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THE ABSURD TIMES
Trump, Putin v. Sanity
by
Czar Donic
Let us start out with a quote:
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2:13 PM - 16 Jul 2018
We now have an answer for him, even though his ashes were shot over the mountains out of a some kind of cannon by Johnny Depp. Does that sound strange to you? Well, it shouldn't. Not if you have been seeing what is going on today.
This was posted, apparently, by a Hunter Thompson fan on social media. Now here's the rest of the story, my story, as I remember it, and as it happened.
Before we get to that, though, there is one thing you have to keep in mind about Donald J. Trump and that is he actually believes he is the greatest and all criticism or accusation against him is motivated though envy. If you can not trust this, and still pay attention to what is going on here, they may well be forced to build a new wing in the mental institution for for people who went totally insane trying to makes sense about of what is going on and those when take these things seriously.
He first asked that question during the Presidency of Richard Nixon as the Watergate process was going on and he was, I think, the political correspondent for the ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE (this was before it moved to New York for the culture and money). It is pretty well documented what happened during that, and leading up to that, but it is worth revisiting.
The first real encounter with politics many of us had was during the 60s when Lyndon Johnson ran as the peace candidate against the Koch family's candidate Barry Goldwater to promised to "bomb North Vietnam into the stone ages." Less than a year later, we were sending troops over there to "help save Vietnam from Vietnamese," as Tom Paxton said. RFK and Martin Luther King had been assassinated, probably with help from J. Edgar Hoover who hated Bobby with a passion because he insisted he report to him, not directly to the President. With him out of the way, he maneuvered his way back into fashion. LBJ was in no way intimidated by Hoover, but kept him on as Hoover had found his weak spot. He entertained LBJ with reports of the sexual exploits of people in Congress and this made great bedtime reading for the old bugger.
So, Gene McCarthy had run LBJ out of office and it looked like Bobby would come back. Gene folded, Bobby was killed, and that led to Nixon, one of the most paranoid presidents we have ever seen. In his second term, he was still frightened that he would loose re-election and thus several things happened, including the Pentagon papers and the Watergate scandal. Before his first term, he was able to take advantage of the Police Riot in Chicago at the convention that nominated Hubert Humphrey to run for President.
The police riot (as it was called in an official report) took place mainly in the Grant Park Area outside the convention, and was directed by Mayor Daley, not the Democratic party. Most of us were simply protesting the process, Abbie Hoffmann was running around insanely, usually wild on acid, but hard to photograph as we had helped him write FUCK on his forehead. I briefly acted as the press secretary, explaining why our candidate was named "Pigasus." I explained that if we were going to nominate a pig, we might as well have a real one and the rest of it came from a Greek Legend about a winged horse that one could still see on some mobile gas stations as their symbol. I served only so long as it took me to get that out and simply angered and confused all sides at once. Dylan could not make it as he was busy crusading for the right to use electronic guitars and well as the purists' acoustic ones. Norman Mailer was there, but ducked out to do his reporting by the evening after his speech.
By his own account, Hunter was there, but I had no idea who he was at the time. He reports that he did have the sense to wear a motorcycle helmet to cover it, but still got the crap beat out of him. This hardly distinguishes him from many others. I was lucky as I had attended High School with several of the "Hoodlums" who then became police officers and who not only adopted me as a sort of mascot, but also found the entire scene fun. It was the older cops, the five and ten year veterans that were so stirred up and I figured it was because all the guys demonstrating, or most of them, were scrawny and wearing beards and had long hair and the nubile females clung to them, not the cops who were REAL MEN.
Well, the first election was close, but Hubert's apology and change of stance on the war came way too late. Nixon campaigned for the "silent majority," which was actually a bad translation of the term used by Homer in the Illiad to describe the underworld (this never crossed anyone's mind so far as I know). On Viet Nam, "I have a plan," and that was that. Well, they figured, a plan really sounded good about now and so he got elected. After awhile, the second time around, he ran against George McGovern who managed to loose almost every state, but he was still paranoid and afraid of loosing. That was the start of Watergate.
By the end, he was walking the halls at night, forcing Henry Kissinger to pray with him by the fireplace, probably drinking heavily. Nixon. Everybody thought he was the worst, and that is when Hunter asked that question. How low? Well, from the Watergate era, John Dean still exists as well as Carl Bernstein, and both rate Trump lower than Nixon, but what about Reagan-Bush?
Most people forget about the Iran Contra deal, and many still think of Ollie North as a hero from those days. He is now spokesman from the NRA and a Russian spy has been charged with infiltrating the NRA. But there is still more we have to remember from those days. Ronnie and George assurred Gorbochev that, if we could unite East and West Germany, we would NOT move NATO any closer to Russia. It helps to understand that Russia never started any conflict beyond its borders Even in the time of 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia, not the converse. Hitler attacked Russia and that is what started the Warsaw Pact, or the "Iron Curtain," Churchill's term. Well, with that assurance, Gorby said "Go Ahead," and we know what has happened since.
Still, we need to remember what Putin was going through at the time. When the wall came tumbling down, Putin was the only person left in the Kremlin building. Everyone else had fled and communications were cut off. Germans were trying to storm the building, not unlike what happened in Iran. Putin, however, managed to hold them off and at the same time managed to burn all sorts of documents. He would come back and tell the Germans that he was trying to keep the army from attacking them and that they should just wait. He went to burn more. It was a desperate night, and he did not know if he would get out alive, so hated were the Russians by the Germans at that time. He made it out, KGB, intact, and that was the end of his stay in Germany.
But this is like the narrator in Thomas Mann's biography of Adrian Leverkūhn – we are leaving things out and rushing forward. When Ronnie started the Iran-Contra debacle, there was concern as to whether he really started. Mclaughan had his group on TV and Bob Germond was one of the regulars and the question, no so strangely if you think about it now, "Did they tell Reagan about the plot? Yes or no" There were various answers, but Germond came up with the best one "Yes, they told him, but he forgot." At the time, nobody realized how perceptive all this was and Reagan was in the early stages of Alzheimer's.
Ollie North would end up testifying after holding out for immunity and spent most of the time talking about what a patriot he was, how he loved his family and flag, and so on. He is now with the NRA after his brave actions in shipping weapons to Iran, having met "briefly with" Butina, currently charged with being a Russian spy, perhaps filtering money though the organization.
At any rate, it's time to wrap this up as I am getting very tired of Trump and his whole deal. He is definitely the lowest we have ever seen. When he finished his press conference, I had been watching it on CNN as that is his most hated news channel, Anderson Cooper launched into an attack at how "disgraceful" or "disgusting" his performance was. I knew MSNBC would be jumping all over it, so I went over to Fox. I was again, a stranger in a strange land, but wait! They were pissed off at him as well. Since that is where Trump gets his advice, the next day he said "wouldn't" instead of "would," (never mind the context as it is sick enough) and that was that. How low can we get? I don't know, but I think we got there at last. Frankly, I was surprised at the reaction on social media as I simply asked "Well, what did you expect?" It was as if everyone was surprised and shocked. I suppose the world is denser than I thought.
If you are not certain, consider this (someone sent this out):
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FollowSome people HATE the fact that I got along well with President Putin of Russia. They would rather go to war than see this. It's called Trump Derangement Syndrome!
6:27 AM - 18 Jul 2018
