William S Burroughs in 1978 in New York at the Nova Convention
I was just reading over the statements on the poster (sic). I’m primarily concerned with survival, the question of Nova Conspiracies, the new mythologies possible in the space age, heroes and villains with regard to intentions towards this planet, and I realize that this is a very political statement, Now if we see the earth as a spaceship and go further to invoke the comparison of a lifeboat, it is of course of vital concern to everybody in the boat if the crew and the passengers start polluting their supply of food and water, distributing supplies on a grossly inequitable basis, knocking holes in the bottom of the boat, or, worst of all, trying to blow the boat from under us. And what more blatant Nova Conspiracy than the development and use of an atom bomb. As the founder of the Nova Conspiracy, (J) Robert Oppenheimer said, “We have become Shiva, destroyer of worlds” (tho’ he may have become a little confused on his Hindu mythology but the spirit was there). And I began to realize that the readings I’ve given in the last three years [sic] while seemingly apolitical are in many cases very definite political statements. Roosevelt After Inaugeration (and this piece was written almost twenty years ago) appears, in retrospect, as designed to devalue the whole image of the Presidency, a devaluation which was consummated [sic] at Watergate.
And I’ll read a few selections from this – “Roosevelt After The Inaugeration”
Immediately after the inauguration Roosevelt appeared on the White House balcony, dressed in the purple robes of a Roman Emperor and leading a blind, toothless lion on a gold chain, hog-called his constituents to come and get their appointments. The constituents rushed up, grunting and squealing like the hogs they were. Men who had gone gray and toothless in the faithful service of their country were summarily dismissed in the grossest terms, like “You’re fired, you old fuck, get your piles out of here,” and in many cases thrown bodily out of their offices. Hoodlums and riff-raff of the lowest caliber filled the highest offices of the land. When the Supreme Court overruled some of the legislation perpetrated by this vile route, Roosevelt forced that august body, one after the other, on threat of immediate reduction to the rank of congressional lavatory attendants, to submit to intercourse with a purple-assed baboon so that venerable honored men surrendered themselves to the embraces of a lecherous, snarling simian, while Roosevelt and his strumpet wife and the veteran brown-nose Harry Hopkins, smoking a communal hookah of hashish, watched the lamentable spectacle with cackles of obscene laughter. Justice Blackstaff succumbed to a rectal hemorrhage on the spot and. Roosevelt only laughed and said coarsely,“Plenty more where that came from.”. Hopkins, unable to contain himself, rolled on the floor in sycophantic convulsions saying over and over, “You’re killin’ me chief! You’re killin’ me!”
Now Roosevelt then appointed the baboon to replace Justice Blackstaff, deceased. So henceforth the proceedings of the court were carried on with a screeching simian; shitting and pissing and masturbating on the table and not infrequently leaping on one of the justices and tearing him to shreds. “He’s entering a vote of dissent”, Roosevelt would say with an evil chuckle.
The vacancies so created were invariably filled by simians, so that in the course of time the Supreme Court came to consist of nine purple-assed baboons. And Roosevelt, claiming to be the only one able to interpret their decisions, thus gained control of the highest tribunal in the land. Then Roosevelt gave himself over to such vile and unrestrained conduct as it is shameful to speak of. He instituted a series of contests, designed to promulgate the lowest acts and instincts of which the human species is capable. There was “The Most Unsavory Act Contest”, “The Cheapest Trick Contest”, “Molest-A-Child Week” ‘”Turn In Your Best Friend Week”, (professional stool-pigeons disqualified), and the coveted title of “All-Around Vilest Man of the Year”.
Roosevelt was convulsed with such hate for the species as it is that he wished to degrade it beyond recognition, “I’ll make those cocksuckers glad to mutate”, he would say, looking off into space as if seeking new frontiers of depravity.
So let us all scan the horizon for new frontiers of depravity; this is the space age, and we are here to go!’
And “Stay Away from the White House”!