From: fofp@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Fear and Loathing at the Convention
Date: 19 Aug 92 19:34:00 GMT
Distribution: alt
Organization: Edinburgh University

Well, it's approaching three AM here in Convention City and it's time
this reporter faced the raw facts of an approaching deadline. The
hallucinations have finally stopped thank god. It's clear that neo-nazis
have turned over the hotel room. The chair is in the swimming pool and
they've stolen all the booze. Fortunately the mojo was hidden under the
bath. The hotel staff are acting weird and it's proving impossible to
obtain either further weaponry or fresh watermelon in this town. America
is not what it once was.

Still, we're now skiing down the steep edge of the nineties depression.
The national economy is shot to hell. A tinpot dictator in yet another
upstart country beginning with an "I" is laughing at us. And at the helm
we have someone with the vision of a tree-sloth on benzedrine and a
dyslexic fratboy. 

But the election is upon us. The massed ranks of the press crowd into
hotel rooms and generate huge expenses trying to strangle out whatever
sense they can from the meanderings of the pols. Simple professionalism
demands that I attempt the same despite the almost overwhelming attempts
on my sanity. 

The convention earlier was like something out of Heironymous Bosch on
acid. The hall itself is so large that they get around *inside* on
trucks. It's still full. Who'd have thought after what was full scale
war on the economy that there would be that many Republicans left? 

But they're all present and accounted for. How else can it be explained
that there, larger than life stood Pat Buchanan, the man whose gizzards
should have been ripped out through his eyeballs at birth to prevent his
spawn further contaminating the planet. And he's still the only pol who
can actually give a speech. Homosexuals. Family values. Retake our
culture. Retake the cities... There's a dangerous consistency to the
venom spewed forth by these demagogues and I swear I saw a few right
arms beginning to twitch. 

Then there's the Gipper. It's hard to know what to throw at what's left
of the man. Still, "You're no Thomas Jefferson...". It's taken them four
years to come back on that one. You hit the tail and it takes damn near
forever to reach what passes for a brain with these country club
greedheads. Believe me, I knew Ronald Reagan, though I can't exactly
call him a friend, and friends, that was no Ronald Reagan.

Bush himself hovered around the proceedings like Banquo's Ghost. He's
dead already but the message clearly isn't getting through. They'll have
to let him mangle a speech. On prime time TV no less. And we can't even
shoot him since Mr Potatoe-head will take over and we'll all be reduced
to thinking that there are worse things than a President that would
spend his time harrassing opponents and bugging the opposition.

Still, come November this nightmare will be over. But what's the option?
We have someone who admits to smoking a little dope but *didn't* inhale?
What the fuck do they take us for? These fishhead nazis have had it
their way too long. It's time for the citizens of this country to stand
up and be counted and that's why, though reluctantly, this reporter is
forced to declare his candidacy.


Thomas S.Hunterson
Doody Creek
Asprin
Colorado