Gore Vidal interview

<snip>

Gore Vidal: Well, let us say that the old American republic is well and
truly dead. The institutions that we thought were eternal proved not to
be.
And that goes for the three departments of government, and it also goes
for
the Bill of Rights. So we're in uncharted territory. We're governed by
public relations. Very little information gets to the people, thanks to
the
corruption and/or ineptitude of the media. Just look at this bankruptcy
thing that went through--everybody in debt to credit cards, which is
apparently 90 percent of the country, is in deep trouble. So the people
are
uninformed about what's being done in their name.

And that's really why we are in Iraq. Iraq is a symptom, not a cause.
It's a
symptom of the passion we have for oil, which is a declining resource
in the
world. Alternatives can be found, but they will not be found as long as
there's one drop of oil or natural gas to be extracted from other
nations,
preferably by force by the current junta in charge of our affairs. Iraq
will
end with our defeat.

<Snip>


If we don't have class interests officially, then therefore we have no
political parties. What is the Republican Party? Well, it used to be
the
party of the small-town businessman, generally in the Middle West,
generally
sort of out of the mainstream. Very conservative. It now represents
nothing
but the gas and oil business. They own it. And the people who go to
Congress
are simply bought. They are lawyers who are paid to represent
Halliburton,
big oil, big banking. So the very rich corporate America has a party
for
itself, the Republican Party. The Democrats don't have much of anything
but
a kind of wistful style. They just want everyone to be happy, and
politically correct at all times. Do not hurt other people's feelings.
They
spend so much time on political correctness that they haven't thought
of
what to do politically about anything. Like say "no" to these
preemptive
wars, which are against not only the whole world's take on war and
peace,
but against United States history.


Much more:

http://citypages.com/databank/26/1268/article13085.asp

City Pages (Minneapolis / St. Paul) Vol 26 . Issue 1268 . 3/23/2005

:patriot:

Every DUer, every American, should read this interview and Gore Vidal's new book Imperial America.

n/t

I thought his novel JULIAN was terrific. The interviews are all insightful.

Long live Gore Vidal.

And says what needs to be said.

Now to the root of the matter. The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism.

From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved --Judaism, Christianity, Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal --God is the omnipotent father-- hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates.

The sky-god is a jealous god, of course. He requires total obedience from everyone on earth, as he is in place not for just one tribe but for all creation. Those who would reject him must be converted or killed for their own good. Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god's purpose. Any movement of a liberal nature endangers his authority and that of his delegates on earth. One God, one King, one Pope, one master in the factory, one father-leader in the family home.

The founders of the United States were not enthusiasts of the sky-god...

Gore Vidal: "(The Great Unmentionable) Monotheism and its Discontents," The Lowell Lecture, Harvard University, April 20, 1992

http://www.isebrand.com/Gore_Vidal_Monotheism_1992.htm

the speech:

Another of our agreed-upon fantasies is that we do not have a class system in the United States. The Few who control the Many though Opinion have simply made themselves invisible. They have convinced us that we are a classless society in which anyone can make it. Ninety percent of the stories in the pop press are about winners of lotteries or poor boys and girls who, despite adenoidal complaint, become overnight millionaire singers. So there is still hope, the press tells the folks, for the 99 percent who will never achieve wealth no matter how hard they work. We are also warned at birth that it is not polite to hurt people's feelings by criticising their religion, even if that religion may be damaging everyone through the infiltration of our common laws.

Happily, the few cannot disguise the bad times through which we are all going. Word is spreading that America is now falling behind in the civilisation sweepstakes. So isn't it time to discuss what we all really think about our social and economic arrangements?

<snip>

Well, the Congress has ceded--which it cannot do--but it has ceded its power to declare war. That is written in the Constitution. It's the most important thing in the Constitution, ultimately. And having ceded that to the Executive Branch, he can declare war whenever he finds terrorism. Now, terrorism is a wonderful invention because it doesn't mean anything. It's an abstract noun. You can't have a war against an abstract noun; it's like having a war against dandruff. It's meaningless.

thugs in the White House