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wandering around sl alone with my demons...
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The Number One Daytime Drama, CBS's THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS, prepares to celebrate its 35th anniversary on March 26, 2008. THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS is broadcast weekdays on the CBS Television Network. Pictured: Front row, left to right: Doug Davidson, standing (Paul Williams), Vail Bloom (Heather Stevens), Christian LeBlanc (Michael Baldwin), Tracey Bregman, seated (Lauren Fenmore Baldwin), Joshua Morrow (Nicholas Newman), Adrienne Frantz (Amber Moore), Michelle Stafford (in red, Phyllis Summers Newman), Michael Graziadei (Daniel Romalotti), Sharon Case, standing (Sharon Abbott), Peter Bergman (Jack Abbott), Hunter Allan, seated (Noah Newman), Don Diamont (Brad Carlton), Darcy Rose Byrnes (Abby Carlton). Second Row, left to right: Nia Peeples (Karen Taylor), Kristoff St. John (Neil Winters), Jeanne Cooper (Katherine Chancellor), Eric Braeden (Victor Newman), Melody Thomas Scott (Nikki Newman), Jess Walton (Jill Abbott), Emily O'Brien (Jana Hawkes). Third Row, left to right: Greg Rikaart (Kevin Fisher), Judith Chapman (Gloria Abbott Bardwell), Kate Linder (Esther Valentine), Amelia Heinle (Victoria Newman Hellstrom), Thad Luckinbill (J.T. Hellstrom), Vincent Irizarry (David Chow), Eyal Podell (Adrian Korbel), Daniel Goddard (Cane Ashby), Tammin Sursok (Colleen Carlton). Fourth Row, left to right: Ted Shackelford (Jeffrey Bardwell), Tammy Lauren (Maggie Sullivan), Bryton (Devon Hamilton), Christel Khalil (Lily Winters). Photo: Robert Voets © 2007 Sony Pictures Television.
New Yorkers Protest the US$850 BILLION (US$3 TRILLION) Wall Street BAILOUT: Wall Street, NYC - September 25, 2008
Phototgrapher: a. golden, eyewash design - c. 2008.
Friends,
The richest 400 Americans -- that's right, just four-hundred people -- own MORE than the bottom 150 million Americans COMBINED! 400 of the wealthiest Americans have got more stashed away than half the entire country! Their combined net worth is $1.6 trillion. During the eight years of the Bush Administration, their wealth has increased by nearly $700 billion -- the same amount that they were demanding We give to them for the "bailout." Why don't they just spend the money they made under Bush to bail themselves out? They'd still have nearly a trillion dollars left over to spread amongst themselves!
Of course, they are not going to do that -- at least not voluntarily. George W. Bush was handed a $127 billion surplus when Bill Clinton left office. Because that money was OUR money and not HIS, he did what the rich prefer to do -- spend it and never look back. Now we have a $9.5 trillion debt that will take seven generations from which to recover. Why -- on --earth – did -- our -- "representatives" -- give -- these -- robber -- barons -- $US850 BILLION -- of – OUR -- money?
Last week, proposed my own bailout plan. My suggestions, listed below, were predicated on the singular and simple belief that the rich must pull themselves up by their own platinum bootstraps. Sorry, fellows, but you drilled it into our heads one too many times: THERE...IS...NO…FREE... LUNCH ~ PERIOD! And thank you for encouraging us to hate people on welfare! So, there should have been NO HANDOUTS FROM US TO YOU! Last Friday, after voting AGAINST this BAILOUT, in an unprecedented turn of events, the House FLIP-FLOPPED their "No" Vote & said "Yes", in a rush version of a "bailout" bill vote. IN SPITE OF THE PEOPLE'S OVERWHELMING DISAPPROVAL OF THIS BAILOUT BILL... IN SPITE OF MILLIONS OF CALLS FROM THE PEOPLE CRASHING WASHINGTON "representatives'" PHONE LINES...IN SPITE OF CRASHING OUR POLITICIAN'S WEBSITES...IN SPITE OF HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE PROTESTING AROUND THE COUNTRY... THEY VOTED FOR THIS BAILOUT! The People first succeeded on Monday with the House, but failed do it with the Senate and then THE HOUSE TURNED ON US TOO!
It is clear, though, we cannot simply continue protesting without proposing exactly what it is we think THESE IDIOTS should/'ve do/one. So, after consulting with a number of people smarter than Phil Gramm, here’s the proposal, now known as "Mike's Rescue Plan." (From Michael Moore's Bailout Plan) It has 10 simple, straightforward points. They are that you DIDN'T, BUT SHOULD'VE:
1. APPOINTED A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR TO CRIMINALLY INDICT ANYONE ON WALL STREET WHO KNOWINGLY CONTRIBUTED TO THIS COLLAPSE. Before any new money was expended, Congress should have committed, by resolution, to CRIMINALLY PROSECUTE ANYONE who had ANYTHING to do with the attempted SACKING OF OUR ECONOMY. This means that anyone who committed insider trading, securities fraud or any action that helped bring about this collapse should have and MUST GO TO JAIL! This Congress SHOULD HAVE called for a Special Prosecutor who would vigorously go after everyone who created the mess, and anyone else who attempts to scam the public in future. (I like Elliot Spitzer ~ so, he played a little hanky-panky...Wall Street hates him & this is a GOOD thing.)
2. THE RICH SHOULD HAVE PAID FOR THEIR OWN BAILOUT! They may have to live in 5 houses instead of 7. They may have to drive 9 cars instead of 13. The chef for their mini-terriers may have to be reassigned. But there is no way in hell, after forcing family incomes to go down more than $2,000 dollars during the Bush years, that working people and the middle class should have to fork over one dime to underwrite the next yacht purchase.
If they truly needed the $850 billion they say they needed, well, here is an easy way they could have raised it:
a) Every couple makeing over a million dollars a year and every single taxpayer who makes over $500,000 a year should pay a 10% surcharge tax for five years. (It's the Senator Sanders plan. He's like Colonel Sanders, only he's out to fry the right chickens.) That means the rich would have still been paying less income tax than when Carter was president. That would have raise a total of $300 billion.
b) Like nearly every other democracy, they should have charged a 0.25% tax on every stock transaction. This would have raised more than $200 billion in a year.
c) Because every stockholder is a patriotic American, stockholders should have forgone receiving a dividend check for ONE quarter and instead this money would have gone the treasury to help pay for the bullsh*t bailout.
d) 25% of major U.S. corporations currently pay NO federal income tax. Federal corporate tax revenues currently amount to 1.7% of the GDP compared to 5% in the 1950s. If we raised the corporate income tax BACK to the levels of the 1950s, this would give us an extra $500 billion.
All of this combined should have been enough to end the calamity. The rich would have gotten to keep their mansions and their servants and our United States government ("COUNTRY FIRST!") would've have a little leftover to repair some roads, bridges and schools...
3. YOU SHOULD HAVE BAIL OUT THE PEOPLE LOSING THEIR HOMES, NOT THE PEOPLE WHO WILL BUILD AN EIGHTH HOME! There are 1.3 million homes in foreclosure right now. That is what is at the heart of this problem. So, instead of giving the money to the banks as a gift, they should have paid down each of these mortgages by $100,000. They should have forced the banks to renegotiate the mortgage so the homeowner could pay on its current value. To insure that this help wouldn't go to speculators and those who tried to making money by flipping houses, the bailout should have only been for people's primary residences. And, in return for the $100K pay-down on the existing mortgage, the government would have gotten to share in the holding of the mortgage so it could get some of its money back. Thus, the total initial cost of fixing the mortgage crisis at its roots (instead of with the greedy lenders) is $150 billion, not $850 BILLION.
And let's set the record straight. People who have defaulted on their mortgages are not "bad risks." They are our fellow Americans, and all they wanted was what we all want: a home to call their own. But, during the Bush years, millions of the People lost the decent paying jobs they had. SIX MILLION fell into poverty! SEVEN MILLION lost their health insurance! And, every one of them saw their real wages go DOWN by $2,000! Those who DARE look down on these Americans who got hit with one bad break after another should be ASHAMED.! We are a better, stronger, safer and happier society when all of our citizens can afford to live in a home they own.
4. THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN A STIPULATION THAT IF YOUR BANK OR COMPANY GOT ANY OF OUR MONEY IN A "BAILOUT," THEN WE OWN YOU. Sorry, that's how it's done. If the bank gives me money so I can buy a house, the bank "owns" that house until I pay it all back -- with interest. Same deal for Wall Street. Whatever money you need to stay afloat, if our government considers you a safe risk -- and necessary for the good of the country -- then you can get a loan, but WE SHOULD OWN YOU. If you default, we will sell you. This is how the Swedish government did it and it worked.
5. ALL REGULATIONS SHOULD HAVE BEEN BE RESTORED. THE REAGAN REVOLUTION IS DEAD! This catastrophe happened because we let the fox have the keys to the hen-house. In 1999, Phil Gramm authored a bill to remove all the regulations that governed Wall Street and our banking system. The bill passed and Clinton signed it. Here's what Sen.Phil Gramm, McCain's chief economic advisor, said at the bill signing:
"In the 1930s ... it was believed that government was the answer. It was believed that stability and growth came from government overriding the functioning of free markets.
"We are here today to repeal [that] because we have learned that government is not the answer. We have learned that freedom and competition are the answers. We have learned that we promote economic growth and we promote stability by having competition and freedom.
"I am proud to be here because this is an important bill; it is a deregulatory bill. I believe that that is the wave of the future, and I am awfully proud to have been a part of making it a reality."
FOR THIS NOT TO REOCCUR, This BILL SHOULD HAVE BEEN REPEALED! Bill Clinton could have helped by leading the effort for the repeal of the Gramm bill and the reinstating of even tougher regulations regarding our financial institutions. And when they were done with that, they should have restored the regulations for the airlines, the inspection of our food, the oil industry, OSHA, and every other entity that affects our daily lives. All oversight provisions for any "bailout" should have had enforcement monies attached to them and criminal penalties for all offenders.
6. IF IT'S TOO BIG TO FAIL, THEN THAT MEANS IT'S TOO BIG TO EXIST! Allowing the creation of these mega-mergers and not enforcing the monopoly and anti-trust laws has allowed a number of financial institutions and corporations to become so large, the very thought of their collapse means an even bigger collapse across the entire economy. No ONE or TWO companies should EVER have this kind of power! The so-called "economic Pearl Harbor" can't happen when you have hundreds -- thousands -- of institutions where people have their money. When we have a dozen auto companies, if one goes belly-up, we DON'T FACE A NATIONAL DISASTER! If we have three separately-owned daily newspapers in your town, then one media company can't call all the shots (I know... What am I thinking?! Who reads a paper anymore? Sure glad all those mergers and buyouts left us with a STRONG and "FREE" press!). Laws Should have been enacted to prevent companies from being so large and dominant that with one slingshot to the eye, the GIANT FALLS and DIES. And no institution should be allowed to set up money schemes that NO ONE understands. If you can't explain it in two sentences, you shouldn't be taking anyone's money!
7. NO EXECUTIVE SHOULD EVER BE PAID MORE THAN 40 TIMES THEIR AVERAGE EMPLOYEE, AND NO EXECUTIVE SHOULD RECEIVE ANY KIND OF "PARACHUTE" OTHER THAN THE VERY GENEROUS SALARY HE OR SHE MADE WHILE WORKING FOR THE COMPANY. In 1980, the average American CEO made 45 times what their employees made. By 2003, they were making 254 times what their workers made. After 8 years of Bush, they now make over 400 times what their average employee makes. How We have allowed this to happen at publicly held companies is beyond reason. In Britain, the average CEO makes 28 times what their average employee makes. In Japan, it's only 17 times! The last I heard, the CEO of Toyota was living the high life in Tokyo. How does he do it on so little money? Seriously, this is an OUTRAGE! We have created the mess we're in by letting the people at the top become bloated beyond belief with millions of dollars. THIS HAS TO STOP! Not only should no executive who receives help out of this mess profit from it, but any executive who was in charge of running his company into the ground should be FIRED before the company receives ANY help.
8. CONGRESS SHOULD HAVE STRENGTHENED THE FDIC AND MADE IT A MODEL FOR PROTECTING NOT ONLY PEOPLE'S SAVINGS, BUT ALSO THEIR PENSIONS AND THEIR HOMES. Obama was correct to propose expanding FDIC protection of people's savings in their banks to $250,000. But, this same sort of government insurance must be given to our NEVER have to worry about whether or not the money they've put away for their old age will be there. This should have meant strict government oversight of companies who manage their employees' funds -- or perhaps it means the companies should have been forced to turn over those funds and their management to the government? People's private retirement funds must also be protected, but perhaps it's time to consider not having one's retirement invested in the casino known as the stock market??? Our government should have a solemn duty to guarantee that no one who grows old in this country has to worry about becoming destitute.
9. EVERYBODY NEEDS TO TAKE A DEEP BREATH, CALM DOWN, AND NOT LET FEAR RULE THE DAY. Turn off your TVs! We are NOT in the Second Great Depression. The sky is NOT falling, Chicken Little! Pundits and politicians have lied to us so FAST and FURIOUS it's hard not to be affected by all the fear mongering. Even I wrote to and repeated what I heard on the news last week, that the Dow had the biggest one day drop in its history. Well, that was true in terms of points, but its 7% drop came nowhere close to Black Monday in 1987 when the stock market in one day lost 23% of its value. In the '80s, 3,000 banks closed, but America didn't go out of business. These institutions have always had their ups and downs and eventually it works out. It has to, because the rich do not like their wealth being disrupted! They have a vested interest in calming things down and getting back into their Jacuzzis before they slip into their million thread-count sheets to drift off to a peaceful, Vodka tonic and Ambien-induced slumber.
As crazy as things are right now, tens of thousands of people got a car loan last week. Thousands went to the bank and got a mortgage to buy a home. Students just back to college found banks more than happy to put them into hock for the next 15 years with a student loan. I was even pre-approved for a US$5K personal loan. Yes, life has gone on with little-or-no-change (other than the whopping 6.1% unemployment rate, but that happened last month). Not a single person lost any of his/her monies in bank, or a treasury note, or in a CD. And, the perhaps the most amazing thing is that the American public FINALLY didn't buy the scare campaign. The citizens didn't blink, instead telling Congress to take that bailout and shove it. THAT was impressive. Why didn't the population succumb to the fright-filled warnings from their president and his cronies? Well, you can only say 'Saddam has the bomb' so many times before the people realize you're a lying sack of shit. After eight long years, the nation is worn out and simply can't take it any longer. The WORLD is fed up & I don't blame them.
10. THEY SHOULD HAVE CREATED A NATIONAL BANK, A "PEOPLE'S BANK." Since they're really itching to print up a trillion dollars, instead of giving it to a few rich people, why don't We give it to ourselves? Now that We own Freddie and Fannie, why not set up a People's bank? One that can provide low-interest loans for all sorts of people who want to own a home, start a small business, go to school, come up with the cure for cancer or create the next great invention. And, now that we own AIG - the country's largest insurance company - let's take the next step and PROVIDE HEALTH INSURANCE FOR EVERYONE. MEDICARE FOR ALL! It will SAVE us SO MUCH MONEY in the LONG RUN (not to mention bring peace of mind to all). And, America won't be 12th on the life expectancy list! We'll be able to have a longer lifespan, enjoying our government-protected pension and will live to see the day when the corporate criminals who caused this much misery are let out of prison so that We can help re-acclimate them to plain old ordinary, civilian life -- a life with ONE nice home and ONE gas-free car invented with help from the People's Bank.
P.S. Call your Senators NOW !!! ---> www.visi.com/juan/congress/
Since they voted against passing the extension of unemployment benefits and skipped out to "campaign" to us to be re-elected...call them and tell them you will vote for the other "guy" if they don't get their act together!
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UPDATE: THE PEOPLE HAVE VOTED! A HISTORIC MOMENT: NOVEMBER 4th 2008!
------> THE Historic ELECTION <------
"A work in PROGRESS."
Nov. 4th, 2008.
A great American leader once said, "As individual fingers We can be easily broken. But TOGETHER We make a mighty fist." These words too were spoken by a minority leader. He was the venerable Chief Sitting Bull. No, Barack Obama's not the first American minority to speak eloquently and he most certainly won't be the last. Though, in the end, this election wasn't even close !!! The world watched as, "YES WE CAN!" turned into, "YES WE DID!" as it now ushers in, "YES WE MUST!" time is NOW!
What WE do with this moment shall define US, forthright. America has now elected a man with a background of partial African - American descent as President elect. A new leader with roots from Kenya to Kansas (with a step-father from Indonesia), will be working in conjunction with a vice-Presidential of Anglo-European roots. This is something in which citizens of ALL races - both here and the world 'round – have loudly REJOICED. Why talk about race? Is race important? You bet! Because - like it or not - race has dominated and governed Our daily lives for thousands of years. After all: "To know where We're going, We must first know where We've been".
We've come a LONG Way baby! What was once "acceptable" in 1965 is no longer in 2008 and THANKFULLY.
This is a changing of the guard. Especially since forty-percent of America's population is considered to be a "minority". Only four generations removed, the repression of African slaves by Anglo Saxons caused hundreds of thousands of brothers to kill brothers in a viscous and bloody battle that changed the fundamental principals of this Constitutional Republic from rhetoric to reality. This too was a significant changing of the guard.
For the first time in the history of the country, the ancestors of these very same people who so passionately fought for slavery have now OVERWHELMINGLY voted for a minority leader. This too ushers in a new chapter in the history of America. This is a tremendous nod to those great American leaders before Us who risked everything so that We find ourselves at this precise moment in time. We must give thanks to these men and women who both tirelessly and unselfishly gave their lives to cross and to help shatter the racial, sexual and social boundaries imbued in the history of the United States of America.
It has now taken place. There's a palpable renewed sense of HOPE for a better tomorrow – a HOPE that these same crippling boundaries shall finally once and for all be erased. Yet it is wise to also remember the adage, "Actions speak louder than words" and Our rhetoric must now be turned into action. The ability to truly rise above differences and to not just speak of doing so, tells much of Our long and continuous journey. If We remember the old North American Indian saying, "We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." We might just have a fighting chance.
The People have spoken! A record-setting 130 million Americans' turned out to vote in Tuesday's election, in which Barack Obama made history on a Democratic tidal wave of victory. Polling suggests voters came out in record numbers because of growing concerns over the economy, jobs, health care, energy, and the war in Iraq.
Clearly, the Obama administration and the new Democratic majority in Washington have a chance to make profound changes in Our lives - stretching from Wall Street to Main Street. Yes, this moment shows decency about human possibility and let's face it, We could use just a little decency RIGHT NOW.
Perhaps more importantly, this moment speaks volumes as it's an utter rejection of the right's politics of fear and greed? It will now be decades before there's another Republican majority in Congress. Never have the words, "Ask not what Your country can do for You, but what You can do for Your country," seemed more true for SO MANY. For, We-Are-Our-country. And We're at a MAJOR crossroads. Where, oh where to begin?
OBAMA / BIDEN Campaign.
Here in New York, Working Families voters, members, affiliates, supporters and chapter leaders poured everything they had into critical campaigns that proved successful. Many are now understandably exhausted - though more than a little proud of what was accomplished. And, the results were terrific ~ if not downright Historic. For the first time since the mid-1930, the State Senate will NO LONGER be controlled by Republicans. It's now in the hands of a Democratic Working Families majority! Just-take-one-moment-and-soak-this-in. MASSIVE Democratic majorities in BOTH the HOUSE and the SENATE!
Together, the W.F.P built a solid partnership with Senate Democrats, knocking on more than half a million doors for progressive CHANGE. And, in the end, "We the People" overwhelmingly responded. This is a MILESTONE. There's now a renewed sense of real HOPE resonating from Washington, indeed, around the world. This is powerful. Because, without HOPE, there's simply nothing to gain.
However, We must be careful not to fall prey to disillusionment. If illusions tear People asunder, then disillusion outright kills the human spirit. In other words, divided THEY conquer, united, WE stand. That this historic moment was ushered in during Native American Indian month is apropos. Because, We must not forget the very real foundations of this idealistic country and pay homage to the 500 plus year struggle of Our First Peoples' for the basic rights afforded them in Our own Constitution. Obama's victory is indeed a victory representing the multitudes. It is precisely because his success mirrors the masses, rather than a few wealthy, power-elite that this is so electrifying. A VERY palpable, "Finally!" was the expression heard 'round the world.
The world woke up WEDNESDAY with the real possibility of a very RARE OPPORTUNITY - the best in most Our lifetimes. This is a chance to truly transform America.
But, We mustn't forget the VERY hard realities existing in this country. Just ask any woman…any "person of color"…or, any First Peoples living in this "great" land. For, as long as Native American Indians in Our country still live in policies of containment on reservations without the very basics, such as running water, electricity, or heat… as long as more than 75% of the prison population includes African-Americans, First and Taino Peoples …as long as We continue to allow Our tax dollars spent to be three times more for each of these prisoners per head than on Our own school childrens' education…as long as American women continue to earn less than men for the SAME work…as long as We allow privately held corporations to exist without extreme MAJOR reform…as long as We continue to allow Our children to trample on foreign soil to kill and to be killed in "Our" names…as long as We sit idly by expecting or content to let others to "Do the right thing," for us… as long as We DON'T ACTIVELY PARTICIPATE TOGETHER in challenging and fighting for OUR OWN WELL-BEING for the betterment of future generations… as long as We choose to remain ignorant and in denial to Our faults…TRUE CHANGE can, and will NEVER HAPPEN.
Though, like anything rare and unique, We must first take proper time to Honor…to give thanks to those before us who, without their dedication and sacrifice, made this moment possible. We must come together. Immediate formulation and a real plan to guard and to protect this moment with fierce determination is required. New leaders are needed and will emerge so We ensure moments like this become the norm, rather than a mere token fluke. If We HOPE to transform Tuesday's results into a real break from the shipwreck of the most immediate last thirty years - We MUST start by realizing this election represents just that – a START. It's Round One of Our LONG and CONTINUOUS struggle.
And, Round Two will be just as tough, if not more so. Staying the course can easily be forgotten when People are dying from inadequate health care; when they've found themselves on the streets for lack of shelter and as they grow ever more desperate due to lack of job opportunities. Just ask people of Native or African American descent. Or, one of Our homeless veterans living on America's streets of plenty.
Yes, the house of cards has fallen HARD and FAST. And, President / V.P. elect Barack Obama and Joe Biden have inherited many seemingly insurmountable challenges. REAL CHANGE - not rhetoric - is what's needed. And to get it, We MUST demand it. We MUST march and be watchdogs for the sake of the coming generations. Communication with Our politicians is a MUST. MOST importantly, We MUST stand TOGETHER and be willing to fight to protect what is right and what is good for the MANY, NOT the FEW.
UNITED We STAND, DIVIDED, We FALL.
A President Obama will need to be simultaneously supported AND pushed. His training as a community organizer gives one confidence that he'll not only understand, but should also expect this dynamic. It's imperative for us to mind the trusty, "Follow the money" strategy. Don't forget, President elect Obama dually made history by raising the most unprecedented amount of campaign dollars in the HISTORY of U.S. Presidential elections. According to CNN, if annualized, the Obama campaign's ad spending on the post-primary Presidential campaign would come to US$750 million. This amount is only exceeded amongst large corporations such as Verizon and AT&T - both heavy sponsors of the Republican AND the Democratic national party conventions.
At the start of October, the Democratic National Committee announced it raised US$49.9 million with US$27.5 million sitting in the bank. The party raised money through joint fund-raising events with Obama and was able to use that money to assist his candidacy. These numbers were only possible because he opted out of the public financing system for the fall campaign. John McCain chose to participate in the system, which limited him to US$84 million for the September / October stretch prior to the election. After initially promising to accept public financing if McCain did, Obama changed his mind after setting primary fund-raising records. In fact, by the time the primaries hit, Obama was raising as much as US$5 million each and every day. The Obama / Biden campaign raised more than US$150 million in September alone - a stunning and unprecedented eruption of political giving. This extraordinary fund-raising is bound to set a new standard in politics that could doom the current taxpayer-paid system set up in the 1970's.
HOPEfully NOT.
The party presidential nominees – Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain – together spent more than US$1 BILLION, also an unprecedented figure. According to White House for Sale, a nonpartisan group that tracks political giving, Obama had 605 bundlers, or donors who collect money from friends and associates and bundle them together. Four years ago, Democrat John F. Kerry had 588 bundlers and, in 2000, Al Gore had none. McCain had 851 bundlers working for his campaign, compared to 557 who raised money for the Bush-Cheney re-election committee in 2004. George W. Bush is largely credited with institutionalizing the role of bundlers in 2000, when he recruited a then unprecedented 555 surrogate fundraisers.
Ask Yourselves: Who really benefits most from having donated to the Obama / Biden campaign?
President - elect Barack Obama & John McCain's U.S. Presidential campaign funds details:
OBAMA:
Total:US$750,767,963
Bundlers:605
LobbyistBundlers:17
MCCAIN:
Total: US$372,525,058
Bundlers: 851
Lobbyist Bundlers: 77
See the Center for Responsive Politics Presidential campaign monies for a better perspective:
2008: Obama AND McCain - US$5.3 BILLION
(Obama: US$750,767,963 million / McCain: US$372,525,058 million)
2004: Bush AND Kerry - US$4.2 BILLION
2000: Gore AND Bush - US$67.56 MILLION
1996: Dole AND Clinton - US$61.82 MILLION
1992: Clinton AND Bush - US$55.24 MILLION
* TO SEARCH FOR MEGA-DONERS, CLICK here: www.whitehouseforsale.org/searchDonor.cfm?CandidateSelect... McCain&StateSelect=&SortOrder=Last_Name, First_Name, Middle_Name, Suffix.*
Democrats in Washington and will be under enormous pressure to "play it safe", even as everyone knows We need bold action and some kind of new, New Deal. And, if We allow the "play-it-safe" crowd to dominate, then Obama (and We) will not succeed. Make NO mistake: the corporate big-wigs and free-market fundamentalists see this for exactly what it is: THE FIGHT OF A LIFETIME. They want nothing more than for the Democrats to disappoint, because then the HOPEfulness that Obama represents can be stuffed back in the bottle and cynicism can once again regain its place in Our national political culture.
WE Can't Let This Happen!
Whether it's revamping our health care system…implementing a new fair-based trade policy…creating a sound, realistic and well thought-out immigration plan…jobs programs…organizing rights in Washington, or campaign election reform, family leave or fair taxes, this election has set the stage for an ENTIRELY NEW social contract between the government and the People. This election opens up a real possibility – small, but real - that We could make genuine progress as a society, in terms of equality and freedom and true sustainability. In other words, the democracy We preach, but don't teach. What comes next is up to US. And, We need to seriously ready OURSELVES.
In short, the real meaning of this election hasn't yet been decided.
Overall, there's a lot of work to do. It's imperative that EVERYONE do his share - whether this means attending a neighborhood or union meeting, signing a petition, organizing or riding a bus to a demonstration, going on a lobby visit, making a financial contribution, or just talking to a stranger about the need and desirability of the common good.
Thanks for all you do!
Live your values. Love your country.
And, remember: TOGETHER, We can make a D-I-F-F-E-R-E-N-C-E !
Something from the archives. SOOC. I've been way too busy during past weeks, phew! Work, work and work. I haven't been able to be here in Flickr and comment any pics, sorry friends!
i think i need to change the middle pictures tone but im to lazy right now
Im pretty sure im goin to sleep restless tonight i know a boy shouldnt make me so...i dont know the word for it but....
--who agrees with me that it sucks that after less then a month there to someone new and that theyve decideded its not "a good idea" to hangout with u since they have a new girlfriend...even though u truelly want to be friends with the person
In otherwords they only want to be your friend on there time
The worst part is i ended it not him
Bc it was just another thing making me restless
I know im being pathetic and complaining and i could have things soo much worst but i care too much and get way to stressed for just being 17
So we'll play on these swings this one last time, tribute to the joy they gave, but never again. We had one just like this when I was little, providing literally minutes of entertainment. I was always a restless child, and that translated well into my adult mindset. I've been at my best as a wanderer, taking scattered, unplanned routes through the countryside. They end me up at unexpected places, stopping briefly, getting along to the next one. Today's been threatening rain, but that's always a welcoming atmospheric emotion for me. Getting along well in wet grass and dark clouds overhead – if I'm thirsty for something, it's a state of constant change. Here's the curious beauty, an endless love for familiar places, and a ceaseless need for new seasons and shifts in the weather. In this way, nothing ever gets old.
June 13, 2022
Digby County, Nova Scotia
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Nothing to do but scuff down
the graveyard road behind the playground,
past the name-stones lined up in rows
beneath their guardian pines,
on out into the long, low waves of plains
that dissolved time. We'd angle off
from fence and telephone line, through
ribbon-grass that closed behind as though
we'd never been, and drift toward the bluff
above the river-bend where the junked pickup
moored with its load of locust-skeletons.
Stretched across the blistered hood, we let
our dresses catch the wind while clouds above
dimmed their pink to purple, then shadow-blue—
So slow, we listened to our own bones grow.
By: Debra Nystrom
---- occasional portraits: Gianluca & Alice ----
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This is a short and long collection of photographs, which I did in my wanderings through the streets of the villages of Sicily; I have included some portraits, some moments captured on the fly, and...to finish (are the first images to appear in the sequence) there are the shots of the red house of Taormina (Sicily), in which lived for two years and one month, from January 1920 to February 1922, the English writer D.H. Lawrence and his beautiful and restless German wife Baroness Frieda Richthofen, and there is the portrait of the nephew (Don Peppino D'Allura) of the young Sicilian muleteer of Castelmola, Peppino D'Allura, who was the lover of Frieda, which she told her husband-writer all details of all her amorous exploits, which took place in the countryside of Castelmola, with the young Sicilian Peppino, thus providing to DH Lawrence, inspiration and documentary material for the preparation of those "erotic games in the rain" of the most scandalous novel of the twentieth century "lady Chatterley's Lover", a novel that British publishers didn't publish for obscenity and for the innovative nature of the figure of the heroine, Lady Connie Chatterley (alias Frieda Richthofen). The discovery of who was the "true lover" of the wife of the writer DH Lawrence is due to the journalist Gaetano Taorminese Saglimbeni (some sources, such as Wikipedia, report as a lover of Frieda another character, the militar Angelo Ravagli); in that "red-house" also later lived the "enfant terrible" of American literature Truman Capote, who in that house was home to the poet-writer-director-playwright Jean Cocteau.
..........................................
Questa è una raccolta breve e lunga di fotografie, che io ho realizzato nel mio girovagare per le strade dei paesi della Sicilia; ho inserito alcuni ritratti che mi sono stati gentilmente concessi dagli interessati, ho inserito alcuni istanti colti al volo, per terminare (sono le prime immagini ad apparire nella sequenza) con le foto dell'interno della casa rossa di Taormina (Sicilia) nella quale abitarono per due anni e un mese, dal gennaio 1920 al febbraio 1922, lo scrittore inglese David Herbert Lawrence e la sua bella ed inquieta moglie, la baronessa tedesca Frieda Richthofen, infine ho inserito il ritratto del nipote (Don Peppino D'Allura) di quel giovane mulattiere di Castelmola (Sicilia) Peppino D'Allura che fu l'amante della moglie dello scrittore inglese Frieda, al quale marito-scrittore lei stessa raccontò con dovizia di particolari tutte le sue prodezze amorose, avvenute nelle campagne di Castelmola (in compagnia del giovane siciliano Peppino), fornendo in tal modo a D.H.Lawrence, ispirazione e materiale documentario per la stesura di quei "giochi erotici sotto la pioggia" del più scandaloso romanzo del Novecento "l'amante di Lady Chatterley", romanzo che gli editori Inglesi non vollero pubblicare non solo per oscenità, ma anche per il carattere innovativo della figura della protagonista del romanzo, la signora Connie Chatterley (alias Frieda Richthofen). La scoperta di chi fosse stato il "vero amante" della moglie dello scrittore D.H.Lawrence si deve al giornalista Taorminese Gaetano Saglimbeni (alcune fonti, tra le quali Wikipedia, riportano come amante della signora Frieda un altro personaggio, il bersagliere Angelo Ravagli); nella stessa casa in cui abitarono Lawrence e Frieda, successivamente abitò anche "il ragazzo terribile" della letteratura americana Truman Capote che in quella casa ospitò lo scrittore-poeta-regista-commediografo francese Jean Cocteau.
Nothing to do but scuff down
the graveyard road behind the playground,
past the name-stones lined up in rows
beneath their guardian pines,
on out into the long, low waves of plains
that dissolved time. We'd angle off
from fence and telephone line, through
ribbon-grass that closed behind as though
we'd never been, and drift toward the bluff
above the river-bend where the junked pickup
moored with its load of locust-skeletons.
Stretched across the blistered hood, we let
our dresses catch the wind while clouds above
dimmed their pink to purple, then shadow-blue—
So slow, we listened to our own bones grow.
By: Debra Nystrom
Sleeping Dogs
3449x1940 || Camera Control Mod || SweetFX 1.4/B (tonemap/curves/liftgammagain/gaussian/lumasharpen/vignette)
The golden light of the setting sun is reflected off the waves crashing on the cliffs of Big Sur. The spray from the crashing waves would sometimes shoot way up past where I was shooting from, which is at least 20-25 ft from the sea level if not more.
After thinking about what I would look like with a mustache, I cloned myself. Twice.
And what's even more amazing than my veiny feet is that I did this without a tripod.
Nothing to do but scuff down
the graveyard road behind the playground,
past the name-stones lined up in rows
beneath their guardian pines,
on out into the long, low waves of plains
that dissolved time. We'd angle off
from fence and telephone line, through
ribbon-grass that closed behind as though
we'd never been, and drift toward the bluff
above the river-bend where the junked pickup
moored with its load of locust-skeletons.
Stretched across the blistered hood, we let
our dresses catch the wind while clouds above
dimmed their pink to purple, then shadow-blue—
So slow, we listened to our own bones grow.
By: Debra Nystrom
I was originally trying to practice manual focusing on a creek in the distance but spotted this spider on a leaf. I guess he could sense the camera on him because he did not want to sit still. Sorry Mr. Spider didn’t know you were camera shy.
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (Russian: Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в or Пе́шков;[1] 28 March [O.S. 16 March] 1868 – 18 June 1936), primarily known as Maxim Gorky (Russian: Макси́м Го́рький), was a Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the socialist realism literary method, and a political activist.[2] He was also a five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature.[3] Around fifteen years before success as a writer, he frequently changed jobs and roamed across the Russian Empire; these experiences would later influence his writing. Gorky's most famous works were The Lower Depths (1902), Twenty-six Men and a Girl (1899), The Song of the Stormy Petrel (1901), My Childhood (1913–1914), Mother (1906), Summerfolk (1904) and Children of the Sun (1905). He had an association with fellow Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov; Gorky would later mention them in his memoirs.
Gorky was active with the emerging Marxist social-democratic movement. He publicly opposed the Tsarist regime, and for a time closely associated himself with Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov's Bolshevik wing of the party. For a significant part of his life, he was exiled from Russia and later the Soviet Union. In 1932, he returned to the USSR on Joseph Stalin's personal invitation and lived there until his death in June 1936.
Contents
1 Life
1.1 Early years
1.2 Political and literary development
1.3 Capri years
1.4 Return from exile
1.5 Povolzhye famine
1.6 Second exile
1.7 Death of Lenin
1.8 Return to Russia: last years
1.9 Apologist for the gulag
1.10 Hostility to gays
1.11 Conflicts[citation needed] with Stalinists
1.12 Death
2 Depictions and adaptations
3 Selected works
3.1 Novels
3.2 Novellas
3.3 Short stories
3.4 Drama
3.5 Non-fiction
3.6 Collections
4 See also
5 Notes
6 Sources
7 Further reading
8 External links
Life
Early years
Born as Alexei Maximovich Peshkov on 28 March [O.S. 16 March] 1868, in Nizhny Novgorod, Gorky became an orphan at the age of eleven. He was brought up by his grandmother[2] and ran away from home at the age of twelve in 1880. After an attempt at suicide in December 1887, he travelled on foot across the Russian Empire for five years, changing jobs and accumulating impressions used later in his writing.[2]
As a journalist working for provincial newspapers, he wrote under the pseudonym Иегудиил Хламида (Jehudiel Khlamida).[4] He started using the pseudonym "Gorky" (from горький; literally "bitter") in 1892, when his first short story, "Makar Chudra", was published by the newspaper Kavkaz (The Caucasus) in Tiflis, where he spent several weeks doing menial jobs, mostly for the Caucasian Railway workshops.[5][6][7] The name reflected his simmering anger about life in Russia and a determination to speak the bitter truth. Gorky's first book Очерки и рассказы (Essays and Stories) in 1898 enjoyed a sensational success, and his career as a writer began. Gorky wrote incessantly, viewing literature less as an aesthetic practice (though he worked hard on style and form) than as a moral and political act that could change the world. He described the lives of people in the lowest strata and on the margins of society, revealing their hardships, humiliations, and brutalisation, but also their inward spark of humanity.[2]
Political and literary development
Anton Chekhov and Gorky. 1900, Yalta
Gorky's reputation grew as a unique literary voice from the bottom strata of society and as a fervent advocate of Russia's social, political, and cultural transformation. By 1899, he was openly associating with the emerging Marxist social-democratic movement, which helped make him a celebrity among both the intelligentsia and the growing numbers of "conscious" workers. At the heart of all his work was a belief in the inherent worth and potential of the human person. In his writing, he counterposed individuals, aware of their natural dignity, and inspired by energy and will, with people who succumb to the degrading conditions of life around them. Both his writings and his letters reveal a "restless man" (a frequent self-description) struggling to resolve contradictory feelings of faith and scepticism, love of life and disgust at the vulgarity and pettiness of the human world.[citation needed]
In 1916, Gorky said that the teachings of the ancient Jewish sage Hillel the Elder deeply influenced his life: "In my early youth I read...the words of...Hillel, if I remember rightly: 'If thou art not for thyself, who will be for thee? But if thou art for thyself alone, wherefore art thou'? The inner meaning of these words impressed me with its profound wisdom...The thought ate its way deep into my soul, and I say now with conviction: Hillel's wisdom served as a strong staff on my road, which was neither even nor easy. I believe that Jewish wisdom is more all-human and universal than any other; and this not only because of its immemorial age...but because of the powerful humaneness that saturates it, because of its high estimate of man."[8]
He publicly opposed the Tsarist regime and was arrested many times. Gorky befriended many revolutionaries and became a personal friend of Vladimir Lenin after they met in 1902. He exposed governmental control of the press (see Matvei Golovinski affair). In 1902, Gorky was elected an honorary Academician of Literature, but Tsar Nicholas II ordered this annulled. In protest, Anton Chekhov and Vladimir Korolenko left the Academy.[9]
Leo Tolstoy with Gorky in Yasnaya Polyana, 1900
From 1900 to 1905, Gorky's writings became more optimistic. He became more involved in the opposition movement, for which he was again briefly imprisoned in 1901. In 1904, having severed his relationship with the Moscow Art Theatre in the wake of conflict with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, Gorky returned to Nizhny Novgorod to establish a theatre of his own.[10] Both Konstantin Stanislavski and Savva Morozov provided financial support for the venture.[11] Stanislavski believed that Gorky's theatre was an opportunity to develop the network of provincial theatres which he hoped would reform the art of the stage in Russia, a dream of his since the 1890s.[11] He sent some pupils from the Art Theatre School—as well as Ioasaf Tikhomirov, who ran the school—to work there.[11] By the autumn, however, after the censor had banned every play that the theatre proposed to stage, Gorky abandoned the project.[11]
As a financially successful author, editor, and playwright, Gorky gave financial support to the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), as well as supporting liberal appeals to the government for civil rights and social reform. The brutal shooting of workers marching to the Tsar with a petition for reform on 9 January 1905 (known as the "Bloody Sunday"), which set in motion the Revolution of 1905, seems to have pushed Gorky more decisively toward radical solutions. He became closely associated with Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov's Bolshevik wing of the party, with Bogdanov taking responsibility for the transfer of funds from Gorky to Vpered.[12] It is not clear whether he ever formally joined, and his relations with Lenin and the Bolsheviks would always be rocky. His most influential writings in these years were a series of political plays, most famously The Lower Depths (1902). While briefly imprisoned in Peter and Paul Fortress during the abortive 1905 Russian Revolution, Gorky wrote the play Children of the Sun, nominally set during an 1862 cholera epidemic, but universally understood to relate to present-day events. He was released from the prison after a European-wide campaign, which was supported by Marie Curie, Auguste Rodin and Anatole France, amongst others.[13]
In 1906, the Bolsheviks sent him on a fund-raising trip to the United States with Ivan Narodny. When visiting the Adirondack Mountains, Gorky wrote Мать (Mat', Mother), his notable novel of revolutionary conversion and struggle. His experiences in the United States—which included a scandal over his travelling with his lover (the actress Maria Andreyeva) rather than his wife—deepened his contempt for the "bourgeois soul" but also his admiration for the boldness of the American spirit.[citation needed]
Capri years
In 1909–1911 Gorky lived on the island of Capri in the burgundy-coloured "Villa Behring".
From 1906 to 1913, Gorky lived on the island of Capri in southern Italy, partly for health reasons and partly to escape the increasingly repressive atmosphere in Russia.[2] He continued to support the work of Russian social-democracy, especially the Bolsheviks and invited Anatoly Lunacharsky to stay with him on Capri. The two men had worked together on Literaturny Raspad which appeared in 1908. It was during this period that Gorky, along with Lunacharsky, Bogdanov and Vladimir Bazarov developed the idea of an Encyclopedia of Russian History as a socialist version of Diderot's Encyclopedia. During a visit to Switzerland, Gorky met Lenin, who he charged spent an inordinate amount of his time feuding with other revolutionaries, writing: "He looked awful. Even his tongue seemed to have turned grey".[14] Despite his atheism,[15] Gorky was not a materialist.[16] Most controversially, he articulated, along with a few other maverick Bolsheviks, a philosophy he called "God-Building" (богостроительство, bogostroitel'stvo),[2] which sought to recapture the power of myth for the revolution and to create a religious atheism that placed collective humanity where God had been and was imbued with passion, wonderment, moral certainty, and the promise of deliverance from evil, suffering, and even death. Though 'God-Building' was ridiculed by Lenin, Gorky retained his belief that "culture"—the moral and spiritual awareness of the value and potential of the human self—would be more critical to the revolution's success than political or economic arrangements.
Return from exile
An amnesty granted for the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty allowed Gorky to return to Russia in 1913, where he continued his social criticism, mentored other writers from the common people, and wrote a series of important cultural memoirs, including the first part of his autobiography.[2] On returning to Russia, he wrote that his main impression was that "everyone is so crushed and devoid of God's image." The only solution, he repeatedly declared, was "culture".
After the February Revolution, Gorky visited the headquarters of the Okhrana (secret police) on Kronversky Prospekt together with Nikolai Sukhanov and Vladimir Zenisinov.[17] Gorky described the former Okhrana headquarters, where he sought literary inspiration, as derelict, with windows broken, and papers lying all over the floor.[18] Having dinner with Sukhanov later the same day, Gorky grimly predicated that revolution would end in "Asiatic savagery".[19] Initially a supporter of the Socialist-Revolutionary Alexander Kerensky, Gorky switched over to the Bolsheviks after the Kornilov affair.[20] In July 1917, Gorky wrote his own experiences of the Russian working class had been sufficient to dispel any "notions that Russian workers are the incarnation of spiritual beauty and kindness".[21] Gorky admitted to feeling attracted to Bolshevism, but admitted to concerns about a creed that made the entire working class "sweet and reasonable-I had never known people who were really like this".[22] Gorky wrote that he knew the poor, the "carpenters, stevedores, bricklayers", in a way that the intellectual Lenin never did, and he frankly distrusted them.[22]
During World War I, his apartment in Petrograd was turned into a Bolshevik staff room, and his politics remained close to the Bolsheviks throughout the revolutionary period of 1917. On the day after the Bolshevik coup of 7 November 1917, Gorky observed a gardener working the Alexander Park who had cleared snow during the February Revolution while ignoring the shots in the background, asked people during the July Days not to trample the grass and was now chopping off branches, leading Gorky to write that he was "stubborn as a mole, and apparently as blind as one too".[23] Gorky's relations with the Bolsheviks became strained, however, after the October Revolution. One contemporary remembered at how Gorky would turn "dark and black and grim" at the mere mention of Lenin.[24] Gorky wrote that Lenin together with Trotsky "have become poisoned with the filthy venom of power", crushing the rights of the individual to achieve their revolutionary dreams.[24] Gorky wrote that Lenin was a "cold-blooded trickster who spares neither the honor nor the life of the proletariat. ... He does not know the popular masses, he has not lived with them".[24] Gorky went on to compare Lenin to a chemist experimenting in a laboratory with the only difference being the chemist experimented with inanimate matter to improve life while Lenin was experimenting on the "living flesh of Russia".[24] A further strain on Gorky's relations with the Bolsheviks occurred when his newspaper Novaya Zhizn (Новая Жизнь, "New Life") fell prey to Bolshevik censorship during the ensuing civil war, around which time Gorky published a collection of essays critical of the Bolsheviks called Untimely Thoughts in 1918. (It would not be re-published in Russia until after the collapse of the Soviet Union.) The essays call Lenin a tyrant for his senseless arrests and repression of free discourse, and an anarchist for his conspiratorial tactics; Gorky compares Lenin to both the Tsar and Nechayev.[citation needed]
"Lenin and his associates," Gorky wrote, "consider it possible to commit all kinds of crimes ... the abolition of free speech and senseless arrests."[25]
In 1921, he hired a secretary, Moura Budberg, who later became his unofficial wife. In August 1921, the poet Nikolay Gumilev was arrested by the Petrograd Cheka for his monarchist views. There is a story that Gorky hurried to Moscow, obtained an order to release Gumilev from Lenin personally, but upon his return to Petrograd he found out that Gumilev had already been shot – but Nadezhda Mandelstam, a close friend of Gumilev's widow, Anna Akhmatova wrote that: "It is true that people asked him to intervene. ... Gorky had a strong dislike of Gumilev, but he nevertheless promised to do something. He could not keep his promise because the sentence of death was announced and carried out with unexpected haste, before Gorky had got round to doing anything."[26] In October, Gorky returned to Italy on health grounds: he had tuberculosis.
Povolzhye famine
In July 1921, Gorky published an appeal to the outside world, saying that millions of lives were menaced by crop failure. The Russian famine of 1921–22, also known as Povolzhye famine, killed an estimated 5 million, primarily affecting the Volga and Ural River regions.[27]
Second exile
Gorky left Russia in September 1921, for Berlin. There he heard about the impending Moscow Trial of 12 Socialist Revolutionaries, which hardened his opposition to the Bolshevik regime. He wrote to Anatole France denouncing the trial as a "cynical and public preparation for the murder" of people who had fought for the freedom of the Russian people. He also wrote to the Soviet vice-premier, Alexei Rykov asking him to tell Leon Trotsky that any death sentences carried out on the defendants would be "premeditated and foul murder."[28] This provoked a contemptuous reaction from Lenin, who described Gorky as "always supremely spineless in politics", and Trotsky, who dismissed Gorky as an "artist whom no-one takes seriously."[29] He was denied permission by Italy's fascist government to return to Capri, but was permitted to settle in Sorrento, where he lived from 1922 to 1932, with an extended household that included Moura Budberg, his ex-wife Andreyeva, her lover, Pyotr Kryuchkov, who acted as Gorky's secretary for the remainder of his life, Gorky's son Max Peshkov, Max's wife, Timosha, and their two young daughters.
He wrote several successful books while there,[30] but by 1928 he was having difficulty earning enough to keep his large household, and began to seek an accommodation with the communist regime. The Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was equally keen to entice Gorky back to the USSR. He paid his first visit in May 1928 – at the very time when the regime was staging its first show trial since 1922, the so-called Shakhty Trial of 53 engineers employed in the coal industry, one of whom, Pyotr Osadchy, had visited Gorky in Sorrento. In contrast to his attitude to the trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries, Gorky accepted without question that the engineers were guilty, and expressed regret that in the past he had intervened on behalf of professionals who were being persecuted by the regime. During the visit, he struck up friendships with Genrikh Yagoda, the corrupt and murderous head of the Ogpu and two other Ogpu officers, Semyon Firin and Matvei Pogrebinsky, who held high office in the Gulag. Pogrebinsky was Gorky's guest in Sorrento for four weeks in 1930. The following year, Yagoda sent his brother-in-law, Leopold Averbakh to Sorrento, with instructions to induce Gorky to return to Russia permanently.[31]
Death of Lenin
After the death of Lenin in 1924, Gorky wrote the following:
Vladimir Lenin, a big, real man of this world, has passed away. His death is a painful blow to all who knew him, a very painful blow! But the black line of death shall only underscore his importance in the eyes of all the world - the importance of the leader of the world’s working people. If the clouds of hatred for him, the clouds of lies and slander woven round him were even denser, it would not matter, for there is no such force as could dim the torch he has raised in the stifling darkness of the world gone mad. Never has there been a man who deserves more to be remembered forever by the whole world. Vladimir Lenin is dead. But those to whom he bequeathed his wisdom and his will are living. They are alive and working more successfully than anyone on Earth has ever worked before.[32]
Return to Russia: last years
Avel Enukidze, Joseph Stalin and Maxim Gorky celebrate 10th anniversary of Sportintern. Red Square, Moscow USSR. Aug 1931
Gorky's return from Fascist Italy was a major propaganda victory for the Soviets. He was decorated with the Order of Lenin and given a mansion (formerly belonging to the millionaire Pavel Ryabushinsky, which was for many years the Gorky Museum) in Moscow and a dacha in the suburbs. The city of Nizhni Novgorod, and the surrounding province were renamed Gorky. Moscow's main park, and one of the central Moscow streets, Tverskaya, were renamed in his honour, as was the Moscow Art Theatre. The largest fixed-wing aircraft in the world in the mid-1930s, the Tupolev ANT-20 was named Maxim Gorky in his honour.
He was also appointed President of the Union of Soviet Writers, founded in 1932, to coincide with his return to the USSR. On 11 October 1931 Gorky read his fairy tale "A Girl and Death" to his visitors Joseph Stalin, Kliment Voroshilov and Vyacheslav Molotov, an event that was later depicted by Viktor Govorov in his painting. On that same day Stalin left his autograph on the last page of this work by Gorky: "Эта штука сильнее чем "Фауст" Гёте (любовь побеждает смерть)"[33] ["This piece is stronger than Goethe's Faust (love defeats death)]".
Apologist for the gulag
In 1933, Gorky co-edited, with Averbakh and Firin, an infamous book about the White Sea-Baltic Canal, presented as an example of "successful rehabilitation of the former enemies of proletariat". For other writers, he urged that one obtained realism by extracting the basic idea from reality, but by adding the potential and desirable to it, one added romanticism with deep revolutionary potential.[34] For himself, Gorky avoided realism. His denials that even a single prisoner died during the construction of the aforementioned canal were refuted by multiple accounts of thousands of prisoners who froze to death not only in the evenings from the lack of adequate shelter and food, but even in the middle of the day.[35]
On his definitive return to the Soviet Union in 1932, Maxim Gorky received the Ryabushinsky Mansion, designed in 1900 by Fyodor Schechtel for the Ryabushinsky family. The mansion today houses a museum about Gorky.
Hostility to gays
Gorky strongly supported efforts in getting a law passed in 1934, making homosexuality a criminal offense. His attitude was coloured by the fact that several leading members of the Nazi Sturmabteilung, or Brownshirts, were overtly homosexual. Writing in Pravda on 23 May 1934, Gorky claimed "exterminate all homosexuals and fascism will vanish."[36]
Conflicts[citation needed] with Stalinists
By the summer of 1934, Gorky was increasingly in conflict with the Soviet authorities. He was angry that Leopold Averbakh, whom he regarded as a protege, was denied a role in the newly created Writers Union, and objected to interference by the Central Committee staff in the affairs of the union. This conflict, which may have been exacerbated by Gorky's despair over the early death of his son, Max, came to a head just before the first Soviet Writers Congress, in August 1934. On 11 August, he submitted an article for publication in Pravda which attacked the deputy head of the press department, Pavel Yudin with such intemperate language that Stalin's deputy, Lazar Kaganovich ordered its suppression, but was forced to relent after hundreds of copies of the article circulated by hand. Gorky's draft of the keynote speech he was due to give at the congress caused such consternation when he submitted it to the Politburo that four of its leading members – Kaganovich, Vyacheslav Molotov, Kliment Voroshilov, and Andrei Zhdanov – were sent to persuade him to make changes.[37] Even in its toned-down version – very unusually for the Stalin era – he did not praise Stalin, did not mention any of the approved writers turning out 'socialist realist' novels, but singled out Fyodor Dostoevsky for "having painted with the most vivid perfection of word portraiture a type of egocentrist, a type of social degenerate in the person of the hero of his Memoirs from Underground. ... Dostoyevsky in the figure of his hero has shown the depths of whining despair that are reached by the individualist from among the young men of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who are cut off from real life."[38]
Death
With the increase of Stalinist repression and especially after the assassination of Sergei Kirov in December 1934, Gorky was placed under unannounced house arrest in his house near Moscow. His long-serving secretary Pyotr Kryuchkov had been recruited by Yagoda as a paid informer.[39] Before his death from a lingering illness in June 1936, he was visited at home by Stalin, Yagoda, and other leading communists, and by Moura Budberg, who had chosen not to return to the USSR with him but was permitted to stay for his funeral.
The sudden death of Gorky's son Maxim Peshkov in May 1934 was followed by the death of Maxim Gorky himself in June 1936 from pneumonia. Speculation has long surrounded the circumstances of his death. Stalin and Molotov were among those who carried Gorky's coffin during the funeral. During the Bukharin trial in 1938 (one of the three Moscow Trials), one of the charges was that Gorky was killed by Yagoda's NKVD agents.[40]
In Soviet times, before and after his death, the complexities in Gorky's life and outlook were reduced to an iconic image (echoed in heroic pictures and statues dotting the countryside): Gorky as a great Soviet writer who emerged from the common people, a loyal friend of the Bolsheviks, and the founder of the increasingly canonical "socialist realism".
Depictions and adaptations
The Gorky Trilogy is a series of three films based on the three autobiographical books: The Childhood of Maxim Gorky, My Apprenticeship, and My Universities, directed by Mark Donskoy, filmed in the Soviet Union, released 1938–1940. The trilogy was adapted from Gorky's autobiography.[41]
The German modernist Bertolt Brecht based his epic play The Mother (1932) on Gorky's novel of the same name.
Gorky's novel was also adapted for an opera by Valery Zhelobinsky in 1938. In 1912, the Italian composer Giacomo Orefice based his opera Radda on the character of Radda from Makar Chudra. Our Father is the title given to Gorky's The Last Ones in its English translation by William Stancil.
The play[clarification needed] made its New York debut in 1975 at the Manhattan Theater Club, directed by Keith Fowler.
In 1985 Enemies was performed in London with a multi-national cast directed by Ann Pennington in association with Internationalist Theatre. The cast included South African Greek actress Angelique Rockas and Bulgarian Madlena Nedeva playing the parts of Tatiana, and Kleopatra respectively.[42] Tom Vaughan of The Morning Star affirmed "this is a great revolutionary play, by a great revolutionary writer, performed with elegance and style, great passion and commitment".[43] BBC Russian Service was no less complimentary.[44]
Selected works
Main article: Maxim Gorky bibliography
Source: Turner, Lily; Strever, Mark (1946). Orphan Paul; A Bibliography and Chronology of Maxim Gorky. New York: Boni and Gaer. pp. 261–270.
Novels
Goremyka Pavel, 1894. Published in English as Orphan Paul[45]
Foma Gordeyev (Фома Гордеев), 1899. Also translated as The Man Who Was Afraid
Three of Them (Трое), 1900. Also translated as Three Men
The Mother (Мать), 1907. First published in English, in 1906
The Life of a Useless Man (Жизнь ненужного человека), 1908
A Confession (Исповедь), 1908
Okurov City (Городок Окуров), 1908
The Life of Matvei Kozhemyakin (Жизнь Матвея Кожемякина), 1910
The Artamonov Business (Дело Артамоновых), 1927
Life of Klim Samgin (Жизнь Клима Самгина), unfinished:[46]
The Bystander, 1927
The Magnet, 1928
Other Fires, 1930
The Specter, 1936
Novellas
The Orlovs (Супруги Орловы), 1897
Creatures That Once Were Men (Бывшие люди), 1897
Varenka Olesova (Варенька Олесова), 1898
Summer (Лето), 1909
Great Love (Большая любовь), 1911
Short stories
"Makar Chudra" (Макар Чудра), 1892
"Old Izergil" (Старуха Изергиль), 1895
"Chelkash" (Челкаш), 1895
"Konovalov" (Коновалов), 1897
"Malva" (Мальва), 1897
"Twenty-six Men and a Girl" (Двадцать шесть и одна), 1899
"Song of a Falcon" (Песня о Соколе), 1902. Also referred to as a poem in prose
Drama
The Philistines (Мещане), translated also as The Smug Citizens and The Petty Bourgeois (Мещане), 1901
The Lower Depths (На дне), 1902
Summerfolk (Дачники), 1904
Children of the Sun (Дети солнца), 1905
Barbarians (Варвары), 1905
Enemies, 1906.
The Last Ones (Последние), 1908. Translated also as Our Father[47]
Children (Дети), 1910. Translated also as The Reception (and called originally "Встреча")
Queer People (Чудаки), 1910. Translated also as Eccentrics
Vassa Zheleznova (Васса Железнова), 1910, 1935 (revised version)
The Zykovs (Зыковы), 1913
Counterfeit Money (Фальшивая монета), 1913
The Old Man (Старик), 1915, Revised 1922, 1924. Translated also as The Judge
Workaholic Slovotekov (Работяга Словотеков), 1920
Somov and Others (Cомов и другие), 1930
Yegor Bulychov and Others (Егор Булычов и другие), 1932
Dostigayev and Others (Достигаев и другие), 1933
Non-fiction
Chaliapin, articles in Letopis, 1917[48]
Untimely Thoughts, articles, 1918
My Recollections of Tolstoy, 1919
Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Andreyev, 1920–1928
V.I. Lenin (В.И. Ленин), reminiscence, 1924–1931
The I.V. Stalin White Sea – Baltic Sea Canal, 1934 (editor-in-chief)
Literary Portraits [c.1935].[49]
Poems
"The Song of the Stormy Petrel" (Песня о Буревестнике), 1901
Autobiography
My Childhood (Детство), Part I, 1913–1914
In the World (В людях), Part II, 1916
My Universities (Мои университеты), Part III, 1923
Collections
Sketches and Stories, three volumes, 1898–1899
Creatures That Once Were Men, stories in English translation (1905). This contained an introduction by G. K. Chesterton[50] The Russian title, Бывшие люди (literally "Former people") gained popularity as an expression in reference to people who severely dropped in their social status
Tales of Italy (Сказки об Италии), 1911–1913
Through Russia (По Руси), 1923