I've become less democratic; at least while in Bucharest! I can even say I could really understand the satisfactions of having--or wanting, which is more satisfying--a dictator.

One the one hand it is of course the easy way: someone who cleans up! and enforces that minimal momentum of civilization required for a level playing field for everyone. After all marxist dictatorship of the proletariat is (supposed to be) just that.

But more specifically in Romania, or Eastern Europe and similarly afflicted lands, the corrupt network of those few people in power and those others the powerful pay or constrain to do their work is so tightly knit, so deeply entrenched, has so very much information to blackmail, smear or corrupt virtually anyone (think the archives of the Security police), has so unbelievably much money to buy anything from anywhere, that it's unthinkable they 1) care about or fear anyone 2) are able to let anyone else "live and let be" since due to internal all-or-nothing competition if they don't continually extend they risk death 3) can be dislodged in any democratic way. Buying votes has never been more real. When everyone has a price, and someone can afford to pay it for large numbers of people, what is the meaning of democracy? Maybe democracy cannot work when you have rich people.

In Bucharest the more you know what happens the more democracy seems a powerless concept, mechanism, let alone institution. I suppose, dictatorial wishes are a temporary mental reaction to glancing into that abyss. One somewhat realistic hope is that the EU's administrative power, technical sticks like accountability for banks and financial aid carrots, can somehow fence in and limit the power of the "barons" and let the rest of the country breathe. Only action at international level can effect any change when you deal with that much power.

As a matter of fact many romanians would like to see the country being controlled, run, by EU technocrats; they would be much less partial and corruptible than anyone in Romania. There are also various precedents in Romanian history of heads of state from abroad, some brought in voluntarily some imposed by various empires.

Anyway, the dictatorial/stewardship wishes became viscerally clear; I really felt clearly that side of myself. Not that other options or sides of my self we not clear. Some sort of active pacifist anarchism is always such a clear path, but it also seems to require such a highly "educated" constituency, emotionally and socially to start with, that it seems currently unrealistic. Then I think christianity, in its initial neck of the woods, carried a similar spirit, though with different emotional and analytical tools. Romania being such a religious place, I looked for what I'd call a more activist and radical religious presence, but I think the conservative institutional spirit dominates very largely.