Reply #40: Puts you in mind of the good doctor's words in his Fear and Loathing

[Joe Chi Minh]

on the Campaign Trail:

"....Richard Nixon will almost certainly be re-elected for another four years as Presdient of the United States. If the current polls are reliable - even if they aren't, the sheer size of the margin makes the numbers themselves unimportant - Nixon will be re-elected by a huge majority of Americans who feel he is not only more honest and more trustworthy than George McGovern, but also more likely to end the war in Vietnam.

The polls also indicate that Nixon will get a comfortable majority of the Youth Vote. And that he might carry all fifty states.

Well... maybe so. This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it - that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable."

The last few elections (according to the real returns) now suggest very much otherwise, but something like this makes you realise something of the degree and extent of the pernicious influence these Neocons have exerted in the intervening years. In his parable about Lazarus and the rich man, he didn't just say that the rich man didn't give Lazarus any help, but that nobody did. Apart from the street dog who licked his sores.