I was about to say, Rage, you might be preaching to the choir here ;]
Mandela should be someone you wanted to advertise, someone who would not back down from the opressive government, who took his jail time like a man AND emerged the ruler of that nation. Damn 
He is. Just not in the way the media is doing it. Nelson's life was not a fucking episode of my little pony. 
People classify people in "genres", my mother is a case example.
She knows how atheistic I am, but she believes (yes, believes) that a lot of hippie new age stuff can count as science. Cus her Danish book of hand-healing told her so.
ANYWAY
She does this, the other day talked about Jesus - as a "spiritually enlightened man", as if that could count as science. I've long since stopped arguing. She expanded the list very readily, to include
Jesus
Gandhi
Dalai Lama
and Mandela.
Why?
Cus these are the people, advertised, people know them. Why was Che Guevara ommited? Probably cus he is a political fighter, and politics arent "spiritual" or something. Why Mandela then? Cus he made the list!
And that Absolute-Monarchist would-be dictator Dalai Lama
He can hug children all he likes, he is still promoting a governmental system of Theocratical Monarchy!
China is doing the millions of Tibetan population a huge favor
