Tony Benn On Hitler, Stalin And Bill Gates

From Tony Benn's last speech to Parliament:

In the course of my life I have developed five little democratic questions. If one meets a powerful person--Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates--ask them five questions: “What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?” If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.

There's an old Brooklyn joke that goes something along the lines of "The three worst human beings in the 20th Century were Hitler, Stalin and Walter O'Malley" (the man who moved the Dodgers out of Brooklyn.)

That Benn statement about Hitler, Stalin and Bill Gates gives that joke another gloss.

As a side note, Benn's right about his five questions - especially that last one:

"How can we get rid of you?"

Powerful, unaccountable humans who seek to impose their will on the masses need to be gotten rid of or this civilization is going to end up in a very bad place.