Gore Vidal, 80, author of Myra Breckinridge, The City and the Pillar, Julian, Lincoln and Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia is also the grandson of a U.S. Senator and the son of an aviation pioneer who served in the Roosevelt administration. It must be hard for men of conscience in the American ruling class to find words to describe our present situation, but if anyone is up to the task, it’s Vidal.
“The election was stolen in both 2000 and 2004, because of electronic voting machinery which can be easily fixed. We’ve had two illegitimate elections in a row …
“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.