Ceausescu.

[PCIntern]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceaușescu


Res ipse loquitur.

[Squinch]

1. Now, hold on there. We don't want no mob killin's. Just a nice long jail sentence with

the perp walk on a loop on a major news station.

[PCIntern]

2. I wasn't advocating that...

My point is, there is very far to fall from that height.

[Squinch]

5. I know you weren't. I was just joking.

[hlthe2b]

3. How tragic that history does not deter others.

Most read biographies of horrific dictators-- or their speeches (cough, cough)-- and are horrified. A few are inspired.

[sandensea]

4. People forget - but in the 1970s Ceausescu was often held up as the "maverick of Eastern Europe"

Simply because he contradicted the Soviets from time to time. His being a murderous dictator meant nothing to Kissinger (of course).

To be fair, at least Ceausescu (and his predecessor) made great strides in industrializing and modernizing what was up to then a semi-medieval Romania - though, it should be noted, with heavy reliance on coal and few environmental safeguards.

So in that sense, Cheeto is more like Zaire's Mobutu: an outright despot and out-of-control kleptocrat that, given enough time, would bleed the government dry - leaving his country a colossal and unpayable debt but without building anything.

No infrastructure week in Zaire.

Kissinger was fond of him too, incidentally.

[Iterate]

6. I think of him often.

Illusion becomes self-delusion. Reality intrudes, as it must, then flight.

And Gaddafi, among his last recorded words, he kept repeating "What are you doing? My people love me."

Out of all the despots I've studied, none ever said at the end, "Wait, stop, we could have a fair election." That's a round about way of saying I don't think he'll ever admit negligence or guilt, or ever admit any legitimate authority over him. He'll stay in his truck, tooting his horn, all the way over the cliff. So let's push.

[samnsara]

7. during that time i worked with a woman from Romania..she told me some stories about him.

..scary stuff and i can see why what happened to him, happened.


'A hungry man is an angry man...'

[dalton99a]

8. But he was the greatest architect in the world

It's a monument to a madman. A vast palace that took 13 years to build with 2.7 million tonnes of marble especially mined from the local mountains, nine kilometres of corridors, 15,000 dazzling chandeliers, and a retractable glass ceiling so a helicopter can land inside.

And yet this bizarre beacon of power and privilege sits among so much grinding poverty in Romania, the poorest country in Europe.

For this is the house that Ceausescu built, the Romanian communist dictator better known as the Butcher of Bucharest, who ruled the country with an iron fist for nearly 25 years until 1989.

During that reign, so many of his countrymen starved, kids died in orphanages, protesters were slaughtered on his orders and his political foes disappeared, all the time while 710 architects and up to 100,000 conscripted soldiers and 'volunteers' laboured to create this astonishing Palace of the Parliament.

The massive edifice completely dominates the country's capital Bucharest, an otherwise perfectly ordinary small city of busy streets, and ugly concrete apartment buildings.

Ceausescu demolished homes and ancient monasteries alike to accommodate his 365,000sqm Taj Mahal of terror, making an estimated 50,000 families homeless.

[sandensea]

9. "Get me Munchkin! Or whatever the hell his name is."

"Steve! Why haven't you built me one of these yet!?"


https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com/s3fs-

[pecosbob]

10. "quite shameful, but necessary"

The manner in which the trial was conducted has been widely criticised inside and outside Romania. However, Ion Iliescu, Romania's provisional president, said in 2009 that the trial was "quite shameful, but necessary" in order to end the state of near-anarchy that had gripped the country in the three days since the Ceaușescus fled Bucharest.[43] Similarly, Victor Stănculescu, who had been defence minister before going over to the revolution, said, in 2009, that the alternative would have been seeing the Ceaușescus lynched on the streets of Bucharest.[44]

[Kid Berwyn]

11. In 1994 World Cup came to USA and Pontiac, Michigan...

...Where I was a reporter at a daily newspaper. The Swiss and Romanians were on the card at the Silverdome. I got to interview the Romanian team, including their manager, a former general who had helped overthrow the commie dictator.

As we talked, I asked him if he felt there were similarities between the fascists and the tyrant he had fought. He said there was a certain mindset both shared: human life does not matter to such people.

The general took out his wallet and handed me a bullet, a black pointy, small caliber round. In fact, it was about the ugliest thing I’d ever seen. He said a pro-Ceausescu sniper had shot him. The bullet went through his cheek and lodged in the opposite side of his lower jaw.

One tough guy. One great human being.