Joe Bageant: Ghosts of Tim Leary and Hunter Thompson

Joe Bageant: Ghosts of Tim Leary and Hunter Thompson:

"Obviously, I retain a special affection for Uncle Tim. If any of these men could legitimately be called complex, it is probably Leary. A brilliant scientist, he was often reviled by traditional scientists, whom he called 'arrogant motherfuckers who deny their role in the military industrial complex's manipulation of the American people.' Leary rejected what he called the 'grim Newtonian mechanics of objective fact' for the 'free flowing quantum physics approach to consciousness' that the changing, not the static, governs consciousness and the outcome of the world. 'Understanding this even intuitively,' he said, makes people unmanageable by agents of the criminal government syndicate that runs and ruins America.' That sort of talk was why Nixon called him 'the most dangerous man in America.'"