Imperial America: Gore Vidal Reflects on the United States of Amnesia

[Q]

Imperial America: Gore Vidal Reflects on the United States of Amnesia

In his latest book Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia acclaimed author Gore Vidal writes that, "Not since the 1846 attack on Mexico in order to seize California has an American government been so nakedly predatory." Gore Vidal joins us in our firehouse studio to discuss President Bush, elections and much more.
Our guest for the program is a national icon. He is the author of more than 20 novels and five plays. He is one of the best known chroniclers of American history and politics and his works have been translated into dozens of languages across the globe. He once told a magazine interviewer, "There is not one human problem that could not be solved... if people would simply do as I advise." And for more than a half a century, he has done just that." I am talking about Gore Vidal.

He published his first novel, Williwawa, in 1946 at the age of 21. He began writing poems and stories as a young teen-ager and began his first novel while he was still in high school. His grandfather was a senator and his father worked for the Roosevelt administration. But rather than pursuing a family career of politics and privilege, Gore Vidal dedicated himself to writing and critiquing the injustices of American society. Following the publication of the first two of his latest trilogy of books examining the American empire, Vidal was described as the last "noble defender" of the American republic, America's last "small-r" republican. The third and final book of the trilogy has just been published. It is called "Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia."

In his latest book, Gore Vidal writes that "Not since the 1846 attack on Mexico in order to seize California has an American government been so nakedly predatory." He describes the current president as being like "a man in one of those dreams who knows he is safe in bed and so can commit any crime he likes in his voluptuous dream. No one can stop him."

Gore Vidal joins us in our firehouse studio.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/04/1353259

[Q]

1. Excerpt from the interview:

GORE VIDAL: Thank you. This is probably my first encounter in the United States with democracy. And I’ve lived a long time. Here we are in Chinatown, in the firehouse, and I feel free. But we're supposed to in a democracy.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we welcome you

GORE VIDAL: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Why use the word, “imperial,” in your title, Imperial America?

GORE VIDAL: Because everyone hates it so much. I remember years ago, Time magazine, in one of its numerous attacks on me, on my first book of essays, which was heaven knows when, 30, 40 years ago, I refer to the American empire and things that we were doing that were not very good across the world, and I referred to the empire. And Time magazine dismissed me. It was an awful review. He's the sort of person that says that the United States has an empire. Well, we’ve got Guam, that's true. That's all we have got. I pointed out that we had troops and so on in over 1,000 other places around the world. That seems imperial to me, but there we are. Ever since then, I have loved the word, because it just drives them crazy. Now everybody uses it. So, I have to think of something new. Perhaps in the course of this program, we'll get a new word. If we don't, you get a new word and tell me so I can change over from empire. But we are a world empire, hated by all, and not to mention the least, our own people, since we don't have any money left for anything. So, you started to go somewhere and I had written about Bush that he's like a kind of crazy kid in a dream, and he thinks he's invulnerable, and he's marching along through a dry forest, and he's lighting matches, dropping them, watching the fires, dropping another one. I had always assumed, like all good Americans, that he was a hypocrite, particularly on religious matters. Suddenly, it began to hit me, he may be another Reagan. He may really believe these are the end of times. What difference does it make? The world's going to end anyway. Why save the environment? Save it for what, you know? We're all going to be upstairs as sunbeams for Jesus. If he's one of those--well, those of us who can afford it will emigrate, and the others will be with Jesus in a higher sphere.

[freetobegay]

2. Gore Vidal

Is a true American!

[Q]

3. One of the very few...

...'speaking truth to power'. Too bad he's a 'liberal' that neither the Right or the 'new' left will listen to...

- Funny stuff...Vidal calls Bush* the 'yellow rose of Texas' in the interview.

[Andy_Stephenson]

4. I listen to him...

He gives me great advice.

[RBHam]

5. Gore Vidal claims 'Bush junta' complicit in 9/11

Obviously, just another wild eyed conspiracy theorist with no credibility. Boy, there sure are a lot of us. When will we be cured?

Sunder Katwala
Sunday October 27, 2002

America's most controversial writer Gore Vidal has launched the most scathing attack to date on George W Bush's Presidency, calling for an investigation into the events of 9/11 to discover whether the Bush administration deliberately chose not to act on warnings of Al-Qaeda's plans.
Vidal's highly controversial 7000 word polemic titled 'The Enemy Within' - published in the print edition of The Observer today - argues that what he calls a 'Bush junta' used the terrorist attacks as a pretext to enact a pre-existing agenda to invade Afghanistan and crack down on civil liberties at home.

Vidal writes: 'We still don't know by whom we were struck that infamous Tuesday, or for what true purpose. But it is fairly plain to many civil libertarians that 9/11 put paid not only to much of our fragile Bill of Rights but also to our once-envied system of government which had taken a mortal blow the previous year when the Supreme Court did a little dance in 5/4 time and replaced a popularly elected President with the oil and gas Bush-Cheney junta.'

Vidal argues that the real motive for the Afghanistan war was to control the gateway to Eurasia and Central Asia's energy riches. He quotes extensively from a 1997 analysis of the region by Zgibniew Brzezinski, formerly national security adviser to President Carter, in support of this theory. But, Vidal argues, US administrations, both Democrat and Republican, were aware that the American public would resist any war in Afghanistan without a truly massive and widely perceived external threat.

'Osama was chosen on aesthetic grounds to be the frightening logo for our long-contemplated invasion and conquest of Afghanistan ... the administration is convinced that Americans are so simple-minded that they can deal with no scenario more complex than the venerable, lone, crazed killer (this time with zombie helpers) who does evil just for the fun of it 'cause he hates us because we're rich 'n free 'n he's not.' Vidal also attacks the American media's failure to discuss 11 September and its consequences: 'Apparently, "conspiracy stuff" is now shorthand for unspeakable truth.'

'It is an article of faith that there are no conspiracies in American life. Yet, a year or so ago, who would have thought that most of corporate America had been conspiring with accountants to cook their books since - well, at least the bright dawn of the era of Reagan and deregulation.'

more...

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,819932,00.html