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U-Know! Forum » Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail in '72 - Hunter |
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Markoid 1621 posts |
Feb 07, 2017, 10:16
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Noint! http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/timewarp-campaign-72-19730705
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Howburn Digger 986 posts |
Feb 07, 2017, 21:05
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"Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail in '72" is a great read. It should be read alongside "The Great Shark Hunt" to really understand what was happening in the US during 70-75 and where we are Now. Those two books are probably the best explanation of why America had that weird Nixon - Ford interlude, why what later happened to Jimmy Carter, happened to Jimmy Carter, why Reagan descended from California, what orifice squirted out the Bushes, where the Gulf Wars came from and why Clinton and Obama had to happen without it seeming like anything had happened, or even did happen. They are also incredibly entertaining and funny. I am genuinely suprised Duke was allowed to live so long.
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phallus dei 583 posts |
Feb 08, 2017, 13:29
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Howburn Digger wrote: "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail in '72" is a great read. It should be read alongside "The Great Shark Hunt" to really understand what was happening in the US during 70-75 and where we are Now. Those two books are probably the best explanation of why America had that weird Nixon - Ford interlude, why what later happened to Jimmy Carter, happened to Jimmy Carter, why Reagan descended from California, what orifice squirted out the Bushes, where the Gulf Wars came from and why Clinton and Obama had to happen without it seeming like anything had happened, or even did happen. They are also incredibly entertaining and funny. I am genuinely suprised Duke was allowed to live so long. Haven't read the books but I can say you just provided an excellent summary of the last 45 years of American political history!
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Howburn Digger 986 posts |
Feb 08, 2017, 23:56
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phallus dei wrote: Haven't read the books but I can say you just provided an excellent summary of the last 45 years of American political history! "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail in '72" takes a bit of persevering because the also-rans and coulda-been-a-contenders from 1971 are mostly forgotten on this side of the pond these days. So it is hard to put some of the comments/ situations/ stories into any kinda context at first. But stick in there and get into Duke's groove and you find it is easy to spit the bullets as he does. However, "The Great Shark Hunt" is his crowning glory for me. Similar to "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" but writ much larger across a biblical sized tome of Ali interviews, Race Meetings, Governer's Breakfasts and general trough-snouting... My copy is 600-odd pages and it could do with 600 more. Probably haven't read them in twenty years. I actually looked them out after reading this thread and I have started over again. Highly recommended.
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Sin Agog 2253 posts |
Feb 09, 2017, 01:42
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Were Hunter alive today, aside from the stocks of grapefruits and Kentucky Bourbon suddenly going up, he'd bloody loathe this trend of manipulative millionaires/billionaires gaining power by telling the poorest to direct their ire at other poor, rather than the people who have the most to gain from an angry rabble. He'd have thrown in his chips with Bernie Sanders, whose beliefs were totally in line with George McGovern (except, I'd say a McGovern type is more electable now than back then, despite what we're told). He was always butting heads with capitalist schweinhund, be they Aspen tourism bureaucrats or Jann Wenner. No way he would have got behind the idea of businessmen barging their way into power so they can change the laws to suit their monetary interests. While he appreciated privacy like few others, a libertarian he was not. Hunter was, essentially, a more fiery beatnik. I wonder if he and his ashes exploded in the sky at just the right time.
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phallus dei 583 posts |
Feb 09, 2017, 14:16
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Sin Agog wrote: Were Hunter alive today, aside from the stocks of grapefruits and Kentucky Bourbon suddenly going up, he'd bloody loathe this trend of manipulative millionaires/billionaires gaining power by telling the poorest to direct their ire at other poor, rather than the people who have the most to gain from an angry rabble. He'd have thrown in his chips with Bernie Sanders, whose beliefs were totally in line with George McGovern (except, I'd say a McGovern type is more electable now than back then, despite what we're told). He was always butting heads with capitalist schweinhund, be they Aspen tourism bureaucrats or Jann Wenner. No way he would have got behind the idea of businessmen barging their way into power so they can change the laws to suit their monetary interests. While he appreciated privacy like few others, a libertarian he was not. Hunter was, essentially, a more fiery beatnik. I wonder if he and his ashes exploded in the sky at just the right time. I'd like to think that if Hunter had any human decency, he'd be overjoyed at watching the established American political rats flee their sinking ship. You write "No way he would have got behind the idea of businessmen barging their way into power so they can change the laws to suit their monetary interests" as if businessmen dictating law is a new policy. Businessmen have controlled everything in US politics for the past 40+ years. Goldman Sachs picked out Obama's cabinet for him before he even came to office. You hold up Bernie Sanders as if he was a hero. Sanders is a sell-out. He should have gone third party. At the very least, once wikileaks made it absolutely clear that the primary was rigged (which everyone with common sense already knew), he should have rescinded his support for Hilary Clinton. The two options with Trump are : 1) he is a typical lying politician who somehow pisses off all the other lying politicians (in which case it's a lot of fun seeing the rats turn on each other); or 2) he is a legitimate change. American politics is so completely fucked that the only way there can be an independent voice is for that voice to already be wealthy enough that it can't be "bought." If the person's not already a member of the 1%, all talk of "change" is a a fairly tale. I fell for the fairy tale with Clinton '92 and Obama '08 (and even Obama '12) but not again. The other option to bring about change, aside from relying on a "leader", is to build a genuine mass movement of millions of people that has no desire to enter the establishment. Such a mass movement is impossible to build in America at present due in part to the corrosive influence of identity politics (among other things). So, those of use who really want to see the establishment burn are stuck with Trump.
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Sin Agog 2253 posts |
Edited Feb 09, 2017, 23:42
Feb 09, 2017, 15:28
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The aspect of Obama and Clinton you don't like is their centrist side, the part which became more right-wing in order to get into power and mollify their opponents. It's that right-wing/centrist side which fires off those drones, or implemented the three strikes policy after Dukakis got crucified for being soft on crime. What we've done is thrown away the other part of them, that which offered compassion to the poor and hard done by, and instead gone full-on right, forgetting that it was the right-wing elements of the previous administration which caused the most harm. Now a government with actual Neo-Nazis in office, whose loathing of Muslims isn't veiled in the slightest, is supposedly better off for Muslims? A government full of maverick, asset-stripping businessmen will supposedly make America better for those below the poverty line? Sanders didn't want to split votes, put simply. I still don't see how lurching even further to the right, into self-interest and activating thousands of Muslim terrorists who'd never have even touched a gun were it not for being constantly told by the American government that that's what they're born for, is the humane solution. Because you know that's exactly what will happen, and what the masters of war want to happen: terrorists going from an extreme minority with a great media hyperbole machine behind them, into an actual threat to be reckoned with. That's what we'll see in Trump's administration. He didn't implement that ban, and continue all of Obama's campaigns in the middle east, just to make friends. While I think it's important to remind people of the dangers of centrism, as you're doing, I refuse to become sucked into your scorched earth brand of change. I suspect you're in that honeymoon period a lot of voters find themselves in when a new leader is elected. The slate has been cleared. A new sheriff is in town. Like in all the previous instances, you'll be disabused of your optimism very, very soon.
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phallus dei 583 posts |
Edited Feb 09, 2017, 23:00
Feb 09, 2017, 23:00
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Thanks for taking the time to reply. I respect your consistent efforts to engage in actual debate on these pages. Fundamentally, I don't see Trump as being any worse than Bush/Obama, or what Hilary would have been. I think that's a big difference in our opinions. So to me, the worse that Trump can do is continue the same polices America has been under for the past four decades or so. I assume that most people are able to tell the difference between words and actions. It doesn't matter if someone is saying that you have "dignity" if they are stomping on your face. Obama, Hilary, and the whole disgraceful pro-imperialist "left" cloak their crimes in a "humanitarian" guise. But nice words can't hide what their actions have revealed: these people are killers. Trump is just crude in his words. He hasn't been in office long enough for us to be able to tell what his actions will be. Picking an unknown (Trump) is a better choice than supporting a known psychopath (Hillary). Sanders was completely wrong and immoral in not splitting the vote. The corporate-controlled media insists that Trump and his administration are filled with "fascists" but I don't see it. Can you provide some concrete examples? In any case, promoting American nationalism is not the same as fascism, providing one doesn't use such "exceptionalist" rhetoric to justify invading another country. The only thing close to fascism that I do see in America is the shrill practice of the so-called "left" to silence dissenting voices with their catch-all phrases of "political correctness" and "fake news." Finally, those who hate the West enough to commit terrorist actions against it already have plenty of reasons to do so. I doubt that the current American immigration delay is going to be the deciding factor in setting anyone off.
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Sin Agog 2253 posts |
Edited Feb 10, 2017, 05:39
Feb 10, 2017, 01:27
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OK, first off I'll address the politically correct left thing. From what I can tell, the 'Social Justice Warrior' is the first-born child of millennial parents. They learn about people from the internet, conceive a rigid notion of how they should act with one another, and then expect everyone to abide by it exactly. Like with the early Bolsheviks, they're applying hard intellectualism to a disparate, unpredicable group of people, and expecting it to work as well as it does in their heads. It's unsurprising that a generation far less experienced with actual human contact than any that came before it will fail to grasp that those born into a different world will resent being told to immediately give up all their bad habits at once or face ostracism. I genuinely think the politically correct movement, like many of the tenets of the "fascist left" (a phrase I see echoed around youtube comments ad nauseam of late. Note that one of the best ways to take out your enemy is to group them all together at once. It's much trickier dealing with the left as individuals. I'm left-wing, and I can see the huge, horrible flaws of liberalism. Maybe many other of the left-wingers who you might have put in this bracket can too?), comes from a good place. They're about people being kinder and more civil to each other, though that kindness isn't worth a damn if it comes at the back of a government mandate. As to the Neo-Nazi comment, that was an allusion to Steve Bannon. It could be that what I've read about him is an exaggeration, but it doesn't seem it. I do believe that all of one's politics and beliefs tend to be part of the same package. If you can be that disdainful of several whole races, that hate will bleed into your policies, too. I also want to point out that Obama seemed to constantly be trying to ice-skate uphill during his presidency. He was a firm believer in "democracy by degrees", but being part of a ruling party who in many ways had less power than the opposition made the intervals of those degrees very, very small. Many of the abysmal acts committed during his terms could actually be shown to have been instigated by the opposition. That doesn't excuse the fact that he endorsed the perpetuation of this chimera called "terrorism." As you're no doubt aware, the concept of terrorism is the gift that keeps giving for politicians. It's elusive enough that it can be exploited a myriad of ways. Like with drugs, you can take the tact that "this time we'll beat it," when you can't really beat a concept, can you? You can keep on pumping money into it (and extracting money from it) as it's a fight that can't be won, just wheeled out whenever it comes in handy. Any enemy, besides a few cognoscenti (i.e. let's say the entire Australian military force, though maybe even them), can be labelled terrorists when it's convenient. Obama should have read the stats about the number of terrorist-caused deaths vs the number of civilians killed in government-sanctioned retaliations; about how many more children were killed by U.S. and British forces than actual terrorists. He should have mentioned that Iraq was created and indiscriminately brutalised by the Brits, thus starting a snowball that later wreaked havoc (like with every new enemy we're told to hate, they did not just emerge from out of the ground fully-formed, like the army grown from dragon's teeth who Jason and his Argonauts faced off against- they all have a much longer history with us than we're ever told about). He should have mentioned all the arms sold to countries on our civil rights list. He should have mentioned a number of things, instead of towing the party line, but he didn't. Still, he as a man was at least more empathetic and compassionate than many of the harder-right in his party and the opposition who were really gunning for war. Snowden was interviewed by Katie Couric recently and he said something about how personality politics is a grave problem. We should be focusing on the ideas propagated and the actions implemented, and the personalities involved should be given far less focus than they are. I feel like people have used Obama, the person, as a sacrifical lamb for everything that went wrong during his term, rather than looking to the root of the problems, which often had little or nothing to do with him. Also, while I'm on the subject of terrorists, I do feel we create a thousand times more by constantly talking about them all the time than ever would have existed otherwise. I half suspect it's the same with pedophilia. The media brings the concept to the forefront of people's minds until it becomes a viable option to a small fraction of people to whom it might never have even occurred. The sheer flagrancy of the seven country ban will certainly have activated many who would otherwise have remained inert. That's the weird, circular nature of this whole situation. Fighting terrorism creates terrorists. I'm going to reference Greek mythology a lot in this post for some reason, but they're like Medusa, they only become more powerful when we're gazing their way. And frankly, in the grand scheme of things, we have far better things to concentrate our energies on anyway. Your paragraph about words and actions may have a point, but the thing about celebrity culture is we assign these Olympians to represent the rest of us, just like with the flawed, venal, constantly interfering Greek Gods. If we've shifted fairly smart, if imperfect, fellows like Obama out of the spotlight in favour of low-browed, thick-headed cro-magnons like Trump and Farage, who are just so ridiculously transparent in the way they tap into that tribal fear of the other lurking in most of us in order to get what they want; well this new cast of actors in the great passion play unfurling before us really make us all look bad. People learn to speak and pick up accents and ideas by example, by being exposed to them. The whole universal unconsciousness is in constant flux. I personally don't like my share of it being warped by classless wheelers and dealers like Trump. Fact is, and I know this is pretty selfish, but he's really not the kind of dude I want in my life for years on end. I guess I'm just going to have to live with his continually inserting himself into the periphery of my life for a long time to come. I understand that a slimy used car salesman is less harmful than a military pawn, but it's not just Trump who's in power, is it? It's the Republicans who now control the whole board, many of whom are the same individuals who were floating around during Bush's era. Obama may have helped keep Bush's war going (though as I pointed out, the Republican house were with him every step of the way, and only tended to object to the social changes), but the atrocities commmitted during Bush's years in power were in no way matched. Now those same artisans of destruction have more power than ever before, many of whom (like Hilary) having a strong financial incentive to keep this parade of wars going and sell as many weapons as possible to whoever will take them. Trump won't be able to stop them. I've been given no indication that he even particularly wants to. Excelsior, Sin H Agog. "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
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phallus dei 583 posts |
Edited Feb 10, 2017, 05:44
Feb 10, 2017, 05:43
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Thanks for the detailed response. You brought up quite a few points. Sorry if I don't respond to them all. I like your analysis that so-called "Social justice warriors" (although to be fair, I don't think they call themselves that) are a product of the internet generation, which causes them to adopt more strident views when dealing with people in person. That is a persuasive point which I hadn't considered. I agree wholeheartedly with your warning not to lump whole groups under categories - whether they be "fascist left" or "fascist Trump supporters" or fascist whatever. While polarization is probably inescapable at any time of severe crisis - and I think that the neo-conservative / neo-liberal (it's the same thing) agenda which has dominated the last 40 years is indeed entering its terminal phase - we should try, as much as possible, to remain aware of nuance. The main issue I want to address in your comment, though, is that I'm not at all convinced that Obama was somehow better than Bush. The crimes he (and other Western leaders) committed against Libya and Syria truly rank as crimes against humanity. Those countries have been absolutely destroyed, and under false pretenses. I encourage you to do research into this if you haven't already. What you will find is sickening. When you add to this all the other coups that America planned out during Obama's reign (Honduras,Ukraine, destabilization in Venezuela,etc), Obama's character becomes abundantly clear. Personally, I'd rate Obama as worse than Bush, simply because with Bush you knew you were getting an asshole. Trump during his campaign spoke frequently about how America ruined Libya, Syria, and Iraq. He talked about working with Putin instead of continuing our ridiculous Cold War 2.0. Those are great comments in my view. Certainly much better than anything Hilary was saying. I agree that the problems of American government are not just related to Obama or Hilary or Bush. It is an entire system. One of the things that made me realize Trump is a genuine alternative from the status quo was when the entire system started attacking him. Not just Democrats, but many leading Republicans, the entire establishment media, almost all of academia. All the people that have either looked the other way or directly profited from our imperialist system started to label Trump a fascist. What absolute fucking hypocrites. BTW, I also identify with the left (though with the "New Left" the shook the West in the 60s and 70s, not the current identity-politics left). In an ideal world Trump, Bannon & Co would be far from my "ideal" leaders. But we don't live in an ideal world, and so I pick the side which is clearly the lesser evil.
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