and the American people.
When Muhammad Ali declined to be drafted and forced to kill “gooks” in Vietnam he said, “I ain’t got nothin’ against them Viet Cong. No Cong ever called me
Nigger.”
I agreed with him, according to my own personal ethics and values. He was
Right.
If we all had a dash of Muhammad Ali’s eloquent courage, this country and the world would be a better place today because of it.
Okay. That’s it for now. Read it and weep. . . . See you tomorrow, folks. You haven’t heard the last of me. I am the one who speaks for the spirit of freedom and decency in you. Shit.
Somebody
has to do it.
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. . . . No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we’ll kill you.
Well, shit on that dumbness. George W. Bush does not speak forme or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn’t vote for these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today—and we will not vote for them again in 2002. Or 2004. Or
ever.
Who
does
vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush?
They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us—they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis.
And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them.
HST, 2002
PART TWO
The artist at work, with Deborah, in the kitchen, 1994 (Paul Chesley)
Politics Is the Art of Controlling Your Environment
I know my own nation best. That’s why I despise it the most. And I know and love my own people too, the swine. I’m a patriot. A dangerous man.
—Edward Abbey
Running for Sheriff: Aspen 1970
On Wednesday night, seven days before the 1970 sheriff’s election, we hunkered down at Owl Farm and sealed the place off. From the road the house looked stone dark. The driveway was blocked at one end of the circle by Noonan’s Jeep, and at the other end by a blue Chevy van with Wisconsin plates. The only possible approach was on foot: You could park on the road, climb a short hill, and cross the long front yard in the glare of a huge floodlight . . . or come creeping down from behind, off either one of the two mesas that separate the house from the five-million-acre White River National Forest.
But only a fool or a lunatic would have tried to approach the place quietly from any direction at all . . . because the house was a virtualfortress, surrounded by armed crazies. Somewhere off to the left, in a dry irrigation ditch about two hundred yards beyond the volleyball court, was Big Ed Bastian, a onetime basketball star at the University of Iowa . . . limping around in the frozen darkness with a 12-gauge pump shotgun, a portable spotlight, and a .38 Special tucked into his belt. Big Ed, our long-suffering campaign coordinator, was growing progressively weaker from the ravages of his new macrobiotic diet. On top of that, he had recently snapped one of the bones in his left foot while forcing his legs into the lotus position, and now he was wearing a cast. The temperature at midnight was 12 above zero and sinking fast. There was no moon.
On the other side of the house Mike Solheim, my campaign manager, was patrolling the western perimeter with a double-barreled 12-gauge Beretta and a .357 Colt Python Magnum. We suspected that Solheim was probably turning on very heavily out there—caving in to the
When Muhammad Ali declined to be drafted and forced to kill “gooks” in Vietnam he said, “I ain’t got nothin’ against them Viet Cong. No Cong ever called me
Nigger.”
I agreed with him, according to my own personal ethics and values. He was
Right.
If we all had a dash of Muhammad Ali’s eloquent courage, this country and the world would be a better place today because of it.
Okay. That’s it for now. Read it and weep. . . . See you tomorrow, folks. You haven’t heard the last of me. I am the one who speaks for the spirit of freedom and decency in you. Shit.
Somebody
has to do it.
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. . . . No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we’ll kill you.
Well, shit on that dumbness. George W. Bush does not speak forme or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn’t vote for these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today—and we will not vote for them again in 2002. Or 2004. Or
ever.
Who
does
vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush?
They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us—they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis.
And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them.
HST, 2002
PART TWO
The artist at work, with Deborah, in the kitchen, 1994 (Paul Chesley)
Politics Is the Art of Controlling Your Environment
I know my own nation best. That’s why I despise it the most. And I know and love my own people too, the swine. I’m a patriot. A dangerous man.
—Edward Abbey
Running for Sheriff: Aspen 1970
On Wednesday night, seven days before the 1970 sheriff’s election, we hunkered down at Owl Farm and sealed the place off. From the road the house looked stone dark. The driveway was blocked at one end of the circle by Noonan’s Jeep, and at the other end by a blue Chevy van with Wisconsin plates. The only possible approach was on foot: You could park on the road, climb a short hill, and cross the long front yard in the glare of a huge floodlight . . . or come creeping down from behind, off either one of the two mesas that separate the house from the five-million-acre White River National Forest.
But only a fool or a lunatic would have tried to approach the place quietly from any direction at all . . . because the house was a virtualfortress, surrounded by armed crazies. Somewhere off to the left, in a dry irrigation ditch about two hundred yards beyond the volleyball court, was Big Ed Bastian, a onetime basketball star at the University of Iowa . . . limping around in the frozen darkness with a 12-gauge pump shotgun, a portable spotlight, and a .38 Special tucked into his belt. Big Ed, our long-suffering campaign coordinator, was growing progressively weaker from the ravages of his new macrobiotic diet. On top of that, he had recently snapped one of the bones in his left foot while forcing his legs into the lotus position, and now he was wearing a cast. The temperature at midnight was 12 above zero and sinking fast. There was no moon.
On the other side of the house Mike Solheim, my campaign manager, was patrolling the western perimeter with a double-barreled 12-gauge Beretta and a .357 Colt Python Magnum. We suspected that Solheim was probably turning on very heavily out there—caving in to the