Thread: 'The US is not a republic anymore'

'The US is not a republic anymore'
Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:42:15
An interview with Gore Vidal by Afshin Rattansi, Press TV, Tehran

Gore Vidal
Press TV:We hear that Michael Mukasey is going to become the latest of the President's Attorney-Generals to be subpoenaed, this time over his conversations with Bush and Cheney - does this show that Congress is serious about calling the executive to account?

Gore Vidal: No, Congress has never been more cowardly, nor more corrupt. All Bush has do is to make sure certain amounts of money go in the direction of certain important congressmen and that's end of any serious investigation. After all, one of the bravest members of Congress is Denis Kucinich who brought the article of impeachment in to the well of the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives must then try the president, and then after that it goes to the Senate for judgment. However, none of these things will happen because there's nobody there except for Mr. Kucinich who has the courage to take on a sitting president who is kind of a Mafioso.

Press TV: How can it just be one person among so many hundreds of Congressmen who wants the impeachment of George W. Bush in these circumstances?

Gore Vidal: Well it's because we no longer have a country. We don't have a republic any more. During the last 7 or 8 years of the Bush regime, they've got rid of the Bill of Rights, they've got rid of habeas corpus. They have got rid of one of the nicest gifts that England ever left us when they went away and we ceased to be colonies - the Magna Carta - from the 12th century. All of our law and due process of law is based on that. And the Bush people got rid of it. The president and little Mr. Gonzales who for a few minutes was his Attorney General. They managed to get rid of all of the constitutional links that made us literally a republic.

Press TV: You have often written about the US's superpower status in terms of the history of previous superpowers. Do you think we're witnessing the end of US power as some suggest. Will the White House be seen like Persepolis?

Gore Vidal: Well it won't make such good ruins, no. It'll be more like the tomb of Cyrus nearby. They managed to destroy the United States - why? Because they're oil and gas people and they're essentially criminals. I repeat that this is a criminal group that's seized control of the country through what looked like an ordinary election. But there's some very nice films and documentaries about what happened in the year 2000 when Albert Gore won the election for president and they saw to it that he couldn't serve. They got the Supreme Court - which is the Holy of Holies ordinarily in our system - to investigate and then accuse the thieves of being absolutely correct and the winners - Mr. Gore and the Democrats - of being the cheaters. It's the first law of Machiavelli, whatever your opponent's faults are, you pick his virtues and you deny he has them. That's what they did when Senator Kerry ran a few years ago for president. He's a famous hero from the Vietnam War. They said he was a coward and not a hero. That's how it's done. When you have a bunch of liars in charge of your government you can't expect to get much history out of that. But later on we'll dig and dig… and we will dig up Persepolis.

Press TV: Senator Obama talks about change but of course he has courting Wall Street as well as the Israeli lobby - do you see any prospect of change with him as president?

Gore Vidal: Not really. I don't doubt his good faith, just as I do not doubt the bad faith of Cheney and Bush. They are such dreadful people that we've never had in government before. They would never have risen unless they were buying elections as they did in Florida in 2000, as they did in the State of Ohio in 2004. These are two open thefts of the Presidency. When I discovered that this did not interest the New York Times or the Washington Post or any of the press of the country I realized our day was done. We are no longer a country we are a framework for crooks to go in and steal money. Knowing that they'll never be caught and they'll be admired for it. Americans always take everybody on his own evaluation. You say I'm a state and they say "oh, yeah yeah yeah, he's a state, isn't that great." And you accuse the other people of your crimes before you commit them. It's an old trick which was known to Machiavelli who wrote about it in his handbook, the Prince.

Press TV:Finally that issue which is exercising so many minds in the Middle East and beyond. You, yourself have written about so many Imperial wars of the United States. Do you think Bush and Cheney would risk another war in what Mohammad ElBaradei of the IAEA calls a fireball?

Gore Vidal: They are longing to but they have spent all of the money. They have got it in their own private companies like the Vice-President and a company called Halliburton which is stealing more money and should be on trial sooner or later before Congress. But perhaps not, who knows? But it's well known in Washington, these people are leaking away the money of the country. Well there's no more money. They are longing for a war with Iran. Iran is no more a harm to us than was Iraq or Afghanistan. They invented an enemy, they tell lies, lies, lies.
The New York Times goes along with their lies, lies, lies. And they don't stop. When the public that's lied to 30 times a day it's apt to believe the lies, is not it?

Gore Vidal is a renowned American writer and erstwhile political candidate.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=61 ... id=3510302

Interesting article. Still, people like Gore Vidal will never fully understand the problems he laments until he realizes that it is not just Bush...it is FDR and Lincoln, Wilson and TR, republican and democrat, that have all contributed to the conclusion that we are no longer a republic. You could never have Bush without Lincoln, for example.

This Democratic congress is passing (or perhaps has already passed) economic sanctions against Iran that will guarantee war with that country down the road. It isn't because these Democrats are afraid of Bush or their constituents' wrath, or even because they are more corrupt than usual. It's because the Democrats want the war. Their reasoning might be different and the goals dissimilar, but the end is the same: war with Iran. If there was ever a time or issue for the Democrats to prove they are different, Iran is it. When one considers WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and Bosnia were all initiated under Democratic presidencies, Iran fits readily into the historical paradigm.

Vidal here sounds like he has been hopelessly swayed by the rhetoric - not the reality - that the democrats are essentially different from the republicans. Vidal should complain about habeus corpus abuses, but if he wants to castigate Bush, he also has to go after FDR and Lincoln for their abuses of HB with equal ferocity. He can't and/or won't.

Because of that, at the end of the day he's a smart guy but ultimately just another useful idiot.

Ya know......I'm a major Star Trek fan and I was always taught we were a democracy.....then there was an episode...really 2 in which all along people used the democratic approach but there came a time when Jon Luc Picard and Janeway.....said ......we are NOT a democracy....we are a Republic. And I looked it up and truely understood why. Democracy works for the temporary time......a Republic looks at the long haul. Sometimes the Majority can't see their butt from a hole in the ground...and we depend on a Republic to save us from ourselves.


In a democracy we can all have popsicles for breakfast and hot fudge sundaes for lunch and 3 martini drinks for dinner. Right now....since the majority are young.....we watch everything from Sesame Street to gang violance....because it is the majority. This year we all learn Spanish and maybe next year we all learn Hindi. This year we learn about baby formula and next year something else. Works great if you fit in there.....sucks if you don't. Heck today I wear spandex and tomorrow I go bra-less......todays disease is diabetes, and I loose big time if I have something else.