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

MenOfLetters

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.

Source : http://www.democracynow.org/2004/6/4/imperial_america_gore_vidal_reflects_on

Allan Nairn: As U.S. Loses Its Global Economic Edge,

Its "One Clear Comparative Advantage is in Killing, and It’s Using It"


As 2010 draws to a close, what is the role of the United States in the world today? From the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the cuts to social programs here at home, where is there emerging hope for change around the world? We spend the hour with award-winning investigative journalist and activist Allan Nairn. "You vote for Democrat, you vote for Republican, you get the same thing on state murder, on preventable death. But we here have the right to rebel. We have to use it."
http://www.democracynow.org/

GREAT TURNING author David Korten ( http://www.thegreatturning.net/ ) explains how - if we can awaken from our collective entrancement with a false story of our past - a country successfully designed to be ruled by the wealthy few can be transformed into one really governed by We the People.

Chalmers Johnson, author of Blowback, Sorrows of Empire and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic , talks about the similarities in the decline of the Roman and Soviet empires and the signs that the U.S. empire is exhibiting the same symptoms: overextension, corruption and the inability to reform.

Chalmers Johnson is president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, a non-profit research and public affairs organization devoted to public education concerning Japan and international relations in the Pacific. http://www.jpri.org/

Are We Rome?: Fall of an Empire, Fate of America

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5127043717385594397

Cullen Murphy editor at large, Vanity Fair

Esteemed editor and author Cullen Murphy ventures past the pundit's rhetoric to draw nuanced lessons about how we might avoid Rome's demise.

The rise and fall of ancient Rome has been on American minds from the beginning of our republic. Today we focus less on the Roman republic than on the empire that took its place. Depending on who's doing the talking, the history of Rome serves either as a triumphal call to action, or as a dire warning of imminent collapse.

Working on a canvas that extends far beyond the issue of an overstretched military, Murphy reveals a wide array of similarities between the two empires: the blinding, insular culture of our capitals; the debilitating effect of corruption; the paradoxical issue of borders; and the weakening of the body politic through various forms of privatization. Most pressingly, he argues that we most resemble Rome in the burgeoning corruption of our government and in our arrogant ignorance of the world outside: two things that are in our power to change. In lively, richly detailed historical stories based on the latest scholarship, the ancient world leaps to life and casts our own contemporary world in a provocative new light.

Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America

Are We Rome? Comparisons Between Rome and the United States

Lawrence R. Velvel of the Massachusetts School of Law interviewed Cullen Murphy, editor at large for Vanity Fair magazine, on the show Books of Our Time about his book Are We Rome?. Murphy discusses how the Roman Empire and the United States are similar. Murphy says both societies demonstrate great arrogance. The Romans believed they would win any war they engaged in. They believed the will of Rome was all that mattered. The Romans demonstrated their arrogance when they marched into the Teutoburg Forest, expecting to dominate the Germanic tribes but instead had three legions defeated. The United States demonstrated a similar ignorance of the world’s thoughts and beliefs. Americans assume all nations desire their democratic way of life. Such a belief led to the debacle in Viet Nam and again in Iraq. The Romans saw themselves as the center of the world, believing, as Murphy states, “all roads lead to Rome,” and they literally did. They believed Rome was the world’s umbilicus. The United States has developed the same belief as the center of the world with Washington D.C. as the new global navel. Murphy says Rome and the United States have failed to learn from past mistakes. The Romans believed they were an empire without end, the past meant nothing. The United States has similarly failed to learn from its own history, becoming mired in a debacle in Viet Nam and blindly sacrifices troops and national treasure in Iraq. The militaries of both societies grew larger and larger. No matter how big they became, they were too small to accomplish their goals, yet too large to maintain for long periods. The Roman army grew as they conquered new land and integrated those dominated into the military. Similarly, the United States currently has over 700 military bases throughout the world. And, as did the Romans, the United States has supplemented its military with private contracts. This trend is replicated in other areas of government; public functions have been sold to private entities. In Rome, the emperor hollowed the government. He took enough power away from the legislature to make their meetings and debates meaningless. In the United States, the executive has done the same, eroding the abilities of the legislature. The checks and balances of American government have lost effect—the executive goes unchecked.

Government Secrets and Nuclear War in the Middle East Daniel Ellsberg, Richard Goehler and John Seigenthaler Sr. discuss 'whistle blowing,' media policy, and international policy at Miami University of Ohio on October 9, 2006

The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis, by Bill Moyers

This is the full length 90 min. version of Bill Moyer's 1987 scathing critique of the criminal subterfuge carried out by the Executive Branch of the United States Government to carry out operations which are clearly contrary to the wishes and values of the American people. The ability to exercise this power with impunity is facilitated by the National Security Act of 1947. The thrust of the exposé is the Iran-Contra arms and drug-running operations which flooded the streets of our nation with crack cocaine. The significance of the documentary is probably greater today in 2007 than it was when it was made. We now have a situation in which these same forces have committed the most egregious terrorist attack on US soil and have declared a fraudulent so-called "War on Terror". The ruling regime in the US who have conducted the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, are now banging the war drum against Iran. We have the PATRIOT act which has stripped us of many of our basic civil rights justified by the terror of 9/11 which is their own doing.

It aired on PBS in 1987 and is as good as anything on the tape (must see). Moyers is a very respected TV journalist who also worked for Lyndon B. Johnson and has a very professional approach. He interviews many different people involved with the CIA and other government agencies. His documentary gives quite an overview of what has actually happened in the last 50 years regarding the CIA and the cold war (including Iran, Guatamala, Cuba, Viet Nam and Chile). He features such people as Ralph McGeehee and Phil Retinger (both former CIA agents), Rear Admiral Gene La Rocque (Ret. U.S.N.), Theodore Bissell (active in the CIA at the time), Sen. Frank Church and many others. Moyers is so very credible. The full video "The Secret Government" is 90 minutes - this segment is edited by Frank Dorrel to 20 minutes.

"What I've Learned About U.S.Foreign Policy" Re-edited as of March 2005

Dear Friend,

"I've put together this 2-hour video called What Ive Learned About U.S. Foreign Policy. The basic message being that the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), the military-industrial-complex, the Pentagon, the multinational corporations, the media and the Government of the United States are responsible for the deaths of millions of people in the third world, not to mention the poverty and oppression of millions more. We support, arm, and train dictators and militaries that do these evil actions to their own people. All of this is to insure that we control the natural resources of these countries and their market place, use the people for cheap labor and keep the business of war (which is our biggest business) ongoing.

The CIA has also done business with international drug dealers, allowing heroin and cocaine to enter the U.S., using the enormous profits to fund more covert operations.

Since WWII the US has bombed Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and now currently Iraq, once again killing millions of innocent people!

The mainstream media, or corporate media (as some refer to it), will not tell these truths because it is owned by the very corporations who benefit from all of this. When it comes to foreign policy, the mainstream media gets its stories straight from the Pentagon and the CIA. We have been taught all our lives that the US fights for freedom and democracy, that we are the good guys. And since so many people in America are doing well, do have freedom, opportunity and wealth, or are just trying to get by, there is very little motivation to look into the things being said on this tape.

I believe that Americans are living in a state of mass denial, kind of a mass hypnosis. It is the BIG LIE! If Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, and Ted Koppel arent telling us these things, then they cannot be true, which is what most people believe. And that is how it works. The people who are attempting to get this message out are labeled as crackpots, radicals, subversives, or worse, and are not given the opportunity to be heard on the mainstream media.

If you're interested in knowing this other truth, horrible as it is, then I suggest you watch this video. These atrocities, supported by our system, with our tax dollars, will continue until the American people wake up and put a stop to this evil. The first step is to understand that this is really happening. We have been lied to! I believe the people on this video are telling the truth and its absolutely frightening."

In Peace and Solidarity,
Frank Dorrel

http://www.addictedtowar.com/dorrel.html We encourage the copying and distribution of this video

CIA Covert Operations and U.S. Interventions Since World War II. What you didn't learn in school and don't hear on the mainstream media.
This is a two-hour video compilation featuring the following ten segments:
1. Martin Luther King Jr.
2. John Stockwell, Ex-CIA Station Chief
3. Bill Moyers, "the Secret Government"
4. Coverup: Behind the Iran-Contra Affair
5. School of Assassins
6. Genocide by Sanctions
7. Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now
8. The Panama Deception
9. Ramsy Clark, former U.S. Attorney General
10. S. Brian Wilson, Vietnam Veteran for Peace

Chalmers Johnson, author of Blowback, Sorrows of Empire and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic , talks about the U.S. 'military-petroleum complex,' the overextension of the American military, nuclear proliferation, and the decline of Washington's credibility abroad.

Chalmers Johnson is president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, a non-profit research and public affairs organization devoted to public education concerning Japan and international relations in the Pacific. http://www.jpri.org/

Why We Fight describes the rise and maintenance of the United States military-industrial complex and its involvement in the wars led by the United States during the last fifty years, and in particular in the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. The film alleges that in every decade since World War II, the American public has been told a lie to bring it into war to fuel the military-economic machine, which in turn maintains American dominance in the world. It includes interviews with John McCain, Chalmers Johnson, Richard Perle, William Kristol, Gore Vidal and Joseph Cirincione. The film also incorporates the stories of a Vietnam War veteran whose son died in the September 11, 2001 attacks and then had his son's name written on a bomb dropped on Iraq; a 23-year old New York man who enlists in the United States Army citing his financial troubles after his only family member died; and a former Vietnamese refugee who now develops explosives for the American military.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-173889827965723460

The New Bush Inaugural Agenda

Premiered on USTV Media on March 13th, 2005 The program offers a critical point by point analysis of statements made by President Bush in his second inaugural speech, and the underlining meaning and ramifications of those statements. Also included in the program are segments of an insightful and provocative interview with famed writer, playwright and historian Gore Vidal, taken from his interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! Vidal illuminates the many contradictions and historical deficiencies inherent in the Bush inaugural declaration.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2396832121093149762

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.
http://www.democracynow.org/

Gore Vidal Interview with Alex Jones Infowars

Alex Jones interviews Gore Vidal at the Texas Book Festival October 29, 2006. The Infowars interview includes dicussion of a new 9/11 investigation, the criminal Bush Regime, media complicity (and poor media coverage by the New York Times and other "rags") as well as other topics.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3156121348015048039