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GORE VIDAL: Well, I hardly know where to end, much less begin. There’s not a word of truth in anything that he said. Our founding fathers did not set us on a course to liberate all the world from tyranny. Jefferson just said, “all men are created equal, and should be,” etc, but it was not the task of the United States to “go abroad to slay dragons,” as John Quincy Adams so wisely put it; because if the United States does go abroad to slay dragons in the name of freedom, liberty, and so on, she could become “dictatress of the world,” but in the process “she would lose her soul.” That is what we—the lesson we should be learning now, instead of this declaration of war against the entire globe. He doesn’t define what tyranny is. I’d say what we have now in the United States is working up a nice tyrannical persona for itself and for us. As we lose liberties he’s, I guess, handing them out to other countries which have not asked for them, particularly; and what he says—The reaction in Europe-—and I know we mustn’t mention them because they’re immoral and they have all those different kinds of cheese—but, simultaneously, they’re much better educated than we are, and they’re richer. Get that out there: The Europeans per capita are richer than the Americans, per capita. And by the time this administration is finished, there won’t be any money left of any kind, starting with poor social security, which will be privatized, so that is the last gold rush for (as they say) men with an eye for opportunity.
January 25, 2005
"Little Bush says we are at war, but we are not at war because to be at war Congress has to vote for it. He says we are at war on terror, but that is a metaphor, though I doubt if he knows what that means. It's like having a war on dandruff, it's endless and pointless. We are in a dictatorship that has been totally militarised, everyone is spied on by the government itself. All three arms of the government are in the hands of this junta.
"Whatever you are," he goes on, "they say you are the reverse. The men behind the war in Iraq are cowards who did not fight in Vietnam - but they spent millions of dollars proving that John Kerry, who was a genuine war hero whatever you think of his politics, was a coward.
"This is what happens when you have control of the media, and I have never known the media more vicious, stupid and corrupt than they are now."
Published on Friday, June 23, 2006 by the Independent
/ UK http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0623-01.htm
Liberals are making noise in Washington – left-wing activists will gather near the Capitol Tuesday night and bang pots and pans to drown out President Bush’s State of the Union address.
Last week a group called "World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime" was denied a permit to gather on the Mall for security reasons. The group won a federal lawsuit and has been given permission to make noise while Bush speaks to a joint session of Congress.
The group's Web site lists Gore Vidal as a member of its Advisory Board and has collected endorsements from left-leaning celebrities including Susan Sarandon, Jane Fonda, Harry Belafonte, Ed Asner and Sean Penn. But it's doubtful that any stars will attend the protest, according to the Washington Times.
Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2006 1:03 p.m. EST
Jane Fonda and a number of other prominent liberal figures have joined a campaign to impeach President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for "war crimes.”
An organization calling itself The World Can’t Wait has taken out a full-page ad in Friday’s New York Times seeking donations and announcing upcoming town meetings in several cities.
The ad states that the U.S. government under the Bush administration "is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq.”
In addition to Fonda, the campaign’s "thousands” of signees include Edward Asner, Gore Vidal, Olympia Dukakis, Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers notoriety, Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel, "Born on the Fourth of July” author Ron Kovic, former Rep. Cynthia McKinney, and Sean Penn.
Friday, June 22, 2007 10:51 a.m. EDT
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