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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. [includes rush transcript]
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.
Gore Vidal
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
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AMY GOODMAN: In his latest book, Gore Vidal writes that “not since the 1846
attack on Mexico in order to seize California as 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's safe in bed and so can commit any crime he
likes in his voluptuous dream. No one can stop him. Gore Vidal joins us now
in our Firehouse Studio here in Chinatown, Downtown Community Television.
Welcome to Democracy Now!.
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.
JUAN GONZALEZ: You talk about the -- about President Bush throwing matches or
lighting matches in the forest. Your book, I thought, some of the most
powerful parts were when you go into all of the outright lies of the Bush
administration, and you spend quite a bit of time on his Healthy Forest Initiative and
his response to wildfires. Can you expound a little bit on this?
GORE VIDAL: Well, part of imperial America is just sort of a list of the lies
that he has told us, and there's a special law against people who lie to the
American people, whether they're in the Legislative Branch of the government,
Judiciary or the Executive, like the president. He has now told so many lies
that he knew to be lies, and that we know to be lies about everything that he
can be on, I think it's 12 counts -- he can be impeached immediately, without
much fuss, if you had a majority of people who wanted to impeach him in the
House of Representatives. Then we go on trial in the senate as poor Bill Clinton
found when he lied about sex, which in my day that is what gentlemen were
supposed to do. Or if everybody told the truth about sex, half the divorce couples
in the United States would be in Leavenworth. What are they there for? What
are their lawyers there for? Of course, you lie. I didn't do it, she did it.
No, no, no. I didn't do it, he did it. Here are the names and places. Well,
there are some things in which it is gentlemanly to lie. To lie about the state of
the union, to lie about the fact of the empire, what the empire doing.
Following your program this morning, Mr. Tenet's resignation, and I thought, “What a
nice diversion. He's a figure of no consequence at all.” It's like, you know,
you fire a secretary because she just simply didn't come to work for a month
or so, and got the work wrong. He is of no consequence at all, Mr. Tenet. Now
he's gone.
AMY GOODMAN: Lets hear President Bush, just in the last few days, giving the
graduation address at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: In 1944, General Eisenhower sat down at his
headquarters in the English countryside and wrote out a message to the troops who
would soon invade Normandy. "Soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Allied
Expeditionary Force," he wrote, “The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and
prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march with you.” Each of you receiving
a commission today in the United States military will also carry the hopes of
free people everywhere. As your generation assumes its own duties during a
global conflict that will define your careers, you will be called upon to take
brave action and serve with honor. In some ways this struggle we're in is
unique. In other ways it resembles the great clashes of the last century between
those who put their trust in tyrants, and those who put their trust in liberty.
Our goal, the goal of this generation, is the same. We will secure our nation
and defend the peace through the forward march of freedom.
AMY GOODMAN: President Bush speaking at the Air Force Academy in Colorado
Springs. President Bush comparing the conflict in Iraq to World War II. Today
he's headed to Normandy. He just met with the Pope this morning on the
anniversary of D-day. Your response, Gore Vidal?
GORE VIDAL: Well, I’d like to be a fly on that wall where he meets the Pope,
who highly disapproves of our imperial mission around the world. The Pope,
although he's generally interested in sex only, (that is part of the Roman
Catholic doctrine of power over the individual) the Pope is a good guy on matters of
war and peace. He doesn't like war, and he doesn't like Bush. He doesn't like
the United States at this moment. So, I would think that was a very chilling
meeting between the two of them. It was chilly when Ronald Reagan went to see
him, but Reagan went to sleep, and it was a wonderful meeting, you know. The
pope said a few prayers, and there was Ron, snoring softly, and everybody was
saying in a very – “it's been a very long trip, you know, from America here.”
And there's Reagan, sound asleep in front of all of the cameras. But to
compare the preemptive wars of Mr. Bush, which are totally illegal, which offend --
if I may paraphrase Thomas Jefferson -- the decent opinion of mankind. The
entire world is horrified by what we do. He goes into an innocent country called
Afghanistan, knocks it down. One of his cabinet members knocks it down. Then
he gives contracts to rebuild it to his vice president with Halliburton. Then
he knocks down another country which has done nothing to us. Why don't you hit
Denmark? There are beautiful buildings there. It will cost more to put them up
again, but it will keep a lot of money flowing in from the treasury to
rebuild Tivoli Gardens and Copenhagen. Hit Denmark, I kept saying. No one listens to
me, of course. I thought that would be better fun. But I’m one of these few
people, I suppose, at this table -- I should tell that you we're seated at a
most beautiful table and one -- in one of the most beautiful studios downtown.
Anyone who thinks this place is a poor program; I have never seen such wealth
and riches. The highest technology everywhere I look. We're under laser
scrutiny here. This is a superb studio. Sitting here, feeling that the world is
going to be all right, which is -- it is not, to compare the mess that Bush has
made in the world with preemptive wars, which I thought had gone out of fashion
with Adolf Hitler. Now, do not write in. Do not call, and do not march in the
streets that I have compared this evil man, George Bush, to Adolf Hitler when
we all know it's Mother Teresa, come back--just the wrong sex. Bush is about
as evil as you can get, in the way of an American president. The fact that he
doesn't know what he's doing is a mitigating factor. I mean, there are times
when I’d say he's sleepwalking. He says the most absurd things. Our craven
media, which is getting a little better now. I don't know if you enjoy as much as
I do, The New York Times's mea culpa. They figured out they have been lying
all along, and that Judith Miller, their great inside person about weapons of
mass destruction, she was getting it from Chalabi, who was a kind of con man,
and they were making it up. It just sounded good. The Times had it on the front
page, the weapons of mass destruction. We have to go in there and knock these
people around. Well, when you have a press that no longer does its job, you
have an uninformed electorate. We have an electorate that really doesn't know
what to believe about anything. You can't blame it on the people. They're just
not told the truth. So, I have gone a long way around to say that there is no
way of comparing series of messes that the Bush people have done. I am a
veteran -- brace yourself out there, because you only hear from -- by and large from
what I call the yellow rose of Texas, which is Mr. Bush, who being a good
yellow rose from Texas, stayed out of all of the wars and Cheney stayed out of
them. I like a fool, at 17, enlisted in the Army, in the year 1943, and served
three years in the Second World War because that was the thing you did. If your
country had been attacked, that's what you do. Nowadays, if your country is
attacked, you immediately get a contract to rebuild something. Then perhaps you
are a member of the cabinet who knocks down cities, and then you go over to
the vice president and get his company, Halliburton, to rebuild them with
treasury money. So, I mean, you can see them—“Hey, Rumsfeld, I want to build --
you know, I have this dream” -- you can hear this coming from one of them. “I
want a railroad station right in the center of Baghdad. I mean, they need it.
They need an old fashioned one with towers on it. Something beautiful. And no
cement block. I want brick.” You can hear them at this. And then we rebuild it.
So, between the destructiveness and all of the lies that are told, there is
all of the corruption. In a proper country, the corruption would be reported.
You can't find it. Then the president -- well, he's like Lyndon Johnson. If you
remember toward the end of Lyndon Johnson’s reign and the Vietnam War was
going, he couldn't speak anywhere except to Army bases. Now we have this little
terrier marching around, “Yap, yap, yap, yap. I'm a wartime president. I'm a
wartime president. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Just like the big guys.”
AMY GOODMAN: Gore Vidal is our guest. He has written a new book. It’s called
Imperial America: The United States of Amnesia. We'll be back with him in a
minute.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy
Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. Our guest is Gore Vidal with yet another book. This one,
"Imperial America – Reflections On The United States Of Amnesia." That's the
second part, amnesia.
GORE VIDAL: I'm glad you remembered that, because I keep forgetting that.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And speaking of amnesia, the – one of the big sections in your
book is a privatizing of the American elections. Many people have almost
forgotten Florida already, but we're now in a new year, a new election year, and
already as we reported earlier on the show, CNN has sued the state of Florida
to try to get the list of the new -- the newest list of felons about to be
purged from the rolls in Florida. You have a lot to say about what will -- what
could possibly happen with these elections, and what we, the nation, still have
not dealt with about the last election?
GORE VIDAL: Well, the sinister thing – or certainly a sinister thing has been
the privatizing of the elections, outsourcing, to use the latest cant phrase,
is that for some time now people have been dissatisfied with the dangling
chads and so on. There's a special act of Congress calling for a lot of money to
be spent in order to bring up to date the voting machinery. It's touch screen
stuff. It's supposed to be very popular with the voters. Well, it's the most
easily corrupted of all, because it's – you touch the screen, and you vote for
Kerry, and then your vote suddenly is transformed almost immediately, and
there's no track of it ever registering anywhere but in the hearts of heaven. The
votes are counted not in L.A. County, let us say, where you may have voted,
which is the normal thing to do. They're counted in 34th street. I go into great
detail in the course of Imperial America into how three companies have
absolutely got hold of the voting machinery, and Diebold, is the number one, and in
the state of California where I am living, at least the California legislature
has suddenly got – backed them up and said in Orange County, which is one of
the largest counties in L.A. During the recall election, recently something
like 7,000 votes – nobody can track them. There is no record that you voted.
They call it a paper trail. Make a paper trail. They don't have that. In other
words – I'll tell you one thing about how they get away with it, you see the
difficulty I'm having trying to explain it to the kindly people who are listening
to it, well it's complicated how they steal elections, but it can be done. It
is all done electronically. Well, at least California has now called into
doubt these machines, and there's talk of not using them. In other words, the
happy look that occasionally you see on George W. Bush's Yellow Rose of Texas
face, he knows something we don't know. He’s knows he could lose lose the whole
election and win the votes because the machinery can be played around with. The
head of Diebold, which is the number one manufacturer of these machines, is
on record as saying he's a working Republican more power to him. He's a working
Republican, and he's already written a fund raising letter to the voters of
Ohio, which is a swing state, saying, well, I'll do everything I can to make
sure that Ohio votes for President Bush. Well, noble partisanship and we're a
free country. You can work for anybody who you want to, but don't make the
machines, and don't make them unaccountable. Absolutely it's difficult to find what
goes on in these machines. So, California, the legislature has already asked
them to re-examine, and perhaps get rid of them, but you see, I mean, November
is almost here. They're all over Georgia. They're all over Maryland. You
could well lose the election if you had friends in high places with the three
companies that produced these machines. You can change the election. Everybody
could vote for Kerry, and suddenly, there is Bush once again, an unelected
President, but serving his time and quacking away. You know, as though he were the
real thing. Wartime President. I'm a wartime President. Why, if we had any
media in the country that was honest, and we don't, somebody would have pointed
out this is not wartime. You cannot have a war without a declaration. Article
two of the Constitution of the United States declaring war, and that should be
the House of Representatives. That is the law of the land. He said, "I'm a
wartime President." well, good for him, but he isn't. There's no war except what
he has declared. That's on Afghanistan and what he has declared on Iraq. There
is no war, and why they don't stop him right there. I’d switch him right off
the air. I would have the voice going, President Bush is under a
misapprehension that we are at war. We are not at war. He is at war. Unfortunately, those in
the Armed Services must do what the Commander In Chief -- I'm the Commander
In Chief, you know of this whole thing. I'm running it. Then I'm going to send
troops to -- you get the first person? I am going to. I spent three years in
World War II. I never heard President Roosevelt say -- "I'm going to send
troops to China. And I will then send them to Southeast Asia." President Roosevelt
never said “I.” We. We are the United States. We will do this. All together
with our allies. We will do this. So, it's "I." I'm going to do this. I'm going
to do that. How a fool like this can be tolerated in a country whose median
I.Q. cannot be much lower than that of Inner Slovenia, that they allow him to
say ridiculous things and get away with it. So, in the absence of a real "New
York Times," instead of a bleeding paper now beginning to apologize for its
numerous mistakes about -- having convinced us all that there were weapons of
mass destruction, hence, a war. I have never felt the country is so naked as it
is now. There is no official voice. There is no representative government.
Congress doesn't represent anybody. And the Supreme Court, I must say, why some of
them are not in jail, I don't know. But be that as it may, to strike a happy
note –
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Gore Vidal, his latest book is "Imperial
America -- The United States Of Amnesia." Gore Vidal born at the cadet hospital at
the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. What can people do now? You have
described grave problems. Elections being stolen. A war not declared, but engaged
in.
GORE VIDAL: I should think if there were a great and eloquent voice opposite
to that of Bush – in other words, if Kerry could only take off and start to
say the things that I have been saying somewhat light heartedly, if he could say
them a bit more heavy heartedly, then would you have an opposition and then
would you have a big turnout. You might have a real vote going on. It wasn't
until I watched, to my amazement, my cousin Albert Gore give that wonderful
speech up at N.Y.U. was it? He sounded – you know, the Gore blood. I'm making no
pun, but the Gore blood was at last rippling. We are a political family and we
go back to the beginning of the country, and we have – we were the founders
amongst the founders of the old party of the people, which means we are original
populists, and we came into public view during reconstruction at the end of
the – after the Civil War, the end of the 19th century. We are – always have
been populists, and suddenly, Albert, who could put me to sleep in the year
2000 when he was running, and I thought, where is the Gore blood? There’s one
thing we know how to do is make a speech. We certainly know where our interests
are, which is to preserve, protect and defend the people of the United States
against the great financial powers that govern. Suddenly, there he is up there
at N.Y.U. And he sounds like a President we didn't get. I mean, he was elected
President, and I think this bothers George W. Bush every day, if somebody
told you about it. I have a funny feel thank you doesn't know that he lost the
election. Because he sounds so confident. I think he thought he was elected by a
landslide, you know. Anything he wants to do, he can do. Because I'm a
wartime President. And suddenly, here was Albert, a peacetime President who wants to
maintain the peace, you know, we made our fortune in the world through making
things that people wanted. Some of it was lousy stuff, whether from lousy TV
shows to soft drinks, blue jeans and so on, as long as we were selling the
world stuff, we were a proper commercial nation. Nothing wrong with that. Doesn't
sound glamorous. But now that we're in the Julius Caesar business, to be
represented by the Yellow Rose of Texas is a bit, you know, sad.
AMY GOODMAN: The 9/11 commission report?
GORE VIDAL: Well, the 9/11, I haven't heard any final -- there's no final
report yet.
AMY GOODMAN: No, no. There isn't. But in terms of the kind of investigation
that we have seen.
GORE VIDAL: I'm astonished that they allowed anything, and then I was not in
the least surprised that urgent questions were not really asked or answered. I
mean, it's better than nothing. I mean, you know, we only get a tiny bone of
democracy. I can say that on this program, which is dedicated to democracy.
Incidentally, for your listeners, viewers, the word “democracy” is not only
never mentioned in the Constitution of the United States, but democracy was
something that the founding fathers hated. This is not generally known because it
shouldn't be known, but it is. I wrote a little book about it called,
"Inventing A Nation," that Yale published last year. Our founders feared two things.
One was the rule of the people, which they thought would just be a mess. And
they feared tyranny, which we had gone through King George III, and so they
wanted a republic, a safe place for men – white men of property to do business in.
This is not ideal, but it's better than what we have. So, here we are bringing
democracy to the poor Afghans, but only real democracy, of course, is in the
prisons, which we have specialized in everywhere. One interesting thing that
came out of all of that mess was now the world knows how we treat Americans in
American prisons. All of that behavior, the humiliation and violence and so
on, that is typical of not so much -- of federal prisons somewhat, but state
prisons, municipal prisons, detention centers. This is the nation of torture, and
those who disagree with me, you can write an angry letter at this very
moment, if you can write at all. Sit down and write an angry letter to the Commander
In Chief. Have him examine the prisons.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, on that note, I want to thank you very much for being with
us, Gore Vidal.
GORE VIDAL: I just barely started. [laughs]
AMY GOODMAN: "Imperial America -- Reflections On The United States Of
Amnesia." We'll have you back to continue.
GORE VIDAL: Thank you.
To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here for our
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TODAY'S STORIES
Headlines for June 4, 2004
Fall Guy for the Bush Regime? CIA Director George Tenet Resigns
Imperial America: Gore Vidal Reflects on the United States of Amnesia
"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are
evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
- Albert Einstein
"
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has."
- Margaret Mead
"When the government fears the people, you have liberty. When the people fear
the government, you have tyranny."
- Thomas Jefferson
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"
- Edmund Burke
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