Dictators abhor public trials, dispensing with them wherever possible. But if there is widespread interest in an arrest, a show trial must be staged, with any missing evidence required for a convincing conviction fabricated by the dictator’s prosecutors. From the viewpoint of the dictator it is a reasonably efficient process and usually there is not much public protest. The dictatorship proceeds smoothly in the absence of any outcry from those convicted. Once locked up in their cages, they are no longer a threat. Only the dinosaur is a threat.

We come now to the terrorist. The ‘ist’ is the suffix attached to someone said to be associated, or in some manner supportive of an ‘ism’. Notice that no ism need necessarily exist. It may be a fictional construct concocted for convictional purposes. Or it may serve as a pretext to move forward some secret ambition. The purported terrorist connection need not be real or direct. It may arise simply by an accident of geography or parentage. Once a country or family is said to have the odor of the ‘ism’, then everyone who resides within its purview may be officially declared an ‘ist’ without further and closer inspection. Once the label ‘terrorist’ is attached, all further appeal to human rights falls fruitless on fallow ears.

The roaming dinosaur on the hunt does not recognise borders, but snaps up loose ists on sight on-site at will. A dictator is not immune from predation by the dinosaur. He takes pains to divert attention from himself as a deserving morsel by making votive offerings of his citizens. They are chosen at random from among his opponents, coated with necessary identifying garb, and offered up to the dinosaur for mollification and pacification.

It is a form of tribute dictators pay today, competing with each other for first favors. “My terrorists are more terrible than your terrorists,” they boast. “No, my terrorists were intending to tamper with the dinosaurs toes,” is the retort. “The dinosaur likes me better. Look, he is building a nest in my yard.” “That’s nothing. My terrorists are so dangerous, the dinosaur is staying over to assist me in training my policemen.”

When the local form of ism is dominant and popular, there are strong incentives for all residents to join as card-carrying members, or at a minimum to keep quiet about any misgivings they may have. Silence is security and survival. The unpopular ism is to be avoided, as its ists become bait for both the dictator and the dinosaur. To the outside observer there is this caution: the label ‘ist’ is an injustice if painted with a brush too broad.

Like the detrimental effects of excessive mala prohibita, too many ists in tow can undermine public respect for the law, interfering in its duty to oppose mala in se. The presence of too many innocent inmates condemns the warden, and degrades the system he protects. In extreme cases the public will revolt, coming to open the gates and release the prisoners. Sometimes they behead the jailers.

Much of the human record on Earth makes sense only if the isms and the behaviour of their loyal and motivated ists are studied. Once an ism becomes established, with positions of power and privilege attached, local opposition must quietly acquiesce or suffer the unfortunate consequence. Only within fairly recent times has dissent against a prevailing ism become possible, and this is true whether the ism has idealistic or spiritual foundations of humanism and justice, or instead flagrantly flouts the condemnation of history. Pragmatists say, “Nothing succeeds like success,” and nothing is so abominable.

The Earth, so far as the recent rise of Homo sapiens is a matter of concern, abhors the absence of an ‘ism’. The vacuum created by the collapse of the latest ‘ism’ invites a new one to take its place. It is nice to think that the succession is a kindly one, and that there is some improvement in mankind’s battle against disease, famine and injustice. Unfortunately, all ism’s have a poor human rights record, and when a dictator/leader is allowed the additional presumption of infallibility, predation of the potential opponent proceeds apace.

What is apparent at the moment is the lack of sanctuary. The dinosaur, in search of its prey, strides over boundaries with insouciance, snapping up offered ist’s with a casual indifference to previously accepted norms of behaviour. In the absence of evidence of an overt act, or a criminal conspiracy to act, there is no way to know for certain who is an ist and who is not.

Anyone who objects or defends an ist immediately becomes suspect. The ist’s are allowed no friends. Those who counsel caution are immediately labeled with odious terms, such as ‘left wing liberal’, ‘soft on ism’ or ‘fellow traveler’. The alleged ist may be subjected to public vilification and scorn, and accused of having dark powers. Ists are often subjected to imaginative tests to prove guilt or innocence. More often they are just held in some gitmo gulag without representation or trial.

Dunking in water is a favorite form of frolic with the ists from the past, along with burning them when they are tied atop a tent of tender. Many are subjected to sadistic rituals of corporeal stress, such as being pulled apart by a team of horses, or stretched on a table while the limbs are pulled from the sockets with a winch. Bystanders do not object, simply because to do so means they will be next.

When a country or group of countries, smarting from a hurt, embarks on an ist hunt, they act like a dinosaur, exibiting the same mentality. Dictators who fear disfavor come running with an armload of juicy ists, complete with dossiers dripping with confession and blood. The intent is to prove the dictator’s dedication to the ideals of the dinosaur. Dictators are always odious ists of one flavor or another, and this fact must be concealed behind the bodies of the victims.

The dinosaur doesn't care who is offered up, all ists look alike. They are accepted without question; the dictator's word is enough. The digestion of the disturbed dinosaur is insatiable. Even its young are not safe. Room can always be made for another ist; such cages are cozy and collapsible. Dedicated warders are not scarce. A few good men are readily recruited and trained for the robotic role of keeper. They are decorated as defenders of democracy through unlawful detention. The zeal shown by these scrubbed-clean and shorn short sentinels shines from their eyes like a true believer, showing them to be suitably chosen for an innate ability to instill docility in the enclosed ists with a demonic insensitivity.

The great cataclysms of the Earth follow the fateful footfalls of various contemporaneous isms and the inevitable contests that occur between them. The actors mentioned in history are the ists who found them, lead them or oppose them. Some are labeled martyrs, some are labeled great. Jesus was murdered, and is labeled a martyr. His offense was to advocate love and peace among men. Alexander, the Greek general, is called great, which means he was adept at the slaughter of his fellow humans.

All people are ists, to one degree or another, surrounded by isms and caught up in questions of fealty and fear. The labels they bear are sometimes tacit, sometimes suggested by others, and sometimes supplied in the complete ignorance of all parties. The battles between the isms and their ists are damnable, scattering the hearth and the heart of the family of man. Human rights and liberties won at great price are jettisoned as burdensome baggage when the battle between two isms is joined.

Successful isms survive for centuries, contending with the anti-isms; the ists and the anti-ists, like small mammals underfoot, endure the insanity of the battle. The suffering is sometimes in silence, sometimes in stealth, sometimes seething below the surface. It is the impotence that rankles and wrinkles the bones. Good men watch to see the dinosaur, like Gulliver among the Lilliputians, become morose in the mire with a myriad of miniscule moorings making every movement a mighty effort. Women and children picnic in his pocket, while pretty girls play on his nose.

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