Yesterday Hunter S. Thompson would have turned 71, so this seems as good a time as any to reflect that, as America is sluicing towards fascism, we could use Hunter’s urgent voice now more than ever.
As it becomes clear our nation has tortured innocent people in our name, illegally wiretapped American phones, violated the writ of Habeas Corpus by holding people in overseas prisons, and prosecuted a false war and ensuing occupation, Hunter would be howling in his kitchen at Owl Farm right now like Joseph Kurtz in Heart of Darkness, mumbling, “The horror! The horror!”
I had the good fortune of working with Hunter during his later years on a number of public relations fronts. I worked as the communications director for Colorado state Sen. Joan Fitz-Gerald during the redistricting fight in Colorado when the Republicans, in an effort to create enduring majorities, threw the Constitution in the waste basket and passed the “Midnight Gerrymander” in May of 2003.
During the ordeal, Hunter faxed me a statement that read: “This is what happens when voters of any state or nation fail to exercise their right to vote and stand up to a finely organized gang of corrupt power-mongers who want to seize all the political power in America and mold it into an updated version of the Third Reich. Hitler had the same plan. If all the Deadheads in Florida had voted in 2000, we would have a different president today.” Few journalists today would make such a statement.
Hunter abhorred the abuse of power. He embraced the little man and he nearly always rooted for the underdog. However, it was men of privilege, drunk on oil, who mortgaged our nation’s soul and sent our sons and daughters off to die in a silly war that really got his goat. People like Nixon and George W. Bush, who Hunter called our “Boy President,” could really get the typewriter keys humming.
Whatever one might think of Hunter Thompson, behind the excess and the antics was a man who changed the face of journalism. He invented “gonzo journalism,” which is now defined in the American Heritage Dictionary as using an “exaggerated, highly subjective style.” He was a truth seeker and a savant.
With only months left in this bumbling administration, we need original voices like his now more than ever. While he made his mark covering Richard Nixon, all of the calamity of Cheney and Bush should have inspired Hunter to write something provocative and revealing. Instead, their abuses disgusted him profoundly. Then, ever the outlaw, he took his own life. The battles too many. The hour too late.
America has endured eight years of darkness. With the money we squandered in Iraq, we are now looking at lost opportunities in the rear-view mirror. But the winds of hope and change are blowing. We can become a better nation and live up to our ideals.
So this weekend, let us raise our glasses and toast the good Doctor. He was a gentleman, a scholar and a jolly good fellow. We could use him about now. As the band Leftover Salmon sang about Woody Guthrie, “Hey, Hunter Thompson, where are you? The big dogs are back at the door” — and this time they don’t need a warrant.
Matt Moseley is a communications and media consultant who occasionally served as Owl Farm spokesperson. He lives in Boulder.
