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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Mannie who wrote (19518)11/26/2000 2:54:10 PM
From: Mannie  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 65232
 
Prepare for the Weirdness
By Hunter S. Thompson
Page 2 columnist

"Something is happening here,
But you don't know what it is,
Do you, Mr. Jones?"
-- Bob Dylan

No sir, not a chance. Mr. Jones does not even
pretend to know what's happening in America right
now, and neither does anyone else.

We have seen Weird Times in this country before,
but the year 2000 is beginning to look super
weird. This time, there really is nobody flying the
plane. ... We are living in dangerously weird times
now. Smart people just shrug and admit they're
dazed and confused.

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.

The Autumn months are never a calm time in America. Back to Work,
Back to School, Back to Football Practice, etc. ... Autumn is a very
Traditional period, a time of strong Rituals and the celebrating of strange
annual holidays like Halloween and Satanism and the fateful Harvest Moon,
which can have ominous implications for some people.

Autumn is always a time of Fear and
Greed and Hoarding for the winter
coming on. Debt collectors are active on
old people and fleece the weak and
helpless. They want to lay in enough
cash to weather the known horrors of
January and February. There is always a
rash of kidnapping and abductions of
school children in the football months.
Pre-teens of both sexes are traditionally
seized and grabbed off the streets by
gangs of organized Perverts.

Most of these things are obviously Wrong and Evil and Ugly -- but at least they are
Traditional. They will happen. Your driveway will ice up, your furnace will blow up and
you will be rammed in traffic by an uninsured driver in a stolen car.

But what the hell. That's why we have Insurance, eh? And the Inevitability of these
nightmares is what makes them so reassuring. Life will go on, for good or ill. The structure
might be a little Crooked, but the foundations are still Strong and Unshakable.

Ho, ho. Think again, buster. Look around you. There is an eerie sense of Panic in the air, a
silent Fear and Uncertainty that comes with once-reliable faiths and truths and solid
Institutions that are no longer safe to believe in. ... There is a Presidential Election, right on
schedule, but somehow there is no President. A new Congress is elected, like always, but
somehow there is no real Congress at all -- not as we knew it, anyway, and whatever
passes for Congress will be as helpless and weak as Whoever has to pass for the "New
President."

If this were the world of sports, it would be like playing a Super Bowl that goes into 19
scoreless Overtimes and never actually Ends. ... or four L.A. Lakers stars being murdered
in different places on the same day. Guaranteed Fear and Loathing. Abandon all hope.
Prepare for the Weirdness. Get familiar with Cannibalism.

Good luck, Doc.