A dead loss

[aussie]

In your opinion who in the last hundred years has died leaving the world a poorer place for their passing :(

[Zaphros]

No one can have such an influence in making the world a different place when they go.

I don't believe anyone can have such an effect no matter how well or popular they are.

I could say it would be my best friend who died 4 years ago in a hit and run but none of you guys new him. It took time to get over the loss but I wouldn't say it was world changing.

Zaphros.

[Amaurote]

Originally posted by aussie
In your opinion who in the last hundred years has died leaving the world a poorer place for their passing :(

I'm very sorry to hear of your loss, Zaphros.

On an historical point, I'd like to cite Alexander F Kerensky, Von Schleicher and Joseph Conrad.

Kerensky was a political cipher at the time of his passing, but he was a living embodiment of the anti-Bolshevik socialist tradition in Russia, and his speeches and memoirs are a joy to read even now. Read "The Catastrophe" if you don't believe me.

Kurt von Schleicher was by no means an entirely virtuous or selfless man, but his assassination by the SS in 1934 effectively terminated the early German opposition to Adolf Hitler; if he'd survived a few more years, the Second World War might never have occurred. He was a talented, cunning and able political operative; not exactly a democrat, to be fair, but infinitely preferable to Adolf Hitler.

Joseph Conrad - sheer genius. Can you imagine a world without "Under Western Eyes", "Lord Jim" or "Victory"? What a desolation that would be.

[Jennafer]

I would hope it would be Diana. Those MF's would not leave her alone...And of course everyone Sept 11. That should change the world and Open our eyes, forever.

[Zaphros]

The people who died in the Twin towers attack.

None of then deserved such a short end to there lives, even though I didn't know any of then I guess the world inpact of there deaths made the world a sad place for a short while.

Zaphros.

[Redallnite]

Aussie now what are you trying to say??? poorer in the soul, pocket, or what????? :confused:

[Amaurote]

Originally posted by Jennafer
I would hope it would be Diana. Those MF's would not leave her alone...And of course everyone Sept 11. That should change the world and Open our eyes, forever.

Jennafer: I'm in complete accord with you on 911, but Diana meant nothing to me, or to anyone I knew, for that matter. She had a remarkable facility for emotional intelligence and divining the public mood, but, the anti-personnel mine campaign aside, what did she really do that made her great? Did she over-work herself, or voluntarily slim down her massive entourage? Did she take a self-denying ordinance and spend all her waking hours waging war on want? All I can remember are a series of pleasant, highly emotive photo-opportunities, the usual dispensation of royal patronage to fashionable costumeries, a brief fracas with the Conservative opposition over political interference...and then the automobile accident. That's it.

Don't misunderstand me: I'm sorry she's dead, even though I am a republican; she was a remarkable televisual performer, and her profile certainly helped augment the resources of the AIDS and landmine charities. On the other hand, she also battened on the Civil List, annexed a small fortune in clothes, haberdasherie and footwear, and gleefully fraternized with an evanescent elite of designers, pop musicians and film actors. She worked; she collected her fees; she spent the fees on Versace outfits; she died. She enjoyed the same kind of vapidly beneficent influence as Elizabeth Taylor, no more, no less.

In the last few years you could cite Rabin as someone who might have exercized a vital role in promoting peace in the Middle East, and was brutally assassinated for his pains; or perhaps Che Guevara, who might have toppled many more right wing military juntas if he had lived; or the much-maligned JFK, who might have terminated the Vietnamese War a few years earlier; but Diana, Princess of Wales?

[Redallnite]

Amaurote, how does being a republican have anything to do with anything????

I guess mondays are just dense for me....

[Amaurote]

Originally posted by Redallnite
Amaurote, how does being a republican have anything to do with anything????

I guess mondays are just dense for me....

Red: I mean in the sense that - as a republican - I oppose the monarchy root-and-branch, and wouldn't be too sorry if they fell into a temporal vortex and were instantly transported to the planet Mong en bloc, leaving the world free for constitutional politicians to bustle in.

[Diva]

Am, Let me tell you about Princess Di. She was human. Her frailties showed, and in that respect she 'humanized' the royalty. They called her the peoples' Princess, and she was. Not to rule over, but to bring a connection to their own 'government' and world-wide to bring hope.. and then despair... hope again... only to be crushed as she was. Do you beleive in happily ever after? Most people wither won't admit it or label it childhood fancy. But she was supposed to be a 'Happily ever after'. When she died, the world mourned. They were affected. And so, my dear Ami, she was a loss. Just not on the level you are looking at.

[Amaurote]

Originally posted by Diva
Am, Let me tell you about Princess Di. She was human. Her frailties showed, and in that respect she 'humanized' the royalty. They called her the peoples' Princess, and she was. Not to rule over, but to bring a connection to their own 'government' and world-wide to bring hope.. and then despair... hope again... only to be crushed as she was. Do you beleive in happily ever after? Most people wither won't admit it or label it childhood fancy. But she was supposed to be a 'Happily ever after'. When she died, the world mourned. They were affected. And so, my dear Ami, she was a loss. Just not on the level you are looking at.

I readily concede your point, Diva; I'm sorry that she died, and I have no particular wish to engage in character assassination. The popular, almost hysterical mourning at her death is certainly evidence of widespread affection for her; whether it was profound or soundly based is quite another matter. I don't agree that she was a major loss to the country, let alone the world; in fact, one of the things that most horrifies me about the Cult of Diana was the corresponding absence of international sentiment in the aftermath of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, a man who sacrificed expediency on the altar of the Arab-Israeli Peace Process; a man who was actually willing to cede territory he had himself conquered only a few years before. Where were the icons, books of condolence and the stuffed teddybears when he died? Where is the peace process now? If Rabin had lived, Netanyahu and Sharon would be warming their hands in opposition, and a measure of stability would have been brought to the Gaza Strip. If Diana had lived, what more would she have accomplished? More photo-shoots?

The "People's Monarchy" is a pseudo-plebiscitory sham. She may have humanized the monarchy, but there will always be few parasitic members to dehumanize it from within. Glamour comes and glamour goes, but the monarchy is heading for extinction within the next forty years: there is already a majority in Scotland for a republic. Australia will remove the Queen as Head of State (something that should really have been accomplished three years ago but for some shrewd divide et impera tactics from John Howard); the debate will reawaken over here; Scotland will probably eject the monarch within twenty years; the monarchy will have to retreat in Ulster as a concomitant of dual control; and royal favour in England and Wales will eventually topple like dominoes. Diana didn't save the monarchy; she merely prolonged iit. She was a patroness, nothing more, and that's how people will remember her; a good patroness, admittedly, but I simply can't imagine her legacy being anything other than evanescent.

[Diva]

It is unfortunate the human legacy vs the humanitarian one is different. I agree that showing the gates with teddy bears and flowers for a Princess while ignoring a man who strived for peace are odd bed fellows. Lest I remind you that Mother Theresa's death was also shadowed by Princess Di's. Perhaps the key is held in people related to her. She wasn't perfect. The ironic part is that her 'vilifying and humanizing' the royalty ultimately showed their weaknesses. That alone will not crush their power, but it certainly will hasten it's ultimate demise.

[Redallnite]

Ya'll talk about the princess, I watched her wedding, wished that her son would marry my daughter. I watched her funeral and cried like a baby. Mother Theresa was the lady who the world will be poorer. Princess Di loved and respected Mother Theresa, she showed the world the ugly truth of what Mother Theresa had been living and working with the untouchable childeren, adults even the unholy ones.

[Amaurote]

Mother Theresa was a remarkable success within the limits of her own Roman Catholic orthodoxy, but her reputation is a shadow of what it was even four years ago: we know too much about the way in which she dogmatically prevented the sick and the dying in her care from receiving vital curative and palliative drugs.