“We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world – a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. George W Bush does not speak for me or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world.”
– Hunter S Thompson
– Hunter S Thompson
Paul Theroux on Hunter S Thompson [via RobotWisdom]
What are the conservatives doing with all the money and power that used to belong to all of us? They are telling us to be absolutely terrified, and to run around in circles like chickens with their heads cut off. But they will save us. They are making us take off our shoes at airports. Can anybody here think of a more hilarious practical joke than that one?
Smile, America. Youââ¬â¢re on Candid Camera.
And they have turned loose a myriad of our high-tech weapons, each one costing more than a hundred high schools, on a Third World country, in order to shock and awe human beings like us, like Adam and Eve, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
The other day I asked former Yankees pitcher Jim Bouton what he thought of our great victory over Iraq, and he said, “Mohammed Ali versus Mr. Rogers.”
What are conservatives? They are people who will move heaven and earth, if they have to, who will ruin a company or a country or a planet, to prove to us and to themselves that they are superior to everybody else, except for their pals. They take good care of their pals, keep them out of jail – and so on.
– Kurt Vonnegut, in a lecture for the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut.
Smile, America. Youââ¬â¢re on Candid Camera.
And they have turned loose a myriad of our high-tech weapons, each one costing more than a hundred high schools, on a Third World country, in order to shock and awe human beings like us, like Adam and Eve, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
The other day I asked former Yankees pitcher Jim Bouton what he thought of our great victory over Iraq, and he said, “Mohammed Ali versus Mr. Rogers.”
What are conservatives? They are people who will move heaven and earth, if they have to, who will ruin a company or a country or a planet, to prove to us and to themselves that they are superior to everybody else, except for their pals. They take good care of their pals, keep them out of jail – and so on.
– Kurt Vonnegut, in a lecture for the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut.
What has steadily, insidiously improved since then, of course, making humanist arguments almost irrelevant, is the technology. We must not be too distracted by the clunkiness of the means of surveillance current in Winston Smith’s era. In “our” 1984, after all, the integrated circuit chip was less than a decade old, and almost embarrassingly primitive next to the wonders of computer technology circa 2003, most notably the internet, a development that promises social control on a scale those quaint old 20th-century tyrants with their goofy moustaches could only dream about.
– Thomas Pynchon, in his new introduction to Orwell’s 1984.
– Thomas Pynchon, in his new introduction to Orwell’s 1984.
Category:
People Say Stuff Sometimes
Fear and Loathing in the Oval Office
Emptybottle quotes Hunter S. Thompson in Killer Scum and Candid Camera, with this quote from “Kingdom of Fear” “We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world – a nation of bullies and bastards who would…
Thank you for the quotes, Stavros. I was aware of Pynchon’s — after all I am stalking him in my fat-lazy-American-unwilling-to-get-off-the-couch way, but Thompson’s and Vonnegut’s were new to me.
I watch in slack-jawed awe as these Bushite ass-weasels spin from war to tax cut, tricking the voting block with promises of another rebate check in the mail, and that they won’t cum their sticky fluid of bile and hatred into our mouths.
Every weekday I commute to work and know that I can’t possibly be an American becuase I don’t fly a 30’x50′ flag from the antenna of my car. The shepple zip past me in their mini-monster trucks and glare at me in what they believe should be my flagless shame.
“My Country Right or Wrong” is the battle cry. Yet all I can do is choke back tears and know that one day someone will take Jefferson’s quote “The tree of liberty must occaissionally be watered with the blood of tyrants” quite seriously.
My beloved Constitution has been used to wipe the laughing asses of those who use the threat of terrorism to turn the screw at home.
We are bullies, greed heads and hatemongers. The gas pumps with their digital readouts encourage us to “support or troops” as we pump refined blood into the gapping maw of SUVs.
And then its home to Hamburger Helper and Entertainment Tonight asking us if we think J-Lo’s ass has grown. Because, fuck’n A, man, that’s important. Its important because we never had closure on the whole Ross and Rachel love affair. Dammit, those two kids were meant for each other!
We have jobs without health benefits and we’ll fly the flag on the upcoming Memorial Day holiday to remember those who died fighting for a way of life that exists only in lip service.
We’re a global joke and we don’t understand why.
Perhaps it is due to the fact that we tell other countries they can’t have the Bomb while the ghosts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still walk the ear seeking justice.
Justices is blind because she can’t stand to look at this shit anymore.
Killer Scum and Candid Camera
EmptyBottle: “They are people who will move heaven and earth, if they
have to, who will ruin a company or a country or a planet, to prove to
us and to themselves that they are superior to everybody else, except
for their pals.”
Nicely ranted, sir.
Thanks for the Hunter quote, Chris, and the pointer to the Guardian review. Yes, I will buy his book. He deserves our support. Like foolish truthtellers everywhere he has become an anachronism, a fool, a joke. He is mocked whenever he leaves Woody Creek and goes into town to stock up on food, fax paper and ammunition. He is jeered by small children, their mothers spit on him and their fathers avert their eyes. Once a great and respected American [nay, world] journalist, he is now one of a pathetic few, a voice croaking in the wilderness, seldom listened to, hardly heard and generally despised. I wired him earlier this evening [he’s out hunting marlin from his cigar boat off the Florida Keys with a big fucking gun] and told him to get a life and start a blog. “Blogging sounds far easier,” he said. “What do I do?” I suggested a blog like Kingdom of Fear or Better than Sex and pointed him to Blogger, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
“Never believe the first thing an FBI agent tells you about anything.”
The Doctor
BTW Who’s ranting these days? Who’s maniacal? The whole fucking world [bar a few who blow themselves up] is on Zoloft or something. The silence is appalling. Is blogging going down the toilet? Has it arrived [at the swan neck]? Does anybody know these things for sure?
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