Time Magazine just published Its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Nominees were sorted into categories of Titans, Pioneers, Artists, Leaders, Icons. Most of them would better fit under the category Worthless Bums.
Kanye West & Kim Kardashian are included as Titans–& the list goes downhill from there. The Koch brothers are honored; Tim Cook, the head of Apple which employs child labor; Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India who engaged in ethnic cleansing Muslims but was praised in a laudatory essay by Obama as “India’s reformer-in-chief” with an “ambitious vision to reduce extreme poverty, improve education, empower women & girls & unleash India’s true economic potential while confronting climate change.” Wow! Do Indians know that? Do India’s Muslims feel conciliatory now?
There’s the usual line-up of politicians like Putin, Clinton, Merkel, Elizabeth Warren (who’s being primed for office), Xi Jinping of China, king Salman of Saudi Arabia, & Muhammadu Buhari, the former dictator just elected president of Nigeria as the “least awful” candidate. Laudatory pieces for the honored were written by creeps like Henry Kissinger, Rupert Murdoch, Paul Wolfowitz, David Cameron. But certainly the coup de grâce of damnation has to be the inclusion of Netanpsycho, the engineer of Israeli apartheid & ethnic cleansing.
There’s some inoffensive sorts like Malala Yousafzai, Pope Francis, Ruth Bader Ginzberg, Bjork, Taylor Swift on the list. But let’s just cut to the chase here: the list is a great big red alert. Our society is in a political & cultural crisis if these are the people we’re supposed to admire. Most of them should be prosecuted & the other ones considered past their 15 minutes of inglorious fame.