Who are your greatest political influences? Mine are:

(I may add to this list, depending on the popularity of the thread, as I have many more influences than this.)

Thomas Paine: Tom Paine argues fantastically well against the anachronistic idiocy of monarchy, and is a powerful advocate for the inalienable rights of individuals, why democracy trumps its opposition, and why reason and rationality in public life is the noblest objective. I think Paine is still relevant today, especially when you consider that my own country hasn’t yet ditched the British monarch. Tools.

Karl Marx: Though I’m not a commie myself, or, indeed, even a socialist, you’d be an idiot to deny Marx’s influence, or his incredible intellect. And despite his predictions never actually coming to fruition, the man had incredible foresight in terms of how he saw the capitalist world emerging: “All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned”. I think that sentence sums up the globalization and the marketisation of the world brilliantly. I also agree with the idea of historical materialism, the idea that our social and economic status defines us.

Friedrich Hayek: The antithesis of Marx. The anti-socialist’s anti-socialist. I am not a classical liberal, and thus not a Hayekian, but am generally very sympathetic to Hayek and his ideas. I think The Road to Serfdom was a brilliant book, The Constitution of Liberty, also good, but very dense. I think Hayek suffered from the academic’s tendency to get too theoretical, and thereby shun reality in such a way as to make your ideas intangible. But still brilliant.

Irving Kristol: Kristol is a great essayist on topics such as capitalism, religion, American conservatism, and morality. I don’t much like his or the neo-conservatives’ views on foreign policy, because they are generally utopian and not grounded in reality, as Iraq testifies to, but Kristol is still brilliant, especially when arguing for capitalism. In fact, I’ve not read a more persuasive advocate for capitalism; he argues for it in moral terms, not in terms of efficiently or rationality, as is the wont of libertarians and the like.

Paul Keating: Americans and Europeans would likely be unfamiliar with this man, but he was treasurer of Australia from 1983 until 1991, and prime minister from 1991 until 1996. The man, quite frankly, was brilliant. He was able to articulate the need for economic reform to the imperative of social necessity. This may seem simple, but it’s not. He was also treasurer and prime minister of the country whilst representing the Labor Party, ostensibly a left-of-center party, and introduced a neo-liberal agenda, hardly an easy task for a left-wing government. Keating was actually one of Tony Blair’s intellectual idols, one of the people on whom Blair modeled ‘New Labour’.

Margaret Thatcher: I think Thatcher is the man because she was fucking tough, and also really, really tough. In an era such as ours in which politicians are basically stage-managed clods who fear stepping out of line, it was refreshing to have somebody like Thatcher, who really ran her own race. She implemented a Hayekian agenda, trashed the unions, made Britain more of an individualistic country, and showed in an age of stupid feminism that meritocracy always trumps: Thatcher proved that people succeed on their merits, not on their gender.

Hugo Chavez.

• Lifted media censorship in his country, creating a free media.
• Attempted, still attempting, to address the inequalities between Venezuelan rich and poor.
• Made the constitution available to all citizens, reducing the risk of people being mislead, having their rights infringed or being dictated.
• Removed the license of a TV station which openly instigated violence, murder and civil disobedience.
• Hosts a show on public TV where people ring up and ask questions, which he answers unprepared.
• Gave oil to victims of Katrina.

Now, I am not anti-American, I am not an idiot (honestly!). In fact my one criticism of Chavez is his sometimes offensive words against America. It is obvious to see the donation of oil to Katrina victims was nothing but propaganda, but I see it as necessary. IMO, Bush's greatest wrong, and greatest show of evil, is not Iraq, but his response to Katrina. There is simply no justification for lack of care shown.

Before you flame me, take a step back and think "Who stands to loose by Chavez not allowing the sale of Oil to US corps?" and think about which media outlets gave you your knowledge of Chavez and his policies.

Other people like William Wilberforce, John Bright, Robin Cook.


Lulz

Some of my "idols" and the people I take some of my views from are questionable when they aren't looked at in the right perspective, but anyways.

Sir Robert Menzies:
Prime Minister of Australia (1939-1941 & 1949-1966)
He had a shit load of challenges in his time and did the logical things. Was very good at uniting the country and keeping it that way, not the way Howard does now how after a terrorist attack he rallys the troops for a bit and everyone is proud to be Australian then he just leaves it to the media. Menzies stuck with his word. Founded the labour party.

Josef Stalin:
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922 - 1953)
I am sure some people will call me crazy, sick even for considering him a man of greatness but I think very much like him. He turned a nation of pesants in to a world power in just a couple of years, played the leading role stopping the Nazi's and even took on the USA. Btw, any Americans or Brits that read this. PLEASE one day read a text book about WW2 and the cold war, that is NOT printed by a company from your countries. I find it truely amazing how much propaganda your goverments still feed you (I have visited both). Probably acounts for a lot of the Americans that think they won the world war with out any help and that any other country is strange and practicaly third world. When I talk to people from either of those countries on the net, it is very easy to convince them that a wrestle crocadiles for fun and so does everyone else in Australia but try telling that to someone from South Africa or New Zealand and they will say "You really shouldn't be promoting untrue stereotypes about your own country".

I was going to also say Che Guavera but it is just to chliche...

- ♫.i.b.y.v.n.t.h.♫

Keeping more modern:

Nader
Paul

Simply for trying to question/change the 2 party system and keeping further to the extremes, while being all the while down to earth.

You know, the reason he was able to do that is because he killed off probably half the Russian population.

Wait, wut?

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It has begun:
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2

It was actually about 6.5M which was far from half.

- ♫.i.b.y.v.n.t.h.♫

It was closer to twenty million.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_S...llectivization

- ♫.i.b.y.v.n.t.h.♫

"The death toll from famine in the Soviet Union at this time is estimated at between five and ten million people."

That's only the death toll from famine. When you factor in forced labor for his building projects, the total death toll is closer to twenty million.

"Estimated Death Toll: Approx. 100-200,000 Jews; 5 million Ukrainians killed 1932-33, 14-15 million Soviet peasants 1930-37, and at least 3 million "enemies of the people" 1937-38.

During Joseph Stalin’s reign of terror in Russia and the Soviet Republics his regime killed or starved an estimated 15 million peasants, 5 million Ukrainians, 200,000 Jews; and as many as 3 million enemies of the state. Stalin used mass annihilation as a tactic to control dissent, force cooperation with state policies and to unify an incredibly diverse population people by targeting specific scapegoat groups.

Soviet Jews were killed as scapegoats, Ukrainian peasants were killed as part of Stalin’s collectivization pogrom and political opponents and intellectuals were killed as enemies of the state. The combined tragedy of the Soviet’s political genocide exceeds even the scope of the Nazi Holocaust.

Today’s revolts in Chechnya, Georgia and other former republics of the U.S.S.R., have deep roots in the atrocities of the Stalin era."

http://www.flashpoints.info/issue_br...ocide_main.htm

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