I think Hunter S. Thompson is being proven right by revelations becoming obvious daily. I’m a natural skeptic, so I rarely believe anything I’m told without verifying facts, analyzing data and understanding the motivation of those making declarations and assertions.
For most of my life I thought I generally understood how the world worked.
Doubts about my understanding began to creep into my mind between 2000 and 2008, as I watched my government cover-up the truth about 9-11, use it to institute an Orwellian surveillance state through the Patriot Act, invade Iraq based upon a false narrative of WMD and links to 9/11, and watching those controlling the Federal Reserve create the dot.com bubble and follow it up with a housing bubble – all done to benefit Wall Street banks, billionaires, connected politicians, and Deep State apparatchiks.
The national debt was $5.6 trillion in 2000, the budget was as close to balanced as it had been in decades, the defense budget ($300 billion) was at decades low as there was no major conflicts in the world, and term limits were still a legitimately discussed election issue. If someone was told on January 1, 2000 that in 2021 the national debt was going to hit $30 trillion, with annual deficits of $3 to $4 trillion, a defense budget of $750 billion as war looms on the near-term horizon, and all semblance of governing through legislation to benefit the citizenry had dissipated, they would have laughed, accused you of being a conspiracy nutjob, and said the nation would be a hyperinflationary banana republic with 50% interest rates if any of that came to pass. The truth is always far worse than your darkest visions and fears.
I truly miss listening to Quinn & Rose on radio. They were excellent!
And, fun fact, like Rush he was DJ in Pittsburgh ‘back in the day’.