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I've decided to put a general-forum-type thread into the general-political-forum, to see if I can lure a different form of click and activity into existence (we pyschological types are always experimenting).
How about a game where people post their heroes. Heroes are such that we each have numerous ones, and we remember different ones at different times. Apart from private personal heroes, whose names ought never be placed into an arena of public worship, here's some of the heroes I can find in my head very quickly - it was Freddie Mercury's song "the show must go on" and what it told me about my situation in life that made me think of this thread at all (I was originally thinking about a story about Jesus, which is included below as it is on-topic) so I should start my list with
Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara)
and go on to cite Jesus of Nazareth (who like me, enjoyed chatting to Palestinians - and now I've found some to chat to in the mists of cyber and space - by the river).
Here's the story of Jesus's heroism - as told by a vicar (or something - some christian thing, sorry, i tend to switch off mentally to the 'details' of christian hierarchy) on national tv years ago, and thus not just some a-rab telling you (that's me) about the truth of jesus's very very brilliant life (distorted completely by the god-botherer system jesus NEVER espoused, called "christianity", nor by islam, nor by judaism, which jesus renounced).
Jesus was an accomplished man, having learned from his mentors to appeal to the masses he could hold crowds in awe of his words, he could lead a lot of men, and take them very far. He stood at the highest point in "the holy lands" and looked out as far as he could see, and this is where temptation challenged him.
The bibles portray it as a simplistic visitation of a ghost spirit (with a beard maybe and a turban?) of satan offering him "all power". What really happened is this - Jesus saw what he could do - he saw these lands, whatever they were, with their impressive names like Canaan and Judea and Ellafitzgerald, or whatever.
And he realised that Rome itself could fall beneath the power of a man like him, that he could stand up and become a leader of men, a force of strength and power and control swathes if he wanted, by NOT using his gift for good, by devoting it instead to material gain, to influence, to control by force.
As you know, Jesus did not choose this option. The nazarene jew returned to his friends and he gave the absolute best he could to the idea of teaching people to boycott what is bad and stand up for what is good.
So the other heroes I can think of...
Arafat, Rachel Corrie, and probably a lot of musicians, whom I'll add a bit later. Many quite political - Mr Mojo, of course. And Bob Dylan is pretty political and I listen to a lot of his stuff, so quite heroic to me, apparently.
Private/personal ones - way more than I can ever forget - so many. I can think of them in droves. I wonder how come I know so many amazing people... it can't be usual. Out in the streets I find most people are quite rubbish. Maybe it needs bringing out, or something.
Nelson Mandela,
all the people who died in Soweto and Hiroshima too.
loads, really. So what about you?
no, wait, SID JAMES!!!! How could I miss that one out - staring me in the face, it was. Mr Cohen, that is.
Last edited by witnesstheday; 01-23-2009 at 07:01 AM..
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