I have a radio on my mobile phone, which I usually listen to on the way home from doing the school run. It's usually tuned to Radio 2. Well this morning I caught the "Pause for Thought" section where a religious personage brings their point of view to bear on one of the topics of the day.

Today it was the leader of the American Methodist church who'd recently been on a visit to Aushwitz.

He talked about something I've been saying for at least half my life, which is that the best way of ensuring the horrors of the world wars don't happen again is by remembering what happened. I think a visit to a concentration camp should be compulsory and one day I'll go.

There's a heaviness apparently, you can feel the evil in the air. Knowing that many hundreds of thousands were murdered on the ground on which you stand surely must humble and horrify.

But despite that, we now live in a world where "genocide" is a word we hear almost every day in the news. The Balkans and Africa have been decimated in the name of "ethnic cleansing", as has Cambodia in the past. I find it unbearable that the lessons we learned, or our grandfathers learned in the World Wars only lasted two generations. Are we so shortsighted? Can it be that there are people out there growing up right now whose minds will naturally turn to the systematic destruction of all those who are different than them?

The answer of course is yes.

But where does blame lie? That young innocent suckling on hs mother's breast will one day turn out to be the murderer of millions of people. How does one become the other? What volume of horror and hatred does an infant need to be filled with in order to become a despot?

Most of the worlds governments are corrupt, if not all. Almost every country in the world supports and actively encourages the villification and persecution of groups of people whose only crime is to think or behave differently.

Hundreds of people will die in the next hour because of institutional greed, corruption and hatred.

And we, the person on the street, can do nothing to stop it. That's right, nothing. All the petition signing, protesting, chest ebating in the world won't make the damndest bit of difference. Chain youselves to railings, throw yourselves in front of tanks, drive your little car hundreds of miles and set yourself alight in the town square, it won't make a difference.

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. You see, it's not us that need to change. It's not the protesters and petition signers that need to alter the way they do things. It's the people in charge that need to change. Power doesn't necessarily need to corrupt. You don't HAVE to play the game "their" way.

But to be able to make a difference, you need to be in that position of command, so how do you get there?

Easy. Play it their way. Use the corrupt system to your advantage, get all the way to the top then, when they can't stop you, change everything. Be the sheep in wolf's clothing. Compromise your principles until you don't need to anymore because the outcome of your subterfuge is so good and right that you will be forgiven. The world is full of secret organisations and conspiracies - the powers behind the thrones, the voice in the ear of the figureheads. It's about time one of those voices started saying the right things.

I'd love to live in a world where there were secret sleeper agents throughout the worlds governments who will one day start eradicating red tape, eliminationg third world debt, decommissioning weapons, relaxing borders, promoting religious tolerance, crippling big business.

A pipe dream worth having, but a world in chaos as a result. I may write a story about it.