I was surprised to read Christopher Hitchens today, riding high on his moral horse as to the political, cultural and economic predations of Maximum Leader Robert Mugabe in his current Country of Residence, Zimbabwe. What people like Hitchens never seem to understand, is that morality is never just for other people, or leaders, or religious types. The dirty nature of political misrule in this World as we find it, is a direct reflection of the people being led. Mugabe does not operate entirely unto himself. He is certainly in the last days of his political power in Africa. His bitter end is being hastened along by the Queen of England and her minions, who took offense several years ago, to Robert Mugabe's decision to expropriate Zibabwean landed British "white people" plantations or farmlands, in the interests of an Abe Lincoln - like United States styled Land Rush or "stake your claim" pioneer frontier common folk land grab. Those large landed estates were well-rooted in British Colonialism in Africa, in the former Rhodesia, now known as Zimbabwe. They survived 20 years of Robert Mugabe's political hegemony or leadership in that new Country or Nation State which, George Washington -like, he actually founded. When he became either older, or wizened, or simply exasperated, Mugabe stooped to evicting these landed, colonial gentry by way of using his none too subtle powers of State. The result, is that the Anglo-American forces have been working overtime to destroy the Zimbabwean economy and wreck Robert Mugabe's political leadership ever since. When Christopher Hitchens and others bemoan the sorry state of the starving civilians of Zimbabwe, surely their crocodile tears can be recognized as such. What Hitch and the Queen and others fail to understand, is that Robert Mugabe is at least an equal to George Washington, who founded these United States, to Nelson Mandella, Mugabe's cofounder of Modern Africa, along with maybe Haille Selassie and a few others, and (surprise) Osama bin Laden, with whom he won The 'Cold' War against forces of Communism Worldwide. Yes, America's nukes remained unused in their bunkers during the Cold War, while Mugabe, and bin Laden, and others like Shah Palavi of Iran, Diem of Bhietnam, and a few other choice dictators here and there in South and Central America (Pinochet of Chile; Manuel Noriega of Panama), Greece (Papadopoulos) and Spain (Francisco Franco) and elsewhere worked hard in the trenches of Anglo American hegemonic empire building. The upshot? Well, the conclusive upshot is that in the world of RealPolitik or Henry Kissinger or multinational corporate thralldom or media megalopolies (my new coinage: like it?) or so-called environmental imperatives or uneducated boy soldier expediencies or economic desperations or food shortages or energy crises, Nation Statism is the ultimate psychic, mental "crutch" for weak people voting in democracies or otherwise supporting their dimwitted, malevolent, and even murderous political leaderships with the common currency known as Patriotism. Your patriotism, my patriotism, does it really matter? People should learn to use their own minds to figure things out for themselves, but with the aid of their own community values and connections, and yes, with the strength offered by God and Religion. I just think it is so amusing,that the only way Christopher Hitchens wants to find his way into a Roman Catholic confessional booth, is at the elbow of Robert Mugabe, to hear what Mugabe has to say to his priest confessor and to his God, in the mode of seeking forgiveness. We all have our sins of commission and of omission, but the worst sin, next to never confessing your sins, is never forgiving them. The Good News: there is no unpardonable sin. The Bad News: this good news undercuts the moral authority of The State, the Community, and the Individual (Journalist or otherwise) to make moral judgments about "That Other Guy".

Hope Mugabe pays you well. Taken right out of the mouth of the old crackpot. Gay gangsters anyone?

Yeah, MichaelBernard1 IS Mugabe! Scary...