Bill Kauffman on Gore Vidal:
Jul. 10th, 2003 10:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arisbeVidal’s politics are really quite simple. As he once told an interviewer, "I hate the American Empire, and I love the old republic."
To what extent the Bush-whacking of Iraq was motivated by oil, Israel, or—my choice—simply the mad logic of empire, I have no idea. I only know that committing the young men and the treasure of the United States to the semipermanent policing of the other side of the world is not in the American interest and is especially not in the interest of the small places, the havens of particularity, the villages and neighborhoods that produce what is healthy about American culture. Gore Vidal is right: The petulant rich kid in the White House and his retinue of war-dreamers are the enemies of this country. They dream war; we dream America. Welcome to their nightmare.
From Chronicles, which is, by the way, warmly recommended.
To what extent the Bush-whacking of Iraq was motivated by oil, Israel, or—my choice—simply the mad logic of empire, I have no idea. I only know that committing the young men and the treasure of the United States to the semipermanent policing of the other side of the world is not in the American interest and is especially not in the interest of the small places, the havens of particularity, the villages and neighborhoods that produce what is healthy about American culture. Gore Vidal is right: The petulant rich kid in the White House and his retinue of war-dreamers are the enemies of this country. They dream war; we dream America. Welcome to their nightmare.
From Chronicles, which is, by the way, warmly recommended.
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Date: 2003-07-10 05:30 pm (UTC)