[Mb-civic] The Hunter Thompson article

[richard haase]

hunter thompson is alive?
cool
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kevin Walz" <kevin at walzworkinc.com>
To: "Butler - Civic Michael" <mb-civic at islandemail.com>; "Kozloff Joyce"
<Joycekoz at aol.com>; "Fentress Lisa" <fentress at mclink.it>
Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2004 8:39 AM
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Hunter Thompson article


> >>
> >> 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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> >> *
> >>
> >
> >
>
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