A thread on people who you really admire (read: not Britney Spears)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_SankaraHis foreign policies were centered around anti-imperialism, with his government eschewing all foreign aid, pushing for odious debt reduction, nationalizing all land and mineral wealth, and averting the power and influence of the IMF and World Bank. His domestic policies were focused on preventing famine with agrarian self-sufficiency and land reform, prioritizing education with a nation-wide literacy campaign, and promoting public health by vaccinating 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles.[7] Other components of his national agenda included planting over ten million trees to halt the growing desertification of the Sahel, doubling wheat production by redistributing land from feudal landlords to peasants, suspending rural poll taxes and domestic rents, and establishing an ambitious road and rail construction program to "tie the nation together."[6] Moreover, his commitment to women's rights led him to outlaw female genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy; while appointing females to high governmental positions and encouraging them to work outside the home and stay in school even if pregnant.
One of the very few leaders in the world who understood the atrocities of Western imperialism and refused to be enslaved by it. A humble person who understood his position among the people living his life as an actual leader, not a celebrity. It's such a pity that the people under him did not possess the same sort of vision, intelligence and bravery as his followers began torturing, raping and murdering the population. Sankara was brutally ousted and executed by his former compatriot (a coward and a despicable human being, might I add) who took hold of the country and reversed everything he had done.
http://www.chomsky.info/bios/2009----.htmNoam Chomsky is a US political theorist and activist, and institute professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Besides his work in linguistics, Chomsky is internationally recognized as one of the most critically engaged public intellectuals alive today. Chomsky continues to be an unapologetic critic of both American foreign policy and its ambitions for geopolitical hegemony and the neoliberal turn of global capitalism, which he identifies in terms of class warfare waged from above against the needs and interests of the great majority.
Don't think I need to say much about him. One of the most intelligent political critics in the world right now and is the person who started my interest in the area. I absolutely recommend his works
Not strictly related but interesting commennt by Winfried Ruigrock and Rob van Tulder:
"virtually all of the world's largest core firms have experienced a decisive influence from government policies and/or trade barriers on their strategy and competitive position," and "at least twenty companies in the 1993 Fortune 100 would not have survived at all as independent companies, if they had not been saved by their respective governments."
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=NrLv4surz7UC&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=ruigrock+van+tulder&source=bl&ots=Jt-DNUdCoI&sig=EGXVG0HnIHNJpMZacJRl3jiSF8Q&hl=en&ei=b5umTO-MNYLJcd2ghKgH&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCkQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=ruigrock%20van%20tulder&f=false
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