Lenin entombed

In my past nastier times I was (I confess, humbly) proud of goading opponents to fury. O how I enjoyed bringing on a feast of impotent rage. One such as me could and did rationalize the value of inciting fulsome response, but I still got a rewarding (slightly addictive considering how often I did it) kick from leaving others sputtering with fury. 

I do not recommend this as a way to gain new friends or calm worries of present associates, but for compulsively independent (contrary Harry) me, it worked. Bluntly put, I found folks boring. This made stirring things up into a beneficial practice. Maybe. It’s what I said, anyway.
You may have done the math that inciting others forced argument over issues made hot of the moment. I once worked at a camp where someone was negligent of his terrariums. Putting a tank of rotting critters under his cot proved a better motivator than had reminders. 
Getting to the point and turning things around are useful. Those who disagree, I’ll suggest, don’t want the bother or prefer not having the stench of their untidy terrarium plopped under their nose.
This can be done with near any sacred topic or foregone conclusion or universally agreed on belief. You better not kill. Really? I have a list, how ‘bout you? My kill score may be zero, but not because I couldn’t name some fine candidates. Things we might tend to all agree on are way up the ladder for inspection. 

Many, I’ve often heard, have touted diversity as strength. That is until nails start getting hammered home in that box. North America had many native groups who seemed to do fine without diversity. There wasn’t a Sioux-Cree-Seminole tribe. And you could argue all the native peoples were remarkably deficient in Serbs and Somalis. They were. But when you add Scots and Slovaks to an area and call that colonizing it becomes questionable indeed, a practice to be undone. 

Is it unhelpful to raise such issues? Let me know after you define the line between diversifying and colonizing.
Raising these things face-to-face is a ton more pointed than attempting same at a keyboard. Most of us (I’m included) are content or lazy enough about our cores to sluff off questioning of base issues, precisely the areas needing attention. 
I know people immensely proud to be free of conventional religion. They’re independent. No B-I-B-L-E for them. Should be noted, however, they follow some other diffuse-ified, scattered revelations to end in much the same way as young Red Guards held up Mao’s book. 
I had (might still) one of those. In its way read a lot like B-I-B-L-E to me. The difference? In content, sure, but in serving the purpose of scripture, no. Whether we like it or not, the atheist/agnostic is orthodox as any Hindu or Baptist, the difference is what’s held as true.
An observation, there is the orthodox atheist and the reformed branch, that being those who add spirituality to disbelief. To me, spirituality is faith’s low-cal, generic vanilla.
Ancient observation has many instances of vampires, ghouls, zombies and possessed, along with cannibals of body and spirit. All, it seems, are real manifestations seen regularly in and on the news. Vampires and forms of cannibal pounce greedily and hungrily on the dead, intent on sucking every last drop of fluid possible. 

Some readers will applaud when I cite a College of Cardinals digging up a dead Pope to put him on trial for churchly and religious offenses. As example of vampire/cannibal feeding on the dead, I personally feel that’s a pretty darn good example. But, not, not by far, unique as there are so many busy and about in the public sphere looking ready to settle in for a good, life sustaining feed on someone, something long dead. 

On public buildings the names Lee or Jackson (R.E. and Thomas, respectively) are sure to draw those hungering for a feast of attention over the dead not even interned there. Theirs is a hunger denied me. Sad business, but I’m happy to admit having other afflictions to make up for a lack of zombie un-dead hunger. 

Each of us carries her or his sorrowful deficiencies. Cannibalizing the dead doesn’t seem to hurt them, really. The deceased are resistant (I’d say highly) to harm. Doing ill is more a thing among the living, but who am I to fuss of the pastimes of others. Some like to ski or fish. Others prefer reviving old quarrels.

Extremes of the modern (not contemporary, but modern) day zombie minded can be seen in the fates of Congo’s poor P. Lumumba and Russia’s lamented V. I. Lenin (the nuclear power named in his honor failed and became Chernobyl). And extremes they are. So a’feared of his spirit were his opponents they dumped his body in acid so no mortal remains might exist to be reanimated or haunt the living. 

Contrastingly, V.I., hero of the people, had to be remained, couldn’t be let go of, and so his body was kept waxed, on perpetual display for the faithful. Contrast. One disappeared. The other, I believe, still available in his mausoleum at Red Square.
Argument or observation I’ve made before points toward the apparent dumbing of citizens by replacing civics with social studies. That long debate is one you’ll need to work through another place because there’s not enough time/space here. By dumbing, however, I mean the notion a people needs be spoon fed easy concoctions. 

Are you dull? I doubt. So why the concerted move to take away the hard stuff formerly known as classics? Is the nation unable to learn from the past? Is there no lesson in Athenian democracy showing many times over that its democrats were often a rat pack no better than the opposition elites? Demos or strict oligarchy operated similarly. Why? 

Wasn’t lack of common language or beliefs. What was absent? In any case while the sides held fast barbarian thugs (Philip and son Alexander) from the north stormed in to settle matters by force. This pattern was well known to those who wrote a Constitution that stands poised on an edge between extremes.