Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)

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A Nazi by Any Other Name: South Africa under the dictatorship of General Malan is rapidly sliding into this, practically becoming The Draka. Not only is it using weapons of mass destruction, up to and including dirty bombs, against its enemies in the rest of southern Africa, but under the influence of Afrikaner nationalists like Eugene Terre'Blanche, it's starting to discriminate against non-Afrikaner whites (particularly the Rhodesian refugees) on top of the existing apartheid system. It's been stated, in updates written from the perspective of the future, that they will break out the nukes before it's all over. Most people who deal in words don't have much faith in them and I am no exception — especially the big ones like Happy and Love and Honest and Strong. They are too elusive and far too relative when you compare them to sharp, mean little words like Punk and Cheap and Phony. I feel at home with these, because they are scrawny and easy to pin, but the big ones are tough and it takes either a priest or a fool to use them with any confidence. South Africa under Apartheid is a fully fledged Neo Nazi state in all but name, and wields an arsenal of WMDs including dirty bombs which it hurls at its neighbours with wild abandon and is fully protected by President Rumsfeld as a "bastion of freedom" due to the increasing insanity of his anti-communist paranoia. Even that far-left radical bastard George S. McGovern — babbling a maddening litany of his most Far Out ideas — would be hard pressed to crank up a more than 30% animosity quotient.

If any part of it doesn’t seem to make sense, by all means call it to my attention. I’m not trying to send you out “on the road” in search of Valhalla, but merely pointing out that it is not necessary to accept the choices handed down to you by life as you know it. There is more to it than that— no one HAS to do something he doesn’t want to do for the rest of his life. But then again, if that’s what you wind up doing, by all means convince yourself that you HAD to do it. You’ll have lots of company.Benevolent Conspiracy: When it's clear Rumsfeld's policies are destroying America, Haig and other military officers plot to overthrow Rumsfeld and place the more moderate Vice President Edwards. It fails with horrible consequences for the U.S.

Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov is, despite his own authoritarian positions, deeply disturbed by the madness of Rumsfeld, especially when he informs Ryzhkov in so many words that he knows the USSR kidnapped Richard Nixon, and that he sees it acceptable for them to execute a former US President if they want to, because it will help Rumsfeld garner domestic political support in the wake of his death. Ryzhkov, who was ignorant of and afterwards opposed to the kidnapping for obvious reasons, sees this as beyond the pale and has Nixon released unharmed. The city's frightening now. That's the basis of my reaction to Las Vegas. It's not the city I wrote about. It's not the same place at all. You'll notice that even the — what do you call them? — milestone or trademark casinos are now gone. Japan Takes Over the World: Japan appears to be coming closer to this than in OTL. The worse 1970s economy means that Japan avoids the economic bubble of the 1980s. And increasingly nationalistic political forces take control of Japan which encourage the creation of a strong military including a nuclear bomb. Comments on Pat Buchanan in a letter to Garry Wills (17 October 1973); published in Fear and Loathing in America (2000) ISBN 0747549648 Is it possible that he has already abandoned all hope of getting re-elected? Or does he plan to cancel the Election altogether by declaring a national military emergency with terrorists closing in from all sides, leaving him with no choice but to launch a huge bomb immediately?. . . Desperate men do desperate things, and stupid men do stupid things. We are in for a desperately stupid summer.

The only ones left with any confidence at all are the New Dumb. It is the beginning of the end of our world as we knew it. Doom is the operative ethic. I had a truly horrible dream last night … [ Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mike Tyson and I] were on our way to a TV studio for a debate about his long-time working friendship with the powerful Bush family from Texas and how it might affect the next Bush presidency when The Terminator seizes power in Sacramento and tries to hand over the state's 54 electoral votes by election day in 2004. That is the basic plan behind Schwarzenegger running. He doesn't want to be Governor, he just wants the electoral votes to go to Bush this time. Of course, there are certain risks involved with that sort of behavior. He managed to make a host of enemies along the way, infuriating elements running the gamut from the Hells Angels to Richard Nixon. Not that he seemed to mind. He knew it came with the territory — that if you wanted the real story you had to take risks. Fascist, but Inefficient: Rumsfeld's dictatorial and corporatist regime, from driving away innovators by violating patent rights and giving them to TRW, to the complete failure of the Cuba invasion. This was very much like Teddy Kennedy telling the press that his wife, his children, and indeed the whole Kennedy blood-clan have decided to vote for McGovern.