Posted on 09/06/2008 12:41:49 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
The 10 most decadent dictators
A revolving gold statue, pink champagne and a "Pleasure Brigade" of nubile retainers all feature in Times Money's list of history's most decadent dictators. While their people suffered, these men - and sometimes their wives and children - agonised over how best to spend their ill-gotten gains...
1. Kim Jong-il, "Dear Leader" of North Korea since 1994. The son of the communist state's "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il has super-expensive tastes, with 17 palaces, and collections of hundreds of cars and around 20,000 video tapes. On one state visit to Russia, he reportedly had live lobsters airlifted daily to his armoured private train. He is believed to spend around $650,000 a year on Hennessy VSOP cognac and maintains an entourage of young lovelies known as the "Pleasure Brigade"
2. Ferdinand Marcos, President of the Philippines, 1965 - 1986. The Second World freedom-fighter turned kleptocrat secreted billions of dollars in overseas accounts. His wife Imelda, however, was the big spender, leaving 888 handbags and 1060 pairs of shoes in the Malacanang presidential palace when the family fled mob justice after Marcos was deposed. Her pricier purchases included the $51 million Crown Building and $61 million Herald Centre in New York and art by Michelangelo and Botticelli
3. Nicolae Ceausescu, President of Romania, 1967 - 1989. The "Geniul din Carpati", or Genius of the Carpathians, was congratulated (by telegram) by Salvador Dali on his excesses, which included his use of a kingly sceptre. Despite an official salary of just $3,000, he found the cash for 15 palaces, a superb car collection, yachts, fine art and bespoke suits. Tens of thousands of homes were demolished to make space for his 1,100-room, 480-chandelier Palace of the Parliament in the capital, Bucharest
(Excerpt) Read more at timesbusiness.typepad.com ...
“The Last King of Scotland” was pure fiction. Even the principal characters were only loosely based on real people. Every deed shown therein is made up. Especially the way the hero is sneaked out with the Entebbe hostages.
It got the mood of the times and the basic character of ol’ Idi about right. But all the specific misdeeds were fictituous.
No wonder, it’s in La-La land. Hollywood, California.
http://www.onlocation.com/displayimage.php?searchtype=blueid&blueid=1662
Ah! Thanks!
It takes years of careful education (or centuries of careful breeding) to produce a mind capable of recognizing elegance — the idea that less = more. Lacking that education in esthetics, taste is likewise absent; to the vulgar, more = more. This fact of human behavior explains not only those dictatorial palaces decorated à la mode Saddam, but the decal-covered "race cars" and brick-veneer mini-mansions that Americans buy as well. Every owner of one of those Celotex crapboxes one sees in suburbia would decorate just like Mugabe if they had his money; like Tevye, they would prefer to live in a house with "one long staircase just going up, one even longer going down, and one more leading nowhere just for show".
Those with true class know better. The richest people I know (and I know a few) live in circumstances that the average person might consider plain, or even shabby. Few drive new cars; few wear trendy clothes. Instead, they buy expensive, super-reliable cars, and drive them for years; they buy (or have made) the best clothes money can buy, then wear them until threadbare. Those with true class show their superiority through humility. The superior man lives humbly, and is a servant to all.
Only losers need to brag.
Hmmm...Nobama is not on the list yet??
If elected, he may be well on his way.
Jeez, Papa Doc of Haiti didn’t even get an honorable mention.
Thou B. Hussien Obama, might give him a run for the honor.
Not the worst ones; the ones with the worst taste.
Sorry, the Shah doesn’t belong on that list. He wasn’t a dictator and he genuinely wanted to modernize and better Iran and the people.
I bet Tudeh and Mojaheddin Khalq would have been still around, staging regular riots. Most of socialist intellectuals of Iran would be still at home, not in exile in Europe, bitching about U.S. :-)
ROR! (raf out roud)
I agree. I have many Persian friends, have known them for many years. The loved the Shah. Told me stories of how he was “sneaking” Democracy into Iran, and the improvements in the daily lives of his Countrymen.
A fine line, he had to tote, no doubt. But, one that he, in the end, miscalculated.
Should have Tiberius on that list.
I always thought “The Sopranos” did a fantastic job of showing the nouveau-riche/criminal “aesthetic” you talk about. The houses, the furnishings, the clothes, the jewelry, all support the theme of “money doesn’t buy taste” without beating the viewer over the head with it. In one early episode the educated and law-abiding Dr. Melfi shyly admits to her family that she likes Murano glass. I liked how that brief scene highlighted the very complicated social and ideological meanings behind how one decorates her house.
A very interesting thread.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.