[Mb-civic] The Hunter Thompson article

[Kevin Walz]

>>
>> The Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004
>>
>> Dr. Hunter S. Thompson sounds off on the fun-hogs in the passing lane
>>
>> By DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON
>>
>> Armageddon came early for George Bush this year, and he was not ready  
>> for
>> it. His long-awaited showdowns with my man John Kerry turned into a  
>> series
>> of horrible embarrassments that cracked his nerve and demoralized his
>> closest campaign advisers. They knew he would never recover, no  
>> matter how
>> many votes they could steal for him in Florida, where the presidential
>> debates were closely watched and widely celebrated by millions of  
>> Kerry
>> supporters who suddenly had reason to feel like winners.
>> Kerry came into October as a five-point underdog with almost no  
>> chance of
>> winning three out of three rigged confrontations with a treacherous  
>> little
>> freak like George Bush. But the debates are over now, and the victor  
>> was
>> clearly John Kerry every time. He steamrollered Bush and left him for
>> roadkill.
>>
>> Did you see Bush on TV, trying to debate? Jesus, he talked like a  
>> donkey
>> with no brains at all. The tide turned early, in Coral Gables, when  
>> Bush
>> went belly up less than halfway through his first bout with Kerry, who
>> hammered poor George into jelly. It was pitiful. . . . I almost felt  
>> sorry
>> for him, until I heard someone call him "Mister President," and then  
>> I felt
>> ashamed.
>>
>> Karl Rove, the president's political wizard, felt even worse. There  
>> is angst
>> in the heart of Texas today, and panic in the bowels of the White  
>> House.
>> Rove has a nasty little problem, and its name is George Bush. The  
>> president
>> failed miserably from the instant he got onstage with John Kerry. He  
>> looked
>> weak and dumb. Kerry beat him like a gong in Coral Gables, then again  
>> in St.
>> Louis and Tempe -- and that is Rove's problem: His candidate is a
>> weak-minded frat boy who cracks under pressure in front of 60 million
>> voters.
>>
>> That is an unacceptable failure for hardballers like Rove and Dick  
>> Cheney.
>> On the undercard in Cleveland against John Edwards, Cheney came  
>> across as
>> the cruel and sinister uberboss of Halliburton. In his only honest  
>> moment
>> during the entire debate, he vowed, "We have to make America the best  
>> place
>> in the world to do business."
>>
>> Bush signed his own death warrant in the opening round, when he  
>> finally had
>> to speak without his TelePrompTer. It was a Cinderella story brought  
>> up to
>> date in Florida that night -- except this time the false prince  
>> turned back
>> into a frog.
>>
>> Immediately after the first debate ended I called Muhammad Ali at his  
>> home
>> in Michigan, but whoever answered said the champ was laughing so hard  
>> that
>> he couldn't come to the phone. "The debate really cracked him up," he
>> chuckled. "The champ loves a good ass-whuppin'. He says Bush looked so
>> scared to fight, he finally just quit and laid down."
>>
>> Ali has seen that look before. Almost three months to the day after  
>> John
>> Fitzgerald Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, the "Louisville Lip" --  
>> then
>> Cassius Clay -- made a permanent enemy of every "boxing expert" in the
>> Western world by beating World Heavyweight Champion Sonny Liston so  
>> badly
>> that he refused to come out of his corner for the seventh round.
>>
>> This year's first presidential debate was such a disaster for George  
>> Bush
>> that his handlers had to be crazy to let him get in the ring with  
>> John Kerry
>> again. Yet Karl Rove let it happen, and we can only wonder why. But  
>> there is
>> no doubt that the president has lost his nerve, and his career in the  
>> White
>> House is finished. NO MAS.
>>
>> *****
>>
>> Presidential politics is a vicious business, even for rich white men,  
>> and
>> anybody who gets into it should be prepared to grapple with the  
>> meanest of
>> the mean. The White House has never been seized by timid warriors.  
>> There are
>> no rules, and the roadside is littered with wreckage. That is why  
>> they call
>> it the passing lane. Just ask any candidate who ever ran against  
>> George Bush
>> -- Al Gore, Ann Richards, John McCain -- all of them ambushed and  
>> vanquished
>> by lies and dirty tricks. And all of them still whining about it.
>>
>> That is why George W. Bush is President of the United States, and Al  
>> Gore is
>> not. Bush simply wanted it more, and he was willing to demolish  
>> anything
>> that got in his way, including the U.S. Supreme Court. It is not by  
>> accident
>> that the Bush White House (read: Dick Cheney & Halliburton Inc.)  
>> controls
>> all three branches of our federal government today. They are powerful  
>> thugs
>> who would far rather die than lose the election in November.
>>
>> The Republican establishment is haunted by painful memories of what  
>> happened
>> to Old Man Bush in 1992. He peaked too early, and he had no response  
>> to
>> "It's the economy, stupid."
>>
>> Which has always been the case. Every GOP administration since 1952  
>> has let
>> the Military-Industrial Complex loot the Treasury and plunge the  
>> nation into
>> debt on the excuse of a wartime economic emergency. Richard Nixon  
>> comes
>> quickly to mind, along with Ronald Reagan and his ridiculous  
>> "trickle-down"
>> theory of U.S. economic policy. If the Rich get Richer, the theory  
>> goes,
>> before long their pots will overflow and somehow "trickle down" to  
>> the poor,
>> who would rather eat scraps off the Bush family plates than eat  
>> nothing at
>> all. Republicans have never approved of democracy, and they never  
>> will. It
>> goes back to preindustrial America, when only white male property  
>> owners
>> could vote.
>>
>> Things haven't changed all that much where George W. Bush comes from.
>> Houston is a cruel and crazy town on a filthy river in East Texas  
>> with no
>> zoning laws and a culture of sex, money and violence. It's a shabby
>> sprawling metropolis ruled by brazen women, crooked cops and  
>> super-rich
>> pansexual cowboys who live by the code of the West -- which can mean  
>> just
>> about anything you need it to mean, in a pinch.
>>
>> Houston is also the unnatural home of two out of the last three  
>> presidents
>> of the United States of America, for good or ill. The other one was a
>> handsome, sex-crazed boy from next-door Arkansas, which has no laws  
>> against
>> oral sex or any other deviant practice not specifically forbidden in  
>> the New
>> Testament, including anal incest and public cunnilingus with farm  
>> animals.
>>
>> Back in 1948, during his first race for the U.S. Senate, Lyndon  
>> Johnson was
>> running about ten points behind, with only nine days to go. He was  
>> sunk in
>> despair. He was desperate. And it was just before noon on a Monday,  
>> they
>> say, when he called his equally depressed campaign manager and  
>> instructed
>> him to call a press conference for just before lunch on a slow news  
>> day and
>> accuse his high-riding opponent, a pig farmer, of having routine  
>> carnal
>> knowledge of his barnyard sows, despite the pleas of his wife and  
>> children.
>>
>> His campaign manager was shocked. "We can't say that, Lyndon," he  
>> supposedly
>> said. "You know it's not true."
>>
>> "Of course it's not true!" Johnson barked at him. "But let's make the
>> bastard deny it!"
>>
>> Johnson -- a Democrat, like Bill Clinton -- won that election by  
>> fewer than
>> a hundred votes, and after that he was home free. He went on to rule  
>> Texas
>> and the U.S. Senate for twenty years and to be the most powerful vice
>> president in the history of the United States. Until now.
>>
>> *****
>>
>> The genetically vicious nature of presidential campaigns in America  
>> is too
>> obvious to argue with, but some people call it fun, and I am one of  
>> them.
>> Election Day -- especially a presidential election -- is always a  
>> wild and
>> terrifying time for politics junkies, and I am one of those, too. We  
>> look
>> forward to major election days like sex addicts look forward to  
>> orgies. We
>> are slaves to it.
>>
>> Which is not a bad thing, all in all, for the winners. They are not  
>> the ones
>> who bitch and whine about slavery when the votes are finally counted  
>> and the
>> losers are forced to get down on their knees. No. The slaves who  
>> emerge
>> victorious from these drastic public decisions go crazy with joy and  
>> plunge
>> each other into deep tubs of chilled Cristal champagne with naked  
>> strangers
>> who want to be close to a winner.
>>
>> That is how it works in the victory business. You see it every time.  
>> The
>> Weak will suck up to the Strong, for fear of losing their jobs and  
>> their
>> money and all the fickle power they wielded only twenty-four hours  
>> ago. It
>> is like suddenly losing your wife and your home in a vagrant poker  
>> game,
>> then having to go on the road with whoremongers and beg for your  
>> dinner in
>> public.
>>
>> Nobody wants to hire a loser. Right? They stink of doom and defeat.
>>
>> "What is that horrible smell in the office, Tex? It's making me sick."
>>
>> "That is the smell of a Loser, Senator. He came in to apply for a  
>> job, but
>> we tossed him out immediately. Sgt. Sloat took him down to the  
>> parking lot
>> and taught him a lesson he will never forget."
>>
>> "Good work, Tex. And how are you coming with my new Enemies List? I  
>> want
>> them all locked up. They are scum."
>>
>> "We will punish them brutally. They are terrorist sympathizers, and  
>> most of
>> them voted against you anyway. I hate those bastards."
>>
>> "Thank you, Sloat. You are a faithful servant. Come over here and  
>> kneel
>> down. I want to reward you."
>>
>> That is the nature of high-risk politics. Veni Vidi Vici, especially  
>> among
>> Republicans. It's like the ancient Bedouin saying: As the camel falls  
>> to its
>> knees, more knives are drawn.
>>
>> *****
>>
>> Indeed. the numbers are weird today, and so is this dangerous  
>> election. The
>> time has come to rumble, to inject a bit of fun into politics. That's
>> exactly what the debates did. John Kerry looked like a winner, and it
>> energized his troops. Voting for Kerry is beginning to look like very
>> serious fun for everybody except poor George, who now suddenly looks  
>> like a
>> loser.
>>
>> That is fatal in a presidential election.
>>
>> I look at elections with the cool and dispassionate gaze of a  
>> professional
>> gambler, especially when I'm betting real money on the outcome.  
>> Contrary to
>> most conventional wisdom, I see Kerry with five points as a  
>> recommended
>> risk. Kerry will win this election, if it happens, by a bigger margin  
>> than
>> Bush finally gouged out of Florida in 2000. That was about forty-six
>> percent, plus five points for owning the U.S. Supreme Court -- which  
>> seemed
>> to equal fifty-one percent. Nobody really believed that, but George  
>> W. Bush
>> moved into the White House anyway.
>>
>> It was the most brutal seizure of power since Hitler burned the German
>> Reichstag in 1933 and declared himself the new Boss of Germany. Karl  
>> Rove is
>> no stranger to Nazi strategy, if only because it worked, for a while,  
>> and it
>> was sure as hell fun for Hitler. But not for long. He ran out of oil,  
>> the
>> whole world hated him, and he liked to gobble pure crystal  
>> biphetamine and
>> stay awake for eight or nine days in a row with his maps & his  
>> bombers & his
>> dope-addled general staff.
>>
>> They all loved the whiff. It is the perfect drug for War -- as long  
>> as you
>> are winning -- and Hitler thought he was King of the Hill forever. He  
>> had
>> created a new master race, and every one of them worshipped him. The  
>> new
>> Hitler youth loved to march and sing songs in unison and dance naked  
>> at
>> night for the generals. They were fanatics.
>>
>> That was sixty-six years ago, far back in ancient history, and things  
>> are
>> not much different today. We still love War.
>>
>> George Bush certainly does. In four short years he has turned our  
>> country
>> from a prosperous nation at peace into a desperately indebted nation  
>> at war.
>> But so what? He is the President of the United States, and you're  
>> not. Love
>> it or leave it.
>>
>> *****
>>
>> War is an option whose time has passed. Peace is the only option for  
>> the
>> future. At present we occupy a treacherous no-man's-land between  
>> peace and
>> war, a time of growing fear that our military might has expanded  
>> beyond our
>> capacity to control it and our political differences widened beyond  
>> our
>> ability to bridge them. . . .
>>
>> Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a
>> practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take  
>> the
>> profit out of war. --RICHARD M. NIXON, "REAL PEACE" (1983)
>>
>> Richard Nixon looks like a flaming liberal today, compared to a golem  
>> like
>> George Bush. Indeed. Where is Richard Nixon now that we finally need  
>> him?
>>
>> If Nixon were running for president today, he would be seen as a  
>> "liberal"
>> candidate, and he would probably win. He was a crook and a bungler,  
>> but what
>> the hell? Nixon was a barrel of laughs compared to this gang of thugs  
>> from
>> the Halliburton petroleum organization who are running the White  
>> House today
>> -- and who will be running it this time next year, if we (the  
>> once-proud,
>> once-loved and widely respected "American people") don't rise up like
>> wounded warriors and whack those lying petroleum pimps out of the  
>> White
>> House on November 2nd.
>>
>> Nixon hated running for president during football season, but he did  
>> it
>> anyway. Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised  
>> everything he
>> stood for -- but if he were running for president this year against  
>> the evil
>> Bush-Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him.
>>
>> You bet. Richard Nixon would be my Man. He was a crook and a creep  
>> and a
>> gin-sot, but on some nights, when he would get hammered and wander  
>> around in
>> the streets, he was fun to hang out with. He would wear a silk sweat  
>> suit
>> and pull a stocking down over his face so nobody could recognize him.  
>> Then
>> we would get in a cab and cruise down to the Watergate Hotel, just for
>> laughs.
>>
>> *****
>>
>> Even the Fun-hog vote has started to swing for John Kerry, and that  
>> is a
>> hard bloc to move. Only a fool would try to run for president without  
>> the
>> enthusiastic support of the Fun-hog vote. It is huge, and always  
>> available,
>> but they will never be lured into a voting booth unless voting  
>> carries a
>> promise of Fun.
>>
>> At least thirty-three percent of all eligible voters in this country  
>> are
>> confessed Fun-hogs, who will cave into any temptation they stumble  
>> on. They
>> have always hated George Bush, but until now they had never made the
>> connection between hating George Bush and voting for John Kerry.
>>
>> The Fun-hogs are starving for anything they can laugh with, instead  
>> of at.
>> But George Bush is not funny. Nobody except fellow members of the  
>> Petroleum
>> Club in Houston will laugh at his silly barnyard jokes unless it's for
>> money.
>>
>> When young Bush was at Yale in the Sixties, he told the same joke  
>> over and
>> over again for two years, according to some of his classmates. One of  
>> them
>> still remembers it:
>>
>> There was a young man named Green
>> Who invented a jack-off machine
>> On the twenty-third stroke
>> The damn thing broke
>> And churned his nuts into cream.
>>
>> "It was horrible to hear him tell it," said the classmate, who spoke  
>> only on
>> condition of anonymity. He lifted his shirt and showed me a scar on  
>> his back
>> put there by young George. "He burned this into my flesh with a  
>> red-hot
>> poker," he said solemnly, "and I have hated him ever since. That  
>> jackass was
>> born cruel. He burned me in the back while I was blindfolded. This  
>> scar will
>> be with me forever."
>>
>> There is nothing new or secret about that story. It ran on the front  
>> page of
>> the Yale Daily News and caused a nasty scandal for a few weeks, but  
>> nobody
>> was ever expelled for it. George did his first cover-up job. And he  
>> liked
>> it.
>>
>> *****
>>
>> I watch three or four frantic network-news bulletins about Iraq every  
>> day,
>> and it is all just fraudulent Pentagon propaganda, the absolute  
>> opposite of
>> what it says: u.s. transfers sovereignty to iraqi interim  
>> "government." Hot
>> damn! Iraq is finally Free, and just in time for the election! It is a
>> deliberate cowardly lie. We are no more giving power back to the Iraqi
>> people than we are about to stop killing them.
>>
>> Your neighbor's grandchildren will be fighting this stupid,  
>> greed-crazed
>> Bush-family "war" against the whole Islamic world for the rest of  
>> their
>> lives, if John Kerry is not elected to be the new President of the  
>> United
>> States in November.
>>
>> The question this year is not whether President Bush is acting more  
>> and more
>> like the head of a fascist government but if the American people want  
>> it
>> that way. That is what this election is all about. We are down to
>> nut-cutting time, and millions of people are angry. They want a Regime
>> Change.
>>
>> Some people say that George Bush should be run down and sacrificed to  
>> the
>> Rat gods. But not me. No. I say it would be a lot easier to just vote  
>> the
>> bastard out of office on November 2nd.
>>
>> *****
>>
>> BULLETIN
>> KERRY WINS GONZO ENDORSMENT; DR. THOMPSON JOINS DEMOCRAT IN CALLING  
>> BUSH
>> "THE SYPHILLIS PRESIDENT" "Four more years of George Bush will be  
>> like four
>> more years of syphilis," the famed author said yesterday at a hastily  
>> called
>> press conference near his home in Woody Creek, Colorado. "Only a fool  
>> or a
>> sucker would vote for a dangerous loser like Bush," Dr. Thompson  
>> warned. "He
>> hates everything we stand for, and he knows we will vote against him  
>> in
>> November."
>>
>> Thompson, long known for the eerie accuracy of his political  
>> instincts, went
>> on to denounce Ralph Nader as "a worthless Judas Goat with no moral
>> compass."
>>
>> "I endorsed John Kerry a long time ago," he said, "and I will do  
>> everything
>> in my power, short of roaming the streets with a meat hammer, to help  
>> him be
>> the next President of the United States."
>>
>> *****
>>
>> Which is true. I said all those things, and I will say them again. Of  
>> course
>> I will vote for John Kerry. I have known him for thirty years as a  
>> good man
>> with a brave heart -- which is more than even the president's friends  
>> will
>> tell you about George W. Bush, who is also an old acquaintance from  
>> the
>> white-knuckle days of yesteryear. He is hated all over the world,  
>> including
>> large parts of Texas, and he is taking us all down with him.
>>
>> Bush is a natural-born loser with a filthy-rich daddy who pimped his  
>> son out
>> to rich oil-mongers. He hates music, football and sex, in no  
>> particular
>> order, and he is no fun at all.
>>
>> I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000, but I will not make that mistake  
>> again. The
>> joke is over for Nader. He was funny once, but now he belongs to the  
>> dead.
>> There is nothing funny about helping George Bush win Florida again.  
>> Nader is
>> a fool, and so is anybody who votes for him in November -- with the  
>> obvious
>> exception of professional Republicans who have paid big money to turn  
>> poor
>> Ralph into a world-famous Judas Goat.
>>
>> Nader has become so desperate and crazed that he's stooped to paying
>> homeless people to gather signatures to get him on the ballot. In
>> Pennsylvania, the petitions he submitted contained tens of thousands  
>> of
>> phony signatures, including Fred Flintstone, Mickey Mouse and John  
>> Kerry. A
>> judge dumped Ralph from the ballot there, saying the forms were "rife  
>> with
>> forgeries" and calling it "the most deceitful and fraudulent exercise  
>> ever
>> perpetrated upon this court."
>>
>> But they will keep his name on the ballot in the long-suffering  
>> Hurricane
>> State, which is ruled by the President's younger brother, Jeb, who  
>> also
>> wants to be the next President of the United States. In 2000, when  
>> they sent
>> Jim Baker down to Florida, I knew it was all over. The fix was in. In  
>> that
>> election, 97,488 people voted for Nader in Florida, and Gore lost the  
>> state
>> by 537 votes. You don't have to be from Texas to understand the moral  
>> of
>> that story. It's like being out-coached in the Super Bowl. There are  
>> no
>> rules in the passing lane. Only losers play fair, and all winners  
>> have blood
>> on their hands.
>>
>> *****
>>
>> Back in June, when John Kerry was beginning to feel like a winner, I  
>> had a
>> quick little rendezvous with him on a rain-soaked runway in Aspen,  
>> Colorado,
>> where he was scheduled to meet with a harem of wealthy campaign
>> contributors. As we rode to the event, I told him that Bush's vicious  
>> goons
>> in the White House are perfectly capable of assassinating Nader and  
>> blaming
>> it on him. His staff laughed, but the Secret Service men didn't. Kerry
>> quickly suggested that I might make a good running mate, and we  
>> reminisced
>> about trying to end the Vietnam War in 1972.
>>
>> That was the year I first met him, at a riot on that elegant little  
>> street
>> in front of the White House. He was yelling into a bullhorn and I was  
>> trying
>> to throw a dead, bleeding rat over a black-spike fence and onto the
>> president's lawn.
>>
>> We were angry and righteous in those days, and there were millions of  
>> us. We
>> kicked two chief executives out of the White House because they were  
>> stupid
>> warmongers. We conquered Lyndon Johnson and we stomped on Richard  
>> Nixon --
>> which wise people said was impossible, but so what? It was fun. We  
>> were
>> warriors then, and our tribe was strong like a river.
>>
>> That river is still running. All we have to do is get out and vote,  
>> while
>> it's still legal, and we will wash those crooked warmongers out of  
>> the White
>> House.
>>
>> Hunter S. Thompson's latest book is "Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush
>> Doctrine and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness"
>>
>>
>>
>> ********************************************************************** 
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