It's not that I've ever attempted to emulate Hunter S. Thompson.  Although we never met, our paths through life and writing styles have had a number of parallels.  Fast, exotic cars, reckless, rampant, enthusiastic alcohol and drug use, dislike of formal education, and contempt for laws, authority, and pig-fuckers to name a few.  That plus a literary style which draws its power from profanity, sarcasm, humor, and which departs radically from traditional journalistic objectivity.  Big differences being, of course, that he was wildly successful, ran with a crowd of celebrities, and had a knack for running sentences together into humungous, wickedly irreverent paragraphs.  Nonetheless, we're brothers who never met, separated in time and space.  He's long gone.  Splattered his brains on the wall at 67.  Now I'm pushing 70, and understand fully his frustration with old age when he wrote his suicide note:

"No more games.  No more bombs.  No more walking.  No more fun.  No more swimming.  67.  That is 17 years past 50.  17 more than I needed or wanted.  Boring.  I am always bitchy.  No fun-for anybody.  67.  You are getting Greedy.  Act your old age.  Relax-This won't hurt."

That's what sometimes happens when youth and vitality give way to old age and exhaustion.  Blam!  Fucking brains on the wall, and a life extinguished.  Perhaps I'm fortunate that I've never shared Hunter's love affair with firearms.  Or perhaps he was infinitely wise, and I'd be much better off dead.  We're born, we reproduce, we die.  It's doubtful that I'll be leaving behind any more progeny.  The so-called golden years suck.  No more excitement.  No more hope.  No more enthusiasm.  No more mountains to climb.  Nothing more to look forward to than an alcohol-induced buzz at the end of the boring day to ease the pain, impotence, and frustration of being forced to watch my own government, well into the process of flushing all hopes and dreams of my grandchildren's future down history's shithole.  And all I'm able to do is write.  Preaching to a small, mutual admiration society.  Pissing futilely into the wind.  A puny, weak stream that blows right back into my blotchy old face.  It's become obvious that I'm likely doomed to die with a whimper.

However, in lieu of self-immolation or hara-kiri, I now seek death with a meaningful bang.  This is a formal job application.  If I have a hero, it's certainly Che Guevara.  A giant of a man who put truth, justice, and righteousness before his own safety.  His lifelong, but all too short, battle against earth's oppressors is inspiring and legendary.  The machine, against which he fought, has grown a hundred times uglier and more powerful since it dug Che's grave and chopped off his hands.  Waging war the way he did is a laughable act of futility, and anyone who tries will likely be swatted and squashed like a fly.  However, that's exactly the job for which I now apply.  After all, Che and Fidel pulled off an unlikely victory in Cuba, and the result is a shining light for all those who dare question the basic goodness and exceptionalism of Empire.  Better to go out knowing that I've at least temporarily irritated the fuck out of the enemy than to live out my days drooling and soiling myself in some nursing home hallway.  Better to die on my feet rather than to live on my knees, as Senor Zapata used to say.

A bloodless revolution seems to be out of the question.  John Rachel, my cadre in Japan, has a viable plan in The Peace Dividend, but can't even get the attention of major anti-war groups.  Capitalism spoils everything it touches.  As Chris Hedges says, here in Empire "doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy the economy."  The Peace Dividend, which would theoretically elect honest politicians, defund the war machine, and reward every American voter monetarily for doing so, can't grow wings and fly...largely because anti-war organizations refuse to acknowledge The Peace Dividend, have been tainted by the poison of capitalism, and the last thing they truly seek is peace.  Without war, their profitable organizations would perish...and anti-war organizations destroy peace.  Pig-fuckers wear many hats.

I'm game for just about any plan that has a chance of success.  Let me rephrase that.  I'm willing to risk my life for any plan that has a snowball's chance in hell of overthrowing the existing republocratic/corporate media stranglehold on this sham democracy, pulling off a coup d'etat in D.C., and throwing all the soulless war-profiteers, politicians, and military/intelligence agency top brass into prisons where they belong.  I will gladly feed the tree of liberty my own blood, if I find the proper longshot windmill to tilt.  I will become armed and dangerous to the status quo for the right cause, but will need some guidance, since I've never fired a real bullet before.  I even have a knockoff Che beret which I bought a few Halloweens ago...and as The Argentine once said:  "We cannot be sure of having something to live for, unless we're willing to die for it."

Once upon a time, I thought the character John Yossarian from Joseph Heller's "Catch 22" was on the money when he said:  "The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed..."but I'm not married to any ideas in particular, am not too proud or stubborn to change my mind, and I've come around to thinking that the enemy is anybody who seeks my silence, obedience, and acceptance of blatant crimes against humanity, and that the enemy is anybody who builds walls instead of friendships, who closely guards national borders to keep whole populations in check, who plays the deadly game of bombing for dollars, and who controls all the misinformation media.  The enemy has many old, respected family names, but they're all the same...all money-grubbing, power-hungry, genocidal psychopaths...Clinton, Bush, Gore, Cheney, McCain, Obama, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Kagan, Kristol, Pelosi...all those and so many more...all criminally insane mass-murdering bastards who deserve to rot in prison or worse.  And maybe a few good, honest men will need to die if we're ever to break the fucking stranglehold of the enemy, and change the sick goddamned system which has the U.S. Military and so-called intelligence agencies spread into nearly every corner of this tiny blue planet, riding high on the drug trade, lubricated by oil, killing off socialist-leaning national leaders, causing mayhem, drone bombing weddings and funerals, and putting targets on the backs of every American, whether or not we've bought into their official line of bullshit lies, salute their bloody flag, and give teary-eyed thanks to the hired assassins in their military for their service.

And Edward Abbey war on target when he said:  "The tragedy of modern war is that young men die fighting each other--instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals."  Let's get serious about this, boys and girls.  Somebody come up with a plan.  I'm not getting any younger.  Hasta la victoria siempre!