Gore Vidal: ‘We’ll have a dictatorship soon in the US’

The grand old man of letters Gore Vidal claims America is ‘rotting away’ — and don’t expect Barack Obama to save it

Today religious mania has infected the political bloodstream and America has become corrosively isolationist, he says. “Ask an American what they know about Sweden and they’d say ‘They live well but they’re all alcoholics’. In fact a Scandinavian system could have benefited us many times over.” Instead, America has “no intellectual class” and is “rotting away at a funereal pace. We’ll have a military dictatorship fairly soon, on the basis that nobody else can hold everything together. Obama would have been better off focusing on educating the American people. His problem is being over-educated. He doesn’t realise how dim-witted and ignorant his audience is. Benjamin Franklin said that the system would fail because of the corruption of the people and that happened under Bush.”

Vidal adds menacingly: “Don’t ever make the mistake with people like me thinking we are looking for heroes. There aren’t any and if there were, they would be killed immediately. I’m never surprised by bad behaviour. I expect it.”

Read the full article here

Take it as you will.
Gore Vidal is a political activist, American novelist, screenwriter, playwright, essayist, short story writer, and actor. Vidal has long been known as one of the most prominent public intellectuals of the 20th century.

More info on him here:
en.wikipedia.org...




[edit on 30-9-2009 by warrenb]

Well with the invasion that we are starting to see in states like Montana with private paramilitary that we don't even know where they are coming from I will say something is actually cooking in our miss, Dictatorship? I don't know, from where is coming? I don't know either, it seems that now a days corporate in America as long as it can afford to move around and pay their way in, Americans that are so strapped for money will sell their own mothers and children for the right to drive a nice foreign company car.

Yes, keeping America stupid, uneducated, poor, jobless and desperate is falling right into the hands of some very shady groups under the banner of for the good of the nation and the communities.

But didn't we already have told Americas for years about this here in ATS, yes we have.

Warren B...
Thanks for posting this..GV is an icon!!
My favorite saying from him years ago is
"We live in a nation of f..ing morons"

TYTY

Namaste

ZM

We already have a dictatorship...

Its run by Obama and his goons.

Forces flu shots is just the beginning!

Very interesting post and now maybe some will see where the US is headed, all the signs are there and the country is ripe for the taking. S&F for you just like always.

reply to post by marg6043



As an amature futurist; the scenario I see being played out is that the neo-cons never really relinquished power to anyone, especially Obama and the Democrats. That's just an illusion.

However soon a faction of right wing military personnel will stage a coup and install their man in the Whitehouse. This will be the dictator and the resurgence of Fascism in America, started by the Bush administration;
Completely dedicated to the continuance of Corporate rule ala the Military/Industrial complex.




It's a brave new world, welcome to the monkey house!



[edit on 30-9-2009 by whaaa]

reply to post by whaaa


the coup was staged live on TV in High Definition to the entire planet

they don't need guns when people believe what the puppets are spouting

The fringe is making it well known that they plan on trying to overthrown the duly elected government.
Newsmax (the gold standard in the new right wing mainstream) even had an article up advocating a military coup. It has been subsequently taken down but due to the majics of the interwebs it still lives here .

I make no bones that I am left of center politically but in all my eight long years of loathing GW Bush the thought of overthrowing our governemtn never crossed my mind. I even ended a long time friendship when another left leaning friend of mine cheered the reporter who threw the shoes at the president. I, was fuming, not because of love of Pres Bush, but due to respect for the office.

The Right does not even pretend to care anymore, they simply want thier power back at any cost.

reply to post by observer

I make no bones that I am left of center politically but in all my eight long years of loathing GW Bush the thought of overthrowing our governemtn never crossed my mind.

Maybe you didn't, but the idea was quite popular and constantly brought up by people on the left. Not to mention the main streaming of assasination when it came to Bush.

I'm constantly amazed how short people's memories apparently are.

reply to post by Wimbly


Dude, this is just not true.
People were arrested and removed from areas located near Bush because they were wearing anti-bush tee-shirts. You never saw people wearing loaded weapons in the vicinity of bush, nor did you ever ONCE hear or see any of the media advocating taking arms to political events attended by Bush. NEVER.

Yes, the left can be obnoxious too, but it's not even close to the garbage the Right is promoting.

To say anything like "well, the left acted like this against bush", is just dishonest.

Originally posted by Chovy
We already have a dictatorship...

Its run by Obama and his goons.

Forces flu shots is just the beginning!

IMO if we get a dictatorship, it will either come from obama's personal military force that he promised to create in a campaign speech, or as a result of the military getting fed up with him and booting him out (with a bunch of other far-left liberals).

Sad thing is, who would of thought we'd have come to the point where we're actually having this discussion?

Originally posted by warrenb
Benjamin Franklin said that the system would fail because of the corruption of the people and that happened under Bush.”

Ben Franklin should know. He was part of the corruption. A lot of skeletons were found in his garden and suspected to be from ritual sacrifice murders.

Funny how he got his pic on the largest piece of currency and he was never a president. Doesn't it make you wonder?


www.scribd.com...

reply to post by uaocteaou


Dude,

I wonder if you really think you're helping obama and any other liberal causes that you have been supporting here with that avatar picture? I'm guessing that most other liberals here don't think so, and you're probably providing a lightning rod for conservatives that think a liberal isn't all that far from a communist anyway ...

Originally posted by marg6043
Well with the invasion that we are starting to see in states like Montana with private paramilitary that we don't even know where they are coming b] I don't know, from where is coming? I don't know

Think hard, now.
Who has more money than any government?
Who has been buying the lawmakers who make the policies that control the government?

This is where it's all coming from.

reply to post by uaocteaou


I have to agree, I never saw any of that either.

There were reports of protests, and the fact that he was the first president to see mass protest on his inauguration, but nothing near the rhetoric we're now seeing against Obama.

And I have to say I don't think this is solely a party divide issue any more. The extreme right were always against a Black president, and always against anything but a conservative leadership.
But since Obama has taken office, he's done very, very little to rectify the damage done by the previous admin. All of the promises he had made have been overlooked or blatantly changed. This has caused a massive rift with most of the young voters who had hoped he would be revolutionary in his vision for America. They have now seen riot police beating up students, under an Obama government.

They're seeing Obama continue the same old policies as Bush, but this time it's with a certain smile and veneer of "we're trying to be nice".

People are not buying it.

I would say the only support Obama has now is with a minority of youth still naive enough to think he's brought any change, and a black audience who are still simply elated that they have a black president, regardless of his actions in office.

I would suggest that the vast majority of people who voted for Obama are now dissatisfied, underwhelmed, and are probably now feeling disillusioned by politics more than ever. At least when Bush was in power people had a reason to be political, now they've made that move and nothing good has come of it, they'll feel completely impotent.

Basically, the people tried, and now they know that voting actually makes absolutely no difference to how the nation is controlled (I mean governed).

As always, I believe a peaceful process is needed by the people to remove the two-party system and implement open calls for party formulation. You need real independent parties on platforms of ecology, security, protectionism (financial) and self-sufficiency.
And as I've said before, this will only happen through the secession of several states. Without that, any formulation of a new party will be crushed by the government.

reply to post by whaaa


You need to look a little further back. The 'coup' has been constant and in stages beginning with the Whiskey Rebellion then the Civil War.

Federal Reserve Act didnt help matters much. Then we had all those 'neo-cons' clamoring for us to get involved with the wars in Europe.

They're all 'neo-cons' now. Anyone who pushes for a welfare state at home and abroad is a 'neo-con.' All we've had since I've been alive are 'neo-con' Presidents. You kids act like this a new phenomenon just popping up in the last decade or so.

How one party has been able to successfully brand another party as though it is not what they accuse the other of being is astounding to me. Seems like 95% of those morons in DC are by definition 'neo-cons.' Obama included.

Has he stopped attempting to use military muscle to shape the world? Has he stopped being secretive? Has he stopped pushing for more social welfare in the U.S.? About the only thing that makes him not a 'neo-con' is this pretend approach toward 'diplomacy.' Diplomacy itself being a hollow word who the hell knows what anyone thinks it is supposed to mean or be worth?

reply to post by Alethea


Then we most realize that if money is powerful enough to buy the dirty politicians we have working for "us" in Washington, can you imagine what money can buy out in the streets in a nation that is increasingly becoming vulnerable because unemployment and the recession, after all States are sovereign entities they are Republics and they can turn against the Federal government and do what ever they want.

The problem? well perhaps the solution will be worst, taking private military groups to work in their cities can become a bigger problem, but isn't that how corruption works? you pay your way to the top while stepping over the rest of the littler people.

Originally posted by centurion1211
reply to post by uaocteaou

 

Dude,

I wonder if you really think you're helping obama and any other liberal causes that you have been supporting here with that avatar picture? I'm guessing that most other liberals here don't think so, and you're probably providing a lightning rod for conservatives that think a liberal isn't all that far from a communist anyway ...

WTF is wrong with you..? You and your ilk talk about "Facts" and denying ignorance, and then you base an opinion on an avatar..? That's about as ignorant as it comes.

Are you a roman centurion..? of course not, but I didn't assume such just based on your avatar. Stop being what you profess to deny...Ignorant.

And THAT's your problem dude, you ignore and bypass facts and perspective, so you can judge based on appearances, the appearance of an avatar no less..... grow up already. Talk about the issues, based on facts and reply to posts based on thought, not bias and prejudices.

reply to post by marg6043


And anyone remember the Thomas Jefferson quote:

"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have".

Originally posted by uaocteaou
reply to post by Wimbly

 

Dude, this is just not true.
People were arrested and removed from areas located near Bush because they were wearing anti-bush tee-shirts. You never saw people wearing loaded weapons in the vicinity of bush, nor did you ever ONCE hear or see any of the media advocating taking arms to political events attended by Bush. NEVER.

Yes, the left can be obnoxious too, but it's not even close to the garbage the Right is promoting.

To say anything like "well, the left acted like this against bush", is just dishonest.

Are you seriously arguing that the left is better then the right?

Are you so hard headed that you cannot even see that there isn't a differance in the two?

I could have sworn that Obama in office and the dems controlling DC that dumbass liberals like yourself would finally get that there isn't a differance.

1. Those gun toting "republicans" weren't in the vicinity of the President.

2. You can't prove they were republicans.

3. Bush had a convoy attacked by protesters. How many times has Obama faced protesters who are violent?

Wake up junior and stop playing the other side is worse game.