Hard-boiled Dreams of the World » 10 Dissidents Who Changed the World

10 Dissidents Who Changed the World

Throughout world history, a sly aristocracy has committed atrocities beneath false flags and finagled wealth from war. And throughout history, callow generations of working-class sheep have been duped.

Fortunately, when established opinions do steer the flock toward an unjust and destructive cliff, a few people with adequate fortitude often refuse to follow.

These are the dissidents. These are the unlikely heroes who dissent. These are the initially scorned who, nevertheless, actively oppose wrongfulness no matter what their misled peers, priests, and dictators demand.

These are the true patriots who inspire me.

Introduction…
In 1961, Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram dreamed up a hard-boiled experiment to determine if all Nazi war criminals deserved to be labeled accomplices. Milgram soon discovered how disturbingly easy it is for authority figures to corrupt the behavior of others. More…

Samuel Adams - Dissident Founding Father.
If you had to pick one founding father who was the most dissident, rabble-rousing patriot, it would have to be Samuel Adams. And, without him, U.S. citizens would probably still be paying taxes to pay down England’s war debts. More…

Andrei Sakharov - Dissident Father of the Hydrogen Bomb.
Andrei Sakharov was the inspiration for the democratic movement that polished off the Russian empire. Andrei Sakharov was also the USSR’s leading physicist and the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb. Andrei Sakharov was a bona fide paradox if ever there was one. More…

Daniel Ellsberg - Dissident Leaker of Pentagon Papers.
What if you’re convinced your country is in a war that’s unwinnable? What if everyone in the Defense and State Departments believe there’s no realistic chance of achieving any sort of victory?

And what if, even though they know better, they continue to lie in public and state that conditions are improving and that victory is just around the corner?

If you’re a dissident of Daniel Ellsberg’s stature, you risk life in prison to halt the unnecessary bloodbath. More…

Martin Luther King, Jr. - Dissident Preacher with a Dream.
The death of Martin Luther King, Jr., still doesn’t sate the hate of some people. The man may have wanted all races to get along and live together, they’ll say, but he was a hypocritical minister, a sexual-degenerate womanizer, and an American-hating Communist.

But I know this: In 1955 a black person could get killed for using a “whites-only” water fountain in America.

Now? That world is almost unbelievably ancient history.

Despite any flaws in his character, nobody was more responsible for washing away America’s racial ignorance and leading the country through a painful but necessary bout of growing up than Martin Luther King, Jr. More…

Sibel Edmonds - Dissident FBI Whistleblower.
Sibel Edmonds has been called the most gagged person in the history of the United States of America.

In the short days after the September 11, 2001 attacks, FBI translator Sibel Edmonds stumbled onto something strange…something sinister….something her superiors didn’t want Americans to find out about.

To keep her discovery secret, the FBI abruptly and irrationally fired Edmonds.

But Edmonds cared too much about her country to stay quiet. More…

Mohandas Gandhi - Dissident Lawyer.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is his name, but some call him Mahatma, which is Hindi for “great soul.” Still others refer to him as Bapu, or “father” in Gujarati.

Everybody in the world seems to know Gandhi: he’s the skinny Indian dude with wire-framed glasses who dressed in sandals and a white bed sheet. And at the same time, nobody seems to know Gandhi. More…

Ehren Watada - Dissident Lieutenant.
In June 2006, First Lieutenant Ehren Watada became the first commissioned officer to refuse to go to Iraq.

What was Watada’s reason for doing such a crazy thing? When he joined the U.S. Army, he swore to uphold the United States Constitution. And upholding the Constitution involves not taking part in an unconstitutional — and illegal — war. More…

John Lennon - Dissident Beatle.
Beatle mop-top John Lennon threw himself into the anti-war movement with full abandon on June 1, 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War, when he recorded Give Peace a Chance.

Three years later, the Nixon administration was fed up with Lennon’s growing anti-war influence on America’s draft-age cannon fodder. In 1972, the U.S. Government told the former Beatle he had thirty days to leave the country. To their surprise, Lennon fought back. More…

Stanislav Petrov - Dissident Comrade.
Stanislav Petrov is not a household name. And yet, hundreds of millions of people may owe him their lives. Not only is it likely that Petrov prevented the start of World War III, but it’s also likely that he prevented nuclear Armageddon and the destruction of much of the Earth. More…

Jesus of Nazareth - Dissident Teacher.
Jesus was not a good little boy. By all accounts, the mystic drifter was critical of the government, critical of organized religion, and critical of apathetic souls who complacently sustained the status quo.

Forever the malcontent freethinker, Jesus habitually ignored taboos, unceasingly empowered disrespected riffraff, and wandered from town to town with a hippy gang of penniless communal punks, bringing disorder and chaos wherever he dusted his sandals.

And two thousand years later? The man’s real identity has all but disappeared. More…

10 Dissidents Who Changed the World

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