Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/02/19/internet-rascal.html
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It’s always going to end this way for someone who rises that high (but not to the pinnacle) in an authoritarian regime. Eventually the big boss gets nervous about his influence, senses a rival, and takes him out. In this respect they’re just like gangsters.
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I really like hearing about the corrupt being put in their place. So why does this still read like bad news?
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When I hear about the corrupt being put in their place, I really like to feel confident that they really are corrupt.
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Is that condemnation maybe a bit… embellished? I mean, at long last they’ve caught the Satan of the Far East, but didn’t they catch another one last year?
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Because “corruption” in China means a threat to Xi Jinping and not “corrupt” like taking bribes.
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He must have gotten in trouble for letting a few people post about Giant Yellow Ducks and Winnie The Pooh
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He sounds like a shoo-in for Ajit Pai’s FCC, mind.
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You are probably thinking of Sun Zhengcai, a high ranking party official purged last summer. Xi Jinping is purging everyone connected to Jiang Zemin.
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Despotic regimes do tend to eat their own. Stalin’s purges in the 1930s were like a conveyor belt of goons who rose to the top of the state security apparatus, only to be consumed by it.
I’m surprised a similar thing didn’t happen in Nazi Germany, but that may be because the Nazi regime didn’t last long enough to enter such a phase.
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Why not both?
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A lot of that would apply to certain leaders in Western countries.
There was The Night of the Long Knives. Authoritarian scorpions can’t help themselves.
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Running an authoritarian regime is always somewhat tricky. There have to be benefits to being your lackey, otherwise why should they support you and not your rival? Yet having your underlings steal too much threatens the regime.
Allow no corruption and your underlings will destroy you. Allow too much corruption, and the people will. Uneasy lies the head that bears the crown and all that…
I keep thinking there’s a decent (if cynical) board game under all of this, although “Junta” comes close.
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Yeah.
Purged the leaders of the Brownshirts, purged the bankers who financed them, purged their own top ranks. There was a ton of purging going on as soon as they got to power. Not to mention purging fascist supporters in the countries they conquered.
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It’s not a board game, but Crusader Kings 2 comes close.
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There was also a steady turnover at the (near) top of the Luftwaffe and (actual) top of the Heer.
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He has forgotten the face of his father.
(never played it, but it looked like a lot of fun)
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