroyer of worlds. I realized that I knew very little about Joseph Stalin. Of course, that puts me in fine company; no one predicted that this seminary student would hold such historical prominence.

Edvard Radzinsky's biography, Stalin, claims new documents as sources. The author interviews Stalin's daughter, his second in command, his bodyguards--he finds diaries of the deceased; he unearths classified information from Russia's secret archives. Radzinsky worked for 25 years on this book. He grew up under "the Boss", one of many titles for Stalin. If you want information, you've got another CNN. If you want a relatively compulsive reading experience, Radzinsky's narrative style does not disappoint. If you want to get inside Stalin's very being, I would stick with Rybakov. Something falls flat in this biography.

Radinsky doesn't know what to do with all this material. He organizes Stalin's life around his nicknames that served as pseudonyms. Part 1 is Soso: His Life and Death. We meet Stalin as a child. Part 2 is Koba: the right hand of Vladimir Lenin. Part 3 is Stalin: His Life, His Death.  Stalin makes sure that he takes millions with him to the dark lands of death. We get body count galore. We find out Stalin's motives--the revolution is a stage, the people are the players, and Stalin is the director, screenwriter and producer. Radinsky wants to shock us. He wants us to revel in the new uncovered atrocities. He wants us to relive Stalinism as a Russian citizen. It doesn't work.

I cannot blame Radinsky for trying. Stalin is an enigma. How can we resolve the betrayal of the revolution, the death of millions, the endless cruelty? How do we account for Stalin's larger than life presence? How could Stalin serve as the Great Leader, the Kind and Benevolent Shepard who guides Russia to world dominance? Stalin worked an economic miracle in Russia, taking it from a feudal agrarian society into the industrialized world. He helped crush Hitler and divided up Europe to add to his dominion. He easily caught up with the American nuclear program. People still admire him. Some want Stalinism to return to Russia. Why?

Radinsky portrays a Stalin who must control every detail, yet he finds his subordinates programmed and dull. He creates the only ideal for his Soviet Union, but it leaves him lonely--he begins to live in the past. Fear becomes the prime directive. Stalin learned how to control his people. If someone is arrested for counterrevolutionary activity, Stalin punishes everyone--wives, parents, children, friends. People learn to inform on each other. Stalin breaks down human dignity to keep Socialism strong. He births a passive people who love him, even when he prepares to send them to their doom. God always has a reason for allowing evil; he sees the whole picture. Stalin shares God's burden.

Stalin did terrible things in the name of the proletariat: he ordered the Red Army to die before retreating or becoming political prisoners. When the Germans released the Soviet prisoners of war, Stalin insisted that the Allies return them. Some of these men had endured 4 years of Nazi cruelty. When they got back to Mother Russia, Stalin dispatched them to the Siberian camps. They had disobeyed his orders by remaining alive. Stalin was willing to kill his own son,Yakov, for becoming a German prisoner of war. The Nazis shot him first.

This same Stalin understood power. He recognized that people did not want to think too much, so he thought for them. He destroyed intellectuals. He rewrote history. Like God, Stalin is omnipotent. People died with his name on their lips. Here is a letter from Nikoli Bukarin, one of the original  Bolshevik revolutionaries, destroyed in the purges: "With you I could converse for hours on end....if only you could see how devoted I am to you!" Bukarin refers to Stalin, not the Revolution. He writes: "Lord, if only there was some instrument with which you could look into my lacerated soul." Stalin doubles as executioner and savior. Is this fucked up or what?

Stalin epitomizes that phenomena known the personality cult. Radinsky is at his best when he paints Stalin as the ultimate Russian icon. We have not experienced anything like this in American politics. Instead, we know the kool aid of Jim Jones, the murderous inspiration of Charles Manson, the reckless devotion of the Branch Davidians--mere shadows to the Soviet dictator.  Stalin was all of that and more to his people. He is both frightening and fascinating, a bit like evil. Stalin makes us understand why ancient societies could worship the petty sadism of the Greek gods. Right or wrong, their power was absolute. Mortals had no choice but to submit.

Look for a Book Review on Stalin

Death is the solution to all problems. No man - no problem.  Joseph Stalin

I'm finishing up a biography of Joseph Stalin. New information released from the presidential archives makes this book paint a more complete picture of Stalin's handiwork. All Stalin biographies should be required  reading in these crazy political times. He was the puppetmaster who made fear tangible and debilitating. George Orwell based his novel, 1984, on the Stalinist regime. Now we have political pundits, media personalities and the never-ending recession--all help to create a climate of fear. Compared to Soviet Russia, we have nothing to fear, but the 2010 elections profited from collective voter anxiety and apathy. Those of you who sat out the election helped get the nightmare governors you are now trying to fight. Be glad you can vote. You still can choose through a write-in ballot. Never underestimate the power of natural law. Don't hide under the covers: find out what history has rendered so that it never has to happen again.

Book review coming soon...

Love, Chocolate and Other Addictions

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. The day after is my mother's birthday. She's been dead almost 11 years. She died two days after Mothers Day. I don't like holidays.

These two holidays are particularly grim. Both turn love into a commodity. Maternal  love is so primal--our relationships with our moms have more influence over our future than others. When I worked in the public schools, I took classes to understand the problems of urban children. My professor said: "If the child has a bad relationship with his or her father, there is still hope that you can bring that child back. But if the mother is the main problem, there is nothing you can do, especially if she is gone." I don't think he is entirely correct, but it still stayed with me.

Our parents serve as models for adult relationships, specifically romance. Here in America, corporations are taking over the parental role. Love is a laundry list of what we want in a partner. We are entitlement junkies: we deserve the best and damnit, we are going to get it!  If we spend x amount of dollars, we should be getting the best chocolate--gourmet style, rare vintage, all of that good stuff.  But people are not chocolate hearts. They are scarred remains of their emotional upbringing. What a risk we take when we look for love!

Today I listened to Kenny Chesney. I stopped listening to most country music a few years ago; it reminded me of love forever lost to the grim reaper, severed relationships in media res.  All that was too real, and I couldn't face reality as all I saw was death. So good old Kenny sings one of the most painful songs I've ever heard: "Better as a Memory." It left me in tears. But that is what love does. It touches our most vulnerable parts that we jealously hide from public view. Sometimes we cannot distinguish love from the person we love. When we become so entrenched, Kenny is right: love is better as a memory. As long as it enters the realm of thought, we finally can control it, doling love out in portions--each slice dependent on what we can handle for the day.

No one teaches us to be a parent. So how can we learn to love? Everything is trial by fire. Most of us lose, especially when we think we are winning. Why does our world force us to stoop to the level of consumer when it comes to love? Who came up with this crap? Even our pain can get someone rich. Is there any wonder why adult children stop talking to their parents or romantic relationships fall apart? If money and silly toys epitomize love, then we have lost all connection to Spirit. I would give all my money, my career, all my things to spend an hour with  my departed loved ones.  I don't think there is money or manufactured holidays on the other side of life. Good. I don't want to deal with too much baggage.