[Sailorsam]

Ten People the world would have been better off without. (IMHO)

1) Hitler (no surprise). Six million Jews died in the holocaust, and millions more as a result of the war. Millions in Poland and Ukraine intentionally starved. Humanity is still picking up from this guy.

2) Stalin (and Lenin). HilterandStalin, they go together. Josef purposefully starved millions in Ukraine before the war started. Residents of western USSR were so brutalized that they welcomed the Nazis as liberators. After WWII he ground to pieces just about everybody in Central and Eastern Europe. They're still fixing his mess too.
(for more info on hitlerandstalin's brutality I recommend two books 'A Taste of War' http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=stripbooks&field-keywords=a+taste+of+war
and 'Bloodlands' http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...-keywords=bloodlands&rh=n:283155,k:bloodlands

3) Mao. Millions died, directly or indirectly, from his policies. His special contribution to making the world a worse place was the 'Great Leap Forward', in which he took thousands of college kids out of the cities and dumped them in the poor countryside. Aside from death there was the brutal dehumanization of Mao's version of Stalin's version of Marxism.
(I recommend this book, Broken Earth, for more info on Mao's reign of terror)
Broken Earth: Steven W. Mosher: 9780029217207: Amazon.com: Books

4) Pol Pot. third world Stalin. made infamous in the movie 'The Killing Fields'. set Cambodia back decades, still not recovered (sound familiar?
Executed or starved 2-3 million of his people (we'll never know the exact number).

5) Genghis Khan. Barbarian conqueror. His Mongol hordes overran numerous cultured cities and regions from Confucian China to Muslim Middle East. This was the golden age of Islam, the time of Omar Khayam and the Arabian Nights, sophisticated, educated and tolerant. The loss of such areas only reinforced the more brutal schools of Islam. GK liked to use human shields of children and old people when besieging Chinese cities. Barbarians at the gates. Boo.

 

[kokosmom2]

That's only 5 .... are you working on more or do you want the rest of us to fill in?

 

[Eugene]

Bill Klinton, Barak Osama

 

[Forrest Mosby]

BHO, Taco Bill(in case of war, make a run for the border) Klinton, Hilldemon, Moo-chelle, Mr. Rooseveldt (New Deal), Great Ape Lincoln

 

[Rascals]

Mohamed. 10 letters.

 

[Sailorsam]

6) Phillip II of Spain. Church zealot who provoked the peaceful Dutch (then a province of his empire) into rebellion. England supported the Dutch, and Phil ended up sending the Grande Armada to take them down. The Armada (with some help from the Limey fleet) got pounded. England triumphed, Holland gained independence, Spain lost a lot of good people (and money)...all because some common folk wanted to go to a different (Christian) church. Phil's policy in the Americas? Force the natives to become serfs on the existing farms and plantations, thus exporting the dying Feudal system to the New World. To this day, North America is much more commercially successful and wealthy than Latin America. His economy was based on silver and gold stolen or mined (thanks to slave labor) from the indigenous cultures. Thousands of Spain's best men threw away their plows and other work implements to grab their pikes and muskets and go to the New World to get rich quick (or die trying). Spain's internal economy--the agriculture and manufacturing base--nearly collapsed. To save it he refused to allow his American colonies to trade with anyone but Spanish companies, resulting in poverty, misery, and lots of smuggling from the English and Dutch (remember them?). These policies produced the Golden Age of Piracy, which seemed mostly to consist of polyglot buccaneers robbing Spanish ships. The guy pretty much did everything wrong.

7) Kaiser Wilhelm II. Almost singlehandedly started WWI with his incessant militarism and his goading Austria-Hungary into overreacting to the Serbian episode. Stupid, childish, despotic. Admittedly, Europe in the early 20th century was full of sword-waving idiots, but he's the one that really ruined everything.

8) Andrew Jackson. His simplistic anti-bank policies ruined the economy, and his treatment of Native Americans was inexcusable. He shut down the nascent state-within-a-state of the Cherokee at Red Clay and forced them on the 'Trail of Tears' to Oklahoma (said trail ultimately led to Little Big Horn and Wounded Knee). Proudly implemented the self-descriptive 'Spoils System'.
A few of the Indians found oil on Oklahoma, so at least a few of them got a last laugh.

9) Czar Nicholas II or Russia. Misled his country in the Russo-Japanese war, which encouraged the fiery militarism that led to Pearl Harbor and Bataan. Head of a state that brutally slaughtered thousands of dissidents but still got revolted out, leading to the aforementioned Lenin/Stalin horrors. Misled his country to defeat in WWI. By all accounts a decent fellow but had no business being in charge of anything. Shame he didn't abdicate for a more qualified head of state. Like a scarecrow. Or a jar of jelly.

10: suggestions?

 

[Domesticated_Primate]

BHO, Taco Bill(in case of war, make a run for the border) Klinton, Hilldemon, Moo-chelle, Mr. Rooseveldt (New Deal), Great Ape Lincoln

Not a big fan of FDR myself but at least he tried to get Americans back to work through his New Deal. With the Public Works Administration, millions of out of work Americans earned a paycheck building up our infrastructure. Also, the Works Progress Administration helped unskilled Americans find work. Perhaps a concept we should consider reverting back to instead of paying people to chill in mom's basement smoking pot all day.

 

[cmo1037]

Here's the real question....did anyone read your thread title, and not have the first name that come to mind be Obama?
I bet over 90% of the populace on this site's first though was that Scumbag

 

[Endiron]

Would Woodward and Bernstein be consider the fathers of gotcha journalism? I don't know the answer to that, but I think where journalism has gone since Watergate can be laid at their feet. Also, I'm sick of every damn scandal/controversy end in "gate".

 

[chuck c]

We can always add good ole reverend Jackson and Al not so sharpton in the mix somewhere.

 

[Lord Darwath]

I'll just contribute one real quick. George Soros: one of the 'powers behind the powers.'

 

[kokosmom2]

I want to say Woodrow Wilson for your #10

 

[Donnatella]

1) Hitler - a result of WW

2) Stalin - a result of Hitler who was a result of WW.


3) Mao.


4) Pol Pot.


5) Genghis Khan - not so much - he wasn't much different then other people of the time.

6) Woodrow Wilson worst of all.

Read about WW. Many of his actions resulted in the world we live in today.

7) Mohammad

8) Constantine the Great' 'Saint Constantine' Flavius Valerius Constantinus - helped to make Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire. This weakened the empire greatly. The Romans before this allowed all religions to exist. When forced people began to fight. This pushed the decline along and set in motion the future of Europe for centuries.

 

[Jerry D Young]

Well nuts. I had the list, with the reasons, but it was zapped.

I am going to give the list by itself. If anyone wants the justifications feel free to ask when I am not so tired.

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. Christopher Columbus
3. Mohammad
4. Tutankhamen's assassin
5. Brutus (Julius Caesar's assassin)
6. Coptic Pope Theophilus (ordered the final destruction of the last vestiges of the Library of Alexander, the Serapeum)
7. Thomas Edison (began the hounding of Nikola Tesla)
8. Al Gore (may ultimately be responsible for billions of deaths due to An Inconvenient Truth, which could prevent or seriously delay the preparations of the coming ice age.)
9. Tlacaelel (increased and spread the use of human sacrifice in Meso America)
10. Qin Shi Huang (started the Chinese on the road to evil)

Just my opinion.

 

[rabiddog9]

......LBJ.......

 

[Vicious]

A list of 10 is far too short and we should be constrained to only mention those who affect our world currently.

 

[TxHannah]

Pope Leo X, Giovanni de Medici. He was so corrupt and immoral, had so many tortured and killed. Maybe not worthy of the top10 but certainly top 20.

 

[TxHannah]

Currently alive and causing global havoc

Barak Hussein.
George Soros (and his sons, but we'll just count them as one)
Ayatollah Khameni
Vladimir Putin
Harry Reid
Khaled Mashall (head of Hamas)
Bashar Al Assad
Rothschild family (count them as one also)
Xi Jinping
Kim Jong Un
Fidel Castro

 

[Sean_6399]

Woodrow Wilson
Karl Marx
Michael Bay

 

[SgtBooker44]

Nobody has named an ex spouse yet?

I don't have one, but just thinking