Ace_O_Spades

Why is it, whenever there is a great leader, someone who is intelligent, well spoken, and progressive, they get assassinated. Gandhi, MLK, JFK, Lincoln, the list goes on.

Conversely, whenever there is a total dipshit who pisses on your civil liberties, lies, cheats, steals, and lies about all three of those, they are allowed to live.

Where are the lone fucking gunmen? Anyone? Why do humans always kill people who are trying to help their fellow humans and pass over those who hold them back?

I will post lyrics I feel speak louder than I can:

__________________
Feh.

analog

Trying to secure more civil rights for some is much more likely to anger people who disagree than to start eroding civil rights for everyone.

Willravel

Fear and cowardice are the cause. Once you cure those, you will have brave people who die of natural causes.

Elphaba

We deem a leader as great because they bring forth a great idea that we can and should improve the condition of humankind. They live their lives open to the public which makes them accessible to those who feel they will lose something with that change.

Liars and those that wish to undermine the human condition understand that they cannot go among the masses unprotected, if at all.

Ace, I think the answer to your question is whether you believe people to be fundamentally good or fundamentally evil, and you shape the way you live around that belief.

__________________
"You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to." Molly Ivins - 1944-2007

Ace_O_Spades

I think we all need to call shenanigans and grab our brooms

I mean really, I find myself on the outside looking in at all these people who have no idea what's going on, and when you tell them they don't care

ARGH!

__________________
Feh.

jorgelito

It's subjective and a matter of perspective.

Great men like Malcom X, Yitzhak Rabin, murdered by their own people no less, while Castro, Osama, Chavez, Kim Jong Il are allowed to live and spread their hate and oppression.

JFK, Lincoln, not so sure those are "great" people. That's a matter of opinion.

But it is interesting how come it seems like certain people get killed more easily than others.

Charlatan

Some are rendered "great" by dying before they can be vilified.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

The_Jazz

In the same vein as Charlatan, nothing creates a "great man" like a bullet. Personally, I think that death is a requirement, at least in modern times.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

warrrreagl

From a Beatles perspective, I ask myself this exact same question every time I see McCartney blathering on about what his latest songs " really mean."

__________________
Living is easy with eyes closed.

Willravel

"Assasination Paradox" sound like a great scifi series.

Plan9

(wonders why nobody has tried this on the "leader of the free world")

(oh, yeah... nobody assassinates pond scum and other useless people)

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Elphaba

The only people that have gotten close to him are the Albanians. They mistook him for Clinton.

Insert Donald Sutherland "pod person" screech and finger point here

__________________
"You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to." Molly Ivins - 1944-2007

ASU2003

I think Rage Against The Machine's lyrics are appropriate.

MuadDib

Just a couple of thoughts, but (1) truly "great" people, visionaries if you will, present more of a threat to those entrenched in the status quo; and (2) perhaps we idealize martyrs so they appear greater than they really are. I think the second needs no further explanation.
Regarding the first, though, I think that people who have a vested interested in the status quo are those with some amount of power/influence and those that have that power/influence to lose; generally the most dangerous of enemies. Generally, someone who continues to repress a traditionally repressed population has less to fear because they are threats to people without power and/or people with little to lose. However, someone who is looking to shake up the system and redistribute some form of power/influence is inherently threatening those who can do the most about it. It's the difference between leading a cow to slaughter and cornering a mother bear.

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"The courts that first rode the warhorse of virtual representation into battle on the res judicata front invested their steed with near-magical properties." ~27 F.3d 751

Sion

Guns N' Roses - Civil War

(Slash / McKagan / Rose)

"What we've got here is failure to communicate.
Some men you just can't reach...
So, you get what we had here last week,
which is the way he wants it!
Well, he gets it!
N' I don't like it any more than you men." *


Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they've always done before


Look at the hate we're breeding
Look at the fear we're feeding
Look at the lives we're leading
The way we've always done before


My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can't deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars


D'you wear a black armband
When they shot the man
Who said "Peace could last forever"
And in my first memories
They shot Kennedy
I went numb when I learned to see
So I never fell for Vietnam
We got the wall of D.C. to remind us all
That you can't trust freedom
When it's not in your hands
When everybody's fightin'
For their promised land


And
I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
I don't need your civil war


Look at the shoes your filling
Look at the blood we're spilling
Look at the world we're killing
The way we've always done before
Look in the doubt we've wallowed
Look at the leaders we've followed
Look at the lies we've swallowed
And I don't want to hear no more


My hands are tied
For all I've seen has changed my mind
But still the wars go on as the years go by
With no love of God or human rights
'Cause all these dreams are swept aside
By bloody hands of the hypnotized
Who carry the cross of homicide
And history bears the scars of our civil wars


"We practice selective annihilation of mayors
And government officials
For example to create a vacuum
Then we fill that vacuum
As popular war advances
Peace is closer" **


I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
And I don't need your civil war
I don't need your civil war
I don't need your civil war
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
I don't need your civil war
I don't need one more war


I don't need one more war
Whaz so civil 'bout war anyway

--------------------------------

Cult of Personality - Living Colour

Look into my eyes, what do you see?
Cult of personality
I know your anger, I know your dreams
Ive been everything you want to be
Im the cult of personality
Like mussolini and kennedy
Im the cult of personality
Cult of personality
Cult of personality

Neon lights, a nobel prize
The mirror speaks, the reflection lies
You dont have to follow me
Only you can set me free
I sell the things you need to be
Im the smiling face on your t.v.
Im the cult of personality
I exploit you still you love me

I tell you one and one makes three
Im the cult of personality
Like joseph stalin and gandi
Im the cult of personality
Cult of personality
Cult of personality

Neon lights a nobel prize
A leader speaks, that leader dies
You dont have to follow me
Only you can set you free

You gave me fortune
You gave me fame
You me power in your gods name
Im every person you need to be
Im the cult of personality
Look into my eyes, what do you see?
Cult of personality
I know your anger, I know your dreams
Ive been everything you want to be
Im the cult of personality
Like mussolini and kennedy
Im the cult of personality
Cult of personality
Cult of personality

Neon lights, a nobel prize
The mirror speaks, the reflection lies
You dont have to follow me
Only you can set me free
I sell the things you need to be
Im the smiling face on your t.v.
Im the cult of personality
I exploit you still you love me

I tell you one and one makes three
Im the cult of personality
Like joseph stalin and gandi
Im the cult of personality
Cult of personality
Cult of personality

Neon lights a nobel prize
A leader speaks, that leader dies
You dont have to follow me
Only you can set you free

You gave me fortune
You gave me fame
You me power in your gods name
Im every person you need to be
Im the cult of personality

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He's the best, of course, of all the worst.
Some wrong been done, he done it first. -fz

I jus' want ta thank you...falettinme...be mice elf...agin...

irateplatypus

it's funny you should mention lincoln...

lincoln was an unlikely president with only a slim electoral victory after a long line of personal and political failures. he was hated with unprecedented intensity by many of his countrymen by continuing a costly and unpopular war. reviled by the press at home and abroad... foreign ambassadors considered his portrait too ugly to represent the country. even his former political allies and generals regularly attacked him on grounds that he was much too stupid to guide the country through a crisis (mccellan once called him a "well-meaning baboon"). his appeal and unlikely re-election to a second term baffled the entire democrat political machine. what's more, he curtailed civil liberties and exiled political opponents to retain his hold on power and prosecute the war.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

MuMan

I'm not so sure about the great men of history being the only ones assinated, but then I'm not sure I am aware of too many great men. There's been a number of notable political and religious leaders assinated over time, but I'm not sure I'd call them great exactly.
Most seem to be credited with great speeches and insite into political or humanitary change, no doubt written by others, but not too many have been instrumental in bringing such political change to reality, from the inception.

But then, political bombshells seem to be a phenominon of more recent times.
Maybe such people have not had to contend with the level of scrutiny by investigative reporters and the media in general, that we see today.
Maybe this is why there hasn't been any notable assinations of such great people in recent times..there simply aren't any.

__________________
If it 'can' happen...it will (usually when you least expect it.)

Nimetic

I'm sure that it has it's flaws when examined in the cold light of day,

...but I really do have to say... that album (and song) was amazing. Very tight, very angry. Right or wrong in it's interpretation of events, it was an exceptional bit of work.

albania

Did someone call me? This is probably too old of a post for me to respond to, but I will anyway. Here's one Albanian that doesn't like him, and there's plenty more. His visit was really akin to a celebrity visiting rather than the president of a foreign state, reason being(and this is some self deprecating humor) really who visits Albania anyway? His great welcome has more to do with Albanians' fascination and appreciation for the American help that we have received than it has to do with the man per se. Also, it's funny you should mention Clinton, there's a statue of him in Prishtina, Kosova, the mainly Albanian province of Serbia(hopefully soon to be ex-province).

AYHJA

Probably more so than taking a life, what an assassin craves is being notorious...Mass murderers, serial killers and even lone assassins will forever be linked to those that died by their hand...Political assassins may have some sort of twisted agenda or be powered by some kind of a social or ethnic hatred...

At first we empathize, and maybe even feel remorse, but we as Americans have some kind of twisted nature to cheer the bad guy...Probably because most of them lack a component not found in decent folk and its actually some kind of hidden envy...