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Last year I finally got to read a copy of Hunter S. Thompson's "Hell's Angels" that I had purchased while on a trip in San Francisco back in 2015, and just last
by piva00 2y ago
Last year I finally got to read a copy of Hunter S. Thompson's "Hell's Angels" that I had purchased while on a trip in San Francisco back in 2015, and just last week I bumped into this quote that is absolutely prescient for the current state of American society which gave power to Trump:
> "To see the Hell’s Angels as caretakers of the old 'individualist' tradition 'that made this country great' is only a painless way to get around seeing them for what they really are, the first wave of a future that nothing in our history has prepared us to cope with. The Angels are prototypes. Their lack of education has not only rendered them completely useless in a highly technical economy, but it has also given them the leisure to cultivate a powerful resentment... and to translate it into a destructive cult. The people who are being left out and put behind won't be obvious for years. Christ only knows what'll happen in, say, 1985 — a million Hell's Angels. They won't be wearing the colors; they'll be people who are just looking for vengeance because they've been left behind."
The USA in its everlasting quest of creating wealth without caring for the effects of blind wealth accumulation on its citizens, where good financial outcomes trumps over good societal outcomes, has created this monster. People who are left behind won't be all re-trained to do high-skill jobs, they will be poor, uneducated, they will be angry and resentful, they will want vengeance.
This is the vengeance, the wrath from a system who doesn't care for you as a person, only caring for you as means of production.
Like you said, the whole system was engineered by the same nation who now hates the system because their leaders focused on perpetuating the system's worst sides in pursuit of wealth instead of caring for them.
- tokioyoyo 2y agoI’ve never read that book, but this motivated me to look it up once again! Thank you!