Interesting words from Gore Vidal...

[CoffeeCat]

A friend, who is overseas, sent me these paragraphs from Gore Vidal. I apologize that I don't know in what context he said these words, but I found them enlightening and comforting. I thought others here might, too.
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These days, Vidal says he does not feel physically up to researching
another historical novel or funny enough to write another satire like
"Myra Breckinridge." He does plan to go to Duke University next month
to help oversee a production of a play he has written about the effect of Union soldiers marching into Georgia during the Civil War.

Then Vidal and the conversation strode into another direction -- the
war in Iraq and what it was doing to the country.

He said that he can foresee the war going so badly that President Bush will be forced to resign or be driven from office. "I can't believe the speed with which the entire republic fell apart. The U.S. Bill of Rights fell apart with Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act," he said of post-9/11 America.

"Preventive war became our national policy, which has not been any
nation's policy since Hitler. A preventive war is about as un-American as you get. But that doesn't mean we haven't done it before," he said.

"The worst (previous) example was the Mexican War. That brave
moralist, Ulysses S. Grant, who had been a second lieutenant just out
of West Point, hated that war and said ... that nations like
individuals suffer for their transgressions.

"I believe the Civil War was the judgment of God on us for what we did to Mexico. God knows what we are going to get for Iraq."

[saltpoint]

1. I've watched a couple of fairly astute people try to --

-- best Gore Vidal in a debate on American history and they are both at this hour in asylums.

He is not to be messed with on the subject.

If anybody is looking for a wonderful jolt for a snowy winter weekend, pick up his novel JULIAN.

In an interview once, Vidal bemoaned the great multitudes of fundamentalist Christians and said that what's worse, "They breed like chiggers."

[BlueManDude]

2. Read "Dreaming War"

A slim little extended essay book on Bush and US history. We are ALWAYS at war with someone or something.

[BlueTarheel]

3. I found an article

This is an article from the LA Weekly that has some of those same quotes from Vidal. The interview took place right before the election.


http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/50/web-cooper.php

[bklyncowgirl]

4. Great interview

I love the part where he says that he does not believe the conspiracy theories that the Bush administration was responsible for 9/11 mainly because he couldn't believe that they could be responsible for something that was so effective.

I love Gore Vidal