We see the madness and ask why [Dictators and Cults of Personality]

Great Debates
1

One of the major loons on the planet has passed. He ruled Turkmenistan for seven years.

There are several nations on our planet currently being subjected to irrational rule by people who, were they in your family, you’d be holding an intervention to have them legally certified non compos mentis.

How? Why? I’m not advocating coups at all but I’m puzzled about how and why a nation of people can have a Turkmenbashi or a Papa Doc fouling up their lives and nobody does anything to stop him. My poor little noggin boggles. But then I look south and see Dubya who’s not quite as nuts but definitely has honesty problems and yet around him is a coterie of people who defend his every word and action.

Why? How do complete nutjobs earn such loyalty from enough people that they get to rule unimpeded for years?

Is there an explanation to be found in psychology? My questioning is based on my very real fear that ‘there but for the grace of Whomever’… Germany was a civilized nation. So was Yugoslavia - but they, too, fell under spells of leaders who foisted harm.

2

Clearly he saw the madness and asked “why not?”

3

People buy into their “logic”.

Every nutjob theory and crackpot conspiracy theory has at least one follower. If it’s a rich follower/founder, you can make some kind of foundation and keep your message going with money.

My question is: “How bad did it have to get for you to eat a plateful of whatever stupidity that person was saying?”

Drastic times call for drastic measures. It’s also possible for people to act like there are drastic times when there aren’t. Then you start running into the murky depths of opinions.

4

People see things differently. For instance in Iraq and Africa all the leaders are opposed to breaking up a sovereign nation into many. Even if the boundaries that created the nation are arbitrary. Yet in Yugoslavia we encouraged the break up.

After World War II the UN declared the forceable displacement of people to be criminal. Yet we saw in places like Germany and Poland it worked. Same in Greece and Turkey and Romania and Bulgaria. Especially when one thinks one third of present day Poland was pre-World War II Germany.

Nations will intervene only when the see it in their best interests to do so.

Even humanitarian efforts are subject to this. The Catholic Church faces great criticism for condeming the use of condom to prevent AIDS and other STD in sub-sahara Africa, yet by in large Catholics have established the largest number of “modern” medical clincs. The overall balance is the Catholics do more good with their medical clinics than are lost to AIDS and other illness by condeming the use of the condom.

The world has had GREAT EVIL people and part of the issue is when you compare GW Bush to people like Hitler or Pol Pot it just is wrong. And people stop here any other part of the message you say, which may be correct.

People don’t see simple issues. Like in 2000 election, the next day GW Bush was claiming I won I’m forming a new cabinet and let’s see the Democrats do anything to stop me.

This was a sign of his attitude toward everything. So why is anyone surprised. Few people realized how much of a BLOW it was the way that election was handled. It showed that our votes don’t matter, it’s the people who COUNT the votes that matter. Whether you believe GW Bush should have won or not, isnt the issue the issue is the message it sent to the American people.

So apply that toward people living under a real dictatorship. Most don’t know any different so they accept it and just shrug it off as, I can’t do anything about it anyway.

5

To my mind, it’s a fairly short and awfully slippery slope; i.e. if you’ll tolerate a Bush, how much of a loon does someone have to be before you draw the line? Do people think there is a qualitative difference between the people who fell under dictators’ spells and those who allow lies and corruption to abound in high office? Is it really that big a step from lying to people to persuade them to invade another nation and… um… lying to people to persuade them to invade another nation?

And if you don’t like the Bush reference, then address the ‘why Turkmenistanis?’ question. Or pick any other unpalatable ruler. Why and how did Saddam prevail for so long?

6

I’d think Saddam prevailed for so long because of security. They get power, they get infrastructure, they get fabulously ruthless and crazy Saddam. To them, that was a trade off they were willing to take.

America is a joke (depending where you go) and we elected the big reason we are that joke. The trade off was worth it to us (at the time). It’ll be interesting to see if it continues or stops.

7

Maybe many of the people of Iraq feared what would come if he was gone?

In the US, Bush is tolerated as far too many people saw a reason to favor him over candidates like Kerry and Gore. Gore has little charisma and ran a poor campaign. Kerry is nearly as stupid as Bush and less personable. Neither was a great candidate to stop Bush.

In Bush, the religious right saw a man that would support their agenda. The fiscal conservatives thought he would serve their agenda and they were betrayed. The Hawks thought he was a far better choice than Gore and they got more than they bargained for. Then their was the successful playing on ignorant prejudice in 2004 that a vote for a democrat = a vote for Gay Marriage and that Gay Marriage = “The End of the World”.

I voted for Nader in 2000 as I did not like Al Gore and I strongly dislike his wife. I voted for Kerry in 2004 as I now thought Bush-Cheney was the worst admin we had had in my lifetime. Many moderates strongly disliked Bush but could not stomach voting for the complete loser known as Kerry and so Bush got re-elected. He got re-elected about as honestly as any other close race. I am saddened by the fact he got another four years to trash our reputation around the world, but I believe he was fairly elected.

This last mid-term showed people have finally awoken to how bad Bush-Cheney and the Neo-Cons have been. It trumped immigration issues and more gay marriage issues. In 2008 we will probably get either a Democratic President or a moderate Republican. In all seriousness, I welcome our new Moderate or Liberal leaders.

Jim

8

Not to hijack, but I wonder if the pendulum has swung. The grip that the Democrats have is perilous and might not be indicative of a Major Shift. After all, the Dems won a LOT of close victories in many states. These next couple years should be rather interesting and the first (maybe second) of the Most Important Elections of Your Lifetime ™s.

9

I don’t believe it’s really all that complicated.

Saddam Hussein believed, quite correctly, that he should have a monopoly of lethal power and he enforced that right without ever consulting focus groups and with a complete lack of compassion.

If anyone stepped out of line, even to the extent of making statements in public that might or might not result in a serious disturbance of the peace, then not only would Saddam Hussein make sure that such miscreants would soon become discarnate, but so would all of the miscreant’s family members (wife or wives, toddlers, cousins etc).

That’s why Muqtada Sadr, the so called firebrand cleric, behaved himself all the time that Saddam was in power.

10

People like certainty, without it they can’t plan for the future.

The ‘rules’ don’t matter as long as you know them and are physically capable of sticking to them.

Sometimes they can be near comedy, for example I know a UK guy who was working in Iraq during the Iran-Iraq scrap. Everybody knew when the Iranian missiles were going to come over and Saddam’s ‘secret police’ drove brand new Mercedes taxis.

If you know the rules of the game, then the rules can be anything, provided they are not arbitrary.

11

Still, folks like “Turkmenbashi” do give you pause – other bloody and ruthless dictators will seek to be taken for serious persons and realize that renaming the months of the year makes you look silly to the other presidents.

But this has several major components. The man gets up there by the normal means, i.e. being effective at putting people in their place. And by the time he effectively consolidates power, he will have eliminated or adequately hemmed in all potential challengers, so any dissent will be fragmented and weak and there’s no one in line to succeed except his handpicked heir, if that. In view of that, the bureaucracy, the military, the party apparat, the business establishment, and the large part of the population who cares about where the kids will get their next meal, will acquiesce to that rule which provides SOME framework of order in which to function, rather than resist and risk anarchy (if the system falls) or brutal retribution (if it holds). That’s SOP for dictatorships.

Now, when El Líder begins acting up a-la-Turkmenbashi, comes in the second part of the tyrant system: by that point in the career, the first few tiers of stakeholders in the regime outside his intimate personal circle will have been filled with people who without HIS personal favor, are and have NOTHING – their meal ticket is HIM, not the Party or the Army or whatever: if he’s displeased or goes missing, they’ll at best be displaced and may be eliminated. So these groups will move the necessary levers to make sure that absence happens as late as possible, AND they stay in his good graces until retirement, which includes ensuring that Mr. Big is pleased at all times, even (or specially) if his pleasure is preposterous or entirely unrelated to matters of state. So the lunatic dictator does not run things totally unipersonally; he depends on a number of people in key positions of public life who feel their very lives are at stake if the lunatic is either displeased or displaced.

12

I’ve always figured the all successful actors and politicians are half insane. In these fields, the objective statistics will tell you that the vast majority of people are going to fail to achieve success. The only people that would enter such a field are those who either possess an overwhelming sense of their own worth or who are so completely obsessed they cannot follow any alternative path.

So given a profession in which some form of insanity is a prerequisite for entry, it’s not surprising that many people in the profession will also have some additional forms of insanity.

13

I have a variation on that, since actors are so good, why don’t they stay in role ?

Or do some of them ?

14

It’s not a cheering thought that even a Turkmenbashi can gather a large enough of followers (be they true believers or cynical pragmatists) to keep him safe. It’s an even less cheering thought that military and police forces can be coopted to support the likes of The Bashi but the same forces rarely turn together against even the most odious of tyrants.

We are a timid and sheeplike species, aren’t we?

15

Coulda sworn I saw ‘group’ there betwixt ‘enough’ and ‘of.’

Where’s that coffee?

16

It’s pretty easily actually. Think about your job. There are always people who suck up to the boss no matter how big of an asshole he is beacuse they only care about getting ahead. Same in politics. People want to be on the winning team so they support the leader and anyone who seems to have his favor.

Crazy people can also be very charismatic. They can seem passionate or exciting. They don’t care about convention or rules. That can be very appealing.

In a system without checks and balances, by the time they are building gold statutes, not one wants to be the guy to tell the emporer he’s not wearing any clothes (since they may find themselves to be the guy not wearing a head).
Keep in mind, most things are run by a system. If the system is such that a crazy person can get into power, there is likely already the corruption in place in the various institutions necessary to keep him there.

17

Once I was part of a system that kept a crazy guy in power, it was a company, not a State, but the principles were similar.

Just a case of the Devil you know

18

~~Bertrand Russell

19

Thing is, loony dictators like Turkmenbashi, Idi Amin, Caligula, Mao, or Hitler don’t take power as total loons. They achieve total loondom only after they acheive total power. Sure, they may show signs of looniness, ranting and raving about the Jews or Isis, or whatever. But it’s not obvious to their supporters that to put this guy into power means he’s going to deify his sister or have his enemies cooked and served for state dinners.

See, you have to work up to that. You have years where any questioning of the dictator means swift and merciless death, or long and merciless death. You have years where the dictator builds up his security forces, so you never know who you can trust. Sure, you’ve known Mustafa since you were kids, but if the secret police have his wife and daughter in a torture chamber there’s no telling what he’ll say or do.

Saddam Hussein used to require military officers to casually ask their buddies about forming a coup. If the buddies didn’t immediately report the conversation–which, if legit, would mean the death of the instigator–they were immediately rounded up shot in the back of the head by the secret police. So when someone approaches you and starts talking about what a loon Saddam Hussein has been lately, you never know what motivation this person has. Are they trying to trick you into a making statements against the leader? Statements that could mean the death of you and your entire extended family? Safest thing is to assume all such people are provacteurs working for security, and to report the treason immediately.

So when you get to the stage where the dictator is going off the rails, no individual person can do anything to stop it, and anti-dictator organizations are almost impossible to form. The security forces by this time are full of people who just like to torture and murder, they couldn’t care less who they torture or why. So the only effective people who can plot against the dictator are those at the highest levels of government/military, or the dictators personal security foirces, or the dictators household staff. Which is why you get things like Stalin’s “Doctor’s Purge”. He was convinced his doctor was conspiring against him, so he ordered doctors in general to be rounded up and sent to the gulags/execution.

And the security forces round the people up and shoot them and torture them because it’s fun for them, or they think if they don’t carry out the purges they’ll be purged themselves, and there’s nothing they can do for the poor bastards they have to execute, if I wasn’t doing it someone else would, and the only difference is that me and my family would be on the list now. So everyone cooperates because the alternative is death, and when death actually comes for you it’s too late.

20

Are we all then helpless to avoid this? Is it a mistake to be worried when you think you see early signs of lunacy?

I am now of the opinion that the UN should be mandated to establish an international board of physicians and psychiatrists, neuropsychiatrists (and every other brain-based medic) to vet all candidates for national leadership.

Of course nobody will ever agree but I dislike the idea of a sickness that has no possibility of being forestalled or prevented. It’s one thing to require that you be of a certain age or nationality or whatever to be head of a state; but it’s time that the primary requirement be that the candidate is certifiably sane and without significant personality disorder.