A BEAUTIFUL interview with Gore Vidal on Democracy Now! today.

The show should re-air at least twice - once this afternoon and once this evening. Today's show can be streamed adn the transcript of this extended interview is available at the site: http://www.democracynow.org/



Legendary Author Gore Vidal on the Bush Presidency, History and the “United States of Amnesia”

With a career spanning more than six decades, Gore Vidal is one of America’s most respected writers and thinkers. He’s authored more than twenty novels and five plays. His latest book is Point to Point Navigation: A Memoir.

AMY GOODMAN: With a career spanning more than six decades, Gore Vidal is one of America’s most respected writers and thinkers, authored more than twenty novels, five plays. His recent books include Dreaming War, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace and Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia. His latest is a memoir; it’s called Point to Point Navigation.

Last week at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, I heard Gore Vidal would be there and afterwards went to his home in Hollywood Hills. We sat down in his living room, and I asked him for his thoughts on this election year and on the last eight years of George W. Bush in the White House.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/14/legendary_author_gore_vidal_on_the

:kick:

to hear him, even if he doesn't hold out much hope for America's future."When you've got people as stupid as most Americans, it's over." I beg to differ with him on that particular point. He does say how surprised he was that the American system could be overthrown so easily in what he frankly calls a coup. I agree--there wasn't a murmer in the halls of power to this criminal admin. after 9/1l.

Another good point: America, he says, was never ready to be an enormous power, certainly not an empire.

in a long time and in his home. :)

:hi:

:hi:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010108/vidal

Here's the final paragraph from an article appearing in The Nation, written by Vidal in 2000 in which he compares George Bush to a monkey. It predicts a couple of wars, tax relief for the rich, and hyper vigilance of terrorism, things that have all come to pass:

"...What will the next four years bring? With luck, total gridlock. The two houses of Congress are evenly split. Presidential adventurism will be at a minimum. With bad luck (and adventures), Chancellor Cheney will rule. A former Secretary of Defense, he has said that too little money now goes to the Pentagon even though last year it received 51 percent of the discretionary budget. Expect a small war or two in order to keep military appropriations flowing. There will also be tax relief for the very rich. But bad scenario or good scenario, we shall see very little of the charmingly simian George W. Bush. The military--Cheney, Powell et al.--will be calling the tune, and the whole nation will be on constant alert, for, James Baker has already warned us, Terrorism is everywhere on the march. We cannot be too vigilant. Welcome to Asunción. ..."

I just listened to part of it, will have to watch the video later.

:)