Tinfoil Rambling
Sometimes I shake my head at the ragbag of "folk heroes" that US liberals/radicals polish up for followers. Most recent I've read include Joe Hill and Lynne Stewart. I spent a few hours researching Hill and his brief IWW career, and court case, to conclude he was most likely guilty as accused, but made into a much needed martyr of the IWW. According to wiki: IWW today it is actively organizing and numbers about 2,000 members worldwide, of whom fewer than half (approximately 900) are in good standing that is, have paid their dues for the prior two months. Gotta wonder, when a club has been around 100 years and isn't doing any better than that ...
Supporters of Hill believe it was by coincidence that Joe was shot the same time as a local grocer and son were murdered in a robbery attempt, with another son wounding one of the 2 perps. Joe's friend and traveling buddy also coincidentally disappeared from sight the night of the attempted robbery and killings. Joe decided he would rather hang from the gallows than give up the name of his alleged alibi, a married lady he was in bed with at the time of the shooting. The insinuation is her hubby caught them and shot Joe. Joe refused to name her as in 1914 it would have ruined her reputation. Apparently, the feelings were not reciprocal as the lady never came forward to save his neck. If her hubby caught them I guess he too decided to protect his wife's reputation by keeping quiet. Or - maybe Joe was lying about his alibi, a good one - one that portrayed him as chivalrous. Then, as now, a famous politician and social celeb called for mercy on Joe, but he was hanged, or "murdered by the capitalist class" if you prefer it that way.
Lynne Stewart was the attorney for the blind Sheikh of the 1993 WTC bombing and convicted of, among other things, conspiracy to defraud the United States, providing and concealing material support, and making false statements; she was passing messages from her client terrorist to his terrorist friends. She could have received 20-30 years but was given 28 months. Stewart states she came to view the Sheikh as a "fighter for national liberation of oppressed people." Stewart is a self-proclaimed political radical who told the jury she has advocated a violent "revolution of the people that overthrows institutions." Unbeknownst to the people, the replacement institutions will be far worse than anything they have now - but don't let reality get in the way of rhetoric. And of course what "institutions" does she speak of ? The IRS? The institution of marriage? Or the prison she is heading to for a few months?
The liberal/radical seem to have various types of heroes and/or martyrs. One type, like Joe Hill, is lowborn, from the pool of the "oppressed and poor" folks - elevated to icon status. Their careers are usually short-lived as they meet an untimely end, never through any fault of their own but as a direct result of "standing up to the evil ruling class", or so it is told by the makers of common folk history.
Another type of "radical" or progressive hero is a member of the affluent/ruling class or so close to it they can taste it, e.g. Daniel Elsberg, Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda, or more recent Michael Moore, Sibel Edmunds, Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader, even Obama for some. And the up and comings like Cindy Sheehan, etc. A few imported icons, Che, Chavez, Fidel.
(On a side note, the World Socialist Web Site last week published a verbose 2-part article in defense of pedophile Roman Polanski, more or less declaring the poor man is an artiste and victim of a vindictive witch hunt. Talk about polishing a turd... And people wonder why our children are prematurely adult and our adults permanently childish?)
Note that today's "radicals" do not come close to martyrdom. These folks are safe - whether their chatter is subtle or radical - they are window dressing, so common folk think they have a few higher-ups on their side. These progressive/radical icons work against the lower classes while appearing to advocate for them - some so dense they may not realize what they're doing. In reality, they exploit the lower classes by encouraging their impulsivity and anti-social behavior. Such folks advocate the belief that government should provide all things and solve all problems. From the other side of their mouth they rant about government oppression and "institutions."
And rather than inform their followers with truth, that the underclass in the US are not victims of oppression, they encourage them to become willing barbarians in destroying what they do have. I guess to make way for their new and improved government institutions.
If affluent/ruling class "heroes" are assassinated, they, like the poor folk hero Joe Hill - are victims of the ruling class, or so it seems as told by the tellers of folk history, e.g. JFK, RFK, or Wellstoned ... Remember, if you have the slightest political profile and/or lean a tad to the left - your death is conspiracy fodder - your car, train, plane, boat was sabotaged, your heart attack or cancer was injected via a CIA needle, you were "suicided," or that lone nut shooter was really backed up by several hundred or thousand agencies, departments, professionals, and lay people who at best were willing participants or coerced into keeping quiet, and/or at worst became part of the ruling class body count, a body count that mysteriously never has any proof - conjecture is not evidence. For instance, if you were anywhere near Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, and you eventually died - you were murdered because you knew or saw something.
As with JFK and RFK, the conspiracies surrounding MX and MLK assassination no longer work for me. Why would the American ruling class feel threatened by either of these men? What demands were these men making that the ruling class was not already in the process of doing? If any part of the ruling class backed these murders it was that faction who feared MX and MLK would have fought against the Handout & Dumbdown Slave Plantation that liberalism created.
Do I have heroes? Sure. My family and friends over the years. Decent, hardworking, honest, fun loving, fair-minded, self-sacrificing, loving and loyal people. And all the nameless who stood up to me or for me, to do or say the right thing when it needed to be said or done - the random acts of good people.
Heroes don't have to be perfect, they need to be genuine - not created by press releases and image handlers or self-serving organizations. Most of our "heroes" shine only because they've been wrapped in a lot of tinfoil.