More famous socialists

[Moskitto]

There needs to be more socialists who are famous.

Not famous for being socialists but famous for something else like sport or literature.

Then people would see that socialism isn't just Stalins and Maos and Pol Pots and that there are actually people out there who are socialist without being totalitarian dictators.

[red head]

i agree to some extent, but if there was a celebrity who was socialist, he/she would serve as the sole example of socialism that the world sees. for example, if he/she was arrested for some reason, it would negatively affect the socialist movement because that celebrity and socialism would be inseperable in the minds of most people. i think its more important to inform people about the positives of socialism and even the positive aspects of peope like stalin.

[Dreadnaht1]

True, we need more Che Guevara's. More socialists getting their ideas down on books or other things. Even music provides a good medium for transportation of ideas.

Comrade Dread

[I Will Deny You]

What about Albert Einstein? He's definitely famous, although not because he was a socialist. He's instantly recognizable and hardly anyone doesn't like him. Although he's not famous for economic philosophy, he's not some B-movie actor or something. He's famous for being smart! He's a perfect example.

[CommieBastard]

or pablo picasso, and theres a whole bunch more.. saw a list somewhere..
id dredge it up, but hey, im lazy...

[Moskitto]

wait a minute.

Annother problem is that people don't know they were socialists, which kinda sucks.

[CommieBastard]

well, what about the obvious, like rage against the machine, and the manic street preachers?

[revolutionary spirit]

u bastard commie i was gonna say that

[Dreadnaht1]

Rage kicks ass. <----period

[Kez]

Pablo was a commie, did he fight in spanish civil war?

comrade kamo

[pce]

picasso was an ass. i hate him. appreciate his art. think he was a genius. but just an all around ass.

[Valkyrie]

The few socialists I can think of off-hand are the writers George Bernard Shaw, and HG Welles, both Fabian Socialists, and Jessica Mitford and Lillian Helmond.

The even fewer anarchists are Noam Chomsky, writer & professor of Lingustics at MIT and writer Kirkpatrick Sale.

[peaccenicked]

The history of socialism is not the history of socialists.
It is the history of the human race. Famous people have significances in different historical contexts. For socialism
is merely a step forward in generalised human knowledge. To point out how the self knowledge of the working class has the potential to free the earth from many of its evils. Marx concentrated on waste and poverty. So did religion, but in a way that produced false comforts. So did Sparticus, for slavery was a waste of human life and bringer of poverty. So did Aristotle who pointed out that money could be uninvented but could not see beyond a noble aristocracy. The bible is full of quotes against the rich. Shakespeare, in Timon of Athens shows how money distorts human relationships.
The backbone of western culture and that matter all others is about resistance to tyranny and even those
who poineered capitalism sought to create a working class freed from the shackles of serfdom with the ideals of fraternity, equality and liberty. Socialists argued that capitalism was an absolute fetter on the development of the working class and it had surpassed its historical necessity.
Those who have agreed with this in the modern epoch
have included many famous people from all walks of life
but they serve more largely in their different fields but if we can use what they say in our own education so much the better. Ultimately we don't need famous people to give our ideas credibility. We prove our ideas in our experience of life. While we are in some way products of a society which fetishises, money, fame and power and it touches us if someone famous joins the socialist camp. However, it is the people who make history and it is the people who will prove that history has not ended by playing, a bigger, and bigger role in the destruction of imperialism, for a self-knowledge that can move society forward.

[Conghaileach]

Famous socialists I know of...
Albert Einstein (already mentioned)
Martin Luther King
H. G. Wells
George Orwell
Oscar Wilde
Noam Chomsky

[Conghaileach]

Shit, I forgot to mention Paul Robeson.

[El Commandante]

You can add Gandhi to the list, and perhaps F.D.Roosevelt.

[Valkyrie]

Count Leo Toystoy was a famous anarchist, as well as
Prince Peter Kropotkin, both renouncing their titles and wealth.

[Moskitto]

the former Duke of Medina Sidonia who died a few years ago was a communist.

[celticsocialist]

That guy off The Royle Family is a socialist. He went to jail in the eighties for something relating to strikes (cant remember the details)
The Proclaimers and Peter Mullen (my name is Joe)

[celticsocialist]

Ricky Tomlinson is his name.