The Oil Drum

Why "[buy] their genuine support" when you can just take what you want?

And I'm not saying this from an American point of view--I'm saying this from a corrupt African politician/guerilla point of view.

I hate to be so pessimistic, but honestly--Africa has been a maelstrom of violence and corruption on the first half of the upward-bound slope (not without the long sustained "assistance" of centuries of violent european domination)... it is hard to imagine what things will look like in Africa on the other side of Hubbert's peak, but certainly they will not look as good as things are today, which, relatively speaking, is not very uplifting--but what is? Jesus! Jesus! Hallelujah!

My opinion is that no one is going to even think about "buying people off"--it is easier to be corrupt and siphon it off while *paying* political lip service. Aside from how seemingly easy it is to exploit people (especially when they are uneducated, but ironically this also holds true for highly educated people as well, *oh the despair!*), it could also start a "bad" trend of actually instilling in people the idea that perhaps what's in their country belongs to them... I know, I know an absurd idea in this era of soon to be ending globalization...