I've always wanted to use that headline for some long lived VIP. And now I can use it in complete honesty. I actually did think that George McGovern had been dead for some time and was confused as to why all these memoriums to him kept popping up in the news this morning.
I wonder how the man would do in an election these days. We are also living in a time when the traditional social hierarchy is leveling out with surprising rapidity; and when those who have historically been on the top are expressing their fear of falling to our level through obsession with 'security', obsessive belief in myths of cultural purity (The Golden age when Americans were perfectly united in purpose and belief) and most generally with any opinion that gives the air of being 'strong' or 'tough', with a particular fixation on an eternal foreign enemy that the United States should be made to form our own identity against. This self-indulgent fear of communists yesterday and Muslims today allows those who are losing their priveledge to not only reassure themselves of their own strength and vitality, while also holding out hope that by turning the national focus towards the Enemy they will be able to reenforce and restore their newly threatened parogatives; convincing the peasantry that we must 'stand united' and fall in line behind the old ruling class.
My guess then after saying all of that is that George McGovern would probably get as badly smoked today as he was back then. There are some who complain about President Obama's
relative moderation but the sad truth is that power and vanity are cultural addictions that cannot simply be cut off cold turkey. It takes slow chipping, and no small amount of guile. The slippery slope that the Screwheads fear is indeed coming for them. Tonight, in the first circle of Purgatory for American heretics, Hunter Thompson is right now teaching George McGovern how to finally drink like a man.
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