Month: Jan 2026

The Limbo Rock?

How low can you go?

What is passing through my mind is:

  • how far will a head of state be allowed to go before being stopped?
  • And how is the stopping done?

Recent history about the stopping of modern day dictators :

Mussolini was lynched by his own people after Italy was invaded and vanquished

Stalin died in office of natural causes (maybe accelerated ?)

Idi Amin was exiled after attempting to take over his armed forces which had mutinied after invading their neigbour Tanzania.

Hitler shot himself in the ruins of Berlin with invaders at the door

Pol Pot was ousted after invasion by neighbouring Vietnam. He died under house arrest serving life imprisonment.

Robert Mugabe was ousted by his own party at age 93, after ruling for 37 years. He was a fan of ethnic cleansing.

Ceaucescu (and his wife) were executed after an uprising against his rule.

Saddam Hussein was hanged after arrest by US invaders. He was a bad boy.

Muammar Gaddafi was killed, probably by his own bodyguard, in a counter revolution.

Bashar Al Assad was ousted by a counter revolution and fled to Russia

but….

Fidel Castro died in his bed after ‘retiring’

Mao Zedong died in office of natural causes

Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping, Al Kameini, Erdogan, Lukashenko (“Europe’s Last Dictator” ?) are still alive and in office…

It seems that killing millions of citizens is not sufficient motivation for ouster:

Mao killed 30 million of his own people, Hitler’s score was about 21 million including 6 million Jews, Stalin’s death toll was only 6 to 9 million, Pol Pot killed about 2.4 million, mostly intellectuals and skilled workers, which was about 40% of the population.

Of the mass murderers, only Pol Pot was ousted from power.

The others died in office.

How far will the current most prominent autocrat go?

Instead of arresting and prosecuting, will he start bumpimg off illegal migrants, Democrats and those that don’t agree with him…?

What’s next? The invasion of Greenland with obliteration of NATO forces placed there. …

Hmm! Australia is strategically located and has lots of natural resources including rare earth metals…

Heyy! What about Canada…. I’ve always said it should be one of our states!

Who is going to stop him?

The military is already doing his bidding. (There has been a purge of some command staff)

Congress hasn’t checked his acts of war like bombing Iran, sinking boats in the open sea, kidnapping the president of a foreign state, bombing Nigerians…

It seems that the answer to my questions at the beginning are:

  • Killing 40% of the population was the limit for Pol Pot
  • Removal from office and indictment

or ….. Revolution, which is extreme, but not far fetched. I recently saw a movie of a modern day civil war in the US …

… or maybe just keep digging into the Epstein files…?

Risk

Risk is another word like woke that has swindled the world.

Way back in the old days the concept of risk was devised by a marketing spin wizard. Brave heroes like Marco Polo, Columbus, Drake and Raleigh and no doubt Arab and Chinese explorers set out to find riches in undiscovered and thus unexploited parts of the world.

In those days explorers with better weaponry and technology easily prevailed over indigenous populations. In fact it was their duty to bring the True Faith to the heathens, whether they wanted it or not and morality be damned.

Nevertheless their endeavours were heavy with danger. History rarely records the unsuccessful endeavours of those who were shipwrecked or annihilated by the peoples they invaded…

Heroes and warriors attract people who are not so brave but who are clever. For a share of the explorers’ spoils they will ‘insure’ the expedition, so the loss of disaster can be ameliorated for those left at home.

So the fear of leaving families destitute if they failed was removed.

Soon insurers persuaded everyone that every risk of loss could be made less severe. Eventually, of course, it was found that every endeavour had risk and required insurance.

Governments were persuaded to legislate insurance against risk.

So the insurers started dictating how every endeavour should proceed and go about minimising risk.

Safety became a holy word that sanctified restrictions. Insurance is required and won’t be provided unless myriad steps are taken to eliminate risk.

Suddenly safety becomes very expensive causing explorers to abandon new endeavours because insurance is too expensive.

The insurers don’t care as just about every endeavour, every building, vehicle and person is now insured against risk…

So business development is stifled except for ideas with a very high profit margin that can afford all the insurances required

Now the construction of a new pedestrian walkway requires more traffic controllers than workers.

A corollary is the mindset that believes that once an endeavour is insured and premiums are paid, the correct signage is erected and appropriate safety training has been done, risk is eliminated ….

Eradicating the stranglehold that insurers have on capitalist societies will be more difficult than reversing the woke waves of the last half century!!

It is part of finding a form of beneficial government that does not include becoming a nanny to its subjects.

The Trump card

Of course it’s the Joker – but you better laugh or at least smile or it will be the Queen of Hearts: Off with his head!!

There is this surreal feeling that 2026 has plunged us all into a rabbit hole …

One can just see the Cheshire Cat grinning through all the unimagined twists and turns…

The Maduro kidnapping was such a smart operation which suggests significant planning – this is not a madcap spur of the moment whimsy.

Behind the blather there is a whole lot of strategic planning and intent. Maybe the Don’s job is to distract and misdirect? He’s pretty good at that!

We have become too civilised, too reticent, too socially delicate. The best is not equal, it will not be seen as fair by all. It is also fast and centralised and powerful.

Our lives have become clogged by the cholesterol of good living. Bureaucracy has slowed decision making and impoverished us.

We in the Western democratic world have become too soft, forgetting the hard road it took to get to where we are.

Confession time.

I must admit to an awkward admiration for a benevolent despot, a doer who has no hesitation.

It trashes all political norms and conventions of ‘civilised’ behaviour – but it is past time for a major re-set of our perspective of the real world!

Trumping maybe the way to go to save our way of life.

It may not follow conventions and has little finesse but it’s pointing in the right direction.

Heart surgery is not a delicate science: it is basic and brutal and the squeamish may not like it. Sometimes it is necessary.

It looks more and more like a world war may be on the cards. What happens to war survivors is they re-focus on looking after their own communities. Maybe that is what we need to save us..?

Sounds a bit like what I have heard about Fuentes…

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? Maybe…

He sticks in my throat, but may be the saviour of ‘our’ civilisation, i.e. the western democratic world.

Topsy turvy world

The words lebensraum and Anschluss probably have little significance for today’s world. They were clearly announced in Hitler’s book Mein Kampff.

In the 1930’s the militarisation of the Rhineland occupation of the Ruhr, occupation of Sudetenland, Bohemia and Moravia, annexation of Austria and invasion of Poland were justified by the desire to unite German speaking people, a need for resources, a desire to expand or gain back former land, and extreme nationalism.

They were unilateral incursions by superior military forces driven by ruthless politicians

90 years later, with MAGA we have seen:

  • the unilateral renaming of the Gulf of Mexico
  • Kristalnacht scenes of the apprehension, removal and incarceration of people within US cities by jackbooted troops;
  • the bombing of Iran
  • the obliteration of boats in international waters
  • the kidnapping of a Head of State and his wife and
  • the capture of an oil tanker under a Russian flag.
  • Threats of further action against Iran, Cuba, Colombia and Greenland have been made with impunity.

In fact, these acts have been owned with pride and self righteousness.

The two images that loom in my head are a schoolyard bully and Adolph Hitler.

These actions by the supposed leader of Western civilisation can only be seen as ‘legitimising‘ Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and lending justification to China’s invasion of Taiwan.

Guess who doesn’t give a toss?

Congress won’t check him; a few judges may rule his actions illegal in the dim and distant future…ho, hum!

Again Caligula comes to mind … initially welcomed, he reversed treason trials and brought back exiles but descended into despotism, executing rivals, squandering funds, and demanding worship, leading to his assassination by his own guards.

What next? Domestic acclaim and a stunned silence from allies and neighbours (cowed by threats of invasion?) could lead to increasingly brazen and rash acts.

Greenland to be the new 51st state, Canada to be the 52nd ….. why not Mexico as the 54th? Heyy!! Why not all of the Americas…??

Oh yeah, the other one who comes to mind is Kim Jong Un, and Vladimir of course