Fear and Loathing: Three Days, $900, and It’s Morning in Vanuatu Again

Posted on | November 18, 2016 | 2 Comments

“How long, O Lord, how long? Where will it end?
“All I ever wanted out of this campaign was enough money to get out of the country and live for a year or two in peaceful squalor in a house with a big screen porch looking down on an empty white beach, with a good rich coral reef a few hundred yards out in the surf and no neighbors. . . .
“What worries me now . . . is the strong possibility that my involvement in politics has become so deep and twisted that I can no longer think rationally about that big screen porch above the beach except in terms of an appointment as Governor of American Samoa.”
– Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72

Somewhere in the South Pacific, there is an island nation in need of an American ambassador, and who knows what might be possible? But that’s borrowing tomorrow’s trouble, and right now, I’ve got a more immediate need: $900 for a road trip to an undisclosed location.

Is there an explanation? Sure, and I’ll be glad to provide it, but first let me share a conversation that took place in the comments of Monday night’s post. Daniel Freeman offered this gloomy assessment:

Diversity + Proximity = War. The details vary throughout history; in our case, it turns out that all non-whites are tribal, so we can’t afford not to be.
Even when they aren’t violently racist, mere tribalistic nepotism is a powerful competitive advantage, to the point where our choices are to copy them, die out or kick them out.

War? Is America doomed to be destroyed by ethnic violence? Or is there still hope for our nation? This was my reply to Mr. Freeman:

It is still possible, I hope, for the American people to step back from the brink of the abyss toward which the past eight years have led us.
“It is history that teaches us to hope,” a great man once said.
“Never take counsel of your fears,” another great man said.
Strange as it seems, our new president may be the man who can heal the wounds our nation has recently suffered. The opportunity is there, and I dare to hope Mr. Trump will make the most of it.

Readers are free to Google those quotes and find the names of the great men who said them. Did I mention I’m trying to rattle the tip jar to raise $900 for a road trip? My wife and I will be heading south, the first time our three youngest children have gone on a long road trip with us, and I hope there will be time during this trip to visit the cemeteries in Randolph County, Alabama, where my family’s ancestors are buried. One of those ancestors, Winston Wood Bolt, was an illiterate farmboy who served in the 13th Alabama Infantry until he was captured in the first day’s fighting at Gettysburg when Archer’s Brigade was outflanked by the Iron Brigade.

 

Well, no need to dwell on the past, I suppose, when in the near future — by Monday, at the latest — Mrs. McCain expects me to have that $900 so we can visit our oldest daughter’s home for Thanksgiving. Our daughter and her husband live 1,100 miles away, near a Gulf Coast beach in a state that Donald Trump carried by a margin of 120,00 votes.

Perhaps some readers recall a certain terrorist bomber who once menaced my family, and you may also recall a certain neckless troll who devoted himself to similar pursuits. There is a reason, you see, why I must be indirect in describing my family’s itinerary. Those who have targeted me as a political enemy have also shown a willingness to do whatever harm they can to my family, including my grown children.

Mir Islam, Who SWATted Me in 2013, Has
Been Sentenced to Two Years in Prison

 

The sentencing of the SWATter Mir Islam occurred just days before I traveled to Cleveland to cover the Republican National Convention.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CLEVELAND, Ohio, July 19
Squads of uniformed police and state troopers patrolled on foot through the downtown streets here Monday, deployed to protect the Republican National Convention. A double-ring perimeter of eight-foot tall steel-mesh fencing surrounds the convention site at Quicken Arena on the banks of the Cuyahoga River. Only those with credentials can enter the access gate at the intersection of East 4th Street and Prospect Avenue, then walk past armed officers with police dogs in a high-security gauntlet that leads to the white tents where Secret Service agents put them through metal detectors.
“Make America Safe Again” was the theme of the convention Monday and, in an increasingly dangerous world, keeping the convention itself safe was a massive undertaking. Thousands of law enforcement officers are on the scene in Cleveland, including police from as far away as Florida and California. In the wake of terrorist attacks in France and Turkey, and assassinations of police in Texas and Louisiana, perhaps never in history was America so attuned to the kind of law-and-order message delivered from the RNC stage last night.
“What I did for New York, Donald Trump will do for America,” said former New York City Mayor Giuliani in his prime-time speech Monday. Like the man the GOP is expected to nominate Thursday as the next president of the United States, Giuliani is a tough-talking New Yorker. And the former mayor seemed genuinely angry at the way his fellow New Yorker has been maligned.
“I am sick and tired of the defamation of Donald Trump by the Clinton campaign,” Giuliani said in his convention speech. “I am sick and tired of it. This is a good man, and America should be sick and tired of this vicious, nasty campaign.” . . .

That “vicious, nasty campaign” continued all the way to Election Day. Even now, Democrats and their media allies are spreading hateful smears and engaged in irrational fear-mongering against the President-elect:

After so many years of screeching “RAAAAACIST!” at every American who ever disagreed with President Obama’s policies, it was impossible for the dishonest partisan propagandists at CNN to convince voters that Trump is Hitler. Which brings us to the multimillionaire feminist Gloria Steinem:

Steinem . . . fielded a press question about how she feels about the future of women’s rights in the wake of Donald Trump’s election to the U.S. presidency.
Steinem attributed Trump’s win, in part, to backlash against the progress of women and minorities. “I think that what has been revealed to us is a truth that we must now deal with,” she said. “Never again is anyone going to say ‘post-feminist’ or ‘post-racist’ because we [now] understand that there is something like a third of the country that is still locked into these old hierarchies.”
The activist compared the current state of the U.S. to a survivor of domestic violence. “The moment just before escaping or just after escaping [from a violent household] is the most dangerous time,” she said. “I think we are at a time of maximum danger in this country and we need to look out for each other.”

Yeah, you’re in “maximum danger” in your elegant Manhattan home, Gloria.
Gloria Steinem is a wealthy liar, and the elite women who’ve made their careers in the feminist movement — with their tax-exempt foundations, their book contracts, faculty tenure as Women’s Studies professors, etc. — have spent the past three years ginning up an anti-male hate-storm. . . .

You can read the rest of that. What enrages me about feminists is that they are very privileged women who gain even more privilege by playing the role of oppressed victim, while slandering innocent men. Even if Donald Trump has the most successful presidency in American history, feminists will hate him forever, the same way they hated Ronald Reagan. And the hatred spread by feminists during the past three years — all in an ill-disguised partisan propaganda effort to help elect Hillary Clinton — has done immense damage to our culture. But nobody ever holds feminists accountable. They’ve got their tax-exempt 501(c) groups, their university faculty gigs, etc. They are effectively immune to the vicissitudes of the private economy, and all they have to do to keep the money rolling in is to (a) support Democrats and (b) destroy the American family:

Because feminism is a theory of power, originating from the idea that women are oppressed by male power, the pursuit of “equality” requires the destruction of every source of this oppressive power. This radical agenda, essentially destructive in its methods and purposes, is the basis of feminist theory, a major goal of which is eradicating the traditional family. . . .

I wrote that on Election Day, when I had practically no hope that Hillary could be defeated. And three weeks before the election . . .

 

You see? Sgt. McCain re-enlisted — four more years — before knowing who his next Commander-in-Chief would be. That plane he was on? The C-130? My father spent 37 years working at the Lockheed plant in Marietta, Georgia — working on the C-130 flight line. So the boy re-enlisted over the drop zone aboard a plane his grandfather helped build.

Squad leader in the Red Devils — Strike Hold!

There is a famous scene in the movie A Bridge Too Far when the Red Devils cross the Waal River under fire, with Robert Redford in the role of Maj. Julian Cook, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Who knows what enemies that legendary unit may have to face in the next four years?

No American has any more rights than our sons are willing to die for.

Politicians make wars, and but it is the soldier who fights. Many of America’s sons have died following orders in doomed missions during wars that the soldiers themselves had little enthusiasm for. Arlington National Cemetery is on the family property of a soldier who served his nation with distinction in the Mexican War. Well, a few years later, the Democrats lost an election, and there was a Republican president, and the rest, as they say, is history. And that’s how my great-grandfather the Alabama farmboy ended up at Gettysburg, in an army commanded by the soldier whose family property is now that famous cemetery.

"We often see only the ebb of the advancing wave and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope."
— Robert E. Lee, 1870 pic.twitter.com/pkQPmO3Cnj

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) November 15, 2016

“My experience of men has neither disposed me to think worse of them nor indisposed me to serve them; nor in spite of failures which I lament, of errors which I now see and acknowledge, or of the present aspect of affairs, do I despair of the future.
The truth is this: The march of Providence is so slow and our desires so impatient; the work of progress so immense and our means of aiding it so feeble; the life of humanity is so long, that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope.”

Why should we despair? God has not brought our people so far to cast us aside now, if we would only have faith, hope and, above all, courage.

This week, I had lunch with some teenagers — friends of my 15-year-old son — and explained to them why all this liberal panic over Trump’s election is so insane. My son has served under President Obama, and was willing to serve under President Clinton. My son is sworn to fight our nation’s enemies and let me clue you in, kids: Our enemies don’t care whether you’re black or white, rich or poor, male or female, Christian or Jew. America’s enemies want to kill us all, and the only thing stopping them is our armed forces. There’s only one color of soldier in the Army, and that color is green. So if the liberal media would please stop trying to divide us and make us hate each other, I’d very much appreciate it.

Speaking of things I’d appreciate, there’s that $900 my wife expects me to have by Monday. I’ve been procrastinating on writing this monumental tip-jar rattle, because I’m embarrassed. It hurts my pride, even though I know bloggers more successful than me have to do it from time to time. Since my family’s departure to the Undisclosed Location in 2012 — thank you, Mr. Terrorist Bomber — we’ve moved twice again and, God willing, we shall be safe here long enough for me to unpack all my books. Less than five years until our youngest graduates high school, and then maybe we’ll move someplace with palm trees, but I digress . . .

Three days, $900. On a weekend, when everybody’s burnt-out from politics. Did I mention my cellphone went missing a couple weeks ago? Pretty sure my youngest grandson managed to lose it somewhere. He’s a year old now, so of course, he’s learned to walk, and hide Grandpa’s cellphone, but he can’t yet talk and tell me where to find it.

“Woodward and Bernstein never had to do it this way,” I used to tell myself, when I was stuck in some crappy motel, jacked up on coffee and trying desperately to hit deadline and wondering if I’d have enough gas money to make it to the next rally. Those crazy years on the campaign trail! The other day, my 17-year-old son Jeff and I got talking about the 2012 campaign, and our eight-day trip to South Carolina when (a) I lost him for nearly an hour in the Myrtle Beach Convention Center after a debate, and (b) we spent 9 hours in a McDonald’s in Rock Hill, S.C., on the way back so I could write another massive tip-jar rattle, trying to get enough money for another tank of gas to get us home.

Thirteen-year-old editorial assistant Jefferson McCain staffs
The National Affairs Desk, 8:30 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012

“No one can ever doubt the objectivity of the Future U.S. Ambassador to Vanuatu.” Man, what a crazy trip that was. Jeff was 13 then, and now he’s a 6-foot-tall college freshman. Tempus fugits, and they grow up so fast, but once again, I digress . . .

"Never take counsel of your fears."
— Stonewall Jackson, 1862 pic.twitter.com/2tue3SYmYF

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) November 15, 2016

In February, I was purged from Twitter at the behest of feminists who accused me of “participating in targeted abuse,” a deliberately vague claim that no one at Twitter ever substantiated: “Privacy,” they said, by which they mean secrecy. Like informers during the Stalin era, they hide in the shadows and report to the commissars the kulaks whose deviations — “Trotskyist!” “Saboteur!” — earn them a trip to the gulag. Twitter stock was trading at more than $50 a share in April 2015. Now it’s under $19.

Losing more than 60% of their stock value in 18 months apparently didn’t bother the commissars. The purges will continue no matter the cost! The Glorious People’s Socialist Revolution must prevail! Yeah, base your company in San Francisco, deliberately exclude Republicans and Christians from employment, and then purge those digital kulaks!

My hunch is that the clock is ticking on Jack Dorsey’s tenure as Twitter CEO, and that the company’s stock price would be even lower, except for the fact that Republican investors are bargain-hunting, and there might be some . . . discontent among these stockholders. Indeed, I wonder if the incoming administration might be curious as to just how and why Twitter decided to start purging certain people during a crucial election year. But that’s just a hunch and some far-fetched speculation as to future events. Meanwhile, there is the fact of that $900 my wife expects me to get.

“Never take counsel of your fears,” like the general said. Over the past eight years, I’ve thrown myself into all kinds of desperate fights — campaigns from New York to Nevada, Alaska to Florida — without spending much time reckoning the odds against victory. When I finally got back home after the doomstruck 2012 campaign, I decided to stay home a while and take care of my grandsons. But there’s this one trip to a swing state down south, and my wife says we must have that $900 by Monday.

Look: If 50 readers contribute $18 each, I’m covered. Could 100 readers contribute $9 each? Yeah. Could 25 readers contribute $36 each? Yeah. Twenty readers at $45 each or 10 readers at $90 each — I’m cool. Whatever you can give, the main thing is Mrs. McCain has given me this assignment — $900 by Monday — and failure is not an option.

There is no American embassy in Vanuatu, but there should be. Certainly my good friends in the Trump administration realize the danger of our long neglect of this Crucial Linchpin of the South Pacific. And if I can have this one road trip to see my daughter, maybe when we return, I’ll pay a visit to some of my good friends in the D.C. area, because with all this shrieking about Trump appointing “extremists,” well . . . Who cares about being banned from Twitter, when I’m looking out at that white sand beach from the brand-new U.S. embassy in Vanuatu? Don’t say it can’t happen.

It’s 2016, man. Crazier things happen every day. Like I keep saying, patriarchy is usually just another word for “paying the bills.” And remember the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

 

UPDATE: You Did It! Thank You!

 

 

https://t.co/ozyJUaUx5g via @twitchyteam @patriarchtree @kyla_mccain Fake Hate Crimes are Real Hate Crimes

— Kirby McCain (@KirbyMcCain) November 19, 2016

 

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