Diffusion of Madness

If you think that the suggestion of Igor Panarin, the director of the Russian diplomatic academy, that the United States is going to disintegrate any time now is lunacy, consider the pieces it will disintegrate into: He suggests that the Northeast (which has a  “totally different ethnos and mentality”) will ‘join’ the EU with Kentucky, Tennessee, North and South Carolina (!). And talks about the Indians in the middle of the USA wanting to secede (“May I remind you that five central states where the Indians live had announced their independence.”).  Such analytical brilliance, probably based on considerable field work is reminiscent of other recent brilliant analyses, such as by Mohammed Saïd al-Sahaf (“There is no presence of American infidels in the city of Baghdad”) and Goran Matic (“CIA instructors are working not only with NIN”): I see a pattern of lunacy diffusion emerging (thanks to Holly for this). Madness seems to be the best response of dictators (and their spokespersons) to the threats of democracy. Matic, al-Sahaf and Panarin seem to share some features on their analysis:

a) they ascribe to others what happens to themselves (or they do to others)

b) they confuse wish and reality

c) their governments don’t end well (at least for the first two, the jury is out for the third).