Create a Mount Rushmore of your favorite people

[Skyhilist]

Don't do like "my mom" or something corny like that, the thread is for at least semi-well known people who have influenced your life the most, and why.

I shall start.

My Mount Rushmore is:

Steve Irwin - His show had a huge impact on me as a little kid. It made me not only very interested in the show of herpetology but taught me firsthand as an impressionable young child the value of respecting animals and is part of the reason that I care so much about animals today.

Peter Kropotkin - My favorite anarchist for his writings. His stuff on anarcho-communism has been pretty instrumental in shaping my own political views. He also wasn't totally idealist and acknowledged that no system is going to be perfect which I like. Oh and plus, he was an awesome zoologist who did some revolutionary work studying cooperative behavior.

Greg Graffin - He's pretty much all around awesome. The lead singer of my favorite punk band (Bad Religion), and also a zoologist who's done some awesome research on the fossil record. Plus his politically and philosophically charged lyrics nearly always seem to verbalize my thoughts on a particular issue, while being much more articulate than I ever could on the issue (although hopefully I can match his wits on the topic of zoology at least when I'm older).

Zack De La Rocha - Lead singer of one of the first bands with revolutionary ideas that I ever listened to, one of my favorite bands (Rage Against the Machine), and gave me my first exposure to radical politics. His song lyrics also alerted me to some important issues happening such as the uprising of the EZLN. Also he seems to care a great deal about animals, which I respect as well.

What about you all? They don't have to be political (not all of mine are obviously).

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Does our Mount Rushmore have to be on stolen sacred Lakota land, and carved by a card-carrying Klansman?

[Sinister Intents]

Vladimir Lenin, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman

[Skyhilist]

Does our Mount Rushmore have to be on stolen sacred Lakota land, and carved by a card-carrying Klansman?

oh you

Obviously I'm not suggesting that the construction of Mt. Rushmore was a good thing - I simply mean if you could have your own version following the model where there are 4 faces that would represent your life's biggest influences. The thread has nothing to do with the implications of the actual Mt. Rushmore. FFS you can even just think of it as 4 influential people, it doesn't even have to be a "Mt. Rushmore".

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

My Mt. Rushmore, from left to right:

Karl Marx, Lenin, Thomas Paine, and Rosa Luxemborg.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

all four faces are different facial expressions of nic cage

everything is nic cage.

idk i can't really take monuments that don't look like spaceships/physical manifestations of bad trips too seriously.

plus I just can't deal with the overwhelming irony of communists/anarchists being made into a mountain-sized monument.

george osbourne
tony blair
margaret thatcher
ronnie raygun

at the base of the monument supply art materials of various sizes

[tachosomoza]

Huey Newton, John Brown, Bernardine Dohrn, Nat Turner.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Our Glorious Leader Comrade Stalin four times.

[Prometeo liberado]

http://ts1.mm.bing.net/th?id=HN.608054961315384360&w=103&h=103&c=8&pid=3.1&qlt=90&rm=2Alfred E. Newman- Founder and philosopher of the renown theory of non-worrying "What me, worry?"

The http://ts3.mm.bing.net/th?id=HN.607999917010584658&w=185&h=178&c=7&rs=1&pid=1.7Hamburglar- Love him or hate him he causes havoc for this most hated "food" franchise the world over.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a0/Peppermint_Patty.png/255px-Peppermint_Patty.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Peppermint_Patty.png) Peppermint Patty- Without a doubt a true groundbreaker as far as LGTBQ rights in the cartoon world. You go girl!
http://ts2.mm.bing.net/th?id=HN.608017676697403837&w=250&h=188&c=7&rs=1&pid=1.7 I would be remiss if I were to leave out Our Mother of the Worthless Miracle. Here is a picture of the "miracle" of the light sabre piercing an old lady. Regardless of how one feels about the elderly this is truly a worthless miracle. She has also been known to turn mud into dirt on hot days.

[Ele'ill]

post-revolution a bunch of masked hipster-nerds with dynamite and industrial rock chisels making it all one of the great Cthulhu

[Comrade Jacob]

I stumbled across this: http://blackquillandink.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/39545_134948656554070_100001168090277_170317_18525 89_n.jpg
It's Meh.

[Ele'ill]

this is a joke thread right

[Comrade Jacob]

this is a joke thread right

I sure hope so. I think it's done for "fun".

[Ele'ill]

some users seem pretty serious

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

homer simpson
carl
lenny
barney gumble

[Sinister Intents]

A tiger, a mountain lion, a panther, a house cat

[ArisVelouxiotis]

9th,10th,11th doctors and a dalek

[Os Cangaceiros]

Pimp C would definitely be on there somewhere.

[Quail]

Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

Wolfie Smith
Rick from the young ones
Cosmo from Sneakers
Enver Hoxha

[synthesis]

Me, with four different facial expressions.

[Skyhilist]

I sure hope so. I think it's done for "fun".

it is intended to be informal and casual, not polemical, argumentative, etc.

[Per Levy]

well it doesnt really matter tbh, just blow the thing up and lets be done with stupid cult of personalty crap.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

The Rock, Kid Rock, Chris Rock and Big Rock.

[Sam_b]

If this is in Non-Political, why are half of you filling it with chit-chat remarks? Has the potential to be an interesting thread.

[Leftsolidarity]

Echoing Sam_b, I'd like to keep this thread in non-political and at the same time not give out a bunch of verbals/infractions for chit-chat posts. So for the sake of making my life a little nicer and having a more interesting thread, let's keep the post quality above crap please and remember this is not chit-chat.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

i'm being completely serious about all my posts so far (including this post.)

or rather - I'm lampooning the idea that we should monumentalise people we admire, especially when that's very literally the opposite of what most of them would have wanted and what we should want as presumptuous as that sounds. As far as I'm concerned, the denizens of Moe's are as valid as any other candidates for carving into a mountain. If you think that sounds stupid - that's rather the point.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Heidegger, Pinochet, POMO, and Chomsky

[Futility Personified]

Try and emulate people and in the long run, you will be disappointed by them.
Try and emulate ideas, and in the long run, you will disappoint yourself.

Veneration of any leader, no matter their contribution, is going to be dangerous in the long run. Something worth thinking about is in a post-capitalist society, how will the counter-revolution be prevented? How will the revolution be safe-guarded properly?

The idea that Jesus himself never spoke anything that conservatives or bigots like to use as excuses to oppress people haunts me quite a lot. Veneration of him (I still don't think there is a god, so he is no son) has provided capital (or utter bastards with the will to power, or some crazy people who are deluded into thinking an omnipotent creator would be pleased that his creations were chopping each other up) with so many pretexts for domination of humanity, that putting anyone on a pedestal to me seems genuinely disturbing.

Not that i'm an advocate of death to the individual or anything but.... we need to remember the ideas. We need to know how to implement them, we need a basis of why to implement them, it would seem that would be that to me. We'll all be dust one day. The motives of "an idea" would seem to me much harder to misconstrue that the intentions of people who were long dead, who, were they so cursed to hear, would probably be banging their heads against their coffins to hear the utter shite people like to talk and do in their names.

Not forgetting that people are also the contexts of their times. My ancestors were for the most part shitheads, but i'd like to think I can make it up. I would like to think that my children's children's children (if we as a species survive that long) will think I am an utter bastard, though in my defence I was a creature of my time.

In an academic way, sometimes we manage to see through the bullshit that floats around historical characters. But many people (and I am certainly one) cannot see the wood for the trees. Hero worship is unhealthy. Ideas will come and go, as will thinkers who they originated with. In the grand scheme, we don't matter, but the ideas do.

PS: Having just written this, struggling with the post preview button for a long time, I have only just clocked that really it's about who you respect, not a literal, physical monument. Whoops!

So, to be true to the OP:

Joe Strummer's music probably kept me from suicide, so I think he was a jolly good fellow. Despite Che's iffy politics, he was a true matyr, I can respect that he died for what he did, doing what he did. Mr Jesus would probably be up there too. I'd like to have faith in him as a person, not as a deity. A 4th? I really can't think. Some ineffable nomadic spirit? An exemplar of generosity, good nature, who marched to only their drum but did not disrupt anyone else's dance? I expect somewhere down the line, someone like that has probably existed, but i'll be buggered if I know who it would be.

[Marshal of the People]

Marshal of the People
Anton Pannekoek
Mikhail Bakunin
Napoleon Bonaparte (I used to really like that guy as a young child, not really any more though once I learnt about his position on slavery and such)

[Astarte]

Guy Fieri, Cloud Strife, Stalin, and Myself.

[Quail]

Okay, my comment above wasn't entirely serious. But I can never really do these things, because there are so many people that have influenced me to a greater or lesser degree (and for a variety of reasons), I don't feel that I can whittle it down to just four because I'd always be leaving out too many inspiring and/or awesome people who have made me into the person I am today.

[synthesis]

Echoing Sam_b, I'd like to keep this thread in non-political and at the same time not give out a bunch of verbals/infractions for chit-chat posts. So for the sake of making my life a little nicer and having a more interesting thread, let's keep the post quality above crap please and remember this is not chit-chat.

Okay, okay, here are my real four choices:

1. Sartre's conception of the Imaginary
2. Marx's rejection of Comtean positivism
3. The transvaluation of all values
4. Wittgenstein's semantic externalism

It would be called Mount Intangible Ideas, and would not exist.

[Sasha]

i have a original print of this poster hanging on my wall
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/3c/Pce2.jpg/220px-Pce2.jpg
yes its from the traitorous PCE and it is seriously lacking in the female and non-white department but the sentiment of honoring the common rank and file or the revolution is a lot better than any row of famous individuals.
carving them in a mountain would be a massive waste of working hours and recourses though, but a nice poster print or a big graffiti voluntarily made in someone's free time is always nice.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

A tinker, a tailor, a soldier, and a spy.

[Jimmie Higgins]

John Waters,
M.I.A.
The chemical structure of LSD
Brianne from the Game of Thrones Books

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

(1) comrade Robertson
(2) comrade Robertson when he was younger
(3) the jar of eyes DNZ keeps in his basement
(4) comrade Robertson from another angle

Seriously, though, I think the "floating head" style of sculpture isn't really adequate for socialist propaganda. I mean - a working woman holding the globe in her hands, that's fine. Some Dude's floating head - what does that convey? "He was a Great Man"?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Seriously, though, I think the "floating head" style of sculpture isn't really adequate for socialist propaganda. I mean - a working woman holding the globe in her hands, that's fine. Some Dude's floating head - what does that convey? "He was a Great Man"?

That reminds me... new pick:

Just one head: Zardoz.

[Ismail]

yes its from the traitorous PCE and it is seriously lacking in the female and non-white department but the sentiment of honoring the common rank and file or the revolution is a lot better than any row of famous individuals.There's a bit of irony here since the most famous PCE personality (and one of its leaders) was Dolores Ibárruri.

Gabriel Jackson among other historians has noted that the PCE leadership was pretty undistinguished apart from her. Anarchists exalted Durruti while POUMists had Nin. José Díaz by comparison was pretty mundane and no attempt was made to glorify him.

As for Mount Rushmore, Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln were bourgeois revolutionaries, so keeping them wouldn't be difficult. The problem is Theodore Roosevelt, who was a famous imperialist and faux-"reformer."

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

1) My friend Amber, who I once saw spit into the open window of a limo.
2) CyM, just because he has nice chiseled features and also token Leninist.
3) Kanellos, Greek riot-dog.
4) Tim Buck, because trolololol.

[Quail]

1) My friend Amber, who I once saw spit into the open window of a limo.

For some reason this made me laugh too much. Amber sounds cool.

[motion denied]

http://ts1.mm.bing.net/th?id=HN.608054961315384360&w=103&h=103&c=8&pid=3.1&qlt=90&rm=2Alfred E. Newman- Founder and philosopher of the renown theory of non-worrying "What me, worry?"

The http://ts3.mm.bing.net/th?id=HN.607999917010584658&w=185&h=178&c=7&rs=1&pid=1.7Hamburglar- Love him or hate him he causes havoc for this most hated "food" franchise the world over.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a0/Peppermint_Patty.png/255px-Peppermint_Patty.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Peppermint_Patty.png) Peppermint Patty- Without a doubt a true groundbreaker as far as LGTBQ rights in the cartoon world. You go girl!
http://ts2.mm.bing.net/th?id=HN.608017676697403837&w=250&h=188&c=7&rs=1&pid=1.7 I would be remiss if I were to leave out Our Mother of the Worthless Miracle. Here is a picture of the "miracle" of the light sabre piercing an old lady. Regardless of how one feels about the elderly this is truly a worthless miracle. She has also been known to turn mud into dirt on hot days.


"Hamburglar" HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Fuck, what an awesome fucking name! His name in Portuguese is not nearly as funny.

My four nominees:

1) My dog
2) My fish
3) An old teacher of mine, who made me aware of some shit in life
4) I don't know.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

George W Bush
Donald Rumsfeld
Rudy Guliani
Benjamin Netenyahu

NINEELEVENNEVER4GET