Guywires Required

If you stand outside for any length of time you may need some infrastructure to keep you steady. It's been a windy 24hours. As the temp creeps above zero, the melting occurs as if under a hairdryer. A corner of my basement could be dryer, but at least the melt is happening.

Listening to the Zimbabwe thing on the news lately, I think about how some things never change, and wonder why. Perhaps this one will be different,but in many ways these situations are intractable. Your a murderous dictator, you get really old, and have sham elections. But can you be a dictator socking money away in swiss bank accounts and gold bars under your bed, and not own a TV or know about the outside world. Can you really get into your 70's or 80's and not have heard of Ceausescu, Pol Pot, Marcos, Noriega, Hitler, Saddam Hussein etc... I guess they always figure they can pull it off. Then again Amin lived until 2003 in Saudi Arabia, never answering for his crimes, so perhaps there is a precedent.

Some day, dictators will better realize when their jig is up - but I guess by that time they know the writing is on the wall that their back will be up against it soon. The only exit strategy is usually to find a friendly, similarly oppressive regime to take you on. Then, of course, there is your staff and flunkies which face repercussions for things they did to win your favour. Trying to duck out on them is pretty tough sometimes. Their only escape is to run for it to Argentina (well, those days are probably gone) or shoot for a pardon in exchange for testimony.

The movies like to make us think there is some justice in the world, but of course there are a lot of German names in South America, attesting to the ability of some to escape. Hell, there are lot around the US, UK and Russia as everyone snapped up the snazziest Nazi specialists following the war.

I think of that song that was out around the end of the last millenium with the "right here, right now," and "watching the world wake up from history" lines. There was some optimism and enthusiasm of the period that was captured then that made you, well, me, think it might just be possible. Can everyone be so stupid for so long? At some point even a dictator must look in a mirror and think - "Oh, crap, this can't end well."

Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of our lives.

-Researchinator adjusts his fedora