9/11 caused a "nationwide nervous breakdown"
The godfather of gonzo says 9/11 caused a "nationwide nervous
breakdown" -- and let the Bush crowd loot the country and savage
American democracy.
By John Glassie
Feb 3, 2003 | He calls himself "an elderly dope fiend living out in the wilderness," but Hunter S. Thompson
will also be found this week on the New York Times bestseller list with
a new memoir, "Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed
Child in the Final Days of the American Century."
Listening
to his ragged voice, there is some sense that Thompson, now 65, has
reined in his outlaw ways, gotten a little softer, perhaps a little
more gracious now that he's reached retirement age. "I've found you can
deal with the system a lot easier if you use their rules," he says. "I
talk to a lot of lawyers."
But do not be deceived. In
"Kingdom of Fear" and in a telephone interview with Salon from his
compound in Aspen, Colo., Thompson did what he's always done: speak the
truth about American society as he sees it, without worrying much about
decorum. "Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads?" he
writes, referring to the people currently occupying the White House.
"They are the racists and hate mongers among us -- they are the Ku Klux
Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis."
That's his enduring attitude in this new age of darkness: a lot more loathing than fear.
The
godfather of gonzo believes America has suffered a "nationwide nervous
breakdown" since 9/11, and as a result is compromising civil liberties
for what he calls "the illusion of security." The compromise, he says,
is "a disaster of unthinkable proportions" and "part of the downward
spiral of dumbness" he believes is plaguing the country.
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